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Was down at training today and thought I would share a few insights. The wind was so strong I should have just held a kite and floated there from my house. As I got there a large group of 21 players were going over to the Casey athletics track, while two other groups stayed on the main footy oval. The first small group was Jones, Rodan and Tappy - they did a lot of running through the middle of the ground varying their pace and then went around the ground also. The second group was Sellar, Byrnes, Viney, Jetta and another bloke who no-one seemed to know. I think I heard him being called Tommy but it was a bit unclear. They ran continuously around the boundary and were absolutely stuffed by the end of it. The main group ran 5 or 6 (sorry, I lost count) 300m runs at about 3/4 or 4/5 pace. This was really interesting to watch and the coaches were keeping a very sharp eye on times. The coaches were yeliing out "hold your form" and the players were not allowed to lurch at the finish but hold a good running posture. Standouts in this were: Howe. He did this easy and did not looked the least bit troubled at the end of the last run. Nicho. Puked his lungs out at the end. T McDonald. Impressive for a big unit. Spencer. Yep, I didn't believe it either but he was killing them at this distance and looked the least distressed of all the runners. Really impressed and so were the coaches. Magner. It looked to me that there was almost no difference in time between his first and last run. Duracell battery this bloke. Impressed Struggled: Davey. Looked very unfit, and lagged behind his group by 30m+ on every run. Sad to see. Bail. this really suprised me. Didn't run well at all. Taggart. Struggled to stay in touch for the first 100m and was 20m behind main group in most runs Dunn. Has trimmed down a heap from last year - maybe 5+ kilos - and was dead last in his group by a long way. Blease. Won the first won in a canter. Was last every time after. Heard Brian Royal say to another coach there was a 10 second difference between his 1st and 2nd runs. Pederson. Looks overweight to me ut plodded on. After this they joined the other groups on the main oval. They did some kicking from various distances and I tried to look at the new guys or some notorious poor kicks. The wind was making ball drop difficult and everyone was struggling a bit but Troy Davis, Tappy and Viney I noticed rarely got one on target. They then moved into an all-in drill where they had to run, handball and kick from a pattern of cone positions, but at two positions there was a tackle bag. After their disposal, they had to run at the tackle bag that had a footy resting on top and bring the bag to the ground. The ball then spilled out from the tackle. The tackle was not a monster effort, but rather one for the player to get the bag on the ground, recover and get to the ball as as second effort. Watts was very good at this. His second effort speed was impressive. Another all-in drill where the players were split into two groups moving the ball out from defence. It appeared to be about creating spaces and getting free players to that position. The defenders seemed to be playing in lines, similar to soccer defence that just moves its line across the pitch. I do't know if this is a training drill only or something we might see in game play. Last, some walked/jogged some laps. Two groups did ruck-tap, in close drills in which the ruckman got the ball down to a midfielder who was very close, who then had to run through two players with bump pads. There were some great wacks. I could only tell what was happening in the closest group, but Joel Mac seemed to love this stuff. No Dawes, Trengove, Grimes, Clark, Gawn, Barry, Hogan, Sylvia, Bartram, Evans, or Tynan. Wasn't a "wow" training session to watch but it appearaed to be heavily monitored by the coaches.

Firstly, I changed the title to this thread because I am sick and tired of these media bozos refusing to credit the Melbourne Football Club with the presumption of innocence. We have yet to be charged with anything. As far as I know the club hasn't been given the benefit of seeing the alleged evidence against it or to respond. How can anyone say in those circumstances that we've "escaped penalties". Penalties happen when you've been found guilty of something, not before you've even been charged. Secondly, take note of this: I know this bloke and all I will say is that he's pretty much the best in the business. We're in good hands to deal with and repel the disgraceful attacks on the club we've witnessed in the media in the past month.

The penalties, should charges of 'tanking' be proven, will be unprecedented because no club has previously been found guilty of under-performing.

I think it is the latter, CB. Went way too early. With the evidence being the amount of times they have had to correct her pieces (Gysberts delist, The Vault Codename Bullsh!t, etc). The issue seems to me is that she thinks it is a 'slam dunk' because we minimised our chances of winning, and if she is right that the investigators believe the same, I hope the Comission says to Clothier: "Your point being?" I don't think Wilson understands footy as much as she thinks she does - especially perfectly legal 'bottoming out' that every team does in truly awful seasons. If reports are correct about the pressure placed on 'witnesses' to CC's admission of a 'Losing Strategy' and his 'Threatening Behaviour' by Clothier then I doubt his expertise on footy matters. That isn't to say that he is wrong on the ethics - we tried to minimise the chances of winning. But it does mean he would be wrong on the rules - we did not cross the 'water's edge' of telling players to lose. Everything up to that point is perfectly legal. I believe Clothier's mindset can be seen in the report a few days ago that Bailey had to reiterate recently to Clothier that he never told players to lose; if they are asking that question or intimating to Bailey that that is what is being investigated then they don't know what they are looking for - and if they do, then they won't find that... I still think there is nothing in this.

