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Unimportant post here, but for all you pricks that constantly derail every thread into BS bickering, I hate you and I wish you every misery. Cheers.

from Bomberblitz LOL

It really has become a journalist tactic - speculate and then quote your speculation as fact. Murky evidence is right Caro. How is that our unofficial defence? Because she says so? I reckon our defence has been that we did nothing wrong in terms of what can be proved by the laws of the game. When was it an "excuse" that players and officials were intimidated? It has nothing to do with tanking and everything to do with a relevant remark over the investigation process. Ridiculous. How investigators gather "information" is very relevant. I also notice her using the term "vault" for the room - I see she's backed away from using the term as a description for the nickname of the meeting. Not that she's taken back that statement. Her article smacks of unfinished sentences and trains of thought that end before reaching logical conclusions. She draws out inferences from little. Her continued (incorrect) fascination with Mclardy defending the players is also baffling. Surely, a chief football writer would be aware that our players have indeed been accused of it and she is being disingenuous by taking a swipe at him over his comment at a club function. She bases a lot of what she says on pure conjecture; "it is clear now that not everyone at the club is behind that fight-at-all-costs mentality." Clear how? Who is not behind it? Where did this "information" come from? It's so strange to read because it seems as though all the facts that she alludes to are being produced by her alone. No quotes it references to people, just re-hashed criticism of the club and certain individuals. I'm glad Caro mentioned being childish - she'd be able to recognize the characteristic in her continued attacks.

For those that way inclined, there are some posts on Bigfooty that perhaps suggest where things are, and even, what the hold up is. Speculation, perhaps, but no worse than anything we're not seeing here either. Basically, seems we're playing hard ball on an AFL-proposed compromise. "Apparently very close to an agreement, possible inclusion if we agree is that the AFL commits to a similar investigation into all other teams suspected of tanking." "Apparently we're still refusing to make a deal and firmly believe that there isn't enough evidence, keep hearing that we're offering to pay for Bailey's legal representation if it goes to court, which I'm very happy about, many cashed up supporters have come forward to assist with it." "Melbourne are continuing to turn down the offer, I strongly believe that they will definitely take it to the courts if it goes against them"

Hows these bomber blitz quotes; Yep, getting very unfairly treated by the media. A bit like the accusations against the Demons for tanking when they did nothing other clubs have done (not us BTW) and have to read ignorant guff in the press like deliberately not playing Sylvia in that Richmond match when in fact he was suspended that week. And accusing Melbourne of 'fumbling' - they don't have to try to do that. Demons supporters must be loving that another club is getting a raw deal from the media. Melbourne and Essendon should play off for the Wilson/Smith Cup. Whoever wins is immune from having them write articles about them. This may be incentive enough for u to finally beat the Dees.

I think many are confusing two aspects to all this. On one hand there is the idea of WANTING to go to court. The other is the PREPAREDNESS to go to court if need be. Whilst no one in their right mind particularly wants to go to court, other than beaks and sharks, one needs your adversary to understand you will if no agreeable solutions present. In my mind the club should stick firm with the attitude that you, AFL , created this f'n mess. You fix it,no cost to us. Or...... Im not blind to realities etc but neither do i see a need for us (esp alone) to be the patsy. The AFL is stretched. Now is not the time to cave,buckle or even blink. Everyone will judge the club on this , the endgame, from members to media to corporate interests as well as those who can impose legalities. This is our Waterloo, Trafalgar and Normandy....all rolled into one. We either will swim or sink on the outcome. David won; he was clever, lateral and unerringly steadfast. As we must be.

