Melbman2

I thought some folks might be interested in pics of old newspaper I found under carpet in Ballarat few years back. Here is as good a thread as any.

Maynard had the collective memory of every action he has ever made on the football field and the outcomes of those past actions. To say he only had "split seconds" is to pick a point in time to suit a particular outcome. He had all the experience from years of football to know exactly the outcome of his actions. Anything less than 6 weeks and he should consider himself lucky. Deliberate, dangerous, reckless, negligent and brutal. Hang him high for all to see.

https://twitter.com/melbournefc/status/1046995373632442368

I hope the club doesn't make comment on this. I'd like to think they are so focussed on what we need to do to be successful that they see this as a matter of no concern and independent of where we are heading.

I'd just like to say the formatting in this thread has become first rate. Well done chaps!

should be some worthless ones in the backline coming up then

Just needs a full preseason ;-)

Joeboy - Was not sighted

All fair points but I think they have been fortunate to have had cheerleaders in the media and at AFL house which has meant most decisions here have not really been under the scrutiny that they should have been. We still have the issues of: Destruction of the evidence (spreadsheets etc) required by the AFL investigation and subsequent ASADA and Worksafe investigations. (Governance wrist slap can't cover this) Tampering with witnesses, financial inducements for evidenciary stances/change of stance, refusal to sign statements for financial gain. Worksafe penalty being embarrassingly inadequate. The $200K fine equates to less than a 6K fine per endangered employee. And considering each employee's safety was breached with each injection, this may equate to as little as $6 fine per injection, but we'll never know, see first point. None of the above has really been addressed and: To top all of this off they will benefit from their year of punishment by receiving an enhanced draft pick order. They should be at the end of each round as it was in all reality a self inflicted wound and artificially lowered ladder position not reflective of their true list strength requiring the legup that real cellar dwellers are entitled to. But yes the Essendon players did get a year off for the most blatant and systematic team game drugging issue in Australian (world?) sport history ever uncovered. Well, the ones that were left did. Edit: My last paragraph is a bit meh/crap but I'll leave it in

It would be great if he made a statement like Viney and sign early but he still has some way to go until the end of next year. If he leaves then I'd say that his ability to think is worse than his goal kicking run up.

Ah jeepers!! I was in full media absorb mode and that sunk deep. I think I need some professional help now.

You say that as though "scepticism and blind hatred for all things Essendon and the AFL" isn't a great quality to have.

That really cracked me up :-) cheers

in a deal that allowed them to keep Clayton Oliver from (the evil clutches of) Essendon.

A funny story I've posted here before was I have two brothers, the youngest one was a bit premmy and uncoordinated but had a go nonetheless. The youngest one was playing at Full Forward against Powelltown and his opponent was Sean Charles. So my brother at FF kicked zero and Sean at fullback kicked 5 lol!! A strange fact about the Powelltown ground was it was on a massive slope, on the side of a mountain from memory. I once kicked the ball far side of centre and it rolled all the way down the ground for a goal

Man that really sucks. Teal cup means you were almost there. Tough break!!

