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Got to training at about 9.30 while the boys were doing a slow lap. Spencer, Jamar and Fitzy were doing a marking drill alone on the side and Stark, Clisby and Barry were doing some special lighter training in a separate group at the beginning but all joined the main group after the simulated match practice moving the ball from one end to the other. Terlich was running a few slow laps early and then disappeared. Gawn, Bail, Trengove, Clark and Tapscott were in rehab group and didn't join main training. Tappy just ran a few slow laps and I didn't see him after that. Trengove and Clark ran part laps at about half pace, not a jog but a reasonable pace. They then did some handball drills and some short gentle kicking over about 20m with their non injured foot. No sign of any discomfort from either. Gawn ran lots of 40 metre lengths carefully timed and did some other exercises with Bail. Gawn looked stuffed at the end of it all but there was no sign of a limp or any discomfort other than the effort required. The main group only trained for an hour and a half and finished just before 11. It didn't seem to be an exhausting session from where I sat but I think it's easy to overlook the effort put in. There really isn't much to add to what's been already said in the training reports but I can say that Toumpas looked great as did Viney. In one drill they were broken into three groups with one group at each end and one in the middle. It started with the ball being given to the group at one end and the group in the middle had to rush down to them and stop them having about 10 consecutive handballs. If they failed they had to sprint to the group at the other end for the same drill. If they stopped 10 consecutive handballs they then stayed down the end and the other group sprinted from one end to the other. I was interested in the players who were first to reach the other end and pleasingly Blease and surprisingly Fitsy were at the head of the queue on a number of occasions. I know much has been said about Blease and his repeat 300m runs but in match simulation today he didn't looked stressed at all. He looks like he's now taking it all very seriously and if he stays injury free this year will be a bit of a stand out in the Lewis Jetta style I'd think. He appears so much faster than those around him when he has the ball. The normal players looked good and not surprisingly the experienced heads got a lot of the ball - Grimes, Jones, Frawley, McKenzie. Happy to answer questions.

at this point in time i think writing long winded posts about why we will or wont be found guilty is a waste of cyber space. We've covered it all already. I just wish the AFL would make a decision, so we can move on regardless of which way it goes.

People on here will hound me no doubt, but Moloney leaving is a huge positive. He was a total non contributer last year. If he had pulled his finger out for the jumper the team would have been a lot closer to winning. His leaving has freed up the midfield. Jones is the creator now...his endeavour can now be complemented.

I think Colin Sylvia has the greatest potential to influence our performances and results. If he has an inconsistent or poor year like every other year we'll finish bottom 5. If he can play consistently to his maximum (and everything else goes right) we can make the 8.

I feel sorry for your confusion Mr. Bob because you were once such a clear thinker. For your information, I would only change the name of a thread if I thought it was necessary and since we were investigated for "tanking" the title remains unaltered. Moreover, had you read the OP carefully you might have noticed that I don't deny there's a rule against tanking (in fact I have never done so) but rather, I maintain it is bad law because it is often misinterpreted and misunderstood and has been selectively used in a discriminatory manner that reflects poorly on those who administer the game. My conclusion is that the AFL would do well to admit this, abandon the farce that's going into its seventh month and rewrite its rules on tanking. Since it was you who questioned why something was given a particular name, I have to raise the change in yours from Fan to Baghdad Bob. The other Mr. BB was one of the greatest exponents of sophistry and double talk of this century. Was the change in title effected to herald your metamorphosis from a "fan" to a fall guy for those on the dark side who crave our demise? Those like your heroine Wilson who have no respect for democratic principles like the rule of law and presumption of innocence and are happy to sink the boots into a man when he's down and before he's even had the opportunity to defend himself? It's reminiscent of the time on World Championship Wrestling when someone hypnotised Mario Milano and turned him into a baddie. The good thing is that Mario eventually snapped out of it and I trust that like him, you will manage to overcome your confused state and return to being a Fan again!

One thing I think we can be guaranteed.. One way or the other, this will be the last year we ask when.

Wow...i just read that all again. I really hope Garry Lyon takes her apart on Footy Classified....Could be the highlight of '13

We must be insane as we are the only team to win 5 games in a priority pick year and we did it twice. We are also the only team to lose our pirority pick player within 2 years of getting him due to a new AFL rule that wasn't there when we drafted him. Despite almost universal acceptance in the football community that we did what the AFL said was ok and exactly what several other teams have also done, we are also the only team being investigated for tanking. Yep, insanity.

