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Yeah, the white boys like Scotland and our boys from bay 13 are all choir boys.

Like everyone else seemingly, I'm excited about this guy joining us. That said, I reckon Viney, Harrington and the recruiting team did a top job this year. Landing Viney with pick 27, and then Hogan, Barry and Toumpas with our first round picks was absolutely sensational. Hats off to them.

Now we just need to poach their president. In simmering water ,with some apple , sage and red wine.

He departed Collingwood following the rookie draft and has officially joined Melbourne. Terrific scalp for the Demons to get him on board. I'm sure the Demons will get something up following the christmas holidays office closure.

Fair dinkum it feels like you walk on broken glass around here sometimes.

Lost ya Girlfriend at the fireworks last night Fan?She will be back when she is hungry.

Great stuff, WJ. Well done! IMHO there are not enough stories about footy like this. There are plenty of player memoirs, but apart from 'The Club' and 'And The Big Men Fly', the cupboard is pretty bare. Will definitely get a copy of the book when it is done.

Couldn't help myself. Brock McLean tweeted "new years eve is the biggest crock". I tweeted him back "second biggest crock just behind your comments about the Melbourne football club"

Happy New Year OD and all and yes, it was a big night which ended with some TV viewing of the NYE celebrations and fireworks on Sydney Harbour. Once that finished we watched some highly skilled and trained athletes in the semi finals of the World Darts Championships which we all thought was a fitting way to end the old year and start the new, especially for the Demon fans among us. This is because throughout 2012 all and sundry were throwing darts at the Demons but, thankfully, it's a new year and 2013 is the year when we finally fight back.

We had our very own Vince Lombardi in Norm Smith. Both were larger than life figures who achieved significant results in their coaching careers. Both started at clubs other than those at which they made their names and ended elsewhere as well. Both died relatively young men, of cancer at age 57. Both are honoured by their respective competitions on the biggest day of their sport's year. We have the Norm Smith trophy on grand final day (best player) and they have the Vince Lombardi trophy (winning team at the Super Bowl). In my estimation and in relative terms, Smith was the greater figure. We had the magical combination for well over a decade of Smith as coach and Barassi as the dominant player. Smith imbued all of the essential features of a successful side, hard work, dedication, loyalty and a fierce desire to win while Barassi carried them out on the field with a ferocity that has been virtually unmatched throughout the game's history. When Barassi left for Carlton and Smith was sacked some months later, all of those attributes went from the club's make up and have to this day never re-appeared.

