Chris

Maybe he is officially the senator for little known, irrelevant, or lost causes.

Don't start that, we will be here for days going through all the fwits that have emerged from this debacle.

What they have done is take a public place which included facilities for women and renovate it and low and behold it still has facilities for women. I wonder if it would have those if the government hadn't made it part of the deal of handing over the original facilities?

Senator pushing for review of ASADA. http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/essendon-saga-senator-john-madigan-wants-confidential-documents-released-20160223-gn0z12.html Sounds to me very much like he has accepted the ramblings of the donkey!

And had the gall to say Collingwood should have the first team due to all the support they give women! Hate to let him know but at best he could claim to being the third team, and that is only if they are successful in getting a team.

I think you mean the AFL was a waste of time. It was the AFL tribunal decision that WADA appealed, not ASADA's

They might get a chemist warehouse type organisation on board that way!

Would you say the same if woosha told a reporter his players should run 3k 5 days a week and do 4 weights sessions, and make sure they take their vitamins? What Roos said is not that detailed and I dont think it oversteps the mark but there is a line there of what they can and cant say. I would prefer we go no where near it.

I am not overly confident anyone in AFL land has any real grasp of what is going on, no one as yet has shown any real appreciation of it. I hope you are right that the had a back up plan in place beforehand and that Jake knows what he is to do. If that is in place then Roos' comments are irrelevant as if he is asked he could easily show when the pkan was put in place. If it wasn't put in place then he may well be walking a fine line. I have confidence that Roos would be near the front in the AFL for actually working out what is going on so it shoyld be fine. I would prefer they just didn't comment and went about supporting him in private in what ever way they legally can.

Simpkin also played 1.

Seems like a lot of trouble to go to for the five players called Mark. Would it extend through to the two Marc's and the Marcus? Maybe we should have held on to the Russian just to get the benefit of this rule (if there actually is one)

I love the way the headline says the new rules explained and then the article completely fails to explain what this rule even is, let alone the change to it!

The ban includes getting any instruction from the club about what training you do, i.e they can't put a program together for you. In the article Roos talks about Milkshake going for a run to two every week until June July before he ramps up what he is doing. If you are really strict on the interpretation you could construe this as instruction from the club. The AFL wont have a problem with it as they would like to see the banned players running around with the rest of the team, ASADA or WADA may have a quiet word though and say that he is close to the line of instructing.

Article in the hun about Melksham. In short we pay 4 months Essendon pays the rest although we dont have to pay anything under industrial law. It was unclear if we are going to pay anything though as it also said we havent paid him since his ban and wont until his return. Roos has spoken to him a quite a few times and suggests he take an extended break from training and football and recharges the batteries. Roos said he should ramp up his training in June July so he is ready for his return in September. Does that constitute training from the club while banned? Would hate to lose him for another year because we spoke to a journo!

I have built the spreadsheet to do what you say you did a few years ago. I got the raw info of the teams websites. Happy to send it through just PM me you email address.

The current system is crap and doesn't actually address the problem. I am in a family where my wife is very successful in her job and is in a highly paid industry, I am also reasonably successful but in a low paid industry, so we rely on her wage more than mine. If we are to have a second child the offerings form the government are all but irrelevant and don't actually really help. If our wages were reversed we would have no issue and could afford to have a child tomorrow, as it stands we can't yet as we are at a disadvantage because we have the gall to have the wife as the bread winner. It may actually mean we do not have a second child as we wont be able to afford for her to be off work for that long without meaningful support. Again, if our wages were reversed we have no issue. I think a lot of people confuse the PPL with a baby bonus, the PPL is not about helping people have children and paying for the extra expense (which is what the bonus is all about). The PPL was all about supporting families realistically set them selves up with the female as the bread winner and suffer no real consequence against their counterparts with the male as the bread winner. Yes people that earnt more got paid more, that was the point! It was all far to far from the communist ideals of many in society.

It is in published blogs in the age, she goes on spiteful hateful rants without actually looking at what the person was saying. This is probably a reasonable response to many of the comments she gets but she brings in the sensible comments to and rants about male privilege etc even when the bloke has made a good point. Very counter productive, as I said I was interested but got sick of the rage against me as a man, just like I used to enjoy Q&A until I got sick of Tony cutting off every Right wing person on the show before they could really answer the question just so the lefties could ramble on and on and on.

I disagree wholeheartedly. We should not be aiming to bring men down, this is divisive and will get the whole ideal no where. What we should be aiming for is to get the men in power to open the doors and allow women in if they are up to the task (i.e. quotas are also counter productive). One of the things that puzzled me with many feminists was their attack on Abbotts PPL scheme. Here was a scheme designed to allow families to be structured with the women as the bread winner, while still allowing her time to recover from birth and feed and care for her child while not being disadvantaged against families with the man as the bread winner. Perplexing in the extreme, although I guess it is all too capitalist and right wing for them to even consider the merits of what he was trying to do. To date it is one of hte greatest policies for empowering women in society yet they all shot it down in flames.

