Watts Jurrah Dunn?

Has played well against StK and Western Bulldogs, ordinary young sides. You'd hope a pick 4 would, 3 years in. Needs to do it when the chips are down against a top side. Still seems to not want to take responsibility for kicking the thing. Broke a tackle in the square, streaming toward 50, you'd hope he'd hit a forward lace out or run to 50 and goal. Instead handpassed it backwards to Gawn. Seems to want to always pass it off like a hot potato when he's one of the better kicks in the side. A couple more 20 possession, 2 goal games and maybe a side will fall into giving us something decent for him.

Last quarter played entirely in st kilda's forward half. Didn't deserve to win. Michie the most terrible sub for etihad. Should have played someone that can at least cover the ground like Bail. We haven't won there in years because we are so slow and poorly skilled, and it's a quick deck. Basically 3 short in the last quarter with michie and the "first" gamers in stretch and anb. The thing that pisses me off the most though is that these are the games vince, garlett and lumumba were brought to the club to win. St kilda have loaded up on kids with equivalent picks. I thought Lumumba and garlett were just terrible. Where have all the 'tyson will win a brownlow' posters gone? Just a good player. Terrible mistake trying to mark that tmac kick on his chest on the wing. Gawn with the harlem globetrotter tap to space at that 2nd last ball up was horrible too. Had to put it at his feet and lock it in, slow it down. Good thing i got the $1.80 saints. Melbourne don't know how to win. Couldn't beat an egg.

Runs all day, one paced, clearance player who loves to tackle, ordinary kick, super professional. Not sure about Swan. Sounds more like a young Daniel Cross, perhaps without Cross' exceptional overhead marking. Thank goodness the club paid out Evans/Dom Barry retired because at one stage we didn't even look like using pick 40. Safe to say that with 35 possessions at VFL level after an injury interrupted pre-season, he's going to be a much better player than Evans or Barry. I just hope we payout Terlich and Jones at the end of the year and go and find another vandenBerg and Neal-Bullen. They're out there.

Loved Gawn's ruckwork. The flick over the back from the throw in was something you just don't get from jamar or spencer. Just get 12 more games into him. Expect better from Roos. McDonald to cloke was a terrible decison. Tmac doesn't have the strength to wrestle with cloke, and it robbed us of so much of T mac's run when cloke dragged him to the goal square. Shouldn't have taken 4 goals to make the change either. Couldn't work out how Howe held his spot but pleased he did - 3 goals on the big stage might help his trade value. Brayshaw going to be a beauty. Exciting to think Petracca was even higher rated.

Well I hope he makes a statement and drops some of these soft cox for our biggest match of the year. For christs sake, Jack Watts epitomises everything that was wrong with this club and had to drop himself a few weeks back. Howe hasn't had a kick against the good sides all year and looks disinterested, yet he gets a game every week while Roos shuffles the deck chairs with the Newton's and Michie's of the world.

Inexplicable that Matt Jones and Terlich would be signed to anything more than a 1 year deal. These are fringe players at a club that couldn't beat an egg. Why the need to commit to more than 1 year at a time? An opposition club going to throw the kitchen sink at them? This is as poor a list management as Jamar and McKenzie receiving 3 year deals. There are blokes like Aaron vandenBerg running around out there and we put years into dime a dozen park footballers like Bail, M Jones and Terlich.

You're playing 4 short with Watts, Howe, Bail and M Jones. Watts and Howe are as weak as p*ss. Jones and Bail are park footballers. None of them pose any threat to the opposition as 2 are soft and 2 are useless. When your opposition has 3-4 midfielders that are better players than nathan jones you're always going to be in trouble. Boak, Gray, Wines. Stars. Not until nathan jones is our 3rd or 4th midfielder will we be any good. Brayshaw will be in a couple of years, hopefully petracca, tyson and maybe salem can be, and we need to get pick 4 or 5 right this year too. But the earlier comment is spot on. We've upgraded slightly from 3rd world midfield but still can't get anywhere near the 1st class midfields.

Well done to Fitzy on a great game. I wondered why he was even picked having played a quarter the week before and being taken to hospital with a serious neck injury. We've all known that the problem with him is he doesn't play like a 200cm player. He is not physical at all, isn't strong overhead, but is lightning fast when the ball hits the ground. He marked well on Sunday, but the backline should suit him more as he can punch more often, and we know he'll be able to stay with his opponent on the lead. He looked very sure with the ball on Sunday as well which surprised me. I hope he can have another good game this week on Ryder, and I think Queens Birthday would be a true test with Collingwood's mosquito fleet buzzing around him and putting on a lot more pressure than what the Dogs did.