I don't think he does. Watch their headlines gradually change over next few weeks. How can we face unprecedented charges / penalties, when it's all "alleged"...? At this point it's a journalist using colourful expressions, with no evidence to support his claim.

That's journalist speak for 'we don't know what's happening but it might be big'. If we are found guilty of an offence, the idea that the punishment will be severe is nothing new. It's what everyone's been saying, or at least thinking. Fact is, he's speculating on what might happen, but as per usual, no one actually knows, so let's all calm down.

We are good family friends with alipate carlile and i spoke to him last week when he was in wang and i asked about rodan. Said he is one of the most dedicated and professional player at the club. Sets the tone at training and especially in the gym as you can tell by the size of his arms! also said that he leadership skills are second to none and will be a massive mentor to our younger group. after hearing this i thought he is on par as one of the best recruits with mitch clark. May not be in game day but his off field work, training, leadership..mentor role. Fits mark neelds calibre of changing our culture and setting the bar skye high! And after meeting rodan personally after my time spent in SA with Alipate i can tell you he is one of the best bloke you could ever meet. always a smile on his face, takes the time for the fans and loves a good old chat.

Consider the areas of improvement that should occur. I don't know if it's enough to make the finals but .......... who knows? Firstly, Neeld's game plan will begin to gel and become more natural to the players. All of the "structures" and set plays will be more instinctive. Second, they will come off a much better preseason fitness base which will mean it is more likely that they will be able to implement the plan. Third, the backline has already proven itself to be pretty reasonable and will only get better as players like McDonald, Nicholson and Strauss (I'm yet to convinced about this guy) gain experience. If Watts is given permission to stay in the the defence for 2013 then he should cover for the loss of rivers. I think Dunn has also been a great success. He can play this role very effectively. Fourth, ruck stocks are better. Jamar, Spencer, Gawn, Fitz, Pederson and Clark is a good mix of experience and potential, providing they all stay healthy. Fifth, the midfield will be stronger. Moloney was running on three cylinders this year so was a wasted mid o a certain extent. Jones is in career best form and can still improve. Trengove is hopefully over what was slowing him down and will make incremental improvement. If his execution can match his work rate he will be better. Grimes has been good and will improve as he learns the mid role. I don't expect Viney and Wines to have quite the impact that people are assuming. Both are still young and inexperienced. Viney has not played that much footy in 2012. i think both will play regularly but expect them to peter out a little as the season goes on. Taggert and Tynam should get some games. Both appear to be real goers but again are coming off significant injuries. Bail, Sylvia, McKenzie and Howe will all spend time in the midfield mix as well. Overall I think there will be a net gain. Hopefully a substantial one Sixth, Pace. We have been lacking both inside and outside pace. Blease, Bail and Nicholson have been quickest line breakers. The inclusion of Byrnes and Rodan (if he stays upright) will add to this. Also as the game plan becomes more intrenched the ball movement will improve and it will look like we are quicker. Seventh, The inclusion of Dawes and Pederson will change the way we bring the ball into the foward fifty. Pederson is actually a very mobile tall and uses the ball really well. I hope that Clark makes something like a full recovery. I'll wait and see. If he does then we will have a great mix of height strength and versatility. Eighth, we now have depth. The injuries and dramas that beset us in 2012 were very hard to cover. There will be more injuries next year but we will be better placed to cover them. Ninth, we have offloaded some players whose attitude was not acceptable. The team ethos will build from here and hopefully we will be a much more mentally resilient team. In summary, if we add all of these thing up, if some or most of these things are true (there many 'ifs and buts'), we will have to win some more games. Confidence is an intangible thing but it could play a big role as the pieces fall into place.

I thought everbody knows his name.....

Im more thinking that AFL are looking very closely to find a way to walk away from this. I could be well off base, but if what has been reported is all there is then I am thinking that the AFL wants this to go away or I believe we would have heard "we the AFL, see problems with what has transpired at the MFC but we need to extend this investigation to include what has happened at other clubs over a period of time" I believe that the AFL investigator is looking very carefully at the MFC so he can thoroughly and professionally close this thing down.

This is good news. We now have months of legal advice at hand if needed. To me the crux is still Dean Bailey. Did he tell players to go easy? No. I think this is what the AFL are wanting to fully clarify. If we are sanctioned, what exactly for. The point is the AFL must rewrite the law so it is cut and dried. At present it isn't.

