deejammin'

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 don’t have a problem with Pederson, my point was even though he had low numbers he played a role for the team in a win just like Watts did, I’m not bagging him. As for talking about a bloke from another club, this is the thread dedicated to non-MFC games, there’s going to be a lot of talking about players from other clubs in here, I suggest you get over it. Go Demons!

Yes. Edit: That was exactly my point, both Watts and Pederson played their role for the team without hitting the scoreboard or dominating the game. In modern footy having a 2nd or third tall forward who contests, sets their teammates up and tackles can be enough. I thought those in this thread who were having a crack at Jack for being a “downhill skier” or being “quiet”, were being unfair and clearly didn’t see the role he played in a great win. I used a Melbourne player who plays a similar role to the one Jack plays at Port (and did play at Melbourne) for comparison.

He plays the role Watts would play if still on our list and the most similar role to the one Watts plays at Port Adelaide. Admittedly Pedo plays more ruck than Jack with Dixon and Westoff taking that on but that should be an opportunity for Pedo to get the ball more, not less.

C Pederson: 6 Disposals, 4 Kicks, 2 Handballs, 3 Tackles, 0 scores in a far from convincing win against a bottom six team. J Watts: 10 Disposals, 4 Kicks, 6 Handballs, 5 Tackles, 0 scores in an impressive win against one of the best teams in the league. Neither set the world on fire but I wouldn’t be bagging how Jack played his role in that win.

I agree re Roos, Blues, Saints and pies. The suns however are a seriously talented team with some genuine stars. You can only beat the teams you go up against and so far they’re looking pretty good.

I agree we have a number of quality mids to cover Viney, not as high quality as Viney, but we should be able to cover for him. Im more worried if TMac is out long term. As far as I can see the only other player who had played the role of 2nd forward/Ruck well at AFL level on our list is Pedo. It’s a lot of pressure on him and we really desperately need no injuries to him and Hoges. I know smaller forwardlines are in vogue post Richmond 2017 but I’d worry about the pressure on Hoges and Max if TMac and Pedo were gone at the same time.

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.

With all due respect, I’ve heard your opinion, you’ve heard mine. MFC chose to get rid of Watts, we both support them and hope it was the right decision. We’ll see what happens with the season ahead. For what it’s worth though if you don’t care what Watts does/has done you had decided you just wanted him gone then I’m not sure you’re in a position to judge objectively whether it was the right move or not. I’ll happily stop posting on this now, there’s many other exciting things for us to talk about, hopefully even agree on.

4 goals is a decent return from a second forward who can pinch hit in the ruck. Cameron Pedersen’s best is 3 for example. I think he would’ve been handy backup for Tmac and Cam at the very least. I’ve made my point, we’ll see how it goes. I hope it was the right call. As for Sylvia I had no qualms with him leaving and was wrapped to get Bernie for him at the time. You’re clearly the type of person who plays the man not the ball.

I think we have to play Pederson for Tmac as we need a back-up ruck. I think we probably intended on playing both TMac and Pederson round one if they were available. We have excellent depth in mid size forwards and small forwards but are very thin in KPF/Back up rucks. We are now an injury away from having both Pederson and TMac out and needing a Weideman etc in for second tall forward/backup ruck. That was my only point, I have no problem with trying a smaller line-up but having only two KPF will put a lot of pressure on Gawn and Hogan. WE can always go the Grigg/Richmond route and have Petracca or a mid sized player play back-up ruck I guess. The downside would be the risk of injury.

His standards looked fine during his two outstanding years under Paul Roos and during the first half of last season while carrying the ruck. They also look very fine this pre-season with Port Adelaide. My gripe is with the MFC trading away a valuable player we didn’t have to. Let’s wait and see, you may be right, we may improve out of sight and PA fail. I hope so! If that happens I will happily make a big mea culpa publicly to you on this board. Will you do the same if our forwardline is decimated and we fail to out do Port or make finals?

