They'd have called everyone.

Ben Polis, Lawrie DeLaRue, Eugene Kaspersky, and more importantly, any of their underlings.

They'd have called Kal Fried. They'd have called Joel Hocking. They'd have called the kids who did work experience at the club that year.

Sean Wellman, Bohdan Babiczuk, Ross Monaghan, Peter German, Jace Bode, Isaac Weetra, John Meesen, Shane Valenti, Paul Johnson, Rhys Healey, Cam Johnston, Tom Rockliff, Clint Stanaway...

Anyone that was in any remote way linked to the club around those years.

Then get as many words out of them as you can, and twist away.

It seems that someone is talking, and it's a lot easier to spill the beans when the club doesn't pay your wages. That goes for admin and coaching staff too.

Sounds like Caro is really carrying the can for the players whose careers "were wrecked by tanking."

Funnily enough, if they were any good to begin with, there'd have been no need for tanking, or they'd have won anyway.

I'm sure one of her sources must be at least one bitter ex-player.

The biased shrill and vengeful tone of her continued campaign has become tiresome and dogmatic.

Don and the club's minimal (and legalistic) response was spot on, and probably enraged CW into her latest round of rabid ramblings.

Readers of The Age will tire and be repulsed by her continued attempt to name and shame the club without evidence and without the club having an unbiased right of reply.

She's been given a long leash on this campaign but I imagine her editors at The Age will tire of it also, and tighten the leash soon.

I was speaking with a retired journalist yesterday and he was commenting on the number of gaffes that Wilson had committed over the past week in her haste to publish disparaging articles about the Melbourne Football Club. Those errors were ultimately corrected in updates of her articles without the usual mea culpa. He reckoned it was a sign of the declining standards of his profession that people weren't owning up to their own mistakes and compounds the original sin of shoddy journalism.

That reminds me of when Round Robbo wrote Terry Wallace was about to be sacked and when Wallace did not subsequently get sacked the follow up articles were by-lined with "staff reporters".

Rita Panahi

‏

@

RitaPanahi

Love her or hate her this is why Caro is the best in the business. Bang!

http://t.co/WL2C30Em

Retweeted 10 times

Expand

1h

Nicholas Scott Baker

‏

@

renhistorian

Perceptive, pointed analysis & rejoinder to those who try to excuse the Dees: Demons: shock & awful

http://www.

theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/d

emons-shock--awful-20121102-28ppz.html

…

via

@

theage

Expand

1h

Katie Lambeski

‏

@

katielambeski

Caro goes kaboom on the Dees

http://www.

theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/d

emons-shock--awful-20121102-28ppz.html

…

her and the Age's coverage on this has been the best

Expand

These are just the first 3 tweets on the most recent article 'Demons: shock & awful' article. We need to make a public statement and tweet back our disapproval and not have this minority of kiss-asses represent the public (and us) on this issue.

Theres a lot of Salem about this. If she drowns she wasnt a witch etc.

These [censored] that masquerade as journalists cleverly offer up only two scenarios as possibilities ; neither paint us well.

Therein lies the flaw.

I trust (hope) that the wigs are meeting as we talk and the defense is absolute of purpose.

We will wear nothing. We will not be patsies for a flawed system .

Id personally like to see some individuals taken to task also. Let them put up or shut up in a place they can not hide; a court !!

Let them feel the heat. Let the would be destroyers be themselves purged. Hung out for all to see for what they are.

Ps ..mods.

Might as well merge the two Caro threads.

Same sh!t, different foot !! Lol

What worries me is that she is saying all this because she knows 100% for sure that Melbourne will be found guilty.

Or she has to be right. As BH posted - she has gone too early, too hard and now she has got nowhere to go.

She won't be finished if we get off but she will be heavily marginalised. And if we proceed with legal action it will only be worse for her as we settle out of court with Fairfax.

How's that getting ahead of myself? I should write an article in The Age...

This latest piece was the 'editorial' following the 'reports.'

However, usually the reports that preceed the editorial are not from one journalist with the reports all coming from said journalist.

Akin to Dick Cheney and Judith Miller pre-Iraq: leak to journo with lie, journo writes article of lie, cite article in case for war.

Show me some evidence, Clothier!

Boring. If that's the best she can do, good luck to her.

I wish her no luck whatsoever .

Even if we did found out as not guilty? Will people stop calling us cheaters, No!!!!!!!!!!!

This remind me of one of the greatest cricketers of all time Muttiah muralitharan

Even though he has proven so many times he is not a thrower, so many people still want to believe that's the case.

Murali was a chucker. They ended up changing the rules to allow him to play. Anyway that's a totally different argument.

It's a witch hunt and Caro wants to be judge, jury and executioner, however that wont be the case.

I'm confident that with the AFL not wanting us to take any heavy penalities handed down by them to court that some type of understanding/agreement as to the outcome of this will be reached during our right of reply.

People should take the Richmond game out of the equation. So what it they won after the siren? That was only because Richmond was so bad they almost lost to a team trying to lose. The Tigers won by accident.

