deanox

what you say has merit with respect to building an ideal midfield. In our situation though, hard at it, quality midfielders who are of true B+ grade and above are required, no matter how tall. If we can get a solid functional midfield, and can then worry about slotting a star in. Unless we are going to trade a player and two first round picks we won't get a star. I don't think we should be as focused on star factor as we are with guaranteed quality this year. And of that means trading the potential for the sure thing, I support that if the risks are weighed up.

Written by an author, at home, who is monitoring the Demonland forums, and others, for news.

On the up side, PCL means out for the season but probably back, 100% for week one of preseason. Even a torn meniscus would be similar. 8 weeks and back on deck. ACL is a bit more serious, because PCL can heal on its own.

Just kick it to Hogan!

I hope it's the players who do that. Compare those comments to those of Jack Viney. Hopefully a few players point out that if he wants a leader to take us there, he should be that leader.

Agree redleg. A successful vfl finals campaign would be a great way to go out I would've thought.

Now we know why the appointment took so long. Glad they took the time to sort it out first. Hopefully a few other appointments will fall in place quickly over the coming weeks.

agree completely re paid positions running or working in the club. The board is different.

ridiculous. The board is not a paid position. The board is the members representatives regarding direction of the club. They can bring in non Melbourne experts (legal, finance, etc) but the president is Melbourne, he must be a supporter. A for-profit company pays directors to make decisions in the best interests of the company: the best interest of the company is money making, not having a successful football team. Volunteer directors at a not for profit organisation must have passion for the cause. Our board will go out and hunt the best people to run the club. That is CEO and other staff. They don't need to be Melbourne people. When you say "look at the most successful clubs they go out and headhunt the best" you do realise that it is the passionate supporters on those clubs boards that you are referring to doing the head hunt don't you? The exception to this is privately owned clubs like uk premier league or nba, nfl. They are businesses. They make decisions based on making money for their owner not on success. In the AFL we have clubs, which are different to businesses, even though we are now run *like* a business. Unless you are advocating privatising the club you have no idea when calling for a non Melbourne president or board.

My biggest question is went did it take so long to conform/announce? He has been on the board for a few weeks. What have we been waiting for?

I understand him wanting to find out who is coach, what sort of attitude he has towards Watts with respect to what position he should play, how he will be used etc. BUT Until we have that coach appointed he should, as a professional, back the club to the hilt when representing the club publicly. If he then chose to leave at years end he has a very easy out "The club is moving forward in a great direction, however I felt like xxx's plans for me were not the best for me moving forward and I club xxx offered me a great opportunity to play forward/back/bench/under the covers, and I thought that would be best for my development. I wish the MFC the best of luck". Then 12 months later he can rag us for poor development no worries. But while we pay him, and he plays for us, he should be us to the hilt. Does he go to footy clinics and tell kids that Melbournes ok, and going in a good direction but they should think about other teams as well? I also have a real query here now, in that I think it is unlikely that he will see any coach who would get the best out of him. I imagine if a coach said "Jack, you could be anything but you need to work harder and go in harder", he may get Neeld like vibes and back off quickly, although that is what he needs.

What I hope from this: The players sit down after training tomorrow night in some sort of leading teams style chat, and players like Jones, Clark, Trengove, Dawes, Garland, Gawn, Clisby, Jones M, Viney, Grimes and others pull Watts up on his attitude. I hope that his team mates point out that if he wants us to improve that he is one of the 40 blokes in the world with the power to do that, and that arguably he has the potential to be in the top 5 of those 40, but unless he makes it happen it never will. This is a perfect leading teams style opportunity, because it doesn't matter what external people say, only what his peers say. I don't think it will happen at Melbourne but it's the only way out of this mess. The players need to stand up and take responsibility and realise that 40 blokes trying their guts out every weekend and every training session is the only way it will work. We have an opportunity in a way; it's very rare for a player to act like this publicly, so it might actually cause some words to be said. We can only hope.

