Pates

I think the revised pay agreement is a step in the right direction. I'm still totally baffled by the health insurance side of things but there ya go. Let's see how this first season goes and how it's operated, the best way to ensure the women get a better pay agreement is to get behind it and go to games. The more marketable the games are the more chance they will have of seeing their paycheques increase.

As for punishment I would expect him to play the first 2 games in the VFL at a minimum and the leadership group should impose certain markers he has to meet if he's to play any NAB challenge games. The two players I would least like to be facing in his position would be Viney and Jones. They are professionalism personified and I would picture them being [censored] off. I would be going for the opposite, make him train with someone like Viney. Show him what it really takes to be pushing to be an A-grade AFL midfielder, challenge him to emulate Jacks dedication. This can be a serious opportunity to mould him from being a boy into a man.

Jeeze harsh on the bloke much? We all made mistakes when we were that age and no I'm not defending his actions, it was stupid and could've been a hell of a lot worse but FMD give him a chance to redeem himself before you go saying we have a possible [censored] in the making. Everything I've heard about him around the club is that he's a good bloke and well liked by the boys, he's got a big future ahead of him and I'm not just talking about his football career. He's young he's stuffed up, the leadership group will act appropriately and I'm sure will make every effort that not only this won't ever happen agin with him but for a very long long time at the MFC (I'm realistic enough to know that it will happen again some time in the future). Someone please tell me the last time we had a player pulled over for drink driving at our club? We had a mostly good record with these kinds of infringements so before we go crazy thinking Clayton has ruined the "no flogs" policy lets just take some deep breaths.

Definitely a good move to stay well away from the footy show. For one I don't know that he would be particularly welcome back, but Billy has kept his spot in that team and I can't see them patching things up for a while. I wish him luck as he tries to rebuild his life and reputation.

I wouldn't be against the idea of having Minson as a 3rd in line ruckman. I just don't know how he would feel about being 3rd in line, would he be expecting to be higher in the pecking order?

I expect Weeds to remain at Casey for close to the first half of the year, there isn't a great need to rush him so keep developing him with time a patience. I agree with you regarding Watts, we've always know he had the talent in him and now that he's starting to show it he can keep pushing the boundaries of his abilities. But I'd like to see him spend less time in the ruck, while it's good to know he now has that experience I prefer Pedo as a second ruck. The questions will come when Weeds (hopefully) starts bashing down the doors, who do we play as second ruck to Max?

I'm hoping that Hogan watched the Grand Final and can use Boyd as a little bit of inspiration. Those two were on level pegging at the start of the year and at mid year it looked like it was all going pear shaped for Boyd, but he stepped up in a big way in the Grand Final with the way he went about it. Hogan needs to find his happy place when things aren't working for him because when he gets down on himself his body language is like a beacon. If the forwards are to step up, I feel it will be centred around him with others rising around him. Watts I'd just like him to back up his 2017, there is of course improvement in his game but it was so great watching him enjoy himself out there I just want to see more of that. His link up with Hogan was at times second nature, they were just working together at a level I haven't seen between Melbourne forwards in years. I'm with CBDees though, I feel that the injection of experience with Lewis, Hibberd, and Melksham from the Midfield and defence will springboard the improvement with it flowing into the forward line. Rebound footy is the big thing, the kick and hope into the forward line allows the waiting defence to set up from there and swing it into attack in a blink of an eye. I feel like our defence is very settled and the biggest issue we've had is disposal out of the backline, hopefully that will be vastly improved with Hibberd and Melksham in there. Something that should temper people's excitement is that although we were close this year, we had an excellent run with injuries. While we've got improved depth with Lewis, Hibberd, and Melksham, there are areas where injuries could still leave us wide open. We may not be so lucky in 2017.

Ideally we wouldn't need to, but at this point in time we still need to $$$. Sucks but it's the reality of the situation. Hopefully we will get to a point where we don't need it, but until then we need to suck it up and try to make it a second home rather than a burden.

