Mallee Bull

In - Toumpas, Hogan, Wines, Viney, Dawes

Out - TMac, Petterd

Looks good to me

I would even throw in the compo pick from FA to get it across the deal.

We have a guy sitting at Casey for the past few years by the name of Davis who could fill TMacs position, that and we already have Watts, Dunn, Tynan, Garland, Frawley as reasonable talls down back.

Hell we could even use that extra pick on Plowman

Davis is not even close to being up to replacing McDonald. I would wager he will be one of the 8-10 players delisted in the next few weeks.

Two more A grade mids with Jones continuing to improve (making 3)

I agree with you about needing 3 A grade mids. I guess I feel that Trengove, Grimes and especially Sylvia have the ability to become A grade next year.

Pick 20 could yield a Nat Fyfe. It could yield an Adam Maric. You just don't know what your going to get. We know Dawes has the ability to be a good if not great power forward. Play him purely as a Forward along Clark with someone like Pederson pinch hitting instead and our forward line starts to look a lot more formidable than it did this year.

Jones, Sylvia, Trengove, Grimes, Howe, Blease, McKenzie with the addition of Byrnes, Viney, Wines/Toumpas/O'rourke and Taggert. I think we can afford to use 20 on Dawes.

I would make Sylvia watch Ryan O'Keefe's grand final 3 times a week for the next 4 months. I would say that there's no reason you can't have O'Keefe's 2012 if you get fitter, more dedicated, and give 100% to every contest in every minute of every game. Don't do it for a quarter, or a half, but 120 minutes. Don't coast from contest to contest as you often do; and try and match O'Keefe's tackle count from 2102. O'Keefe averaged 6.5 tackles per game to Sylvia's 3.8. His desperation and physicality around stoppages and contested ball was significant.

Jones did a great job of having the type of year that Brad Sewell produces and there's no reason that Sylvia can't emulate O'Keefe.

Personally I thought Sylvia had a solid season, all things considered. He fractured his spine in the nab cup and was probably brought back into the side prematurely as his first few games were awful, but towards the end of the season he was regularly in our best. Its already been stated that he wants to play in the midfield and Neeld wants him to play there. If he can stay injury free over the summer then I will be very excited about him come round 1.

Hawthorn has a lot of first round draft pick players. Good team. Sydney beat them. How many first round draft picks did they have playing?

No doubt GWS will eventually be a good side, but first round draft picks don't necessarily result in gun players. Look at Richmond in 2005. Look at us in recent times.

Some of their top picks won't work out. Others will leave to return home.

Don't panic.

I think that our forward line needs more attention as things stand. 2013 cannot be like 2012 so factoring Hogan into this is irrelevant. We have added Viney, Byrnes and possibly Ray to the midfield, along with most likely a quality mid with pick 4. This will compliment the further development of Jones, Trengove, Grimes, McKenzie etc and a fully fit Sylvia.

However, our forward line has lost Jurrah and Green. Clark is the hope, but there is no guarentee that he will fully recover from his injury. Howe is being pushed up the ground. So this leaves us at the moment with Fitzpatrick, Williams, Sheahan and Cook. Fitzy is the only one for mine that would come close to being ready in 2013. Dawes or Pederson for the right price is a must.

Echuca Primary...

Don't knock it, I played my first footy there....albeit many years before JV.

It might be a worth while exercise for the established players to deliver memberships in person to NEW members. But even then it might prove to be too much.

He's not a spud. He's not a superstar, but he does play a role as we'd need. I'm glad we didn't get him back then, as I thought he was overvalued, but that doesn't mean he is valueless..

He is a player we could definitely use. Dawes & Clarke IMO would be a good Foil for one another, especially when a watts possibly returns as a 3rd tall, after another year down back.

I'd argue that he failed his role tonight. Struggled to take a grab all night (3 marks for the game), had 5 hit outs as a second ruckman, constantly fumbled or didn't hit a target with his disposal and the one goal he did manage was a flukey snap from a stoppage. At the moment I wouldn't rate him in the pies best 22.

Also, how horrifying is it to think that we were into Dawes before we were into Mitch!!! We would have been blamed for turning him into a spud whilst Clark was finals bound with Freo....

Wouldn't count us out on Sharrod as we have what they want = Stef Martin

I was at the game tonight and thought the same thing. Collingwood have plenty of mids similiar to Sharrod (Pendles, Daisy, Sidebottom, Beams) but they desperately need to get Dawes out of the second ruck role. Neeld clearly doesn't want Stef, we could really use Wellingham...it would be win win.

Clark and Grimes - Gotta have the Captain up there surely!?!?!?!

Bloody Hell. Time to put all of this crap behind us and concentrate on winning games of football. Bring in COMMITTED footballers.

Watching the team this year clearly demonstrated how much Bailey was a unmitigated disaster for the MFC. Unless Neeld is a miracle worker, head overseas for a couple of years to think of other things other than footy.

