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I think Burgo is Performance manager, not strength and conditioning. For memory, this role was filled by someone who left earlier in the year (Alex Sakadjian?)

I’ll remember him as a failed recruit who we didn’t mentally screen properly who promptly invented concussions to get a retirement pay out. He was the AFLs first multicultural ambassador and lauded by the Prime Minister. No doubt he was the victim of things at Collingwood and the media turned on him but geez he was keen to play the martyr. The mainstream footy media do like doing the league and big clubs bidding for them but not nearly as much as left wing journos love a sob story. He’s a footballer who took too many magic mushrooms, he isn’t actually Patrice Lumumba.

Doesn’t look like it.

I read this totally differently to you. I was embarrassed about some of the opinions I had of him based on some pretty biased reporting. It reminded me of how all encompassing & powerful the AFL brand/bubble is. All the rhetoric coming from the AFL & Collingwood is just that. They/we have a long, long way to go. ...and yet you remark about him being self obsessed. Is it any wonder... I would say he's very introspective & has been trying to find his place in the world. Unfortunately he's been let down along the way, firstly by his father & then by other authority figures who should know better...Bucks, Eddie & Gill to name a few.

No sinking feelings are for those who still go on about 186, the PF loss in Perth and anything else that has gone wrong in the last 50 + years

Surely you know it is a put-down for a well-off person who is a socialist. Whereas if a poorer person is a socialist he is just full of envy. They've got you either way.

You obviously missed the whole point about the Muir story. To understand it, you might need to buy a few grams of a concept called 'the ability to walk ten yards in another person's shoes'. Probably not on your shopping list. And it's obviously not very kosher to be black and have a healthy ego. Muddle on, as the song goes, muddle on...

Heritier Lumumba stood up to the bullies who think they did no wrong. Consistently called a chimp? Not if he was white. What makes one better than another because of the colour of their skin ? Are we still in the dark days? Eddie and his chumps have much to answer for.

Matthews was a complete thug. Kennedy and Jeans condoned it. His reinvention as some sort of wise old father-figure in the AFL is pathetic. Says so much about the nature of institutionalised brutality and abuse that runs like a cancer throughout the industry.

So many in this thread really betraying their ignorance. Speaking of an experience with such certainty that isn’t yours to do so. An uncomfortable read indeed.

Not exactly. Watch players like Libba and Hunter, they immediately look to give it off, but wide, sideways or backwards, to the free man. The free man becomes the runner and looks quick, because he has a few metres on his opponent, who has left him for the contest, instead of manning up. When we get the ball inside, we either try to break tackles (Viney) or handball it like a hot potato, to players manned up, a metre away (Oliver). That is the difference, that makes our mids less effective than they should be and makes us look slower than we are.

I go back to the Bulldogs game where they matched us in the inside contest and it was about even for clearances. But they killed us out wide where their runners and rebound like Crozier and JJ and Bailey Smith were able to outrun us. It’s midfield runners that are the priority!!

An interesting take by Fox on our needs: what-every-club-needs-in-the-draft MELBOURNE Defensive mid The ‘red wave’ was alive and well in 2020 when the Dees had the ball, with plenty of offensive running on show. Pressure the other way though wasn’t as good for Simon Goodwin’s men - they ranked 17th in tackle differential and pressure differential. Part of this must be down to effort given the sheer number of inside mids that are already on the list - someone like Liam Pedler is another inside player who applies pressure and would help rectify the club’s defensive capabilities. It looms as their biggest need now that they’ve got Ben Brown to shore up the forward line, but it depends on how much Simon Goodwin thinks he can fix the issue internally rather than using their first draft pick to do so. A defensive mid is not what most would have thought given our need for an outside mid and a small forward. I can see why they think that, given we are 17th on tackle and pressure differential which is an indictment on a team that professes to base its game 'on the contest'. I would say Goodwin will try and fix it internally with the players (forwards and mids) he has rather than use a good draft pick for another inside mid. Unless those we have up their game and effort one more inside mid won't fix our tackle/pressure problem.

