deejammin'

I hear what you’re saying but three years versus four years on a contract doesn’t mean as much these days. If we get to the third year and Jack’s not working out at Melbourne, then a trade will probably happen, hell players have asked for trades one year into a contract, if he’s ruined his body through injury he will retire like a number of other players, if a four year contract gets him over the line I think it’s worth it. I think Jack is a high quality player and individual that sets super high standards in behaviour, training and attack on the ball and that he will make our club and team better. I think he will play well for us, heart and soul for all four years and possibly beyond, but I really don’t think four years versus three will make much difference if things go wrong. Nathan Jones sounds like it’s as much about him coaching from the list as it is about playing, this idea is become common and will get more common with the reduction in the soft FD cap. Burgoyne at Hawthorn, Hodge at Brisbane, Mitchell at West Coast, Heath Shaw to GWS?? it’s a common thing clubs do to get quality people and leadership in-house. Nathan is a club legend, a good person and a good leader who is intelligent enough football wise and emotionally to be a good coach. We’ve all seen the hard way what happens when you let your senior players go elsewhere on mass, Bruce, Yze, J McDonald, Green all left our club at a similar time to be assets to other coaching panels, including premierships, as our list bottomed out and floundered for leadership. We still have a relatively young list with relatively few experienced leaders. Keeping Nathan is a no brainer and if the best way to do it is one year on the list then great.

Gawn didn’t play in the dogs game. Preuss did. And there are two ways to look at that game, one is that ruck men aren’t important and that Dunkley broke even, the other is that we failed to capitalise on this opportunity in the ruck. Preuss and the mids lacked connection in that game, he was constantly hitting it to where our mids were not and eventually Preuss resorted to just taking it out of the ruck and booting it forward, which hurt us as well as we allowed the dogs so much rebound off half-back and freedom in transition. The fact is we should’ve played better in every facet of the game against the dogs and Preuss’s previous game against North was excellent! Good ruckmen are key to Port, Brisbane, Geelong, West Coast and Collingwood and while Richmonds rucks aren’t setting the world on fire they still play them. That’s the top 6 teams all having key ruckman, many would argue Nick Nat is one of the most influential players in the AFL due to his ruck craft! We are a better team when a dominant ruckman is connecting with our mids and unless we bring in some good talls to replace TMac and Preuss we can’t afford to take the risk of trading them both. If we have Gawn, Jackson and Weideman as our only ruck/tall forward options next year we’re taking a huge risk, one injury and the good teams are going to exploit our lack of height, both in the ruck and forward, especially if we keep bombing the ball forward under pressure. If we trade TMac and Preuss we need to be bringing in at least one key forward/back up ruck, and if we can’t, we should keep Preuss for insurance. Unless of course we get a ridiculous offer (like a Brent Daniels) for him and even then we should still be bringing in a backup ruck somehow.

I mean, if we could do that it’d be pretty amazing. Obviously I don’t think we’d be able to trade Preuss for him, but from a whole list perspective if we could trade TMac, Preuss and bring in Cameron and draft a young tall we’d be going well. I’d say it’s more likely we bring in a different less high profile tall forward as everyone is saying Cameron is involved with Geelong. My main point was just if it looks like we will end the trade period not being able to bring in at least one tall for T Mac then I don’t think we should trade Preuss. Unless someone offered something ridiculous of course. We really need talls on our list and while Jackson is great it’s too much to ask a second year player to be both the number 2 key position forward AND back up ruck.

I think part of this is probably that Preuss wants game time and so the club is checking what they could get for him as a matter of due diligence. The reality is if we trade both Preuss and TMac we are leaving ourselves exposed for talls. Sure neither has set the world on fire in the role we really need to fill, that of tall key position forward, but we were relatively lucky for injuries this season, I’d be very worried if the only tall forwards on our list were Weideman, Jackson and Brown. That leaves us very thin on the ground should one of them get injured or if Gawn goes down. From a list perspective we need a tall forward anyway, trade both Preuss and TMac and you really need to be bringing in at least 2 talls, at least one of whom can play ruck. If we trade both Preuss and TMac and don’t get talls in one long term injury to Gawn, Weideman or Jackson and it’s curtains for 2021. We can’t leave ourselves that exposed. This deal only gets done if we can find a way to get a Cameron type forward.