2012: THE YEAR THAT WAS by Whispering Jack The great author and social critic Charles Dickens opened his epic novel A Tale of Two Cities in this way: The words ring loud and strong as I sit and ponder over a year whose end is almost upon us. More tough times for the club that founded the game and once ruled it, but has more recently perched uneasily on the tumbril heading for the guillotine while up there, in that far away city whose inhabitants barely care, the usurper reigns. The early optimism ever-present at the dawn of a season seemed justified in the very early days of Mark Neeld's AFL coaching career. On the first Saturday in March, his Demons overcame the Magpies by 9 points at Etihad Stadium. Despite the format and the experimental nature of those games, there was encouragement to be gained from the way they went about things that night but alas, it was short-lived and provided little more than a passing tinge of a promise of better things to come. The illusion was shattered within days when star forward Liam Jurrah, recuperating from a wrist injury, was arrested on charges relating to an alleged machete attack in an encampment in Alice Springs. The case became a complex saga with twists and turns that tormented the player, his community and his football club until he walked out late in the season leaving the beautiful story of his journey from Yuendumu to the big city in tatters. The end was an amicable divorce and in most years, his story would have been a mere distraction but in 2012, it was simply a distraction within a nest of distractions and deep wounds. There was much more to come. Two days after the breaking of the news about Jurrah, on the second Saturday in March, Hawthorn slaughtered Melbourne in the next NAB Cup game. The magical rebirth was over and, less than a week later, they lost in Adelaide to a less than well-respected Port Adelaide combination. The injuries were coming and the form was suddenly worse than poor. On 20 March, the iconic Jim Stynes, who had only recently stood down as club chairman, died at the young age of 45. A week later, he was buried at a state funeral held at St Paul's Cathedral, honoured by thousands including his players proudly wearing their red and blue blazers. On 31 March, the season proper began. At the MCG, a listless Melbourne succumbed in the heat by 41 points to the unfancied Brisbane Lions and suddenly, the club was under attack with the vultures in the media circling. The coach was less than convincing in post-match interviews, the attendance of the players at Stynes' funeral so close to the start of the season was now scoffed at and the stirrers became more and more vicious in their contempt of the club as the defeats came and the performances tended towards the insipid. Now, Melbourne was easy prey; fodder for all manner of opportunists with various agendas, some hidden and others kept deep below the surface. The new coach was falsely accused of discriminating against his indigenous players. The slur was traced to the AFL's community engagement manager Jason Mifsud who apologised to Neeld and offered his resignation but AFL chief Andrew Demetriou refused to accept it. Mifsud remains in his employment to this very day despite clear breaches of trust and dishonesty. The mystery remains as to the true origin of the allegations and as to whether parties other than Mifsud were behind them, for the controversy opened up more doors for the club's detractors who used it to question the manner of Neeld's appointment. Has a young coach ever in the history of the game been exposed more to the media blowtorch, much of it without justification, than this man? Worse was to come with the revelations of racist and sexist posts on the Facebook page of the CEO of the club's major sponsor Energy Watch. The club acted swiftly and decisively to sever ties with Energy Watch but the usual suspects were swifter in sinking more boots into the hapless Demons who admittedly did manage to cover most of the lost ground by securing Webjet and Opel as sponsors. The season dragged on, the injuries, the poor form and the defeats got worse amid a few dim rays of light amid the gloom. Nathan Jones was indefatigable, recruit Mitch Clark a revelation at full forward and some of the youngsters were showing good signs. After nine straight losses, the Demons had a night out at the MCG and finally broke the ice to beat the Bombers but the injury toll continued to mount. Clark's foot surgery was a major blow and the list of players injured never went below a dozen in number during the second half of 2012. The inevitable result was that wins were even harder to come by and the season's total of four victories consisted of three over new franchise teams, GWS and the Gold Coast, as well as that Round 10 upset over Essendon. Then came the thunderbolt known as the "tanking affair" which famously opened with suggestions by former player Brock McLean on the Fox Footy Channel that "you would have to be blind Freddy" not to realise that winning was less of a priority for the Demons than draft picks in his last season so he left to go to Carlton of all clubs. The Blues had three number one draft picks courtesy of the system including Matthew Kreuzer who was secured after a spectacular eleven game end of season losing streak that culminated in the farcical Kreuzer Cup and which is referred to these days in some circles as the "grand slam of tanking" but all this was missed by the panel of three supposedly wise inquisitors who were so lost for words that they failed to ask the glaringly obvious, leaving many suspecting that McLean was a mere patsy set up to embarrass his old club (or more precisely, certain officials of his old club). The politics behind the McLean revelations was also lost on the AFL's (now departed) Adrian Anderson who hastily launched a 5½ month long inquisition which drew to a close late in the year and out of which no charges have been laid to date. The enquiry was discriminatory in that it ignored other clubs whose own activities have been queried on the subject over a period of a decade and was confined to Melbourne and Melbourne alone. Incredibly, one of the club's detractors was former Chairman Paul Gardner who went public with this massive toe poke to the head, "I knew what they were doing and why they were doing it, but I didn't have to watch it any more." Information leaked to the media resulted in a storm of controversy in early November with an inflammatory and damning editorial knitted together by Melbourne Age chief football writer Caroline "Madame Defarge" Wilson and this led to a statement by President Don McLardy that the club would use every resource available to defend the integrity of the Melbourne Football Club. Ray Finkelstein, a prominent QC and former judge was appointed to handle the clubs defence. There have been suggestions that the possibility of a sanction against Melbourne or some of its officials but in the absence of similarly prolonged and through investigations of other clubs also suspected of tanking but not investigated, the AFL's integrity would be left in tatters carrying the smell of corruption. The saga is set to play itself out next month amid suggestions that face-saving deals will be done but I will leave further comment to Herald Sun journalist Warwick Green who recently wrote: The outcome of the enquiry will not be the end of the matter for the Melbourne Football Club. The board which has shown considerable strength and unity over a trying period still needs to deal with the core of the political maelstrom and the antipathy towards it from malcontents and disaffected supporters and from within certain segments of the media. These things are damaging and cannot be easily dealt with but they reflect deep-seated grievances and quarrels that have tracked the club through almost fifty years of disquiet that have destroyed many careers and good people and have held back its resurrection. At the other end of the spectrum, Sydney upset Hawthorn in a memorable grand final and, for the second time in a decade, the premiership cup went north while the oldest football club in the world remained in a state of disarray. We need to aspire to their level of solidarity, calm and experience within our ranks if we are to attain success. It was only when the playing season was over that we could experience some better times. Nathan Jones was a worthy winner of the Keith "Bluey" Truscott Memorial Trophy in recognition of him lifting his game to a point where a little more improvement next year will see him at the level of the elite, Jeremy Howe took Mark of the Year after amassing numerous nominations at the same time demonstrating that he's more than just a spring heeled Jack while the two Jacks, Grimes and Trengove had the most difficult of initiations into the world of AFL captaincy that will hold them in good stead in the years to come. Mitch Clark stuck it right up his critics with aplomb and he will be back while young Tom McDonald showed sufficient quality as a defender to warrant some striking list decisions made by the club in terms of its future defensive structure. The list changes effected in the last quarter of the calendar year was breathtaking in breadth and scope. We saw fifteen players gone including former captain and club stalwart Brad Green, Jared Rivers, Brent Moloney, Matthew Bate and some others who were good servants of the club but it was time for change. They were replaced by an eclectic mix of young and old in a sign that the football department was willing to take the steps necessary to bring about the best of times for an ailing club. The newcomers will be among the trailblazers as the team named for this great city begins its revival. Names like Viney, Dawes, Toumpas and next year Hogan will help change things forever, bringing to mind the theme of resurrection in these words, among the last to come from the unfortunate man who bears the name "Sydney" in Dickens' great tale:

