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Jeff Farmer, in the season or two he was at his absolute best, was one of the great small forwards. He kicked 76 goals in 2000. For a forward pocket, that's freakish. He'd have a field day sitting under the feet of Clark and Dawes.

Yep, business to business advertising in public papers, always been a totally amateur, incompetent thing... wait.. what? Wouldn't the very definition of 'amateurish' describe an organisation that for the sake of misplaced sense of 'what a club ought to do' didn't use every available means to seek out market share and opportunity? Note that this does not declare any note of desperation, or even specifically mention a major sponsor request. In fact, it has our two existing major sponsors on the ad. What it does do is say 'here is the contact point' for all businesses that may be looking for a sponsorship arrangement. Particularly accessible for small and medium enterprises that don't have a dedicated sponsorships and promotion unit. If the response on that add is to gain one extra second or even third tier sponsor, it is a positive return, and I'd imagine it would also start a few conversations with people who may end up just being funnelled into the MFC business networking events, which is also a nice benefit and may lead to further sponsorships in future. But what am I saying, as a professional organisation, we really ought to be relying on hearsay, word of mouth and cold-calling to secure our sponsorship suite . Of course.

The club is damned if they do and damned if they dont! If we get to round 1 and dont have a full sponsor list the masses will cry 'we should have done more to find sponsors'. What we see here is the club get on the front foot and advertise in a popular news paper and the hordes cry 'Schwab is a joke, cant he find sponsors without needing to advertise'

but its Watts' fault surely

Max is a big lad and has been out of action for a long time. In addition, he will eventually be called upon to fill the demanding role of a ruckman so he needs to get the right conditioning before he gets thrown into the fray. If it takes an extra couple of weeks before we see him in action then so be it. Players who are 208cm tall don't grow on trees and I reckon he's going to be important for us in the future. Full credit to the club for the way it's handling our injured players and our youngsters.

What's the problem?! MFC memberships have been a gamble for about 50 years....

Mitch Clark & Jack Trengove back in full training today. Great to see & look to be moving well.

If advertising value was measured in column inches we would have generated over $50m of value last year!!!!

we've got about 15 of them at the moment...

Killed live music.

This is an area about which the majority of us know very little because it touches on areas of physical fitness that require specialised knowledge. The only thing I can comment on is the aesthetics of the game - how it looks and feels to me as a spectacle. When I go to Etihad, I usually sit on the eastern (city) end of the ground but for the NAB Cup triple header, I sat on the western end near to the players' interchange area. I was amazed to see players running on and off the interchange within minutes of the start of the game. They were coming off three and four at a time and mainly, they were sprinting up to 50 to 75 metres to get off as quickly as possible. I sometimes wonder if these blokes aren't fatigued just in the act of completing the interchange let alone playing the game. I used to subscribe to the theory that you don't flirt with form and if a player's hot then you shouldn't move him or take him off. That's gone out of the window these days and because you have physical beasts like Dane Swan who seem to defy nature and continue to perform at top gear despite (or because of) constantly being rotated. Today's game has developed into a far different spectacle to the one which we grew to love. I want to see the better players lasting longer and doing their stuff but I have no idea whether capping rotations is going to do that or make the game watchable. I sense however, that we're going to get a cap on rotations to a number between 80 and 160 and we're just going to have to live with it and hope that our list matures a bit more and our football department comes up with the right plans to stay ahead of the game when that happens.

Stephen Tingay...dynamite...All Australian 1994.

What a sad, sad situation.

Should be a good comedy duo.

May have to revise thinking as Ted Baillieu "emerged' "ashen faced" "on Wednesday night" from"yet another special liberal party room meeting" Luckily not in the Vault and to date no claims from other teams players that Victoria was tanking. Caroline Wilson unlikely to be involved as matter requires some knowledge of reporting practices.

Its all about champion data rankings and being in the top 10% of ranking points in your position to be classed as elite. Is Jones in the top 10% of midfielders on his champion data points? NO. You could ave more points in midfield compared to somebody else in defense but not be classed as elite compared to the defender who is. Is Jones in the top 10% mids full stop. NO. Out of 100 mids can you pick him in the best 10 mids in the game?? Pendles Swan Kennedy Mitchell Ablett Judd Murphy Black Watson Thompson dangerfeild Bartel selwood Cotchin Hayes .....

I walk past Pokies everyday, nobody forces me to pump them. Last time i fed one was 1989 at Jupiters on the Gold Coast. I don't gamble, not interested. I spend my money in different ways. I have no great issue with them, apart from the fact that they have killed the old Pub as we knew it. Security costs and councils have been just as damaging. Pokies are like Brothels. If you do not have them above board they will be illegal operations. A lot of Humans use them.

Dreamteam is just adding up kicks and marks and handballs. Supercoach has the Champion Data rating system which is at least somewhat more complex. But again, stats are misleading and statisticians shouldn't be using words like 'elite' or attempting to find an subjective read on data. It's just pointless. But, hey, Chief Footy Writer Robinson just wants to grunt and mumble and snort rather than think so regurgitating numbers is what we get.

I hear you. Magner has generally done good things when he is played as an inside mid. when he was moved to a defensive forward last year his output declined and i think his confidence probably did too.

We are human, and we not going to stop gambling. Someone is going to make money from gambling. Better footy clubs, than some d!ck living off the misery of others. This way, we are all dirty.

I'm hating the word "elite" more and more every day.