I used to read her column a bit and found it quite interesting and informative. What I couldn't stand was the broad generalisations about men, and how she always paints men in a certain light. One of the most annoying bits is her responses to people who criticize her. Sure some go miles past the mark and deserve to be pulled up but most of the time if a man questions her then they are a misogynistic fool who needs a re-education. It is all to them and us to be at all constructive.

Point 1 - No they haven't, that is why I said if it is true. Point 2 - Billy is entitled to have an emotional response and to react to his feelings. He does not have to stay happy with the whole situation and stay good friends with people who betrayed him if he doesn't want to. Point 3 - It is not controlling at all. He is making a clear decision based on what is best for his own well being and happiness. Do you expect him to stay friends with them if they betrayed him? I certainly wouldn't. Point 4 - I have read it many times in various articles from various sources. Basically what is found is that men are either detached from their marriage or detached from the emotions going on and don't realise what is happening in front of them. Another example is that apparently if men suspect their partner of cheating then they usually are as it has to be obvious for them to notice, where as if women suspect the husband usually isn't. Again I have read this in various places, the articles usually have references to studies etc.

Hi All, I have had a look at the stats for this years list in terms of age and games players across all teams. I have attached a file but who knows if that will work. A few observations from what I found. We match up very closely with the dogs on average games, average age, and the spread of the experience across the group. They have one more who has played over 200 games and we have one more who has played between 150 and 200. Gold coast are actually just older than us (whole list) and have more experience. We match up almost exactly with Collingwood for age but they average 10 games or more extra experience. Of the teams above us only GWS has a younger primary list and only Hawthorn has a younger entire list (including rookies) Only the Lions have a more inexperienced list than us based on games played. WC have far and away the most players between 100 and 150 games at 13. Hawthorn and Freo are next with 7. We are still a few years off this but it seems to be important to success. North are far and away the most experienced team and the oldest although Freo are just behind in age. Are they the great under achiever? Hawthorn are actually below average in age, although along with Freo are the only two to get close to the average games played by North. Does this show Hawthorn have a nucleus with masses of experience and lots of players without much at all? Probably. This wont look good if the experience all retire in a hurry. Essendon are surprisingly old, even without the tops ups and with the banned players included in the calculations. So much for their supporters saying how they have a great group of youngsters coming through. You can get all this info off various websites and using entire lists is very limiting as is evidenced by the inclusion of all the Hawthorn rookies dragging down their average age. If the file attached (which it wouldn't in the old style forum) I have built it so you can put in your best 22, or the 22 named and see how the age and experience lines up across each line of the ground for each team. This is more useful as it is far more realistic to how the teams line up. If it doesn't upload, which I am confident it wont, and you want to have a play just PM me you email address. Apologies for those of you bored by stats, of which I am sure there are many. average age.xlsx

True to a degree. But; If the reports are true Billy has been betrayed by his wife and best mate, he has every right to be angry If they wish to be together then that comes at the cost of their friendship with Billy, they can chose one but not both Billy being angry and cutting himself off from them is not controlling, it is Billy feeling rightly aggrieved and looking out for himself and his well being. Billy's comment about not seeing the end coming is not an uncommon one in marriage breakdowns, usually from men. You are right in that it is no ones business if they are together but you can't claim people close to it have to be happy about it.

The article doesn't make this clear but the quotes from Billy are from a TV interview he did last year, I think it was during an appearance on 'on the couch' (re reading the article they do mention it was on open Mike, it still could be clearer). I read exactly the same quotes the other day in the other paper than attributed it to this appearance. The rest of the info has come out because Billy has been speaking to his 'friends'. Although I question how great these friends were considering the info is now out I certainly don't begrudge Billy from talking to his friends, i would actually encourage him to do so.

I didn't read the thread last week as I knew it would be just as ignorant a pile of BS as the ones against Mitch the other year. That was embarrassing as a club. No one is also questioning his on field talent, it is the backroom influence and dealing that people take issue with. He may have rarely held an official role with the club but don't for one second think he didn't hold considerable sway over what went on at the club for a few years there.

It may well be due to his profile that he becomes the face for me, as I said my thoughts may well be unfair. Schwab and Connelly were both part of the boys club that did exist and did massive damage to the club on all levels, not just on the field. The fact they were saved and the coach was sacked wreaks of boys clubs protecting their own. That decision alone put us back at least 12 months, if not 2 years. Don't get me wrong, there were many faces in the boys club but for reasons that may well have to do with his profile his is the one that stands out above all for me.