La Dee-vina Comedia

I can't see the problem. So we get pick 3 instead of pick 2 (or 4 instead of 3). The history of drafting suggests there's no difference between the likelihood of pick 2 being better than pick 3 (or vice versa). The bigger picture of getting the Suns competitive is a far more compelling issue. That being said, my suggestion for the AFL is to give the Suns two picks immediately after the first Round which they can only trade. That way they should get one or two decent more mature players. They have enough kids already.

Not every chronically injured player stays that way for the whole of their career. Wasn't Max Gawn late to start because of knee reconstructions? James Hird played his best football after the best part of two years out with foot problems and David Shwartz played excellent football after returning from three (is that the right number?) ACLs. I agree that club's can't keep too many "injury-prone" players on their list, but it's a classic risk versus reward conundrum with every player. VandenBurg's upside was clearly enough for the club to agree to take that risk.

Weeks, months or years?

Keep in mind the data is* showing totals for the year, rather than averages per game, so a player who has played more games (eg Fritsch) will have bigger numbers (good and bad). Nevertheless, I agree that Fritsch provides better value forward than back. *For the pedants out there...yes, I know that 'data' is the plural of 'datum' so technically I should have written 'are' instead of 'is'. But (says he incorrectly starting a sentence with a conjunction) that just reads so badly.

The best thing about this time of year is seeing an injury list with no 4-6 week injuries.

I expect the footy department knows that, too. Playing him as a defender when injuries hit our backline shows that our coach considers getting the defence right to be more important than having a decent attack.

I had been promoting the idea of retaining Preuss purely for the extra support he gives Max in the ruck. However, the weather forecast for Saturday which inlcudes a 95% chance of showers, between 8-15 mm of rain, a chance of thunderstorms, possible hail and snow down to Preuss's eyebrows suggests it might not be the conditions in which to play him. Cox being out also reduces the need for a giant second ruckman. But, if T Smith isn't available and with our other nominal KPFs already out injured, who could give Max the 5 minute break he needs each quarter if Preuss doesn't play? It hasn't worked before, but do we turn to Frost (which coincidentally seems a weather appropriate name)?

OK. Except I don't see it as a "demotion". I see it as changes being made when an opportunity was about to present itself with the departure of a key person. But you could be right.

Are you sure it's not just pining?

I missed that. What happened to Misson, or his role, in the midseason shuffle?

What demotion? Misson's departure has been explained - his wife has a job in Canada and he's following her. Would he still be at Melbourne next year if he didn't go to Canada? I have no idea. But I also can't see how the departure of Misson can be assumed to be linked to our club's problems with injury and fitness.

If jumping to conclusions were an Olympic sport, the gold, silver and bronze medallists are all posting in this thread.

I don't know if it has much value, but I understand there's a thing called a "wooden spoon" and apparently, we're still in the running for that one. Apparently, just like the chance of making finals just a few weeks ago, we need other teams to lose for us to get this award so it's not entirely within our control.

Preuss's major attribute is his tap work. The previous week against St Kilda we played T Smith as the second ruck. My view may differ if I had a look at the replay, but I thought that Smith in the ruck didn't work and we lost that game when Gawn was off the ball and St Kilda took control of the centre. That's why I wanted Preuss to play against Richmond. If there's an alternative to Preuss who can give Gawn decent support, I'm all for playing him. But without T McDonald or Weideman, I think we still need to play Preuss for this reason.

I suspect his contract was drafted so that he had to provide reports up to a maximum of 300 injuries for the year, a number chosen assuming we'd be well under it by the end of September.

Smart. Bailey didn't say that was what he was doing and was accused of tanking, By stating in advance that you'e doing it to look at flexibility, he's prepared his defence in advance. I can't see any future with C Wagner so I'd rather play Stretch to see whether he might be worth keeping. May and Hore should both come in, one for Oscar McD and the other for either Lever (if injured) or (gulp!) Brayshaw who looks horribly out of sorts. I don't think Preuss, Baker or Dunkley deserve their places, either, but I'd like to keep giving them game time.

Maybe for the extra 6 possessions he got from James Brayshaw not apparently knowing the difference between Hunt and Harmes. And he mixed up another, as well. Was it O Mac for Frost (or vice versa)? My votes: 6. Gawn 5. Fritsch 4. Oliver 3. Hibberd 2. Frost 1. Kennedy-Harris

I agree with most of this post, but not the bit about Fritsch. I still expect him to play forward. The seven defenders can be Frost, Lever, McDonald, Salem, Hibberd, Lewis and Jones.

Wasn't there media coverage just a couple of days ago confirming Jones has renewed for one more year? Addendum: A quick web search suggests that Jones has yet to sign on but has apparently been offered a one year deal by the club.

You're understating it. According to the Demonland Player of the Year, he's currently our 7th best player and we all know that as a group, Demonland is never wrong.

Of course you can have an opinion without running for a Board position. My post was in the context of other posts in this thread that talked about 50,000 members and what they might choose to do. One of those options is for members to seek to make change from within. Conversely, we can criticise as much as we like from outside, but unless we're prepared to put our hands up to be involved, we shouldn't be either surprised or disappointed if the club doesn't follow our recommendations.

Jnrmac, there's nothing stopping you from putting together a group of like-minded individuals to offer up to members in a vote for Board positions. However, I don't agree with your thesis that 2018 was a poor season. We ended up fourth on the ladder. How we got there doesn't much matter. The facts are, that under the system in which we play we were considered to be the fourth best team of the year. To me, that counts as a good result. On the other hand, 2019 has been an on-field disaster. I'm still uncertain which is the "true" Melbourne. Until I see what we do in 2020, I am reserving judgement on where I pereceive the club to be.

But imagine the euphoric feeling if we win! (Make sure you imagine it well, because I fear the joy will only be in your imagination.)

Likewise. Ablett Sr is the only player I've ever made the effort to go to a game to see live. We have the same three top players, but mine's in reverse order (ie, Matthews, Carey and Ablett Sr).

Is that the correct phrasing? Wasn't it the other way around, in that if he had wanted to go we were prepared to facilitate the move with vandenBerg being the one who decided that he wanted to stay?