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DEVIL OF A TIME by Whispering Jack The keynote speaker at last night's annual Devil's Advocates dinner was former Demon champion David Schwarz. Most of us know of his exploits on the field in his playing days and how he overcame adversity and the depths of three knee reconstructions to win a club best and fairest and play in a grand final and many would also be aware of how, with the help of his wife, he overcame a gambling addiction that sent him broke and even had him in the grip of criminal elements. Listening to him speak mainly of the latter and of his determination to repay his debts and to resurrect his life reminded me very much of the task his former club now faces to regain its rightful position among other clubs and the message is that the situation is not hopeless. The same story was reinforced by the other speakers starting with club chairman Glen Bartlett who started in football in Western Australia, who suffered a ruptured kidney playing in the WAFL in 1985 and recovered to make it all the way to the Eagles' inaugural list. Bartlett had a similar injury to that of GWS' Phil Davis who recently contacted him to discuss ways of overcoming this serious ailment. Bartlett's AFL career was brief - he was delisted after one year of his three year contract but took on the club in the industrial relations system to successfully win compensation but not reinstatement. He bounced back to have a good enough WAFL career that he was drafted by Brisbane. Later, he found his way to Melbourne and a top legal firm. He says he is at the club for the long haul if the members will have him and describes this journey as one that requires us to keep the faith. He reflects that the club has come a long way off the field in a short time in terms of building new partnerships with sponsors, acquiring new football staff including coaches and the players recruited over the off season. We now need to show resilience, courage and patience. Despite the early setbacks, there are a lot of positives about the club and Bartlett is confident we're on the right track. One of the new coaches is George Stone whose record at one stage was six premierships in nine seasons as an assistant at successful clubs in Hawthorn and Sydney. He told of how he started as a runner to the legendary "Yabby" Jeans who once likened the role of runner to a piano player in a brothel. "Son, you're where the action is, but you're not really a part of it". Like the other speakers, Stone expressed confidence in Paul Roos' ability to turn things around, the club's current situation with its lack of forwards will change and players will learn and develop. The club is starting with a blank canvas and Stone is confident that we will see progress over time. When asked whether Roos would have drafted Buddy Franklin were he still at Sydney, he said probably not because of Roos' emphasis on team play and not individuality. It's good teams that win premierships and he that this can be fulfilled at Melbourne but not without a lot of hard work and an ounce of luck. Auctioneer Phil Kingston of Gary Peer & Associates, a loyal Demon fan and a top operator in the south eastern suburbs emphasised the message of the speakers but added that money was important as well as all of the other things that had been spoken about on the night. He proceeded to auction a number of items including a magnificent framed picture of the 1956 premiership team and his efforts helped make the night a financial success. Considering the week the club has gone through, the turnout for the evening was great. Demon fans from various areas of the legal system were on hand - judges, barristers, solicitors, court personnel and academics were all on hand. One of the guests was human rights commissioner, Tim Wilson. Board member John Trotter was there as were former club chairman Paul Gardner, former board members Karen Hayes and Michael Givoni, barrister Bob Miller who played in the 60s and of course Bev O'Connor who brightened up the evening with a sterling job as master of ceremonies. Chris Dawes, the grandson of the late Chief Justice Sir John Young was there (I think he might be back earlier than some reports this week have suggested) along with Michael "Pickles" Evans, a law student who has also overcome some major injury woes himself and is on the cusp of selection into the Melbourne team. And there we have it ... a night where the theme was one of coming back from adversity. The Ox's story of starting out as a 15 year old Hawthorn fan training with the Under 19s (he was still a member of the Hawks' cheer squad when he made his senior debut at 18), speaking of his appreciation for the Melbourne Football Club which helped him escape from the ordinary life of Sunbury to an AFL career, to the lows of a gambling addiction and the help of his wife, friends and his contacts at Melbourne which helped him rise to overcome his hardships, repay his debts and take a place in society with a family, a home and in a far better place than the one which he once occupied. The narrative is one of recovery through determination and hard effort and is the very story we hope to relive at the Melbourne Football Club in the near future. Thanks to Devil's Advocates convenor Ralph Glezer for putting the night together again and for all those who contributed and showed that their is a way out of the despair of last Sunday's loss. It's now up to the coaches and the players to get it done on the field. Two former MFC Board Members taking in the atmosphere at last night's Devil's Advocate Dinner

Roos has a good track record with developing kids, if he's dropped guys like Toumpas or Michie you can bet he's doing it for a specific reason. Long term development is more important than short term success so he'll have these guys working on certain areas of their game at Casey.

I didn't go to training but I can confirm that they trained well and hard and they are going into this week's game confident because they trained hard. Source: The last three years.

No, trading brought us Clark, Vince and Dawes. Only Cross came to us as a delisted free agent.