"The Demons have engaged former Federal Court judge Ray Finkelstein to lead their defence and their view is that they have a very good case. Perhaps in legal terms they are correct even though their stated excuses are so so flimsy, irrelevant and in some cases childish." That's gold. Legally correct but hang 'em anyway. What a troll. I hope it burns that witch to know that CS is off the hook.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/afl/more-news/time-to-strip-points-for-tanking/story-e6frf9jf-1226575762398?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HeraldSunAflMelbourne+%28Herald+Sun+|+AFL+-+Melbourne%29 Normally the ridiculous articles that get published by this excuse for a 'newspaper' don't get much of a reaction from me. However what this imbecile, Rucci, suggests would effectively be the end of the MFC. Who the hell would support a club that effectively played games without a reason for 4 seasons. It would be ludicrous. It infuriates me how these 'journalists'/bloggers just assume the MFC's guilt, without any evidence, and dish out what they believe the sentence should be. This is not how justice works. This article does not report fact. It merely is a soap box for Rucci to express his opinion to the broader football community. It may as well be the annoying, uninformed di¢khead at the bar/party who starts mouthing off about what he thinks the AFL should do, when in reality he is about as informed on the issues as, well, the next peanut 'journalist'/blogger that needs to justify their job by writing ill informed tripe that tarnishes a club's and individuals reputation. From what we know, there is very little difference in what Melbourne has done and what Carlton has done, let alone what West Coast, Hawthorn, Collingwood and Richmond did. And yet we remain the single club to have been investigated. It is a farce. I love the MFC. I have since I was knee high. I am loud and proud in a circle of Collingwood supporters, I fly the flag year in year out. Whatever Melbourne have done, I will continue to support the club. But my interest in the AFL as a fair and equal competition is waning rapidly and I find myself increasingly less interested in a league I long assumed to be the greatest. The draft will continue to be compromised until the AFL wakes up to itself and implements a lottery. Would you blame a starving person from eating a pie on the window sill? We were not the first team to go for the priority pick, but we were the last. For some reason that seems to have been a crime. The AFL should be ashamed.

I've already said that - realistically- this is the only way it can go The AFL won't throw the book at the club - because they are afraid that we'll win a legal battle. On the other hand the AFL won't let us off altogether - because they won't admit they spent 7 months writing 800 pages about nothing while drugs were flying around under their noses. I reckon a slap on the risk for Connolly will be the compromise solution. Not a "just" outcome - but unfortunately the AFL forgot about justice when they decided to confine their investigation to one club. With the Commission meeting on Monday, you'd reckon that there will be an announcement today or tomorrow Just get it over with - its hard to get excited about the season with this fiasco hanging over everything.

FWIW Carlton getting stung would make it feel better for me!

That's great, a loyal servant of the club makes a joke according to you and you would have no symapthy if he got a life ban. On that basis the Essendon Coaches face death by firing squad.

Personally, I'm with the Zulus, the desperate effort of an army with limited weapons and just their mad courage, trying to overcome a ruthless and treaty-breaking attempt to subjugate them by a foreign power well-resourced, established in a fortified position and wielding fast firing lethal weapons with skill and efficiency born of decades of similar conflict while subjugating an empire that spanned the earth... Can't be be the Rats of Tobruk, instead?

Cool training thread.

Greg Denham rejoiced in the phrase that the MFC stood for nothing. Standing up to a bully is a great start. I don't see how the oldest sporting club in the world can do justice to its history, members, supporters, past players and officials, if it accepts a title as a match fixer. Any deal that avoids that, is worth considering, as long as it doesn't involve unfair treatment of its staff. I would imagine our players and the football community are watching our handling of this issue and it really is line in the sand stuff. How can you expect our players to fight if we are seen as a coward?

Let me get this right. She's saying that we don't have the right to defend ourselves even if we have a valid defence? If this is the chief football writer at this rag, how bad are the hacks?

Another poorly thought out lightweight opinion piece that demonstrates by how far she misses the point. So never mind that you are innocent until proven guilty and never mind that you have a very good case "in legal terms", Wilson has pronounced us guilty before the charges have even been laid.To Wilson's feeble mind we need to do away with the legal system altogether. That way we can send people we don't like to the gallows as they do in backwater dictatorships or to remote prison camps without trial as they did regularly in tyrannical regimes. Welcome to Wilson's Gulag Archipelago.

And I've always firmly believed that absolutely nothing could make me renounce my love and support for MFC to my dying day. But,... I can see it now, if I'm fortunate to get picked for that jury and asked the question. I will look the judge in the eye and with all the plausibility I can muster, mutter something like "Tige's, your honour!"

just like Whush'n'Chups

I want to know if, after 7 months and 2300 newspaper articles and 78 threads comprising 11,234 posts, we have agreed on a definition of tanking yet????

AFL give us terrible draws, remove our funding, don't guarantee our loans and at the end of the TV rights period we are the Tassie Demons. We've got the lowest number of supporters in the AFL, we are expendable. You really don't get it.

IMO Bailey has to be "Not Guilty" - if he's guilty of something then so is everyone else. Chris Connolly can be "Guilty" of bringing the game into disrepute through injudicious remarks. If Dean Bailey is guilty of something it can only be tanking (not coaching to his merits) and that brings the whole deck of cards down - Bailey tanked, MFC tanked, Connolly ordered it on the say so of Schwab and the Board. Gurgle, gurgle - court action.

