I am not one who takes pleasure in berating supporters or posters on this site and can't remember having done so in ten years here, but I cannot understand the constant anti-melbourne pamphleteering of this double-agent, 'ben hur', who constantly pushes an anti Melbourne Football Club line on Demonland. The essence of 'barracking' or supporting a club is to maintain solidarity, and the essence of our justice system is 'proof against truth'. So let our enemies prove their case, and let us defend it by all our might. But surely don't allow casual commentators the free space on our own red and blue internet site to throw stones against us as well.

So you aren't a casual commentator? What if I feel no solidarity with you,comrade?

Probably the most frustrating thing about her and this latest article is that she's in a win/win situation. If we are charged and its harsh penalties she gets to say she was first on the scene with this crap, if the AFL don't charge us or strike a deal that allows us all to save face then she gets to write another article of outrage and she gets to bleat on about it some more.

Thoroughly hate her, and will miss seeing Grant Thomas take her down a peg every Monday on FC.

Of course they're lame duck. They're also hard to disprove.

Do you honestly believe we DIDN'T tank ? Try to refrain form the crap definition excuses used on here, as I'm not talking from a legal sense.

The point I'm making is the club has NOT used the lame duck excuses to which she refers.

Show me where the club has used the defence of "everyone was doing it". Show me where the club has stated that a complaint regarding the conduct of AFL investigators is in itself a defence against the tanking charge. She is providing criticism of something that has not happened. They are blatant mistruths that she is putting to print.

My view is that I suspect we tanked, yes, but there is no way I will say outright that we did until I see irrefutable evidence and a guilty charge being laid. I wasn't privy to FD meetings that would allow me to say categorically that we tanked.

It is one thing to agree with Caro's stance, namely that we tanked and should be punished accordingly. It is quite another to support the manner in which she has treated the matter by twisting facts and using downright lies to support her views. This woman is damaging your club on fraudulent grounds and you're sitting back and applauding.

Nothing new here. In fact she's had nothing new for a couple of months. Which adds weight to my suspicion that her "source" for her initial onslaught was Adrian Anderson.

It really has become a journalist tactic - speculate and then quote your speculation as fact.

Murky evidence is right Caro.

How is that our unofficial defence? Because she says so? I reckon our defence has been that we did nothing wrong in terms of what can be proved by the laws of the game.

When was it an "excuse" that players and officials were intimidated? It has nothing to do with tanking and everything to do with a relevant remark over the investigation process. Ridiculous. How investigators gather "information" is very relevant.

I also notice her using the term "vault" for the room - I see she's backed away from using the term as a description for the nickname of the meeting. Not that she's taken back that statement.

Her article smacks of unfinished sentences and trains of thought that end before reaching logical conclusions. She draws out inferences from little.

Her continued (incorrect) fascination with Mclardy defending the players is also baffling. Surely, a chief football writer would be aware that our players have indeed been accused of it and she is being disingenuous by taking a swipe at him over his comment at a club function.

She bases a lot of what she says on pure conjecture; "it is clear now that not everyone at the club is behind that fight-at-all-costs mentality." Clear how? Who is not behind it? Where did this "information" come from?

It's so strange to read because it seems as though all the facts that she alludes to are being produced by her alone. No quotes it references to people, just re-hashed criticism of the club and certain individuals.

I'm glad Caro mentioned being childish - she'd be able to recognize the characteristic in her continued attacks.

Good post 45HG.

Will be missed where it's needed most.

A few points on her article worth noting:

Neither Melbourne nor the AFL can afford a costly and protracted legal battle and it is clear now that not everyone at the club is behind that fight-at-all-costs mentality.

I thought the same about this ^. Unless her source(s) don't have this mentality... again, how is it "clear?" Where did this information come from?

The Demons have engaged former Federal Court judge Ray Finkelstein to lead their defence and their view is that they have a very good case. Perhaps in legal terms they are correct even though their stated excuses are so so flimsy, irrelevant and in some cases childish.

You bet it is.

To let the club off the hook now would be as damaging to the game's image as Melbourne was back in that clumsy, divided and unhappy time four seasons ago.

This sentence tells me she may well know something that may well eventuate. Perhaps that the club will face no laid charges.

Overall I thought this article smacked of desperation. One last ditch bid whilst talks are on. Whilst Gil struggles to see a way through this mess . And whilst those witnesses in those 800 pages are getting a little edgy at the real prospect of having to go to court to face another round of interviews if the club proceeds as it might intend to.

Nothing new here. In fact she's had nothing new for a couple of months. Which adds weight to my suspicion that her "source" for her initial onslaught was Adrian Anderson.

Would make a bit of sense, because whatever source she had seems to have dried up.