It was never the afl that was pushing for free agency, it was the players association.

Come on guys. In the words of Paul Roos "I'm sick of talking about the past." What good does it do lamenting all day long that we missed so and so in that draft or this draft. You can't assume those players we missed would've become the same players in our guernsey. For all we know some of the high draft picks we picked that went nowhere may have flourished at other teams. Equally, players we passed on may have ended up duds with us. The thinking here that we simply picked wrong and missed out on ready made superstars like Wines, Darling, Naitanui, Grundy, etc. is exactly the line of thinking that got us into this mess. Good drafting helps, but it's not everything. Reality is, we didn't choose them, and those we chose could not flourish in our team. Accept it, let's move on.

Reckon Mitchie is a bit stiff.

I'm hoping Evans.

Feel like people want him to fail. Sad.

Well since I posted my OP I must say I've been pretty impressed with the communication from the club. The weekly session with Paul Roos is very good. I don't think we learn much that isn't available elsewhere but the fact that the segment runs provides a good snapshot of what is going on and what the coach is (publicly) thinking. And I'm hoping for a player summary after the Casey game this week. And maybe it's just me but the injury reports seemed a little more circumspect with more realistic return dates for Hogan and Dawes. Well done MFC, lets bounce back this week and put some fun back into footy!

Gee these blokes are hypocrites,I wonder why he didn't apply the same logic to the tanking investigation

King has talked a lot of sense about Melbourne for the last few years, it is just that the truth was so hard for us to take that we preferred to attack the messenger

And a player milking enterprise by the AFL's strongest clubs as we've seen with Sydney over Buddy Franklin. The strongest clubs rule the competition and the powers that be give lip service to equalisation while pandering to the wealthy and the strong.

The constant criticism of Pederson is obnoxious. I was at the G on Sunday and Pederson added physicality when others were tame. He threw himself at the contest, particularly after half time, and because of what had gone before, I stood and applauded him. He is fit and he is able to back up week to week. He has played at both ends, can pinch hit in the ruck and is giving 100%. Not everything he does comes off, but at a time when we are decimated by injuries to other fragile talls, he is an important commodity. If the coulda-been-champions on here could find a way to actually support those in red and blue, instead of indulging in character assassination, we might create an environment (culture) that encourages players to be loyal..

Hahaha those photos are brilliant!! Bring Back Tuckerbag now!!

I'll take a moment first to gobble up all the low-hanging fruit on that; "Demon's results headed south" "Supporter forum gets chilly reception" "Demon's gone cold early in the season" "Melbourne fans dreaming of end to endless night" "Demon forwards kept on ice" Right, glad I got that out of my system. Also, thanks for the report Whispering Jack. Really good to hear that former board members are not keeping their distance from the club, and I like your hints at, let's call it 'moderately positive' news regarding Dawes. Touch wood. Or titanium rod inserts. The latter seem more common around our forward line lately!

Toumpas would be considered a gun at a club like Hawthorn or Geelong. And if wines was with us, he wouldn't look nearly as good. Nobody can envisage that and that's because of the anguish and frustration shown for the performance of the MFC. We all get caught up in everything that's gone wrong with our club from admin to coaching to recruiting. I'd argue that Toumpas was yet again another youngster managed poorly by Neeld and co and should not have been played so often and early last year. Especially when you consider his limited pre-season. I'm not making excuses because I was the first one who jumped on players like Morton and Gysberts. Players who I think were genuinely the wrong picks. Sure our environment didn't help either of them, but I believe Toumpas is a very good player, and given time will show that and overcome the conditioning. He is driven, like Viney and like Jones.

They have also decided that a loss as big as last weeks will not be tolerated as a club moving forward.

I think the successor would largely depend on where we are in 3 years time. Assuming Roos goes 3 years and then wants out, if we are well and truly on the path to success then I don't have problem ( and I would suggest the board as well ) with a Roos appointed and trained successor. However if we are still in the fledgling stages of recovery do you think that the board would be comfortable with an untried at the helm, albeit a Roos trained untried ? I would suggest they might think that it is too big a risk to the hints of progress and go with an experienced successful coach. Roos has said he will leave us in a much a better place when he leaves. The place would have to be much better for a board to risk an unproven coach. Postscript - I don't think posters should get too married to the idea of the succession plan. I have seen them in business as well and they are fluid. A successor appointed today for three years time makes the assumption that he is the right person for where we will be in that time in the future. If we are in different position in the future the successor may not be right.

Does anyone pay any attention to what they read about injuries on the club website? It's a load of rubbish. I posted this on the MFC Facebook page, but we should be entitled to transparency from the club RE: injuries. They need to stop stringing along the supporters. The perfect example is Chris Dawes for most of last year. Now Hogan's injury keeps being pushed out further. I literally wait until they run out on game day, before I consider any MFC player fit nowadays.