Talk about guilty before being proven innocent. Where has natural justice gone?

There's reading too much into a training report if I've ever seen it.

You may be being a little hard on him WYL. If the article in todays Sin is correct then Ricky was suffering far more from his injuries than was public knowledge. Also I was impressed by Pettard taking responsibility himself for his poor year and not blaming Neeld/Club. Anyway, good luck to him.

Richmond's 2013 membership slogan: "When Brad Miller and Addam Maric just aren't enough".

Caro takes the first steps towards recanting.

Perhaps as a way of warning. Getting back to the loss of draft picks; we have spent some of our picks this year on a selection in next year's draft so if we lose picks next year I don't take it that we've got a good one anyway, that's not the way to look at it. If we lose selections it will rob us of the opportunity of selecting another player of choice in the draft or perhaps a trade with another club. We are not in a position to be able to rebuild our club in the expected timeframe if we are robbed of draft picks; imagine if this happened last year and we subsequently missed out on Dawes, Wines(?) and Barry with our only selection being Jack. Some are a bit Blaise about this we aren't that good that we can give further leg ups to the other clubs.

I liked "Melbourne has engaged the services of of former Federal Court judge and Victorian Solicitor General Ray Finkelstein, QC, to handle its defence against allegations it deliberately lost games of football in 2009 in a bid to win early draft picks." Demons and league on collision course So the AFL have a former policeman and a tax lawyer vs our former Federal Court judge and solictor...

Wow. Now we are talking. This article is the first real sign of mongrel from our club. We just upped the ante with the selection of Representation. The AFL will not want to see this in the courts, and won't want to loose. Solution: have it go away..... Love it, love it, love it. Good job Dees!

They can have our mid range picks next year. We played Morton , Paul Johnson and Turtle in the same team . That's tanking. We can get on with training now and Caro can go back to writing fairy tales. The AfL will change the rules but it will be too late to stop our domination. We will win 4 in a row from 2014 .

The likes of Ralph, Robinson, Clark, Wilson and Denham have been spruiking most probable sanctions and the most likely event of loss of our first two draft picks this year. Egg. On. Face. Sensationalism. Stay tuned for more.

Mitch Clark walked past me on the other side of the road as I headed to Richmond station this morning. 9 page essay on my emotions and physical reactions to follow...

When is a character assassination not orchestrated... And you would think there would be better candidates but one thought she was sent by god to run for and be president, one was so adamant about abolishing govt departments that he couldn't remember his list, one was Donald Trump, one gave his cancer stricken wife divorce papers in her hospital bed, one owned a Pizza chain and was so enamoured with foreign policy that he said he didn't care who the President of 'Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan' is, one wanted to go back to the gold standard and was in charge of a few racist and homophobic newsletters, one likens homosexual sex to beastiality and does not believe in emergency contraception for rape and incest victims, and the last one thinks that illegal immigrants will 'self-deport' if you ignore them enough, and believes 47% of the US see themselves as entitled victims because they don't pay income tax (9 out of 10 who don't pay income tax in the US pay 'payroll' taxes, or are elderly, or are disabled - the actual 1 in 10 of the 47% that don't pay taxes are more likely to be millionaires than moochers). The last one was Romney and he was the best of the lot. The Republican Party of today is a deluded mess that has very few answers and has anathema to facts, reason, and, now thankfully, voters. Oh, and keep your politics off the footy board if you don't want to read mine.

For all we know, those are foam dumbells.

we've all heard it we just want to see it that simple

How people are comparing the kid to scully is a joke!

That's complete rubbish. It's gone quiet because there's nothing new to say.

The great days of the newspapers are well and truly over . These days ,there are journalists for every specific area of life. If its low-level football board room brawls you're into ,read Wilson and her baseless assertions . There is more accurate information right here than in the Age . The paper are gone and the TV stations are dying also . I never thought I would see Demonland as a creditable media source but it is compared to the papers now .

If I remember correctly this time last year Aaron was out injured, came back and was running laps on his own or with a coach and looking terribly unfit. Then when he joined the main group he was well out of his depth and fell well behind. I haven't been to training yet, but from what I have heard this year Aaron has done his own mini-preseason post-op to get himself right to do as close to 100% of this pre-season as possible. Add to that the fact that our group is far fitter than last year (running behind last year meant you were behind a group the coaches marked as generally unfit and unprepared) which means even though Aaron is behind he may well be making significant improvement on last year. Also bear in mind that Aaron would know that this is his make or break pre-season and will most definately be giving his all. Also while Neeld wouldn't be banking on it the fact is an in form, fit Davey is exactly what our team needs rotating through HBF, Wing and Forward and if he can get himself into the team he could do something special this year. I'm certainly not writing him off, just in being in the main group at this stage he has made improvement on last year.

