Chris

It was reported that he had agreed to contract terms with Melbourne yesterday or before. The dees had the contract drawn up ready to go before the Hawks decided it was a better view while back flipping down the road.

Isn't it great that it isn't our board meddling in player management anymore!

Agreed but they are two different holes that need filling. Unless we can find one person who is a vastly experienced key back/ruck/forward/ fast outside mid with class then we aren't going to fill all the holes we have with one person.

We are desperate for experience. Jones and Vince are the only mids in the team to have played more than 100 games and Vince is already spending a lot of time down back. We are desperate for a good experienced leader to guide and teach all the young talent we have and a four time premiership player who just got second in the BnF of a good club would fill that role very nicely. Would you prefer all those young mids learn from Vince or Lewis? Pace and class can come from someone else, we could do another trade for that elusive person this year as well and have both.

Lewis is coming for his experience, he fills a different hole to the pace hole we have. I am not convinced Barlow fills the experience hole well enough for him to be both the pace and experience.

They could ask for that from the Hawks, one of their young mids. Any player from us is a bonus.

One thing I am happy about with this potential trade is that once again we didn't leak. There were clearly talks yet not one word from the club until the leak came from the Hawks. Makes me wonder what else we are up to that we have no idea about!

I still think this deal can happen, but am not confident it will. Lewis at this point has not said he is staying, with all the talk you would think he would have if he wanted to stay. When he does that I think this is dead. I think the best move Melbourne could make is to get them selves into a trade with GC that could include O'Meara to the Hawks. Get in the ear of GC, who we seem to have a good relationship with, and offer them something that they want that can be tied to the hawks trade then get GC to tell the Hawks that that is now part of the deal for O'Meara. If the Hawks would take a third rounder for Lewis as was reported then maybe it could be along the lines of: Garland, Dunn or the like to GC from us, O'Meara from GC to Hawks a young mid or maybe late first/early second round pick from Hawks to GC Lewis from Hawks to us. So we get Lewis for Dunn/Garland (very good deal, may need to trow a pick in as well) Hawks Get O'Meara for Lewis and a reasonably high pick/young player (good deal) GC get Dunn/Garland and a reasonably high pick/young player for O'Meara. (may want another pick, maybe a future second round from us)

Comfortably satisfied, which is rather fluid in its application. The AFL tribunal had no real experience in applying it to doping cases. Various comments were that it was set way too high to the point is was almost beyond reasonable doubt. CAS stepped in and lowered it back to where it has been used internationally in doping cases and bam, guilty!

Thanks, but I thought they meant the findings from the Swiss appeals court, not CAS.

Simple, the burden of proof was not applied by the AFL Tribunal as precedence would prescribe.

Where can we find it?

They are asked to give ASADA a list of everything they take whether they think it is legal or not. They are asked this for their own protection. For example, a player says yes I have had asprin, their test comes back positive for steroids, the player has no idea what is going on as he doesn't take steroids. ASADA go back to this form and look to see what he has taken, as it turns out asprin made a mistake and didn't clean their machinery well enough and some of their asprins contains steroids, bingo, player gets a massive discount (potentially no ban) as they are not at fault. This is obviously completely made up but it is one of the reasons the players are asked to fill out the forms with EVERYTHING they have taken. Why did not one player mention the injections?

I think you may have just written the speech for Dill!

Yet we expect 12 year gymnasts to not do as the coach says or there are the same consequences, included the loss of an Olympic medal in Sydney. These are all adults, yes there is pressure but if you do your check and find it is banned then the club and your team mates would either be happy you found out so they could stop it, or they could continue on their happy way complicit in giving players banned substances. There is no excuse and no leeway. I don't care about the culture as if this is stopping the players taking responsibility then it is a culture that must be changed.

That is the crux of the issue Saty. If the players had of followed their training and done the checks they are trained to do, instead of trusting the people you are trained not to with regard to PED's, then none of this would have happened. Others are to blame but a big chunk of that falls on the players. ASADA also didn't handle this badly, they folloed their procedures and had to deal with the AFL and EFC leaking every thing under the sun and trying to make life difficult for them. Once they stopped talking to the AFL the leaks stopped and the process moved on.

Agree with this except for the difference between rec drugs and PEDS. Under the current AFL rules you are right but the AFL rules are a joke. Most of the rec drugs are in fact banned by WADA, if not all. The AFL do not share their test results with ASADA as they know full well that the players would be banned under the WADA code, instead they give them a strike, or let them avoid it by self reporting, and then they keep playing. The AFL rules are a diabolical mess and should be scrapped.

Is that Robbo trying to write an article or Little coming up with his next marvelous ferry plan?

Bombers cooperating? They lied on their forms, they left things out in their interviews, the club blocked at every chance possible, records went missing, not sure I would call that cooperating. And Dank, he was charged and banned from all WADA affiliated sports for life. He is appealing it. Not sure on criminal charges, but also why have the club or players never sued him in order for him to tell them what he gave them?

Did the EFC lawyers, or Hirds, get a single thing right through this whole saga, except of course that the AFL tribunal was going to let them off, but that was a fait accompli before the hearing even started.

Who is to say the AFL wont make more than 200mil form the venue in the next 9 years and therefore coming out in front.

I think Salem would be wasted as an inside mid, his kicking skills are too good to have him just bashing it on the foot out of a contest. You are right though that he may not be quick enough for out side run. I would love to see him play on the outside but as the distributor, You can have Oliver and co int eh contest to get it out to Salem who then nails a pass to the true outside pace of Hunt. I guess this would make Salem an outside mid, but not an outside runner.

I'm not at all. I think it is more likely they stuffed the formula and we benefitted, especially as they changed thr formula the next year by moving the bar higher.

From memory they said Frawley just got into the top bracket. Had it been 3 years or a bit less money he would have been in the bracket below.

Exactly! All this talk about us being looked after with the compo is crap. We got exactly what we were entitled to under the rules, nothing more and nothing less, every other club would have recieved exactly the same. Where we did get help was with PJ and paying out contracts.