DirtyDees DDC

There's a fly in the ointment here. I believe Bailey comes up for contract renewal at the end of 2011. He's won 15 1/2 games out of 66 - not a great record. There are also at least 4 other coaches coming out of contract at the end of next year. Will he promote Blease,Tapscott Strauss and Gysberts over the likes of Morton, Bate, McDonald and Jones? Will he persist with a potential long term player who is struggling for form, like we did with Bennell last season? Or do we just have a short term focus and pick the best side available for each week? Injuries and match-ups will play a part too, but if we are on 6 wins after 12 games, I'd be very surprised if Bailey uses the last 10 games to promote youth, or to develop Garland as a full forward.

Play him as a key defender on the backline but rotate him from smalls to talls, the same as Collingwood with their defence. He'll also need to cover for Chip when Frawley has a spell on the bench.

He was rumoured to be unhappy with his tagging role and was mentioned as a possible trade in October. Good to see him train hard and work his way into the leadership group. I hope this means he has cast off any negative thoughts and is relaxed with his role at the club, because I'd be surprised if Bailey doesn't continue to develop Jones as a tagger next year. He did play 22 games however I think he was dropped for one match, then came in as a last minute replacement. Be interesting to see when Scully is added the leadership group. He seems as driven to succed as Nathan Buckley, but without the FIGJAM attitude.

Make that 8 December ...according to Bhima. Definitely looks like Gysberts in photos of 3 December. Gysberts hammy is better than Moribito's ACL.

Did this happen today? Earlier training reports indicated that Gysberts was missing in action on 3 December.

He trained OK. I watched him in the handball drill. He has good skills and moves well, but I recall some interesting advice to Jack by David Neitz - 'work on your first couple of steps and your last couple of steps.' I think he beat Greeny in a goalkicking contest. The good news is he's out there training - like most of the team. All the recruits were at the ground yesterday, incl Lawrence and Evans from WA. A couple could get a run in the NAB cup - the best bets would be Howe, Nicholson, Mcdonald and Campbell. Very important comment from one of the players in an earlier thread - that boys are at the same point of in their preseason that it took them to get to in February at the start of this year. I'm not sure if they were playing up the the crowd, but there was a lot of noise coming from the players during the kicking drills. This is the second time I've watched training this year. On both occasions they worked on a drill where the ball is kicked to the forward line and punched away rather than marked (simulating a contested possession). The ball is picked up by one player and handballed to a guy running forward and shooting for goal. They can also do a variation of this drill from the opposition kickouts. It's all done at high speed and perhaps they are copying some of the tactics that brought the premiership to Collingwood in 2010.

News article in "the H-Sun' this morning: 'Four in running for Demons chaplaincy' The four - • Brad Green • Brent Moloney • Aaron Davey and • Jack Grimes (the outsider)

I don't think he's that tall. The club website has him at 177cm and 72kgs. That seems to be more accurate judging by the video. He's a small outside player, similar to Davey - maybe not quite as fast.

Another excellent piece Bhima. Your reports indicate that competition for spots will be very fierce next year, even with the absence of Junior and Cam Bruce. If there are few injuries then there will be very few places for the new kids in town. We turned over 38 players last season. I'd be surprised we get near that amount next year. Looks like Todd Viney won't be one of them. Too many Pie floaters.

I just did some quick stats on our playing list, as posted on the club website. I've disregarded the rookies because no stats are available. I've also disregarded Newton, even though his name is still on the senior list. That leaves 39 senior players. Now i have a feeling that you should treat official lists with caution. Rohan Bail is now listed as 181cm and 81kg, whereas the 2009 list had him at 183cm and 91kg. He's shrunk. Spencer is listed at 100kg. He must be bigger than that, especially after breaking the eating records on his recent trip to NT. I'm also not sure of other teams averages, but i recall the AFL website had average height for the Geelong premiership teams of 2007-09 at 187 -188 cm and ave weight at 87-88kg. For MFC: Height - 188.3cm Weight - 85.7kg Age (approx) - 22y 6 months Games - 43. 18 of the 39 are 190cm or above. Maric and Morton are coming into their 4th season and are still under 21. We look a little underweight compared to the average, but this should change. Take Acye Cordy for the bulldogs. He was only 77kgs when picked up under the father/son rule in Nov 2008. News report yesterday gave his weight at 100kgs+. He's put on 24 kg in 2 years. Imagine if Spencer put on another 24 kgs?