Perhaps not officially ... As above, we didn't use 3 and 13 on Hogan and Barry. We used 3 and 13 on Hogan, Barry AND Dawes PLUS the option to take Viney at 27 - which then enabled us to take Toumpas at 4 rather than having to take Viney there. Your scenario would never have played out. We could never have had Viney, Toumpas AND Wines without doing the Hogan deal as a sweetener to let Viney slide.

A little off track but I was at the gym the other day and they had a history of the NFL on one of the screens, CH 11. The interesting bit was they were talking about Vince Lombardi - Google Him, basically the super-bowl trophy is named after him now. He never had a losing season, but the most interesting part of the interviews of this players, was who he recruited, he took over the green bay packers after their worst season ever. A bit like the Swans approach. Vince did not recruit the "best" or most "Skillful" players in the league. He recruited players that would always give their maximum effort for the team consistently every week and he could count on them to do their "role" within the team. Its about the whole team approach and star players are the cream on top, not the reason for success, as within the team they become successful and stars within the league. *Plus he did work them hard

Mcqueen I worked Northbridge last night and they were are only problem. I'm hearing you lots of politics and people afraid to speak the truth. Chips on shoulders and everything is someone else's fault. It's people feathering their own nest with BS jobs who need to answer questions, MIFSUD is the first to come to mind On the other side of the coin good friends with many indigenous and they actually feel the same about the likes of MIFSUD and others in similar positions

It's just trolling pure and simple, designed to get an angry response, obviously didn't get enough attention or presents at Christmas.

I would suggest that the severity of the alleged offence is not relevant when we're referring to wrongdoing and classifying them by creed or colour.

I don't worry myself with ex's.

It's the year of the Snake as of early February, and if we disect Neeld, we can find an eel (snake like) finally breaking out of the clutches of ND - a portent perhaps? Or have I gone stark raving mad (likely)?

