bing181

It's not that they wouldn't get picked, they'd be the 21st or 22nd pick in a much stronger team. Even players like Buckley and Cheney went on to get games at Collingwood and Hawthorn, teams not exactly short of decent players. The idea that there were star midfielders available and ready to come to Melb is far-fetched at best. Rodan, Byrnes etc. are experienced players from successful teams, brought in to help establish some standards in training, preparation etc. Don't think we'll be seeing reports that either of them were out at 5 am getting p*ssed. As has been posted elsewhere, Terlich credits Rodan with being the one who's helped him most make the transition to AFL footy - that's already a win. If the pair of them spend most of their time at the Dees as effectively playing assistant coaches at Casey, that seems to me a more than useful step in helping with development - something we're apparently notoriously bad at.

McCarthy. Unproven assistant. 3 year contract Sanderson. Unproven assistant. 3 year contract Watters. Unproven assistant. 3 year contract Neeld. Unproven assistant. 3 year contract. Hinkley. Unproven assistant. 4 year contract.

No-one's accepting this. Responses differ though. For mine, for the life of me I cannot see what good can come out of playing under a stand-in coach for the rest of the year.

It could make perfect sense, depending on the circumstances. Neeld explained why Watts was kept at the MCG. An Emergency is just that.

Don't agree. With the ball coming into their talls the way it was, it was a way of getting someone with a bit of aerial prowess in to spoil. But it's the old story, dammed if you do, dammed if you don't.

Ah, so the lack of development is Moloney's fault. Glad we could get to the bottom of it.

GWS and GC have taken the cream for the past few years, and sooner or later, that cream is going to come to the top. It's not going to be just us that they go past.

If Neeld goes now, we play out the whole season with a stop-gap coach and stop-gap solutions. Having Viney or Craig in charge is not going to help us going forward, all that then happens is that the bulk of the team will end up with a fifth coach (Bailey, Viney, Neeld, Stop-Gap, New Coach in 2014) in 3 years - which I would have thought would have a catastrophic effect on the players, especially the older ones. Then where? We tread-water through the season, and there's talk of the likes of Clarkson, Mark Williams, Eade etc. All of whom are gainfully employed and even if they were a) available and b) interested, we'd almost certainly have to wait till late into the final series to even begin, all over again, starting from zero with everything from List Management, staff, assistant coaches, FD dept. setup etc. etc. We need, more than ever, to be solid in what we do. Changing direction mid-stream can never be solid.

Because Morton, Scully and Gysberts are all doing so much better at their new clubs ...

Ratten/Malthouse ...

No Blease in the bests.

Not to mention Howe. Equally though, WCE have the kind of forward structure that we were hoping to have: 2 talls (counting Darling), plus the rucks floating back there.

Pedersen was a top performer in a feeder league (B&F at Werribee last year). Unfair on Dawes, not his fault he's not fit. Rodan was pick 88, not sure who else we could have used it on.

Good post Titan. Issues out there today for me: Frawley, Jamar and to a lesser extent, Garland. Been around too long perhaps, but difficult to see how we could have contained their talls and forwards with the troops (currently) at our disposal. Byrnes - not sure. We're getting it I50 so rarely, that it gets hard to judge on just a handful of possibilities. Hams was doing everything Byrnes should be doing - I actually preferred Davey myself. Nice to see both Tapscott and Sylvia stand up. Bail, Evans and the other ins weren't disgraceful either. Depending on what happened at Ballarat, surely Gawn must be knocking on the door, or even Spencer.

So why did they stop doing it?

83% Disposal Efficiency.

Yes, you'd have to wonder now. Perhaps LTI, but for his own well-being, you'd wonder whether or not that's it. Would be sad if that's the case, still only young.

Not sure if it's been posted, but nice article re this in the Herald. Positive (for a change ...): http://www.heraldsun.com.au/afl/teams/some-good-news-for-melbourne-with-co-captain-jack-grimes-re-signing-for-three-years/story-e6frf9mf-1226619016894

Perhaps because they weren't facts. Most were opinions or conjecture, and neither were necessarily supported by the facts or available information.

Agree completely ... though also, you could have just stopped before "who ...".

He was down at the club a couple of weeks back talking to the new boys. Great initiative from all concerned. As was the support at training today.

Congratulations to all concerned. Impressive work. Every heart beat true ...

Yes, but to be fair, no more ridiculous then many of the suggestions getting a run here at the moment. And not just in this thread either.

If you can provide actual evidence for any of those points, why not share it with us.

Well, let's see how much the likes of Gysberts (currently playing VFL), Morton (currently playing WAFL) and Bennell (still injured) do under new regimes. Given what's happened to 2 out of those 3, I'd say that their new teams aren't doing any better at developing them than we did.