The well known football gossip columnist Caroline Wilson has yet again pursued her obsession with the MFC tanking issue in a piece in the Fairfax press Real Footy today.

The article; Roos and Demons still coming to grips with sins of the past, attributes Melbourne's current woes to the alleged tanking incident. Will she ever let go? While a certain amount of doggedness is an admirable trait in a journalist, continually dragging up the same old mantra becomes tedious. If the issue was unresolved and of some real importance such as Watergate or the Dreyfus Affair - fair enough but the AFL is no Dreyfus who suffered terribly at the hands of the French military and government because of his religion and Caro is certainly no Emile Zola a talented writer crusading to right an injustice. By comparison Caro is a hack journalist attempting to rack up a very small issue that has now been resolved.

The matter itself was arguable, and even if it could be shown that any team tanked it could only have benefited because of some idiotic rules that the AFL introduced the spotlight was exclusively on Melbourne while the actions of other clubs were ignored.

And the article does not stand any rigorous scrutiny, for any number of reasons

• Few players are still playing from the time when the transgressions are supposed to have occurred and some of those Dunn, Frawley and of course Nathan Jones are among our best players
• While Caro makes a passing reference to Carlton as a further of the futility of tanking she ignores the other more successful clubs who may have been involved but of course are conveniently ignored
• Most importantly there are any number of factors that have led to Melbourne's present situation, shocking success rate in terms of winning games over along period, bad administration, pathetic coaching, awful list management, incompetent draft selection, inept player development, paltry financial management and a small supporter base come to mind. At best the tanking issue is a small subset of these rather larger factors

In fact you might argue that if it were not for the tanking issue we would not have obtained the services of Jackson or Roos. They are the key to our future.

While I have some sympathy for someone who having largely broke the tanking saga wanting keep it going as a nice little earner Caro draws a long bow by linking it to the quite reasonable comments made by Roos after the game.

Caro, the goose has laid its last golden egg, the matter has now been done and dusted and the caravan moves on. Try to do the same!

Ok I must be the only one who didn't find anything wrong with her article..

Caro needs to understand that people in grass houses shouldn't get stoned and she can't continually goose the cook that laid the golden egg. Mind you, she always has had a tendency to hatchet her chickens before they're counted

Had we of chose the right players, there wouldn't be much talk of culture.

Dustin Martin had a good year in an ordinary side, Tommy Rockliff made a career of it.

Players like Scully haven't exactly kicked on because he was ordinary to begin with.

Ok I must be the only one who didn't find anything wrong with her article..

No there at least two of us dd

No there at least two of us dd

Three.

Had we of chose the right players, there wouldn't be much talk of culture.

Dustin Martin had a good year in an ordinary side, Tommy Rockliff made a career of it.

Players like Scully haven't exactly kicked on because he was ordinary to begin with.

Scully was ordinary in the TAC competition ? revisionism at its very best.

Again please point me to where at draft time you suggested taking Dustin Martin over Scully. I'll go one better - point to one article quoting any recruiter from any club who considered anyone else other than Scully going number one in the draft. He was undoubtedly the best junior in the land.

edit - the problem is that the best TAC juniors don't necessarily go on to be great AFL footballers.

Ok I must be the only one who didn't find anything wrong with her article..

No there at least two of us dd

I'm on board here as well, nothing wrong with it and of course it was Roos that opened the discussion up.

Gary doesn't want to talk about it and I get that we need to move on but he's had a big part in what has happened at the club so I take what he says with a grain of salt.

On Footy Classified last night Garry Lyon did his best to deflect blame from his mates Connolly, Schwab and Stynes (and by implication Garry himself) by forcefully arguing that the current problem with Melbourne is the current playing list. Certainly the current list is chock full of sub optimal talent, but surely the problems of 2007 to 2013 have fed into the current problems on the field. Basically those 7 dismal years have meant the club is coming from a long, long way back.

I'm on board here as well, nothing wrong with it and of course it was Roos that opened the discussion up.

Gary doesn't want to talk about it and I get that we need to move on but he's had a big part in what has happened at the club so I take what he says with a grain of salt.

100g

Ok I must be the only one who didn't find anything wrong with her article..

I'm with you on this one. Read it late last night and wasn't fussed at all. She isn't having a crack, just merely elaborating on the comments Roos has made. Nothing wrong with it at all.

Article is fine.

Furthermore given the activities of that era the club is rightfully still open to criticism.