I’m enjoying how we’re going and hope Goodwin does brilliantly, but he should’ve played Frost, who has been very good for us since he came back in, against St Kilda. I believe we would be in top 4 this year if he had. Anyway woulda, coulda, shoulda. I’m excited about our list, the finals and our potential for growth. Just thought this was one we got wrong.

The decision to play Petty (over Frost) against St Kilda is still one of the most mystifying of the year and nearly cost us finals, atm it’s costing us top 4. I hope the “learning” Goodwin has taken from this year is to play our best 22 as often as possible. anyway, FINALS!!! ??????

Unfortunately that’s not true, here’s the possibilities: WE WIN (over GWS): • Collingwood lose we finish 4th, play Richmond in round one of the finals. • Collingwood win we play a home final against Geelong. •Or Collingwood lose, Sydney and Hawthorn draw we finish 5th and play Geelong in a home final. WE LOSE: • Geelong beat GC by less than a 50+ points differential (eg we lose by 20 Geelong win by 30) we finish 7th and play: Sydney in Sydney if Hawthorn win Hawthorn in Melbourne if Sydney win Sydney in Sydney if Hawthorn and Sydney draw. • Geelong beat Gold Coast by more than 50 point differential we play GWS in Sydney. WE DRAW: We play one of GWS or Sydney in Sydney or Hawthorn in Melbourne. So the most likely outcome if we win is home against Geelong. If we lose we have a 3/4 chance of playing in Sydney. If you are being positive and saying we will definitely win over GWS then I’m sorry and yes Sydney would be very unlikely. Also no changes for me this week. I’m hoping for a Freo miracle and us smashing GWS to fly into top 4.

That’s the selection we should’ve had last week. Not sure I trust Stretch after the Richmond game where he was a deer in the headlights. But his VFL form warrants it and he plays more of a role we are lacking than Tyson.

That result really hurts us. We will need to find our mojo very quickly. With the Hawks and North to make a huge charge (they have so many games against lowly teams) we will not only need to win our winnable games and win well (Freo, Bulldogs, Gold Coast) we will need to find a few more against some quality teams and teams finding form. Lose this week and that’s all she wrote.

Pathetic, the result would be a shock but we do this so often it’s just so predictable. I would’ve taken flat track bullying our way to finals, but we can’t even do that! St Kilda are complete shite, they have beaten Brisbane and Gold Coast (who they were down by 5 goals against!). They didn’t even play that well today we just kept giving them easy looks, turnovers and inept defence. I can’t believe Goodwin. Viney, tagging against a team with one good mid when we’re winning the hit outs! Wtf!! TMac on a wing when our backs are getting monstered. Hogan on a HFF for the first three quarters against a team he usually monsters. Selection: Petty, not ready. Left one out at full back regularly.no crumbers, no speed, no big quick backmen. Game day: keeps an extremely high press for three quarters when the saints continually get out the back of us. No anchor backman within cooee of their forwardline when we have the ball. OUR FORWARDLINE: How do you have last week happen and still not change the strategy. Why does he think bombing to talk forwards in packs with no crumbers will work?! The umpiring was shocking, a few of our players had just awful games, a few shouldn’t be playing at AFL level. But ultimately, this game was lost at selection and by the coaching panel. That we got within two points inspite of complete ineptitude just drives this point home. Our group desperately needs to make finals and learn to play in big games. It’s hard to see us doing it now. Goodwin does some things well but when things arent working he is far too stubborn and his match day credentials are very weak. Worrying.

They might be being extra cautious with him as he has a history of longer term hammies?

