poita

A pity the MCG don't put as much effort into keeping riff raff out of the MFC reserved seating areas as they do on gimmicks such as this. The bloke at the top of M15 spent about 20 seconds scrutinising my ticket before letting me in, whilst the Collingwood supporters sitting behind me just wandered up from the lower concourse without encountering any staff on several occasions.

Did anyone buy any Cam Pedersen before the GWS game?

Unfortunately we have more than just McKenzie who have poor skills and make poor decisions - Bail is barely better, and Georgiou is proving himself to be a liability with the ball as well.

Dunstan got nominated in round 1 - hence the opening post.

Any danger of members getting in to the Casey game for free this year, or are we going to get stung for entry, parking and every other possible thing again?

I'm not sure why people are getting so worked up about this. It is a long term project and was always going to be, but absolutely essential for the competition long term. It took Hawthorn 25-30 years to convert their domination in the 1980's into memberships in recent years. It is the kids of my generation who jumped on board a successful team in their school years and who are now taking their kids to the footy who are responsible for this, not the people who lived through the era. As discussed previously, GWS have sacrificed short term results for long term success, but GWS will have success when their draftees come of age. The school kids will come on board in due course, and in a generation the club will be entrenched in the area. Sure it will cost a lot of money and heartache in that time, but big investments always do. Do you think BHP get a return from opening a new mine in the first two years?

Ridiculous decision. The guy has shown nothing in five years and now we give him more chances.

Thank you to farmerwiz for the unbiased, realists view of proceedings. I think Byrnes could be okay this year, but I certainly wouldn't be getting excited about him getting a few goals playing against Strauss or one of our other small defenders. I still cannot believe we have to put up with another three years of Jamar if he can't even look the goods in an intra club game. Davey should get used to spending a lot of time at Casey.

Sounds like the MFC is starting to (deservedly) suffer some payback for their appalling treatment of Casey in recent final series. If Casey are finding it difficult to attract decent players and coaches, that is only going to hurt the MFC in the long run. Perhaps then they might take the VFL competition seriously.

As much as "standing out" at a half baked training session in the first week of January in a team that finished a distant 16th last year is a major achievement, I think I will hold off recanting my previous criticism until Aaron bothers putting in on match day. Of course, most senior MFC players in the past decade have managed to extract the digit in the last year of a contract, so why would Aaron be any different. Perhaps if his contract has been sufficiently front loaded the weight of his wallet will stop weighing him down and he can recapture some of his old speed and skills.

If things don't improve in the opening few rounds "Celebrate the Failure" by The Fauves. May need to adapt some of the more politically charged lyrics, but Andrew Cox is a Melbourne supporter so I'm sure he'd be happy to oblige.

Anything that makes Jamar get off his lazy backside and perform this season is fine by me.

Pretty sad when you have to use a bloke's tackle count to defend his performance. The best players don't have high tackle counts because they are the ones putting their heads over the ball and winning possession. Players like Davey are routinely secondly to the football so have no choice other than to tackle. As an aside, does anyone care to list Davey's B&F results for the past two years? Bailey lost me as a coach when he signed Davey to a four year deal. Davey had already lost me as player when he spent the 2009 season getting cheap handball receives from Jamar instead of winning his own football. Sadly that was a great deal better than anything he has contributed since. If he had any decency he would have retired at the end of this season and we could have funnelled part of his salary into an off field role.

I can understand our other choices, but this one is totally bizarre. Rookie selection at best I would have thought.

Only worth retaining if played midfield. He is not and will never be anything else.

He who lives by the sword dies by the sword, and Neeld will be quite reasonably judged on the output of "his" list in 2013. If he doesn't win at least 8 games, and I think that is a tall ask, he is in real trouble. For what it is worth, I don't think I would be keen to put my career in the hands of Rodan, Davey, Bartram and other misfits, but good on him for making a stand.

We spent a week haggling to get picks 53 and 73? FMD.

Another great result for Casey - Byrnes, Rodan and now Pederson. I'm going down to the TAB to put some money on the Scorps for 2013 VFL premiers.

Lets put all of our talented, underperforming players into the too hard basket and ship them off to other clubs for trinkets and baubles. Lets not put any work into developing any young players on our list, even though most of them have shown plenty of ability at one time or another. Lets bring in a bunch of Z-graders to ensure that we are competitive next year and that Neeld keeps his job. God forbid we might have another 4-18 season next year, but actually do something to move us closer to a premiership.

Works hard, but such an average player. Can't kick and makes poor decisions. Still, if we keep trading out our promising midfielders and replacing them with Z-graders like Pederson & Rodan, Bail will probably play every game next year.

Neeld & Harrington are building a squad to save their jobs next season, and have no interest in building a premiership list. I thought list management was bad under Bailey & Prendergast, but this is disgraceful.

Fantastic, the club with the worst midfield in the competition trades out one of its few talented young onballers for a 25 year old, bona fide VFL superstar. How about we trade Trengove for Cale Hooker next.

Hugely overrated and hasn't worked nearly hard enough around the ground in the past two seasons. 1 goal in 14 matches would be a poor outcome for a defender, let alone a midfielder. 2 marks and 8 disposals a game is similarly atrocious. I wish he would just thump the ball forward instead of dabbing the ball at his feet and hoping that one of his midfielders is in the vicinity. I would keep Martin and Spencer over Jamar every day of the week.

He doesn't work hard enough on or off the field, and has clearly lost a couple of yards of pace. I wish he would just kick through the ball instead of trying for dinky little chip kicks all the time. Does anyone think he would be here still if not contracted? I am happy for Aaron to get a game in 2013 if, and only if, his form warrants it, but I would certainly be starting him at Casey and making him earn a game, rather than gifting him a spot that is his to lose.

A real disappointment to date, and if his main claim to fame is the weak hit on Fasolo, that speaks volumes. The other supposed claim mentioned above is his goal kicking, but four in 29 games is nothing special. I reckon he is another one of the group that probably tested well at draft camp and looks a million dollars on the training track, but is virtually useless on the field because he can't find the football. I honestly don't know what to do with him, because I think he has been played all over the field already without much impact.