At least he's training - that's better news than last pre season where he was out for 4 months with the hip injury. An earlier report in October this year suggested he wasn't satisfied with the penetration in his kicking. He also copped a shoulder injury in our last game at Casey. He was running with the main group on 19 November but spent most of his time with the 'graduated return-to-work' group. Sounds like the club is just being cautious. The participation rate seems to be much better at this stage compared to December 2009 (touch wood). The only question marks in Bhima's report were Gysberts and Bail. Gysberts was also in the 'GRTW' group on 19 November while Bail was restricted to walking the boundary line. Perhaps he still has issues with the quad injury from last season. This time last year we lost Wonna with a hamstring and Jurrah had a hand injury; Blease and every ruckman except Martin was on a modified or very resticted training programme; Watts was in and out with his back, and Garland was just out. Be interesting to see them this Friday afternoon at Casey. Cam Schwab notes that the MFC grew out of a stadium, not a suburb, and we don't have the supporter base location that exists with the likes of Essendon, Hawthorn and Geelong. There are roughly 3 growth corridors in Melbourne; one that goes out to Craigieburn; one thru the Werribee area, and one through Cranbourne and Pakenham. All these regions have lots of young families with kids, and we have the lowest supporter base amongst kids in the league. At the moment we need them more than they need us, but hopefully we can build a supporter base like the Saints have done with the Frankston - Moorabbin region. Setting up a link with Casey is a no - brainer. It's also interesting to note the reaction to words like 'spitting' and 'tears' in the reports. I'mot concerned provided it's addressed quickly. We have 46 guys fighting for 22 positions so it's not a tea party. They will cop much worse treatment when they go to Adelaide oval or Subiaco.

We may have also missed out on Brad Harvey in the rookie draft. He was a high performer in the draft camp and was training with us, but Brisbane nabbed him at 13, one before our first pick. On the other hand, Kelvin Lawrence was rumoured to go in the first round. Looks like we picked 4 talls in the National Draft and balanced these picks with 4 quick smallish players this morning. The common element seems to be an ability to kick the football.

Take that Hawthorn.

Another Ranga!! He's not slow, and a good long kick. I hope he does well and aims for a midfield spot.

I wouldn't mind if we picked Jaryd Atkinson - ex essendon. We may need a bit more pace on tha backline and he's got tons. I also like what i've seen of Cameron Johnston. He can run and kick - very handy skills at 181cms.

10/10 response. I believe those notes were written in the '50s. If you want tactics in football, then have a look at the NFL.

If i went to a football game and had to wait 60 minutes for the first goal, i'd be G O R N!!! Then again, there was that infamous match a few years ago in Adelaide b/w the Crows and North Melbourne, where neither side scored a goal till the last 2 minutes of the second quarter despite perfect conditions. There were lots of tactics to score goals that night - none of them worked very well. It was 1 goal someting to no goals something at half time. Funniest game i'd ever seen.

Just watched Vick against Houston. Great athlete with a terrific arm, and he can run. Sometimes he doesn't make the right decisions, and he needs more protection from his offensive line. It seems like a very even season with no standout teams. I'm a packers fan but the steelers look strong again. I have a digital tv, 22 channels and a dual tuner dvd. Life is bliss.