Good that seems the smart move. My head says play him with controlled minutes in the VFL to make sure he’s cherry ripe for his return. My heart says geez it would be nice to see him rip up Gold Coast...... let’s hope we smash them without him.

I truly wish they would do the list chronologically by soonest to return. It’s so much more readable that way: Melbourne injury list: round eight Jack Viney (foot) – test Christian Salem (thumb) – test Harley Balic (platar fascia) – test Mitch King (elbow) – 2-3 weeks Dean Kent (hamstring) – 4 weeks Aaron vandenBerg (ankle) – 6-8 weeks Corey Maynard (hip) – indefinite Pat McKenna (hamstring) – indefinite

If only Demetriou had called Bomber to let him know the cops were onto him... he could’ve destroyed the evidence and relied on being a hard done-by good bloke to get the lowest possible penalty....

I hope so, Geelong aren’t looking that good either atm.

Marshall got the second defender because of Watts, he’s definitely a talent and Watts is definitely playing a role in the form side of the competition.

See the post right above yours.

Bang on, Ken Hinkley agreed with you, from AFL.com: In the past, Dixon playing on the ball would leave a gaping hole inside Port's forward 50. But Hinkley said Saturday night's slippery conditions, as well as the addition of Jack Watts, who arrived from Melbourne in the off-season, meant Dixon's absence was less important.

I’d be ecstatic if we beat Sydney. That’s the point. JW played a role in Port doing that, we haven’t done it in 8 years! Your lack of comprehension astounds me.

10 Possesions, 5 tackles, 0 goals playing a role in a team that beat Sydney in Sydney. If Bayley Fritsch does that for us I’ll be ecstatic. Hell I’ll be happy if Bayley plays any role in us beating Sydney anywhere!

I know. I get it fine. I was responding to a poster suggesting that he was moved on to gain cap space for Lever, I agree the reasons you give are the reasons the club gave for moving him on, I was arguing exactly what you are.

That is exactly what I had heard we were paying, and on top of paying Fritsch base salary we are not saving so much that our cap was so tight that it made the Lever deal happen. Let me ask you, I’ve asked this question directly to both senior members of our list management team and both said it had nothing to do with it. Why would they do that? What do they stand to gain by giving themselves less outs for why a popular player is gone? You believe what you want to believe, I’m done talking about it. I hope we made the right decision, I am yet to believe we did, I do not believe it and see no convincing evidence it had anything to do with Lever. The argument you are making is the equivalent of arguing we delisted Jack Trengove to get Lever, it freed up space, were the two things directly related in any way, no, but hey you could make the same ludicrous argument about cap space!! I’m not going to comment on this til the end of the season as I’m sure I’m annoying people by constantly posting in this thread.

If the goal in getting rid of Watts was salary cap space we would’ve fought harder in the negotiations with PA for them to pay more of his salary, possibly even resulting in us taking a lower pick. We didn’t, we are still paying a significant portion of JW’s salary. Salary cap management is complicated, no doubt, and little things can make a difference, but this was not the case here, we had the space for Lever and Watts, we chose to get rid of Watts. You can not believe me if you want to, but anyone from the club will tell you the same, if the only way you guys can reconcile getting rid of Watts is that it helped get Lever then you’re clutching at straws.

Paul Connors was positioning his client the best way he could after MFC publicly trashed Watt’s reputation during trade period. If this was the reason the club would’ve used it to appease fans like me. They didn’t, because it’s not true. Go to a members function and ask any of the list management team, they will openly tell you as much. The reasons ProDee has stated are the reasons he was let go, Lever has nothing to do with it.

There’s no truth to this. Mahoney said as much during trade week, we could have easily paid both salaries and kept both. We’re still paying a proportion of Watts’ salary on top of paying Fritsch a base listed player salary. There’s is a small amount saved but not enough to be the difference between getting Lever and not. Ask anyone from the club, it is categorically not true.