Mad_Melbourne

Just purely out of curiosity and not to continue the debate, do you also get a Melbourne membership? Considering MCC does not increase our member tally is all. I get both an MCC and reserved seats for Melbourne games, MCC is more for other events at the G but would probably give that up ahead of my Melbourne membership. Im real excited for Clayton Oliver, was a real big fan early on and his competitiveness was what won me over, but his ability in stoppages was what caught my attention. I wonder how this translates as an 18 year old as obviously he will be playing against much more seasoned players. In terms of his decision making and vision this shouldn't be affected but possibly his ability to draw tacklers and stand up in them may take a hit

Sorry guys will do it this arvo. Been flat out all weekend. Thought I had, but will amend the issue

Heard it from McCartney at the coach the coaches presentation in Casey. He even picked him out in a bit of footage also. I think it was a reference to his complete desire to improve and play but also his football smarts.

I was guessing this to be the consensus from demonland, nothing wrong with him making fair assessments of where he is sitting in the midfield and at the end of the day, he should want to get his body ready for an AFL standard. Regardless of this, Brendan McCartney has a very high opinion of Clayton Oliver and said that he is a "really special talent" and "has somethign that most draftees dont have"

Didn't read the updated posts when I commented that right foot statement, definitely no intention of being a [censored]

Definitely a right footer

more in jest, i forget these forums don't convey it so well. He definitely does have a little bit of self preservation about him but i guess we dont particularly want him standing with his back to the back but rather moving towards the pack.

Loved hearing Jade Rawlings speak about Jesse Hogan in Casey but also having a good chat about it. The emphasis being put on things that he has been taught and coached well to be able to implement them in his game consistently. Jade Rawlings talking about how they spent a substantial amount of time, especially early on, teaching him to use his hips more than his arms, pretty obvious progression but alot of unders key forward rely on being bigger and stronger and pushing players out of position or beating them on the lead rather than moving them out of the way in the simplest form. He highlighted how competitive he was as a person and how frustrated he got while it was not working for him in training, obviously the effort paid off.

To be fair, alot of players nowdays will use the outside of their preffered foot to hit targets than using their opposite. Obviously not all Sam Mitchell and Brayshaw are two really good examples of using both sides of the body, Rohan Bail was another who was never afraid to use his left but it was much worse than his preferred. Trengove does not need to use his left foot yet and everyone is putting undue emphasis on the use of this foot. He will be unlikely to use it at training, especially in drills where time and space is plenty and would not be in full training if there was even the slight worry about him being in a position where he would need to use his left and it would deteriorate his condition from looking promising back on the sidelines

Pedersen? ??

Technically both are first round picks, but i agree with the sentiment. Stoked to see Trenners moving into the main group for training and hopefully increasing his load does not lead to the break down and soft tissue injuries that are often seen in recovery from these issues. A strong marking, hard tackling, inside mid will further compliment and strengthen our midfield group and he has poise which is something that we lack significantly

I like spoils, I like the idea of making the game as even as possible as often it is heavily midfield based. Adding contested and clearances will further increase this, that's said il go with the majority!

Same in most football circles, the 5th is someone who will push into the contest and often play as an extra mid. We often used a winger last year and usually they would sweep the contest, but it was a role that crossy and Jack Watts often played which could coincide with them being third man up often ...

Nothing you have said actually continues on from any of the points that I made in relation to your actual expectations and how ridiculous the bar you set for him as a player was. Not only are you only placing a goal output on his expectations, but the fact that you only consider a 30 goal increase from his previous season to be an acceptable level is ridiculous, where do you expect Melbourne to finish? Will our total goal tally increase by only 30 goals and it is the responsibility of Jack Watts to kick all these? If not, even if it improves by 100 goals he is still responsible for effectively 1/3 of our increased goal tally and therefore this is why your expectations are clearly unrealistic. Whilst I am not disagreeing that he is not going to be playing as a more permanent forward, he will not a be a deep target and will be playing as more of the 5th as a forward, pushing up and down the ground and effectively playing as a midfielder whilst in that role as a HFF. He will not be spending more than 15-20% of his game time in our forward 50 in my opinion, unless they are completely changing the role that he has played and did play last year. This also indicates that the amount of times we will be looking for him in our forward 50 will be insignificant relative to Hogan, Dawes, Gartlett, Frost and even possibly Gawn who could well spend a similar amount of game time in the deep forward area. He is more damaging for us being the player recieving the ball at around the 65m mark anyway and delivering it into 50 and whilst you think that goal assists are not what he should be basing an acceptable season on, score involvements its definitely what he should be aiming to increase. Whilst it is fair to expect improvement from Watts, and I do expect continual improvement from most of our players. The areas of improvement that need to come from Watts will be the ability to continually be involved in the contest and whilst you may say that is "modest and naive" it is 100% what would have been said to him at his end of year meeting and again what will be said to him by the coaches when goals are set for the season. Will this lead to a 40 goal season, it is highly unlikely considering all of the available information, but I do not really expect you to have a logical argument about a player you so openly dislike and your bias has a major impact on what you expect or consider a reasonable season. EDIT: Happy to have a reasonable conversation about Jack Watts and anything that involves the melbourne football club, but a reasonable conversation is tough when you rarely address the points made in the response and choose to take the small quote out which you feel best suits your often condescending and patronizing posts.

