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A camp that's rough, tough, gruesome involving sleep deprivation and a harsh regimen that only the strong can survive. They want to teach the players what it's been like to be a supporter of the club for the past ten years!

Take 3 : Forgotten and dedicated #2 ==> http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/n-TGsdp6 Good luck Jack. We are all on your side.

Thread heading into unchartered territory.

On Monday 14th December I ventured down to the paddock to record some images of the Dees training as I'm want to do from time to time and posted around 100 photographs of the Dees at work. To post the 100 pictures I take around 500 pictures and share what I consider to be a representative cover of the boys effort on the day. You don't see every frame that I take. I thought that because we are now in a bit of a hiatus with the cub shut down till next year that I would spend I bit of time exploring one of my passions (photography) examining the result of my afternoons work and sharing an extended view of what I see at training covering one of my other passions (The Dees).. I'll go through the full 500 shot gallery and pick selected shots and sequences over the next couple of weeks until the boys are back in town. You'll see shots you have already seen in the original post but they will be in context with other shots. If you have no interest in this, have a lovely Christmas and I'll see you in the new year. For all of the rest of you, the first small set is of the big Gawn. Two of the shots were in the original post. Take 1 : The big GawnStar ==>https://six6six.smugmug.com/Monday-take-1/n-VjjkJf Take 2 : The Truck ==> http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/n-KXgjvb Take 3 : Forgotten and dedicated #2 ==> http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/n-TGsdp6 . Good Luck Jack. We are all on your side Take 4 : Christmas with the kids ==> http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/n-GPKdqr Take 5 : Boxing Day ==> https://six6six.smugmug.com/Monday-Take-5/n-h4LbMb Take 6 : Who's the cat in green? => http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/n-TBqQ45 Take 7 : Gotcha => https://six6six.smugmug.com/Monday-Take-7/n-FhDcXL Take 8: Best of the rest => https://six6six.smugmug.com/Monday-Take-8/n-VtHMMQ ******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** Original Gallery ==> http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/n-vWmhGZ

Merry Xmas to all my fellow inmates of the psych ward. Hopefully a few more wins in the stocking next year. Drink and be messy, er, merry.

Let it go, Jurrah was a disaster. We could have had Rockliff......

I would like to thank Santa who has left me a membership under the Christmas tree.It feels a little eclectic being a Buddhist receiving a gift on a Christian holiday to go see Demons.

It’s a bit difficult to work out which of the two lists of ‘experts’ dumped here as some sort of response to points you’ve made is the more ridiculous. At first blush the Wikipedia one seems well in front. But at least Wikipedia is in on the joke (accidentally or otherwise): My favourite has to be Mary T Mumpter, a name that looks like an onomatopoeia that didn’t quite work. A quick check on Google Scholar doesn’t reveal any academic papers by her, even in her own teaching area. So I’m not sure whether the minimalist test of at least one peer-reviewed paper in any scientific journal is all that rigorously applied. But the 134 self-described authorities in climate-related science who signed the letter to Ban Ki Moon (in other versions it’s 141, but that’s neither here nor there) make a pretty good effort at showing themselves up as well. In the first place they need to distort entirely what the Secretary-General actually said in order to give themselves some purchase (it’s a standard denialist manoeuvre, of course: don’t argue with what someone says, argue with what you think you can argue with). Their science has been well and truly picked apart since then (Skeptical Science is a good source of critiques of denialist excesses) … and they turn out in the main not to be quite the experts in climate science ‘related’ research that they want us to think. A little bit of work with Google on a random sample doesn’t take long to reveal how approximate many of the claims to relevant expertise actually are. I’m surprised, though, that ProDee hasn’t gone the whole hog and graced us with the entire list of names and alleged credentials of the mythical ‘1000 scientists’ who don’t think — even if their different forms of not thinking contradict each other — that global warming is global warming. Why that number of 1000 is so magical I’m not sure. The Spartans only needed three hundred, and the light brigade six. Canute made his point by himself.

Uh oh....

Have a great Christmas all, and may your New Year be full of wins for the Dees, and as many bananas as you can cope with.

I'd actually love it if they didn't. Don't talk it up, keep it between "the boys" and don't water it down by making it a PR exercise.

Well actually they are two different things. 1. Taking the money. Agree he would have been stupid not to. I don't blame him for leaving, considering what we got, I am thrilled about it. 2. Lying to Jimmy. Disagree. Whatever Jimmy got wrong as President, he was a Legend Player of the Club, who happened to be dying. He deserved the truth. It could have been kept confidential if needed. 3. I add this one. Lying to the members. He didn't need to. He could have just said he will consider it when the season ended or no comment.

Viney asking Selwood why he was bleeding so much as they jogged off the field was a highlight for me

Melly Clistmas Flaubert-San.

I just want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a great new year. Demonland is a wonderful place made up of a disparate, eclectic, eccentric group of people. Let's celebrate our differences and embrace our shared bond. Next year is going to be great! Go DEES in 2016.

