Dees2014

I've worn smith: not sure that is the point either. It does not matter whether it is old or new, it is the fact it is used to ridicule us and diminish our brand and reputation in the eyes of our key players and supporters which is the concern. In all my 50 years following the Demons I have never felt I should dis-own the Club. Today, when you "own up" to supporting the Dees you are either greeted with ridicule or worst still, sympathy. There will not be many players, supporters, media commentators or AFL officials left with a good word to say about us very soon. This is serious. Not something which should be minimized as being "an old joke". Serious action is needed.

I think you guys have missed the point. It is precisely why the MFC has broken into the general community as a source of ridicule which is the concern. The joke is the joke, and anyone who has anything to do with the "caring" community will realize they have an acute and often cutting sense of humour and send themselves up constantly often in the face of appalling circumstances. It is not in any way surprising a joke would be made about our circumstance through them. And that is the point. We are seen as a laughing stock. If we have any ambition to recover and ultimately be successful that is the last place we want to be.

Tne MFC has become the laughing stock way beyond not only its immediate supporter base, even the AFL base, but is now in the general community. If you don't believe me, check out this item which is now going viral in the Victorian public service , and this comes from a friend of mine who is near the top of the Victorian public service, but also has next to zero interest in the AFL. She is however very much aware of the demons plight, perhaps through her friendship with me. Melbourne, Victoria A seven year old boy was at the centre of a Melbourne courtroom drama yesterday when he challenged a court ruling over who should have custody of him. The boy has a history of being beaten by his parents and the judge initially awarded custody to his aunt, in keeping with the child custody law and regulations requiring that family unity be maintained to the degree possible. The boy surprised the court when he proclaimed that his aunt beat him more than his parents and he adamantly refused to live with her. When the judge suggested that he live with his grandparents, the boy cried out that they also beat him. After considering the remainder of the immediate family and learning that domestic violence was apparently a way of life among them, the judge took the unprecedented step of allowing the boy to propose who should have custody of him. After two recesses to check legal references and confer with child welfare officials, the judge granted temporary custody to the Melbourne Football Club, whom the boy firmly believes are not capable of beating anyone. Mmmmm. What can one say except in the face of this sort of ridicule why would the likes of Jesse Hogan, jack Viney, jack watts, chip Frawley, want to stay at the club? No one wants to be ridiculed, including me. A greater argument for immediate action in tipping out Neeld I cannot think of, but not only him, we need desperately to get the Club back on track and hire the best administrators and coaches available to not only turn the ship around, but to seem to do so by the general football community. We desperately need to give players and supporters some confidence in the future. As we go into the next two weeks when we are likely to be beaten by 200+ points - I would not be surprised if we even got to 300 point margins, we simply have to act - for all our sakes. How many agree?

I was never a Spencer fan either, but I have seen the last two Casey games live. In my experience, I have never seen a ruckman so completely dominate two games as spencer has done these two, which we won respectively by 80+ points againstcEssendon and 28 against Williamstown - two of the best sides in the VFL. I think you need to give credit where it is due. You watch, with the current football department's nous, we will trade Spencer and he will become a bigger more dominant version of Jolley. That is the potential he is showing at Casey. Personally, I would prefer we traded Jamar at the end of the year while he is still worth something, and got game time into Gawn, Spencer, Fitzpatrick. The icing on the cake would be if we could also get Hannath back, but he seems to be maturing very nicely at Freo unfortunately.

Yes, Carlton play small in their forward line. They are undermanned and have their greatest weaknesses in their back half. Our backlinecin in the side I suggested is quick and agile, they can cover the Blues runners. Our forward line though will be very difficult for them to match up on, but as always with this team it depends on the midfield, but a good start will come for them if we have dominant ruckmen. BTW I mistook Tynan. I therefore in my selected side he should have been Bail.