A big year for a lot of players on our list too, with Watts, Sylvia (UFA), Davey (RFA), Grimes, Taggert, Gawn, Tynan, Fitzpatrick, Nicholson, Evans, MacDonald, Sellar, Jetta, Davis, Couch, Magner, Rodan, Gillies, Clisby, and Stark all out of contract. Watts, Sylvia, Davey, Grimes and Jetta all need to step up a gear in 2013; they've far from reached their potential. Taggert, Gawn and Tynan need to show something and aim for substantial game time in the firsts. I'm looking forward to 2013...bring it on!

FOI might be a problem because neither the AFL nor the MFC are government agencies but otherwise, I like the idea. It seems to me that the members should be entitled to see and read the evidence produced against the club and the nature of that evidence.

I'm not sure if it all will every come to light but there's definitely more to all this than meets the eyes. Some people with persuasion and influence have got this thing moving when it really ought to have stalled at the line. I keep coming back to the question ....why ? And I keep coming back to the idea its not about Melbourne per se..its all about someone's (s) grudge. If this was really about tanking it would go across teams, but it hasnt. So this is about payback. At some point the motive and the instigators must be outed and dealt with.

Let me predict, that stand-in Head of Recruiting, Todd Viney, will have more success in one year than Prendergast had in his several years. PS: Viney is also not a rat.

http://m.afl.com.au/news/2012-12-31/excat-gives-dees-new-ideas Good to hear he is bringing his experience and bonding well with the other forward line players.

This is it. Mark Neeld must get results this year. He knows it, we know it. Second year of a three year deal, this will be the year that shapes him. The level of result is up for debate. But winning Quarters here and there or the odd stat count won't cut it for me anymore. It is about the amount of times the ball goes through the big sticks. Simple.

WJ delving back into his own past? A HIGHWAY OF DEMONS by Whispering Jack CHAPTER TEN - SEMPER FIDELIS They were huddled together inside their winter coats on the Saturday afternoon tram that rattled up St. Kilda Road in the direction of the Junction. The two small children listened attentively as the old man in front of them rehearsed his lines, the words bursting out loudly with graceful eloquence and in a strange tongue. The few passengers in the almost empty carriage looked away sheepishly as if they were in the presence of a madman. Had they been equipped with the knowledge that the old man was a famous actor, renowned worldwide as the doyen of the Yiddish language theatre, it would have made little difference. Nor that he was saved from horrors of the Holocaust by an accident that stranded him in this far away land, half a world away from home when the hostilities of war broke out. The war was now a thing of the past for the travellers as the carriage wended its way through the cold mist of a grim wintery day. The American sitting by the door was reading an edition of that day's Sun News Pictorial bearing the date, Saturday 4th July, 1953. The pain of the smashed shoulder, the migraine headaches and the long sleepless nights were almost gone. He stared, then smiled at the actor who looked back at him to answer the question that was asked only through his dark eyes. The explanation that he was minding his granddaughter and a neighbour's son was followed by a nodding of heads and both of them returned to their roles, the American reflecting on the news of the day and the old man losing himself in a world of ancient folk tales and fire and evil spirits from distant lands. They piled on in their numbers at the Junction. The majority were men, most of them half or fully drunk and some of them angry. They were the football crowd coming from nearby Junction Oval where 12,000 had witnessed a close contest. The old actor rolled his eyes when he heard one of the newcomers cursing and swearing to the effect that the Saints had just beaten the Demons by four points. Apparently, errant kicking for goal, weak coaching and poor umpiring were offered as the causes of the defeat but it would all have been different if "that effing young 'un' Barassi would have kicked truly at the end". "Fair go mate. It was really only his first game and he's going to be a player so bugger off you drongo. Fair dinkum, when they were handing out brains, you must have been outside taking a p ..." They were fighting on a crowded tram, fists flying, bodies heaving and the old man grabbing hold of the two small children to keep them out of harm's way. By the time they made their way out of the carriage, he almost wished he would have listened to his daughter-in-law's suggestion about taking them to the afternoon matinee but he was a dramatic actor of quality and didn't want to be involved with "drek like those old Errol Flynn movies or with people dancing around and Singin' In The Rain." As they stood at the tram stop, the old man saw the American who had also alighted, thumbing through a road map and looking confused. The offer of help to find his destination was accepted and, as fate would have it, he was looking for an address in Carre Street, Elsternwick right next door to where the families of the two children lived together in shared accommodation. They walked home and the old man remembered it was American Independence Day. Congratulations were followed by shared wartime experiences. The American had fought with the Marines at Bougainville and then drifted back to the South Pacific and finally to Australia. He was bemused at the fracas they had witnessed on the tram between two supporters of the same football team. "The motto of the United States Marine Corps is 'Semper Fi' and it means 'Always Faithful' or 'Always Loyal'. We succeeded in the end because we were loyal to each other. Those guys should be on the same side. When they learn that, only then will they win." It was a simple philosophy for a time less complex than today. The last they saw of him was when he turned to salute as he took the path towards the door of number 4 while the old man and the two children moved on to number 6. TO BE CONTINUED For the record, Melbourne did play St. Kilda on Saturday, 4 July, 1953 at the Junction Oval and the Demons did lose by 4 points. St. Kilda 6.2.38 7.4.46 9.6.60 11.7.73 Melbourne 2.2.14 4.10.34 5.14.44 8.21.69 Melbourne Goalkickers: Bob McKenzie 3 Ken Albiston 2 Geoff McGivern Maurie Reeves Peter Schofield Ronald Dale Barassi made his real debut after having sat on the bench for four quarters in his 'first' game earlier in the season and had the chance to make a hero of himself in the last quarter but missed a clutch goal. He went on to become the greatest Demon ever and played in six premierships in a decade culminating in a famous victory in his last game for the club on 19 September, 1964. The hallmark of that successful team was the loyalty instilled into the club by the late Norm Smith but things changed in the following year. All that is a story for another time given that WJ has yet to make it to 1964 ...

