Roger Mellie

I'm always on the look out for MFC son/daughter prospects so I thought I'd update you on where our trade-ins sit for reaching the most important games milestone - 100 games for MFC! Games played for MFC Ben Brown 13 M Brown 6 M Daw 0 M Hibberd 89 J Lever 61 S May 48 J Melksham 83 A Tomlinson 20 Let's hope we can get Hibberd and Melksham to the ton this year. Happy New Year!

I agree. He looked the goods at Casey in his few appearances. While I think he'll improve a lot, I don't think he's going to dislodge Lever, May or Petty in a hurry (if we're sticking to your criteria of cementing a place in the one's). In fact, it's hard to see any of them snag a permanent gig if we have another dream run with injuries and form. I'm also looking forward to seeing Laurie in action (and JVR and Howes).

Me too! In fact, surely a poll is warranted, if they still exist? For what it's worth, they're up against it (in a good way), but maybe Chandler or Smith ( although I still see some basic flaws with the latter alongside a truck load of attributes)

He's the dude who spent a year at Richmond during their premiership year and wrote a book about it, or maybe two.

Thanks DIO, Great report! We could be in for an exciting season. So Parry replaces Zanker as the back-up ruck? I assume Caris is that very tall developing ruck? Cheers,

I'm with Sydney Dee on this one. How many years have people been banging on about when we win games we'll get a better draw? I'm not so much talking of difficulty as I was expecting a difficult draw - although perhaps not as taxing with all the travel. I was expecting the opportunity to capitalise (financially) on our premiership. I see some modest gains and that's about it. I see Carlton, Essendon and Carlton given their annual dream exposure fixtures and it's a given with Collingwood, no matter how ordinary they are. I see the dogs with four of their five opening games on Wednesday (versus us), Thursday or Friday night. Shouldn't that be us? Instead we back up round one with a big fat non-event interstate. On that subject, it's amusing Pert's quip about getting to see all our interstate fans in the fixture, when we've just spent the last two [censored] years interstate.

So Kossie was there? Any thoughts on Howes? Thanks

They should definitely be shunted down to Kardinia Park in our place then!

Need a little help with putting names to faces. The players 8 photos from the bottom are: Deakin Smith (left) , AMW and Blake Howes (right)? Cheers!

Rivers - Melb girl friend as mentioned. I assume Kossie will head back to Perth from Ham Island without the same isolation conditions as he would have if he came here (then went to Perf for Xmas).

Friday night would have been my preference. Easier coming from country Victoria at the end of the week and I imagine the crowd would be a lot bigger. Footy fans in general will again be let down by the Carlton-Richmond snorefest and be ready for some real action! Perfect time to unfurl the flag!

Any thoughts/insight on McVee?

I agree Picket needs to panic more as I'm sure MFC recruiters were asleep at the wheel and plumb forgot about Woey Junior

I'm curious who we attempted to trade up for with Adelaide. Was it Soligo or did we think Adelaide was after Howes or another player? Apologies if discussed earlier/elsewhere

Because we know we have him already. We don't have the list spots so may as well trade the picks into next year, which may or may not be useful. I'm sure Adelaide's future 3rd will be ok.

I too have lost sleep over that one Nasher! But, as I said (hope), it could just be a WA pronunciation thing and the 'y' will return as he heads East.

While I find Western Australians can pronounce things oddly (Albany, Derby) the commentators for his highlights seemed to call him Van Ruin - as in 'Collingwood is in ruins'

^ This! It was horrendous, although I'm sure it was more than 2 hours of torture. I recall the clubs would lock in their picks and sit back waiting...... and then a whole lot of nothing....minutes would pass before some twit would appear from behind a curtain and announce who said pick was. It was excruciatingly bad coverage. I didn't think it would be possible to drag it out more than they did, but I was wrong. Some poor draftee would be dragged out to stammer - they just wanted to earn the respect of their team mates, followed by some Shifter Sheehan gems (Uggh) and more awkward silence while waiting for the commodore computers to catch up.

Cal is only ahead because of his club contacts, not his eye for talent. As draft 'experts', they're both ordinary.

Yes, he was listed as nominated last week on the AFL website

Personally I see a lot of his father. To me he moves almost identically. Even the marking is Shane! I look forward to seeing more of him.

I reckon they'd be seething. If he did this 3 months ago, they'd still have Clarkson. I'm sure he felt his life was complete once he got rid of Clarkson. Either that or the board has had enough of him.

Jeez that's hard to read

His first 3 picks make sense... then I get a bit lost

I love the Friday night game concept! All AFL fans will tune for a real game after yet another Carlton Richmond blockbuster fizzer. I don't really care who we play so long as it draws an audience. I want to be there for the unfurling 🏆