Webber

In : Hogan (obviously), Garland (most consistent defender this season), JKH (better than Bail/Riley). Out : Spencer (unfortunate), Bail, Riley.

Nailed it, M-M. He's a serious victim of Demonland Expectation Bias (DEB). Will be playing every week if fit.

Yep, a very Bernie Vince thing to do, in the best possible way. He loves his footy that man. He's up there, but def a right footer when he can.

Which is his favoured foot? I've watched this closely, and when he's kicking to his right side he uses his left, to the left he uses his right. I honestly haven't seen a two footer as good as him excepting Sam Mitchell. He's almost as good as Gus.

Brilliant.

Team team team team. Paul Roos is all about the 'team' ethos. The culture of a joint commitment. Play for each other. He's creating it, and the recruiters have done a brilliant job in servicing that. This club has finally turned. There'll still be many frustrations, we won't make the finals this year as some have wildly suggested, but we are BACK, people. It's gonna be fun.

Nicely said. There's definitely something going on down there that is different, and real this time.

Firstly, how would anyone other than a player hear this, secondly, Selwood and Nate Jones are mates.

It IS hard to believe. A very very rare talent. He is a one touch handler with no preferred foot. I particularly love that he lopes like he's stuffed, then BANG!, he's gone and the ball's suddenly in the forward line in a teammates hands. As pure a footballer as I think I've ever seen.

Excellent. Physical and with usual vision. Chased, tackled, competed. He gets it now. Last 3 games he's a different player.

6. Viney......considering his own game and the impact on Selwood, def BOG. 5. Vince.....pure football today. 4. N.Jones.....skipper 3. Brayshaw.......Just 12 games. I can smell Brownlow before the decade is out 2. Gawn......breakout. 1. Dunn, and everybody else.

And they continue to tease us.........

Without doubt you are a big part of the Dees future deanox, so take it as read.

He's dominant.

Hes the best first year player at this club for years, no disrespect to Jesse.

You're watching a big part of the Melbourne resurgence for years to come today, Demonlanders. It's huge and has a beard.

EVERYBODY.......stop watching now, and start the week happy.

Go easy on the common sense bing181.

There's nothing to understand about that post SS. It's just a frank misjudgement. Toumpas frequently put his body into the contest today, tackled hard and pressured well. He is most certainly NOT just an outside player. Prejudice just creates a kind of blindness.

The biggest problem I see with him at the moment is he looks to stall with every possession. His habit is to NEVER play on if he doesn't have to. It's enormously frustrating, and absolutely kills momentum. I just don't understand why he's doing it.

Agree. Was reading the game well and putting himself into contests.

All hamstrings are minimum 3 weeks. A tweak is still a tear, 3 weeks absolute earliest return, and the recovery is upwards from there. Surgery is either a reattachment of the tendon to the bone (high, in the bum) and is minimum 2 months, but usually more. Otherwise, the new trend is to stick a stitch or two in certain belly/tendon tears to facilitate a scarring response. The theory is to minimise recurrence on account of more appropriately aggressive scarring. The jury is out however on whether this will truly affect recurrence rates. The issue really with hammies is the significant decrease in recurrence potential with each extra week out. There's a growing trend that pushing to 6 weeks rest where possible (list depth, relative importance of player) is a long term winner. Recurrent hamstrings are bad news.

Rucking for the Dees has a bit of a revolving door feel to it this year, and I'm sure the selection peeps are hoping to see one of them really impose themselves. Don't forget PR praised the Spencer game against the Dogs quite specifically. I reckon it's a classic case of Gawn and Spencer both having their unique pros and cons. To me, Gawn lacks speed and endurance, which I'm sure is as frustrating for him as us, but has the better skills. Spencer has speed and better endurance, but is a poorer tap and poorer skills than Gawn. He's a competitive beast though. I have a feeling there's a game of patience and development being played with them, that the club knows they'll both be better over the coming years. Rucking is a skill/position in weird transition at the moment across the AFL. With the exception of the outright guns, such as Sandilands, Goldstein, Mumford, there's a lot of chop and change in the ruck going on at a lot of clubs.

What I'm noticing about Brayshaw as well. Apart from being a two footed, one touch handler who reads the play sublimely and doesn't hear footsteps, he's clearly enormously coachable. The balance of his stats week to week between contested acts and uncontested possessions is probably exactly what coaches want from all their players. At 18, he already seems to be the ultimate modern footballer. I think when Roos talks about players on our list who bear the burdens of the past, it's the resistance to changing habits and developing that balance that he is talking about. Some can, some can't, the newbies are thankfully a blank canvas.

This. He's not diminishing at all, as in the way Fletcher and Harvey aren't. Absolutely no reason he won't play next year, and he is a huge exemplar to the young midfielders, which they frequently mention.