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We'll know soon enough, when St Kilda lock horns with Carlton in what will be the biggest and best of all the Friday night blockbusters this year. Seriously - Carlton are playing St Kilda on a Friday night in a few weeks... ? I'm tipping the Saints in a close one - St Kilda 1.7.13 d Carlton 1.3.9

We played this bye rd perfectly. Come out in 4th. Go Dees.

“He hasn’t won a B&F or finished high in the Brownlow” Response: “He won the clubs B&F in 2015 and has finished as high as third in the Brownlow” ”That’s my point..”

If you know West Coast supporters who were shocked he won a best and fairest why did you say he hadn’t won one?

Just back from that other non MFC game in Kazan. A wonderful game and in the theme of Wiseblood we played above ourselves. The VAR penalty at the ground was almost heatbreaking but the penalty we received was somehow return justice. Believe me the VAR is miles worse than the goal review system in AFL. It's like double jepoardy as they wait until the next break in play until the review possibility is even notified. Centimetres with the last French goal would have seen us come away with an incredible draw. French team is full of individual stars but as a team they have certainly got a way to go. Robbie Kruse is a bit like Nathan Jones ... wonderful player but he lacks pace. The pace and skills of some of the French players were incredible. Of an attendance of 41k (1k sort of absolute capacity) there were probably at least 10k Australians and I think we had the support of most of the Russians. The stadium was great but the logistics of transport , ingress and egress shows how lucky we are with the MCG. Finished the afternoon with a big beer and some barbecued meats at a small Turkish style roadside stall.

Sorry, my mistake. I should have said, "why are you quoting WCE supporters views to back up your view" when you continually tell is it's the coaches that count, not the supporters. And how do you support your stance when the WCE coaches, whose views you always say should be respected, voted Gaff their best player in a year where they finished third on the ladder. To finish third on the ladder a team needs multiple good players and the coaches, you know, the one's who's view we should respect, thought Gaff the best during the year. And to finish third you play some good teams in tight matches where if you don't perform you lose. Clearly Gaff, as voted by the coaches, performed. It's ironic because I have some concerns but I can see the argument for taking him as a FA. But what I won't do is make things up to support my view and then not recognize I was wrong on a number of factual issues. That behaviour is the stuff of schoolyards, not those questioning your arguments and logic. Anyway enough. Like Gaff you have your strengths and weakness and these sort of discussions are not your strength.

2× VFL premiership: 1955, 1956 2× Keith 'Bluey' Truscott Medal: 1955, 1956 Melbourne leading goal kicker: 1955 Melbourne Team of the Century Australian Football Hall of Fame Melbourne Hall of Fame 2× All-Australian: 1956, 1958 President of our footy club 1986 - 1991. That's Stuart Spencer. Not surprised that bandwagon fans haven't heard of him. Was clearly a dud... Yeah, maybe I am an old bugger but my levels of support involve learning about the history of our team. I guess that sort of interest is what separates us diehard Demons from the fairweather fans. Nope, never saw Stuart play but did in fact meet him whilst he was our Prez. A true gentleman and one of our clubs legends.

Here is what I don't necessarily believe (or believe at all) ... That the AFL had to rubber-stamp the appointment of Pert That PJ wasn't involved in the decision making process That Pert is not the correct appointment That there is some sort of mythical rift between Bartlett & Jackson That our current board can't be trusted in making good sound decisions There are a lot of assumptions being made without any proof-positive evidence to back up those assumptions. All things considered the club is in a sound financial position and our last 5 annual reports back that up. And the current CEO is responsible for the last 5 annual reports (apart from this year) I wish Gary Pert all the best and the good news for him is that we almost certainly are ready for some sustained growth. Winning more games than you lose has always been the key and a good basis to work from. Previously, I've held an almost polar-opposite view to the above.

Stu Spencer is an all time legend Sku. multiple premierships b&fs in premiership years team of century. one of the best rovers the game has seen... so yeah he qualifies

Eddie mentioned a couple weeks back the spooky resemblance of Keith Truscott and Clayton Oliver and I think he has point.

The guy has had his pants pulled down, but doesn't have the class to admit it.