I really wonder sometimes on this site. I also suspect that those who are so dogmatic about changes to the side have not seen both Casey and the farce up in Bribane. For the last two week Casey have defeated very soundly two of the best sides in the VFL. I have seen all of both games live. There are some very promising signs coming out of the VFL for us, not least because Casey has a very sound coach who is not under the pump, has an outside job, and is very much a developer of young men and keeps it simple. I just fear what will happen to these immensely talented young men when they are promoted to the hothouse which is now the Melbourne Football Club. Anyway, over the last two weeks the standout MFC players have been Fitzpatrick, Spencer, Dunn, Tynan and last week at Casey I for the first time saw Strauss really take on the field an showed some very strong breaking of the lines and finished off his excellent work with excellent kicking. In my view, even at 6'6" Fitzpatrick plays as much like a medium forward because he is so quick, but now that he at last is holding the difficult contested marks, and is showing real speed on the lead I think he has to come in at Full Forward, and Maxy goes to the pocket (who has by the way been a very pleasing revelation of the season so far). Spencer to the bench, and second ruck, but his form has been so totally dominant at Casey I would be tempted to put him in the starting line up in the centre square, and put Jamar to the pine (I predict with the emerging young guns in Fitzpatrick, Spencer and Gawn, this will be the Russian's last season in the red and blue. Why not trade him while he still has some value). Some will say this is too top heavy but playing both Fitzpatrick and Watts up forward you have two tall very mobile forwards. I think it gives the best of both worlds. My team would therefore be: FB: Terlich. Frawley. Garland HB: Dunn. McDonald. Tynan CC: Evans. Sylvia. Viney HF Trengove. Watts. Byrnes FF: Howe. Fitzpatrick. Gawn Foll: Jamar. Grimes. Jones Inter: Spencer. M Jones. Strauss. Sub: Bleese In: Spencer. Tynan. Viney. Fitzpatrick. Dunn Out: Pederson. Roden. Davey. Tapscott Bail All in all, I believe a far better balanced and talented side

The last couple of sentences are very revealing. Yes Strauss is improving and broke lines very impressively a few times. Fitzy has always been quick for such a big man. What makes a difference is he is now holding contested marks and leads very impressively. What do they have in common?They have both been held back to develop in the twos, and create the hunger to succeed. Note Watts, toumpas, Viney, even tapscott. Their football education is incomplete and under a skilled coach we now have at Casey they will learn far more than the chaos currently running around as an excuse for MFC first team. The coaching staff simply do not have the insights to educate the young.

Good post. I think the issue of getting rid of mentors too early has been critical. One thing you can say about Maloney was he was a hard trainer, a hard at it mid fielder (desperately needed at the club now), but someone with some individuality about him - something which is never tolerated at the conformist Neeld coached Melbourne. Oh and by the way we might as well have lost two top 5 players when he left as the Russian is now half the player he was when Maloney was around. Who are the role models for Viney, toumpas, Bleese, tapscott, howe and yes Watts? No wonder Schwartz and Lyon are getting so frustrated. And when we do get a superstar eg hogan, we will not be able to give him a reason to stay.

