dtrinh

Toumpas

O'Rourke

Garlett

Viney (2nd pick)

Hopefully this provides us with the midfield we need to go forward, still doesn't address our forward line though. Maybe we should look at trying to get hogan? sounds like a jack darling sort of player? but maybe noone will pick him up and we can draft him next year?

What basis is Stringer considered to be such a high pick? his U18 championship stats appeared very average, not sure if he averaged more than 10 disposals for the whole championships. How is he considered to be a top 10 draft pick even top 20 on the basis of one TAC game?

out of that list i rekon bail, dunn, moloney, petterd, morton and pencil should be kept at least as depth players. I still rekon moloney should be given another chance... if he can trim down even further and improve his fitness i think he could still be very valuable to the dees.

It will be sad if beamer goes... recurring theme at melbourne losing quality players: jolly, mclean and now maybe beamer all of whom has or will make a big impact at another team. I still think beamer could be an asset at melbourne... if he trims down even further and improves his cardio and stamina it might give him some pace? it's sad cos he's just another piece of a one dimensional slow midfield except for jones and sylvia. Add moloney into any other team and he could become a major asset!

our improvement as a team has definetly improved... reasons why we have failed to stay close in games is our forward line and midfield. After clark went down we really don't have many goal kickers who have stood up... green was up and down and apart from that rivers is no forward. It seems we are able to manage similar inside 50's to opposition but since we have no one to kick goals we really struggle to hit the score board at all. Hopefully development of a few talls like fitzy, cook, martin, williams even and hopefully recruiting to improve these two areas will have a significant impact on our play next year

If he's there we have to take him! averaged 22 disposals at 86% efficiency!! that is exactly the kind of player we need... skillful, can find his own ball and can actually hit some targets! i'm sick of stupid turnovers costing us by hand and foot...

Rivers would be a great player to hold onto, once our team can string together some consistent football he is the ideal chop out guy in defence... similar to nick maxwell and in the past tom harley? Reads the ball well coming into defence and is a great 3rd up tall in relation to spoiling and taking marks in defence. Would be a sad day if he gets delisted or traded

I agreee... the forward line is definetly a weakness we have... why not rookie list him as a back up option? ever since clark and to some degree stef martin went down we don't have a key forward target to hit up... Pods and dickson from bulldogs were key forwards who have made it at AFL level... why not give him ago? a strong contested mark, quick off the lead and good kick for goal?

This playing list was rated very highly (for a young list) before Neeld arrived - playing lists do NOT change dramatically in one year at any club.

Neeld and co. out, and advertise and recruit replacements.

As you said it... playing lists do NOT change dramatically... so either everyone was wrong and our list wasn't as good as everyone thought or the coach has actually made things worse. If we look at the development of players like jones, mcdonald, grimes, watts, nicholson, to some degree howe are you saying that our coaching panel has turned us backwards?

Honestly if you run through our list i rekon it was really over rated. Theres other threads looking at our list and the players haven't changed but we still have negative things to say about half of them which was still true last year.

We really needed a new coach and defensive structures to allow our team to develop and progress. It was hard watching today's game but hopefully after another full preseason, continued learning and development and hopefully recruiting some players with football smarts we can move forward.

Outside runner with pace ... Jimmy Toumpas (question mark is his hip injury) - if he has no probs, then obvious #3 pick

Inside mid ball accumulator ... Oliver Wines (speed over 5 metres is key)

Strong forward with midfield function (like a Pavlich model) ... Jake Stringer - how he ends TAC cup season. on 2010, under 16's, he is #1 material. Right now, not top 20 but watch in next 8-10 weeks.

This draft is CRITICAL to our FUTURE. No pressure

This sounds pretty good... definitely addresses all the needs that melbourne need at the moment. We really need to add class around the ball.

Jake stringer is interesting... if you look at his stats in the the under 18 championships they look very very average! TAC cup is a totally different level to under 18s championships vs afl level. If he can't perform then not sure how he will go in the AFL. I rekon if gartlett can slide to pick 13 that would be a bargain... from the sounds of it he is ozzing talent and under the mark neeld era i think discipline shouldn't be an issue. With toumpas, wines, gartlett and hopefully viney with our second rounder that could be our midfield for the next 10 years!

