Leaderboard

Fair Dinkim....I am just so sick of the political bullsh1t on these threads.....Not having a political bone in my body....I don't care who runs the club as long as we don't go broke and I have a team that I can love, support, for the rest of my life and my kids and grandkids ... All this crap about previous boards, agendas, who has their nose out of joint,what mistakes were made and who's fault it was, is immaterial The club is under seige from without,at this time we are under threat from all quarters and all you people want to do is squbble and whinge about who's fault and who SHOULD have done this and WHO should have done that. Some people even want to offer the heads of our football club as a peace offering...... If we don't fight now as a united club then all you people will have no club to support..and you can then argue who's fault it was......

I had Ox penis in the Sichuan Province . They served it finely sliced in a firey hot sauce as an entree but it is a versatile dish because if you talk to it dirty it becomes a main meal.

I want to be able to say that I barrack for the Dees without people looking at me like I just told them I had a terminal disease.

Good old Jon Pierik... "But most of nearly 60 witness statements contradict Connolly and recall the meeting at the Junction Oval" Followed by: "About a dozen people attended the meeting" Not getting any closer to getting the footy journalism awards his bio is missing.

Yeah you're right, CS obviously killed Jimmy, attacked Jurrah's cousin, signed Energy Watch because of their CEO's racist views, told porky pies about Davey and Neeld, and to top it all off fed Brock McLean a slab of VB before going on tele.... FFS.

What I don't get, an yes maybe I am naive, is why people are trying to detstabilise the club they ostensibly support. If its elements from the previous board, are they trying to salvage their pride/reputations by taking us backwards off the field? Is their pride really more important to them than a positive balance sheet, growing asset base, a strong minded football department who have withstood extraordinary pressures in their first year and who have 2 years to run on their contracts? I am not saying that any aspect of the club should not be transparent and subject to criticism. I am just wondering why people put their ego ahead of the organisation's well being.

I went down there with a mate and it was our first training session ever. I had to email the club last week to see if training was on as I had to get work off. We didn’t get down there until 10:30 and they finished at around 11:30 which was a little poor. The pies next to them were training for quite some time afterwards. From what we saw the main group were doing match simulation, the skills were ok, but a little sloppy at times. After a few people knocking Dawes last week, he looked in pretty good nick this time around. As people have mentioned before, all the players and coaches are really vocal. People screaming for the ball and congratulating nonstop. You can also hear the coaches giving constant advice during each play. We went over to the far side of the ground and watched Toumpas and Hogan doing short kicking to each other. It’s been said before, but Toumpas has a very “delicious” kick on him. Then both of them took in turns at kicking at goal from an angle. They were very accurate and rarely missed. They both smashed out a bunch of push ups which Toumpas did with ease compared to Hogan who was a little slower. Most people have already mentioned how big Hogan is for a 17 year old, but I was also very impressed with Toumpas’s size. He is a big boy, looks very fit, and has the body to go round 1 in my opinion. After that, Hogan ran laps. Most of the time we were there Gawn ran constant laps, and you could hear everybody yelling encouragements to him as he ran past them. He is a giant, and has a very big body. Disappointing he isn’t training with the main group though. From the time we were there we didn’t see Mitch Clark, Sylvia, Tapscott, Trengove or Barry. We did turn up late however. After the match sims, they all went into their line groups (backs, mids, fwds), then broke up into heaps of little groups. Forwards were leading out of the square, as another player would run in and kick it from outside 50 to them. It was a pretty basic exercise, but we still saw a few fumbles. Fitzpatrick was one we saw drop a very basic one, but you could see he was dirty on himself for it. Blease, Davey and Burns all looked pretty solid from what we saw from a distance. We actually thought Davey looked in really good physical condition. He was moving well and still has a very solid kick on him. In what I thought was a strange drill, JMac and Strauss were being thrown the ball, and they would take in turns just fisting it unopposed back to the coach. It really wasn’t the most impressive drill. On the other side the backs were getting the ball kicked to them and they would have to body the other player out and spoil. It was on the other side of the ground so I didn’t get a great look at it. We also noticed Watts kicking is still one of the best in the club. It was good to see him in the main group after reports he has been in the rehab group. Not long after a lot of the players started to walk off, but a small midfield group remained. One coach would throw it in the air to another coach, who would tap it down to 2 players. One of the players would grab the ball and bolt as hard as possible to a cone about 20 meters away. I liked this drill as it would be awesome to see our mids try and break the lines more and take the game on. From memory the group consisted of Viney, D-Rod, Jones, Couch, Jordie and Davey. They all looked pretty sharp in this drill. Then everyone headed off, but Jordie and Couch stayed out on the field doing some kicking and close handballs to test Couch’s reaction time. Neil Craig also took Viney out one on one and did some kicking for goals, etc. We managed to talk to Neil Craig who asked us how long we had been Dees supporters, which we said all our lives, and he said hopefully they can bring us some success soon. He seemed like a really nice guy who was more than happy to chat with us. He said he thinks Viney will be good to go round 1, and talked up Viney and Toumpas and said they will bring us a lot of success and exciting footy. He said he doubts Trenners will be ready to go round 1 as we would probably already expect. We also managed to have a quick chat to Viney. Such a big unit for his age. He was happy to chat, but it felt like he was giving us the standard footy player answers “yeah the boys are putting all the effort on the track”. We told him Craig said he should play round 1 (sorry Craigy, we leaked your inside information to the player instantly haha), and Viney was pretty excited by the news. Also asked him how Mitch was going and he said he isn’t with the main group but hopefully he won’t miss too much as he is important to the team.. obviously. So while we didn’t catch much of the day, it was good to finally see a practise. There were maybe 8 people watching all up? I guess the tennis and the fact that the club didn’t advertise on their website kept numbers down.

