Mazer Rackham

He's said to be a hard man .... hard as nails .... for days at a time...

Strike a light!! You "admit" it, as if it were something shameful and revealing it would risk public shunning and humiliation. Fair enough. Because it is. You mean Ronnie Wearmouth, who all by himself was reason enough to detest Collingwood for ever and ever. Next you'll be saying Ray Shaw seemed to be a nice chap. That is the whole point of the exercise and the exact thing that keeps us going and makes it all worthwhile in the end. (Assuming there is an end!) Collingwood. Strike a light.

This is exactly the problem with Collingwood as a club. Their recruiting, their dull & stagnant game plan, the kerfuffle over the Malthouse/Buckley "succession plan", all obscures the big picture, which is ... They have succumbed to the cult of personality. Eddie is Collingwood, and Collingwood is Eddie. For the average C'wood fan, the two cannot be separated. Any light discussion of life at C'wood without Eddie leads to angry defences such as "18 years ago he saved the club!", "17 years ago he built the Lexus/Westpac/Holden centre with his bare hands" "the rest of the world conspires to bring him down", and things similar to what you'd hear in N Korea, Zimbabwe, Kazakhstan, etc. His more recent track record is none too good, but to attack Eddie is to attack C'wood itself. It's an attack on society ... it's unpatriotic! The CEO of C'wood is more like a personal assistant to Eddie. Because he doesn't get to call any shots. The Dear Leader does that. Even down to recruiting. Or recall the Gubby Allen mini-scandal of a year or two back. What other president would get involved at that level? No one dares challenge, as the might of the state C'wood publicity machine naturally and automatically puts its backing behind the incumbent. All threats are squashed before they can gain momentum. All this keeps Eddie on the throne permanently. It's also a trap for the actual football-playing part of the club, as Nathan can't be removed while he has the protection of the prince. It's a beautiful thing . Long may it continue. Long live king Eddie!

Here's my champion data prediction. Coll and Haw swap coaches, and Coll push for the 8, and Haw finish well outside it. Give Buckley GWS's list and they still finish outside the 8. "Champion" data could well be "Bloke down the pub" data for all the wisdom it imparts.

I absolutely get that. From my occasional forays into Church City, a short 5 minutes of listening to 5AA is enough to harden one against those two clubs forever. (well .... for a while anyway.) I can't imagine what a steady diet would do to one's mind. Something like this, probably: However, we must look at the big picture. Provincial difficulties must be risen above and the long range, objective view be held. And that is, clearly, that a certain few clubs must never be given an inch. Must always be held in contempt if not with outright hatred. In no particular order: Carlton, Essendon, Collingwood, for reasons that are too obvious to need writing here. Hawthorn, Geelong, Sydney also deserve no quarter. Adelaide, Port Adelaide, as already discussed. Richmond, for being Richmond. St K, Footscray. For being contemptible losers, and Footscray even more for winning in '16 and breaking that stereotype. F***** losers. North, same reason, but without the winning part. GCS and GWS. "Vlad's folly". One for not winning enough and one for winning too much. Freo for being anonymous and taking up space. WCE and Brisbane, for beating us in the past. The f****** b******s. That's all I can think of for now. But no true supporter of Aussie Rules can go too far wrong following the above chart of who to hate. How much hate, you ask, and how to apportion? As a rule of thumb, or when in doubt, remember this: too much is not enough. GO DEMONS

Well, it's out of their hands. Freo called up and asked very politely if Tirdy could come and play with them. And the AFL looked up his record and discovered that after recklessly dumping the AFL into its biggest scandal in 100 years, he did some coaching for a prominent footy club, AND last year he presented the Norm Smith medal! Fully rehabilitated! Back to normal! It would be wrong for the AFL to continue to victimise Tird given that some other organisation saw fit to grant him those second and third chances.

Yeah, one's got a huge chin and a dachsund body, one's a dork who wandered into the shot by accident. One's crossbred with a sheepdog, one's climbed down a beanstalk that grew up to his castle in the clouds overnight, one's a terrific young bloke who's suffered more than he deserves, and one's a traitor. But which one were you talking about?

Sure, but compare with the "second stringers" of just a few short years back .. M Jones, Blease, Tapscott, Petterd, etc. World of difference. (Some of them were "first stringers"!) If these guys (ANB, Harmes, etc) are are our second rank then we're doing alright in team development.

Poor old Joel, down to his last $40 million! It's uncanny how companies with phantom clients and phantom income end up getting into strife.

