may as well do side that beat us last yr. a side i admit i thought would do better than they did last yr. i still think they will improve a fair bit. i think both petracca and brayshaw will have very good first seasons being such big bodied kids. what i would consider their best 22 keeping structure and players in positions.
FB: Frost 194/93 21yo/21gms - Dunn 192/98 27yo/139gms - Garland 191/90 26yo/115gms could go sml Jetta 180/82 26YR/57GMS
HB: Grimes 187/82 25yo/86gms - Mcdonald 194/97 22yo/60gms - Lumumba 188/91 28yo/199gms.
C : Vince 186/87 29yo/151gms - Tyson 186/82 21yo/35gms - Trengove 185/87 23yo/81gms.
HF: Howe 190/86 24yo/78gms - Dawes 193/105 26yo/101gms - petracca 186/94 19yo/0gms.
FF: Garlett 180/75 25yr/107gms - Hogan 195/97 20yr/0gms - Pederson 193/96 28yo/45gms
Foll : Jamar 198/101 31yo/150gms - Jones 180/86 27yo/179gms - Viney 178/82 20yo/33gms.
Int: Cross 187/87 32yo/227gms - Brayshaw 187/88 19yo/0gms - Salem 183/81 19yo/12gms - M Jones 188/80 27yo/42gms.
Emg : Kent - Watts - newton - Gawn - kennedy-harris - toumpas.
its not a hopeless 22. it has a reasonable sprinkling of age or experience or both with 13 players aged 25 or more.with a good sprinkling of youth 9 players aged 24 or less with just 4 who have played less than 20 games and they are top end draft picks in brayshaw, petracca, salem, and hogan. good height good structure.ave gms 84 ave age 24.5.
reckon they will surprise a few if injuries etc dont bite into em they have a very good draw. games you would just pencil in as a win are no longer gimmes.
Forward line is very average
with the talls i agree in a way.
hogan well they are hoping he becomes our riewoldt.super young talent who should be their future.probably too young and raw to make a big impact.
dawes imo is a better player than both vickery and griffiths to date. a work horse who always competes his 2nd and 3rd efforts are great.he does all the little things. the things you rarely see vickery or griffiths do. reckon his worth is not appreciated by most.if he kicked 40 goals a yr he would be great.
pederson well hes struggled sort of like our two vickey and griffiths. hes a bit of a tease shows some real good signs at times then doesnt go on with it. hes had griffiths role played fwd pinch hit in the ruck. battler or not hes done as well as griffiths if not better.
i think people need to remember hogan was injured last yr and dawes missed games and played with injury and pederson missed about half the season while mitch clarke had depression. thats the equivalent of us losing riewoldt vickery griffiths and one other mcbean the only one left.
their sml and mediums fwds have it over ours imo. people will not agree and they are entitled to their opinions.
petracca #1 draft pick a bit like dusty martin. can impact fwd and has as a junioir. like hogan he may not have a big influence this yr but a blind man can see the potential with both.with petracca they now have a classy mid who can play plenty of time fwd much like we do with dusty.
howe is a pretty good medium sized marking fwd we dont have the equivalent. only medium fwds we have is lennon petterd gordon and knights with only petterd capable of matching him in the air. howe for me thanks.roos played him of h/b a lot last yr i think hes wasted there.
garlett has achieved far more than any sml fwd we have. what we wouldnt give or should have given for a 40 50 goal a yr sml fwd.
not saying their fwd line is perfect and i sure as hell would be looking to improve on it, thus i think they cant afford to not play howe fwd.they could do with an upgrade on pederson if garlett doest recapture his form they could do with a sml fwd. id like a similar type of kpf to dawes who kicks a few more goals.
take riewoldt out of the equation and ask yourself how good our fwd line is. he hasnt missed a game in 5 yrs we want to hope it stays that way.
mate last yr melbourne had a midfield that got smashed most games it played and the fwds suffered when they had fwds to play.
we had a midfield that gave our fwds good supply we at least got it in the fwd 50 yet our fwd line was our weakness. although i argue we have weaknesses all over the ground to varying degrees.
unlike most it seems, i think melbourne have plenty talent. they also still have holes to fix and upgrades to be made. i dont think them bottom 4 more a middling team atm who with a good draw and some real luck could cause plenty of upsets. i think theres 10 12 teams not too far apart.in fact potentially i dont think theres much difference between most sides.