Earl Hood

Agree it is going to be a slog. I look at the game last night and you just marvel at the clean ball handling under pressure at pace, time and time again by the Swans in the first half and then by the Hawks in the second. The rapid handballs to advantage in heavy traffic by both sides to then get it out to a runner heading toward goal is something totally alien to our blokes. A first year under Roos will be about some fundamentals first and sorting out the wheat from the chaff. I hope there is some wheat!

Yes it is finals time suddenly the formula will change. I say maybe a week at most

This is the question. Magner and Davis were not on Misson's injury report but are missing in action! Anyone know what is going on?

Where is Magner?

So who meets that criteria? Does it often take two rather than one coaching terms.

I personally have a bit of time for Dunn as a hard bodyied, experienced player in amongst a train wreck of a team, that needs some direction. But that said why are we up to 144 responses on this question? Dunn in my mind is a keep for next year but not central to our future.

I wonder what is going on. Are we affiliated or not? I went and checked Missons injury report from yesterday and no mention of Magner or Davis being injured and Fitzy was a test. Maybe KC knows something we don't but I am sick of the MFC walking way from the Scorpions everytime they get into the finals. Sellar in the ones, Bail a maybe, are they are eligible to play? I don't see them as our future. Bail, for his own good needs to retire, too many concussions. Sellar is a good ordinary backup for a backup player at best. Better off helping the Scorpions. I still think it would be better for our young players to be involved in a VFL final campaign than sitting out just to be ready for the start of preseason, no matter how elite that training is!!!

Beg to differ its the AFL that does most of the leaking. If they turn their attention to us and they are on the warpath then the info will flow to Carro and the rest no doubt. My hope is the AFL has had enough and works to bury our investigation as deep as possible a la the Carlton tanking evidence which is everywhere (Libba is talking yet again) but no one wants to look. On another note I tried to complete the MFC survey tonight and had just completed my summary rant when my computer jumped back to the first screen and lost all my entries!!! It was probably my computers fault but God it sums up the MFC in 2013 for me.

Oh God now we take centre stage do we? Surely we were the control group, taking the placebos! While people are rejoicing on the penalties to EFC it sets the limits for our potential punishment. We lose draft picks and we are stuffed. Given the idiots in charge of our club last year what chance we have any confidence in the governance of the medical staff and what they may have been up to!

Sh&t just heard Andrew Dimwit in answer to a question from M Robbo say we the MFC are next! If the AFL do us over we are finished.

If I read Craigs post match message correctly McDonald will be out for disciplinary reasons. Davis and Jetta in?

The other point I think is that we have talked about our mid field stocks and lack there of and I wonder should we have Dunn in the mid field as a big bodied run with tagger, as he did this year I think with Judd and then with less success with Ablett. We should have tested Davis at half back where he has been groomed for most of his VFL career and thrown Dunn into the middle where he can niggle to his hearts content without giving away shots on goal, hopefully.

Could not agree more. I look at Gibson if he was actually made as accountable as our key backs he would look very second rate. As it is with the Hawks dominance in the mid field and having Hodge playing the quarter back roll, Gibson gets to roam the back line punching from behind at will. I used to do the same myself as a back line player in a dominant team at suburban level, it is a doddle as I remember it. The forwards are sitting ducks when it comes in high and slow.

BBO. Here is a picture of my brother, he is a pretty good on the tennis court. He does like big women as well. He might be up for a date. She could be a ball boy perhaps?

RTG I agree if we get some help from the AFL Commission and get a priority pick which may be number 3 to go with our number 2 or it may be mid or late first rounder and we trade out a player for a second rounder that would give us four shots at some mid field talent. This could set us up for 6 to 8 wins. I think our chances of luring a free agent or two of any talent are very limited. Who would want to come to us really? That is what will slow our development down. In the meantime the top clubs will continue to pick the eyes out of the free agent talent pool to fill roles neded for their premiership tilts. In this way we and the other battling Victorian clubs will always be playing catchup. The AFl needs to start thinking seriously about equalisation policies.

But tell me then when will "return to glory"? I am not getting any younger.

A Chance, yes but as always if we are getting only 30 odd inside fifties and most of those are up and under floaters from the wing I don't think even Wayne Carey would have an impact. But we live in hope of drafting some mids and maybe even a mid field coach who has our group working together intelligently. Big ask I know.

Love your guitar work PH but really this is Melbourne, the chances of Hogan being what we would all hope he could be is a million to one. But yes let's hope.

We may have covered this already in this thread but I am watching the WCE vs CFCS match tonight and the mid field battle is intriguing. It is not so much about the personnel as their systems, I think. Their rapid handball movements to players in better positions is amazing. We just don't do this at all, it is grab the hit out and get tackled for us. So we are talking about process as much as talent. Perhaps something to think about as we try to build a midfield.

Sorry do not agree. Playing as a young kid in a senior side getting thumped week in week outis not good for your development.

Does anyone know why? I mean I can remember when we were with Sandringham and Peter Walsh imploring our players to give their all in the finals campaign which we duly won, I think three in row fro then on. It may not have set us up for a dynasty of AFL success but gee we were a lot better back then than this lot.

I would rather see him play some tough, hard, uncompromising VFL finals myself and hopefully enjoy some success and the sought of player bonding that comes from finals success. Got to be better than some witches hat training in October. Gee that must be exciting.

Interesting post DeeP. I am confused. I mean we all know that our training form has been elite, Neeld stated that numerous times as we were being thumped on game day. But lets make one thing clear that through out the game day carnage, training levels stayed at elite AFL levels. Of course making sure that Jimmy is ready to go in October to pit himself against the witches hats is much more important than facing up against second rate VFL types like Magner and his inferior types makes sense. Why would we want to have a kid playing hat sought of pressure cooker, I mean he could get niggled or even punched by hooligans!

Please tell me this is not true, that this disqualifies Jimmy T from the Casey finals campaign! If true I say we have not got a clue. The best development for JT is some high pressure finals games where he might be challenged physically and expectations on his contribution to the side would be high. The alternative is he plays two non descript games for MFC at the end under no scrutiny. That said Ihope he puts in a blinder tomorrow.

Looks like it is Pederson! I would have had Gawn in for Fitzy as backup ruck. Magner instead of Rodan to pump out a few hard get handballs to Jimmy T. And I would thrown Davis down back just to see if he can play the actual role we have groomed him to do for nearly 3 seasons. With Frawley, Davis and Garland down back you can then leave Watts at CHF for more than a quarter and hopefully build up his trade value.