Wasn't injury, wasn't luck. In spite of all those setbacks we were already in the 8. Our destiny was in our own hands and we let it slip through to the floor, tripped over it, and broke our necks on it.

Would you consider spitting on the coach?

Wait, what? You live in the remotest part of the globe (Frankston) and Casey is STILL 25 mins away? Great Scott. You would have to be great Scott himself to have the nads to attempt that journey.

I was one who long held out hopes for Jack. Waiting waiting waiting for him to throw the switch to "grunt" mode. Slowly it became clear it wasn't going to happen. When he was traded I was sad but understood why. From the AFL web site. Review of the WCE-Port practice match: "Ex-Demons forward Jack Watts (one goal) did some clever things despite only having nine touches". That could describe nearly every game he ever played for us. 5 kicks 4 handpasses 2 marks 1 goal. A very typical JW game. In our match, only 3 players got fewer touches and one of them (Lewis) played 1 quarter. Sad, but such is life football.

A long time ago, before the Dark Times, the only Melb names "others" (non supporters) knew were Bruce and Green. Then for years, the only name known to the outside world was Nathan Jones. Now, when they talk about Melbourne at all, they talk about "Gawn" and "Petracca". That says everything. Yes, they know "Hogan" too, but they way they talk about Gawn and Petracca is the way they talk about elite players. Gawn has put it all together, on and off the field, everyone has seen it with their own eyes. But Tracc doesn't have the runs on the board yet. Glimpses. Teases. We're all waiting, Demons and non-Demons, for the explosion. When it comes ...

Good problem to have. We have waited in misery for years to enjoy problems like this.

We train old men to drop fire on people, but their moderators won't allow them to write "bitchcoin" on their forums because it's obscene!

Biffen's out there operating without any decent restraint, totally beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct. And he is still on the forum posting messages.

"Hamstring" tightness. Maybe it's really tightness in another, smaller, muscle, a little higher up and a bit to the side of the hamstring.

Thing about ANB is he doesn't have anything stamped on him to say what kind of player he is. No neon light like there is on Trac, "beast with X factor", or Oliver "extractor par excellence", or Hunt "dasher". He looks pretty nondescript as a player. But there he is ... just getting in the right spot again and again, doing handy things and kicking goals. He just keeps doing it. West Coast had an entire team of ANBs in the 90's. (and one Jakovich) You think "what is his best position?" Doesn't really matter ... the kid can play football. Just get him out on the park. Compare with "athlete" types like Majak Daw or Mason Cox who do the occasional good thing but mostly just look lost.

Watch with the sound turned off. All you need to know is who has it and where on the ground it is. You can see that for yourself. If you need deeper analysis, then (i) do you really trust the commentators to provide anything meaningful? They prefer cliches and sensation; (ii) entertain yourself by making it up. You're bound to be as accurate as the paid commentators if not more so. Does anyone really need the commentators hyping up the context of the game? One of their KPIs is to keep the "excitement level" up to stop neutrals from changing channels. (PS. when I say "you", I mean "people in general")

The kid did look good. But we're not going to have Majak Daw playing in key defence every week. That opened up a lot of opportunities that a better team wouldn't have allowed. Having said that ... good on you Bayley, and GO DEMONS

too skilled too slick too good we should do that to them every time we play, any venue we handled wind better their game plan was tired and regressive game over by 3/4 time individual performances ... can't read too much except that the team looks confident. they know they're good. gawn overpowering fritsch looks handy. kent & jkh will be getting a sinking feeling in the pit of their guts umpiring was not a good indicator for the rest of the season. usual garbage: in the back, too high, dropping it, all nonexistent for the most part. protected zone nonexistent. playing on by egregiously cribbing sideways nonexistent. GO DEMONS

EFC: welcome to Essendon, Jake. We do things a little differently here. Get these ... er ... "dietary supplements" into you. Jake: duh .... supper? suppel ... duh ... what for I eat dial supper? EFC: don't worry about the details, mate. It'll put hair on your chest. Jake: duh ... okay NEXT: (two weeks later) EFC: Jake, did you eat those dr-- ... those supplements? Jake: .... yeah!!! Jake eat good ... kind of ... nearly ... EFC: hmmm .... maybe we'd better go back to the injections.

If Tyson doesn't make the best 22 then it's a sign that we have a number of midfielders who have gone past him. Which can only be a good sign for our list and our prospects. No passengers and no free games.

What, Hird botched water allocation in the Murray Darling basin too?!? There is no end to his wilfulness and degeneracy.