Correct, but you are basing his performance purely off goal kicking and setting that as the bench mark. Id be much happier for him to continue improving his consistency and be increasing his amount of score involvements. If he can be averaging over 20 disposals and 7 or so score involvement a game as a high half forward/wing I will feel he is more than adequately playing his role for the side. All of the players you mentioned spend significantly more time in the forward 50 than Jack Watts does and the same is so for most of the players who kick over 40 goals. Higgins 39, Everitt 33 and Deledio 27 are really when the list starts involving midfield/forward but even so Everitt played a lot deeper. If we are able to have 3, 40+ goal kickers our side should easily be in the top 4 as our output score will increase by 1/7 if we are making the assumption that Hogan and Gartlett hold form. (Edit: whilst one player increasing their goal kicking by 30 goals only gives us 250 for the year, it makes for a reasonable assumption that he wouldn't be kicking 100% of our extra goals and therefore we would be looking at a 300+ goal season and Watts would still be kicking nearly 50% of our extra goals) whilst I do hope for a higher goal output from Jack Watts, I think a 25+ goal season out of high half forward will be a great result and will reward him with a contract extension, 40 goals will make him a top 50 player in the AFL and probably melbournes most influential player.

Firstly, I don't agree with your sentiment on Spencer White (who is not up to the grade and clearly not up to the grade) and Jake Lovett (didn't set the world on fire at TAC cup level, giving him a chance to play at Casey without using a draft pick is great.) secondly Terlich and Jones both were contracted, therefore we either pay them out, highly unlikely, or we have them around this year, which is the case. 18 players on our list have played less than 21 games, I think that indicates we have a whole list of prospect and developing players. Personally, Smith has athletic attributes (repeat sprint and decent vertical) which can translate to playing AFL, his natural hand eye will also help. Will he make it, who knows, but I think these attributes combined with a full time AFL environment could see him develop into a mid sized defender.

True, lets have him and t-mac spraying the ball to opposition players out of our backline? That said, im in the develop him as an athletic forward/second ruck whilst we have the spot in our list up for grabs and he can be a possile long term player in this position. He can play in the backline as it is the position that often suits athletic big men, with questionable skills. But his attriubtes can be used as strengths at both end of the ground, so whilst he is our most viable option for 2nd ruck we should use him there. Dunn and T-Mac will keep him out of our backline and i'm happy for him to use his speed to get behind opponents and run towards goal.

Coversation that could have taken place between Viney and Neeld: Viney: Wow, i really want Wines to come to Melbourne, i hope there is a way that we can get him to the club. Neeld: Yes, Wines does look like a likely type, do you think we should take him with pick 4? Viney: Here is our top 10, currently it sits like this, ...... Toumpas, Wines...... soo whilst he would have obviously wanted Wines, he may not have rated him ahead of Toumpas and when he was available we took him. its alot of he said/she said and in hindsight it was the obvious wrong decision, although they could both have 8 years left in their careers

I can't, I see having the 3 talls especially one who is so mobile and quick as frost as pivotal for the side. 2 talls, 2 hybrids, 2 smalls (who can push through the middle) is a common enough formula for a forward line. Frost/Dawes/Hogan in my opinion is our best forward line up with 2nd ruck and 2 keys.

to be fair, Todd Viney choosing Dom Barry over Jed Anderson was probably the most questionable selection from that time. Regardless of how their careers ended up and Jed Anderson has struggled at Hawthorn, he was clearly the best prospect out of the NT at the time. Regardless of what Todd Viney wanted, he was eitehr not strong enough on his conviction or was too easily persuaded to change his mind towards Toumpas. Imagine if Paul Roos said to Jason Taylor "We want darcy parish instead of Clayton Oliver", i think Taylors response would be irrate. It is his job to choose who we pick and I understand that Neeld did play a significant role on the draft table that year, only because we couldnt have Taylor until the year after. Kent was a win imo

i am in, whilst i will be out galavanting around europe for a couple months towards the end of the ultimate football season which means I will be a pretty useless comissioner.

The similarity between Grimes and Cross is a great one. Both really strong overhead, good runners, average to poor disposal, defensively very good and will always give 100% effort. Grimes is also giving himself every opportunity to improve and have more of an impact this year due to his increased fitness and ability to cover the ground better. Its an interesting role to fill

Personally I think ANB is too slow to play off that half back flank, and his disposal is equally as questionable as Grimes. Grimes is a much better option off half back than ANB due to his tank, defensive strengths and ability to mark over head. I think ANB has a bright future but it will be through that mid/fwd rotation that he has been doing currently.

I get the concept, but il bet ya it's not the case for 10-15 players in the squad. Hogan, Jones, Gawn, Vince, Viney, T-Mac Dunn all walk into the team and would do so on pretty limited minutes and a terrible nab cup

Not only this, but he's barely played footy in the last 12 months as well. The quickest way to ruin his development would be shoving him into a forwardline, at CHF and expecting him to provide an option up and down the ground. Happy to to see him play NAB cup and then VFL. But I have an inkling he could well be starting in the vfl 2s for confidence and development reasons. But again who knows. Players that people dislike, especially H and Dawes, are locks to start in the team if fit. Especially considering H is our most experienced player on the list and will probably slot back into the half back flank which is more suited to him. My team is constantly changing but how I see it starting, given no injury list: Jetta Dunn Garland Salem TMac Lumumba Tyson Jones Brayshaw Watts Dawes Kent Frost Hogan Gartlett Gawn Vince Viney Bugg, Petracca, vandenBerg, trengove (Harmes or Stretch) i know Trengove 100% won't play but yeh