Dees2014

Thanks OD. yes I have, a number of times. I'm surprised they are not holding a "private" match at Casey. But thanks for letting me know

Can I just clarify . Does anyone know the time and place of the practice match on Thursday? There appears tobe some confusion. I would be grateful for clarification.

.....and a steal at pick 23. He will make a big difference, and also clearly a very likeable character - good for team morale. An outstanding get recruiters!

I think there is a fundamental difference (at least potentially) to the PR coached swans of circa 2007, and us this season. We have an extremely powerful brute of a forward line. Potentially the best in the league. He didn't at the swans, so he was forced (very cleverly) to play possession, keepings off football. And he did it extremely successfully. I think it is significant that the Swans post Roos have spent their cash building an equivalent brute of a forward line to us with the recruitment of Tippett and Franklin. Personally I'd rather have Clark , Fitz, Dawes, Hogan, JKH and Howe than their lot any day. Roos knows what he is dealing with here. He knows he has potentially a huge advantage on his hands. The challenge is to harness it. I think it will be the continuing fascination of this season as to exactly how he does that. I have no doubt he and his assistants will gain maximum advantage. Personally, I can't wait to see it.

Given Garland's absence, we may need another tall in Defence. Georgiou is a real find I believe, and although he plays tall and tough he is only 187cm. Dunn is 193cm (or thereabouts) but is more value as a running long kicking half back (when we get our forward line) than a tall stopper in the BP. Pederson is the logical choice to take the second tall forward. I think he showed enough on Friday night to do an adequate job until Garland returns. He certainly appears fitter and more bulked up than in the past , and has a long kick on him as was seen by his super goal. Although I am not a huge fan, I think where we are up against a tall forward line (as Geelong and Hawthorn will be) I think we have little choice but to play him as our second tall back. If he prospers, then we have added depth, and the Roos magic has worked yet again. If he doesn't, he plays a bit part for the rest of the time on our list. It is what it is. No point in continually complaining about it.

I don't think any of them will get a look in for round one, now that Georgiou has put his hand up and will IMO be promoted from the rookie list. At this stage, my round one team would be:FB Georgiou Frawley. Pederson HB. Grimes. McDonald. Dunn C. Watts. N Jones. Toumpas HF: Viney. Dawes. Hogan FF: Howe. Fitzpatrick. JKH Foll: Gawn. Tyson. Vince Inter: Trengove Salem Cross Sub: Bleese Reserves: Mckenzie. Michie. Bail. Matt Jones. Clisby. Byrnes Not a bad side. Even better when Clark and Garland are available

Not sure I agree. Having seen Hogan at Casey a number of times last year, he plays like a mature adult, and has awesome strength for someone so young, and an impressive tank. I think he will play 15+ games next year as long as his body stands up (which I suppose to some extent is your point). Hopefully Clark will be back sometime in the first half of the year which will take some pressure off Hogan being there every week. I think one interesting point in all this will be what will be Fitz's role when all of Hogan, Clark, Dawes, Howe are available. One of the great things about him is he has considerable acceleration and a good tank so could play midfield or wing (Watts and Fitz either wing would be a challenging match up for most sides, particularly on a dry day). Most likely though I suspect he will be a super sub when dry, and at Casey when wet. A nice challenge to have.

I think Strauss is over-rated, particularly his kicking skills. He comes under the category IMHO as a "dumb footballer". Too many silly errors and he gets caught far too often. He will be a handy backup, no more, particularly now we have Georgiou, who I have no doubt will be elevated off the rookie list before the season starts.

I think it would be worth doing in the home and away too. Surely it is about getting maximum productivity in goal kicking. Something the demon final teams under Daniher used to use Paul Wheatley very effectively for. Dunn is a similar booming kick.

I disagree about playing a second string sides. You just need to look at the Australian Cricket team to see how important momentum is. When we weren't winning ALL aspects of the performance were down. Now we are winning, our batting regularly gets above 400, our fielding and catching can do no wrong, and all bowlers (not just Johnson) are bowling at an elite level. The Demons are coming off such a low base and have such a young group, I think playing our best sides in these games gives us an opportunity to not only develop that momentum in game performance, but also build it in getting our supporter base behind us. I would venture to say if we won the games against Geelong and Hawthorn (not beyond the possibilities if they play second string sides and we don't), then I think we could build a membership beyond 40k for the first time, the football world wold sit up and take notice, and it would build immense confidence into the playing group. Bring it on. We have a lot to look forward to.

