Romey

I’d be curious to know where he ranked our three picks overall. Presumably higher than what we got them for but by how much?

Call me an optimist but I still can’t get past the fact that we have a guy on our list that averaged 2.65 goals per game over 20 games in 2018. Had he done that this year he would have won the Coleman. In fact over the past 5 years the only players who have averaged more than this in any given year are Kennedy, Franklin, Riewoldt, Hawkins, Brown and Cameron - that’s pretty impressive company. I’d rather play him at Casey all year in the hope of him regaining that form than trading him for a second round draft pick and trying our luck with someone else. The fact that he can also play defence and wing is all the more reason for keeping him.

True, however one key difference is that there is already a sporting precinct in Yarra Bend so open space would not need to be re-purposed like at Footscray Park.

I know this topic has been done to death but I am surprised this option has not been mentioned as a possible venue for our new training ground. As the bird flies Yarra Bend is about 3 km from the MCG and is a huge expanse of land that is not highly used by local sporting clubs in winter as far as I am aware. While not an ideal place for a social club, it could allow an Essendon Tullamarine style facility. Beautiful surroundings too. Thoughts?

It’s only a minor calf injury according to Foxsports today. https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/afl-2020-harley-bennell-melbourne-calf-injury-preseason-supplemental-selection-period/news-story/fac103e87e9f9eb5c636c0ebaa4b65e3

Hopefully nothing too serious. https://www.sen.com.au/news/2020/01/25/report-bennell-suffers-injury-setback-in-bid-for-afl-lifeline

I do find it interesting that with the bidding system a relatively useless low draft pick can actually become semi-valuable. It is conceivable next year with the high proportion of F/S and academy picks that a pick in the 50’s or early 60’s becomes a pick in the 30’s.

I thought this warranted a new thread. It gave me a lot more confidence in our decision. AFL.com.au canvassed recruiters and list managers from 12 clubs about who they would have taken if they held the third pick Who would you have taken with pick # 3 - recruiters

With all of the picks used for the academy players so far I see that our fourth pick in this years draft has moved up to 74. No doubt this will move up more tomorrow. It will be interesting to see if this ends up in the 50’s or 60’s.

As possibly the youngest player selected in last years “super” draft at pick 33, I wonder where he would be placed in this years draft if he had of been born a few days later? 12 months on he has now played a full season of VFL and worked his way into becoming a starting mid by the end of the year with decent possession numbers. Maybe that makes him the equivalent of a first round pick this year?

He kicked 65 goals 37 behinds in 2017. I don’t think his kicking accuracy is a problem.

I’m not saying we should get him but am surprised people are so quick to dismiss the idea. 65 goals 39 behinds in 2017 seems fairly accurate kicking to me, and had he kicked that this year it would probably win him the Coleman medal. His trade value is likely to be reduced given he has been out of the game for two years due to injury and the fact he is one year out from free agency. Maybe a late first round or early second round pick would be enough? Lewis retiring and Jones’ pay cut frees up some salary cap. Also, outside of Jonathan Patton who seems destined for the Hawks, I am not sure there is any other more attractive and getable key position forward options available this year.

With Joe Daniher reported to be possibly on the market and being courted by the Swans, I wonder if there has been any thought given to luring him to the Dees? He is obviously not without some risk however two years ago, before injury, he played 23 games and kicked 65 goals. He has the height to play back-up ruck, is connected to Goodwin from his time at the Bombers and has a family connection to our club through Neil Daniher. Joe could help us structurally by playing deep forward, bringing our smaller forwards into the game and freeing up Tom McDonald to use his tank and roam up the field. I have heard it mentioned that he has a good character, is popular amongst his peers and a future leader, so maybe good for us off field as well. What do other Demonlanders think? Do I have rocks in my head?

With the Southern Stand to be redeveloped in the next 10 years, I wonder if there is a opportunity for the new stand to incorporate our headquarters / social club and for an oval oval to be built on top of Brunton Ave and the railway lines? It would help better connect the MCG to the sporting district and it would be adding to the parklands which should appeal to residents. Not the cheapest of options but maybe with Government support and lots of time it is achievable. Any thoughts?

Maybe we could also look at the Edmund Herring Memorial Oval in the south part of the Kings Domain near Melbourne Grammar.

If space and inner city location were the key requirements then the Westfield Ovals in Yarra Bend or the Kevin Bartlett Reserve in Burnley should be considered. (Obviously the second option would have to be re-named.) Both spaces are highly under-utilised and are surrounded by bushland so have no locals to upset. That said, it makes them less attractive for a social club to be located.

Given we are down on our precision kickers like Melkshem and Lewis, does anyone think James Jordan might come into calculation for this week? I know his young and underdone but by all reports his kicking is amongst the best on the team and he has been racking up a decent number of possessions at Casey off half back.

Billy had less game time that most last week. (24 minutes less than Petracca for instance.) When you take this into account, his disposal per minutes played were more or less on par with some of our better players. For whatever reason we dropped him I doubt it is because he was not finding enough of the ball.

I think that the MCC/MFC should be more creative with membership options. I am a full MCC member and also donate $87 as an MCC/MFC member, but only get to about 8 games per year. I don’t like cricket so it costs me about $100 per game on average to see the Dees. I would happily forego my right to see the cricket if it meant the Dees received more money and I could pay a bit less on my MCC each year. If there were MCC AFL only and cricket only membership, then the 20 year wait list could be shortened, the MFC and MCC would both be financially better off and I would get much better value out of my membership. I am sure that there are other creative ticket options as well.

Sam McLure on Twitter saying Lachie Neale is now a Lion

I wonder if Sydney Swans are gearing up to make a godfather offer to Hogan? They are apparently in the market for another forward to support Franklin and are clearing salary cap to land a big name. They surprised a lot of people when they got Tippett and Franklin so it isn’t like they haven’t done this before.

It became pick 22 I think. We also coincidently had pick 23 as a compensation pick for Colin Sylvia which we traded to Adelaide for Bernie Vince. Adelaide then used this pick to select Matt Crouch who has gone on to be an All Australian midfielder and win their B&F by the age of 22. Bernie had been great for us however I think Adelaide would be happy with that deal.

According to the AFL tracker Alex Neal-Bullen today ran 17.2 km to make him equal 10th in the AFL for distances covered in a game since this started in 2017. Nine of the top ten records belong to Tom Scully and Andrew Gaff. He also had an equal game high 32 pressure acts. No doubt there are some areas of his game that he can still improve on but this kind of unheralded effort in a losing team deserves some recognition I reckon.

A good read. https://www.playersvoice.com.au/tom-bugg-im-not-who-you-think-i-am/

Great photos. I’d be interested in the thoughts of others on the kicking techniques of the players in these photos. For me the ones with with flawless techniques were Lewis, Stretch, Melkshem and Lever, but I don’t profess to be an expert.