Jaded No More

Don't take it so personally (unless you feel you should <_< ). I'm not refering to most Demonland supporters, but to the thousands of people who didn't renew their membership from last year. The thousands more who stay at home every single week instead of coming to cheer on the side. The thousands more still who claim to be Melbourne supporters but have never given the club a cent of their money or a minute of their time. I know at least 10 Melbourne 'supporters' who fit this description, and I have told them many times that they should reconsider their title as 'supporters' if they are not willing to give anything to the club. If you don't agree with me that these people exist, and that these people are contributing significantly to our off-field problems, than I suggest you open your eyes. Oh, and it is those people who drive the media stereotype of Melbourne supporter, not those of us who try to make them accountable!

Neita said he'll retire at the end of the year, which is hardly earth-shattering news. Bloody journalists. Get off the [censored] you monkeys!

That was very hard to watch. I feel for Neita, for where he is at with his form, his body, his career. He doesn't want to leave a sinking ship, but how he finds the strength to keep going I just don't know. It's his love for this club that gets him through, surely. He is an absolute champion, and we are lucky to have him involved at any capacity. It will be a very very sad day when he finally says goodbye, and hopefully he gets the send off that he truly deserves (and all of our weak supporters turn up to actually bid him farewell!!).

Fine by me. I can't see an official captaincy handover before the end of the year anyways. McLean will no doubt stand out as the hardest worker, best contested ball winner and most influential player... he already has. By the way, which sponsor, support or coach is going to stand up and protest if we appoint Brock McLean captain? He is hardly a criminal. He was involved in a silly brawl overseas, did a couple of burnouts at a training ground and lost his license for going 20km over the speed limit. All stupid incidents, which may show a level of immaturity (I know 50 year olds who lost their license for speeding), but that immaturity certainly does not translate on the field. At 21 he is bound to make some mistakes, but it's not the mistakes you make but how you bounce back. So far, he has not set a foot wrong.

Well, as long as they don't misbehave off the field, who cares how old/ordinary/skill-less they are Do we want a captain who actually does the hard things consistently? Do we want a captain who will put his balls on the line every time? Do we want a captain who influences matches in the midfield? Do we want a captain who will be at the club in 2, 5, 7 years time? If the answer is yes, then appoint McLean. Hypocritical would be to appoint Junior when we are focusing on youth. Hypocritical would be to appoint Bruce when we are focusing on actually being able to hit a target. Enough of this soft and safe mentality. Give McLean the job, and if he stuffs up, he stuffs up. Big deal. We can't do much worse anyway.

Maybe swap Meesen for Martin. Otherwise, perfect.

You have to be kidding me. Who cares what he did during the off-season, it has had ZERO effect on his form to date and he is leading our club in contested possessions. He got punished, he learnt his lesson. Time to move on. I assure you that being a 'bonehead' has never stood in the way of great leaders like Jonathan Brown, Ben Cousins or Barry Hall. He is a much better leader and a far more influential player than Bruce, Miller and McDonald combined. What the hell is the point of appointing a 28 year old Cameron Bruce, who can barely hit a target, to the captaincy? And don't even mention McDonald. Do we really want a 17-rounds captain? Either rotate the captaincy, or just give it to McLean. If he can't hack it, or if he stuffs up, we make a change. If we're going to move forward as a list and as a club, we have to entrust our younger players with more responsibility. We all know they are our only hope. By the way, given that McLean was part of the leadership meeting today, I assume he's already been reinstated.

Yep, intentional is a bit rough. It was silly, but he certainly didn't go into the fight thinking "I'm going to smack Fevola in the head". We should challenge it, but we won't.

Looks like Jared when he walks and runs. Imagine having TWO Jared in the backline! He is someone who really has transformed his physique over summer to his advantage.

I have to agree to with you. Neita deserves a send off game, especially since we are not playing for finals here. F*%^@. Rotten stinking luck :angry:

There's more to being a captain than just being a good player. Rivers is a gun player, there is no doubt about it, but is he the sort to go and tell players when they need to pull their head in? Does he command respect from the rest of the group? If the answers are yes, then great, make him captain, but given he has never played a leadership role at the club it seems a big and unlikely jump for him to make.

Whatever happens, we must drop Jamar. I rather we go in with one ruckman (god knows we've been doing it for long enough) and get an extra runner in there.

Don't think his personality suits the role of captain. He is a fairly introverted guy from all reports, and he wasn't chosen by his peers to play a role in the leadership group this year (not that that says much), so it would be a huge jump going from no leadership experience to captain. Still, he embodies a lot of the right values, so it's definitely worth considering.

The bigger issue is, who replaces him as captain? I want McLean, but I fear we might go with a short-term option like Junior or Bruce. Interestingly, on Ch.10 they showed our leadership group leaving a meeting (what a joke it is that Yze gets to sit in a leadership meeting, but can't get a senior game ) and Brock was there. Perhaps he has been reinstated into the leadership group? Based on his form in the last 3 or so games and given he is top 10 in the competition for contested possessions, you would hope so!

Were Ablett, Bartel and Chapman stars before they won the premiership?

Thank god Dean Bailey doesn't have your shortsighted vision. We are not building a team from ground zero. Had you actually bothered reading some of the replies to this topic you would realise that we are trying to build a team around our kids. The same thing was done by a lot of successful teams. Who gives a flying fudge about what you want to see when you go to the footy. There is no such thing as sustained success in AFL football. Everyone hits the bottom at some stage, only some teams actually win a premiership along the way. You can moan and cry that we are the worst team in history, and bla bla bla, but at the end of the day you are thinking about yourself and not about what is best for this team and for our club. Yes we're struggling, yes we've lost 5 in a row. It was harder watching us lose 5 in a row in 2004 and nearly miss the finals after we were on top at Round 18. It was harder watching us get smashed by Geelong in 2005. Stop thinking about how much it sucks being a Melbourne supporter right now and start thinking about what it will take for us to win a premiership. We need to change the way we play, because the way we have played up until now has not been successful. We need to clear our list of a lot of deadwood, because the list we've had for 10 years hasn't been successful either. If that means that you have to suffer in the meantime than boo friggidy hoo. Get in line buddy, nobody is enjoying this.