Interestingly, in Roos post game comments, he said the forwards by necessity had a hard running game because we did not have the opportunity of "easier" goals because we had no high marking forwards. This to me implies there will at least be in the future mix much more long kicking into the forward line which will rely on the obvious marking talents of Hogan, Dawes and Clark, and the exciting crumbling possibilities of JKH. It considerably increases our options going forward, and will make us extremely difficult to match up on. This only works of course if we have a mid field which can get the ball, and that to me was the most pleasing part of Friday. Roos has constructed a quality mid field. From there all sorts of possibilities open up. The test will be Geelong. I think we I'll be very competitive.

By necessity, Paul Roos revealed only part of our longer term gameplan on Friday night. It begs the question what will it look like with a dominant tall forward line and first class rucks (Jamar, Gawn even Fitzy). When we have a forward set up of Howe, Dawes, Hogan, Fitz, Clark, and JKH, where will our gameplan evolve too. Personally I think we will keep the disciplined defensive processes both in the front and back halves, and the switching keepings off we exhibited so successfully the other night, but our options going forward in the future open up considerably. There will be more of a mix of fast running in groups into the forward half and long bombing. Specifically, what roles Dawes, hogan, Clark and Howe play in this will be interesting to see, and where Fitz fits in also. The addition of JKH is a huge boost to the potential effectiveness of the whole set up. I would be very interested in others views on this. No doubt the brains trust has given this a lot of thought, but it will be very interesting to see how it eveolves. One further comment about the Nab Challenge games. There were a number of times on Friday night where we took shots for goal on the 50 meter line which should have been 9 pointers if we had have hand passed to a runner with a booming kick outside the 50 ( eg Dunn, Frawley, Vince). It is an opportunity we should take against Geelong.

Cards, unlike WADA/ASADA who are largely free from political interference, the same cannot be said fore Worksafe and to a lessor extent ACCC. My feeling is that what the powers may be waiting for is the findings of ASADA to be handed down and infraction notices issued before they act because then they (ASADA) will have done all the heavy lifting and their case will be laid out for them. The ACCC maybe the same, although I am not encouraged by the utterances of Tony Abbott and George Brandis who by their comments after the Canberra news conference last year when this first came to light (and since then even after they took office) seem to want to make this in to a party political issue, and appear to be taking the side of the great and the powerful who control major sport in this country. I hope I am wrong. We shall see I guess. Whatever they think and do, fortunately it will not effect the actions and finding of WADA/ASADA. That is beyond the interference of the Australian political masters.

And because there is a prima facie case to suggest they neglected their director duties which requires them to protect the health of their employees, Worksafe and the ACC will become involved and there may well be criminal prosecutions from worksafe, and prosecutions of directors for not fulfilling their professional obligations. The penalties are these days severe for Directors who do fulfill their professional obligations. Don't be surprised if we see some of the most powerful names in the AFL ending up in the dock.

Nonsense...

QUESTIONS: 1. Who will be better in season 2014 (assuming both remain fit) - Hogan or Mitch Clark? 2. Who will be best in three years time (assuming all remain fit) - Hogan, Watts, Clark or Fitz?

