Rogue

The injury list worsens, with Davey out for 6-8 weeks. http://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/newsarticle/tabid/7415/newsid/115098/default.aspx PS. I feel sorry for DB.

Zing.

Bate and Petterd have given relatively little up forward recently, and despite making some glaring errors Newton still contributed more than both combined. As for Bartram, someone posted that he is four weeks away. Absolutely. It's a shame that we won't get much closer to our best side this week, even if we do make a bunch of changes.

Nice analogy.

I agree. If he's on track to play say 90 mins at Casey we may as well name him in the AFL.

I think Martin's competed well, but he needs a second string to his bow. That's preferably a forward role, given that tall defenders generally play most of the game on the park. With him playing so much in the ruck, we've not had a chance to see what he can do up forward. That's not his fault though, and I like his endeavour.

If he thought they had it won during the warm-up then it had nothing to do with DB's tactics. (If I was Carlton I would have thought I had it won when I looked at the injury list on the Tuesday).

If only we were playing the Bombres. The line should be ~40 points.

I'm pretty sure Silver AFL Members have the same access during H&A games as Full AFL Members.

I agree with all of that.

Yeah, there might be some transitional arragement that could benefit us if we don't want to ditch a few senior-listed players.

I think Darkhorse is right in that it makes it easy to approach the game. I don't think he was suggesting it was a simple task to negate Judd. Not a bad idea. I'm not sure how he'll go in the packs but it might be good for Morton to be told to make that his major focus.

Yeah, really unlucky timing.

So it looks like Scully and Wona made it through the test, but Bartram and Davey (?!?) have been added to the unavailability list. Anyone know more about Bart's injury? Literally taking it for the team; nice one.

I'll test out this banning of Scully threads by closing this one.

Unless Scully was contracted to GWS before he was even drafted by Melbourne I can't see that your assertion that the deal may already have been done undermines anything Roost It has said.

If our third pick is in the 50s I'm not sure that we gain more by booting out someone we picked up in the 50s or earlier in the past and have then put development into. I haven't seen this. I've heard there are a minimum of three changes required each year.

In normal years it would, since we'd be keen to upgrade plus use a bunch of draft picks, but in a weaker/compromised draft I wouldn't be surprised if we brought in less draftees and had more upgrades instead.

I wouldn't be surprised if we add another one or two debutants fairly soon, with Blease and Howe both a decent shot.

I think Blease just had his best run of consecutive games and that was three matches in a row. If he can get his body right I think he won't have too many worries in the short-term.

Indeed. There are two things here. First, the idea that DB is making a selfless choice suggests he has alternative options that would have a significant impact on our performance. I'm not sure he does. If DB was leaving out players that could have a significant impact on our chance of winning, then sure - I might buy this idea. However, names like Bennell and Morton have been mentioned, and they haven't exactly been ripping it up. Second, if we want to talk about DB's self-interet I think it would be counter-productive for DB to deviate from the 'kids' game plan. DB's chances of getting recontracted go into a death spiral if he deviates from the line he's consistently held. DB doesn't have the option, but if he had subpar senior players that will never be around when we're any good and chose them over youngsters we need to develop because they're better able to compete now I suggest that would not help his chances of getting recontracted, because it would undermine everything he's said over his journey as senior Coach.

I agree. However, I think that, despite our horror injury run (both within games and in terms of players available for selection), we've recently seen an improvement. It's a moot point now, but I'd wager we'd be going alright by now if we had most of our best 22 out there.

Nice

I agree with you wholeheartedly. In previous years, if we had 1/3 of our best side out and a game-ending injury to someone in the first quarter of a game there is no way we would even have been in the match.

Davey might be out with knee soreness, apparently: http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/just-when-davey-looked-safe-knee-lets-him-down-20110524-1f2ik.html