Jaded No More

SO much love for this kid! The original Jack and IMHO the best of the lot to lead this club post Brad Green.

Oh FFS Sheedy, put the booze down and walk away. Crazy deluded old man. And to think some wanted him to coach us. Laughable!

As I think I've said before, many factories close for over a month over CNY and some don't get many of their workers back when they reopen. Often the factories I deal with lose many workers during this period as well. It's a terrible time for production mistakes to occur. But mistakes happen all the time especially with complicated production runs. Hopefully they sort it out asap but now people can stop whinging at the club because clearly it's out of their hands.

Can't compare those two to Scully. Hodge is captain, he has to address those rumours, and Thomas is an attention wh*re. Scully doesn't strike me as someone who will call his own press conference to talk about himself. I'm sure if a reporter asks him he would say he's happy at Melbourne.

I promise you that once we've lost our first game of the season, the sky will start falling again and Demonland will go into general meltdown with threads like "Why Bailey must go", "No wonder Scully wants out, we're a rabble", and "Bring back Newton". In footy, just as in life, nothing is ever as good or as bad as it seems.

That sort of hatred should be reserved for Carlton. I have nothing against Richmond. They suck and they gave us Trengove. Kudos to them.

Bate has to keep his feet in contests because he has all the agility of a turtle so once he's down, he's out. That really is my one big problem with him, he's too lumbering and slow for a non KPF player. At best he's a third tall. It'll be interesting to see how he, Dunn, Cook and Howe line up in seasons to come.

OH NOES!!!!!!!!! EVERYBODY PANIC!

MFCSS has been taken to a whole new level in this thread. We're even hypothetically paranoid now. Dear god!

Yep, insane level of awareness right there. The biggest improvement for me as a whole, was handball execution. We got a bit better at doing it last year, but we rarely ran into trouble yesterday. We switched sides really intelligently, even against a team that zones as well as Adelaide. Our speed through the middle was also very evident, as well as our quickness of mind. Some of the handballs yesterday were lightening and it showed how much work we've put into this type of rolling play. Very exciting!

Not friggin way. Jurrah's mullet is perfection. In fact, he should be given special permission by the AFL to wear a fluro green cape with the letters L & J studded in gold on it. He is too awesome and can do what he likes.

At least we always have one thing uglier than those jumpers to distract us... Dunn's mo. I swear to god my urge to knock him unconscious so I can shave that off is right up there with my urge to punch Chad Cornes in the face.

I for one am disappointed. I was told to believe he was crap and a waste of a number one pick. Bring back Naitanui.

Yep, the jumper is horrible. Horrible. No doubt it was someone at the factory selecting the wrong colour. I imagine it looks even worse against the dark navy. I'm sure they're fixing it, but obviously the bigger issue now would be timing. With CNY some factories don't get their workers back for 1-2 months, plus you have to factor in freight time. Fingers crossed NB are all over it and sorting it out ASAP. We can't play proper matches in that thing!

I want us to win EVERYTHING, and it's great for our players to enjoy wins, especially young players. I think Green must be the only player in the side to have experienced a win at AAMI (and maybe Joel McDonald in a past life), that's how shite our record is over there. Take what you want out of it, it's a stupid competition with stupid rules, but wins are wins and there are plenty of good signs from individual players. He gunned it when in the midfield, and that is where he belongs. He had stupid matchups down back, like Westhoff who was killing Rivers (who had a poor night), but he is a natural in the middle. So good below his knees, so smart, reads the play so well, and a good kick. We have to find a replacement for him down back because he is wasted down there. IMO he isn't quick enough to break the lines as such off half back, even though defensively he's pretty good. Also gotta remember this is his first game in 6+ months. He missed nearly half a season with groin related back hamstring strain, or something.

