Maldonboy38

We could have Dawes who drops marks, with the ball tumbling along the ground for oppositon backline smalls to op up. Or, we could have Pederson who plays 5 great games a year, 5 howlers, and the remainder where we can't even remember if he plays. Or Frost, whose possession count is about as high as a football journalist's integrity, but he gets to a lot of contests and makes a physical impact that allows Kent, Garlett to crumb ( which happened a few times against GWS). Out of those three, it is Pederson for mine, as limited as he can be. But I reckon we will see Weideman, Hulett or rookie Joel Smith slot in there by season's end.

I just finished watching the full replay (couldn't resist anymore so purchased 1 month of AFL Live). I can't see Frost getting dropped. Yes, it wasn't a great game but he got to a lot of contests and impacted them physically. Also, with Watts playing the way he did, Frost is really a mobile resting ruckman in our forward line. Tyson's day was a mix of very good disposal and very bad - not bad enough to get dropped. Omac for Dunny is the only clear one at this stage, due to injury.

Just watched the Viney highlights - that was some game of footy from him. His knack of sprinting as soon as he takes possession and aggressively setting up the next play was breathtaking. I reckon he will bet tagged a bit this year, but will handle it and continue to excel.

I wanted him gone at the end of last year and couldn't find a place in my starting 22 before round 1. His good was excellent but his bad was very, very poor. With the ball he has skills few have, but his getting the ball was often weak and timid. But that is not the Jack I saw yesterday. Contested marks, sprintng away from the contest, and actually MAKING the play, not waiting to feed off someone else making the play. I am so stoked that I was wrong about him. Now I want to see it in rounds 2, 3 and so on...

Turn the stupid loud speakers and gambling ads off. Stop the stupid games and interviews by inarticulate, frothy, superficial radio and TV personalities. Bring back the youth games and 2nds. I don't want to buy anything more, sign on or up to anything more, or be swamped with pop-culture carp. Is it too much to ask to just watch the %$#×@# football! Give me a coffee and a Footy Record and leave me alone to talk footy with family and friends. Horses. Bugger me. (These 2 statements are not be connected in any way)

I've been waiting for MFC success for a very long time, being born just weeks after their last premiership. But there is something in me that will celebrate big time when Trenners plays again. He is almost a living symbol of all the horrible junk that happened 2009 - 2013. I still reckon he is a natural footballer who at his best is an absolute gun. I hope to be at his return game and I hope he becomes everything his youth form show3d he could be. It is about time we had ad good luck story after Scully, Clark, etc...

Could this possibly mean that the Footy Show might actually present some football personnel who will ACTUALLY TALK ABOUT THE FOOTY!!?!?? I am one of the rare ones who actually likes Garry Lyon as a footy person and a Melbourne person, but the Footy Show is the worst kind of TV show. Yes, it has a strong history, involves high profile footy people but is such an outdated product which relies on mudraking and piggy-backing onto ex-football juvenile adults that it is simply impossible to wwtch. Excruciating in fact.

He is a human highlights reel who is up there with Flower, Farmer, Jakovich and the Ox for pure natural talent. There was a purity about his football that is rarely seen and I feel privileged to have had him at the Dees for the short time he was able to give.. But he is not suited to the social and psychological demands of AFL standard footy, or the pressures of full-time suburban life. He has major cultural/moral clash issues all mixed together with alcohol and violence. I hope he can get back to playing footy in NT and that he enjoys life and footy again. I hope he can find sobriety, freedom from rage and acts of violence, and a way forward to find his place in the world again.

I still have to do a double take thinking that the grandson of a Collingwood Weideman is playing for the MFC. I hope he hecomes a gun, but a bloody Weideman....

Harmes or Oscar Mac - can't decide between the two so I hope both of them. Harmes was a huge surprise for me late last year, and CHF remains wide open for us and Oscar looks like a prime candidate.

Apart from the obvious appeal of a father-son from a great player of the past, and not playing footy for three years etc... I see this as a window into the new MFC. And by that I mean club, not playing list. We simply do not leak anymore. At all, unless the club thinks it is strategic to do so (think of all the Howe movement information that circulated. Pretty sure that was club inspired). The leading personnel AND the entire Board are a tight-knot closed shop who make decisions and act upon them without too much spin. Pesoally I love this new look MFC. The recruiters have noticed this young kid, kept an eye on him for a long period, seen a raw potential with unknown limits, and have kept it totally quiet. Go back 5-10 years and we would have had his name up in lights with promos saying "Dees focus on father-son gun" or some such carp, with Herald-Sun photos, and banal interviews. Out of all the trading we have done, which includes very shrewd planning to end up with picks 3 & 7, there is something about the ercruting of this young kid that excites me. A 6'3" quick young bloke who is quick, willing to learn, and is a raw talent. And most importatnly - at this point anyway - has no boundaries on his potential. I can't wait to see what he becomes.

Should be a cracking game of footy, if deficient in the skills department as most round 1 games are. Hard to predict the result because we have no info on final lists, injuries, form through the NAB challenge etc... Over the last few years my eldest daughter and I have made a point of attending the MFC v GWS games, a it is our annual "booing of Tom Scully" match which we enjoy immensely. I don't understand why this gives us so much pleasure but it does. But this year, I genuinely don't give a **** about Tom Scully. He has become such a non-performer and rarely impacts a game that I will hardly notice him.

Melksham is a walk up start in our starting 22 but will be under pressure from a strong group just behind him who showed in 2015 they are rapidly improving (ANB, White, Stretch etc...) Bugg and Kennedy have more work to do.