I'm sorry to have to disagree again. GWS is about expansion. If the AFL/VFL were concerned about "burdens" then they would never have left Victoria, never taken a risk, and never become the national and international powerhouse they are today. When the Swans went to Sydney, and the Bears/Lions went to Queensland, they were never broadcast locally on free to air live. They were usually replayed late at night much like the Storm is here, and the AFL is in the US. In other words, deadendsville. Today of course, in both states their games are not only broadcast live, often on the major free to air channels, but they get good ratings, sometimes out-rating the NRL. We have the great advantage these days that everyone has access to free to air digital channels, which allows an emerging force like GWS to get free to air exposure, albeit on a secondary channel like 7mate, much like the NBL. It at least gives them free to air exposure and they will over time develop their own niche, just as the Wanderers do. The Wanderers after all play in a stadium which is always packed out, but it only holds about 18000, not too difficult to fill I would have thought. Any self respecting AFL side would have ambition to have more than twice that crowd to their major games, as the Swans and Brisbane regularly do. GWS will in time, especially when they move their home ground to Homebush which the Wanderers will never do. In future, I would predict the AFL will expand next to NZ because it expands their market, and they have some interest and exposure to the AFL already. In 20 to 30 years, I would not be at all surprised to see an AFL side in South Africa, and the West Coast of the US, particularly if the AFL clubs have major successful recruiting from those markets a la Jim Stynes. Ireland is also a possibility since AFL is well known there and may provide a springboard for Europe. The distance and time zone difference is always a challenge though. India and China will always be, and should be, on the AFL radar for the next 50 years. Unfortunately for the very faithful Tasmanian AFL fans, the AFL itself has much bigger markets to develop. Tasmania will always be a very important, albeit small market. It will not include in my view, a team of its own.

Tasmania does not expand the AFL product. It is all about the economics of sports broadcasting, and that is all about viewer eyeballs. Tasmania does nothing for that, but the Swans in Sydney, the Lions in Brisbane, and GCS on the Gold Coast have been largely responsible for a five fold increase in broadcasting rights dollars in the last 10-15 years. GWS admittedly is the biggest gamble, but I have no doubt they will see value there eventually out of further increased broadcasting rights.

I seem to remember similar things were said when the Swans went to Sydney, and the Bear/Lions went to Brisbane. Remember the farse with the pink helicopter, and edelston's first trophy wife were the means to get publicity, any publicity, for AFL in the totally uninterested Sydney Press. Today, having lived in Sydney for five years, there are some of the most fanatical AFL people I know, most also NRL and A-league supporters. They have though largely drawn their support from the wealthy North Shore and Eastern Suburbs. They tend to fall flat when they play out at the Olympic stadium at Homebush in the middle of the Western Suburbs. I think it will be harder for GWS because the NRL regard Western Sydney as their heartland, which goes well with the mindless antics of their bogan star players. Western Sydney, along with Northern Queensland (also central bogan country) is where the NRL draws most of it support and will throw everything at its defense. My contention is not about going there, but I don't think they have been particularly smart it the way they have gone about it. With the exception of Tom Scully (who would fit neatly into a bogan environment anywhere) I don't think their choice of their public figures fits the mode. Kevin Sheedy, although has some bogan characteristics, is somehow "too Melbourne". Anyone who has seen the Channel 9 Sydney sports reporters with Rugby League affiliations will know what I mean - mostly brainless and totally insensitive. It would be better to recruit a few of them as sprukers for GWS than to spend the millions on Israel Folau who was not suited to the game and did not have the necessary expansive, brainless personality which goes down so well in those parts.

I am not complaining about their using the idea. If i were, i wouldn't have offered them in the first place. I would have thought though it was common practice to acknowledge receipt of such documents. In my day of running marketing department in large corporates, that would have been regarded as totally unacceptable. You get ideas from wherever you can. You track them because there maybe some more coming from the same direction. It is simply good practice. I say this more than anything else as yet another example of a lack of professionalism in the last administration. It was not only Neeld, although he certainly didn't help.