Yes footy is a funny game sometimes.

I am a very passionate fan and sometimes the heat of battle gets the better of me.

When i really sit back and look at things with a clear head it's easy to see the future of this club going forward.

We were always going to struggle with such a great shift in change.

The bad luck with injuries and form has not helped our cause in 2012.

But if you look at the year of players like Clark(wow),Jones,Mcdonald,Howe,Rivers,Watts it's easy to see these guy's have really grown under Neeld.

Also with the draft this year we are in a position to really build on the foundation Neeld has put together.

Names like Toumpas,Viney,Stringer,Grundy,Whitfield,Simpson,Wines we could throw 3 or 4 of these names into our list in 2013 and all of a sudden our midfield looks strong.

Trengove and Grimes have a full season under there belt as Captain and just keep growing.

Lets also say that our boy Jack watts is starting to really belong at AFL level and is growing into a great prospect.

Then there is Jurruh who has had a really hard year that can come in and just inject some real fire into our forward line again.

Every fan has been tested through 2012 but i really believe this club has finally started to build a bright future.

Great post big jim... great analysis! this draft is looming to be one of the more important drafts for the dees... if we can add some class in the midfield it will allow us to add to our spine:

Frawley

Garland

Jones

Jurrah

Clark

It will be interesting to see what happens with Watts if he stays back or goes forward.

Players to continue development: trenners, grimes, howe, blease, mcdonald, mckenzie, martin, morton,

Players needing to step it up further: nicholson, strauss, cook, gysberts, gawn, tapscott, petterd, davis

At the moment no super stars but hopefully a team full of hard working, dedicated players who play team football

Team is totally unfit, can not run out a game, those that are not unfit are injured.

The high performance team is anything but that.

Misson and Craig were meant to resolve fitness and injury issues, money not well spent thus far.

So do you think that a team can change from being totally underdone under bailey to having elite fitness in one preseason? I'm sure Misson and Craig know what they're doing and next season the team will be much fitter and competitive

Under Bailey the team looked exciting when they were attacking, a lot of run and carry but what about the defensive part of the game?

In the pre-season all the players said it was the hardest they've ever had, dave mission came in and said there was only a handful of players up to the fitness and strength standards compared to most other AFL teams. How is Neeld going to take this team forward if the majority of the team are not able to run out a full game, don't have the skills and weren't able to win the contested ball? In this era of football contested football is one of the most important features of the game which we lacked under Bailey.

For Neeld to develop the team, he needed to strip them back to the basics such as contested ball, clearances, defensive pressure etc.. for the kids and players to become a strong team in the future they have to get the basics right before making our offensive ball movement better. When the defensive and contested aspects of the game get better i'm sure they will put more time into the structures to move the ball forward and attack.

Anyone at the game... wat do you rekon about picking up galea as a rookie or a low pick? seems to be able to kick multiple goals quite regularly?

I'm not too sure what neeld was doing with dunn? Why play dunn in a position rivers coulda played.

Travis Boak:

Averages 22.4 disposals @ 64.3% efficiency.

Averages 3.2 marks, 3.7 clearances & 3.3 tackles per game.

For his disposal efficiency I rekon out mid first round pick would be enough, doesn't show enough at the moment to be an elite midfielder but a solid addition. Our midfield really needs more speed, gutt runners to improve our spread and players with high disposal efficiency to complement Moloney and Jones clearance work.

Yeah I agree with the master there, it is important to get big bodies around the contest but you do need players that are skillful. Having a whole team of big sized bodies running around who aren't able to hit targets isn't going to help our team win games. Sure we won't lose by 100+ points, but it does not necessarily mean we're going to win games.

Taggert sounds like he has a big body and reports say he has a kick suited to the afl... hopefully this is right and he is not only big but skillful. Although you can't teach players how to be hard, they can be pushed to become more physical. It's very difficult to teach players how to become more skillful... I think that's just more natural talent, something it seems like our list is lacking alot.