Watts can play Rivers role down back equally as well if not better, and now we have specialised forwards to provide a better target in the front half than Jared.... Winning???

I reckon Jack Watts replaced Jared last year.

it's definitely you

Thanks MB38, as an interstater these training reports are brilliant and much appreciated Question. Any ideas on how Fitzpatricks recovery is going? He is my pick for new gumby cult hero next year now that Martyn has moved north and want him back on the track sooner rather than later.

Let's not forget the circumstance that led to Scully's departure were basically a 'perfect storm' that is incredibly unlikely to reoccur. The unique combination of circumstances: - GWS's entry in to the comp, with their outrageous financial concessions - Scully's psychology - that of an emotionally disconnected automaton - Scully's influences - having Augustus Gloop for a father - Melbourne's rebuilding position - where decisions where made for perceived long term success, but at short term detriment to the vibe around the club created an environment where Scully leaving was almost an inevitability. This is very unlikely to be repeated with Hogan. Relax folks.

I also think Gysberts could very well turn out to be a really good player. It's premature to write him off IMO.

A It's SYLVIA,B: We didn't use a top 10 pick on sellar and he hasn't been on our list for 8 years.

Interesting to see a decidedly jaded CW on the ABC's Offsiders program yesterday. Both Roy Masters and Francis Leach virtually told CW how wrong she was and that the AFL was to blame for putting in place a system which promoted less than 100% efforts. Masters - understanding he is a NRL hack - was particularly caustic in his criticism of the AFL. Once again, in her meek defence of herself, CW said, but the difference here is that a "player" has provided evidence. A player or ex-player Caroline? Who is that player Caroline? Sorry, I forgot, you have to protect your source. Ever heard of disgruntled former employees? If this goes to Court, your protected source will no longer be protected and may well wilt under close examination of that "Player's" testimony. As you said yesterday Caroline, the only ones likely to win here will be the Lawyers. So why the sensationalist diatribe?

Often taking the number 1 defender? And lovers are gonna love...

Im actually very surprised we kept couch..

What size do you want Watts to be?.......again he is not going to be a KPF or KPB......his build is more like Goddard, he is 6 5 in the old money, and I assume now he weighs about 93 or 94K which is about 14 and 1/2 stone in the old money....he will be playing across the half back line....and taking maybe a third tall or medium sized fwd......not the gorillas that is for Chip or Tommy Mc...can we please finally after 4 years that we now have 3 or 4 really big guys that can play FF or CHF, and let Watts create

Col needs the moons to align, the strapping on his stomach to be just right, temperate climate, skinny GWS kids and no opponent to show his wares.

8 years, 8 unfulfilled seasons. I admire your positivity.

Byrnes of course. He played in 2 Premierships. Petterd played 2-3 solid games.

It's pleasing to hear that at least he takes ownership of his own poor form. It's a refreshing attitude from the "it's everyone else's fault except mine" attitude we've heard a bit of on the way out recently. I've never been under the impression that he couldn't play, and wouldn't be surprised if he is able to eek out more of a career if his body is able. That said I agreed and still agree with the decision to let him go; as Ricky said himself in that article, clubs can't wait around forever. Good luck.

Good luck Ricky...really hope you get a gig.

Leaping Larry: Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/sport/from-the-cheap-seats-20121110-2958a.html#ixzz2BrglZzkA

This one is my favourite:

The only guy with Big arms is Chip -the rest are ok . Big Arms gets you a player like Chris Tarrant-Mitch Clarks [censored]. What we need is Big Arses and big thighs like Ablett. Rodan looks fit and ready . Byrnes looks like he is unfit-must be from a failed culture .

The cost of running a standlone team has been reported as costing up to $500K*. Based on 2012 membership figures (which were down on 2011), this equates to ~$14 per member. To put that in perspective, if we applied this as a flat 'tax' on 2013 members it would be a ~6% increase for Red & Blue Adult 11 (General Admission, home game only) members. Using a proportional method, in which each member is levied a set percentage of their membership, memberships would increase by only a few percent across the board. Thus, a fairer question is 'are you prepared to increase the size of your membership fee by less than 5% to fund a standalone team'? To that I answer, resoundingly, yes. *In case you're concerned about cost blowouts, if the figure was $600K it would be ~$17 per member, which equates to a little under an 8% increase for Red & Blue Adult 11 members if applied as a 'flat tax'.

If either of them are in the red and blue in 2013, ill eat my own hand. Not a chance in hell.