I think it is definitely Pederson and Hogan as our KPF the only problem is when Pederson goes into the ruck do we have just Hogan forward? Does Gawn rest forward? Is this enough rest for him? Is this sustainable for multiple rounds with only two guys? It also makes the idea of rotating Hogan through the midfield more difficult. We may need a third tall (Weideman or Smith) anyway. However my point was more if we sustain injury/suspension to Hoges or Pederson we may need Weid or Bull very soon.

I’m trying to let it go, and I’m happy to stop talking about it and generally I’m excited about the season ahead. However, I don’t think our club is perfect, mistakes can still be made and to this point in time it looks to me that trading a quality player, who was desperate to stay and perform for our club, who can play in a role we are short staffed in (Tom McDonalds foot says hi), seems a bad decision. I won’t be providing round by round commentary, I’ll get on with the business of barracking hard for our dees, but if Jack contributes to Port finishing higher than us at the end of the season I will be very very angry about what a lot of us felt was the wrong decision at the time. If we do better without him I’ll happily admit I was wrong. On a pedestal!! My word! No player in MFC history has been more readily thrown to the wolves, no-one has been criticised more often or more publicly and no-one has had the earliest part of their career more badly managed. Go back to Misso’s pre-season report last year, he says that 4-5 players had rocked up under done but generally the vast majority of players were well prepared. Of those 4-5 Jack was the only player thrown to the media. The other 3-4 remain anonymous, far from being placed on a pedestal Jack has been our scapegoat, often unfairly. Jack played a great first half of the season not only playing various forward roles but battling well in the ruck when we were struck down with injury. His hamstring hurt him for the rest of the season but he was one of the very few to turn up to play against Collingwood in round 23 and yet because he was traded he has been described on here as everything from terrible and soft to a culture killer!! Classic scapegoating. Despite all of that the bloke was still loyal to the end and wanted to stay and perform for our dees! I’ve made my point, I will stop banging on about it. I hope to be proven wrong by MFC doing better than Port, but with a thin KPF line getting thinner by the day I think we will miss JW and some on here should show more respect to someone who stayed loyal and bled red and blue despite being hung out to dry during the worst times.

Geez a second or third key forward who can kick 6 goals and give off a few would be handy if Tom McDonalds foot injury keeps him out for an extended period... I said it when we traded him and I see no reason to change, it was a silly decision to trade away a talented player capable of playing as a second or third forward when our KPF stocks are so thin. We are now down to Hogan and Pederson for round one, any bad luck with injury or suspension and we will be forced to play Weiderman or Smith. I hope those guys play as well as Jack will for Port or we’ll look very, very silly.....

Geez if this hot spot does it’s usual thing for us and keeps Tom out for months then our key position forward stocks are very thin. We need Weid and Smith to start firing...

I appreciate it. I just think good clubs back in a strong culture to turn players around, particularly if they have a talent that our list needs. I also know a lot about Jack, he is a professional, a lovely guy and a great clubman and I think that statements about his negative impact on culture are greatly exaggerated. Plenty of our players like a good time and as far as I hear, that is all Jack is guilty of.

Great game by Watts. Immaculate kicking, plays the forward role well, runs hard, shares the goals, I wouldnt mind a few more players like that on our list. For me it’s a simple equation, if Jack Watts contributes to Port finishing higher than Melbourne this year (and/or going deeper in finals) then it was a massive own goal and a silly mistake to trade him. if we do better than Port I will let it go. I’m barracking hard for us to finisher higher. I still think Jack is a good player in a role we have a thin list in. Hopefully Goodwin and Co show me why I’m wrong. Go dees!

The idea that so soon after such a massive scandal that brought the sport into disrepute, threatened to ruin 3 seasons, was found by the head WORLD anti- doping body to have been against the rules of world sport, that [censored] off, frustrated and bored the fans to no end and that may still have a large amount to play out with regard to the health of the players involved and their families long term, (let alone the impact on the integrity of the competition during the period doping players were aloud to play)... the idea that so soon after all of this the AFL would even consider letting Hird have ANY official role within the sport is beyond astounding, the fact it is a coaching position is just beyond stupid! What an immoral farce this league has become.