Thanks Dan005. Sounds good with Clark running back with flight of the ball, shows dedication and he's brave.

Don't worry about Clark 'looking' like a natural forward. He certainly is one. I believe that last year at Brisbane there is a stat something along the lines of he had the most score involvements of anyone in the team last year (ie involved in the passage of play) or they went through him the most or something like that. It's more about our ability to get it to him frequently enough.....

Although he has the most scoring involvements what we need in Melbourne is a KPF who can consistently kick multiple goals a game. Hopefully Watts or Howe can turn into a CHF marking the ball around the wings or centre square, both have good decision making and have better kicking efficiency compared to the rest of the team so hopefully good distribution to jurrah, clark or green who can stay inside 50. Last year our game plan was flawed, regularly relying on running back with the flight, very poor.

Anyone see how the new recruits went. Especially interested in James Sellar? Also Dan005 you said that Clark kicked a goal or two... did he look like a natural forward? like leading to the right areas, good marking and second efforts.

Cheers guys for the reports!

Hopefully we can pick up two outside midfielders who can run and carry, perhaps a clutterback and nelson. Then with the second two maybe taller players like sheehan. Not sure if L williams will be able to make the step from EFL to AFL?

At a guess, I would say that although he is training with us, it's too much of a step up from EFL to AFL and that he's being groomed for a role at Casey, perhaps replacing Fevola. If he is able to put together some good form at that level then next year could see him taken on somebody's primary list.

We really shouldn't be looking for a replacement for fevola in the casey ones. We have a number of key position players on our list now which require grooming as a KPF. I rekon we need to play fitzpatrick and cook as FF and CHF in the ones to further their development as KPFs. Fevola really limited their chances to kick big bags and play consistent football to improve.

so was today only a time trial? hopefully there were some big improvement since the first one!

Anyone know how training went today?

What are everyone's thoughts on Jetta in the backline and Blease in the forward line? To me it's interesting and I'm not sure I'm a fan. Jetta has the toughness to be a defender but I don't like his kicking and his speed for his size isn't great. I'd rather have him being a ball player up the ground where he makes up for his speed by using his quality evasive skills. On the other hand Blease has great pace and skills and can break the lines but of course needs more fitness and training in defensive skills. Again he's not overly big but he's a bit taller than Jetta. Up forward he could certainly be handy using his pace but to me he's got the pace that is better behind the ball.

I rekon Blease would be more handy as a back flanker with his speed, ability to run and carry and it seems he has quite high kicking efficiency. What are your thoughts on having Bennell as a small forward. I remember a few games where he did play forward, he didn't look bad. I'm not sure about him playing down back, he is pretty short and not overly big so can get pushed off pretty easily in a one on one contest?

Perhaps 'C' grade is a little harsh, but probably isn't far off being accurate. We probably have in the bottom 2-3 midfield groups in the AFL, AT THE MOMENT.

That doesn't mean we can improve.

But... I have to agree with RI in one aspect. we won't come top 4 until Jones and Moloney are our 4th and 5th best midfielders, not our 1st and 2nd best.

We are missing 2-3 gun midfielders from being top 4 team.

We have 3 first rounders next draft, plus hopefully Gysberts and McKenzie or Grimes come on... but that is all potential and hope

I agree, what is important is getting A grade midfielders, especially those who have great disposal by foot... One of the biggest problems we as a team is the inability to hit targets under pressure. Looking at all good teams (Hawthorn, Collingwood, Geelong, St Kilda) have a large number of players that have high disposal efficiency. That is something we lack a lot of.

From the sounds of it Jack Viney is good in and under, haven't heard much about his kicking efficiency, hopefully with the two priority picks we are able to find these types of players.

Also how can you question the quality of Beamer. He can go missing in games against good teams because he has no help. Teams won't bother tagging players like mckenzie, gysberts etc thus can place more emphasis on beamer. In a quality midfield, beamer would be a much better player than what he is at the moment.