Free Agency in it's current form will cripple the AFL if allowed to run in the long term. I've been working on an article exploring and elaborating the problems the current system creates, what is shocking is that when you go through it systematically from a few different perspectives, especially in terms of 'formal economy vs informal economy', the issues are completely obvious. The AFL doesn't get let off the hook at all for their responsibility on this - part of their management culture of pushing things through with as little meaningful assessment as they can get, making decisions first and then commissioning reports to reach the right conclusions, and generally doing things in a short-sighted rush. If I ever actually complete the article, I'll be sure to post it here, but the main point I want to make now is - it took a genuine dereliction of oversight and governance to fail to observe and anticipate the problems free agency creates.

We tend to have an unwavering desire to recruit midgets or soft big blokes.

Stats are funny things and far more complex than ever. Is there anything that is not measured or counted or analysed these days? Keep it simple, just look at the number of goals we have scored over the last year or so. Until we correct that imbalance, everything else is "noise".

You do not need to burn off opponents to create space and hard running is about continuing to run when you are tired, namely pushing yourself. Simon Black, Pendlebury are just two players who created space because they read the play so well or they had awareness, Speed of thought and ball movement can negate speed by foot on occassion

Money talks. Bomber might like the idea of 5 years on 1.2 to 1.5mil. He would know a fair bit about Melbourne's list given he's working with Neil Craig now at Essendon. And you can clearly tell he and Roosy have been talking off camera Monday nights on 360. They probably spend at least an hour in the green room before the show. Their discussion Monday night was thrilling. Even Robbo said on air they need to extend their segment.

We are talking about the 260 game, 3 times all Australian Nick Dal Santo ?

I was just talking to a mate about the Dees and it struck me - I've been to around 20 games over the past 2 and a bit seasons and have only seen 2 wins, both against GWS.... The sadest part is that the concept and what a win looks like is almost foreign to me - Everytime I go now I'm expecting a loss.

I think we should bring in Tappy solely for the purpose of cleaning up Scully... jks I would like to see us win some holding the balls - the only one I remember from this year is the Nathan Jones one - which Trengove decided to throw away!

I just want to see them friggin shepherd each other for once... is that so much to ask?

If you waste your picks and don't develop players properly you will always be in trouble. The real issue going forward is to prevent poor clubs becoming feeder clubs. Rules to promote loyalty should be introduced for new draftees.

I'm rather keen on making greater use of the salary cap formula. For example, for every two years a player stays at a club, the club should get a discount of, say, 10% of that salary from its salary cap calculation, up to a maximum of, say, 50%. So, if a player signs for years 3 and 4 for $300,000 per annum, the club's salary cap is calculated using $270,000 for that player. It makes it easier for that player's club to retain the player as any other club would have to include 100% of that player's salary if he moves. It rewards a club for the development they have put into that player which the new club would otherwise benefit from without having paid for it.

I refuse to accept that the skill, quality or talent of the squad isn't good enough. They simply lack urgency. Their biggest loses come through a genuine lack of urgency from the onset. The errors come later. The Eagles were in 2nd gear all game. Melbourne never left 1st gear. Imagine if he Eagles were ruthless and this game was closer to finals? Would have been a 150-point loss. IMO Roos' style and Jackson's intentions seem at odds. Jackson says we need result on the field. Immediate, impacting results. The reality is that the club cannot afford another 2-3 win season. This all comes down to the players now. They ARE the final link. Roos' teams play an ugly, ugly style of football. When they win, it's a tough, satisfying win. But that style, that holding the ball, chipping it, maintaining possession, there is NO room for leaving the fundamentals at home, no room for error. This is why Roos honed in on it on Sunday. The fundamentals were non-existent on Sunday. This goes beyond the club now. There is simply nothing else the AFL or administration can do. There are new facilities, corporate sponsorship, money coming in from the NT deal, a better TV deal (more free-to-air games), more primetime fixture results (a few Saturday night games), a champion coach, a champion CEO. The team foundations have been set. Guys like Trengove, Watts, Frawley, Jones, Dunn, Vince, McKenzie, they should bring the fundamentals to matches every week, and should be leading from the front. Jones was missing handball targets on Sunday. Frawley DID. NOT. CHANCE. Vince's vision went out the door, had about 5 kicks cut off, Dunn tried hard, Trengove is slow but tackles hard. Watts is a downhill skier. Much of the team's problem atm is not due to a lack of talent. It is a lack of confidence and urgency, a will to win. The players need to accept this, move on, and DO SOMETHING. Because the club cannot afford this anymore. You can't blame anywhere else now. All eyes are on this squad to perform. No lack of a forward line equates to a lack of urgency. They were deplorable on Sunday. The whole, "A lack of a forward line is part of their problems" rhetoric is a load of crap. If that was an 18 point loss on Sunday, everyone would be signing the team's praises and be saying, "They'd be winning with a forward line". The problem now is a lack of desire and concentration, which leads to laziness and a, "Someone else will do it" mentality.