Dont really need to wish everyone a merry Christmas. I've realised you are all drunks anyway, so holiday merriment is a given. But please stay safe everyone. Families don't need to grieve a lost one at this time of year.

we may have;;; they're talking about the players, to be able to reach the depths of deespair, & pick themselves up & get going again. ..... our boys, over the decades have ducked for cover when things got heavy, ending up with a quiet nonchalant, 'who cares, wheres the party', defensive self-protectionist attitude.... time and again this has taken grasp of our club. .

Did someone mention horses, now you are talking.

we've tended to go for the 'flashy' over hard & tough workers at the dees, or have done in the past. lets hope better footy judges will prevail for our futures sakes, & our supporters well-beings.

love the idea, the players can play we know that, their mental attitude and confidence is the areas that they really need to work on. This type of camp sounds like it will assist in these areas.

I've asked Santa for more wins this year, so I won't know if I've been naughty or nice for quite some time. Here's hoping. Merry Christmas.

Happy Christmas. I'm more desperate than disparate.

A win of any sort will do me Gorgoroth

Happy anniversary of James Brown's death everyone!

Would love to know who'd be better. Playing 22 games, the bloke is one of the best clearance players in the comp. We're kidding ourselves if we think Viney, Jones or Tyson or even Vince are likely to do better. If we can play in a finals series, then we've arrived again as a club.

Jara your last para sums it all up in my opinion. The do nothing option could be, in my opinion, will be catastrophic, the do something option will provide jobs, new industries, innovation, economic stimulus etc, etc. the winners are us the community , the losers would be the current fossil fuel big boys and I don't give a flying about them and neither should any of us.

I think the interchange cap is going to really test the young guys, probably good to know who's going to embrace the challenge and who's gunna sulk

Go Jack...

Great to see that distinguished climate scientist Lord Monkton getting a guernsey. the list is actually a bit short on Aussie climate scientists - some dude from the IPA (and we all know what their agenda is) Bill Kininmoth, who is a retired meteorologist. bit surprising to me is their rather unscientific certainty that they are right (for example, stating that Sandy was not caused by human factors) Any decent scientist would say something like "on the evidence available, it is unlikely that...." Not unlike Black Saturday - you can't be sure that it was caused by global warming, but equally you can't be sure that it was not my basic stance: we need to do something. If the deniers are right, we will at least have reduced the amount of pollution in the atmosphere. If they are wrong, and we do nothing, our children will face a catastrophe

I don't think they do, do they? Do the Hawks ever do altitude training? I like the idea of mixing it up but I get the feeling while this is great for first year players this is more directed at a handful of senior players who still don't get it. We as a team are still mentally weak and don't understand the need to come mentally switched on to play every week. The games against Carlton and Essendon said it all.

t the final training session the players when mingling spoke of the camp. 11 hours of training woken up at 2 am 4 am etc all to challenge their mental and physical capabilities. Then on last friday the day after they get back they have a hard high intensity training session in the heat

2016 GF tickets to watch the mighty Dee's win their first Premiership for 62 years.

"We want you to feel bad,we want you to feel negative and then we want you to embrace that negativity." Brett Stephens. I think we have already mastered that one over the last 10 years.

Nothing has really changed since day 1. The lawyers got involved and started bending the truth, or blaming someone else. It happens in all cases where you have a prosecutor and defence lawyer. When the truth finally raises its head, the arguments change to procedural problems. All this has now diminished and we now have to rely on the Truth and Fact. How Novel. By the way Merry Xmas & HNY to all D'Landers.

Have a happy and safe Christmas and New Year to one and all. May the MFC have 10 or more wins in 2016 as OD has predicted and that BBO come back to DL a reformed man.

if only we could all meet your lofty standard of just going around and bashing every post that is made. Troll.

Drove past Goschs this morning and saw 2 blokes doing repetitive sprints with a trainer. One of them I assume is a newby as I did not recognise him, the other was our skipper. No Xmas break for him by the looks of it, was rapt to see it this morning!

I'm pretty sure they brought something out in the 90s called a 'yak-bak.' Maybe your wife would be interested?

I cannot quite remember who ( I believe it may have been prodee in a former life) accused me of waffling so I thought my avatar should be appropriate. ( Also, I couldn't find a pic for vacillating, obstruficating or pontificating)

exactly the same as me back in the day going to see a loss but watch the Flower power magic... Until Barass got hold of the club & shook it from its armpits.. it took some time for things to start to turn around, but turn around they certainly DID. & we enjoyed 10 good years following '85, to smile broadly about. until something or someones? slacked off again, & the ship started to turn submarine. .

A lot of History seems to get re written about Jurrah. The Club bent over backwards for him lots of times. When trouble broke out in Central Australia the Yuendemu Community pleaded & begged Lim him to stay at Melbourne to continue to set an example for their youth. Liam walked out on Casey on the eve of the finals. Has been in trouble with the law time & time & time again since - just lucky its not a more serious charge so far. But hey lets not let the facts get in the way of a good story.