I'm disappointed but didn't expect better really. If he had an ounce of leadership he would have stood up this year to lead instead of waiting for someone else to do it. He would have come out tonight and stood by the club and promoted it publicly. He seems to be too immature to realise while in the media he is representing not only himself but the club. If he leaves we better play hard ball with the trade. I'll be sad to see him leave because he could be anything, but if he wants out we should not hesitate in using him to try and get another young player. Watts and our 2nd pick for Taylor Adams or Swallow? I'd take it.

apparently he wasn't the push behind that, but to be honest, he cost us nothing put on some solid Ok performance and was probably a half decent fall back on the list as we were lacking mature key position players at the time (Mcdonald has come on since, as have gawn and Spencer, and we have recruited Clark and Dawes despite not playing much).

Re the unknown Mexican substance and all the other unknown substances that have been injected. I think someone else mentioned on here worksafe investigations and I'd be very surprised if objecting employees with unknown substances is acceptable under work place laws. Also re Dr Bruce Reid, if he has overseen a program that has included unproven and unknown substances, no records or data or monitoring I would imagine he would be looked at closely by the board that relates and registers doctors as well.

I'm not sure about that the WADA code out laws the "intent" to take an illegal substance. If the player signed a consent form, was injected and believes still that is what he was given, to me that is pretty clear proof of intent to take the substance, even if it can't be process he took it (through positive tests). The question then is "is intent to take a banned substance mitigated if the player believed the substance was legal?" (Ie was shown a phoney letter). I would have thought not given Wade Lees never took a drug and got banned (although I am not sure if his ban was based on intent to take or importing).

It would be interesting to hear Dave Missons take on the north Melbourne and GWS losses from a fitness performance view. I'm sure he would track numbers at training, and these matches followed the slog in Geelong and the Darwin adventure. Not an excuse for the tripe served up at etihad, but if it can be measured it may have less bearing on NC than I originally thought.

I have no problems with Craig provided that his good relationship with the players* doesn't mean he has too much of a friendly mentoring type of relationship that means he can't also be a strong authoritarian type coach when required (ie isn't too soft on them). *I think our playing group is fragile mentally. A coach with a good relationship is very important to get them to want to play for him and build the culture where they put themselves on the line for the team.

I'm sorry I couldn't help myself. The top chat is fantastic. That correlation is amazing and id be surprised if there isn't a causal relationship. The second chat in bit so impressed with - because they are cumulative averages they ate a bit fluffy. Congrats on the top graph though, great proof of what we have been saying would love to see a similar graph for other teams. I suspect it will be more accurate for to and boron shows than middle sides which have more close games. Great work.

Not even the betting agencies are squawking!

KC, what did you take from that anecdote? That Blease is well liked or that Magner has a quick tongue? I'm not sure much can be read into it, apart from the fact that I'd like to hear more MFC players sticking up for each other more often.

The way I read the AFL statement was "We are charging based on the interim report, and the interim report only. More charges may follow if more evidence comes to light." My knowledge of the interim report is that it did not name any players, as to name players ASADA would need to issue infraction notices. Following the conclusion of the investigation, which will hopefully include interview with Dank (forced under new laws) ASADA should issue a final report which will then either name players or not. Subsequent to that, I imagine that the WADA will be reviewing the brief of evidence to ensure that the correct procedure has been followed and all is above order. That means, player charges could still follow, and it could be any time in the next 12 months realistically before that process is complete. It seems bizarre to me that Jobe Watson would be tweeting, and that the EFC would be making statements, about players being exonerated. It clearly isn't the case.

Why didn't they plead guilty but challenge the severe rating? I thought that was a loop hole that was allowed? He could have pleased guilty then claimed it was low impact given he wasn't injured until after the incident.

No one has yet explained what the charge is for. Rough play? The footage to me looks like what everyone else gets fined for when wrestling. Is the injury the only difference? Also is like to understand what was reckless about it. Should he have been more careful in his wrestling? The wrestling and roughness looked intentional to me. Maybe they are saying the injury was reckless, he meant to wrestle but the bloke got injured which means Clisby took it too far. Doesn't make any sense.