you obviously though weren't thinking when you double quoted?

You guys clearly don't remember him he was a briiant footballer cruelly it down with a knee injury. Number 22 from memory but Thaipantsmanyou will have to correct me on that.

He was an above average footballer - but had a way above average mullet.

smithy's got his own intranet. its between his ears bummer demonwiki is down

well presumably the "Key Melbourne coterie supporters" are still there and still capable of getting up to their mischief and white-anting and leaking to the press?

Davey, Byrnes and Blease at the feet of Pedersen, Dawes and Clark, with Howie and Sylvia floating through. That sounds like a pretty presentable forwardline to me.

I don't know why everyone has the thought that 'Fan' is wanting to run for the board.....He has differing opinions and that is what this site is about, isn't it???? I might be dumb but if a member doesn't like the current board, he has the right to question and run against it I would have thought....Just saying....

I'm starting to wonder whether its possible for a collective to go insane. The current ramblings of the Aged are as those of some loony despot just before th white coats come to take him away. This , and I'm loathed to call it a newspaper as there's mighty little news, is worse than some kind garden mothers club gossip at morning coffee. It's all suppsion (read made up ) based on any thing and everything but fact. The closer it gets to D-Day ( the day the club tells the League to go jam their 800 pages up their arse). The more bizarre and desperate the writings of Pr1ck ( hope I got spelling right ) and other lackeys. It's not odd that anyone would cry conspiracy as that's exactly what's some of us ave suggested its been from the start. I.e a group with their noses out of joint pushing their barrows of 'hard done by bile' , plotting and scheming revenge and press-ganging any wannabe collaborator into action where their position offered ammunition. I'm not sure when CC referees to conspirators that he refers to the now ( as in elements of the club) but more likely the, before some got nudged. There was by my reckoning a group who considered the MFC their own private little social club as well as place of lazy employ. That all got shook up and the deposed have simply been out for blood. These bastards need dealing with. Some of them read these boards. They should be worried for when they are outed its very likely the rest of us (who actually respect the club and want only succes for it) are likely to be some what peeved. Once identified as the sewer dwelling vermin they are they will be ostracized eternally. It's comical that the notion of conspiracy be ridiculed but then again that's the first thing conspirators do, ridicule those against them. I fervently expect more last minute rushes of strange utterings as we close in on the moment of reckoning. Keep eyes peeled also for rats scurrying !!