For 3, 4, 14 and 26 we ended up with Viney, Toumpas, Hogan, Dawes and Barry, with some shuffling down in the third round where we were just picking state leaguers anyway. Pretty much three top-5 picks plus a 24 year old premiership CHF.

No real news on Crennel's replacement yet, Macca. They'll talk to some college coaches. I'd be happy with both Reid or Lovie - they've both had good records and made the Superbowl. But Crennel had to go, as does GM Pioli. There's no mucking around in the NFL. I know part of it is a slightly unhealthy desperation to win right now and appease fan bases, but at least we didn't stuff around like Melbourne with Bailey for 4 years when it was clear after 2 games he had no idea. And yes, it seems it's not the best year to have the #1 pick. Depending on what pick the first QB will be taken, it might be worth trading down to a pick in the 10-15 range plus another pick or three for the #1 pick. It's a huge indictment on Crennel and our QBs that the side had 5 Pro Bowlers this year and still had our worst ever season. Bring on the playoffs though. I can't wait.

I care as much about our ex players as I do my ex wives. Meh

Pick 26 because GC and GWS refused to bid on Viney for a top 2 pick, no doing of anyone at the club. And Toumpas was the "obvious pick" available at 4. The Hogan/Barry deal will be the big question mark of the draft. Picks 3 and 13 could have become Wines and Grundy instead, two 18 year olds likely to have an impact next season and for a decade to come. Instead we'll wait for Barry to develop into a body capable of playing AFL footy and 2014 for Hogan to be eligible to play. Not a knock on either but it's hardly an "absolutely sensational" result (definitely not for season 2013 anyway).

Rivers will look okay playing a floating role in the Cats defence, Bennell will thrive at East Perth, Morton could ook impressive at times when Meth Coast are steamrolling teams and he plays an unaccountable role on the wing & wide spaces of Subi. Very few of our ex players have shown much in teh past few years when we moved them on and like WYL and others said they are no ex-players. Don't worry about who we haven't got, worry about who we have

Snake - Serpent - Demon

that photo is a classic. Your best by far DL!!!

sharknosed news hound

I preferred the quote "you show me a group of good losers and I'll show you a group of losers." Or something very similar

Great analysis. OP says Neeld "must get results", but such results are "up for debate". That's about the level of contribution that I expect from this poster.

We're running out of things to talk about, Stuie. Just play along until the break is over and the players are back at training.

haha now i am back in the Philippines...The Favourite dish...and i agreeLechon....

One of the twins never played a senior game but he was a regular in the reserves and later won multiple b & f's in the ammos.The twins once played on both wings for their amateur team with the cousin in the middle (same surname) so it was an unusual call of the centreline when the coach read out the team.

