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It looks to me helping deliver a flag is a top priority. From the article: 'While Kate Roffey wants to do all she can to lead the Demons to premierships and off-field stability, the new Melbourne president spoke passionately on Monday morning about pushing for equality on a number of issues'. 'Roffey ...said another priority was to secure a home base for the Demons...' There is no reason why she and her Board cannot have more than one goal.

Other Board members would have known what she stood for and in choosing her have endorsed the goals she has laid out. Impressively, our Board managed to pull off a 'bloodless coup' when success is on the horizon. We don't know the reason for ousting Bartlett but they must have had a good reason to change. We need to trust their decisions.

One thing in our favour for Mac Andres is that clubs are unlikely to use a top 20 pick on a pure ruckman who probably won't play for a few years. We used pick 3 on Jackson but he is seen as ruck/forward/tall midfielder. I don't think 'the top 20' cutoff for NGA players is adjusted for Northern Academy and F/S players taken in the first round so that would help him slide to outside the top 20. In the AFL article: "During the upcoming recess of the NAB League competition Melbourne is expected to increase its work with Andrew, including the potential of him featuring for their VFL side Casey Demons". early-season-blitz-puts-ruckman-on-demons-nga-radar Good to see he gets an early start start with us. That is partly why Sydney Academy players are ready to play in their early years.

Listed on the umpires website each week: https://aflua.com.au/umpire-appointments/ Round 4: https://aflua.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021-AFL-Season-Umpire-Appointments-Round-4-edit.pdf

Geelong rely on outscoring ops early in the game in the hope they will hang on and win. In the last two games they were well ahead at 3/4 time only to be outscored in the last. vs Brisbane 4.3 to Geelong 1.1 in the last qtr who were lucky to win by a pt vs Hawthorn 4.3 to Geelong 1.2 in the last qtr who again were lucky to win by 5 pts Those games and their fade out in the GF says they can't play out a full 120 min even at the smaller Geelong ground where the Brisbane game was played. There will be nowhere to hide at the MCG. The key is to stay with them (or be ahead) on the scoreboard at 3/4 time and then run them off their feet. And kicking straight will help this immensely. The other key thing is their scoring efficiency - not many scoring shots vis a vis the opp but get more goals than points which has been a feature of their game for a long time, especially against us. We need to force them to kick for goal from further out to reduce that efficiency. We will win.

He is the Lachie Whitfield, Daniel Rich half-back type player. Worth their weight in gold even if not top money earners. A large part of why Salem 'looks better' this year is because we have better ball movement processes and positioning and a mid field who understand their roles better. He has always had exquisite skills and footy IQ and been very, very good and under rated on this board.

Beware the 'Trojan Horse'! Hardwick has an ulterior motive. He has a young ruckman (Sam Ryan) who won't get senior games for a while with Nankervis and Soldo there so he wants to get senior games into Ryan. As Drew said lots of teams play without recognised ruckman. Bulldogs is a team who have made an art form of not having one. Lions don't have one available right now either. We did very well without Max and Spencer in 2017 - quite a winning spree. Doubt Dimmer would lend his young ruckman to a team in finals contention.

Its a bit rich Scott complaining about 'the cost' of Syd Academy players: Geelong got umpteen father/sons for very late junk picks: Ablett, Hawkins, Scarlett etc etc. without whom they would not have won any of their most recent flags. Pies have 4 father/sons players and will get one next year; touted to be #1 in the draft and they have two top NGA players. Bulldgos got JUH and never invested a minute in his development - a quirk of geography gave him to them. At least Sydney invest time and money into their guys. And if other clubs thought highly of Gulden they should have bid for him earlier to force Sydney to pay a higher price. Lots of sour grapes among Vic clubs.

Agreed, we won't truly know until they are back, especially Brown who runs in a straight line and leads to the ball. So far the fast open play from the new rules have advantaged that type of fwd. So ?.

They should off-set all the free kicks against Geelong that weren't paid to the opps: throws, dropping the ball, faking 'high' contact etc etc. That would even the differential quite a bit.