Do you think that Hawthorn and Sydney don't have those types of errors when 35 players are training ? All clubs have skill errors at training and I think one tends to focus more on the errors of a bottom side, which is quite understandable, but we'll know lots more after the first 3 rounds of the season proper.

You and others are deluded on this issue. I don't care that others did it, I'll leave the "list management" defence for our lawyers. We're the ones being investigated, not Carlton, or anyone else. I agree that it's difficult to prove, I've said that all along. We're not being picked on. Once it became a media storm it was always going to be looked at again. Other clubs avoided media storms - the Carlton one was over before it started once Libba retracted his comments the nest day. And yes, we were hopeless in our orchestration of deliberately trying to fix match outcomes. Rather than constantly laying the blame with the critics, or the investigators, why don't you consider the amateur hour fashion in which we conducted ourselves ?

We all owe you a great debt for reminding us about this quote because it clearly demonstrates the warped nature of Wilson's thinking and how moronic she and her apologists are on this subject.She suggests that "if Carlton is guilty" then and only then would that club be investigated. But that is a ridiculous proposition because the whole idea of an investigation is to determine the guilt or otherwise of a party. It allows her to conclude as she tells her readers that Melbourne likewise is guilty (even before the completion of the investigation and before the MFC can defend itself) and that is why it is being investigated and moreover, she had decided on the penalties that should be applied. "Off with their heads and to hell with any principles of fairness and justice". On top of that if you disagree with her, you're a rabid supporter. She truly is a piece and a rabid one at that!

Nothing. Grateful we got away with it. Hopeful the AFL don't hate us so much they punish is in indirect ways like fixturing and equalisation dividends. Talkback and letters to The Age is about as far as pointing out that Wilson got it wrong goes. Yeah we've been punished by the investigation and negative press, but if we escape without direct penalty then I'll be rapt!

I'll tell you one thing. If Flash continues his injury free run and starts to hit his straps early in the season and gets back to somewhere near his exhilarating best, it will give a massive lift to this team. A seriously massive lift. Davey balking blokes on the MCC flank and delivering laser passes to Clark and Dawesy coming out of the goalsquare will get the G rocking again, no doubt about it.

I disagree that we list managed & experimented "expertly" - this is where we completely botched it IMO. The Richmond game sticks out like a sore thumb with the dodgy positional moves en masse. With the media hounds sniffing a tanking story, perhaps the MC could've been a little more subtle than playing Frawley & Warnock as KPF's etc. Although it did take a kick after the siren for us to "win" - so perhaps extreme measures were warranted. I'm not saying what we did was any worse than what others have done but it was almost certainly dumber from a managing outside & inside perceptions point of view. It's also clear the MFC have/had people management issues, Bailey & McLean speaking out of school as well as a host of whisperers in the dark. How many people of credibilty spoke out about Carlton doing it? How many were whiteanting them three years later? I don't like this inquiry, I hope we have no case to answer & if we do I hope we fight it like hell. I don't blame the MFC for tanking but I do blame them for mismanaging it enough to get to this point. The AFL would've never investigated if there weren't people at the coal face during 2009 coming out & making these allegations.

It's an interesting one. The US media will look at a team tanking like Golden State last year but instead of 'what punishment?' It surrounds what can be done to minimise te occurrence in the future. Frankly I think the sports media is pretty much driven by ESPN and they, as annoying as they can be (Skip Bayless??), they know their US sports and they discuss and dissect everything. We don't have that educated driver, so the inmates tend to run things...so to speak.

As an American all this tanking stuff is just weird to me. This season, I saw the first punishment handed out in American sports that I can remember for tanking. The San Antonio Spurs in the NBA were fined for resting their starters in two games. The fine? $250,000. Then, the story was dropped. There have been multiple instances of teams tanking in American sports but nothing big is really made of it here. It just happens sometimes. About 10 years ago, once again in the NBA the Boston Celtics (very solid and good team) were playing the Charlotte Bobcats. (amazingly horrible team. Think Port Adelaide, but maybe worse.) Anyway, at the end of the third quarter the Celts had like a 15 point lead or something. They ended up losing by eight. It is probably the clearest example of tanking I can think of (and IMO kind of impressive that they could screw up that badly). It's just weird to me that the media in Australia is blowing this entire thing out of proportion.