The statistics show he kicked 10 goals and 6 behinds in 8 matches and had more tackles than most senior players get in a whole season but they don't show how many tackles created opportunities for others. It also does not show whether the team won or lost the games? Some times we judge players on the obvious statistics but don't show how many times a player chases an opponent and causes a turnover thru pressure?

What has his father leaving got to do with him finding and embracing his history and culture and his racist experiences at Collingwood and the turning of people opinions of him because he is outspoken?

I'm big in the camp of Salem moving up to the wing where I think he'd be the perfect compliment to Langdon. Problem with Salem at half back is that he's not a line breaking kick. He's very good at hitting targets but his kicks don't travel fast through the air, they are more chip kicks which is what you want for your forwards to lead to because they are easier to mark, hence why he should be pushed up to a wing. Salem was actually second in our team for distance run per game, he has gradually been building his tank, which he could work on even more as his last pre season was interrupted by a bout of glandular fever if my memory serves me correctly. Whilst he's not the quickest we have Langdon on the other wing who is quick where Salem compliments him with the ball use. Salem also does some of his best work around stoppages where some his best attributes is his vision, decision making, clean foot and hand skills. I'd like to see him played in a specialised "inside winger" at stoppages where he roams the back of the stoppages looking for the handball receive where he hits up a target inside 50, a high half forward, or can make the handball to start a scoring chain. Sort of like how Collingwood play Sidebottom or GWS play Kelly I think Salem has similar traits and could make much more of a difference on a wing in a specialised role than he does at half back.

Look . . . let's face it . . . DR is right. He won't make it as a ruckman. We'll have to settle for 600 career goals, three B&Fs, a Brownlow, three premierships and half a dozen AAs playing a Bernie Quinlan type role across half forward. He might get the occasional tap out to a running Tracktor, who slots it from 55 metres on the boundary into a five goal headwind, but it'll be a sheer fluke rather than skilled ruck craft. Dwayne reminds me of the Executive at Decca records in 1962 upon rejecting The Beatles . . . "we think guitar music is going out of style". Absolutely clueless (on a good day).

The day I no longer have to listen to Dwayne Russell commentate will be a nice day

Good for them, but it doesn't give them a free hit. If what you say is right then Eddie should know & be better...

That's a big statement to say he faked concussion, by saying that U don't believe anything he says about anything.

didn't you know, rpfc, that there are more expert sociologists on demonland than any other fora

Came off my bike yesterday - connection to the landscape is not always a good thing.

White supremacist thinking is alive and well....what the [censored] is a 'classic champagne socialist'?

I'm with him on this one... I don't see any reason for an inquiry, it's an Eddie snow job. Don't want to own up, set up an enquiry and muddy the waters, a classic political ploy. Collingwood should have done what St Kilda had the courage to do and just own up & apologise.

Having followed him and a loyal band of fawning followers on twitter for a long time I can say he's a classic champagne socialist. He's a very good writer who was nearly lost to journalism but with both this story and the Muir piece I think he's been overly flattering of the subject. Robbie Muir belted the living daylights out of a lot of people, it's ok to include some reflection of that in a huge piece about him. Lumumba has more than a healthy ego and did revel in the publicity and his justification to not taking part in the inquiry about him seems way too weak to me. You have to really buy in to every part of his story if you're going to let that slide.

Wow! What a fantastic and enthralling article - thanks for sharing it ??

Very happy he has found happiness. However lets remember his Angolan father abandoned him for 13 years and his stepfather O Brien helped raised him. I just think regardless of nationality this bloke is fairly obsessed with himself and thats how he played footy as well, little defence and all eye catching play.

Would be the height of stupidity for the club to trade to those spots ahead of time without having a variety of options, contingencies and palatable fallback options.

The kid has just turned 19 FCS. Coincidentally, 19 is Dwayne's IQ.