Here is my tale of woe... In the mid 1980's I played for a Footscray sponsored rep team against a western Sydney team in Sydney. I sat on the bench most of the game cos the club I played for was despised haha and I was only selected cos they had to due to results. I was a full forward at the time and held the league record then for the most goals kicked in an u17s game which was 18. I also gave away 12 goals that game too. I'd regularly handball from a mark in the goal square to the kid off the bench, who would be playing forward pocket, in the goal square to bring him into the game and cos I was a late bloomer and had spent a few years as a bench warmer myself and knew the feeling of not being up to it yet. I reckon I gave away 50 goals that year minimum. My boots also fell apart after 6 games that year and they got replaced with moulded soles and I couldn't run in the mud haha. That was costly, I ended the season on 92 goals. Could have kicked near 200 if I'd been greedy and had proper boots. I also had to run 6ks to get to the ground to play or catch the bus from the ground to games which took it's toll. On days I got a lift to the ground I'd play a much better game. In my seniors year I never went to training cos I had to leave home so I'd only play reserves when I could get there so from playing 8 games of the 17 or so in the season I lost the B&F by 3 votes. Shame was my GF was asked to do the voting one week and wouldn't vote for me cos it would seem biased lol. The worst part was the coach in u17s was a lousy human being. His younger brother who had no talent was made captain wtf!! and when I was on fire he would take me off and put his brother on at FF. He'd kick no score and I'd be back on. One game I was told to not leave the goal square or I'd be benched and I knew he'd do it. This was a top of the table match and there was a huge crowd and I wasn't allowed to lead or I'd be off the ground. I found out after the match that there were recruiters at the game from the Dees and the [censored] coach wanted his brother to stand out. Of course the idiot FF who didn't know how to lead wasn't spotted!! My dad was an excellent athletics coach (I had siblings as state and national junior champs) and trained me a few years later for a comeback and I was going to go down to the Dees for a run. My younger bro was training at the saints, never got a game though, and in a local comeback game I landed on my tailbone and dislocated it, that was pretty much the end of it sadly. Loved the game, lots here would know the feeling of seeing the ball and wanting it so much that nothing could stop you, you just had to get it, to touch it and smell it, watching it bounce around while you zoom in and placing yourself in a better spot than your opponent so they come off worst, all while you sum up your options and...... anyway. Long time ago :-) It's time to pick up the kids lol!

Never a truer word spoken. I suffer in IT under this "arrangement".

Haha, never heard that one but it wouldn't surprise me. I didn't ever go on an end of season trip with Sth Belg but did a few trips to play against Thornton where the Golden Trout hotel copped a beating. I did get to watch one of the Tossel (spelling) brothers playing for Thornton having returned from playing for the Dees. It was good as a junior to see how an expert played the game. Similar to today really, mark, play on, kick, run like hell and followup. He was a large step above all others there. Emerald were a very tough team back in the day, playing them always got the blood pumping. Mark Hastings (I think) is a name I remember from the time. One "funny" South Belg story was where a "mate" drank a bottle of scotch back in the mid/late 80's just before a seniors game and had a disagreement with the umpire and as a part of remonstrating with the ump, he um, vigorously displayed his manhood in the goal square in the general floppy direction of the ump complete with an Ocker yearrrrr!!!. Was funny at the time (though not so now I'm all grown up, I guess it was the shock value at the time) but it was a first step in the club getting kicked out again that season. When we had the basin boys home kids playing for us in u/17, there were opposition players carted off on stretchers every week. One at Powelltown before the first siren even sounded. I would have hated playing against them. Kevin (nickname Moari) ruled the boys home and we became friends outside of footy for a few years when we bumped into each other in town late one night after he got out. We reminisced about games and one funny incident where on the wing in one game Kevin forgot what he was doing and instead of tackling the player he did a flying roundhouse at the poor kid. We lost contact with each other and I sadly saw on the news one night in around '97 or '98 he was gunned down in King St late one night and didn't survive. The people you spend time with as a kid is so different from who you do so in later years. Especially when you grow up at the end of the train line ;-)

Ah yes, played many a game against the spud pickers as we called them in the 80's. I guess you played for Emerald? I was at South Belgrave where we had boys home tough nuts making up the numbers in the u17s and every few years the entire club was kicked out of whatever league they/we were in. Ah the good old days ;-) I just had a pang of nostalgia lol!

Here is the Bugg/Brown accidental clash if anyone is interested. http://www.afl.com.au/news/2014-06-14/browns-sigh-of-relief-after-head-knock

One more year of his involvement in drafting, on top of the one at the end of this year, will set us up very very well.

I wonder if we would have discovered the current frenetic game style had we won against Ess. Will never know I 'spose.