I think it would be better for Hogan to play in NAB cup for a few reasons 1. I think that being left out of the team would hurt his motivation as he would not feel as much as part of the team as everyone else. He may get that feeling you get when you do not get chosen for a school team, especially when Jack Martin is out their running around. We need this kid to feel at home and as important as every other player in the team. 2. It would be good for Hogan to be able to play against real AFL backmen. It would give him the experience and knowledge of the standard he needs to get to when preparing for the 2014 season. If he does not get the chance then he will only know what standard he needs to be to play against VFL backmen. I want this kid to push himself on the training track all year and the best way for him to know how hard to go is to play against seasoned AFL backmen. 3. From a marketing perspective I am sure their are alott of supporters out their eager to see how this kid goes, if he has a good game and does a few good thing it could mean a few memberships.

I have heard all this deal stuff before, and I don't like it. The ramifications of accepting a deal is enormous. When you accept a deal people will always assume you are guilty. The amount of money that would cost us down the track by accepting a guilty verdict would totally destroy our club. The deal would have to, not involve any hint of guilty. Just think about the consequences, losing the gaming rights at Bentleigh and Leighoak. Losing sponsorships and supporters. Unless we are totally exonerated from these charges,we must fight this all the way through the courts.

When I read all her articles about us I can't help but ask: who the f&%k from the Melbourne Football Club ran over her dog? Most likely CC driving erratically away from the Zulus

Both the article this morning by that nonentity Rucci and Kero's latest offering make very confident assertions about Melbourne's guilt. While we all wait for some official comment, I cannot help but wonder what is behind these two "journalists" comments.

I just had this horrible thought of Bob sitting alone at home reading this crap and loving it.

wow there are a lot of so called "facts" in her article....

MFC has just tweeted that Hogan has been given the all clear to play NAB Cup.

Of course CC has to agree with any negotiated settlement - he takes one for the club and the board look after him for saving everyone big trouble. NO tanking verdict - just unbecoming statements.

I agree , we cannot accept any Guilty verdict at all , no-one accepts it , no sacrificial lamb . we must take it to court . never accept any guilty verdict . no matter what the cost we must fight this all the way I dont agree it will kill the club to fight , we must fight till we cant anymore , if we accept this we might as well close the doors . sometimes you have to take a stand and this for me is it , we cant give up anyone to make this go away to appease the AFL. all not guilty or we take them on in court , simple as that . and push them on it

Most of us diehards can't even afford an upgrade at Maccas. I have put in as much as I can afford. There is a lot at stake but us mediocre supporters don't really mean Jack S**t To gain some respect we must support our employees. In some cases these employees are past employees, but employees all the same. The club is showing some integrity by doing this. This has been their fight all along to fight for "THEIR INTEGRITY".

We seemed to have generated a bit of that in recent years. And it is an unrealistic scenario that CC goes for a lifetime ban for silly joke and Trigg only got 6 months for flagrantly breaching the salary cap rules (twice). If we are negotiating a settlement with the AFL then it will have to involve both parties exiting the investigation with an acceptable level of integrity, good faith and little residual smear or taint. And the proposed scenario of a lifetime ban for any MFC official can't be within the bounds of sensible negotiation.

A life ban for an imbecilic joke ? So you would jettison CC in heartbeat. Just what we need - an angry CC going to court to clear his name furious at the MFC for throwing him to the wolves. If you have no problem with CC being banned for life are you that confident that he wont take on the saving of his reputation by himself and are you also confident that he wont have some choice words about his ex employer who shafted him ?

so its "they" now, not "us". freudian slip mjt? why don't you just post on the forum site of the club you support

Meanwhile over at Essendrug-

Yes that's right - he quite clearly sufficiently upset some MFC employees with his "joke" to cause them to relay it to the inquiry. Quite simply on ANY level he should not have been saying that.

I think that some people, as well as the AFL commission itself, forget that they are only in existence because of the footy clubs involved They are empowed by the clubs to run a fair and equal competition..... To bad if they get their noses out of joint over an unequal decision to investigate one club...... If we fold on this, the MFC will lose more than it gains in respect,membership and sponsorship......

Sorry to get back to the topic, but.... One positive thing I did notice in my time there yesterday was the boy Blease doing long, unrewarded running from deep back to be in a position to receive mid-field. And not requiring resuscitation when he got there. In contrast to games last year where he would have hands on knees, and breathing heavily just doing a normal chase. The good thing about this is that it is not a Pollyana-type comment ("Bleaser is on fire" in not real match situations) - this is something that he will bring to his game this year as a real improvement. To my eye, anyway!