Well done to Riley after beating the door down at Casey. Makes much more sense as a sub than Jordie McKenzie did. His kamikaze attack on the footy really is something. Couldn't play him all day in the same midfield as Tyson, Cross etc. but can really have an impact as the sub when the pace has gone out of the game. We just weren't able to get our hands on the footy against the top sides so I like the idea of Riley coming on when the opposition's midfield are buggered and crashing in and winning some contests to get the ball going our way.

You can't be serious about bail? The definition of list clogger.

Great first post Luke! I'm not sure whether freshness and training loads is so much the issue, but more the fact the list is just so slow. Aside from Garlett and Lumumba there is no one with pace. Tyson was slow last year as well but I think his knee has slowed him down even more this year. It is interesting to see in the paper this morning that Melbourne is second last in the league for the differential between pressure applied and pressure received. We are always under pressure because we are one-paced all over the ground except for Lumumba and Garlett, and we don't put on enough pressure because we are too slow and a lot of players don't have the desire to chase/tackle/smother like their life depends on it. Misson is supposed to be a master and I have no idea about sports science, but I would have thought it would help if we recruited some midfielders with genuine pace. Watch players like Dylan Shiel put 5m between them and their opponent in the blink of an eye.

I'm sick of bagging Howe but I think the issue is probably deeper now for these guys that have been at Melbourne for the past 4-5 years and played their first 80-100 games in red and blue - they're broken mentally. We saw the effect it has had when Garland last week dropped to his knees and looked for a hole to hide in. There is no way that players like Howe, Garland and Watts can possibly walk onto a field in a Melbourne guernsey and think they're a chance of winning. The scars are too deep. Listen to Rhys Stanley talk today about the difference between Geelong and St Kilda. He said something like "The confidence and belief in the entire group at Geelong is just incredible...even after a loss we know we are on the right track and can bounce back". And it's generous to compare us to St Kilda who actually have had some success in the past 8 years and have on-field leaders. Short of those that have shown they are up for the fight and improved through the misery (Jones, Dunn, Jetta, McDonald), and having to do the right thing by Trengove, I think every player that has been on the list in the Bailey/Neeld days has to be moved on at season's end. I'm thinking Howe, Garland, Watts, Grimes, Toumpas. Clean the list out once again and bring in established players and talented kids that aren't scarred and believe they can win. GWS offered pick 7 for Howe last year. They might still be interested in him as a mid-sized forward that can get them on the news each week. We might be able to get their 2nd pick this year (25-28) or bundle Howe with a pick to try and get a talented midfielder there that can't get a game.

My quick recap for those that missed it: - They were staggered that a coach could say players are tired after round 7, a third of the way through the season. The side Melbourne fielded at the weekend was the 9th youngest in the league so we are not that young. - Ball movement absolutely atrocious. For Inside 50 conversions from Deep Defence, Defence, Backward of Centre and Forward of Centre we are something like 16th, 18th, 18th, 18th. Inaccuracy in front of goal also hurting going at about 50%, but we are incapable of moving the ball and kicking a score (average of 57 points for over the past 6 weeks is 2 goals behind the 17th side over that period - Brisbane). Nothing we didn't already know here as we are screaming out for skilled mids and half backs that can run and kick. - King subtly turned up the heat on Roos and said that it is unfair to grade us on the last 3 weeks but the next 4-6 weeks in which we play the Bulldogs and St Kilda will tell us a lot about whether we have actually improved. Mentioned that the investment in Roos has been enormous and you'd want to see some real improvement soon. Questioned whether the game style is right and said he would prefer to see Melbourne try and kick 100 points and lose by 100 points.

Not bagging Watts as I think he's a great bloke, but as it stands right now, if you could get pick 20-25 for him you would do the deal in a flash. I don't think 20-25 is realistic though as those picks belong to low clubs and I don't think a developing list needs to add Jack Watts who, in my opinion, could be a cherry on top in a hardened team that get the ball inside 50 plenty of times. I think it would be more realistic for a Sydney or Freo to offer their 2nd round pick (33-38). Who knows though. Maybe Brisbane would fancy him as taller forward option and might think they brought in enough kids a year or two back when they went heavily to the draft? Maybe GWS would like an 'in between' tall option and might give you their 2nd round pick given they don't need any more 18 year olds? Will be really interesting because on the one hand clubs have seen that not even Paul Roos has been able to address Watts' issues, but on the other hand clubs weren't put off by Frawley's deficiencies and backed themselves in to improve him in their systems. I'm not sure, but certainly drafting in a top 5 midfielder and trading our 2nd round pick for a good B grader (i.e. Vince, Lumumba) at the end of this year is not going to see us sky rocket up the ladder next year. I have no doubt that Watts, Howe and Toumpas will be shopped and bundled with later picks and if Roos can turn any of these into bona fide AFL midfielders or draft picks that could yield a bona fide AFL mid then they will be moved on.