And yet we beat Caro's beloved Tigers. Bwahahaha!!!

Nothing wrong with the article at all. 100% spot on.
As for the Gaz man, that piece on FC showed why he shouldn't have been football boss in 2011. Jimmy needed a chop out but he wasn't the man to do it. Remember that Cuddles was never sacked from the club full stop. He got moved into a community liaison role and continued to collect a pay check. Schwab got a three year extension and used his first two acts as CEO to hire Mark Neeld and get EnergyWatch on board. Bailey got to sit out the front of a presser like a shag on a rock without the president or the CEO by his side in his own suit with sponsorship and club backdrops removed from the wall.
Gaz has made a contribution to the club on the playing front and I respect that. However (a lot of people did can Happell over this article on here), this article does sum up the other legacy he (and sad to say it, Jimmy although he had a lot of desirable qualities in a president) left at the club.
Hollywood Boulevard

Nothing wrong with the article at all. 100% spot on.

As for the Gaz man, that piece on FC showed why he shouldn't have been football boss in 2011. Jimmy needed a chop out but he wasn't the man to do it. Remember that Cuddles was never sacked from the club full stop. He got moved into a community liaison role and continued to collect a pay check. Schwab got a three year extension and used his first two acts as CEO to hire Mark Neeld and get EnergyWatch on board. Bailey got to sit out the front of a presser like a shag on a rock without the president or the CEO by his side in his own suit with sponsorship and club backdrops removed from the wall.

Gaz has made a contribution to the club on the playing front and I respect that. However (a lot of people did can Happell over this article on here), this article does sum up the other legacy he (and sad to say it, Jimmy although he had a lot of desirable qualities in a president) left at the club.Hollywood Boulevard

The article is absolutely spot. That club being West Coast culture is well drilled and ultra professional back then. Even last year Cale Morton commented on how well drilled they are compared to Melbourne.

Its the culture and still 20 years till now nothing has changed.

My problem with the article is that she only mentions one other tanker. From what I could see of that period, just about everybody tanked, especially her beloved Tigers (Wallace openly admitted it) The AFLs own structure encouraged it.

Therefore the article is unfair, and yet another example of kicking a man when he's down.

I like Mydees original comment, that there are a multitude of reasons why we are crap, many of them to do with the structural unfairness of the AFL ( ie that we bottomed out around e time the expansion teams came in, or that we are a small player in an age of Big Business)

Mind you, I'm not saying tanking didn't contribute - I suppose Roos himself is saying that

But it suits the interests of the Powers That Be to make it look like its all our fault (much the same way the Government is demonising the unemployed at present, to disguise the fact that their own policies are favouring rich people and sending jobs off-shore)

Collingwood tanked, and went on to win a premiership.

No problems with that article. Big problem with the article in todays Hun by Yobbo (which i can't find online)

No problems with that article. Big problem with the article in todays Hun by Yobbo (which i can't find online)

I can't find either online. If anyone manages to, please post a link. Cheers

Come on we all know it's WYL in his/her day job

The well known football gossip columnist Caroline Wilson has yet again pursued her obsession with the MFC tanking issue in a piece in the Fairfax press Real Footy today.

The article; Roos and Demons still coming to grips with sins of the past, attributes Melbourne's current woes to the alleged tanking incident. Will she ever let go? While a certain amount of doggedness is an admirable trait in a journalist, continually dragging up the same old mantra becomes tedious. If the issue was unresolved and of some real importance such as Watergate or the Dreyfus Affair - fair enough but the AFL is no Dreyfus who suffered terribly at the hands of the French military and government because of his religion and Caro is certainly no Emile Zola a talented writer crusading to right an injustice. By comparison Caro is a hack journalist attempting to rack up a very small issue that has now been resolved.

The matter itself was arguable, and even if it could be shown that any team tanked it could only have benefited because of some idiotic rules that the AFL introduced the spotlight was exclusively on Melbourne while the actions of other clubs were ignored.

And the article does not stand any rigorous scrutiny, for any number of reasons

• Few players are still playing from the time when the transgressions are supposed to have occurred and some of those Dunn, Frawley and of course Nathan Jones are among our best players
• While Caro makes a passing reference to Carlton as a further of the futility of tanking she ignores the other more successful clubs who may have been involved but of course are conveniently ignored
• Most importantly there are any number of factors that have led to Melbourne's present situation, shocking success rate in terms of winning games over along period, bad administration, pathetic coaching, awful list management, incompetent draft selection, inept player development, paltry financial management and a small supporter base come to mind. At best the tanking issue is a small subset of these rather larger factors

In fact you might argue that if it were not for the tanking issue we would not have obtained the services of Jackson or Roos. They are the key to our future.