Well done Ignition. Some really good thoughts here. During Cameron Schwab's time I sent him a series of concepts to build the MFC supporter base, by applying some my professional marketing techniques - I never got a reply, but he or someone in the marketing department pinched some of the ideas which turned up mysteriously about 12 months later. The approach was to understand where the MFC strengths were and look at how they could be applied to various target segments of the markets. Some examples were (I actually suggested 10 but I will outline a couple here). 1) the obvious market are the immigrants, both internal and external, who settle in Melbourne every year. This has averaged over last five years about 1500 people week, most of whom are not Aussie rules supporters. On the basis that most new arrivals want to fit in to their new environments, an obvious way to do that is to adopt a local footy team. So I then broke down these arrivals by sub segment and looked at their characteristics which may lead us to match that to our MFC advantages. An obvious sub segment are sports lovers in general, and these can then be sub segmented again into football lovers (eg soccer, rugby union, gridiron) and cricket lovers. Football followers instinctively understand football cultures but usually not Australian rules. Many of the Union followers are also cricket lovers ( people from the UK - fourth biggest source of migrants, South African - seventh biggest source, and NZers - second biggest source) All these people know and understand the fame and importance of the MCG, (as do people from the Indian subcontinent - now our biggest source of migrants), which also happens to be our biggest strength, and many of those same people take a tour of the MCG soon after they arrive. Each year something like 350k people take the tour of the MCG. What I suggested was we (MFC) should own this space via our association with the MCC by providing seminars for these people taking the tours which explain the Aussie Rules game, and provide free passes to those people to the next Melbourne game as guest of the MFC and even provide complimentary MFC scarfs which we should get sponsored by WEBJET or someone associated with the tourist industry. We then should follow this up by providing commentary on the web on MFC games in Hindi and Mandarin so they could follow the Dees when they return to their home country, and also for local supporters ( a suggestion the MFC subsequently took up for Mandarin both for tourists returning home and new arrivals emigrating). I also suggested that we should give a free season's ticket to those new arrivals, provide facilities for them after the game and have someone analyse the game on their behalf perhaps in their native tongue. The test for this of course is the number of season tickets you sell the following season, but if you can't convert 10-15k new members from this exercise I'd be surprised, and considering we only have at most this year 40k this would be significant. It would also help in having much bigger crowds at home games; 2) Melbourne is the biggest destination for Indian students in the country, some 120k study here at any one time. About a third of them stay on after graduation and subsequently become some of the biggest money earners in Melbourne. They are also almost always obsessed with Cricket and therefore see the MCG as a Mecca, and therefore often take the tour and tell this (loudly) to their envious relatives back home. Indian students are also notorious for being isolated in this society and sometimes have very little social life not only within the broader community but even within their own community. I think there is an opportunity here. Why couldn't the MFC build an Indian student branch of the MFC which is as much a social club for them to get together and meet people as it is a football club but it has football at its core. We would hand out to them free members tickets in the first year of their arrival and sell them discounted student tickets in subsequent years until graduation, but we would provide in ground facilities on match day as a social venue. We could sell them drinks etc to cover some of the cost, and perhaps sign up an Indian oriented company as a sponsor. The task is then to sign a significant number of them up as permanent members after graduation and set up branches of the MFC Indian Social club in major Indian cities for when they return home and they can then listen to the game on the net in Hindi. When and if they become subsequent immigrants, which statistically many of them do, they will be already converted Melbourne supporters and hopefully members. The same idea could also be tried with Chinese student although it would need to be in a different form, but with many of the same ideas. We must remember education is in our top half dozen export industries, and Melbourne is at the centre of it. It has got to be a huge opportunity for the MFC as long as we are culturally sensitive in the way we go about it; and 3) the recruitment of kids. We are up against the recruitment of kids because of our small supporter base and the biggest characteristic of choice of club for kids is inherited behavior. BUT there are opportunities if you look. There are families whose sons and daughters play Aussie rules who are not strongly affiliated to a club, and there are new arrivals whose kids take up the game as a means of social acceptance. What I suggest is the MFC heavily sponsor underage footy teams, invite the three best players along to a games as guests of the MFC every month where they will be introduced to the players, given insights into how the game is played, and analysis of the game they have just seen by MFC coaches. At the end of the season the Club could invite the 6 most outstanding players in each junior competition to a function where they can informally talk to the players and coaches and are given football related prizes (eg junior club memberships which entitle them to attend MFC games for free) maybe even giving educational scholarships for the most outstanding players (need a sponsor for this, maybe a major private school interested in recruiting outstanding Aussie Rules players). The idea in this is to get word of mouth going amongst kids and parents that the MFC is a great organisation, and therefore it is ok to become a Melbourne fan. Winning games will help enormously of course, but grass roots action will back this up. There were numerous other ideas I had in the paper, a few of which were taken up. The point is that there are lots of sophisticated marketing ideas which can be applied to building a supporter base. I don't think we are even close to maximizing our numbers yet, but Ignition's idea to start with individual action by our own supporter base is a really good place to start. Great suggestion.

