pantaloons

It's a fair comment from Caro. We were naive (or bullied) to not restrict GWS access to players who had played at least 3/4/5 years of AFL. LeTom was never going to be off their radar for moral reasons.

Nice to have some good news after the a-bomb West Sydney dropped on the club earlier in the day. I'm perfectly happy to see Morton re-signed. He was at his lowest trade value yet - he's worth far more to us as a Melbourne player than the third round pick we may have received in return. I'm keen to see what he can produce under a new coach. He came to us as the fourth-best player in his draft class, looked excellent in his first two seasons and then regressed. Cale Morton is a perfect example of why I'm dead keen for a gun coach (Lyon) to come in and implement a new system and start to get the best out of our young talent.

Sorry - I lost patience with my own analogy there! A bit steep in retrospect. I do think it's super important we're compensated with a top draft pick. While you're never absolutely guaranteed to find a superstar right at the top of the draft, you give yourself the best possible chance. It wouldn't be such a bad offseason if we ended up with compensation that would afford us this opportunity, plus the signing of Malthouse or Lyon as coach!

That's not what's being touted at the moment. Unless something changes and we manage to squeal our way up to a more appropriate pick 1 as compensation, picks 12 and 28 or whatever we get does not nearly equate to pick 1. It's the old 60 cents plus 40 cents equals a dollar. If that was the case, Michael Newton (10c), Matthew Bate (30c) and Cale Morton (70c) could be bundled off to Carlton for Chris Judd ($1). If and when Scully leaves, serious attention has to turn to arguing for the best compensation possible, and two mid-late first round picks is absolute tripe.

Yep. I actually love watching close, hard-fought, defensive sport. There's nothing wrong with a scoring feast once in a while, but there's nothing quite as emasculating and infuriating as the complete inability to stop your opponent from scoring.

The last word of your post is 'final'. We haven't been there for five years. You don't win premierships conceding 232 points in a game, you need to be able to defend. If we signed Ross Lyon it'd be our greatest day since the 2000 Preliminary Final.

Very much hoping for a Swans win. It certainly couldn't hurt our chances, even if it is a bit of a longshot.

Was thinking the same thing. I don't think Schoenmakers would get a spot on any other list, and while they've got Stratton to come back, their backline is ordinary. Warnock won't solve everything and he's not the player he was in 2008-09, but he'd walk into their backline. They should be one club pushing for his services, hopefully we can get one or two more clubs (GWS?) interested so we can garner more than pick 70 in a trade.

Those numbers seem absolutely absurd, but in the event that they were somewhere close to being true, I'd think the 'commitment' of Melbourne supporters stacks up pretty well compared to Collingwood supporters. According to those figures, we have roughly 16% of the support as Colingwood but our membership is 50% of Collingwood's.

Spot on. We all want an even comp, but that's an unnecessary step.

I just logged in to say my piece, and then saw that you've summed it all up beautifully! Great stuff. I don't think too many Sydney fans would be lining up to hand back their 2005 premiership based on it not being aesthetically pleasing. Winning is beautiful. And Scoop, I completely agree on the potential for being enthralled with defensive football, or any other sport for that matter. I find it more frustration when Melbourne loses because we're incapable of stopping the other team. The best sides force their opposition to play poorly.

Thanks Fan. Agree with all you've said there. Am I naive/too simplistic, or if indeed the decision to not re-appoint Bailey for 2012 was already made, was it 'easier' to sack him after a 186-point catastrophe as opposed to after three straight wins to end the season on 10 1/2 wins?

I'm nitpicking here Fan, but I have to take you up on the point about the draw. The bottom 5 for most of this year (including Richmond) was as shocking on-field as you're likely to see, and we've got also 8 games against them, having played 6 already for 5 wins. The teams around the middle of the table are quite average this year and we finished below 50% against them (2-3-1 vs. Syd, St.K, Ess, Freo, NM, WB). We travelled interstate 4 times, with one of these being a 'home' game against Port in Darwin, and two of the other three being against Port at the Adelaide Oval away from our hated Football Park and against the Gold Coast, also away from their normal home venue. It was as the club acknowledged at the time of the draw's release, a great playing draw but not such a great money-making one. We'll struggle to get as favourable draw again. Essentially though, you're right in the sense that the Bailey sacking was ugly and hasn't achieved a great deal. That said, I firmly believe he should not have been re-appionted for 2012.