While I have some sympathy for someone who having largely broke the tanking saga wanting keep it going as a nice little earner Caro draws a long bow by linking it to the quite reasonable comments made by Roos after the game.

Caro, the goose has laid its last golden egg, the matter has now been done and dusted and the caravan moves on. Try to do the same!

Fact of the matter is that if it's accepted by the football world that we were tanking back in 2009 then what we're doing now is exactly the same thing. The same inexplicable things that were happening then are happening now - in fact I saw officials looking ashen faced and how is it possible that so many first round picks have been languishing in the VFL? You can't make this stuff up surely?

The well known football gossip columnist Caroline Wilson has yet again pursued her obsession with the MFC tanking issue in a piece in the Fairfax press Real Footy today.

The article; Roos and Demons still coming to grips with sins of the past, attributes Melbourne's current woes to the alleged tanking incident. Will she ever let go? While a certain amount of doggedness is an admirable trait in a journalist, continually dragging up the same old mantra becomes tedious. If the issue was unresolved and of some real importance such as Watergate or the Dreyfus Affair - fair enough but the AFL is no Dreyfus who suffered terribly at the hands of the French military and government because of his religion and Caro is certainly no Emile Zola a talented writer crusading to right an injustice. By comparison Caro is a hack journalist attempting to rack up a very small issue that has now been resolved.

The matter itself was arguable, and even if it could be shown that any team tanked it could only have benefited because of some idiotic rules that the AFL introduced the spotlight was exclusively on Melbourne while the actions of other clubs were ignored.

And the article does not stand any rigorous scrutiny, for any number of reasons

• Few players are still playing from the time when the transgressions are supposed to have occurred and some of those Dunn, Frawley and of course Nathan Jones are among our best players
• While Caro makes a passing reference to Carlton as a further of the futility of tanking she ignores the other more successful clubs who may have been involved but of course are conveniently ignored
• Most importantly there are any number of factors that have led to Melbourne's present situation, shocking success rate in terms of winning games over along period, bad administration, pathetic coaching, awful list management, incompetent draft selection, inept player development, paltry financial management and a small supporter base come to mind. At best the tanking issue is a small subset of these rather larger factors

In fact you might argue that if it were not for the tanking issue we would not have obtained the services of Jackson or Roos. They are the key to our future.

While I have some sympathy for someone who having largely broke the tanking saga wanting keep it going as a nice little earner Caro draws a long bow by linking it to the quite reasonable comments made by Roos after the game.

Caro, the goose has laid its last golden egg, the matter has now been done and dusted and the caravan moves on. Try to do the same!

Caro bashers like you haven't the intelligence to absorb her articles.

Stick to Mark Robinson and Finey and Mark Doran for your dumb-down try-hard version of appearing knowledgeable. Now Barry Hall is in the media on Fox.

I want to be reminded that Tom Rockliff did a preseason with the demons. I want to be reminded that we virtually gave away Jolly and Martin to other clubs, yet at the same time kept inferior ruckmen or multi-dimensional mobile talls. I want to be reminded that we took the Toomp for Ollie Wines. MFC supporters in their drought are too quick to say "let's move on" rather than truly examining the mistakes of history. For the record, I was, am and will be a tanking supporter. While the AFL dangles the carrot, you do what is best for your club long term.

?.......

Collingwood tanked, and went on to win a premiership.

And don't forget Buddy / Roughy Hawks.

I can't find either online. If anyone manages to, please post a link. Cheers

http://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/afl-premiership/paul-roos-has-melbourne-demons-playing-defensive-footy-but-it-isnt-working-anymore/story-e6frf3e3-1227013322093

Have ago at that. fox footy puts up everything that goes in the Sun

http://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/afl-premiership/paul-roos-has-melbourne-demons-playing-defensive-footy-but-it-isnt-working-anymore/story-e6frf3e3-1227013322093

Have ago at that. fox footy puts up everything that goes in the Sun

lol..I can't get through an entire article of his. He is SUCH a bad writer.

Gee if you guys are upset about that I'd hate to see your little red faces if you heard what Roos was saying on 360 last night...