Curry & Beer

head to head with jones in the midfield and covered by jetta up forward for mine

OK pedant, we haven't won the last 9 then

we;ve lost 9 in a row

You might be right, but basically everybody on this thread who actually saw the Scorps games says his performance has been overrated - and it's praccy matches anyway. So I would suggest he has NOT shown he is 'ready and deserves a call up' .. yet

True. I expect a few golden tickets to be dished out in the post-match analysis.

only if he gets hurt in the first minute and reduces them to 21 players

I feel like those days are over for the AFL in general. The MRP is way too soft these days, just ask Chris Dawes, who plays hard and has already served a bunch of weeks for doing very little wrong. When he comes back he will probably ease up a bit, which is a shame and a sad indictment of where the game is at. The same thing happened to Brad Miller - he used to crunch blokes until he got a few too many weeks out and he stopped doing it. At that moment his value as a player dropped from 'something' to 'nothing'. Let's not forget the Trengove sling tackle and the Viney bump (despite being overturned, it was a disgrace it was booked in the first place, and needed a community uproar for the correct verdict to be made). I would suggest that Roosy telling anybody to go hard at Ablett is very unlikely, and if it happened they would certainly be booked. We can't really afford for anybody to be unavailable. I know it's the old MFCSS 'woe is me' attitude but we have definitely had the rough end of the stick in this regard in recent years. Don't get me wrong, I would love the game to go back to 1980s toughness but the AFL has killed it. In all their pathetic pandering to mothers (who allegedly will put their sons into soccer if they see a player ironed out on Friday night footy) they have removed 90% of the grunt that we used to love. Let's not get started on the laughable fallacy that suggests our game is under any kind of threat from other codes, with our 800,000 club members, 3.5 million attendances per year, insane sponsorship deals and multi-billion-dollar TV rights packages. I digress. In conclusion: the days where our coach would have a word to an 'enforcer' to try to put Ablett out of the game are well and truly gone. Sadly.

sourced from http://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/2015-03-31/list-building-for-round-one-misson so I guess this means Howe, Kent and Vince are all definitely playing Saturday? If so, that's got to be the healthiest round 1 side I can remember, well done MFC, for once we won't be undermanned before the first bounce

every time someone in our side does something like that they get rubbed out for a few weeks

he does love a sausage awesome player, we need him in

please God don't let it be Matt Jones

uh oh

Those stats are straight up wrong, I can prove it (not now) . That ladder must be referring to the age of the actual list, not the age of the 22 that take the field each week... which makes it pointless. Check it yourself on footywire, you have to add up each week's data manually, you will find our average games is 65, not 80. Nonetheless, as the article notes, Port and the Saints are exceptional while 16 other teams closely mirror their ladder position. The argument is rock solid. We got Lumumba and Garlett but lost Frawley so I doubt we will move much I just want winning games of football to be prioritised over appeasing desperate supporters' desires to see some kid. I agree with you in that I back whatever decision they make.. he is likely to be the sub either way I suppose so it's not going to make a big difference in reality

Good point - but as I just posted, for me it is about having too many kids out there. Salem, Hogan, Toumpas, Kent etc all of these guys are every chance to have nil impact on Saturday. It is just the way it goes. Brayshaw would be another. Bail and MJones have played decent games before (not many) but as more experienced/bigger bodies they stand a greater chance of doing something when the heat is on against the big boys. As I said, I've done the figures on this. Your ladder position equals how many average games your 22 has played, for the very obvious reason that kids generally get outmuscled and outclassed by their senior opponents.

as bing181 has pointed out, the players you have named form a tiny fraction of the wider pool furthermore, I'm sure you noticed that none of the players you mentioned are Melbourne players why? because our d'ment sucks, for one thing, but more importantly, it is because when we play zero gamers they join a pack of other under-50 gamers that are already in the side. There is a big difference between an experienced senior side carrying one kid vs just playing all kids. It is exactly what happened when the Bailey/Neeld sides were 'thrown to the wolves'. You have to go all the way back to N.Jones to find an MFC player who hit the ground running - and even he came in mid-season, and was average at best in his early days. The difference was we had Neitz, McDonald, White, Bruce, Green, Yze, Brown, Whelan etc a proper group of experienced senior players around him. It is no coincidence that this was also the last moment we qualified as a semi-decent football club. THAT's when you can afford to carry zero gamers. We will once again field a side that is in the bottom 2-3 for games played, it is why we lose. We should be trying to RAISE that average, not reduce it further by increasing the amount of kids out there ps you yourself said, immediately after making this post, that AB's form has been largely exaggerated. It seems to me that the handful of posters in this thread who have actually SEEN Casey play this year agree with that assessment. Others are just deciding to say 'he has dominated every week' which appears to be total garbage. Even if it were the case, it has been 2-3 practice matches at VFL level, in no way is that considered a consistent output worthy of promotion if we are a serious football club.

Nothing changes with this club Haven't any of you learnt from our disastrous recent history? It is so short-sighted, impatient and just plain selfish to demand he be selected simply because he exists We have had such a tough time supporting this club you are just utterly desperate to see some kid, maybe he does something special, then you get to feel hopeful maybe we finally have a star FCS what is the hurry There will be 8 under-22 aged players with hardly any games between them out for you to feast on. Is that not enough? This is why we lose games BTW. We march out a side with 2-3 years of development less than our opponent every single week every single year. By coincidence, I have done the numbers and will post it shortly, the average number of games your best 22 has is essentially your ladder position. Deadset. All we do is delist our older players and replace them with babies so we never field a mature side and finish in the bottom bloody 3 every year. And here we see demands of the masses to play another zero gamer for no good reason at all. Bail and MJones are rubbish footballers but they increase our chances of winning the football game as opposed to fielding a zero gamer. I thought most of us were on the same page, that he should show consistent, dominant form at Casey and be given his chance once he is totally starving for it, not just waltzed in It is what the best clubs do, but that's not us, we're Melbourne, so let's F it up again

They have wallowed in ours for my entire lifetime.

just thinking about Eddie makes me go

Trengove sighting, having lunch at High Street near Chapel Nothing more to add :D :D :D

http://www.afl.com.au/news/2015-03-18/jack-to-meet-with-surgeon come on MFC give us the verdict

Can't see it happening

making a recruiting decision that favours immediate results before a greater longterm output is as stupid and unrealistic as SWYL's 'best buddies' approach

SWYL's recruiting masterclass - always establish whether prospect has 'mates' at the club - pay close attention to articles talking about where prospect would 'love' to go - enquire to prospect's accomodation - prospect's star sign

It certainly was simple alright

again, that is an absurd thing to take into consideration.. surely that is obvious. Do you happen to remember the 'mates' recruitment of Tapscott and Blease, that really panned out well didn't it?