From the horse's mouth: Asked whether he wants to be at Melbourne beyond his current contract, he replied: “Yeah, I do. I love the club.” He later added: “Being a one-club player is pretty special.” https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/afl-2021-trade-news-christian-petracca-to-collingwood-melbourne-contract-news-afl-360-scott-pendlebury-trade-latest-news/news-story/7587605fdfec892de7455b8adccab4d0

This year a lot of goals are being scored by end-to-end ball movement from kick-ins after a point. One of the rule changes that hasn't had much attention is that the defender must 'stand' (ie not move) 10 mtrs from the top of the goal square; previously it was 5. This plus the 'stand' rule gives the kicker a lot more space and time to attack and he can get the ball to the center (the 'fat' part) where the width makes it harder for the opps to defend. If the ball is marked the 'stand' rule again makes it easier to attack. If it comes to ground there is less chance of a stoppage as players are spread and fast players (eg Langdon, Hunt) can turn on their jets. If the opp mark it is far less likely they will score than if the mark was taken at around the 50m line and it gives defenders time to set-up. Or the kicker can kick short (to eg Salem, Rivers) who can then kick over the pack and link up with Langdon or Brayshaw. Not many points have been scored in our last two games so not a good sample but it looked to me we weren't kicking to Max all the time at kick-ins and using our smaller defenders and wing men much more effectively after kick-ins. Without that extra 5mtrs at kick-ins I'm not sure the ground would be so open and end-to-end goals so frequent. Will be interesting to see how it pans out in the next few weeks as more teams wake up to the advantages of that extra 5mtrs. Sydney is a good example of making the most of this little rule change.

I think Port missed what Chris Scott called the 'paradigm shift'. "I think if you miss the paradigm shift, you can be left behind very, very quickly... we have got to find a way through and when we find our way through this little patch at the moment we have got to find a way to be a whole lot better." I believe he is referring to the impact of the new rules. And it looks to me that last year's Prelim finalists (Port, Lions, Cats and Tigers) have missed that impact. Perhaps believing their system/game plan was so good it didn't need much change. They are now playing 'catch-up'. Hardwick said something similar about needing to learn from their Sydney defeat and make changes to the way they go about it. It reminds me of us not adjusting to the impact of the 6-6-6 paradigm shift. Fortunately, this time we did anticipate the rules impact and have adjusted and practiced our game plan. I think it will take those teams 3-6 weeks to adjust but even then they will be experimenting with what works. Fortunately we play Cats and Tigers in the next few weeks so we may have a bit of an advantage which is why I believe we can be 6-0 or 5-1. By mid-year the best teams will have adjusted and the second half of the season will be more even. And as you say we will need to be better to match Eagles and other teams when they catch up.

Coaches votes: Split: 5/5 Gawm 4/4 Green 3-0 or 3-0 or 2+1 Viney, Picket, Petracca 2/0 Lever 1/0 Langdon Again first 2 unanimous. The rest not so. Of Viney, Pickett, Petracca, Lever and Langdon only one got votes from both coaches! Bit surprised to see Lever amongst the votes as he had a few clangers and cost us goals. Leader Board Oliver and Gawn in the top 5. Tex has flown past the rest 28 Taylor Walker ADEL 19 Dustin Martin RICH 16 Darcy Moore COLL 16 Clayton Oliver MELB 15 Max Gawn MELB

My concern with Melksham in is that his recent past shows no fwd pressure which in turn puts our mids and defenders under pressure when opps quickly move the ball out of our fwd 50. In the last 3 weeks our fwd pressure has been excellent and not sure we want to disrupt that. If he comes in I would a swap for Jones but that is unlikely given he is so close to his 300. Edit Reason for suggesting a swap for Jones is that I don't want to upset the fwd pressure we currently have by putting Melksham there. He will be more value kicking into the fwd 50. But as I said it is unlikely. Someone else will probably make way. I do like that he has been kept waiting.If Melksham does come in I hope he knows what the non-negotables are.

