Mad_Melbourne

Could also be that Hannah had shoulder surgery a bit later than both pedo and TMac and will still be out of the majority of contact drills. If Spencer was able to play that forward role as well as Pederson (which is a relatively low bar) he would be a major asset. The problem is, for him, that he is a genuine ruck with few strings to his bow, behind a ruck who will probably be even more dominant with the new rules.

some of the junior development stuff that i was fortunate enough to be a part of would 100% back that statement up. Whilst we often worked on weaknesses, a key focus was making your strengths weapons as it is often off the back of your strengths that you will get drafted e.g. if you have a solid NP foot, it is not going to stand out as much as if you are damaging with your preffered. We were also encouraged ub scrimmages to throw the ball as "umpires could not see this and would rarely guess." The best exponent of this was Libba

One has probably the most damaging kicking skills up to 30-35m. The other was a turnover merchant

and id suggest that the largest portion of supporters against the away jumper would be this age bracket too. I feel the people that are interested in buying the jumpers have less of a problem with the all white jumper, that being said i cant speak for everyone as I said its purely something that doesnt really bother me in the slightest. They will combine both and appeal to all markets and it makes sense, im not disagreeing that they should be applying it on casual clothing aswell, im just suggesting more so that the people who are so against it, do not really affect the sales of the jumpers anyway and it would not therefore really affect the clubs mentality unless it saw a massive decrease in memberships, which would be pretty ridiculous and petty. I agree, the clash is slight, but i think its going off if you are in a pack and only see top half of jumper? i dont know, im not really invested in it to be fair and i do not decide who the afl judges we clash with, but i am fairly certain one of them is GC

Fair point, the problem with this, is if the AFL continues to see us to clash with Gold Coast and all red clash jumper will not work. I understand the big charge for red and blue jumper only, but if we only wear an away jumper for 4-5 games and an indigenous jumper in one round, its not that big of a deal, to me personally at least.

do you buy the home jumper every year? The demonland population whilst a strong supporter base does not reveal a majority of the members, and whilst a majority of demonland supporters are vehemently against it, it is a small sample of actual supporters. The new jumper design allows us to have a much clearer association with Melbourne as a name, rather than football club, which personally I think will lead to an increase in jumper sales due to tourism industry. Not only that but we are trying to increase our brand to take over the city of Melbourne and whilst if you follow AFL the colours make sense, but if you do not follow football and you were shown several jumpers there would be no association to the name of the team and thus the logo on the front is a clear association. I personally am not against it, although I think it is a lazy design, it is hardly the abomination that people make it out to be. Sure a white jumper has no linkings to our past, this is fine, but the clash jumper is something that will continue to exist and whilst the AFL continues to suggest that there are clashes and we need to avoid them, then why not embrace something which can increase our influence in the Melbourne area but also help increase club profits.

Played some footy with the fella at Bernard's, quiet type but a really nice bloke. Was far and away best on in the grand final 2 years back, just had the ball on a string. His kicking is solid, but decision making is something he'd probably need to work on as often just took the long option (although this was part of the Anthony rock style of football). In his first senior game for Bernard's a few years back made some real special plays and from there you could tell he would at least get some VFL experience. Really big in the legs. Good on him

hypothetically if the club did pick him, i doubt it would be sentimental reasons? FYI I'm not Jason Taylor and comments on sentimentality have no basis on actual thoughts of the draft. I dont think there is much key position strength too deep in the draft, so a developing key defender and small forward are what i think we will ultimately go with.

Purely want it for sentimental reasons, draft doesnt run very deep anyway, whilst i think on a needs basis we will probably go for a small and a tall, I wouldnt be upset with us giving him a shot.

the best result from this draft is that we pick up BOG (brother of gus)

I still personally do not really see the issue, if its about identity I guess the fact that it says Melbourne FC and is the new logo which we want associated with our identity fits the bill. If its purely based of aesthetics, the biggest knock is that it is not creative enough, which makes sense, but I still think the logical clash strip this year was going to feature the newset logo. Regardless of whether or not the clash strip is something you like, unless every season you purchase a new red & blue Melbourne jumper, I would suggest that your complaints should not be warranted as you provide zero back to the club regardless of the jumper anyway. (purely on jumper sales, memberships etc irrelevant). I would hazard a guess that 90% of the people that are complaining are still rocking a jumper with LG as a sponsor or something similar anywho.

to be fair, I dont know what I'm telling people either. I just think it is not really that bad as everyone is making it out to be, I understand the unoriginality of it but I think it was a pretty expected design considering the new logo and what not. I know that red and blue is synonymous with Melbourne, but the logo is something that the football club wants to spread around (like the NY from the Yankees) and this is probably one of the most obvious ways to keep the momentum of it going.

To me it seemed like the logical choice of away strip, spent a good chunk of time 12 months ago promoting and endorsing our new logo and logically it was placed on our next away strip. Its not a groundbreaking design and it definitlely won't appeal to all, but it could and has been alot worse.

Brands called Skwosh, been out for a while now. Doing pretty well I think

What a shame that a second year player whose running was never really a strength is battling opposed to much better aerobic athletes. Not a worry in the world, at the end of the day all players should be increasing their running capacity and I have no doubts that he is a hard worker, as shown by his ability to get himself into considerably better knick leading to the draft period and ultimately why we were confident in drafting him.

My initial comments were all tongue in cheek, as I carried on with it a bit further. But his response was to me being sarcastic in regards to players being given a program and it's got much more legs than necessary. I dont think our players would not be under instruction in regards to running at pre season. I don't think they could get away with being lazy in the early sessions to improve later in the pre season and look better. I didn't think I needed to explain that all those comments had my tongue planted firmly in my cheek

Not a question to sound offensive, but have you ever played football? It is one of the most common tactics in local footy to look like you've improved significantly from day 1 of preseason to end of preseason

*sarcasm

I think they are under no instruction, but all are lazy and looking to start slow so that their running looks to significantly improve throughout the pre season. Especially Trac

Thanks for this. Really interesting

I'm thinking that the decision was made as we probably won't go that deep in the draft and happy with the depth until around 70 and thinking that most of our prospects will be taken. Much like the McKenna trade from GWS. Wagner after playing half the season in his first year and injury concerns a 2 year extension is reasonable. A

Wanted more cash than Sydney thought he was worth, management obviously had him in higher stock that the club. Could provide depth, but if he's chasing a bigger contract probably best we steer clear as he is unproven really

Melksham turns out to be a flop, plays early but is replaced in side by Bugg or Harmes and cannot regain regular football. Calls for a more defensive game style after losing a really high scoring match. T McDonald to be All Australian Weideman to be our only rising star nomination we draft Hamish Brayshaw with our first pick in the draft

I guess I can claim Hunt and Redleg Jack Watts

Looks like 8/15 have been kept on the list, most notably Watts and Hunt having somewhat break out seasons but definitely locking down 1st team positions. Harmes earning his spot most weeks and then Pederson and Trengove doing enough to recieve 1 year contracts. Spencer gets a 1 year contract purely as depth. Lumumba and JKH barely troubled the scorers due to their injury riddled years, but still have a year left on contracts. Interesting thread to read none the less