Gone backwards? He’s having his best year yet. So if a player doesn’t continually back up their B&F year they’ve gone backwards?

Peter Walsh was a favourite of mine.. loved whopper!

He’s a free agent.

Have a look at the ladder. To say this game is huge would be an understatement. A bunch of teams right behind us, and they are all playing bad teams next round. Finally a great game on Friday Night footy.

Sitting 4th again on the live ladder

@Satyriconhome You're exceptionally economical with the truth. Why would Eagles supporters be shocked with Gaff's B&F in 2015 when he made AA and finished the season with the second most disposals for the year ? Even if he wasn't the pick of everyone they'd hardly be "shocked". We've now established you tell porkies. Also, answer Baghdad's question. You said he hadn't won one and moments later say Eagles supporters were shocked he had. Best to fess up and show some character.

I've just grabbed the popcorn.. watching saty getting his pants pulled down over and over and being shown how so far out of his depth he is with the modern game is actually quiet hilarious! Carry on please.

Lacks consistency? He’s one of this years brownlow favourites ffs.

I’d give us a B+ for (finally) belting teams that we should. It would have been a B- if not. I’d have given us a A if we’d had close losses against the better teams, it’s the nature of these losses which is the most concerning, we seem to lack some answers at the moment.

Give yourself an.uppercut.

The VAR was like a kick in the guts... At the ground you see the ref wave play on... you sigh with relief and then a minute later when the ball goes over the line for a regulation out all hell breaks loose. You see nothing on the screen until maybe 3-5 minutes later. Some rough justice with the hand ball call. We had great seats .. 10 rows from the fence (just right for seeing over the dugouts) and on about the 25 metre line. Without any running track or the like the view was fantastic. I'll post a little more about atmosphere another day. It was different perhaps from what I had expected.

Enjoyable game to watch. Argentina with almost 3/4 of the possession, around 5 times the amount of passes, more than double in shots, Messi alone had 10 goal attempts. Iceland looked very dangerous every time they attacked in the first half with their fast and precise passing. Agree with @Grapeviney, not a well hit penalty by Messi. This was the first game of the tournament so far that didn’t have a goal scored in the final 10 minutes. Early days but good for trivia night. Loving the reports @Diamond_Jim. Aussies unlucky in the end. The boos for Hernandez were coming through loud and clear. Sainsbury post match stated he wasn’t a fan of the VAR before and his mind hasn’t changed after today.

Fantastic atmosphere at the stadium... great game. France full of individual brilliance but we played as the better team perhaps. We have avoided the opening round thrashing of the last two world cups... all in front of us now. Interested to hear from you experts as to whether you think we played differently today than we might have under Ange. Today was not the time for Tim C in my opinion.We simply didn't have enough of the supply he needs. My son is hoping for an Argentine draw with Iceland as that way the round of 16 match we are scheduled to watch could be France v Argentina. That Spain V Portugal draw has pretty well done for the other teams in that group bar some big upsets. Cheers and great to interact.

With all due respect, we aren't turning over close to a third of our list now.. We did that in the early Roos days when we had to because our depth was non-existant and we had only a few decent players on the list. That's changed now. There is absolutely no chance we not only delist 6 players but trade six as well. It's not good for the stability of our list and we aren't going to top up with lots of kids at this stage. It just won't happen.

There goes my sleep tonight. Thanks mate - it took me 3 months to grt over that movie.

What about when he claimed in one of his training reports that Viney was on track for Round 1. Then Viney gets ruled out for a couple of months and Saty claims he knew that already as someone told him at training, but he wanted to keep it to himself. Therefore admitting passing on false information to Demonland and invalidating every training report he has ever given. That was a good one.

Well there was just a few weeks ago when he said McCartney had never been in the coaches box...

Satyriconhome has really covered himself in glory today. I mean really. I have never seen a more pathetic retort when he has just stated absolute untruths and a total lack of any understanding....

Something tells me you love being the centre of attention on here. Quit trolling.

Still haven't answered Bob's question about how you know this, yet earlier made the bold statement that he had never won a B&F for the Eagles. If you knew it already, it stands to reason you would know he had won a best and fairest.