Hawks vs Cats today. Would be happy to see Hawks win just to watch Scott fume as the go 1W -2L and their season start to wobble. But then they will come out with all guns blazing next week to make amends. I reckon we can match their fury next week so will be barracking for Hawks.

I've believed all preseason, od: Posted that we could be top 4 at end of H & A. Still believe that. Amidst the preseason doom and gloom on here and injuries as early excuses for a poor 2021, I predicted we would be 3 - 0. Agree with you re a tall fwd but looking at the next 3 weeks none of Cats, Hawks or Tigers have a strong back 6 right now so lack of that tall shouldn't hurt us as much as if we were playing Eagles ,Pies or Power in the next 3 weeks. Next 3 weeks are a great opportunity to bank a few more wins before we meet the in-form sides. By which time I hope we have either/both Weideman/B 'Brown availalble. So 6 -0 or 5 - 1 is definitely achievable.

While we are talking 'great pick-ups': The pick 2 (Josh Kelly) for Salem, Tyson and Hunt trade is looking pretty good right now. Even tho we lost Tyson for Preuss who was traded to GWS, their pick for him helped us get B.Brown and either Bowey or Laurie. (iirc, GWS pick 33 for Preuss went to North in the Brown deal and we got pick 28 back which we used for Bowey or Laurie). Kelly is a great player but I would say we have done very well from the trade. Desperately hoping Salem stays. And while doing a postmortem on recruiting - how many people wanted us to pick Cody Weightman instead of Kozzie? Weightman may yet become a very good player but Kozzie is a rare talent. Imagine if we took Weightman and Bulldogs got Kozzie.

A week ago I posted the only thing to beat us vs GWS was ourselves and what was happening 'between the ears. Answer: Plenty good is happening - We came to play; we came to win. We didn't take our foot off the pedal. We played 120 mins of committed football We didn't let their early run of goals daunt us or to drop our heads. We fought back. We fought back in the last quarter again when they had a bit of a run. We know how to steady the ship. We are less likely to panic Three weeks of consistency and resilience. Great foundations on which to build the rest of the season. I'm guessing the belief by the players would be growing by the week; no matter what the opps throw at us we can deal with it and get over the line. That is the new Melbourne. Next step: Ruthless defeat of the opps! Yes, we have tougher opps over the next three weeks but there is untold benefit in the growth 'between the ears' of the last 3 weeks. We can easily be 6 - 0 or 5 - 1.

Anyone know if there was/is an intra-club match this weekend? Difficult for this weeks non AFL selected players to make a case for selection, especially those that are regular/semi-regular AFL players: Melksham, Hibberd, Smith, Petty etc.

Hopefully, it lulls Ess into a false sense of security and a belief that they have a great game plan. They have no defence and strong defence is what will define games this season. They are still a bottom six side.. The next three games should bring them back down to earth: Swans, Lions, Pies. With a bit of luck they will be 1W:5L

This is like when 6-6-6 was introduced - the teams that adapted and practiced their game plan changes for the new rules (man on the mark, fewer interchanges and kick-in marker set further back) will reap the rewards with very good early wins. It will take time for teams that haven't adapted game plans, to catch up by which time their season may be lost. Most of last year's finalists look to be in the slow to adapt category. Bulldgos, Swans, Adelaide Eagles and Demons seem to have adapted well. Good opportunity for us to bank a few more early wins before competitors catch up.

Something about counting chickens...comes to mind ?

I hope not.

I share your concern jr. Bonds are a niche market. More so the Corporate Bond (not Government Bonds) which ABE deals in. ABE started in 2015. After a bit of googling I haven't found anything substantial about their performance. Their 2020 report reads like a marketing spiel. AGMFY20.pdf. What they get out of the exposure: my reading of their website is that they are targeting retail investors, in particular those near or at retirement age. I suspect there would be lots of those in the mfc member ranks. Hopefully, folks do their due diligence before investing in any new product with ABE or anyone else.