Jaded No More

Good quality player we could do without, which means if we can replace Ricky with something we are more desperate for, like a big bodied clearance player, or a tall forward, or a lightening quick small defender, I'd absolutely consider it.

Something to actually get excited about. Well done to the two Macs. From the little I've seen from Tom MacDonald I have high hopes for him. If we lose this game I will cry.

Am going, and thankfully going to drink afterwards. Fantastic. Bring on 2012. I hate this season!

Coach: Malthouse Co- Captain: Trengove & Moloney Leadership group: Watts, Frawley, Grimes, Jones & McKenzie Traded out: Bate, Dunn, Maric Traded in: Joel Selwood mid-aged strongly built midfielder Scully to stay. All assistant coaches to go.

I guess it depends which company you work for. Many people get walked out when they resign, especially people in high powered jobs. Happens in my industry all the time. I can also understand where people are coming from, in that if Schwab is not going to see out the length of the coach's tenure, then perhaps he shouldn't be making the selection. Then again I'm not happy with the panel of selectors anyway, so this is just a side issue. If Schwab is going to leave, he should do so at the end of our season, leaving a clean slate for us to start building the footy department again.

THIS CLUB NEEDS TO WIN GAMES OF FOOTBALL. Beggars can't be choosers, and even though we may not all love the super defensive game plan of St Kilda, it got them to three more grand final appearances than our super free flowing 'get your arse kicked weekly' game plan has. I'm getting old. I want success and I don't care if it's Ross Lyon or Diana Ross at the helm.

I'm nervous putting so much pressure on such a young kid, but god Trengove is just the sort of player I know will be a long term leader and will lead by example. However, if it burdens him in any way or distracts him from getting better (and he does need to get better like every kid his age does) then I think we'll be kicking ourselves. With that in mind, I really would like to see a duel-captaincy. I'd have Moloney and Trengove as duel leaders, and if Trengove proves capable he can have the role all to himself in 2013. As for the rest of the leadership group, I think Jones get a pass mark, Grimes obviously is fine to continue on if the players support him, but everyone else need to take a long walk off a short leadership pier. I want Frawley, I want Watts, I want McKenzie and I want Scully (but not if he's gonna lead from Western Sydney thanks ). Davey, Green, Rivers, Sylvia, Jamar, all senior players who need to work their sh*t out or [censored] off, and the last thing they deserve is to be rewarded with leadership roles. The one brave thing this club has done in my time was to tank for draft picks. I hope the next brave thing they do is to appoint a truly worthy leader regardless of age or experience. Edit: it is a damn shame that Grimes has been injured this season (yet again), because this was his role to lose in 2012 I think.

What the... I don't even... just no

Aussie has had a woeful run of bad luck. Poor kid

The Saints defense is very average in terms of player talent, which could explain the super defensive style of play. With so many good defenders on our list, especially Frawley, Garland and runners like Blease, Bennell and Strauss, Lyon may adopt a more free flowing game style. I'm not his biggest fan, and I hate the way the Saints play, but right now I will take any form of winning and success. Be it pretty or ugly, nothing can be uglier than getting your arse kicked every single week.

Agreed. It achieves nothing. Just don't play him. It was really humiliating for him and I personally felt really uncomfortable about it, and that is despite my thoughts on his very poor leadership this year. This club seems hell bent on burning people and going about things in a very public and unnecessarily shambolic manner.

Spot on. He is very unreliable. If he was consistent in form he would be in the top 10 players in the AFL, that is how good he can be.

This seems to be a common theme at this club. Why?

I actually think that being captain is going to kill Brad Green's career, which is a real shame because he has been a very good player for us for many years. We have to take the leadership role away from him as soon as possible, or it will end up hurting him and the team.

The reason why we turn it over so much is not necessarily because we're poorly skilled (Bartram and a few others aside), but because we sh*t ourselves under pressure. It's 98% mental. We cannot hit a target under pressure, but when we play a free flowing game without any physicality and contested pressure (e.g.- Freo game), we hit our targets perfectly. Every single time we are faced with defensive teams who play hard accountable footy we play like crap. That is why we have lost to every good team this year. Also we have got to be one of the worst clearance teams going around. If you can't win the footy in the middle you never get to play the game on your own terms and you never have time to properly dispose of the footy. We constantly chase tail.

I would take great pleasure in kicking McBurney in the nuts. He is a sad sad little man who makes ridiculous decisions time and time again. However the lowlight was definitely Jack Watts getting punched in the stomach behind play, being put down and struggling to run, while the gutless wonder standing on the boundary did nothing. Absolutely pathetic! (but we lost because we played like poo)

He is lacking serious fitness. Was struggling to run to the bench. Let's just cut the kid some slack. His run out of the pack was quite honestly the highlight of the night for me (yes, that's how bad we were). He has great speed and a very good kick and we know he can get his hands on the ball, so that's a start. I don't think he will necessarily end up playing down back, but it's a good learning curve for him, and I think he did OK defensively.

I love that our players just pick and choose when they want to play, when they want to put in and go hard. We played two good quarters and lost to a team below us on the ladder who destroyed us when the pressure was on. Yeah Sylvia had a great game but isn't it sad that he was motivated by his own bruised ego and doesn't play like that every week. We have too few who do enough and too many players with serious mental inaptitude. No coach can fix the rotten culture of softness present in our leadership group. It breaks my heart but I have honestly never felt so low as a Melbourne supporter. Hope has rapidly diminished this season topped off by a horrible second half of the season.

We are friggin woeful. It is an embarrassment watching these people pretend to play footy. We have the worst leadership going around. Our captain is on the bench, Davey is pissweak, Moloney rarely sighted. Wtf is happening to this club?

GTFO!!!!

Hard to see Clarkson leaving the Hawks at their peak. His premiership window is going to be open for the next 3-4 years if he can keep the list healthy. The only clincher of course is that Hawthorn won't give him 5 years, they probably won't give him 3. He'll get a standard 2 and maybe have an extension clause based on GF appearances. So he'll either back himself to succeed with Hawthorn again, or he'll chase the job security, which is nearly unheard of in this caper. For what it's worth he would be my number 1 pick and by a long way. He is exactly what we need and he is a brilliant tactical coach. I'm glad we are making massive bids too, great that we can finally afford to play with the big kids! This coach selection process could honestly make or break our premiership tilt, and is as important as our list building efforts of the past 3 seasons.

Well better to post than throw your phone at the players' heads I say.

Agreed, it's too annoying reading, let alone posting on an iPhone, which is a shame because most days I don't get time to look over at Demonland unless it's on my phone on the way to/from work (while driving nevertheless )

Arts major I take it? Was always jealous of people who studied art at uni. They all seemed to have a life while I was lying in the fetal position pulling my hair out because I had so much work to do.

And we wonder why so many sexual and verbal abuse cases go unreported