But the article doesn't state any facts; it makes allegations regarding what CC has allegedly said. If this is proven to be the case, then yes, I'd support your call for CC to fall into line.

My guess on this is that it was Green , Rivers , Moloney , Bailey, etc that wanted Connolly out. These guys are all now working elsewhere-and liked to train their own way. Connolly and Schwab have cleared the decks of senior players who thought they could call the shots off-field. Jnr McDonald may have involved himself in politics as well. I've heard rumours his whole family are down on us for retiring him at 34. I was at a golf course around that time and a few ex-players were there for a function . CC spoke and talked about re-uniting old players/members from the 80's to re-build the club off-field then on. There are always rats within any organisation when things go badly. I trust the 80's guys like CC over the new breed. The snipers who have fed Caro and undermined CS and CC must be smoked out ,given a fair hearing, then shot at dawn.

Depends. Not sure I can agree that we "tanked." Since there is no single unanimous definition of "tanking", it's subjective, isn't it? And I was under the impression that the most commonly accepted definition was when the players are instructed to lose the match. It's a conceptual argument after all: what makes "tanking" so heinous? It's really the practice of "taking 1 step backwards, in order to take 2 forwards." It's just on a grander scale than playing a kid who is not quite ready yet, but to give him a taste to aid his development. There are many other practices that are counterproductive to winning in the short-term, but with long-term gain in mind. What many view as "tanking" is just the extreme. And despite the intention, it is actually more detrimental to the fabric of the club than it does good; I'm in the same camp as BH, in that I strongly supported it at the time, demanded that we "do whatever it takes", but I now see the error of those ways. I think we were also a victim of the circumstances at the time. Tanking was becoming an increasingly hot & frowned upon topic, thrust into the minds of the players by the media. There was no ignoring the possibility, or failing to recognise it. The administrators were fully aware of the opportunity that we needed to take full advantage of, and undermined the club's and the players' integrity in the process. The shame is, I think we probably would have still received a pick without resorting to those tactics. But we did "whatever it took" to make sure we got the picks.

Cam will not be able to handle a curveball like that. I just want to ask if the desk is ok ,if he needs some cash for a new house ,lawyers etc. and i want to ask Don if Jimmy wanted us to lose matches after 25 years of busting his arse for this club or did we just lose because we knew Caro wanted a priority pick for the tiggers. I think those questions will set me up for a huge crack at the Presidency one day and make me seem like a genius .

During the years 1987-1991 we were a legitimate power team. The only sustained period of dominance since the days of ron barassi crashing packs.

i'm sure robbie flower wouldn't agree with you c&b i'd give my lefty to play afl win, lose or draw as most punters on here would

With you there bush demon, I watched a good deal of his footy in the early to mid eighties and considered Chris a classy utility either forward or back. He finished 4th in the Bluey in 1986 after playing only 12 games. He also finished high in the voting in '84 & '85. He injured both knees which prematurely ended what promised as a great career. Connolly would have walked into any MFC's starting line up in any year since his retirement IMO.

and some jealous, some nervous

Win matches interstate and at Docklands.

I'd prefer we win by a point...

In the past year...the club couldn't have run better internally........It's the external muck that is the problem....Are you part of that?? The CEO's job is to have the beans to count and manage....A Task he has done very well....You even say that yourself....

Then the 91 pages so far have indeed been a waste!

Good player cut down way to early with the knee. We never got to see the best of him unfortunately.