I hope that the source(s) is/are named. If it is medicos, then while not strictly a patient doctor confidence in this case, I would not want to trust these medicos with my personal medical history. I wonder if the Health Services Commissioner may get involved?

Thanks guys. While a great deal of the story relies on my memories as a young child, I managed to subsequently piece together parts from what older people told me and from some research. The old actor was real and he was apparently, a perfectionist, so the idea of him rehearsing lines from a play in a foreign language is not as silly as one would think. The little girl who was his granddaughter grew up and married a Melbourne supporter whose twin cousins played with the club. Alas, he is no longer with us but I'm certain he would have enjoyed the story. Her younger brother (at the time of the story not yet born) is a member of the Collingwood board who is also married into a prominent family of Carlton people. I don't want to go further into it than that but, in the context of my story, their footy clubs obviously learned more from Semper Fi and tasted more success in our adult lives than mine. The Marine was real too and I think he was the first black person I ever met. Three years later, we had moved to the northern suburbs where I came across many others at the Olympic Village. I can't say for sure whether the passengers from the tram were coming from the Barassi debut game or not but I'd like to think it was and that I was close at hand when it all started. You can have your Leigh Matthews' and your Wayne Carey's but in my eyes, and in the eyes of many of my generation, Barassi was THE greatest. The chemistry he had with Norm Smith and what I consider to have been the outward unity of the playing group and the club for such a long period of time, led to our monumental success and six premierships in the decade 1955-64. It was all shattered in 1965 and we've never tasted true Semper Fi in the intervening years. Perhaps when the current tanking crisis is overcome, we'll finally be united.

Running hot this morning WJ obviously you had a quiet night on New Years Eve!Jokes aside you are correct.

Sounds plausible O50 but I think Demetriou's antecedents were like the Toumpas family, Greek Cypriot. Not only that but it seems that he's already tried his hand at politics over there because, according to Wikipedia, Andreas Demetriou is "a former Minister of Education and Culture of Cyprus." My mail is that he will soon retire from the AFL and re-open his parents' fish and chips shop in Sydney Road, Coburg where it all started which is a risky enterprise because the area is now strongly inhabited by Turkish Cypriots who, for some reason, don't get on too well with their Greek compatriots. This should not worry Andy too much because he has the experience and the capacity to reverse engineer a negotiated solution to the problem and is tipped in the Fin Review and BRW to go on and make a fortune from his new enterprise. Meanwhile, Toumpas will go on to become the AFL's most influential player of Greek Cypriot origin, winning two Brownlows (including the one he shares with Jack Viney in 2015) and playing in multiple premiership teams for the Demons before becoming AFL CEO himself on retirement. During his term as CEO he will oversee the successful three day investigation into Carlton's salary cap rorts of 2007-9 which result in the Blues' merger with cash strapped Collingwood in 2033.

Which is what we've been relying on since day 1.

If our coach had tanked in that R22 game we could well have had the priority pick instead of Carltom, and may even have got Kruezer ourselves. Remind me, who was our coach? And where was he for the 2008 season?

Ha ! Sav's just gone the big face mask - typical Collingwood

Totally agree. If the Demons are guilty of bringing the game into 'disrepute', it wasn't the Richmond game. It would've been the game that took place in round 19, 30 July 2011, at Skilled Stadium.

They were exciting times back then. Six games a week in Melbourne (including Geelong) and you could recruit players from wherever you wanted except that you had an exclusive local zone. No Vlad and the rules stayed the same from year to year and you knew who you were playing every week just by their colours which were constant. Sometimes, I wish ...

I don't know why we are discussing this topic so many pages into the thread. We are talking about changing the culture of the club and people are entertaining the idea of a player who was already under intense scrutiny and who went out on the tiles till 4am a couple of days before the PSD and rookie draft. That suggests he doesn't even fulfill the most minimal levels of discipline for a junior team let alone the AFL. We need to stay away.

Someone saw him at training today speaking to Todd Viney.

Along the same lines, here's Ella (with a bit of help from Louis) . A classic from George and Ira Gershwin ... Macca's Jazz 4.9