I haven't managed to get to more than one club pre season session this year but I wandered over to the local park late yesterday afternoon where my grandson's under 9 team was having its first session for 2013. It's probably light years away from a senior AFL team training but one thing that struck me was the fact that the ground was rock hard. Now if you imagine adult footballers recovering from a Lisfranc injury, a navicular stress fracture or an ACL/hamstring then you really wouldn't want them running themselves to the ground on hard tracks too early. No doubt, Mitch, Jack and Max have spent a goodly part of their rehab doing work away from hard grounds and the fact that they're out on the track now provides room for some optimism. I'm sure that the club's medical and fitness staff have their recoveries under control and let's keep fingers crossed for their early return. I remember the last time we had close to a full list - it was 2006 and we made the finals. Not saying that we're capable of that this year but I'm certain that one of the factors that helped North finish ahead of St. Kilda, Carlton, Essendon and Richmond in the battle for that last place in the top eight was it's very small injury list for most of the season.

Agree 'Jack', unless there is a major disaster it's time to put all the BS aside and let the club have a clear run at it. Players, Coach, FD, Board and Management.

Let's face it, the last 48 years have been punctuated by divisiveness and bad blood within the club. We had some limited success in the short periods during which we had stability at the top. We have a board in place that served us well over the past 12 difficult months (and I believe the bad times started almost 12 months ago to the day with the Jurrah arrest in Alice Springs). The football department is also starting to show their worth. I would like to see them get 12 stable months to show us what they can do and lift the club without the distractions we had in 2012.

The Wizard... the small crumbing forward we need.

The correct answer is Isaac Weetra

Hopefully no one at Essendon ever looked 'ashed faced' cause thats apparently a sign of great misconduct!

Its a voluntary tax pure and simple. Except for the 2.3% that are addicted. That's a sad story. For the other 97.7% its a bt of entertainment. You can go to a movie or you can have a bet on the dogs or you can throw $50 on a pokie. Some around here need to stop moralising.

Allan Jakovich The fastest player to 50 goals in league history, in 9 games, and equalled John Coleman's 21 games to 100 goals.

Easy one here.....a fit David Schwartz.

Exactly we are not the moral police, if its legal and people want to play the pokies, then let them.

That is an unbelievable amount of money [censored] away on vending machines that don't give you anything.

Does that mean the first half of 2014!

Anyways, it means absolutely nothing. If you take Tippett's move out of the equation, Sydney would be equal sixth for "elite" players with 3 other teams, yet they are the premiers.

Theres statistics and theres damn lies

Nathan Jones. Oversight? Has a category been left out.....more pre-show BS

I'm not sure how you got from Macca's point to getting rid of the coaches. It's just about recognising that in this instance the coaches have a different driver to the AFL. In my work the rules and processes we have to work by change all the time and usually for the greater good of the company, but if it makes my job more difficult as a result, of course I have a grumble about it. Fortunately my boss has a lot more tact than Demetriou, but the gist of his message is the same: too bad, so sad, get on with it.

The stats prove that players go longer and harder when they play in bursts. The coaches naturally want that and have adjusted their game styles and recruitment accordingly But we got by for about 140 years without the high level of rotations and IMO it was a better spectacle before we had the high rotations. I hate the basketball end to end stuff. The AFL yet again cannot admit they have stuffed up. They spent 13 years trying to speed up the game for TV and now they are trying to slow it down. The fans hated it and screamed every year about 36 players around the ball and the fact that players don't have an opponent but a 'zone' The AFL are monopolistic idiots. I am waiting for the mea culpa. We were wrong on the interchange. As well the rapid pace of the game made recruiting change. They wanted athletes not footballers. We as a club have fallen badly for that. Our game is unique in that we can have players of all shapes and sizes. That was being driven out of the game. I'll be happy of that comes back. Now they are going full bore the other way. 80 interchanges. It will probably be about legal responsibility rather than asthetics but I like the idea of less. The coaches will work there way around it like they always do,

I'm sure you will not be surprised with my player. Ronald Dale Barassi. In more recent times I would go for Stephen Tingay or The Ox.

Not quite on topic, but did anyone else note the odds on Jack Watts for most points by a Melbourne player? Could be worth a shot at 6.00. A few times last year he showed he can do it. All he needs is to do that more often.

Robbie Flower, I would love my kids to see him gliding his way through traffic on the wing and delivering the ball to big Mitch

If the cap is introduced I'd like to see the substitute removed, never been a fan of it

I agree 100%, the problem is that umpires are instructed to pay a free kick if they see it no matter what. That's the fundamental issue which I believe leads to poor umpiring. As you say the Grand Finals have the best umpiring because the consequences are so high they pay decisions only if they are certain it is there.

OK then. Do you mind if we indulge in some harmless speculation? Wouldn't it have been easier to groan into your computer rather than type into a forum on hypotheticals that you don't want to participate in hypotheticals?

Lifts my spirits so much.

Great news. Hopefully no setbacks, and now just a matter of gaining match fitness. All Demonlanders please touch wood!

I hate soft frees for very minor incidental contact, such as a hand brushing a shoulder, etc. and unfortunately the recent NAB games have been full of them. It makes my blood boil. If only they umpired every game like they do Grand Finals, where they only pay blatant free kicks. Note: I appreciate that it's the best umpires that officiate in the GF, but you get my drift.

The game we see today has almost been entirely designed by the coaches . The defensive flood - coaches The forward press - coaches 36 players in one quarter of the ground - coaches Extra numbers in and around the ball (ugly packs) - coaches 160 rotations - coaches Key position forwards in the last line of defence - coaches Fitness levels of players to be able to do all this (with the aid of rotations) - coaches 80 rotations may not entirely eliminate the ugly packs and flooding. It's a good first step though. The game was a much better spectacle before the advent of the large number of rotations that we now see. What's wrong with wanting the following? ......... Forwards in the forward line, backmen in the backline and the best players remaining on the ground (predominantly)