I think you raise a fair point . I do not write them off as many do . Terlich is a fearless attacking defender who marks well. He is not afraid to run with the ball and has pace. He makes kicking errors. I think he was B o G in a SANFL GF jones may find it harder to get a game as an on baller playing a defensive role on the forward line as he did several times this year. Again, he is prone to kicking errors. But he never throws in the towel and gives it his absolute best shot. I do think Terlich has more natural ability to suggest that these two are hopeless is inane nonsense. They are very useful backups in a young squad

Again and again the government sets up service delivery models that are either flawed, poorly regulated or simply stupid. Education is just one of many that have been ripped off. The people advising the government should be sacked and exposed The treasurer wonders why nobody wants to pay tax.If you give it to them it will be wasted and re alloacted to the rip off merchants. These governments are fools and are wasting valuable resources.

Hogan asking Murphy where their white knight is, as he pointed to the interchange. Vince and Danger's headlock selfie after Bernie convincingly defeated him earlier in the day. Vince and Tex Walker turning up to kick over the Yarra on GF day while still heavily intoxicated. We have some characters at the club!

BBO calling our 80 year old waitress "young lady" in the vain hope of flattery during our recent visit to Footscray

Number 33 was a bloody Classic number 1 for mine. Cost 9thmond the double chance...

Jones was huge. No Hogan.

Max Gawn clunking everything that came his way is high on my list. But nothing can beat Nathan Jones' fourth quarter goal to pretty much seal the game. Loved Neal-Bullen's cameo as well.

I will take out a life subscription to Demonland and add 5 more to the tally in a fortnight when I return from Vietnam. GO DEES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CHANGES 2015 - The Nowhere Men by The Oracle I suppose I should be thankful that back in July when the National Under 18 championships were coming to a conclusion I wasn't beamed up to the starship Enterprise by its chief engineer, Montgomery "Scotty" Scott. At the time there was something in the order of 200 young footballers taking part in the carnival and I knew well the names and attributes of the best of them but had I returned from a race around the stars under the guardianship of Captain James Tiberius Kirk last week to discover who Melbourne drafted, I would have been in a state of confusion.Not a single player taken by the Demons represented his state in the championships - there were no All Australians and no familiar names from that period of several weeks when a number of those interstate games were shown in their entirety on Foxtel and discussed in the media and on the Net. One might have been forgiven for thinking that the Demons had traded out of the first four rounds of the draft to pick up some big fish but no - in fact, they had two selections in the top ten and all of the players they took were off the radar for one reason or another before and/or during the season. They were the "nowhere men". Clayton Oliver, the first choice at three which was parlayed into four when Melbourne bid for Sydney midfielder Callum Mills was an injured, restless soul when the 2015 season started - AFL Draft 2015: How Clayton Oliver came from nowhere Recovering from osteitis pubis, overweight and unable to do much of a preseason, he moved from the Bendigo Pioneers to the Murray Bushrangers. He missed the cut for the Victorian Country team but by midseason, with improved fitness, the powerful inside midfielder made his run. By season's end he was the Morrish Medallist and a star of the draft combine with significantly reduced weight and skin folds. This is what his coach at the Bushrangers told Inside Football:- Melbourne's other top ten selection which eventually came at pick 9 was Sam Weideman from the Eastern Ranges. An AIS AFL Academy member, he started early in the season against two VFL teams but succumbed to stress fractures in his ankle - season over. His story is chronicled in these articles.AFL BLOODLINES: WEIDEMAN WANTS TO FORGE HIS OWN LEGACY Sam Weideman reflects on draft expectation, famous surname, ankle injury AFL Draft 2015: Sam Weideman wants to make a point After the draft - Sam Weideman documents his draft experience before and after joining Melbourne The talent manager at the Eastern Ranges where he was a teammate last year of Christian Petracca had this to say:- The Demons continued to think big with their remaining choices, selecting ruckman Mitch King (who is shown in a number of Bushies highlight reels deftly palming the ball down the throat of Clayton Oliver) and key position player Liam Hulett. Again, both players were highly thought of by the recruiters but injuries had conspired to keep them off the radar. And the Demons' first rookie selection, Josh Wagner is a 21-year-old defender from the NEAFL. The club's other rookie draft selections confirmed the redrafting of Viv Michie and the selection of Joel Smith as a Category B rookie.As a result of the drafts, the club's playing list for 2016 is:- PRIMARY LIST: Angus Brayshaw Tomas Bugg Chris Dawes Lynden Dunn Sam Frost Colin Garland Jeff Garlett Max Gawn Jack Grimes James Harmes Jesse Hogan Liam Hulett Jayden Hunt Neville Jetta Matt Jones Nathan Jones Ben Kennedy Jay Kennedy-Harris Dean Kent Mitch King Heritier Lumumba Oscar McDonald Tom McDonald Jake Melksham Alex Neal-Bullen Ben Newton Clayton Oliver Cameron Pedersen Christian Petracca Christian Salem Jake Spencer Billy Stretch Dean Terlich Jack Trengove Dom Tyson Aaron vandenBerg Bernie Vince Jack Viney Jack Watts Sam Weideman ROOKIE LIST: CATEGORY A Max King Viv Michie Mitch White Josh Wagner ROOKIE LIST: CATEGORY B Joel Smith * player quotes from the current edition of Inside Football