Milesh

Actually, if we're talking Blease, Watts and Cheney in this group --- that's a huge worry.

"'For f****s sake concentrat, if you can't even do a f******g simple drill, it is not f******g good enough'" Hmm. Do we applaud that Bailey is only showing his cool demeanour on the surface, or panic because the players can't execute a "simple drill" right? To think the selection panel were put off by Hardwick's plan to completely uproot the squad vs. Bailey's slightly less aggressive approach --- maybe Damien was brash, but maybe he was spot on, and too close to the truth for the selection panel to cope with?

JW will miss until Round 4. Blease couldn't possibly be AFL-ready this year.

But of course, Rhino. He's crafted a team capable of winning a Premiership in 2010 and 2011, but by 2012 you can count on two things: The list cannot hold up for long, particularly once Lockyer, Prestigiacomo, Davis, O'Bree, Fraser/Jolly, Johnson, Medhurst are on the outer. The super qualified Premiership-winning coach surely is better than subjecting himself to playing second fiddle to a first-year rookie coach from 2012 onwards.

Standard Response #2245 - filed under C:/MelbourneFC/Correspondence/Email/Reply Message Templates/MessageTemplate_2245.doc Toeing-the-party-line tripe, but you cannot expect anything less from the office boy/girl (I mean that with sincerity, not malice).

Much better. All I hope for this week is no ice-riddled Collingwood crazies pummelling opposition supporters. I know ... it's a Melbourne-beating-Collingwood longshot.

Letters get you nowhere. Gather five, ten thousand fans/members of a Facebook page/group and the Herald Sun will feed on it for a couple of weeks.

I can't believe there are numerous suggestions in this thread, and none of them comical. Strawberry Fields Forever --- sorry guys.

He was on my wishlist too, Rusty, but ...

Twelfth consecutive year. I'm referring to the membership teatowel scarf.

What scarf? The last time I got one, it was a thinly woollen teatowel and decided not to go back next time.

Frontloading player contracts this year will help the cause. I support this proposal to recruit Malthouse in 2012, though I hope it doesn't come to that because FD stability is just as important.

In order to defy expectations and say, come out of the game with heads high (less than 10 goals), the coach will need to employ something different --- tactics, strategy, match-ups, roles, whatever ... Not a big believer yet.

Sylvia Jamar Warnock Frawley Grimes Morton Garland Give or take a couple.

A lack of confidence and self-belief. Poor skills is a copout IMO. In hindsight David Neitz was such a leader for our players. He demanded the respect of everyone, he reinforced game plans and strategies and the players felt comfortable with Neita leading from the front --- in this case not literally. Observing from the outside, McDonald has been an invisible captain and how he was chosen ahead of Green, Moloney, Sylvia or Davey is a mystery. The guy puts in a huge workload and breaks his back for the team, but the same criteria can be applied to Whelan or Godfrey or Jones. The right man to lead our boys can ignite the self-belief --- in fact it should be a mandatory requirement of a captain.

One. But I'm not putting 2010 past us yet --- that would be unfair, regardless of today's depressing performance.

If we are following the model of St. Kilda, Hawthorn and the Western Bulldogs, the third year of building-from-the-ground-up is frustatingly poor. So the bar should not have been raised by anyone other than MelbourneFC employees and associates toeing the party line. The fourth year of a full-blown rebuild is when the real results come to the fore. St Kilda reached rock bottom in 2000 and by 2003 had won 11 games for that season --- the same number in 2006 for the Bulldogs who went 3-22 in 2003. Hawthorn 4-18 in 2004, 14-8 in year four and a Premiership a season later. So, extending Bailey's contract to some degree was a clever decision. First, it rids the media of an opportunity to hound him this year (although: "Why did they extend the contract?" is surefire ammo for a Sheehan-type) and second, it gives us the opportunity to judge Bailey in his crunch year (the fourth). If he coaches less than 10 wins, we part ways, no hard feelings. Shopping around for a new, established, experienced coach will be a cinch. With the number of super talented youngsters to his avail, every man and his assistant will be eager for the job. Do you reckon Mick will be keen to proceed into his pseudo-role @ Collingwood in 2012? All it takes is one call and one Senior Coach vacancy and he'll be out of Westpac Centre faster than Chris Judd's leadership off the field. That said, I still hope for the best from Bailey and that he is with us for the long haul.

Aha! I knew someone in the FD had a similar opinion of the kid. In fact Cuddles will go as far as to say 300+ games IIRC.

If he gets the chance, Jordie can play 200-250 games with us and Brock will be all but a memory.

Only for a short period of time --- Sportingbet lost $5k in the end. By 4pm on Friday afternoon word spread that the alternate jumper we were using that evening was produced in short sleeves only. The BigFooty punting board caught wind and once Sportingbet noticed an abnormally large number of bets on the rank outsider in a two-horse race they quickly shut up shop.

It is possible Mike believed Fevola's rating would decline considerably with his new team and the make-up of their forward line.

I love 5pm on a Thursday afternoon with the keyboard-clicking soundbyte going off repeatedly as the team sheets file in. I've scanned over the DT a minute ago and don't feel any need to trade. Quite surprised and relieved.

The first footage I saw of Scully and Trengove in R&B was approx. 5 minutes into the first quarter vs. Fremantle. After the centre ruck duel and the ball dribbling 10 metres from the contest they both descended into frame like I'd never seen before. Their agility was mystifying! I cannot wait for Saturday. To consider these two ahead of our experienced midfielders in ability would not be drawing too long a bow!

Only for under-21s as of January 1.

Judging by the furlong pole in the picture I'd guess the States.