Mazer Rackham

Lord knows I don't really want to immerse myself in this kind of discussion but I can't let this bit pass... CNN & MSNBC are not so much biased or slanted in their coverage as stupid and unaware. They prefer bright shiny objects over actual reporting. NYT cheerleaders? They have been running a vendetta against Clintons of all flavours for decades. WaPo is the closest thing to fair and balanced of the lot of them. "Equal shoutout"? This is known as "false equivalence". Two wrongs don't make a right. Don't excuse Fox for their execrable and antisocial coverage.

Let's hope our players feel the same way, especially about the bolded part. Only no-one's laughing. It's alarming and disturbing.

That's because Port have told him he's got to be more like Joe Daniher. Fast learner, our their Jack.

Well of course they can. They have done it before. Boot studders laying $2 bets. Ricky Nixon and the St Kilda school girl. Recent hanky panky at AFL house with Lethlean and some other guy. The AFL took action of their own volition in those cases. But these are all when the balance of power has rested with them. Boot studders don't have much comeback against the might of the AFL legal section, which probably takes up as many storeys as all the rest of the organisation combined. A down and out Ricky Nixon is a pretty soft target especially when the AFL probably felt like getting rid of him anyway. Lethlean ... was embarrassed by the story breaking, doesn't have much comeback, plus the AFL like to position themselves as social leaders, so they have the stronger hand. Now when we come to something like Dustin Martin and his chopsticks ... there was police involvement. What happened? Only a very few people know. (I’m not one of them.) But going after a big name player, at a big club ... with the media behind them ... means that the AFL would want to be very certain of their facts. They could easily leave themselves open to counter charges ... legal ones ... and every Richmond-supporting lawyer in Victoria would be weighing in. As it turned out, it was reported that the AFL leaned on the girl to "make her aware" that her life "might" become pretty "uncomfortable" if she did try to take things further. When faced with a murkier and more difficult situation, suddenly they weren't quite the social warriors any more. Now ... it is possible for things to happen and not be proven in a court. Or even get near a court. The AFL are free to conduct their own investigations and decide for themselves if things did or did not happen, in their judgement. And take action. Fairly or unfairly. What they cannot do is control the consequences. They would want to be very very very careful in this Bali case. If the victim does not want to take it further, it is difficult for a 3rd party to do so. And then to get a satisfactory outcome is even harder. (For the record: I do not know what happened, who supposedly was involved, or even if something happened at all. I have not even heard rumours of names. All I know is what’s been in the papers.) If the AFL are going to pursue this -- worst case scenario -- if they're going to take away a player's career and reputation, with effects ongoing into his after-footy life (depending on the seriousness of the charge), they may find that it is themselves bringing the game into disrepute. Because it is them bringing into the light something which the police won't, something murky and likely unprovable. In this case. It could be a big name. The backlash could be huge. There's a lot at stake when it comes to running a player out of the game when nothing's proven. Even if the AFL believe the victim. It's a hell of a precedent. When the balance of power is not nearly so slanted heavily in the AFL's favour, they take the course of least resistance. Which will end up being "nothing to see here". If the player is a lesser light, one seen as expendable, the AFL may give them a public shaming, with a POW confession of crimes and begging for forgiveness. But even if their investigations come to nothing, names will be leaked as "under suspicion". The AFL could well light a fire that gets out of control, and burns everyone, including them. The one thing that is sure, is that we will find out who the suspected player is -- by that I mean whose name has been floated on the grape vine -- because they will cop the Stevie Milne treatment. As soon as the teams run on to the ground in round 1, every nuffy and idjit will be screaming abuse and delivering their personal version of instant karma to the player. Mick Malthouse might even chime in. That's something that no-one can control. And it will never go away. Innocent or not.