Can the club please put us out of our misery and end the Spencer project? How many years has this bloke clogged the list for now? How many delisted ruckmen like Ceglar have we overlooked to develop Spencer? He's just laughable. Can't even read the ball in flight. We've conceded several goals on the goal line in the last 2 weeks where Jake wasn't coordinated enough to just punch it through for a point. When we have the ball we are just always under pressure because we are so painfully slow all over the ground. Lumumba and Garlett are the only blokes with pace capable of putting a yard quickly between them and their opponent. GWS knew which of their highly touted mids to let go. Tyson couldn't run out of sight on a dark night and is so one-sided. I hope his terrible form is due to his knee and not opposition clubs figuring him out. Dawes is currently the most overpaid player in the Afl. Fancy Dawes, on $500k a year, being paid more than 90% of the Hawks players that lined up yesterday. I hope his salary is halved in his next contract. Can't work out why the club would roll Dawes out for a presser when he is so out of form anyway? Concentrate on getting a kick and not baiting the Hawks with embarrassing comments. Finally, bloody disappointing to see Tyson and Michie out at a bar last night. Not going hard, not out late, but you have to wonder how much it really hurts some of these players.

Because some of the players that regularly go missing are being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year? I'll be there tomorrow but I don't blame supporters if, after 8 years of ineptitude and being out of games by quarter time / half time, they have better things to do on their weekends than watch Bail, Grimes and M Jones make the same mistakes over and over.

The Shiel's and Dangerfield's of the world aren't going to care about Petracca and Brayshaw extending their commitment to the club. They are going to look at the ladder and the fact that Melbourne will have won another 5-7 games this year, finished in the bottom 3 or 4, and will weigh up whether they want to leave clubs that are on the cusp of finals (and in Shiel's case a Premiership) to go back to Melbourne where finals are still at least a couple of years away. The Roos factor is also gone as they would have 1 year under PR. Don't waste your breath on Dangerfield and Shiel. Unless we offer them $1.2m+ a season for 5+ years, which could create all sorts of issues when the Hogan's etc need to be re-signed in a few years, they're no chance of coming.

Jake Spencer woeful. Got drawn into the 2 on 1 on the boundary and pyke slots it. Is the loose man back and is outoutmarked by tippett. 2 goals as a result of spencer's ineptitude. And where is the supposed aggression people rave about?

Thanks guys. I find that really surprising. From memory Jetta's recent one was Howe sailing through for a mark and his knee glanced Jetta across the temple. Would have thought some padding there would have helped enormously.

Given Bail and Jetta seem to get concussed running through the banner, why don't either of them wear a helmet? Just crazy.

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Horses for courses. There's some sort of extraordinary stat where if Steven Hill gets the ball over 25 times a game Freo win about 99% of matches. McKenzie will be the hard tag for Hill and Vince will run with Fyfe.

Hogan at one end, McDonald at the other. Fingers crossed the bookends are sorted for the next 8 years. Both could be in the best few key forwards/defenders in the comp. So happy to know they will continue to be developed properly with Roos, Goodwin, McCartney. Bruce's "Hogan launches himself and takes a beauuuuuty" was just perfect.

I think Fitzpatrick's cards were marked after he played the first 2 or 3 rounds last year and didn't lay a finger on the opposition. At 200cm and 100kg you can't be afraid of body contact like he is. You'd just love to be a defender walking down and seeing Watts and Fitz in the same forward line. Pedersen and Dawes are too slow and can't play in the same side. The opposition would walk it out of defence. I'd bring Michie in for more run. Hardly think Ben Griffiths is a competent or scary ruck so Dawes can go in and try and pull a finger out for once. I'd also consider having Watts strap a shin guard on and get him physically involved in the match by being jumped into a few times. Could try and make up for some of his insipid efforts from the weekend.

Haven't seen the game but pist off to again see Kent and Garlett wasteful in front of goal. Fcs dean kent if you are going to get the ball 10 times a game you need to be kicking 3.0 rather than 1.2. Jamar 5 possessions and not a single mark!? Effectively playing 1 short.