Two words... Jack Grimes. Moved into the middle in the last quarter/half (whatever you want to call it), and straight away our midfield looked better. He is a gun and he belongs in the middle. Really really impressed with Garland (no surprises there), Joel McDonald (surely a clearance player in his past life) and of course Liam Jurrah, but more importantly seeing how well Jack Watts reads the play and what a difference some upper body weight has made to his positioning in marking contests. Also great to see Maric getting involved, Martin showing some serious improvement and Jake Spencer hitting a target... sort of. I think overall our disposal was pretty good, and when I think back to the days of handballing aimlessly it makes me smile to think how far we've come. We no longer handball into walls, we do it with real purpose. Also thought Lucas Cook did some nice things, and happy to see Tom McDonald keep his feet in the contest. He should have a talk with Bate! B) P.S.- first round NAB Cup rules are SH*T!!! WTF is up with the out of bounds garbage? P.P.S- umpires still rob us blind everytime!

Disgrace. Don't you just hate girls who don't barrack for Melbourne!

And I think that with a bit of injury luck, Garland could be every bit as good as Frawley. Different players, but Garland is simply superb on the rebound.

Very happy to see my man Stef Martin playing well. I'm a believer. LJ is magic. Also really liked some of Watts' second efforts.

Highlight of my week, which says more about my week than the actual game mind you. But footy is footy and watching Melbourne play is always awesome (2007-2009 aside).

I don't think anyone read the end of what I wrote, which was to say that this is all based on the assumption that the money being thrown around in the rumour mill is true. We can't, and won't, get anywhere near $1mil per year offer. But as I said, if we can get close and try to match the offer of GWS with some clever financial incentives (think Judd and Visy), then I can't see why he wouldn't stay. This is the club's time to shine. We missed out on Judd and several other big names over the years. Lets hope that all that experience comes in handy. And you know something else, the more successful we are this year, the harder the decision to leave becomes. So lets concentrate on playing and winning games, and Scully is very much going to be a part of that. The hunger that drives him now will only get stronger if he gets to play in finals this year. that should be our greater focus. He may be a star in the making, but he is afterall just one player.

Please, if a rival company offered me millions of dollars to move across, I'd be packing up my stuff and getting the hell out of my current job in a second. My "rep" wouldn't bother me in the slightest. There isn't a single person here who could honestly say they'd turn down that sum of money. Of course we all work in very different environments to that of AFL players, where success is very much linked to every decision, but he's 19 years old, could set himself up for life before he turns 21 in a career that might only span 10 years (maybe less if injuries strike), and have a good chance of winning a flag with GWS between now and retirement (if we're talking 10+ seasons). The only way he'd stay at Melbourne is if we could come up with a similarly lucrative deal (possibly through offers outside of footy), or if he's extremely dumb and naive and have terrible financial advisers. Of course all of the above is reliant completely on the financial rumours being true, which they may well not be. GWS probably prefer to get a more established star to generate more immediate success and thus following. They can ill afford to linger at the bottom of the ladder for years on end waiting for their list to come of age, and Scully is certainly a few years off his peak.

Thanks Yoda. I'll make sure to consult you next time I want to express an emotion so you can confirm whether or not it is acceptable.

OK firstly, I don't work for NB so I have no idea what went wrong. You're right in saying that AFL jumpers are not batch or yarn dyed, but are printed. I'm thinking digital printing. The process of digital fabric printing is very precise when you're not talking about an all over asymmetrical print. If the machinists don't place the garment correctly you get skewed uneven prints, or the issues we had with the last batch where a lighter shade of blue appeared around the logo. It's very possible that in the process of printing the colours didn't come out right or weren't overlaid correctly. It's probably not a hard problem to correct, because we have seen correctly coloured jumpers, but everything takes time. You're talking thousands of jumpers that need to be manually laid for printing, plus finishing, pressing, packaging, shipping etc. I have no doubt these issues will get fixed, but teething problems are always to be expected. You have to remember that NB have never dealt with AFL apparel before and therefore it's fair to assume that neither have their makers. NB is a multi million dollar international company. I doubt they're happy to put their names to imperfect products and I'm sure they'll fix it. In the meantime, be patient and stop pointing fingers. Garment manufacturing still has plenty of human processing and therefore plenty of human error involved. If I got worked up over every manufacturing [censored] up I've had to deal with, I'd have died of a heart attack a long time ago.

And so it begins. The endless list of ridiculous injuries that seem to plague our best players year in year out. Brilliant.