Season 2020 - Melbourne

If Dees sold Hogan and went to the draft with 6 for King instead of getting May, then a lot of people would be patting the Dees on the back now, would have a gun young key forward + weideman as foil to go with their young midfield.
instead they have a 28 year old May who has done nothing last 2 seasons, unprofessional and been unfit. Gold Coast did very well out of that deal.

2 Likes

Gold Coast did well, but when fit May has been good for the Dees. Not sure he was worth the price they paid, but he’s done his job.

1 Like

Geez, that’s a strange call.
I thought they picked up a very good player, roughly the equal of Hogan in terms importance.
However, what has he really produced to this point ?

He’s played 12 games out of a possible 27, and hardly finds himself in the Best Players within those games.
Massive bust.

I guess that would depend on your view of May before he came across. I saw him as one of the best, if not the best stoppers in the competition, what I didn’t see him as (aside from a couple of rare occurrences) as a dominating, rebounding backman and to be fair I don’t think Melbourne did either. They already had a number of strong intercept and rebounding players, they needed a stopper.

At the other end Tom McDonald had been doing a good job paired with Hogan and they thought Weideman was ready to step up. Turns out that McDonald couldn’t really handle being the main forward, Weideman needs more time and patience and most of their intercepting players fell off a cliff.

Hogan hasn’t exactly been what Freo wanted either. With 20/20 hindsight it’s easy to say they did the wrong thing, should’ve held on to Hogan or should’ve gone to the draft. But at the time, it was a bold move and potentially a winning one.

All of that is a very long way of saying: Yes, I think when May has been fit he has done the job he was recruited to do.

The couple of Melbourne games I’ve seen this year, May has been much better than Lever.
Two first rounders for Lever was seriously overpaying.
Melbourne has a track record of really ■■■■■ decision making, followed by desperate but less ■■■■■ decisions as they try and fix the mess they’ve just made.
Putting all their forward stocks on Weideman, on the basis of one or two games is another example of really ■■■■■ decisions they’re still patching around.

1 Like

… or at least until we play them.

That’s a nasty set of numbers.

Even more so: 3 wins in the last 18 games. Carlton twice & Freo.

Gold Coast and the Hawks up next. Interesting two weeks for them coming up.

My view of May before Melb recruited him was that he was a very good player.
I also thought the strategy was a sound one.
Hogan, whilst being a good forward with potential to improve, had his problems, and they looked good in that 2018 Finals Series without him.

Unfortunately for Melb, I can only form an opinion on exposed form and attitude thus far in his short career at the club.
Right now it doesn’t look a good trade.
He’ll be 29 by the start of the 2021 Season, and they don’t look like challenging anytime soon.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
If they had their time again, they take that Pick in the Draft.

1 Like

It was a curious trade at the time. Clearly they knew about Hogan’s issues, that’s why he was on the table, otherwise you wouldn’t be dealing a key forward with his talent would you? They got what they thought they needed, May to help out with the key defence and Kolodjashnij for his rebound and ball use across half-back. KK has concussion problems and may never play in the AFL again, and May has been either injured or below par with his output on field. If they’d traded Hogan still but taken that pick to the draft and selected King, you’d probably say it’s a win. However right now the trade appears to be a net loss, or at best Hogan’s problems have cancelled out the issues with May/KK. Their defence is no better really and their front half is not functioning.

You know their front half is not functioning when Mitch Brown can’t even crack it for a game. Why recruit a guy and then not play him? He won’t be the answer to all that ails them, but he will work twice as hard as any of the other Dees forwards.

5 Likes

Yep.

Even if he bludged a bit on the goldy it’s still pretty sad.

When do we play these ski bunnys

Probably at the tail end of the season considering we were due to play them a few weeks ago

That is far to much pressure to quantify

It won’t be at the end of the season. Teams are now getting byes, and we’ve effectively had ours so won’t get another one.

2 Likes

Reckon we cop them between 12 and 13

There is no such thing (probably) as between rounds 12 and 13. If they continue at two teams having a bye each week, as announced so far, then rounds 10 to 17 neatly gets all teams even at the end of round 17.

I suspect they’ll double up one week to finish the byes by round 16, to give a fairer entry to finals.

Chairman Glen Bartlett gives the players a massive whack and is copping a stack of heat over it from all and sundry

People are weak.

2 Likes

Ralph saying Gawn has a PCL strain and will need to be managed for the rest of the season.