Hawk the Demon

Could have been Coach 1 (Voss?) Trac 5 May 4 Lever 3 McKay 2 Langdon 1 Coach 2 (Goodwin?) Trac 5 May 4 Langdon 3 Lever 2 Weitering 1

The Age has reported that the lawyers for Clarkson, Fagan and Burt were proposing to seek an injunction this week to halt the AFL inquiry. If true it explains the haste to "call the whole thing off", which happened on Tuesday evening. And of course there was a very different spin put on the development at the AFL press conference.

I have a simple question about last night. Why didn't we hear from the Chair of the Independent Panel? The whole point of their appointment by the AFL was to give us independence and clarity. The Panel gets disbanded because it could not finish its work, mediation was rejected, etc..... An eminently qualified KC could surely have handled the press conference and the AFL CEO could have had his say after that.... When the Panel was appointed the AFL's statement included It is also vitally important that the panel is able to complete its work independently of the AFL. The AFL then rides in and takes the matter back into its own hands...... With hindsight (which is always handy) Gil could at least have admitted that establishing the panel wasn't a great idea. Those involved that could afford it were always going to "lawyer up".

Interseting article in the AFR today. "Mystery over borrowed $75b spending fund" Large amounts listed in the Victorian Budget under "Decisions made but not yet allocated" I wonder if any is heading the way of Caulfield? We can only hope.....

No.

Best I could do was Q18, Row X - seems the lower and middle Level 4 tickets all gone.....

So the big question is a return for Monday June 12 (Colingwood) or Thursday June 22 (Geelong) - which would be 34 days from the injury. The scheduling means we don't have a traditional type of bye, but three 10 day breaks - (Fri)June 2, (Mon)June 12, (Thu)June 22 and (Sun)July 2.

Dunstan is not an option as he is injured at the moment.

Well, we have no other option than to to watch a Demons' team without Clayton for some weeks. Both Harmes and Jordon had great hit-outs for Casey on Saturday, so, together with Sparrow to come back, at least there are capable replacements lining up.....

Looks like we have loads of junior members.... At the end of last year 59,700 individual members led to the 66,484 number quoted by the Club and the AFL. Only 42,250 members were over 18. So over 29% of our members are juniors.

Notables playing for North - Cunnington, Tarryn Thomas, Lazzaro, K Turner, Bonar, Curtis Taylor.

Casey Team v North Melbourne B: Adams Tomlinson D Smith HB: Steele Turner Buntine C: Howes Jordon* Grey HF: Moniz-Wakefield Schache Melksham F: Laurie* Brown J Smith* FF: Bell White Harmes IC Koo Woewodin* Neocleous Sestan Jefferson * AFL emergencies 16 AFL listed players selected (1 to be AFL sub) Emergs: Gregory, Shepherd, Baldi, Valentine

Sorry NC - it's exactly the right time. Let's build on this fabulous trip. Do we believe in our RAP plan or not?

Great stuff. Just one thing missing for the moment. Why hasn't our Board officially supported a First Nations Voice to Parliament? Essendon has. We are at the "Stretch" stage of our Reconciliation Action Plan. Time to Stretch and make that call! What are we waiting for? Let's keep leading in this space.

I also find it amusing that one of the grounds we will rely upon tonight is that "the decision was so unreasonable that no tribunal could have come to that decision having regards to the evidence before it". The Tribunal said that Roo, being a reasonable player, could have foreseen that he would make forceful contact to Ballard's head. Reasonable is key....

I see it from the other angle - if we had not appealed there would have been a members' riot. And there does seem to be a very sound legal basis (which is what is needed) to make the appeal, and a reasonable chance of success - the facts are pretty straight forward - it now goes to the laws of the game. I am not sure that our Footy Director should be tweeting about it though. Pass the matter over to the lawyers - this will be won or lost tonight in the Appeals Board hearing, not in the Twittersphere.

That's fine Binman - at the footy the chorus is clearly ROOOO! from us all. I hope the AFL recognise it's not a BOO.

It was Binman. As I said, just a small thing, but important to get it right - after all Binman is of the opinion that he will be a Superstar so we will be mentioning his name for a long time....

Love the Podcast Andy, Binman (and George of course when he is back). Particularly liked the analysis around losing contested possession and clearances, but winning the pressure game. Being at the game it did always feel that we would eventually pull away, but the Ballard stoppage clearly stopped our momentum... One tiny little suggestion - we are going to talk about Jacob Van Rooyen for years to come, so can we please pronounce his name the way he likes it - VAN-ROY-EN, not VAN-ROO-YEN. Hard I know because his nickname is ROO or ROOEY. Just as Christian prefers PE-TRAR-CA, RATHER than PE-TRACK-CA.

We can add that to the list of consultations that the Constitution Working Group didn't do. Time wasn't the issue - in fact they attended to the Constitution change at least a year later than they should have.

Give Kade an extension....and do it now. I am sure it's in train.....right?

My favourite topic - member number inflation - but that takes the cake. 😀

Looks like she is in rehab with her sore ankle....

Spargo absent. Kye Turner and Salem in rehab. I thought I saw Verrall there early, but then he was gone. Viney was working away from the group and ANB joined him for some significant running - looked like a load management exercise to me, so would expect them both to be available. Brown, Lever and Hibberd all trained unhindered with the main group so I would speculate that all three of those are also available to play on Sunday or Monday (despite Richo managing expectations there - still a main training session to come). Gawn a certainty. And lastly, Joel Smith was training!

JJ as sub is my guess based on the way they set up the Captain's Run.