Just imagine if James Brayshaw gives us his verbal support in this matter. She would go postal!

Or, more appropriately - US Postal.

Or she has to be right. As BH posted - she has gone too early, too hard and now she has got nowhere to go.

Correct.

After her articles through the week, she has painted only one picture, and she can't now be seen to be equivocal.

As B-H and I have both said, she has hitched her wagon to our guilt, and she will stay there until the end. She has no other choice.

45]

Rita Panahi

‏

@

RitaPanahi

Love her or hate her this is why Caro is the best in the business. Bang!

http://t.co/WL2C30Em

Retweeted 10 times

Expand

45]

1h

Nicholas Scott Baker

‏

@

renhistorian

Perceptive, pointed analysis & rejoinder to those who try to excuse the Dees: Demons: shock & awful

http://www.

theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/d

emons-shock--awful-20121102-28ppz.html

…

via

@

theage

Expand

45]

1h

Katie Lambeski

‏

@

katielambeski

Caro goes kaboom on the Dees

http://www.

theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/d

emons-shock--awful-20121102-28ppz.html

…

her and the Age's coverage on this has been the best

Expand

These are just the first 3 tweets on the most recent article 'Demons: shock & awful' article. We need to make a public statement and tweet back our disapproval and not have this minority of kiss-asses represent the public (and us) on this issue.

Okay, so I know who Rita Panahi is. But who the hell are Nicholas Scott Baker and Katie Lameski, and why should I care what they think?

Those tweets above worry me. Yes it is only 3, but there is a truckload of people out there who want us to burn to the ground so there own clubs are unscathed. It is obvious.

This looks like it could be the almighty war that makes '96 look like a quiet drink.

This is the moment for the club...We have bottomed out. Now with all our strength pulling in the one direction we must climb up.

It will not be easy.

Okay, so I know who Rita Panahi is. But who the hell are Nicholas Scott Baker and Katie Lameski, and why should I care what they think?

That's an indictment in itself...

To quote CW at the end of her article, "If what some former players and coaches say is true then the tanking was only half of it". I have a vague suspicion to what she is talking about and have said similar here. She certainly has more information on the investigation which goes beyond tanking that is still not in the public domain. She has some ammo to back up the heavy attack on the club. The worst is yet come.

Yes she has been wonderfully informed I wonder just by exactly who?

You disgust me with the way you seem to enjoy Caroline Wilson attacking us like this without any factual evidence?

And the only way you have a vague suspicion about what she is talking about is, if you are Caroline Wilson?

Or associated with the group that has been informing her

Or associated with the group that has been informing her

yes, i have had that alleged thought.

Go back a few years, this place was full of tanking & draft pick talk. Who needs a paper trail of emails??

The alleged rapes by 2 Saints players several years ago and the Saints schoolgirl sex incident got less coverage and venom than this. Wonderful society we live in.

Patrick Smith, in his article today, said the following:

'it has been a dogged and expansive inquiry which has unearthed damning evidence that Melbourne had made draft picks a priority ahead of victory'

So the allegation seems to be that we had draft picks as a paramount priority.

How can this be a crime? How can wanting to secure the long term viability of your football club be something the AFL wants to punish? If this is all the AFL can hang on us, then they surely can't punish us, as to do so would be to say that clubs must always take the short term view in each season.

As far as I can tell even if CS threatened all coaches and players with the sack if they won, he is not guilty of anything. The RULES in regard to not doing the best to win only cover the players and coaches. The other RULE was that clubs could get a priority pick in certain circumstances. A good administrator should work within the rules for the best of the his/her organisation. (however if CC said this may be different.)

As much as CW carries on, it was the rules that were the problem. She may not like it, but the AFL is bound by their own rules.

I still fail to see how any penalty could ever be justified by a body who is just as much complicit as protagonist as they want to be judge and jury !!

But i do say justified and should any be given we must respond with maximum annoyance and perseverance.

The AFL as the govering body and creator of this mess is the one to finish it.

It does so by:

"Suggesting it was possible that the priority system whilst best intended came with ambiguities of instruction and misunderstandings of execution."

"These failings have been recognised and addressed in the interests of all clubs and parties."

"The AFL concludes that no club is guilty of bringing the game into disrepute of its own doing or intent. The AFL also recognises the right of clubs to self determination of methodology in respect of team/player development."

"The AFL holds the integrity of the game central to its ethos and endeavours on a continuing basis to administer on behalf and for all clubs equally.

"Thankyou "

or something like that.

To quote CW at the end of her article, "If what some former players and coaches say is true then the tanking was only half of it". I have a vague suspicion to what she is talking about and have said similar here. She certainly has more information on the investigation which goes beyond tanking that is still not in the public domain. She has some ammo to back up the heavy attack on the club. The worst is yet come.

If you don't have the courage to come on here and say what you are actually alluding to why don't you at least admit what your actual agenda is, & I don't mean the generic I just want what is best for the club line

Always be aware that often the enemy is within. This site would not be immune to such infestation either !