SEN have been low rent for much of their existence. They didn't start out that way. Started out with big names – Lyon, Brereton, Brownless, and big salaries. But quickly found out that while companies may fall over themselves to sponsor Collingwood and Essendon, they don't fall over themselves to sponsor a radio station that talks about Collingwood and Essendon. They ended up with a moth eaten collection of almost literally low rent advertisers. Jacques from Xenium Mortgages, anyone? In no time at all, Brereton left because they couldn’t pay the bills. When Pacific Star bought in, there was an uptick in the quality of the advertisers but not an equivalent growth in audience. They have been hovering at 2s and 3s for a long time. They recently tried it again. The “big stars”. Morning "dream team" with no chemistry. Garry promptly set up Hollywood Boulevard again and poor old Hamish "brother of" was let known, even on air, that he was not part of the boulevard. He was an onlooker. He was right to leave. And still ratings flatlined. The "big names" talking about the same stuff as the no-names doesn't draw extra listeners, because the die-hards are all listening anyway. Now Whately ... the big fish ... this is Francis Leach all over again. The "inna-lekshul" "egg head" "big words" toff. Doesn't fit the demographic of tradies and bogans. It looks like they may be trying to change the demographic but realistically ... how much more can they eke out of the broader radio audience who mostly want old songs, daft DJs, and talkback lashing one political party or the other? By the way, it's clear that Whately left the ABC in such a hurry because Hutchison said, I'm offering $$$$ but you need to make your decision today! The offer's only open until close of business. If you can't commit, we're not interested! And yet Hutchison obviously was very keen on getting Whately. Hutchison is much more experienced in the wicked ways of the commercial world than Gerard who is a babe in the woods. There may be some room for growth as SEN have increasingly gone all out on AFL. Bugger-all soccer, hardly any cricket ... recently when Chuck Berry was hosting, he said one day "there you go … we were supposed to be talking about cricket but somehow ended up talking about St Kilda." They struggle to go for 5 minutes without coming back to AFL. Whately looks like their gamble to pick up some disaffected fans of general sports. Can’t see it working. Their bigger strategy might be that they want to get into live commentary of cricket, soccer, tennis, Olympics to add to AFL and basketball. With sports increasingly going the other way, into pay TV, free to air coverage for the die hards on SEN could look attractive! People like Maher and Fine, for all their flaws, represent good value for SEN as they surely can't cost much but actually know how to keep the show moving. Guys like Lyon need a chaperone/MC like Hamish or Huddo. Harford was a good performer and they let him slip. Dunno why they dumped Ox. It’s taken years but he has grown into a polished radio man. Whereas “Marko” remained one dimensional, and that’s putting it kindly. KB & Doc … KB is an inveterate stirrer and cannot resist an opportunity to do so. With solely him in the driver’s seat, it's somewhat amusing to see how many people he gets to bite. He is SEN's best performer and actually knows something about sport other than AFL, specifically, athletics. (Also horse racing, on the generous assumption that that counts as a sport.) Doc generally makes for good radio and good entertainment. KB & Doc for 3 hours ... No. Their Tuesday morning one hour love-in consisted of KB trying to bait Doc, and Doc slapping him down, rinse and repeat. 3 hours daily? No thanks.

How's it so different from any other thread on 'land?

Malthouse's Razor. When Malthouse was still coaching he swore blind that there were no favourites, each player was treated equally, etc. After he retired he freely admitted that of course the better players are treated differently. A fringe player acting up got punished or delisted and a star would get a slap on the wrist for the same thing. Depends on who this MFC player turns out to be ... if a star, the club will do everything it can to keep him. If a fringe player, they will probably be sacked. (All contingent on an assault actually happening and how bad it is.) Malthouse's Razor. The amount of effort to keep things under wraps and protect the player is proportional to how indispensable the player is. MFC will prove to be as indulgent and selectively forgiving as every other club.

If you drink enough, you'll find that he does!

Just guessing, but can think of two reasons. 1. victim takes time to process just what happened. first instinct could be to simply get away from the awfulness. Back in the land of Oz, after its sunk in, decides to go to cops for redress. 2. cops advise that only Bali cops can do it, and that will be long and messy, and are you sure you want to go there (geographically and emotionally)? possible that the victim doesn't want a court case but wants to be heard and get some kind of closure.

Agree. Terrible every which way you look at it. Every club gets their turn in the barrel and now it's ours. Schoolgirls, chopsticks, drunk driving, nude pics, dwarfs ... these highly paid young men with lots of time on their hands are going to get themselves into trouble. They have forever, and at the rate we're going, probably will forever!

Maybe not so much "annoyed" as "sh!tting yourself". Nice secret code, by the way.

That's exactly why people should make up their own minds in this issue. (And any other issue.) The Frawleys of this world don't even know themselves what they think. Next week he'll be calling for deregistration of the players who went to the PA.

so now we have a situation where: trust between coaches and players has potentially broken down one poster here is querying his membership. bound to be others out in the wider world sponsorship ... great advertising for the club while they chase sponsors like a dog chasing pigeons. "we've thought of a slogan you can use: palmolive gold ... make your hands as soft as your mind! or this one ... hard yakka ... with a shot of our players watching some real hard guys pushing a huge truck up a---- hello? hello? goddam, they hung up" no, we don't care what oppo clubs think, but our players on the ground might not enjoy the extra sledging they are going to get. who wants (eg) clarry spending all his time getting mugged rather than getting the ball? yes, they should be mentally strong enough to rise above that, but (i) are they???? (ii) why hand out free ammo to the enemy. might as well tell mitch starc that you'd prefer it if he didn't bowl anything short to you. this whole affair is not a disaster as such, and may dissolve away to nothing in time. but it is a clear sign that while it is a hell of an uphill struggle to break away from ghosts of the past, we don't seem to be doing it. when accident victims are trying to learn to walk again, they usually don't put a bullet in their own foot.