I actually think they can do it better than most. I'm surprised you can't see that what is at stake here, as well as the merits of each individual issue, is the overall image or "brand" of the AFL. Most would recognize, you may not, that the drug issue at present represents a significant threat to the brand of the AFL. This plays into our hands as the AFL would be loath to be fighting "brand" issues on the drug issue and have the tanking issue going to court as well which circumstances of tanking being linked to more than one club. Sometimes things are more complex than they seem Robbie.

Here is an interesting article from July 14, 2009. Written by Robbo ... Melbourne Demons adamant they won't tank

Ladies and gentlemen...your number one draft pick is now a man. Look out AFL!

My vague recollection of Freudian theory is that the mind chooses to forget bad memories and recall the ones we cherish. I think we're all forgetting how bad we were in 2009. I think our defence should simply be "We didn't tank, we stank".

I can understand why Dean Bailey would be loathe to negotiate - "not guilty" is the only outcome I'd accept if I were him. He followed orders - perhaps a little too well.

Down to the last 60 hours people. I reckon this has to be done before Friday's NAB cup start. Any semblance of a guilty finding would be incredibly damaging and resistance to that by DB and us is probably the hold up. Leaks from the investigation have poisoned the mood at least among the commentariat as Rucci's remarks, and others from donkeys like Dwayne Russell attest. If we are to be in the clear the AFL and MFC might be advised to release a Clothear-Haddit point by point summary of allegations, accompanied by point by point refutation from the MFC. The risk with that is it sets amateur sleuths like those who reside at the Sun to run off and retest the allegations, but I think it would be worth it to shoot down the sort of shite that the Sun came up with when it suggested Sylvia was dropped as a tanking measure when he was, in fact, suspended. It would also be a great backhander to the moral arbiter of the AFL, Wilson. Someone here said weeks ago that the investigation had moved from an inquiry to a search for guilt. That was right, well let's see how it stands up under scrutiny.

Hogan won't be doing anything different to what he'd do in simulated match practice at our training sessions. The more opportunity he gets to play against good opposition, the better. He'll learn a fair bit. He's a big bloke already and he will probably relish the chance. Heard a good saying about these type of games ... "Pre-season games don't count ... but they do matter." This will all be good for his long term development.

Hogan wasn't smiling in a photo again. That must worry some on here. I thing it's a great job by the club and to present the parents with a jumper.

Nope. I'm actually half way through the longest, most subtle trolling in Demonland history.

I got there early to catch Viney, Nicholson and Couch out on the oval practicing hitting moving targets out of defence. No surprises Viney's kicking had a lot more penetration and accuracy than the others whose disposal still needs work After an extensive warm up the boys began a match simulation exercise where the ball would be marked on the half back flank with the objective of getting the ball forward. With resistance only in the form of four or so defenders as opposed to ten rebounders, the team in possession were able to move the ball effectively the majority of the time, except for Davis (won't get a game until disposal improves), Nicholson, Tynan and Gillies who all turned the ball over at times much to the displeasure of the coaches. There was a key focus to play on at all times and there was lots of ball movement through the middle and switches to the fat side. Dunn really impressed with his run out of defence, he looks incredibly fit and seems to have gained a yard or two in pace. Thereafter, the group split into blues and whites for separate drills. Down the other end of the ground there seemed to be a kick out type drill. Whereas the end I was watching had a 6 on 6 exercise deep in defence where a group would try to move the ball out by hand under lots of pressure form the opposing 6 players. As expected the bigger bodies thrived with N Jones and Viney the standouts, consistently being able to rebound the ball cleanly by hand. These two seem to be a level above all other midfielders with their pace, size and tenacity. Others who impressed were Strauss who showed good pace and was willing to back himself, Dunn again used his bigger body to break tackles and McKenzie was the standout chaser and haggler. The final drill was end to end match simulation with 15 or so a side plus interchange. Watts, Dunn and Terlich were all used a lot in defence when switching and were all good by foot, throw in Jetta, Strauss and Nicholson and there's going to be a lot of competition for those roles as rebounding defenders. Dawes and Pedersen both took good marks presenting high up the ground at the ball carrier. Rory Taggert had a period he would rather forget where he dropped a simple mark causing the drill to restart, only to be used again in the next passage where he kicked a shocking wobbler out of bounds. Also the forward pressure was much improved, Dawes always impressed me when he was at Collingwood in this facet and he seems to have brought that intensity along with him as they were consistenly pressuring and forcing errors deep ind defence. All in all a solid session with Dunn, N Jones and Viney the standouts.

Yeah I saw a billboard about that on my way home. Apparently in nasal spray form.....

There are better websites for getting it up.