BrisbaneDemon

It was looking so healthy a few weeks ago!!!!!

Phuong, I will be flying down in the car from Brisbane after work, fingers crossed i'll get there at qtr time. What is the parking like at the Southport Sharks? as mentioned above, will tickets be available at the gate?. I cannot wait to see Toumpas and Hulk running around in the red and the blue! Carn Melbourne!

Remember when Bailey left and he said this staggering statement "whoever takes over the coaching position at Melbourne will be given a golden ticket" or something along those lines. To me that sums up Dean Bailey in a sentence. I'm just upset that his power point presentation worked at the interview and we would of had Damo Hardwick at the helm for the past 5 seasons!

Agreed!, The fellow that sits next to me at work is a tigers supporters, we play the "what if we drafted him instead of him" game all the time!. Such a wide range of emotions comes out, but we have learned that Tambling over Franklin wins every time!.

Short term gain Ollie would have been great. At the end of the day we need classy midfielders who can use their skill and smarts to set up play, Toumpas has all the ingredients to be an outstanding player for us. I am all for us trying to get Wines back to Melbourne in years to come, but it won't happen. If you are over looked for another player why would you want to go to a club that didnt want you? We all saw Ollies face on draft night he was heart broken to be drafted by us. Rory Sloan was told by BP that we would pick him up, we went for Bennell at the 11th hour instead and his old man said he would not touch MFC after that. This is a stupid thread all three would have been great, let's put some faith in Todd Viney who knew Ollie and still picked Toumpas, their must be something special about the kid!. Give them all a chance to develop, i wish Ollie all the best, seems like an outstanding young bloke.

I have my fingers and toes crossed that this is the case!, I don't believe that the GCFC are going to challenge, they have drafted for potential (like we used to). GWS have gone for hard at it/ run all day players. If we can recruit some of Sheedy's boys it will help us immensely. With 20+ first round picks not all of them will be able to be paid top dollar, thats when we will hopefully strike before the other clubs. We need to improve tho as Josh Caddy did not want a bar of the MFC, he would of been handy!

With the current list i don't believe we can and it breaks my heart to say it. Mark Neeld keeps repeating the phase "continued success for the football club". think of the teams of the past that have had continued success: Brisbane Lions & Geelong; What is the key to their success? Midfield Brisbane; Voss, Black, Akermanis, lappin (3 brownlow medallists) Geelong; Ablett, Ling, Bartel, Selwood (2 brownlows) Until we developed or recruit some superstar midfielders we're in all sorts. We need Viney and Toumpas to develop over the next 2-3 years and then draft another all out star (or bring Wines in). GWS have more midfielders then you can throw a puma king at, thats my major concern. Lets hope that they have recruited like the Melbourne demons of years ago!!!!! Edit: Spelling

Gents, How did young Jimmy Toumpas fare? There have been mixed reviews on D'land some saying he's a little lost and should start in the VFL as other said he's an all out gun? What is the general consensus? It looks like young Ollie Wines will slot straight into the ports mid field round 1, will Toumpas slot into ours?

Yeah i understand he is there to keep the defenders accountable so they cannot just double team Mitch like they did last year. Will be very interesting to see how big Dawes responds this season, new team, familiar coaching group that had him playing his best football at CFC and also the added pressure of a bigger contract which usually means greater pressure from fans, media etc. Lets hope its 2010 all over again for the Big unit. He's 25 so according to the experts they start to shine about now.

Half a million a year to throw his weight around, gee sign me up!, We can only hope that Neeldy and Browny can turn this big bloke around to a 40-50+ goal kicking forward a year. if Clark and Dawes can kick 100 goals a season that would be great for Young Hulk to come in, not feel the pressure and just rip games apart like a young Jonno Brown did in 2000 (arrggghhh to day dream)

7-8 wins is about the pass mark for us. Anything less and some of the playing ground will be playing for their futures in the latter stages of the season. Rohan did sound optimistic which was a nice change towards our list.

This is ridiculous! Gents if you have an inefficient midfield that can't get their hands on the ball first, it doesn't matter if you had Hawthorns or Sydney's backs they would trouble immensely!.. If you want Frawley back to his best, give him a bloody chance to man up on his man without it coming in every which way from Sunday. I'm guessing a lot of the "landers" never played as a back men!. If you want a winning team it starts with a good ruck men and quality mids to clear the ball!, which is why we have sucked for years and will continue until it is fixed!

I was thinking the exact same thing this morning actually. We're about 14,000 short of last year. Lets hope a win in round one will boost the numbers.