Bleese - super sub Fitzy - wing/mid field Howe - mid field Watts - wing/mid field Hogan - will do a Neitz and spend some of his time in the early part of his career at CHB, as well as HFF and FP Frawley will return to the attacking hard running back he was in the early part of his career. Max and the Russian will spend more time on the full forward line than on the pine, a product of restricted rotations. Trengove I think will spend much of the year on the HF line - don't think he is yet ready for a prime mid field role due to fitness concern and he doesn't appear to have his running ability fully returned.

Essendon under Hird had many characteristics of a cult. This is how cults behave - those who disagree with them are brainwashed or "excommunicated" i.e. assumed away. I'm surprised that some on here appear to be surprised this is happening at Essendon. it is what I would EXPECT to happen, and in totally in sync with the characteristics of the organization. What will be interesting is when the Messiah doesn't return (or more accurately is not allowed to return) after infraction notices are issued and they and the AFL try to deal with the ensuing chaos. Many of them will feel lost, and total disenfranchised......not to say disillusioned.

Yes i did see him being coached in his kicking style, but it did not cause any perceived change in his action. Bit WCE Kennedy style - it must be in the WA water! In any case, they might have the attitude don't mess with what works. Based on todays results he is at about 70% from both sides of his body, with most weakness being trying to kick left footed goals from the boundary line. The rest is fine. What we didn't see was a banana kick on his left side a la fitzy. What i did hear were the trainers being almost in awe of his skills, which was fair enough -they are pretty remarkable

I was there from 9.45 to 11.15. Will add to this later as I am writing this on my iphone having lunch. I was very impressed with today's session. It is obvious to me that the Roos game plan is beginning to emerge as a development of his Swans' version, characterised by relentless running offensively and defensively, play on at all costs, hit targets by hand and foot, and run in groups. I think this is a developed version because he realises what a destructive weapon our tall forwards will be, and in order to take advantage of that he needs a mid field which as a group is elite, even if they are not individually. Hence the emphasis on incredibly quick ball movement and hunting in groups of 4 and 5, and play on at all costs. I can't see much stop - start football from the Dees in 2014. All I can say is hooray for that. There were several exercises today which emphasised this definitively. The first was around the grounds which consisted of kick, mark, handball, run, kick, mark etc etc. The difference from last year though was the heavy emphasis on rapid ball movement and relentless running. I must have heard the trainers yelling out a dozen times about faster running, hitting targets, and backing up the man with the ball. The second was when two groups of about a dozen faced each other about 50 meters apart with another player standing in the goal square at either end. Both groups were nominally on the HBF, and would then run flat out in lots of five or six toward the goal square hand-balling then kicking at full pace 50 meters passes to the goal square with their teammates beside them also at full pace. Clearly this was designed to illustrate and practice running and spreading. What impressed me about it was its quality: very fast running, accurate kicking. We have seen variances of this in the past, but in my view not of that intensity, and not of that quality. I should also say there was a very intensive session on tackling towards the end which indicates Roos has also not abandoned the defensive game either. Finally, who exceeded expectations for me in terms of their intensity and quality? Our mid field is not particularly fast, the best being Bleese (although doubts about his endurance), Toumpas, McDonald, Viney, Vince, Hunt, Salem, Watts, Barry. Tyson is not fast, but makes up for it in his size and skills with the ball. At the moment, Trengove is not particularly fast either, but is improving all the time getting back to his first year level. The players who exceeded my expectations today were Barry ( more intense and hard at the ball than I had seen from him); Jetta (seems to have improved his skill levels and intensity); Vince (an intense and committed trainer), Hunt (an outstanding runner and a great kick on the run). At the end of the session, the trainers were giving Jesse Hogan goal kicking practice: six each from both boundary lines and 6 from about 40 meters out in front. I counted 5 out of six from the RH boundary line, 1 out of 6 from the left hand, and 5 out of six from the set shots in front. Quality kicking and better than earlier in the season.