Probably the most frustrating thing about her and this latest article is that she's in a win/win situation. If we are charged and its harsh penalties she gets to say she was first on the scene with this crap, if the AFL don't charge us or strike a deal that allows us all to save face then she gets to write another article of outrage and she gets to bleat on about it some more.

Thoroughly hate her, and will miss seeing Grant Thomas take her down a peg every Monday on FC.

Yep, good point Pates. Remember thinking the same thing when she wrote those original articles. She 'set it up' with a lot of embellishment of the known facts. Added in a few 'red herrings' . In doing so she probably convinced a reasonable percentage of the general public to believe it all. She kept feeding the story until many were convinced that it's all absolutely true. She preyed on peoples gullibility and perceptions of our team in general. Closer to the date of the outcome, she goes hard again.

It now allows her to have a 'big story' regardless of the outcome. The key for her is that she has to have an ongoing story that 'sells newspapers' after the decision is handed down. It's all about the story. Depending on how this all ends up she could go on referencing this whole saga for years.

There has never been a semblance of balance in all her articles on this affair. The presumption of innocence is not there. We are guilty until proven innocent. Just look at her latest piece. If you weren't a Demon fan you might be highly likely to read over the article quite quickly. Maybe not bothering to differentiate between a 'Quote' and an opinion. You could be easily fooled into thinking that it's all factual.

And of course, she being a veteran writer, knows how it all 'works'. If many of us weren't cynical of the media before, we certainly are now. Let's not forget that she had CS out the door. Now, by her own words, she can't even confirm that CS will be charged at all.

Edit : Added last paragraph

Edited February 12, 201312 yr by Macca

The point I'm making is the club has NOT used the lame duck excuses to which she refers.

Show me where the club has used the defence of "everyone was doing it". Show me where the club has stated that a complaint regarding the conduct of AFL investigators is in itself a defence against the tanking charge. She is providing criticism of something that has not happened. They are blatant mistruths that she is putting to print.

.

I can tell you where the above has been stated. Here - on 'land.

Of course, all the posters on here are really MFC powerbrokers and have authority to state club views.

Hi Caroline, can you please quote me in tomorrow's paper? My real name is D.McLardy.

Btw, this is crap. The club hasn't made any statements and we have to read this bs in the paper.

Of course they're lame duck. They're also hard to disprove.

Do you honestly believe we DIDN'T tank ? Try to refrain form the crap definition excuses used on here, as I'm not talking from a legal sense.

Fill us in on what these excuses are.

Even if she isn't categorically dishonest - she certainly isn't honest,

She hasn't seen Melbourne's defence - so how can she go on about it being "childish".

Her utter refusal to acknowledge that the sanctioned practices of other clubs is relevant demonstrates a simplistic black and white view of a complex matter. The childishness here - is all hers!

I know its a bit tough on Gollam - but it might be worth checking on ancestry.com that he didn't fall off the Wison family tree.

I can only suggest sending The Age an email, explaining that you will no longer subscribe to their broadsheet rag, like I did months ago.

Anyway, I await either the announcement of "no finding" or that we will go to court and have any charges dismissed.

Either way, I'm not worried.

I wrote to her and told her what I thought of her latest piece of gutter journalism. I also suggested if she want facts she should go and ask the former Tiger's coach TW. What a bitter and twisted individual she must be.

My theory in relation to her unofficial evidence is that she reads Demonland.

Because regarding this issue we all know that the Club has been tight lipped and refuse to comment. So she has read a through our tanking post and has taken it from here. If you look back over the posts the defences she talks about have all been discussed and debated in this forum ad nauseum. When faced with a wall of confidentiality from the AFL and MFC the next best thing is to Google it and then jerry rig together an article like the one she has posted.

I don't think the AFL would be leaking any info because it will taint any result they are aiming for and be child's play for any Lawyer worth their salt to use to the advantage of the MFC.

The article is a cry for attention by a Journalist who has missed breaking all the good stories this pre season and has hitched her wagon to this donkey of an issue that no matter how much you [censored] it will not move.

I have some advice if she does read these forums

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.

Of course they're lame duck. They're also hard to disprove.

Do you honestly believe we DIDN'T tank ? Try to refrain form the crap definition excuses used on here, as I'm not talking from a legal sense.

I honestly believe that you've lost the plot on this issue.

You answer everybody's question but the not so difficult one that I posed earlier about you sharing her views.

Wilson shows contempt for our right to defend ourselves on the basis of legal argument which she admits is a very good case.

She wants us to be punished heavily.

You share that view?

