Pates

Been listening on and off. Sounds like Tommy "Plugger" Mac is having a great day and Melksham's going to be playing for Casey next week.

Wow I just saw the time in Melbourne, Game Day thread starting early! Wow that's just made this game even bigger. I know there's the whole one week at a time philosophy but being 4th at this stage with so many injuries would be massive.

Make the ground tremble Dees fans when Jesse kicks the first goal of the game! The blokes been through so much this year, I don't expect him to make an impact straight away but I hope he'll just enjoy being out on the G again.

Goal kicking practice and he should train like he's going to be playing every single weekend. It's been interesting (but not surprising) to see the drop off support for him on D-Land. I will say I'm not his biggest fan, and I will also say I was angry with his punch which is copping it's fair whack, but he played some important roles in big wins this year and he has also shown he has the ability to not only find the scoreboard (not always the goals though), but irritate he opposition into stupid acts. He gets a few things right I think he could be a valuable player for us going forward. That said I think with his suspension and that he will have to earn his spot back through Casey, it's difficult to imagine him pulling on a Melbourne guernsey again this year.

To me Tex's was more about shielding the goal through and JJ went into the post because of a combination of Tex's bump and him being off balance. Tex also showed remorse, compared to Hodge who claims innocence when he lined Wingard up. Should've been at least 3 weeks that one, it was such a dangerous act. I think Tex will get away with nothing answer, but I'll be happy for him to get a week!

Given the players out I'm sure the coaches has been drumming into the boys that they'll need to play tough competitive football all 4 quarters if we are to win. Cant afford to have passengers this week.

I like Kent as well but the last few times we've seen him in the seniors he looked like he wasn't doing the team things like chasin and tackling. If he gets those factors right I think he can be a good player for us.

Wow bit of a slip up there if true, I always wonder whether they already know the changes when making the squads and that usually it's minimal changes to the first thought. Also a tad disappointing, though not surprising, if Trenners missed out.

I'm not coming into this game with thoughts x (our player) will smash y or anything like that. The blues have played some good games this year and deserve respect. We had a fairly close to full strength team the last time we played and it was far from a convincing win. In face Cripps was killing us before Lewis knocked him around, it cost him 3 weeks and cost us matches we should've won. But having said that while our midfield is severely diminished, our defence has been improving and our forwards will welcome back two of our most prolific goal kickers. Gawn will be better after a couple of weeks match fitness as well. I think we should play Vince in a shut down role on Cripps, and keep Lewis in the half back line. Those coming in are going to have to play like men possessed, and their no 1 mission (aside from good skills and such) should be to harass. That was the major difference between us and Sydney last week, they gave us zero opportunity to play our game because we had no time with the ball. I'm one that is hoping to see Trenners given a chance this week. It really is the ideal opportunity for him, play him as an extractor in Tyson's role. Let's see what he's got.

For me his return is completely in Jesse's hands, if he feels like he needs a lower key return to football then 100% we do it. But if he says he's ready to return and doesn't say VFL then he's into the seniors. Simple as that. I'm not confident about this game but at the same time our team has done some amazing things this year and in no small part due to Goodwin's outside the box thinking. This is one of the most important weeks for selection, we've gone from having the good headaches to the bad ones in a very short period of time.

Spoken like a true captain. Give the media enough to run a story but support and back your teammates because at the end of the day they are the ones you go into battle with every week. Well done Jonesy. Funny they mentioned Jesse's incident with Sam Rowe as "Ugly", I still feel like that was the biggest stitch up ever. Open palm slap getting two weeks for his first offence. Absolute joke. King's comments last week were premature, I think most Demons fans were/are getting excited but when faced with what lies ahead of us now we are in the battle for the 8. Not a battle for the 4.

If Max had been playing the whole year I'd give it to him, but with him only recently returning I'd prefer he focuses on his footy rather than worrying about leadership. I said Vince initially with Lewis as my second pick, I'd probably roll that back to being Lewis first pick and Tom McD second. I know Lewis hasn't been in great form but he's still a steadying hand when he has it and knows how to marshal the troops into the correct areas. At this point I feel that's more important than perceived form. There's going to be a lot of players looking for guidance over the next few weeks, this is what we recruited him for, time for him to make good on his end of the bargain.