That's a ridiculous proposition. He'll be 62 years old.

The trick is finding the guys who are about to emerge, rather than have emerged (big bucks) or never will (Carlton’s GWS retread strategy). what if Pat McKenna is that ideal player for outside run? If he can get on the park, maybe we will find out.

@Satyriconhome I get what you are saying in that we tend to overrate opposition players and possibly we are thinking that Gaff will solve all our issues and be our messiah. However he is a proven performer, he’s had many great seasons, the best is still ahead of him, he is a Brownlow fancy, and Sydney put a hard tag on him and he still had 24, 6 clearances and 6 inside 50s. I love billy and ANB but they aren’t getting a hard tag. If he does get tagged out of games at the dees, then think about the space Brayshaw and Salem will get. He might not be the messiah, we might overrate him, but he will make our side better and that’s enough for me.

It's unfounded when based on clearly incorrect facts, or a sample using only Friday night's game vs Swans. We might listen f you made a case based upon reason and real facts without the woe is me

I' d bet on Eddie having been worse for the culture at Collingwood not Pert

I’m surprised that Pert lasted as long as he did at collywobbles given he was working with Eddie spaghetti. Couldnt imagine he (spaghetti) would be easy to work with so to last as long as he did is quiet the achievement. Dont forget collywobbles got rid of Balme too. Bit of history there. Welcome to the Dees Perty.

With all due respect Saty, I think you are wrong here. Last year against Port in an elimination final he had 34 touches. Then in the next final he had 25, so hardly went missing when the heat was on. Grand Final in 2015 he had 34 also. So I think he has proven that he can stand up in big games. While he is obviously not a brute in the middle like Oliver, he's a different type of player and one we don't really have. I don't believe he is worth any more than $700k a season though, unlike someone like Oliver who in 2-3 years will be easily worth over a mill a season.

Ideal scenario would be bringing in Gaff, Langdon and Wallis. Vince retires and we move Jones to the half back flank. Best 22 next season: B: Jetta OMac Hibberd HB: Jones Petty Lever ? Gaff Viney Salem HF: Melksham Hogan Neal-Bullen F: Spargo TMac Petracca R: Gawn Oliver Wallis Int: Langdon Lewis Fritsch Brayshaw We win 2019 flag.

Third in 2016 and 11th in 2015. I couldn't be bothered looking any further so there may be others.

Spooky stuff!

Absolutely spewing France got that 2nd goal. If we managed a draw I'd have us booked into round 2. Peru and Denmark are not much chop. At least we are only 1 goal in arrears after playing the best team in our group, which is good news for any possible tiebreakers. We need to take care of business in the last 2 games, and it would be nice if France crushed both Denmark and Peru. Theres still hope.

It was enormous ..at least three times the French support. We had at least 10k of the 40k crowd and the Russians who made up about half the crowd were mainly behind the socceroos. A point would have been so good for the Aussies. The clock moved so slowly from that 75 minute mark. Not sure if it is the same at A league but the scoreboard does not count down the injury time so I was doing a lot of watch checking during that 5 minutes of injury time.

Messi's penalty hit was poor, didn't look at all confident on the approach. Great effort from the Icelanders, but can't help but feel like we also deserved a point today. Agree with Fos that there was one camera angle which showed we got a touch on the ball on the French penalty, and agree with others that the hand-ball could easily have been a red. VAR aside, thought we played pretty well after a nervy start and should approach the remaining group games with confidence. Very jealous of you @Diamond_Jim - the Aussie support looked and sounded strong!!

What an absolute legend. Hats off to a young man who takes life in his stride. He’s clearly intelligent and will become an asset beyond the field at this club. We need more like him

If I were Lever after doing my knee, I'd be curled up in the foetal position crying my eyes out at how the world is so unfair. 22, and just going about his business as usual. This bloke is so mature. He's a real culture-changer I reckon.

Very close Macca. Fluke goal by France at the end. Australia were the better side on the night. Pity.

France were the marginally better team anyway but we were far from disgraced. We can get points in our remaining 2 games ... forget the rankings, Peru & Denmark are not that good and are beatable.

Great effort by the team, deserved a draw