This is really difficult to do. A lot of players of similar potential output. B: Jetta Dunn Garland HB: Lamumba/Bugg TMac Melksham C: Salem N Jones Vince HF: Kent Hogan Brayshaw F: Petracca Dawes/Frost Garlett R: Gawn Viney Tyson I: Trengove, VandenBerg, Kennedy, White (if I remember, Mitch White is the left-footer) I hate putting two players in one position but I cannot separate or decide between Dawes or Frost, Lamumba or Bugg. Whichever one makes it the other will not make it into the 22. I also have a sneaking suspicion that one of Max King or young Smith the tall Rookie may surprise for the 2nd big forward role to help Hogan, and neither Dawes nor Frost will hold their spot. Disappointed I couldn't fit Harmes, Bugg, Stretch or ANB into the 22.

2016 choices: - Three coaches making an amazing difference - Roos, Goodwin and McCartney Three Leading players from 2015 - Vince, Viney, and Jones, Three young guns who have us all salivating - Hogan, Brayshaw and Salem

Yep, this is the heart of the matter for me too Devo. MFC have more than hope for 2016, they have a specific aim with strategies all worked out. When the club via PJ said they were aiming at finals in 2016 it was not just hopeful spin, it was a genuine declaration of intent. It looks like they are a fair way along a 2-3 year specific list-management plan and so far this trade period has been a major part of its success.

B+ for me. Ever since Peter Jackson got to Melbourne the culture has changed completely from one where our worst nightmares were played out in font of everyone, to everything being done quietly behind the scenes without any froth and bubble. Unlike many posters, I thought Toumpas and Howe were/could be good footballers. Half way through the trade period I was stuck in a neutral position - of not being inspired or disappointed about whether our trading them out had resulted in any real list improvement. But having seen the outcome of Melksham, Kennedy, Bugg, and 2 draft picks inside the top 10, I find it hard to beleive that it is MFC who have orchestrated this. In planning and development on and off the filed, we have been a basket case for so long, a B+ result for us is like an A++ for the top clubs. I can't give an A because we do still need a pure, skillful outside runner and another key forward. However, I reckon one of these will emerge this year through development.

Is it possible that we use some of these highh draft pick numbers to go after Prestia again for 2016?

I loved having Howe at the club, loved his high marking and I reckon he was a genuine footballer who could read the ball in the air like Modra and Ablett. I hope his career goes OK at the Pies but I personally believe they have massively overrated him if they think he can get anywhere near the output of Isaac Smith. As a running player he actually has some skill so should be an above average wingman but his inconsistency was frightening. Paul Roos has been saying for 2 years that the gap between our best and worst is too big and he as coach is working furiously at narrowing our best/worst down to a more trustworthy margin. Howe is symptomatic example of the gap between our worst and best and maybe that is why he is being let go. Same with Toumpas. They could both produce sublime football immediately followed by weak attempts that made them look disinterested or unable to think on thei feet.

Totally unsure about the balance in the trade that has Howe and Toumpas departing, and in return receive Kennedy and some picks. It looks and feels like a loss on the part of the MFC but for some reason it doesn't trouble me too much. But I do think this a very loud statement from Roos, Goodwin and McCartney- and maybe others - that they do not really rate Howe or Toumpas highly at all. There was little or no effort to keep them at MFC.

The Howe, Bastinac, Aish trade circle would be an absolute coup for us, but it doesn't quite add up, because all three players are rated very differently. Aish = potential gun Howe = natural footballer but not a core essential player for any starting 22 Bastinac = not in best 22 of any team except maybe strugglers like Brisbane or Carlton North and MFC probably would need to sweeten the deal in some way, but unsure best way to get it done.

Close to my favourite player - think he is a gun. A number of peope have already posted that he is a natural footballer and that is his real strength. Bartel and Mitchell, Hazelby, Cross - all of them are slowish and most slower than Trenners. Speed is a great attribute but not an essential one. He can mark and kick so well he belongs as a defensive forward. Yes, he totally lost kicking penetration on the run but his set shots were usually fine (with a few standout horrible exceptions). But someone who can read the play, mark well, offer leadership, and tackle like a beast - a few more of his type would be fine.

I agree with a couple of other posters about opening up the option of going for a tall in the draft or trade period. If we are able to land even 2 of Melksham, Bugg or Kennedy, and we add in Petracca and Trengove, the midfield competitiveness and reliability across 4 quarters in a game looks much stronger. The remaining immediate midfield need is for an elite running outside player like Jetta from the Swans or I Smith from Hawks (as examples, not that we are getting them). As MFC still is not strong or successful enough to attract this kind of talent, then getting this type of player looks unlikely. So surely we have to look for some strength in the forward 50 to work with Jesse? I was a fan of recruiting Dawes to stand alongside Clarke but that has became a huge loss for Melbourne. Couldn't have worked out any worse. Pederson is a huge utility player rahter than a 2nd forward, Watts will not be best 22 this year, and players like Frost and O Mcdonald are more likely to play down back.

Free agency has totally stuffed equalisation and the AFL have to consider restricting Free Agents moving to top 4 clubs. The Hawks have recruited Gibson, Lake and Frawley and others will be looking to move there, knowing that success is theirs for the taking.

He was outstanding today but WCE gave him the ball on a plate. I can't stand the fact that he leaves us and gets a flag, but today reminds me that he is a super player (not the spud everyone says just because he left us) and he played well in a great team.