One of the accusations hurled at Melbourne in the wake of the disastrous start to the season is that we have a unique ability "to eat our young", in other words destroy young talent rather than nurture it. I must say there is very strong evidence that this is the case. Over the last five years we have drafted or traded for about a dozen first round draft picks. Sure the picks we chose may not have been elite, but they all had elite skills when we drafted them, but in many cases we did not get elite performance out of them. Why is this so? I think it is because we are too impatient and are more than willing to throw these young men to the wolves in the hope of an instant solution. Take Jack Watts. Watts was a school boy when he was in his first year. He should have been nurtured and developed and played all year at school and Casey. But what did we do? We played him mid year in our biggest game of the year, Queen's Birthday. Their was also a promotion going to the effect "walk to the "G" and watch watch Jack Watts be BOG". This promo was officially sanctioned and even had half the Board and Executive (including Jim Stynes) taking part. What happened to Watts that day. I remember seeing him come on the ground half way through the first quarter. As soon as he went near the ball he was crunched by three magpie players and that continued for the rest of the match. Almost from that day forward there has been a continuous "hate Watts" thread on here, and there still is. If you want to get out the foulest bile on this site just mention Watts name on here. In the last couple of years, the general press has picked up a similar theme. Now take Jimmy toumpas. It has started again in here. This kid, barely 18, and moved over here from his home state of SA and reportedly away from his very close family, has had to put up with reading on this site that he is hopeless, we should have drafted Oliver Wines, etc etc. now according to his coaches, and himself, he is down on confidence and is going to try to redeem it from Casey. I suggest that we should be nurturing the sublime talents of Watts and Toumpas. If you don't believe they are sublime, have a look at their junior highlight reels. I watching the quarter and three quarter time huddles for the Essendon / eagles game on Foxtel a couple of weeks ago, and they had the camera in close up on James Heard. He has a very different persona to most coaches, especially MFC coaches. He is clearly very supportive of his players, almost fatherly. No ranting, no raving. And look at the result of that game and how it was achieved. In closing, I should point out that one of the greats of all time, Michael Tuck, played well over 100 games in the a hawks seconds before he played his first senior game. There are are many many others in a similar bracket. I suggest if we had have been more patient we would now be reaping the rewards of the first rounders we have let go: McLean, Gysberts, Maloney (more because we could not tolerate differences), Jolly, Morton, Thompson, we can all think of many more. Unless we start to get this right, and develop a nurturing environment rather than a hostile one to young talent, how will we be able to keep a unique talent like Jesse Hogan, when his contract is up in three years time when every club in Ausralia will be after him.

Well I saw the whole of the Casey v Essendon game last weekend, and I can tell you Nicho was miles in front of Strauss for endeavor and toughness, although his kicking weakness remains a glaring weakness. To me though, Strauss is just too soft and I think his so called kicking strength is over-rated: he is a long kick, not an accurate kick, and his lack of hardness at the ball is just too much of a risk in such an important game as this. I would not play either Strauss or Nicholson this week.

Heartily agree prymke. Whilst I was excited by Sellar after the Port Adelaide (practice) game, I think it was a false dawn. He, along with Pederson, in the long term are not up to standard. I would prefer to see spencer, Gawn, jamar and Watts all play if it is going to be dry, as they are our future and our best chance of winning this game.

Whilst I don't necessarily disagree with those on here suggesting we bring in big Fitzy (I think he has great long term potential now that he seems to be over his injury/illness worries) I don't think it is the best WINNING move. Let's assume Viney, Jetta and Clark are unavailable. If it is wet I would bring in Bleese, Mckenzie and Kent, play Watts at CHF. If it is dry, I would bring in Bleese, Kent and Spencer, and play big Max as a permanent full forward. Spencer's ruck work at Casey last week was one of the most dominant displays I have seen from a big man for a very very long time, and he was against in the Don's seconds some of their A grader big men and beat them pointless. He and Hogan were primarily responsible for the 80+ points win. In the dry, Max will be a complete headache for Brisbane. They don't have anyone of his size and marking ability. They will probably put Martin on him. Whilst this would be mildly interesting for us Dees supporters, he is nothing like as tall as Max and long bombs into the square would be interesting to put it mildly. One thing that has got a lot of AirPlay this week has been the way Geelong use Harry Taylor ie they allow him to spend extended lengths of time in the forward half with his man being covered by the Podsiadly. This in the past season or so has seen him kick over 30 goals. We could use Watts in the same way, with Peterson playing the Pods role. Whether we as a team are ready for that is debatable, as it requires hours of practise at training to get it instinctive, but I think it would give the team a greater dimension and make Watts more accountable. Big Max and Jack in the front half at least for part of the game would certainly make it interesting.

