SaberFang

He's always going to be lauded as some kind of superstar after 1 or 2 good games, purely because he plays for Collingwood. It's the way of the media. Just imagine if the thoroughly mediocre and awkward Mason Cox played for us -- it wouldn't even be a story. I mean, an American playing in the AFL?! How extraordinary and unheard of! Oh, except that other guy who plays for St Kilda and debuted last year... but that's St Kilda! Nobody cares!

Hint: it has a lot to do with "compensation payments" via lawsuit from the club directly to players that, conveniently enough, don't go under the salary cap. Said compo payments would be substantially higher for players that agree to stay with the club, as an incentive. Let's not forget Essendon are rolling in money with benefactors with fat bank accounts. Money buys anything in this day and age, even loyalty. Of course, the AFL are turning a blind eye to such shenanigans. Won't even step in to prevent pick 1 going to them, despite the circumstances. Poor old "Everything By Committee" Gillon, starting to remind me of another Gil:

Well everyone knew he was dumb as a box of hammers. He almost appears to have made the decision over a beer in Bali with Bucks, because he was infatuated with the guy as a Pies fan. And he won't even be the coach next year. Not to mention he hated Roos playing him in defence and sulked all year about it, and now finds himself in the same position at Collingwood because he's utterly useless as a forward (which our coaches worked out years ago). And the funniest part is that he just has to suck it up and take it. Crap coach, crap culture, crap president, crappier money than we offered and less wins, too.

How does this work in other sports? What exactly can clubs trade? Draft picks for later in the year?

North have the worst percentage of any team in the 8. What a shock!

As expected, North are pretenders. And who is shocked, really? I've been saying it all along.

We did try. Would've succeeded if not for Richmond's medical team.

Would work a treat for struggling clubs like Brisbane and Gold Coast, having their players poached mid-season by clubs trying to reach the top 4 for a premiership tilt.

I last posted in this thread on page one and I've read through every resulting page without commenting. All I can say is some of the comments here range from disappointing to downright disturbing. It's clear that society has a long way to go with regards to respect for women. The only positive from all of this was summed up well by Whateley on 360, who noted this merely solidifies the cemented "boys club" in the AFL who can't stand a dissenting voice amongst them. Unprofessional cowards, the whole lot of them. The only ones who come out unscathed in my eyes are Frawley and Barrett, both of whom personally contacted Wilson to apologise -- unsurprisingly there's been no such direct apology from Brayshaw; just a slimy, rehearsed, lawyer-vetted script. And McGuire? The guy who was telling confidants on Sunday that he refused to apologise for his comments? What more needs to be said?

Talking about drowning women is just "banter" now? Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but the world's changed from your prehistoric views; you might want to move with the times. As for your baffling comparison about the "hypocrisy" of posters, please point me to ANY POST WHATSOEVER where someone on Demonland has commented about wanting to hold an MFC listed player under water and insinuate wanting to drown them. Because I'm fairly confident if any such post was made, not only would that poster be roundly chastised, they would likely face a board suspension. Being critical of a player's performances is so far removed from criticising a pompous fool who considers violence against women "banter" and it's an embarrassingly poor comparison, even by your standards.

The comments were completely disgusting but totally true to form for ol' Ed. Fancy saying that in the week the AFL lanches a women's league and your own club receives a licence for one.

So despite being the "most even year in recent memory", we have the same top 8 teams as last year with the exception of GWS replacing the godawful Richmond. Yep, really even. And next year Essendon get to spring back up to the top 8 with pick #1 and all their banned players re-injected into the team.

There were plenty of posters concerned about staying unchanged and going in too tall given the conditions, long before either of this weekend's results were known. We've seen some baffling selection decisions all year, so why change now? Today just continues our trend of losing every game played after a 6 day break. You'd think the coaches would be clued in by now that inconsistent youth + short breaks is a bad combination, but maybe their focus is building culture by rewarding the winning team at the expense of having the freshest legs for the following match. Understandable, but I think most supporters would prefer the win in the short-term.

You mean those "buggered" Casey players who put on a clinic yesterday with a 91 point victory? We've lost all our 6-day break games this year by an average margin of 42 points, in perfect conditions no less. The reality is that our age profile means inconsistency after 6 day breaks. Add to that wet weather footy in Sydney versus Sydney and it was an absolute no-brainer to rotate a few of our kids who played in the seconds.

Roos is already preparing how he'll spin this week's selection disaster despite, once again, countless posters pointing out the dangers of an unchanged team for this match.

Yeah, clearly a foreign concept to our coaches, despite having an entire week to prepare thanks to that magical invention called "the forecast."

Any chance of putting a hard tag on and playing man on man?

Need Freo to smash them now, could bump us up to 9th.

Whenever you gamble, my friend, eventually you lose.

Garland 15 disposals?? Is he playing in the midfield or something?

Love ya Gussy! Can't wait to see you back on 'G!

That $20 could've bought you a 6 pack!

Oh dear Scotty, you really shouldn't start slandering umpires with untrue statements right before your vanilla team of geriatrics starts playing teams in the top 8. How delicious to see them being found out. They'll struggle to stay in the 8 if this keeps up, much less top 4.

I'm with you. And as for Lindsay Thomas? Personification of the boy who cried wolf, absolutely no sympathy. And it was just oh-so-delicious to see them lose the game directly due to some North [censored] staging for a high tackle. Brilliant stuff.

25 free kicks to North Melbourne at half time. We've only had more free kicks for an entire game once in 2016.