Throughout the thread you've been conflating the legal definition with the generic definition. Everybody understands that multiple clubs offended in the case of the latter but Melbourne is being investigated for breaching the former and, as she concedes, Melbourne has a strong legal case in defending itself against this.

But don't worry about being confused because you're in good company. The chief football writer doesn't understand either. Both of you are well out of your depth.

"One expected charge is bringing the game into disrepute. Connolly will be charged as will former coach Dean Bailey, but Fairfax Media could not confirm whether CEO Cameron Schwab would also be charged."

"Acting AFL football boss Gillon McLachlan is running the affair, having taken it over from the departed Adrian Anderson and has refused to discuss what has reportedly been constant dialogue with all parties."

It's nice to know the AGE could confirm the first few charges and not the CS one, so who's giving out the information seeing as Gillon is running things but is not talking according to the AGE.

"While club president Don McLardy missed the point entirely at last week's Melbourne annual general meeting when he suggested that his players had wrongly been accused of not trying, McLardy remains steadfast in his view that he would fight the AFL's charges all the way to the highest court in the land."

Someone missed the point and I'm pretty sure it wasn't good ol Don.

A pathetic attempt by a truly awful Journalist to intimidate the AFL into action. Sadly what was once a fine newspaper has joined it's rival in a race to the bottom to capture the hearts and souls of the lowest common denominator.

I see Trent Croad is suing Fairfax for defamation. Wonder if we've got a 2-for-1 coupon on the back of a receipt we could use to go in halves.

Get em Trent.

I see Trent Croad is suing Fairfax for defamation. Wonder if we've got a 2-for-1 coupon on the back of a receipt we could use to go in halves.

...and so he should, I think a lot in the media are forgetting they are not on 'Twitter' and are writing for what once were serious publications.

My information is that Croad won't be the only person taking a newspaper publisher to the courts and seeking damages for defamation.

I honestly believe that you've lost the plot on this issue.

You answer everybody's question but the not so difficult one that I posed earlier about you sharing her views.

Throughout the thread you've been conflating the legal definition with the generic definition. Everybody understands that multiple clubs offended in the case of the latter but Melbourne is being investigated for breaching the former and, as she concedes, Melbourne has a strong legal case in defending itself against this.

But don't worry about being confused because you're in good company. The chief football writer doesn't understand either. Both of you are well out of your depth.

You realise you're wasting your time?

This point has been debated ad infinitum for months. Some people see it this way and others don't or won't.

We'll know soon what path the AFL is taking and what the response of the other parties will be.

A whole lot of carp again, but this time she has qualified it as an opinion piece.

What is she afraid of. C'mon Caro put your gonads on the line.

Nothing original to add. Sorry. But .....aaaaaggghhh! Just have to say something to someone. That woman! She is poisoning the atmosphere against us. Storming over the landscape of our game like a bushfire, dropping fireballs wherever she fancies with little consideration of consequence or fairness.

Cheez - the most blatant admission of tanking came from Terry Wallace re his attempt to get Cotchin. Where's the diatribe against him? Aaaahhgggg!

Mate, I wasn't a big fan of us joining in the invasion of Iraq. I thought it was a terrible idea that we should have nothing to do with, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to join the Iraqi resistance does it? The tanking issue is the same. I despise that we went down that path and I'd like all those involved sacked from the club, but it's still my club. I don't want the AFL screwing us and I don't like po faced media hacks attacking my club. I'm not joining the Iraqi resistance over this either.

Some people here are suggesting that we had a genuine choice of a different outcome in 2009, perhaps of winning enough games to get into the eight; the reality is that we didn't! Why aren't we talking about last year (2012) when we only won a single game playing against the same fifteen teams? Did we tank last year, did we bring the game into disrepute? No we did not! We did the best we could, with the players we had and the injuries we had. Somebody has to lose every time two teams run out onto the paddock and it is not because the other team tanked!

I think it's a completely accurate article in its depiction of the whole debacle.

Initially I agreed. I thought she's nailed us. And she didn't attempt to define tanking. Instead she cleverly said that Melbourne 'worked to lose games of football that year' - a hard charge to disprove. She knows that all the things we did at the time - resting players, playing them out of position, playing kids etc - were all condoned by the CEO. It's just that we were so stupidly obvious about it.

What she didn't mention in this article was Bailey's 'admission' after he was sacked in 2011. She was vitriolic in her articles at the time and since, that his admission of guilt was clear evidence that Melbourne tanked that year. But she now fails to mention he is denying the charges, and that his statements at that time were investigated by Anderson and he was cleared.

Bailey is the key here. The investigators needed a Terry Wallace type of admission from the coach that he tanked, and i don't think Bailey complied. If rumours are true that he is fighting any compromise outcome, then I can't see how this will not end up in court.