Does it really help the Club and the team to keep bagging Jack Watts. I have watched the game a few times now and I don't think he was nearly as bad as some are saying on here. One thing you can say about him is that he is supremely skillful: rarely fluffs a kick (unlike 90% of his team-mates), he was good one on one, and showed good carry out of the back half. In the long term personally I think he would make a gun mid-fielder. Whether he yet has the stamina for that I doubt somehow, but I think he would be an extraordinary match up in mid field - preferably the Centre. I think he would be more accountable there, than as a floating back. I think he also would add to our power at centre bounces. People forget he is 6'4", and very quick. With in and under types Jack Viney and Nathan Jones, he combined with big Max would be quite a combination. Neither Max nor the Russian struggle to obtain an accurate hit outs. Where we do struggle is to clear it from there. Jack Watts I think could help us a lot there, and it will give him a chance to show us all his mongrel. That might shut a few of his doubters up as well!

Remarkably, if we win this week we are likely to be 11th or 12th. That is how close the competition is at the moment. Go Dees

Having watched the whole of the Casey match at Windy Hill, and today at the "G", I would like to make the following observations: 1. Although McKenzie got 30 touches, they were largely ineffective. His kicking is neither accurate nor long, and is too slow to be a class player; 2. Strauss in my view is grossly over rated by the writers on this site. Although he is a long kick, he is not an accurate kick, and he is much too soft at the ball If there are to be changes for next week (for instance Viney is injured as rumored, and Jetta gets suspended), I would bring in Kent and Roden. If neither is the case, I would leave the side unchanged.i certainly would not drop Jetta as suggested. He is a hard nut, and consistently wins the hard ball and provides good run out of the back half. If Clark is injured, I would be tempted to bring in Spencer, who was best afield at Essendon and dominated a ruck division you would normally expect in the Don's firsts. I would play big Max as a permanent full forward, and have jamar and spencer share the ruck duties. An interesting experiment, and an extremely difficult one to match up on......

I must say I can't see any elite skills from Luke Tapscott. One of the major reasons he was recruited was for his hard body and his long accurate kicking. So far all I've seen is sure someone being hard at it but at a pretty below average pace. As for his kicking today, it was below school boy standard. He is a top twenty pick, and at the moment is not up to league standard.

For what it is worth, here is my take from the day (and yesterday at Windy Hill): - Max Gawn played a blinder, not from the sense of being BOG, but from what it said about his potential. There have been very few players at MFC who you could say has the potential to dominate the competition ( Davis Schwartz pre knee injuries was our last), but max has the skill, size, run and smarts to do that for us, and it is awfully exciting. - having watched Casey at Essendon yesterday, I can say you can put Hogan potentially in the category. He is one of the best marks I have seen, is agile and great below the knees, and is a committed runner. Although yesterday he kicked only 4 goals, I counted he gave away another five. Significantly, two of those goals were in general play, and that is inspite of Casey being very poor at delivering it into the forward half - some of our lesser lights showed great potential today: terlich for his guts and run; Jetta for his second and third efforts; m Jones for his ball winning abilities; and Garland for coming back from the dead. Sylvia showed us how elite he could be, some of his line breaking runs we're simply outstanding. Let's hope it is the start of things to come; Evans was terrific. - there were a few concerns though: Viney was hardly sighted; Tom McDonald needs to stop making clangers, particularly by foot; Watts needs more fight; Davey needs to be challenged more - his skills are sublime when on song, he is just not there often enough. Overall a very encouraging effort. Let's hope it can continue next week when the pressure comes on again.

The other thing I really like about him is his defensive skills. He seems regularly to turn up in the back half seemingly out of nowhere. There are very few really big guys , and max is seriously big, who either has the stamina or commitment to do that. I have been watching him at training while he goes through his rehab, and credit to the coaches they have bern putting him through drills with three or four others where they drill constantly from one end of the ground to the other. Max has been outstanding in that. Not only from an aerobic capacity perspective but also his ability to mark and kick on the run. He is actually a very good long accurate kick. He does not need to handball off as a lot of his teammates seen to think he does. He has the potential to dominate the competition, today just gave us a very exciting glimpse of what is to come... The Gawn/Hogan show will be quite something

Max Gawn showed glimpses of his true potential today. What i really like about him, he is 6'9", but chases and contests like a mid fielder, and when he rests in the square, he is such as presence, that he attracts two or three defenders, and still beats them, either by marking it, or by providing a contest, and it falls to unmarked forwards. He is also a dominant centre bounce ruckman. I have said in other treads here, that Max has the potential to be in the 2 or 3 most important players at the club as we climb into the top half. I think today he showed us glimpses of that potential. it is very exciting...