The single biggest stuff up of the decade was employing Bailey.

While not defending Bailey, you can't blame it entirely on him. Our recruiting from 2000 to 2006 was terrible and Bailey inherited a horrible list from Daniher and Cameron. I'm really hoping Neeld cleans out atleast 6 from the senior list.

This year has been pathetic and draining but I'm not going to despair. Big clean out coming. The time to despair will be if we are still this bad in 12 months time. Silly season is here!

Ratten is a good senior coach whereas Neeld isn't. Logical enough?

Bugger me. It is far too early to tell whether Neeld is or is not a good senior coach. You could put who ever you want in as senior coach at the start of this season and we would still be a rabble. We have a very ordinary list. VERY ordinary list. A list that Neeld inherited, not a list he assembled. Give the man some time to delist the players he does not want and then bring in the players he does want, and then to teach these players how to play the type of footy he wants them to play.

Really concerned to read that Cook was playing Casey Reserves on the weekend. I'm all for not debuting him until he's ready, but the fact that he still can't crack it at VFL level after 2 years (being a first round draft pick) is worrying. Has anyone seen him play much this year? I've only seen the one VFL match and barely noticed him.

Ah, Sorry Dinga Ling but you aren't quite right there. Blease was selected at 17, Shuey at 18, then Strauss at 19. Personally I think that is the correct order for them anyway, Blease is starting to show big things, I think he will end up the better player of the three. Strauss is only 12 months over a broken leg. Give him time. Look how Blease is starting to bounce back finally after his own broken leg.

MFC 2000 Pick 16 Scott Thompson (went home to S.A)

MFC 2001 Pick 9 Luke Molan

MFC 2002 Pick 14 & 15 Daniel Bell and Nicholas Smith

MFC 2003 Pick 3 Sylvia Pick 5 B McLean

MFC 2004 Pick 13 Matthew Bate Pick 15 Lynden Dunn (Pick 15 was from Crows for Thompson)

MFC 2005 Pick 12 Nathan Jones

MFC 2006 Pick 12 James Frawley

MFC 2007 Pick 4 Cale Morton Pick 14 Jack Grimes

MFC 2008 Pick 1 Jack Watts 17 Blease 19 Strauss

MFC 2009 Pick 1 Scully Pick 2 Trengove Pick 11 Gysberts Pick 18 Tapscott

MFC 2010 Pick 12 Lucas Cook

MFC 2011 Pick 11 Traded for Mitch Clarke

The jury is still out from 2007 onwards IMO, but most of our first round draft picks from the first half of the last decade have been ordinary players at best. This is one of the main reasons we have been so bad for the past 6 years. How we can identify and develop blokes like Jolly, Jamar, Davey etc from the rookie draft but then be unable to nail our high draft picks astounds me.

We nearly made the 8 this year with all of those wallopings. I have a much better feeling about next year and of securing a finals berth, rewarded through playing strong, accountable and structured footy.

Dramatic turn-arounds can take place as we witnessed this year with WCE.

We were 3 games and 15% away from the 8 this year, personally I don't think we were anywhere near making the 8, considering we struggled against GC at home, then lost to Port the following weak. Reality is, by the end of the season we had fallen in a heap.

No doubt we will improve next year, but so will the sides vying for the 8. North will improve, the tigers will. Freo will have all of their players back from injury. Essendon finished 8th and they will likely improve. The saints are aging but still have many quality players on their list.

I'm optimistic about next year, but I think we'll end up just short.

To be honest I'm not that excited by 2012. I think any changes Neeld makes will take at least 12 months to take full effect.

True, but I'm expecting the boys to be bigger, fitter and hungrier - their place in the side will demand it. I don't think we'll make the 8, but I highly doubt we'll get those monstrous belting's that we have suffered through these past 4 years.

Not sure who we played against, but I can remember the old Southern Stand was there...so it must have been around 89 or 90. I would have been knee high. Really wish I was old enough to remember the sides of 87/88...but would hate to think how I would have handled it when Jim ran across the mark!

Thanks for the info guys. I wasn't saying that I thought the merger was a bad idea, I completely understood why the club did it. I was just curious as to how much interest the club would be paying on the debt we incurred as a result of the merger.

If the debt is 1.8 million, then it would be somewhere between 100,000 to 180,000 p/a I assume.

Hey guys, I was reading an article on Norths considerable Debt and the large amounts of interest they pay annually to service this debt.

It got me thinking about our current level of debt. After Debt Demolition, we were debt free, but I recall that we went back into debt when we acquired the Bentleigh Club.

Does anyone have/know of the figures involved?

The name does not work for me!

Sounds like he should be singing in Memphis or Tamworth not running around the MCG

It's mentioned in the article that he's not using his first name (Zyrus) presently, as his community is mourning a like named person. If he can kick goals, I think his name would would excite!