Roger Mellie

Sorry, just saw this thread after starting another one inviting predictions. Mods can chuck it if they see fit. Cheers

The clowns at AFL Media have made their predictions, now it's your turn: Premier: Melbourne Runner-up: Brisbane Wooden spoon: West Coast Moving up: Hawthorn Set to fall: Geelong, oh wait.... Collingwood Club under the most pressure (and why): Dees, endless media attention, Gold Coast with Dimma talking finals Will the Suns finally make finals?: No Brownlow Medal: The Bont Coleman Medal: Nick Larkey AFL Rising Star: Ryley Sanders Recruit of the year: Brodie Grundy Surprise All-Australian: Kiddy Coleman Who should headline the Grand Final entertainment? Foo Fighters Headline you'll see: Melbourne's Culture - already a broken record Headline you won't see: No more gambling advertising 🥳 Big call: Petty turns back on Adelaide to extend contract with Dee's after kicking 64 goals for the season 🤞 Top 8 1. Brisbane 2. Melbourne 3. GWS 4. Collingwood - booo 5. Carlton 6. Sydney 7. Port 8. Adelaide

Did he get suspended for a jumper punch in an out of the blue kind of way? He may even be the first player pinged for it.

Hoping someone has a better memory than me, but in recent years, in our last practice match, did we only play a four-man interchange plus sub, regardless of the extended bench allowed by the AFL? I vaguely recall the three extra players (or however many it was, never got on the ground and were only there in case of injury. If so, I hope that's not the case tonight with the temperature 🥵. Can anyone enlighten? If the Kolt only played a half, he may get a run!

FWIW, my order of preference is: Turner, Hore, Tommo, TMac but I'll hold off until after the Carlton game to see if TMac has found some mobility, re- familiarity with the backline. Perhaps they'll have an extended interchange and play both or all three. TMac can also swing forward if desperate.

I hope they move him to the wing, or somewhere out of defense.

I think I heard the ordinary commentators say No. 33 was Kobe Shipp.

Like- Kozzie in the middle Windsor and Brown The Kolt and Verrall showed a bit Cobwebs blown out Billings worked his way into the game Dislike- ANB in the middle Howes in the backline (don't think he's a defender) Schache's game but happy to see more airtime against Carlton Commentators chatting during the VFL quarters rather than telling us who the hell was who.

Is it Ingo between 🐕 Brown Senior and Guy Rigoni? No idea who's between Rigoni and Greeny, or next to Balls

Agree it's a basket case but you just can't expect part-time footballers to play 24 rounds of footy to mirror our comp. I didn't think professional players could be expected to play 24 rounds, but there you go - money talks.

Casual observations: Bill Laurie and Windsor on blue team Billings and Howes on white team

100% agree. I just watched a clip on Harry deMattia's experience since joining the pies. Yes, I feel dirty - filthy in fact, but it gave good insight into the drafting and preseason experience from the recruit's perspective. On the MFC website is some lame candle conundrum thing. What I'd like to see: A brief preseason training update from the line coaches for every player, a profile or two on our recruits, accurate training time info, a weekly post-training interview with a player or coach and a decent content build-up to the start of the season. Have we heard a word from our new midfield coach? Nothing against Mini, but can the comms people have a chat with him FCS? Conversely, I'm happy to be sold a pup on any injury issue that the club doesn't want the opposition to get wind of before a game.

Looking forward to your reports @Bleasey as that and @Gawndy the Great! Thanks in advance.

Further, in today's Age, the AFL will start to fine players/clubs up to $10K who repeatedly refuse media requests. The prime examples given were Dusty, Clarry, Charlie Curnow and JDG. Apart from being astounded that the AFLPA would go along with this, there's a very good reason players shun the media - they are either hounded by the media, are terrible in front of a camera, or both.

For the first few weeks of the season, I'm a fan as I'm looking for a footy fix wherever I can get it. When the fix is sated, I start to drop off, particularly when it's the same old teams front and centre on Thursday/Friday nights. This may be odd, but I like to see all teams during the year and get bored to sods watching Collinwood and Carlton etc all the time. I really enjoy a good game, no matter who's playing and like to see young up-and-coming players from any team, or any player that takes his game to the next level etc. I would seriously prefer to see a good contest between North and Gold Coast (or any team) than watch a Friday night flop between Carlton and Essendon. Let me qualify this by saying, this is aside from watching the Dees play, which of course is the No.1 priority.

I think @DeeZone meant to say VFLW team as is in the title of this thread.

That has lemon written all over it.

^ This. I love him to bits but playing him out of the centre gives you exactly that. He refuses to dish off unless he's hitting the deck or tackled. If there are players in a better position (facing the direction of play and free), he'll ignore them and hack kick over his shoulder. This works in (surge mentality) finals but not often during the season IMO. I think he's a very creative player when he has to look for options.

I totally agree with this. In fact, I'd almost prefer if his preseason started in June to get him fit and firing for the finals*. I really don't see the point in him looking great in January with that knee further degenerating as he hobbles through the long season. *Not expecting him to feature but at least he'd be more likely to be fresh and available.

If. there's any chance Ricky will be picked inside the top 40 in his draft year, I recommend the following strategy: Ricky plays a maximum of 3 games between now and then. In those games, he must strictly adhere to the following: he must only kick or handball on his non-preferred side, he must wear his shoes on the wrong feet, he must be played in the ruck and have gastro. Welcome to the Dees Ricky!

At the start of the year, he wasn't playing well and I thought age was catching up with him. I certainly was wrong as he bounced back strongly and played out the year in sizzling form. I suspect he was just adjusting to our tweaked game plan in the early games and/or opposition tactics to try and negate their (May and Lever's) defensive supremacy.

I thought he played wing/forward? I'd like to see him on a wing. On-ball might suit him but I think his tackling needs to improve. IMHO, they weren't sticking last season.

Sorry, I can't help but would like to know too. I'd like to ditch Poxtel but the internet coverage here is [censored] - 14mbps, so I doubt it's enough for Kao and whatever 4k is.

I stand corrected - my numbers were definitely out of whack. I think the belief at the time though was that it involved taking a pay cut to prolong his career but who knows:

I recall Tom getting his contract extended by a year a few years ago. I think he had three years remaining that was extended to 4 for basically the same money. Tom wanted the extra year and the club wanted the savings to help with either Petracca or Clarry's monster deal.