I don't think I've said this in previous years (been more pragmatic about it) but I'm pretty happy with this fixture. It's given us more prime time exposure (hopefully we'll make good on it), and I think it's pretty equitable in terms of the teams we play. I'm laughing about the tigers being unhappy about getting no Friday night fixtures. They don't deserve it, they've been spoonfed good slots for years now, back to the pack until you actually play decent footy.

I would say as a Melbourne member you're only obligation with them being a sponsor is that you have them in your considerations when you look at buying a new car. If the price doesn't match what your expectations are then it is what it is.

I wonder how many (if any) Friday night games we'all get and what are the chances we'all get it as our home game. I'm going to lock a few in based on previous seasons, we will play both Carlton and Essendon once at the G and it'll be an away game. Just seems to be tradition now.

It's not my ideal round one opening to the year but this needs to be seen as an opportunity. Goodwin and his team can smash one of the hoodoos (plus the dislike of Etihad) early in the season. It could really launch us, particularly as St Kilda will most likely be one of the teams battling for the final spot in the 8 next season. I'm sick of my Saints fans constantly being smug about our paltry record against them.

Carlton, Essendon, North, and St Kilda. 4 teams I'm sick of us losing to and if we want to push ahead we need to STOP losing to them. The Essendon game was a disgrace beyond measure but one that a lot of us saw coming, thankfully we've got a 4 time premiership player in our team who's got enough experience to hopefully be able to pull guys into line when they start to believe their own hype. I want W's against all those teams in 2017.

Don't know anything about him, but welcome to the Red and Blue!

I don't like it but I would also say you can't base a decision off one year, this year was also probably the tightest top 8 from 1st-7th. At some point in the year each one of those teams (hell I'll even throw the Roos in at 8th) looked like they could be a premiership contender. That the dogs did it from 7th is an amazing achievement alone. Whether or not the bye favours the the bottom 4 we still don't know for sure. Let's see how next year goes and if it does appear that it disadvantages the top 4 it must be removed.

TMac and OMac have both turned into very good players from picks you would call a write off. That said I feel this might be a good chance to do pick up some real smokey's that might be a bit different. Perhaps look at a quick small forward, or maybe an outside the box ruck/forward. Either way I think we've used what we had available to us to better our team for 2017, you can't ask for much more.

Best of luck Lynden, he's a goer that has always given his all. I hope things work out for him at the Pies, although not so much for the Pies themselves!

Not a bad poll to start with at all! Re-signing Jesse was definitely the key to giving us momentum for 2017. It's put to rest all the issues surrounding him and given confidence to others at the club and (as shown by Lewis) confidence in players from other clubs to look at us. We can tackle 2017 with no dark cloud hanging over us, with the addition of 3 new senior players (counting Melksham as the third), and plenty of reason to have hope.

All the best to him, I hope another club picks him up. He had his uses during his time here but sadly wasn't on the park enough to be able to fulfil his main use which was to be a full forward. Tried his guts out when we was out there though.

Yeah I had to laugh when he got swung to the backline and everyone was praising it as a genius move! I know he likes to kick goals, and on his day he can be decent at it, but he is better as a defender who can swing forward. His natural leap makes him quite a good intercept mark, as a forward he just doesn't seem to do enough. Dunn is a good fit for the pies as a temporary defender but they've got serious holes back there.

I would've been interested in Vardy but he wants senior team action. Give Gawns dominance this year I doubt we could guarantee that.

Would there be any chance of finding an additional hard bodied back up ruckman in the PSD?

Garlands got to be pretty low on the pecking order now, clearly Dunn has decided that. I also wonder whether some younger players like Stretch and ANB (who I both like) might feel like they won't be seeing many senior games next year.

Ah well it's silly season after all and given everything that was discussed in the thread it doesn't get much sillier! Free agent next year, maybe have a look at him then but until that time comes we can move on.

This is a really good pick up in my opinion, something we have lacked is some polish out the half back line (Salem was meant to be that this year but had his Thyroid issues). Now we've got Hibberd, Melksham, (Vince as well), and Salem as options back there plus Hunt with his run and carry. Welcome to the Dees Michael!