I had dinner with a couple of Carlton supporters who, when they weren't bitching about Juddie's hamstring injury, told me they were very impressed with our potential forward lineup and its marking power. They were really upset that they didn't go after Dawes. I felt quite good about that.

If I could just get out of this blasted jacket I would vote Yes

I wasn’t there for long today. Only around an hour. I got there at around 10.40 and they were into match drills rotating between three separate teams of blue, white and orange. After this they went back inside for 20 minutes at around 11.00am. They came back out and did some warm up drills followed by match simulation. I left after 10 minutes of the match sim, consequently the photos do not cover the full training session. Today, to try and create a bit of variation I have included continuous shots that run in sequence. These sequences cover all three phases of the training, match drill, warm up and match sim. Enjoy. 04/02/2013 Gosch’s Paddock : http://six6six.smugmug.com/Other/MFC-Training-Goschs-Paddack-4/27856441_ZZV58P#!i=2350089315&k=Vz2h9RJ&lb=1&s=A 01/02/2013 Linton Street Moorabbin : http://six6six.smugmug.com/Sports/MFC-Training-1-02-2013/27813243_jFbL9F#!i=2346768420&k=dFsLz3d&lb=1&s=A 28/01/2013 Gosch’s Paddock : http://six6six.smugmug.com/Sports/MFC-Training-2013-01-28/27800770_DqggvC#!i=2344500953&k=4dF2pVS&lb=1&s=A

I didn't attend training today but I hope nobody minds me raising the name of the player about who much of Friday's training report centred (and no it's not Jordan Gysberts ). I've been watching a recording of last year's SANFL Grand Final, in particular focussing on Dean Terlich, then of Norwood. He's 23 years of age and looks older. Until last year he played as a medium forward but to his credit, coach Nathan Bassett assigned him a role in defence and he never looked back. The role he played in the first half of the grand final (which is what I watched) was what I would call a "distributor" role. He seemed to always be in the right spot in defence and is very good by hand and foot, always picking the right options and often following up down the field for the return pass. We certainly had nothing like him in 2012 and dare I say it he would make an excellent replacement for the wayward Clint Bartram. With both he and Watts bringing the ball out of defence it opens up a lot of additional possibilities for those further afield. Obviously the question mark is whether he can make the transition from SANFL to the elite competition. I noticed he fumbled a couple of times under pressure but it was a grand final and he was in the play perhaps 20 times in half a game. He's pretty gutsy. So for those concerned with our disposal skills coming out of one or two training sessions, I wouldn't be panicking but rather, I would be waiting for the NAB Cup when everyone has to be fully switched on and competing for a place in the team for round 1. The blokes without the disposal skills won't find it so easy to get in that side this year and some of our worst offenders are gone.

I think we owe a lot to Moloney for his last year with the Dees, his extremely poor efforts helped us in snaring Toumpas. I am glad to see we now have some new players looking like they are able to produce now, i hate hearing year after year of the potential of the players we have and everyone expecting this year will be the year they burst out and be stars, reality is most never will, can just hope they turn into honest hardworking footballers instead of the one match a year wonder.

Great post. If a player is un fit we now have someone to take there place. Does that mean we have premiership depth? No. But it's a start... PS: I'm drunk

it aint self pity. It is keeping the bastards honest. Since twitter arrived journalism has got a lot worse. And if they are wrong...tomorrow is another story ...

I'm happy for Dee's fans to hold a grudge against Wilson. those articles were over the top. I'm also more than happy for Dee's fans to hold a grudge against $cully. heis a dog

Specifically bringing the game into disrepute is defined as "nutbean in the foetal position, sucking his thumb and crying like a girlie girl after the 186 point Geelong walloping and being wrong about Tom Scully" edit - pardon my facetiousness but "bringing the game into disrepute" is as well defined as "tanking"

Has tom signed yet ?

I completely agree with this but the reality is that we've debated the issue for so long we all have our positions and they are not going to change. Let's hope we just get off and move on.

I'm a journalist by trade. Personally, I never would have written that unless I was damn sure I was correct. Like 100% correct.Secondly, if I had printed that and then it was proven I was wrong, I'd probably write a 1000 word apology then hang my head in shame and probably wouldn't write columns for a while.

A grey area created by the AFL ? "The MFC are cleared of any and all wrongdoings in a situation that was created by us and other clubs exploited" said the AFL never.

I think the idea of US marines attending matches as entertainment has definite promise, that we should put energy into. The troops themselves have a largely disposable income, and the US Navy has deep pockets, and wants their men entertained & out of trouble. In the end, it's may not lead to memberships, but it'll be handy income.