I'm comfortable with that, it was a cheap dog act. Will struggle to get back into the seniors before the end of the year you'd think.

Feel like it'll be 6 weeks.

Yep, if we had the same injury as last year I would almost have us as a premiership favourite.

And to actually be fair, they do it because it's their job to sell newspapers/online traffic. I'm not so much defending them but the only thing better than a good news story is sensational controversial story. Bugg's cheap shot was the bullet in the gun to let them pull the trigger. There's already been talk of an attitude change with us, that we're not content being the nice boys of Melbourne. Until now it's been positive and they've enjoyed pumping it up. Now BT reckons we've blown our chance to get more Friday night action because one of our players punched a guy. Give me a spell.

The media is doing what the media always do, find a story and [censored] the crap out of it. Forget facts or actually analysing the game, it's all about headlines and relevance. Take Robert Walls for example, I honestly thought he'd retired from the media I hadn't heard anything from him in a long time, what does he do to gain relevance again? He takes a pot shot at low hanging fruit that's already being smashed by everyone else. Easy cheap headline from a guy who has become irrelevant. Only the intelligent ones will analyse our list vs our injury list, consider that we've had multiple 6 days breaks plus travel from Perth, and also take into account we have won 4 in a row and the team we lost to is probably the form team in the comp. But they won't get the headlines because it's not sensationalist. It's truthful, and therefor boring.

He'll get onto Daniel Cross's special remedy he used for on I think it was a broken arm. I think it was a 4 week injury and he came back in 2!

Er Hogan? Not even in the mix, sure he wasn't saying something else?

I'm really hoping the extended break this week will give the coaches and the players a chance to breath and regroup. As many have said, Carlton this week will be a very tough start but belief is huge for us, the midfield looks like it will struggle so it will be on our structures and how we reload from the back. I will also say this, it's not the first time a team will come into a game with serious injury issues, I'm backing Goodwin to be able to get the players up for this. He did incredibly well when faced with the challenge of no ruckman.

On a positive not Tyson is apparently going to face a fitness test to get up this week. So clearly his knee is not as bad as first thought. I'd still have him out this week though.

As many have said the obvious ones who need to step up are Lewis and Vince. I would place both in the guts this week for some hardened bodies. Perhaps play Vince in a run with role on Cripps, blanket him like he did to Sloan. The other is perhaps an obvious one but it could even be the making of him. Petracca. He was one of our best vs Sydney (admittedly not saying a whole lot) and he's starting to get a symbiotic relationship going with big Maxxy. We will need him to take another big step for us to win remaining matches.

I'll give you that regarding the players we brought in. They both had absolute mares of games, Wagner in particular was disappointing for me because he was playing well prior to him being dropped in favour of Salem. He's definitely better than what he showed on Friday. White I was less convinced about his selection but bare in mind that 4 players, 3 of which I feel have been in better VFL form, made themselves unavailable for selection by stupidity. So we were dipping even further into our depth. Unless your GWS, depth players are always going to be plodders and we have had our injuries directed straight out our best. As someone else pointed out we have also lost AvB and Brayshaw, both who I would consider at least in the best 25. So we are getting to the depth of our depth.

Any other team have a similar tough stretch of short breaks and travel? For me it's the trip to Perth that really effed us, if it had been six day breaks all in Melbourne or at worst a trip to Canberra then I feel we might've got away with it a bit more. But finishing that stretch by traveling to Perth seems to have proven too much. And of course they give us our one and only Friday night match at the end of it. I'd be happy with MadAsHell's changes, I agree that some experience and leadership is needed and this could be time for Trenners to show the selectors he's still got something in the tank.

I must admit I'm not as up on everything in and around the club but White coming in was a surprise because I hadn't really heard of him bang down the door of selection. Trenners sounds like he's just been going about his business with every bit the professionalism you'd expect. But if he's ever going to get one last crack at it, surely it's now. Play him across half back in Vinces/Lewis's role with stints in the middle, we've given him the extra year, let's see what he's got. As someone pointed out on this thread, the selection committee seemed to have tunnel vision when it came to Weids vs Pedders, look how that's turned out. Give him a go.