Jaded No More

Both his brothers are in Victoria now. So he's practically a Victorian.

By the way, the go home factor here is huge. We've already lost a gun midfielder to his home state, I rather it didn't happen again. At least with Watts you know he ain't going anywhere.

There is nothing wrong with NOT trading our first pick or swapping picks, to get Warnock. I'm sorry but either we give Freo a late pick, or we get him in the PSD. There isn't a team in the AFL who wouldn't do the same if they were in our position... except for maybe Freo... and that's why they are a joke of a football club. We are hardly asking for Pavlich for pick 90 here. I also think you'll find that Essendon and Collingwood don't do many trades because they ask for too much for their players. Essendon didn't accept a late 30 pick for Kepler Bradley FFS! :D

Co-coaches at the MFC?

I've seen every Melbourne game live this year (minus the Essendon game), and I agree about the forward structure. The problem is, we have no forwards. Miller is the only one still standing, with Neita and Robbo gone, Davey injured, Green down back and Newton and Bate off with the fairies. So there is only so much Bailey can do to fix the forward structure when he has no players to work with. Notice he put Garland down there for a bit yesterday, but the ball never even made it to the forward 50! Mind you, if we actually won a clearance every once in a while our forward line would perform a hell of a lot better. We so often get the ball out of the backline (because thankfully our defence is pretty strong these days), and break down across half-back and on the wing. Not always because we over-possess, but sometimes because our players are completely devoid of kicking and contested marking skills. It's little wonder we can barely muster 15 inside 50's a game. You can't work miracles when you don't have the cattle.

And not give credit to players who stick to their task and help out the team? There is no creativity and flair when you're losing by 80 points. There are those who try, and those who don't. Belly certainly fell into the trier category and he deserves recognition for that.

But how can you choose "best available" when the 3 candidates are all so different and play completely different positions and have completely different attributes? When it was Judd vs. Hodge vs. Ball, you could make the comparison (which funnily enough was wrong in the end). But when it's a forward vs. a midfielder vs. a ruckman the perception of best available comes down to who would be the best player for your club. So yes we need a gun midfielder because our midfield is poor, but we also need a forward target. And are we chasing Warnock hoping to eliminate the choice down to just 2?

How about this deal: we don't swap picks, we screw Freo and get Warnock in the PSD and for once in our soft existence we don't accommodate other teams and the hell with all of them. When was the last time another team did us a favour?

Meh. They need to toughen up. Army training will be a great way of teaching them discipline, hardness and the virtue of team work. Alternatively, we could employ Chuck Norris to run a pre-season program.

And so you should. Grimes worked his butt off to recover from injury, complete his own version of a pre-season and he earnt a senior game because of it. He deserves to be rewarded for effort, plus giving him a taste now means he can get that nervous first game out of the way and concentrate really hard on what he now knows he needs to improve on. There was nothing pointless about giving Grimes a game today. There are a handful of other players who were far less deserving of a game and who haven't worked nearly as hard as Grimes has to just make it onto the field this year.

I would love it if you could give me SPECIFIC examples of Bell being terrible today. For one, he beat his opponent, so he fulfilled his main role for the day. Secondly, he provided some good run when playing on the half back line and the wing, and most of his disposals by hand and foot were spot on. He is not a world beater, he is not an A-grade player, but he works so hard, he tackles well, he has excellent pace and his disposal is certainly reasonable. IMO Bartram is having a worse season, and Jones' disposal is miles behind Bell's.

Personally I would send our players to do a pre-season in Iraq. Better yet, send them on an end-of-season trip to a military base in North Korea. If we finish above 14th next year it will be a small victory, but most importantly I want to see us continue to develop a spine. We found a decent group of defenders this year, but our midfield and forward-line is pathetic. We must rectify this over the next 2 seasons before we can even think about making the top 8.

I would rather not watch us get smashed on my birthday... again... thanks

Oh dear god. Carroll is simply terrible. Cannot believe that he got a game ahead of Martin. Thought Sylvia tried really hard and had a fairly good game, with Warnock and Garland once again standing strong in the backline. Everyone else left a week early for their holiday.

A man of many haircuts and little talent.

I refuse to believe that our coach, or any coach, would instruct the players to handball unnecessarily through the middle of the ground before turning the ball over. There is no way Bailey is asking them to over-possess the footy. IMO it's just a basic lack of skills and most importantly a lack of smarts that is causing us to look like a mess on the field. We have so many dumb footballers that even the simplest of game plans cannot be executed properly. How much do players like Garland, Maric, Morton, even Grimes stand out from the rest because you can see they think the game through, not just panic, fluff a kick/handball and run around in circles before running into an opponent. That some players (our most inexperienced ones at that) are capable of executing the game plan to me demonstrates that Bailey is not really at fault here.

Actually it's 1. (Melbourne/West Coast) 2. (West Coast/Melbourne) 3. Fremantle 4. Port 5. Essendon 6. Carlton 7. Brisbane 8. Richmond 9. ??? 10. ??? 11. ??? 12. ??? 13. ??? 14. ??? 15. ??? 16. Geelong :D

Kerr + Black + Power + Brown = awesome As for St.Kilda... oh dear. Once a failure, always a failure.

I would say they dropped Jamar to enable Martin to stay in the side AND play Dutchy. This way Martin and White can ruck, and Holland can replace Newton and dazzle us with his incredible guns and divine kicking ability :D

Make that 250 thanks! So excited about this one, and what a great way to finish off a horrible season. Hope he has a great game and gives us yet another reason to look forward to the future.

As much as I LOATH the Carlton Football Club and wish them nothing but failure and misery, you can't blame them for trying to work around the cap. It is 100% the AFL's fault for allowing crap like this to go on. I have no doubt that we too offered Judd deals that fall outside of the cap, and so we should have. But trust the AFL to investigate us for talking to Warnock, but letting Carlton get away with what is basically cheating. A disgrace of the highest order but one that doesn't surprise me even a little. The AFL's administration team is the single biggest problem facing the game today. If anyone can ruin 150 years of tradition and success, it's the current people in charge.

VOTE B! Option A is horrible, truly horrible. It looks like an amature under 12's jumper. I still think they should have enlisted supporters to DESIGN the jumper, not just vote. I've seen some great jumpers designed by our supporters, and I know a few fashion design students who happen to barrack for Melbourne who would happily have tried to come up with some designs *cough*

Actually, it sounded like it was JIMMY that said to him that he needs just 2 more games to reach 300/ life membership. Lets hope Jim isn't getting involved in football matters though, and that Bailey picked him based on his ongoing form at Sandy (which has been solid).

That's good. At least 'groin' is not code word for OP this time!

Both have had great careers, both are finished at the highest level. Congratulations to them both and thanks for their service over a long period of time. This really is the end of an era and the beginning of something new and exciting.