The deer juice exploded on a power transformer....

Maybe Lewis is ascending to the heavens.

I don't think either club turned up that day and wanted their team to win. If Richmond had lost they would have had an extra pick in the teens. They had come off a stirring win against a finals aspirant in the Bombers after drawing against NM and then they throw up the sh!te they did against us in that fateful game. It wasn't easy to lose against that team and make it look like we wanted to win. And if the best people can come up with is Warnock playing forward then I think we experimented well enough... I am certain the AFL will rule that experimentation is legal, and that CC's remarks were glib, unfortunate, but harmless and unpunishable and that we will be absolved. And that is the full measure of whether we handled this well enough. Carlton had an Assistant Coach and Full Forward admit they tanked. How subtle is that? They should be the yard stick on how a club should not manage 'extensive experimentation' and yet the MFC is to blame for this investigation because Warnock played forward, and Johnson played back? (This is not a 'woe is us, what about them?' argument - I don't care for that argument really. It is an argument against how we managed our 'excessive experimentation' as compared to others and the different results - the MFC has a disgruntled ex-player NOT admit we were tanking but say we were not taking winning as a highest priority VS the CFC having a disgruntled former assistant coach explicitly say they were tanking and have a former FF admit to being taken off to avoid winning games) Other factors than our own 'subtlety' led to this 2 years after-the-fact investigation kicking off.

It appears to me that you, like many others in this thread are confusing what really happened with our defence against possible charges. As B-H has pointed out a number of times - we tanked but proving it is a different matter. Jimmi's argument is sound to me - to some significant extent we brought the focus on ourselves by our actions.

She's a nasty piece of work. If A Current Affair had a sport section, Caro would be the prime candidate. A team of her and Tracey Grimshaw makes the bile rise in my throat.

Alf - Thanks for reminding me - My God, that original article was a horrible piece

Sure is. Gotta like a film with a scene where Aussie soldiers scream at a scorpion "Its a fight, not a f**k!" Come to think of it, I have heard similar comments all too often at the footy in the past few years ...

The AFL CEO has long held the view that as long as players are not told to lose a game, then whatever the Coach does, is protected by long term goals, under the heading "List Management". Clubs for as long as we have played the game, have at times not worried about winning and experimented for the long term good of the club. I won't list the various experiments as we all know them. The AFL has sanctioned this and especially when referring to the Priority Picks. I don't see any investigation into GWS who rested a dozen of their best players in a game against GC that would decide who got Whitfield. The next week those same players were back in the side. This was not even worth a phone call from AFL headquarters. AFL legend Matthews called for Freo to lose a game to avoid the Cats in their first final, he said that is what he would do. Freo ignored him, won that game and then beat the Cats. I don't recall one word in the media criticising him or any comment from the AFL. So therefore it is ok to actually throw games according to many in the game as long as it is for the club's greater good and you don't get a priority pick as a result. I am just [censored] off at the double standards of the AFL and the media. The worst tankers of all who got the most out of it, have a former champion as the Chairman of the AFL and sleep very soundly as a result. We have gone through hell for 7 months and it still continues. Why couldn't there just have been an investigation into tanking generally, that would have been fair. I am sure if you speak to some disgruntled ex Blues players and coaches you would uncover some amazing material. I do agree with Patrick Smith who said that the first resignation if the Dees are charged, should be that of AD.

I am incredulous that you don't understand what I said. I said we did exactly what several other clubs did and yet we are the only one being investigated. Bailey did nothing different to the Coaches of Hawthorn, Freo, Carlton, Collingwood, StKilda, Richmond etc. Also I am mystified as to what you mean by we didn't tank successfully prior to Bailey, just because we won one extra game. I thought tanking was if you threw a single game.Are you saying tanking only occurs if you get a priority pick as a result of throwing games? Does that mean you believe a team can throw several games but if it wins 5 it is not tanking? BTW Bailey has apparently told the AFL investigators that he never tanked or threw games. His Solicitor has confirmed that. If he in fact said that, why is this farce going on, unless there is absolute proof he did?

Re covering the cost of our tanking defense, why not put a special assistance request to the AFL?