Sometimes a ball comes loose near the goals and someone scores. That happens in football and soccer. As for ease of scoring, I'll takes 20 goal per game AFL vs 2.2 goals per game in soccer anyday, even though it's getting tougher to score in AFL compared to 20 years ago when Plugger and Dunstall were monstering backlines. The problem with soccer is - when that first goal is scored - the other side has less than 10% chance of winning the game. That's one reason why i don't love it anymore.

Collingwood players have publicly raved about the trip - they say it's been the main reason for their improved performance. let's hope we get the same benefits out of the visit to China. Are we still going to Mt Buffalo this year?

And that's the problem with soccer. Their supporters think that because soccer is the biggest in the world, then it automatically means it's the best. If that's true then Mcdonalds have the best restaurants in the world. What a flawed process too. We got one vote - rumoured to be from Kaiser Franz and only because we appointed his mate as Australian coach. We raved about how a vote for Australia will bring the world soccer audience to Australia, yet there were 2 other competing countries with much stonger connections to Asia. We went in naively with a poor presentation and relied heavily on frank Lowy.

A physio told me that they lose the benefits of altitude training when they come back to earth. If that is the case then why do they keep doing it? From memory the benefits are connected to the increased number of red corpuscles in the blood - allowing the athlete to carry more oxygen into the bloodstream. I've heard that Collingwood maintain the benefits of altitude training by putting their players in Hyperbaric chambers, but i'm no expert here.

Read it - loved it - recommend it to anyone who follows the Demons. Try to avoid the temptation to jump to the chapter on 1965. It's the most engrossing chapter in the book, but it helps to read the early stuff and build up a picture of the man who helped the MFC win 10 premierships. I can only remember the last premiership in '64 so the book filled in a few gaps. I'm not sure if we had as good a side as Richmond in the 60's and '70s or Hawthorn in the '80s yet we didn't just win grand finals, we absolutely dominated them. We won 5 out of 6 but the only one that was discussed in the 60's was the 1958 GF. That is so unfair. Some even said they would give up the 59 and 60 flags for the 58 GF but I can't agree. We should be proud of every GF win. Hawthorn supporters never say they would swap the 88 and 89 flags for the 87 flag. You have to judge each year on its merits, and one that stands out is 57. We lost Stuey Spencer, Denis Cordner, Noel McMahon and others, yet Norm got us up for a 3rd flag in a row. An absolutely amazing effort.

They had far too many draft concessions. Last year they effectively got the best 11 players from a third of the draft - including Josh Toy, Russell and Weller. The only bright side for other clubs is the Gold Coast list now contains a whole lot of kids fighting to get picked in the 22. Some will get disillusioned after 2-3 years and return home. Others like Toy will be offered huge money from West Coast, Adelaide, and the big Melbourne clubs when their contracts expire. It's not hard to see Collingwood offering Toy a multi million dollar contract to entice him back to Melbourne in 2013 or 2014 if he lives up to his potential. The Gold Coast will eventually lose their salary cap advantage and will have to find big dollars to entice southern based stars up north. If we'd had picks 1,2,11,and 18 in this draft we would have picked up Swallow, Bennell (i'd substitute Day for Bennell here) Lynch, and Watson. A gun midfield and 2-3 big key position players. It makes an interesting comparison with Scully, Trengove, Gysberts, and Tapscott. Swallow vs Scully could be close. If you missed on one and got the other, you'd still be very happy. I'm glad we picked Scully. He will outrun everyone in the league.

So we've picked 4 right footers, but one of them (Howe) is out of left field. We know we still lack that big KPF like a Dawes or Brown from Collingood and we've tried Johnson, Newton and Martin without success. The MFC will possibly pick one in the rookie draft and who can also pinch hit in the ruck. Just someone who can fill that roll for a couple of years till Cook Watts fill out. Pity we missed on Hale. Looks like Hawthorn are following Collingwood's lead and plan to use Hale as a 3rd big forward, keeping Renouf in the ruck. Other sides like North and the Gold Coast and Adelaide will be stacked with talls on the forward line. No wonder we made the tall order in the draft.