Can everyone get over the idea that it was about a boot camp. That's not the germane point. It might as well have been a scrabble tournament that they pulled out of. For fear of concentrating too hard. The point is, having finished the season in the lamest possible way, they have been asked to challenge themselves. And, just like in round 23, and in countless instances before that, they flubbed it. The players were asked to challenge themselves and they flubbed it.

I don't know why the coaches haven't cut our players some slack considering the gruelling finals campaign they have just--- oh right. Never mind. The Sydney playing group have runs on the board and just possibly have a better idea of what it takes to succeed. Yes. The players have just managed to put that extra bit of pressure on themselves to do so.

Robbo was the prototype for Jeremy Howe. About the only difference is he didn't wander off to C'wood to play finals. But Robbo would be proud of our boys today. When they didn't want to do boot camp, they drew a line in the sand. With clenched jaw and gimlet eye, they marched arm in resolute arm straight to the AFLPA. There was no hesitation! No sideways glances to see who was wavering. Just unified hardened resolve, straight in and down on calloused, scarred knees and demanded not to do anything they thought was a bit too tough. After their draining finals series and all. Ruthless to the end! Go Deeeeeeeeees

boot camps are [censored]. team building exercise my foot. as if 100 x 100m sprints plus all manner of other gruelling and punishing fitness conditioning doesn't bind the players together tighter than a mafia gang. better to spend the time on goal kicking practice. BUT after our atrocious finish to the season, they should be putting up their hands to run through brick walls. not worrying about what effect the mortar might have on their nail polish. they should be trying to demonstrate to each other, bugger the rest of the football world, that they are so upset, so burnt, so hungry for success that they will go through any hardship without a backward step, to leap over that final gap instead of inching ever closer to it like zeno's achilles. but here we are. the appearance is that they have run sooking to the AFLPA to try to get them off the hook! whether that's the reality or not, that is the appearance, so it becomes the reality. the leadership group need a good hard look at themselves are they swanning about town, chatting up the girls with can't-fail lines like "hey babe. i'm kind of a big deal. yeah, that's right. I nearly played in finals this year." the inmates do not run the asylum. it's a recipe for downfall and calamity in a team sport. 186. training the house down, having "not the youngest" list, getting Lever, shifting Watts .... all utter irrelevancies until this club can rid itself of the mental softness that has afflicted it for years and is apparently still going strong.

We should have given it a fair nudge this season just gone. And our end to '16 was also a nudge-free zone. It wasn't our youth that was our downfall, it was the space between our ears. A problem that will continue to haunt us, unless addressed, regardless of our youth.

Being the youngest or least experienced list was always a mirage. It's not good, or bad, or anything meaningful. Certainly nothing to hang our hats on. Only one statistic counts. Games won.

Good point. SEN have been bragging that they will still be talking about AFL over the summer. (As if they were ever not going to.) It amounts to counselling. Don't worry, listeners, don't let all this horse racing, cricket, tennis, soc ... s ... you know, the S game! ... and other alarming and worrisome non-AFL activity get you down and lead to self harm. We'll still be talking about AFL all summer! Whew!

Definitely points for that. She's got guts.

Have never really got why such outright hatred for Caro, and have been appalled at the treatment she's copped from various quarters over the years, but at the same time, I don't actually respect her that much. She is not so much a sports journalist as a gossip columnist specialising in AFL gossip. Emma Quayle kills her as a football journo. Quayle's ideal story: 17 y.o. centre half forward who grew up with single parent on dairy farm has great hands and great boot, can also play back and could be just what Blues need. Caro's ideal story: Wife of Bulldogs board member whose son auditioned for "The Bachelor" co-owns business selling poker machines to business once owned by Dr Geoffrey Edelsten which owes $3M in tax to gov't.

Three pages now. OP will be pleased. It's hard to eke out the responses in the off season but JW is a faithful topic guaranteed to draw us in regardless of time place and circumstance.

What is this, pre-season training for MFCSS? A bit of practice self-flagellation so you're primed and ready to go in round 1 if he kicks a bag?

"Craig Starcevic, premiership centre half forward" .... oh the mediocrity. That's like saying "Matthew Bate, premiership centre half forward" ... no offence, Bater, but you're nowhere near a premiership centre half forward...... "Craig Starcevic, premiership centre half forward" .... Only rivalled by "Karl Langdon, premiership centre half forward" for sheer egregious perversity.