But have they given up because it is a dead market, or because we have a stronger hold on it? Honestly, I don't see how anyone can expect us to convert a large amount of memberships, when we have been competing with other teams in the market. Until the end of last season, they were still fighting for a share. It's only now that we've just had a preseason camp there, and have solidified our relationship with the NT govt, and don't appear to have any direct competitors, that we can expect to make some inroads in that department. Yet STILL, I don't see membership conversion as a current KPI for our push into Darwin. That comes later, as a byproduct of the work we are doing now.

Just what I've been thinking. He's hardly rated a mention in the training threads so far. I reckon Magner might have an even tougher battle to break into the team this year as well. With M Jones, Rodan and Viney now on the list, the rookies will really have to work hard to get a look in this year.

the idea as i see it is that if the players are off for a minimum then due to the time limit of the quarter only so many rotations could take place. it would also remove this new phenomenon of pllayers taking themselves off as they see fit. by basing it on a time min rather than a number of rotations it removes the possibility of a team using up its rotations then having to deal with an injury. i think it could really work quite well. there wouldnt be an issue of players getting cold. remember it was only less than a decade ago that players were off for a lot longer anyway. this argument that therell be more injuries with a restriction is something i dont agree with. how did the players cope before when there were less rotations. yes the game will slow a bit but footy 10 years ago was still bloody quick and fantastic to watch. ive mentioned it before on here that i have lived overseas for 10 years so the difference in the way the game has evlved is probaly more evident to me as i hardly get to see any footy. the image of footy in my mind because of this is still the early 2000's. it was very fast, very exciting , with lots of one on one contests. loved it!!

Im excited about the trial rules and look forward to seeing how they effect the NAB games. the flood and the press have ruined the game in my opinion. its like rugby. lots of congestion with empty space over the back for a big kick in to space. then watch 36 players all rush down on to the footy. its not the type of footy i grew up to love at all

Im allfor limiting the interchange. Footy looks like a flock of seagulls fighting over a bag of chips these days. very congested. I think capping the number of interchanges is a complicated solution though. what about injuries etc. I feel the best way to reduce the number of rotations is to put a minimum time the player must stay off the ground once he comes off. so no magic figure on the number of rotations but once the guy comes off he must stay off for a set time minimum - say 10 min. that would slow the rotations down and bring footy back to the exciting one on one contests we havent really seen since the late 90s. this system would also make it musch easier for the afl to ajudicate.

You're probably best off asking the 160 existing members in Darwin that. Perhaps survey the Perth based members as well. It goes without saying that a major part of the challenge is getting football lovers around the country (particularly Darwin as we are making a concerted effort to be apart of the community on top of just playing there) to rationalise buying a membership as a means of allegiance and connectivity with the club - to look beyond just the numbers. Being remote but still a part of a greater family. Member discounts, member functions and membership packages themselves make up part of it. Marketing is part of it and obviously our brand of footy is part of it, which has sadly let us down. Unfortunately we have been at the wrong end of the ladder for too long but for those clubs at the top, I would think club membership with GF guarantee would be appealing. No matter where you live that one day in September is what it's all about. But it obviously varies from one supporter to another. Sadly our membership recruiters haven't had this weapon but it is another area where our numbers can grow in future. We're coming into our 4th consecutive year now in Darwin and to put it into perspective the cost of a 3 gamer is on par with some basic merchandise like some club polo tops. Ok, so they might not all travel to Melbourne but it is the red and blue affiliation we need to tap into here and market if we want to grow numbers. Obviously the club has to weigh up the costs and benefits of these things but given the lengths we have gone to up there I would have thought much of the heavy lifting was done - we just need to be a bit smarter. I concede that the club can only do so much and there is a very small revenue stream involved here atm but I don't think our club has the luxury of dismissing membership markets in quite the same manner as has been done here. I think we can improve markedly in the next couple of years though with 2 games and the option of a 3rd anywhere in Australia. I'm being positive here, not critical.

Sounds a bit rude. I'm not sure Watts wants to that close to his opponents. Perhaps his team-mates?

the long term strategy is to play finals and win a premiership when this is achieved our membership will rise from all quarters our short term strategy is to make as much money as possible so we can compete with the big boys playing in darwin for $700K/game seems to be a smart part of the strategy

List management is allowed. Fumbling in the last 3 minutes is not, Neither is NOT playing a 17yo Jack Watts more in his first year Neither is putting Matthew Bate in the midfield, Miller in the fwd line or PJohnston in defence or even have Cale Morton obliterate Adam Goodes as a tagger.

So, I just purchased my first ever membership. I'm pretty excited about it. Can't wait till the season starts.