Traded #17: Jake Melksham - Traded to Melbourne for pick 25

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hurlygurdy said:
See that is where i get uncomfortable... I guess early season selection is largely based on preseason performance, so in that sense perhaps he can sneak into the team if he has been setting the track alight. But if he hasn't, then i don't want him getting a speculative game in place of Hocking, as I'd rather give the chance to one of the kids.
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Melksham is clearly the 2nd best tagger at Essendon. With no Hocking, Melksham tagging is clearly the 2nd best option for us winning games.
 
His future in the team is as a second tagger to Hocking. That is if the match committee want to closely check two opposition players, eg. Swann and Pendles or Judd and Murphy. This won't happen every week. He is a tough nut and very competitive one on one but lacks the polish and decision making to be a ball winning/ball using midfielder in the group we have assembled. Eventually replaces Hocking.
 

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Gee whiz I hope he has a good year. Has been sub-standard for far too long.

C'mon Melky you beautiful man
 
eth-dog said:
Melksham is clearly the 2nd best tagger at Essendon. With no Hocking, Melksham tagging is clearly the 2nd best option for us winning games.
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For him to be of use to us in that role, he has to be playing some decent football. At any rate, I'm not convinced that he is good enough as a tagger to warrant selection on that basis. We may be better off going head to head.
 
hurlygurdy said:
For him to be of use to us in that role, he has to be playing some decent football. At any rate, I'm not convinced that he is good enough as a tagger to warrant selection on that basis. We may be better off going head to head.
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He's never been beaten when tagging. He's not as effective as Hocking but to say he's not good enough as a tagger is plain incorrect.
 
Surely he does much more the other way compared to Hocking and he could push deep forward causing a quality midfielder out of the comfort zone and know they are every chance of being lead to the ball with good hands and a guy that can finish or if they don't run with him know he can get the ball and be a 60m player with his run and kicking ability. I don't think hes ever been told to be the Crowley, Hocking, Macaffer type tagger more so H2H with a specific opponent and make them run the other way and if they don't make sure you punish them.

His best football has still either been as a true onballer/inside midfielder or as a leadup half forward.

I feel we need to keep him around and continue to give him a chance because we lose some quality in the midfield not far away when Godddard, Watson, Hocking and Stanton are all past it or gone from the game. Neither Ekav or Obrien have really come on whereas Melksham has showed onball ability and we will have Myers, Heppell and Zacka for a while yet however it starts to look very thin very quick.
 
Keystone agony said:
I feel we need to keep him around and continue to give him a chance because we lose some quality in the midfield not far away when Godddard, Watson, Hocking and Stanton are all past it or gone from the game. Neither Ekav or Obrien have really come on whereas Melksham has showed onball ability and we will have Myers, Heppell and Zacka for a while yet however it starts to look very thin very quick.
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Colyer, Z.Merrett, J.Merrett, Gleeson have all shown enough at AFL level to suggest they'll make it as wing/midfielders imo.
 
He is a very different tagger to Hocking, watch a game with Hocking playing and pay close attention to the amount of blocking he does for Jobe, it's very very impressive. That is something I do not see Melksham being capable of doing.
 
The 'Melskam the tagger' train is out of control. Let's not oversell it too much. He successfully tagged an injurred Swan, once, then was dropped. Strange how people forget how average you are when you're out of the team.
 
Ambrosia said:
Colyer, Z.Merrett, J.Merrett, Gleeson have all shown enough at AFL level to suggest they'll make it as wing/midfielders imo.
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At least 3 if not all 4 of those guys havnt shown more than Melksham as a true onballer. Im talking about experienced bodies who know how to win contested ball and clearances.

Have no doubt Z.Merrett will be a great player.

Gleeson and J.Merrett will never be those big bodied onballers.
 
Keystone agony said:
At least 3 if not all 4 of those guys havnt shown more than Melksham as a true onballer. Im talking about experienced bodies who know how to win contested ball and clearances.

Have no doubt Z.Merrett will be a great player.

Gleeson and J.Merrett will never be those big bodied onballers.
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Given his ability to weave through traffic I wouldn't rule out Gleeson moving on to the ball in a few years.
 
Duckworth said:
The 'Melskam the tagger' train is out of control. Let's not oversell it too much. He successfully tagged an injurred Swan, once, then was dropped. Strange how people forget how average you are when you're out of the team.
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Also kept Ward to 20 disposals multiple times, kept Griffen quiet once, but let's not use games where it doesn't suit your argument, yeah?
 

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Duckworth said:
The 'Melskam the tagger' train is out of control. Let's not oversell it too much. He successfully tagged an injurred Swan, once, then was dropped. Strange how people forget how average you are when you're out of the team.
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Sorry should've multi quoted.

I actually think one of his best tagging/H2H roles was against Pendlebury in the ANZAC game IIRC and yes Pendlebury still had like 31 touches and I thought he was amazing but I think most of those possessions were handballs and under extreme pressure from melksham.

I question whether we need a Crowley, Hocking, Macaffer tagger. We have a quality midfield without negating. Hawks, Power, North, Sydney, Geelong didn't operate with these like minded taggers they simply went H2H and backed themselves in and I think we ok to do this more especially if we are found to be slow at times. Sure they have guys that can do roles/shut downs if an opposition players is in such great form ie: Kornes, Shiels/Langford, Guthrie, Mcglynn/Cunningham ect but they weren't guaranteed every week to be taking the best oppo midfielder and purely playing a very negating role.

I hope Melksham's career isn't on the line this year, however I feel it could be. I just think he will play his best football from an onball position in 2017-2019 and it will be at a really important time for our midfield. Pitty he might not make it till this time.

Hes always been behind such quality and the only time that didn't happen for half a year he played excellent football as an onballer.
 
Big Fresh said:
Given his ability to weave through traffic I wouldn't rule out Gleeson moving on to the ball in a few years.
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It would be in small stints though not in a typical Ablett, Pendlebury, Watson, Selwood, SJ, Fyfe, Mundy, Barlow, Swallow, Ward, griffen type (Not saying Melksham is anywhere near the calibre of these players and doubt he will ever get near any of them).

Gleeson would be more like I.Smith/S.Hill mainly play a wing but with heavy rotations have very small stints in the onball brigade.
 
Melk has tagged more than once and done a reasonable job more than once, but yes, to say he's never been beaten as a tagger is a stretch.
 
Big Fresh said:
He didn't keep Griffen that quiet. He's also been beaten by Pendlebury. He's also been cut up by Daniel Wells before. It's not true that he's never been beaten.
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When was this Wells game?
 
katana said:
he's also.... i'm going to say this... a ******* nice kick of the ball. obviously his misses are terrible but when he nails them he really nails them. there's not much of that in our team.
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I don't think his misses by foot are any worse than what all our players do periodically. It's his head that seems to freeze, rather than his foot.
I'll say one more thing... If he does come good this year a la 2013, then we are only small developmental steps in the forward line away from top four.
 

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Traded #17: Jake Melksham - Traded to Melbourne for pick 25

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