After all our priority draft picks, rebuilding, trading free agents and letting go a variety of first round picks, how many of our current list is up to AFL standard? Let me list them 1-10 on current performance, and 1-10 in three years time. Let's first talk about the 22 who played on Sunday Sylvia. 6 9 Gillies. 3 3 Dunn. 6 7 Watts. 6 10 Frawley. 7 9 Nicholson. 4 4 Viney. 7 10 Grimes. 6 9 Toumpas. 3 9 Roden. 3 3 Sellar. 5 6 Howe. 7 9 Pederson. 4 5 Clark. 8 9 Byrne. 4 0 Jamar. 6 0 N. Jones. 8 8 M. Jones. 4 6 Mckenzie. 4 4 Tapscott. 4 7 Bleese. 6 8 Garland 5 8 If we add those who missed: Trengove. 4 9 Dawes. 6 6 Hogan. 0 10 Gawn. 4 9 Spencer. 3 4 Terlich. 6 8 Jetta. 5 8 Tom MacDonald 6 8 James Strauss 4 6 Josh Tynan 3 5 Joel MCDonald 6 0 Michael Evans 3 5 Dom Barry 3 7 Dean Kent 5 8 Arron Davey 6 0 Troy Davis 4 0 Rory Taggart 4 7 Rohan Bail 5 5 Jack Fitz 4 8 Of those who have been traded or let go and have gone to other clubs, these are how i would catagorise them: Brent Maloney 8 8 Jarad Rivers 8 8 Jordon Gysberts 5 7 Stefan Martin 7 8 Jamie Bennell 4 7 Carl Morton 4 8 On this basis, we have 36% of the players who played last saturday were below AFL standard, and of our total list 43% of players are below AFL standard. of the overall list,on this basis we don't have any elite (9 or 10) player but by 2016, of the players currently playing I predict over 20% will be elite. This means the list currently is heading for the wooden spoon this year and in three years time we will be mid list knocking on the 8. Are we all satisfied with this situation??

Not sure I agree with you. If McKenzie doesn't play then they will have to put in someone to the 25, and it wouldn't be unprecedented for that someone to go straight into the 22. Bail was the only one outside the 25 (apart from Hogan) to have full participation in all aspects of the training session. Hogan incidentally looks as though he will be treated as a full member of the first 22 at all times except when he plays for Casey. He is a class act and obviously the powers that be at the MFC want him ready for the very big-time by next year. At the end of the session the trainers got him and Bail (I would have thought one of the quicker runners at Melbourne) to do three 300m sprints around the boundary and hogan beat him 2 out of three times. I have no doubt he will be a powerhouse. The training itsel was quite light as you would expect so close to a game. They did about 30 minutes of a simulated game (with one sides only of course and the forward line looked as though it was HF Sylvia Sellar. Howe FF Pederson Clark Byrne Roden started in the square, and Watts played a central role from half back. Can't see Frawey playing CHB somehow as he was named. Overall quite an impressive, sharp session . Let's hope it is a good omen.

Bail tho in practice drills

At training now. They look sharp. Mckenzie the only absentee, doing laps. I would say unlikely to line up. Maybe the Flash gets his chance

You left out the one with the most potential and will have the biggest impact - Max Gawn.

I really think you are missing the point here. Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the point here that front loading the salaries means in cash terms we pay our players more than they are worth in the early years!at the club so that later when we become more successful, and therefore greater pressure for salary increases owing to better performance, we "cash in" that accumulated overpayment. In other words it greatly lessens the pressure on the salary cap in a successful era, something the like of Collingwood, Geelong and hawthorn would dearly love now. I think it makes a great deal of sense and the club should be applauded for it. It also makes it very much easier to keep star players like Watts, Trengove, Grimes and young guns hogan, toumpas and Viney once we achieve some success. We should applaud it