Wait so you think with a different game plan we would have a chance of winning a premiership? We haven't gotten close to success since 2002. The 04-06 era saw us fall down when it counted the most, leading up to and during the finals. We all felt great about it and are now shocked to realise that we were as far away from a flag then as we are now. You can only keep finishing in the bottom half of the eight for so long before realising that you just ain't go what it takes to take it any further. Why did Grant Thomas get sacked if being a competitive team is all it really takes? Finals are fun, but if you keep finishing 8th you get neither a premiership nor good draft picks. It's fools paradise.

Exactly. I don't want to play finals, I want a premiership. It's been a long, LONG time since we've tasted real success and anything in between just won't do. The nature of this competition dictates that if you don't come first, you should come last and benefit from early draft picks. It worked for Hawthorn, and it's going to help Carlton and Richmond enormously. Luckily for Geelong they managed to grab Scarlett, Ablett x 2 and Hawkins under the F/S rules and they still bottomed out in 2003. It took them 4 years to win a flag. We also bottomed out in 2003 and look at the difference between us and Geelong after 4 seasons. They recruited to suit their needs (Ottens) and they developed a game plan which they believed would bring them success. In 2006 they struggled, but when things clicked they were unstoppable. If they were stubborn and didn't believe it was time for a change all those years ago, we'd both still be suffering from long premiership droughts. This notion that it will take us years to be successful again is crazy. Look at the sort of players we have to build around... Rivers, Jones, McLean, Morton, Bartram, Frawley, Maric and the list goes on and on. All of these players suit the game plan that Bailey is trying to implement. They are accountable, but they can also attack a contest. They'll go in hard when it's their turn, but they can also use the footy by hand/foot (those who can't have plenty of time to learn). Are we crazy that we're going to implement a game plan which suits the likes of Robbo, Junior, Green, Bruce, White, Whelan and Neita when these guys are not going to be around in 2-3 years, let alone when a premiership is on the cards? We have to build around the players who will be there to see us succeed. Our senior players have failed time and time again and we can no longer gear a game plan to their needs. If some younger players happen to fall down as well because they lack basic accountability and a football brain, than they were never going to make it anyway. I'm confident that the players I've mentioned above will not struggle (and have not struggled thus far) with Bailey's style. It is our youngest players who have adapted best and have really shown the way. Sadly, they are getting little support at the moment and it cannot be expected of them to win us games when we've played the best sides in the competition thus far. Today was a real opportunity for us to get the four points, but skill errors and kicking in-front of goals killed us. Replace Robbo/Neita with Fevola and we probably would have won.

Run and carry does not eliminate the need for contested ball winners. McLean and Jones are needed and will continue to be needed in order to win the ball in the midfield. Sylvia, unless he improves dramatically won't be needed regardless of which game plan we employ. I don't think it will take 5-7 years for us to reach some level of success, football turnarounds are hardly ever that long. But yes, I am happy to struggle for a couple of seasons if it means we develop a team capable of bringing us the ultimate success. We have some very capable young kids who we can build around, but we also have a huge amount of deadwood on our list which we will need to clear out before we can become really successful. Do you honestly believe that our list at the moment is good enough to win a premiership? Are we honestly capable of competing with Geelong, Hawthorn etc...?

I didn't remove it, I merged it with the other game plan thread.

And how well were they going before Judd came along to take the heat away from them? At least they have Stevens and Judd in there helping them along, as well as Scottland. Besides, Murphy and Gibbs hardly play at the bounce for the whole match and they are not the main ball winners.

Maybe we didn't recruit the right coach, maybe we did. One way or the other, we cannot make a judgement on 5 games. Bottom line is, if you thought Daniher's time was up, and a change was on the cards, then it was inevitable that a new coach will bring a new game plan. A smooth transition is a lot to ask. Look at St.Kilda last year, how many people were calling for Lyon's head? Plenty. I'm not going to support Bailey to the bitter end, just as I didn't support Daniher in his last few seasons. But I can see what he is trying to achieve and I can also see why he would want to implement a complete change. Yes we made finals in 04, 05 and 06, but we won a combined total of 1 final in that time. Our game plan was not suitable for winning finals, and we were incredibly predictable. We played well on the MCG, but incredibly poorly anywhere else. The game plan may have suited our players, but the players didn't and aren't up to standards in finals. I believe that Bailey's game plan is in essence quite basic, but it is also difficult for our players to implement because most of our players are really uncomfortable with accountability and contested footy. So the question is, do we adapt the game plan to suit our players and hope they are good enough to win us a premiership, or do we implement a game plan that can stand up in finals, and watch many on our list fall over trying to catch up? As far as I'm concerned our playing list is not good enough to win us finals, so I'm happy to adapt the list according to the game plan and not the other way around.

I said it about 10 times already, but if you're happy being a mediocre side which makes finals but doesn't actually win anything, then good on you. Daniher's multiple game plans since 2003 got us donuts. Move on.

Can you tell us what the go with Matty Bate is?

Nice one. And which stupid club will give us pick 2 if Rich is as good as you say he is? I'm glad I didn't read past "Trade Brock McLean".