Just read this from the ABC site...well written, extremely challenging & eye opening. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-05/heritier-lumumba-strength-in-african-culture-collingwood-afl/12820942

Phil Merriman was promoted to Freo's main man. So we needed a second guy, whether that's as part of a Burgo succession plan or not time will tell.

gil is a puppet on a string........and a muppet

Nathan and Eddie’s judgment has been shown to be very suspect and they got the Lumumba response wrong as well. They nick named the bloke chimp for God’s sake. There’s no defending that. The right course of action would be a mea culpa and a genuine attempt to atone and try to be better in the future. Lumumba is right to call them out. I think he's over reaching just a tad when he says things like ”My name is a symbol of black power and revolution, and ties me to the spirit of great men such as Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali and Patrice Lumumba”. He aint any of those. And I’m glad he found solace in his identify and re-connected with his Congolese roots. So much so that he’s decided to move to……..Los Angeles?

This is officially known as a "Plantar Fasciitis" injury.

Fix this and we'll be a very hard team to beat.

1. NO, NO, NO, LJ's current hairstyle is heroically ugly - potentially cult! 2. Yes!

Kobe Farmer’s 2020 WAFL Colts stats - nothing spectacular which might explain the silence from both Melbourne and Fremantle as well as his presence here. My guess is that he might be offered a place within the system - perhaps at Casey - with a view to earning a place on the rookie list somewhere down the track.

Freddy Cook use to sit in the sauna of a friend of mine in Sunshine on a sunday morning before going out to play for Port Melbourne drinking a couple of long necks, didn't seem to do any harm to his game.

I remember Dermie, that brilliant scientific intellect, once saying of the teams that used to stand in the shallows at Port Melbourne beach the day after a match, that is was “to wash out the lactic acid”! ???

And [censored] it, I’m gonna have one more beer.

That’s Good because in 30 yrs of bush footy I didn’t do much of anything more than a slow lap before training But still had plenty of injuries glad it wasn’t because I didn’t stretch much

Anyone else get that sinking feeling we were probably keen to get Macrae, Laurie or Stone with our early picks and all 3 will be gone? Now we’ll be scrambling to trade out one of the first 3 picks.

Tom Scully has been unfairly maligned by the Dees faithful for long enough. I think it’s time to forgive and forget!

We should have sent Weid there when he arrived at the club.

1) its actually the part of the NGA that makes the most sense, clubs giving some indigenous or ethnically backgrounded players they have ties to a chance that wouldn't ordinarily get it. 2) yes, could be costly in the sense that they have may have moved in front of us and in turn will take a player that we want with that pick ahead of ours, like an Angwin, if we are indeed keen on him as the Age have suggested. 3) I'd be surprised if we aren't progressive with pick 28, either using it to take a player we think can be a good player and to start developing this year or as some sort of trade up. The only advantage I can see to trade it backwards would be as some way of getting involved in trades this year or next with Collingwood (Daicos) or Port Adelaide (Burgoyne), who have very good father-son prospects and may need points or be willing to trade out of good draft picks because those picks are redundant. There is also the scenario whereby we trade 18 and 19 to move up the board using those picks. In that scenario, keeping 28 makes sense as the second pick. But I just can't see us not using it. It's a nice pick in this draft and especially in some phantoms that are coming through, with Stone and Pedlar rising, the possibility of maybe getting a heavily-phantomed mix of Cook, Carroll, Bowey as a draft trifecta or something similar would be a desirable result under that circumstance.

NGA's can be Cat B rookies as well if they pass through the draft. Could be costly that Geelong trade if you are/The Age is right. If we don't have players we like left at 28, maybe we parachute out of that spot but Id be surprised. I think it's more usable from a trade sense maybe coupled with 18 or 19 to move up to get a Macrae or another desired player not likely to last to 18. Again the problem with that is with compressed lists and quite a few teams having multiple first rounders, why would they want to trade down?

But that is the point, he could be worse. Have you seen him play? Why are you saying he is a LOCK for us. If he is good, fair enough, but you don't draft players who aren't AFL standard, just because their fathers were good players. If that was the case, we would have 3 of Lyon's sons on the list for starters.