It may not be a leak. Could it be that journos are just looking for daily copy and so thinking 'what would MFC reasonably do' and constructing a story? After all, unless you are 100% certain you'll shoot down the accusations if you played all your cards initially, you may want to keep some things up your sleeve. Or alternatively, leak the impression you have something that will be dropped on the AFL if they dare impose an unacceptable penalty. So while it is keeping some of us entertained speculating (and some of us p!ssed off), we really shouldn't read too much into anything published at this stage.

Can we get off the CS debate.....Our club is being run well... We are debt free whereas the top clubs are still in debt Carlton......$5 mil in debt Coll...........$3 mil in debt Western bulldogs...........4 to $5 mil in debt Don't get me started on the interstate clubs like Pt Adel....Suns....Giants....Bris We now have a properly funded FD We posted a profit in the year from hell But we need a CEO who runs things properly????..... People might not like him personally....But who cares....He is doing his job...

Not sure of your meaning. Anyway let's revisit this - http://www.smh.com.au/afl/afl-news/date-with-disaster-20120504-1y4ky.html?skin=text-only Here is an earlier example of the depth of information CW has at her finger tips. This could only come from within the club. One sentence I find very telling - "On Friday, Schwab was told his position was no longer secure and that Stynes and some board members were looking at ending his tenure at the end of the season. The contract deadline was 48 hours away. Key Melbourne coterie supporters believed by Friday night that Schwab was finished. So did some Melbourne footballers." This tells me all I need to know.

most presidents are invisible rgrs with the exception of few limelight-hoggers like eddie and jeff, who have other reasons for wanting visibility give me a run down by club of public statements by other presidents for comparison purposes boards and their members are normally seen little and heard less

Then, if this is so you may as well go to the snow this winter......This will destroy the club....For the first time in a lot of years I have thought the club to be in a stable condition and have had a bit of optimism........A good balance sheet.....a new no nonsense FD....A hope for the future.....All to be destroyed by ego's......Such a waste......

And that coming from someone who has 17000 posts! My 2000 really don't count.

Well if that's the case guess we can't say anything positive about a single player over the pre season until we win a flag because he has been one of our better trainers in the sessions I've been too. So everyone else on our list must be horrible. In fact we may as well delete this site.

No limp, no bandaged knee, moving freely. He is looking good, I hope he can stay injury free and get a full pre season. He will be a real bonus for us if he can.

I'll give you a few: Match fixing Throwing games Sandbagging Dumping Intentionally trying to manipulate a result in order to gain a better draft pick You seem to notionally agree that we tried to lose, but because there's no formal definition of the word "tank" you've conveniently come to the conclusion that we didn't tank, because supposedly tanking doesn't even exist. So how could we have done it ? Which, of course, is why the word "tanking" won't be used by the AFL if any charges happen to be laid. We tanked.

Not so sure. Connect the dots back to the start of this sorry saga. Two (supposedly Melbourne connected) people interview an ex - Melbourne player (supposedly a short notice replacement guest). CW is suddenly being fed little morsels to fuel the fire & an investigation is starts. How can there be any other conclusion than that this is being driven by elements in some way connected to the club. If this is the same group of self important fools who were involved in a couple of previous destabalising events, then it is time they were outed publicly & moved on. You don't have to look far to see the underlying hatred for certain individuals. Hard to see any motive other than a personal one.

You are assuming CC or his legal rep has something to do with the report in the paper. If you read it carefully you will see that it is "a legal representative with knowledge of the report said". That could be somebody with no connection to CC. Note to AdC et al, I'm not defending CC. I'm pointing out you can't trust these journos. Especially one who has 60 witnesses at a meeting attended by 12.

My concern about the article this morning is that you start treading on dangerous ground and run the possibility of losing credibility when you add 'conspiracy theories' into any debate.

I wonder if we could all agree on two things for this thread moving forward 1. We will not move off topic by discussing who appointed what coach when 2. We will adopt the Vlad definition of tanking i.e systematic match fixing over and above accepted list management practices

A win in Perth so I can finally go to work and feed it into these parochial, sand-groping desparado's.