When? When our leadership group stands up (on the field) would be a good start. Leadership group: Clarke - ? Garland - back soon, so hope he sets good example Frawley - playing without endeavour Trengrove - struggling Jones - Champion and quickly becoming the stand out leader Grimes - tries hard but not effective Are our leaders unified? Do they have their on-field leadership roles sorted? I didn't see many on field huddles/leaders talking on Sunday. I didn't see much encouragement (eg JKH 1st AFL goal). We don't have a leader on the forward half but none of our leaders took on the role on Sunday. I don't feel our leaders can galvanise the players when things aren't going well on the field. It can't be left only up to Jones to be the lone ranger. Even if leaders individually are having a bad game they can still stand up as leaders, can't they? Our leaders need to stand up on the field!!!! As a leadership group not just as individuals. It is about behaviours guys, not titles!!! We need to see them lead on the field not at training, not at functions, not in the press. On the field!!!! Until they do it will be very hard for the rest of the team to make the extra effort to be competative. End rant.

RGRS and the master - you must remember to hit the refresh button, with today's tracking cookies, the site will open with the page you last looked at, both training sessions ie Wednesday and Friday were there on Monday morning, I know because I checked to see if I could take the morning off again to get away from work. don't mind the constant criticism if it is based on fact

Not remotely comparable. Even if findings were made against an individual medico or player at Melbourne, and that's unlikely since there's nothing other than talk and no confirmation Trengove even picked up the cream, let alone used it, that is a world away from a near-universal club program of thousands of injections. Not even close. He tries Robbo, but does not get there.

Let's be honest, this article is written by Essendon's/Hird's biggest fan. This is a way for Robbo to drum up some sympathy for them by leveling it at a club that's easily attacked at the moment. I don't mind listening or reading what he write's but when its about Essendon or gets another club involved with their mess, it's a massive waste of time. Of course we were never going to be found to bring the game into disrepute, we never hired the guy and he only dealt with the Doc, who didn't inform the club of their dealings.

What was most disappointing was that Whateley and Robbo just sat there and didn't agree nor disagree. I've been saying it since before it came in - it's a disaster for clubs such as ours. We will be a breeding ground for the rich clubs to poach from to top up their lists. The only way free agency can work is if players have NO SAY in their trading - effectively reducing them to commodities to exchange. That's how it works in American sports - the player doesn't really have a say in where they play unless they've been a free agent acquisition. Instead it's a half-measure in the afl. I absolutely hate it.

Exactly what I was going to say. The AFL held out on the free agency issue for a long time and then when they finally conceded they put as many restrictions on it as possible to try to protect the weaker clubs. This is one thing you really can't blame on them.

It was a very entertaining evening and well attended considering the disastrous week we've had. I will try to do a report as the first part of my pre match article. Highlight was The Ox who told the story of his gambling addiction and how he beat it. Redleg and I were somewhat embarrassed because our wives were over at Crown Casino. At least Redleg was consoled by Bev O'Connor who did a great job as MC. I think we might have saved the club tonight and I'm going to ... er ... plonk a monkey at Sportsbet on the Dees to beat GWS abstain from betting on anything for a little while.

America is not evil.

I think we are on the right path. Once Morton,Gysberts and Cook get some game time into them we will rise.

You get a Friday session in Melbourne, but there is nothing for us here in Sydney which is very disappointing. I was hoping that my son would get a chance to meet a few of the players again, but alas, it looks as though it's not to be (we can't afford to attend the brunch... and besides, my son has his first game of the season with his team the Newtown Swans Under 12's that morning (game day), so time would be a bit tight. (they had a Gala Day last Saturday and won 3 of 4 games, ending up 3rd overall - made me a proud dad).

jazza, here is a pinup for bbo

George Stone will also feature.

? His post is bordering on unreadable.

Misson has had three years with this lot. Every other team in the AFL can run hard for four quarters, and unless I am watching a different team, we seemingly can not. To call that effort as playing with heart is bulldust. Players jog. They meander. They put in token efforts. I watch a lot of footy and there is a discernible difference that you would have to be blind not to see. That isn't skill, that's effort. Even dropping chest marks can be attributed to laziness and not being switched on mentally. I saw improvements in this regard against the Saints. When the game was there to be the won, they did the fundamentals. They lifted their intensity. It was not there against the Eagles because the game was over by quarter time, and that's not good enough. You don't drag yourself off the bottom that way. Thank god for Daniel Cross. He is setting a benchmark that is showing up more than a few others.

Hexed! I will believe it when they are running around in the AFL dropping chest marks...

Clarkson