Excellent post. The EPL system of relegation is the last one you want to be looking at to see where the AFL should head. Every year you have about 3 or 4 ultra-rich clubs who are the genuine title hopes, 20 clubs who can theoretically win the title, out of what - a hundred clubs?! It's pretty much the death of 80% of their clubs. But that's ok because kids in Singapore will buy Manchester United jerseys from the official club shop there. Laughable. This is a massive overreaction to a few on-field poundings. People have short memories. In the 80s and early 90s, these sort of beatings were par for the course, and the competition didn't implode. In fact, we've seen 11 different clubs win premierships since 1995. Every so often there are issues the media focuses on and can't let go of. With so many journalists devoted to AFL, there has to be something to cover. In the mid 2000s, we were told that Victorian clubs would never win another premiership. If you want to look at solutions for issues of thrashings in dead rubbers at the end of seasons (which I don't - I'm perfectly happy with where we're at), then you could start with the percentage system to determine tiebreakers. I like the % system and wouldn't want it changed, but if you wanted to decrease the incentive for clubs to pound the absolute snot out of each other, then make the tiebreakers based on other factors, like head to head results or wins away from home etc etc. What we have now in this year's competition as far as I see it is five teams in their premiership window going hell for leather (Coll, Geel, Haw, Carl, and I include StK here), surprise packet WC, some mediocre teams going nowhere (Syd, Freo, WB, and the rest of the comp who know they are not in premiership mode and are developing accordingly. There is always the hope of springing up the ladder a la West Coast this year. Relegating teams only reduces them to playing in an amateur competition, a move that would alienate supporters and see the end of a number of clubs. I always said I would be an MFC member until the club merged or was kicked out of the comp, and I see relegation as being kicked out the comp and would completely lose interest, as would most.

A couple of games have been attended poorly, most notably the disgraceful attendance for our home game against Hawthorn at which both lots of club members gained free entry. The reality is, that every club has a roughly similar proportion of bandwagon supporters who will jump on when things are going well. It's not restricted to Melbourne. Gear up for some more crowd disappointment today I reckon. Grey skies and raining in the inner city.

Jack, good stuff. I think an investigation into tanking would be farcical. I've thrown in my two cents worth on the topic over the last few days, but rather than look to the past (where clubs did nothing wrong under current guidelines), if the AFL wants to put this issue to bed then they can start by eliminating the priority pick system. Then down the road, if they're still concerned about the way clubs are going about their late-season affairs, look at introducing a draft lottery.

HA! Yep, I just can't stand it. Just one of those terms that once you decide you don't like (instantly, for me), it irritates you more and more each time you hear it.

While it may not have been introduced in 2011, the term 'playing group' offends the absolute tripe out of me. What's wrong with calling them players? The Walls, Darcys and Matthews of the world caught using it should be given a lace-out kick to the pigskin.

You'd be relying on a young coach doing a good job getting the sack within 12 months and then coming to Melbourne as an assistant.

Just looking at the Hun site and the tweets of the various journos. One says mid-season draft window and the other mid-season trade window. Either or both?

Correct on his time with the Dogs. Malthouse has succeeded wherever he's gone. Collingwood's list was absolute tripe when he took it on, and a couple of years later he had them playing off in back to back Grand Finals. Should we be so lucky to appoint him, it would be unmitigated party time.

I'd happily see Melbourne lose Scully for nothing if it meant I got to see Kennett's face when Hawthorn is stripped of the 2008 Premiership for tanking. Others have covered some of the key issues here, but fundamentally, I see nothing wrong with what any club has done regarding their own list management during the priority pick era or before. Eliminating the priority pick (with or without a lottery system in place) will at least get rid of the stigma around 'tanking'. Lo and behold, clubs down the bottom will still shelve injured players and play kids for the future because it is in the best interest of the club. Kennett has a basic and flawed understanding of list management, a short memory, and a woeful inability to keep himself out of the business of others.

It's probably just a replay of their quick interviews that appeared in the sports section of Channel 10's news tonight. Nothing earth-shattering was said. Scully rated himself an 80% chance of playing this week.

Malthouse wouldn't go through all the drama and wrangling of leaving his contract at Collingwood just to be a mentor at another club. He knows if he comes to Melbourne as senior coach and wins a couple of flags then he goes down as one of the greatest coaches in the history of the game. This is our great hope in my opinion.

Good one. Just saw that myself too. Sanity prevails.