Years and years ago the most popular question at the AGM was the one about when the party pies and sausage rolls were going to be served. The free feed at the end was a highlight!

Tanking was not the problem with melbourne the truth is that melbourne has been out in the wilderness for years, living off its proud but ancient history. It lost its way, other clubs took a more professional attitude and are years ahead of us, consider the state of: - our social club facilities for players and supporters. - training facilities - fitness staff ability to developing players. - our recruitment staff, who have had more 1st round draft picks than most clubs and yet we are still one of the worst performers. - no real strategy or game plan, who or what do we want to be... Neeld has given us a vision the hardest club to play against. - club culture - lack of skill - lazy players - players, we have been overpaying 2nd rate players for years because we have had to use our cap, players have not had to try or excel to get a game. How many MFC players have had 30+ possession games - we have had even had easier drawns than many clubs - debt, lack of sponsors, etc... 2009 came along at a time when all of the above was at or close to its peak. i dont believe any of the players stopped trying to play there best football, clips will show that lack of skill, lack of quality players, fitness, hugh number of injuries etc all contributed to that horrible season and several thereafter. I dont even think Bailey tried to loose. I believe he is competitive enough to want to win everytime. He may have been more adventurous in 2009 swapping players into unfamiliar positions such as in the Richmond game but what choice did he have as a coach, these moves sometimes actually worked and allowed us to almost win the Richmond game. Neeld any many others have done likewise without being called for tanking. I dont recall any games where there were wholesale changes where we left out better players, as even our better players were pretty substandard. CC and CS may have made comments and jokes about it, but in the end i doubt if that was would have influenced bailey and the players, we just were too disfunctional to do any better. If we profited by it then that was what the rules allowed. The idea that so called tanking has now made us disfunctional is nuts were were already crap and have stayed there. Neeld recognized the problems are just not having a game plan and has put into place with the football department actions to address many of the business and fundamental problems so that we have the building blocks to be a better side. Tanking is just an excuse to say we were not really as crap as we pretended we were, truth is we were.

In my experience anything involving 50 "pints" involves someone getting belted!

Dom Barry - how heavy is he? FCS, someone find out.

you should ask the questions on issues that are bothering YOU you should do this regardless of whether you think you will get a proper answer or not the questions and answers (or lack of) will be there for all members to judge for themselves don't cop out, if you feel strongly about something SPEAK UP. its YOUR agm its not rocket science folks

Thanks to those who liked the article. As was obvious, a lot of the info came from my regular reading of Demonland and Ology. To those who didn't like it, a lot of what you say, I agree with. I'm not sure where I stand on the amnesty business - 'no case to answer' and an apology for the harassment would be a fairer result, but I'll take anything. With the other articles published today, perhaps there is a change in the atmosphere which can only benefit us. Carrot Top - yes - I agree - wish I had done more of a rant. As I said in another post, I wrote the article in a rush not long after Caro's piece, but the issue had kind of gone off the boil by then (I'm a slow writer - not a journalist's a-hole, alas), so the editor said they'd reconsider it if and when things hotted up. After the latest idiotic revelations (as if we ever needed any inducement to fumble the ball!) , I had started to write a much stronger piece - opening line was: "I barrack for Melbourne and I'm as mad as hell." (Actually, I think my original article was a bit stronger - I had a choice paragraph about Brock and his connection to the Morans, but that seems to have got the chop - probably defamatory) Stopped when I saw they'd published the piece this morning. Nutbeam - if you are in fact my wife, you should be at work. If you are me, then the situation is more critical than I could have imagined. Cheers

Did Dwayne Russell actually compare Jim Stynes to Lance Armstrong? [censored]!

there is no way that Barry is 78kg. 68 when soaking wet perhaps. i'm guessing its a typo