Mazer Rackham

Alf "Fiery" Fricker! Could hoist a bag of wheat onto his shoulder with one arm. And "Harmful" Harold. Victorian Railways Commission Tug of War champion 5 years running. He used to be our local night soil man. All the kids were in awe of him. Those were the days. Seems like yesterday. (give or take 150 years)

Well, nobody's perfect. (Except for certain posters not a million miles from here.) We are on our way to being respected, feared, and other good things along those lines. We may have a certain measure of that already. What a long way we have come. Misson is part of that journey and can take a healthy slice of credit for dragging us up from the cellar with his knowledge and expertise. It doesn't just happen. People have to put in. Hard to bag on that. Thanks Dave, for your commitment to a potentially lost cause, and for your part in the club's rise. Good luck, and don't forget to take a warm jacket.

I was a doubter. I was okay-ish with the deal on a "buy one (Hibberd), get one free (Melksham)" basis. At games I would call out "that's the good one" when Hibberd got the pill. But turns out we got two good 'uns. It's good to be wrong!

Misson accomplished!

I can't stand basketball but found this very interesting. And reminiscent of something ....... A chaotic style has this high school team topping 100 points — and driving opponents crazy

And another one! Heart of the Jaguar | Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated

And another one! Jaguar Lives! trailer

Yeah OK but after Brexit we will relocate to Holland. A permanent base with training facilities to die for. And it's closer to the MCG than Casey.

Oh damn! And there I was believing the hype

It's their grand final

Then after quarter time he'll go back to his old ways and we'll cruise in to an injury-free 15 goal win

Would that make it twins then? First Daisy Pearce, now Melksham. I hope this isn't contagious.

On the subject of Jesse Watch, from the bigfooty Freo pre-season training thread... On the sidelines, boom recruit Hogan continued individual skills, running and repeat-effort work in his comeback from a navicular stress fracture. "Jesse's going good. He's started being drip-fed into drills in the last couple of days and he will look to be in full training in the coming weeks," Fyfe said. (Later reports have him on track for round 1.)

Not any more, Bugg just retired!

It's the other side of the coin. When a player is on big dollars, and they do a knee in a game, break a leg, or what have you, we say, well, their careers are short, you never know when it's all going to come to a shuddering halt, etc. Good on 'em, they deserve the money, let them capitalise while they can ... Everyone thought the Swans were mad signing up Buddy to a 500 year contract but no-one thought Buddy was mad for taking it. So when you're in a position where a club is prepared to pay you those big dollars, you also have a responsibility to give your best shot at giving them value for money. And the more key the player, the more so. Richmond for example ... up to this season, they structured their whole forward setup around Riewoldt. What would the board have said if he'd gone glacier climbing in Alaska and blew out both kneecaps? I can't hear them saying "well, their careers are short, you never know when it's all going to come to a shuddering halt, etc"

Meanwhile ... Hunt suffered from a textbook case of "second year blues" (maybe third year if you want to get technical), and if he's adjusted to his bulked up frame, may get back to his frantic dashing runs of 2017. I think he and Tracc in '18 suffered primarily from being feared by oppo coaches and had extra work put into countering them. I trust our coaches are also up to the challenge.

Spot on. Thank god there are SOME sensible people on here. The NT town "Alice Springs" does not exist. It is actually a secret Chinese base on the dark side of the moon, primarily used to insert arsenic into vaccines. It was rented out to the Saudis, who sublet it to the Iranians who then recruited Syrians to fly planes through the twin towers, which also did not actually exist except in doctored photos.

I am one of them. So watch it.

The famous demonland poster? Can't see it. Unless he's drafted as a rookie.

he's been very chirpy at training the coaches are sure to throw a few crumbs his way i expect we'll see him flying at some stage

It's pretty simple. He is carrying a niggle and is likely to for the whole season. Do not expect the long awaited unleashing of the Tracc Beast in 2019.

Stretch didn't train with the main group and did a number of drills by himself. First he moved the guys' backpacks into a big pile. Strength training, probably. Then he unwound extension cables for the boom box and laptops. Then plugged them together to make one really long cable. Great agility. Then he tightened the guy ropes on the tent. Then watched the other guys training for a while. I think it was a recovery period mandated by the physios. Most of the rest of the time he was running slow laps, between Gosch's and AAMI getting cold water bottles for the guys. Didn't slow down at all, even in the heat. Each time the coaches gathered the players in a group for instructions, he ran out and held up some whiteboards with magnets on them. I couldn't see what was on them. At one stage I saw Goodwin approach him and ask for a loan of 50 bucks. Stretch got out his wallet but his reaction time was a bit slow and Goody really gave it to him. High standards even at this time of year. You play like you train! While the main group was doing match simulations, Stretch cut up a whole bag of oranges with his non-preferred hand. Towards the end of the session, he picked up a big sack and collected the stray footies in it. One was right on the boundary line, he tried a freak goal with it and it missed and the ball went out on to Punt Road. Macca paid out on him and said he's supposed to be collecting the footies, not playing with them. Part of his rehab I suppose. A really strong session and if he keeps it up, there's every chance we'll see him collecting footies on the G in September.

Nice euphemism. Other euphemisms in play: "Ballwinner" "Stakeholder" Not that there's anything wrong with that

Ooh! Me! Me! It's actually a British saying, emerging from a strange confluence of horse racing and the theatre

True. We had a John Meesen and a James Sellar once. They were monsters of the "Herman Munster" ilk. We want Michael from Halloween.