45HG

Come on you Spurs! Do yourself a favour and get onto the highlights at some stage today. Danny Rose, 9 minutes into his first match - what a strike!

Guarantee the Magpies song was louder.

Does the same player who is elevated for a senior player have to return to the rookie list? I.e. if Mckenzie was promoted for Morton and Newton for Jurrah (say), when Morton comes back does Mckenzie have to go back or can we nominate another rookie to go down?

Horrible memories of Round 12 2007 are flooding my mind. 80-16 at half time wasn't it? Their first win of the year if I recall correctly, we'd just beaten the pies and the crows and greeny started talking about making finals.

If my elementary maths is correct, along with the figure provided, it seems we must have signed at least 4500 new members.

Small note, the North game is at Etihad.

Some benchmarks from last year (some of the dates are a few days off because people often posted the tracker which his moved onto the debt demolition): March 16: 24,200 March 23: 25,006 March 30: 27,128 27,595 (+467) April 6: 28,174 28,099 (-75) April 13: 28,601 29,055(+454) April 20: 29,035 April 27: 29,815 April 29: 30,000 May 4: 30,275 May 11: 30,479 May 18: 30,630 May 25: 30,855 June 1: 31,000 June 8: 31,094 June 15: 31,294 July 1 (finale): 31,508 There's a good chance that the April 6th wasn't the actual member tally as we're back to being about as far ahead as we were the week before. Good signs.

Weren't the Before the Bounce crew going to be let in if we had a win?

B)

What's with the song being so quiet?

Can't see how Bruce was reliable all game. Killed by Burton and had some shocking disposal errors. Frawley was absolutely outstanding. Becoming such a consistent player. I liked Bartram's game and also thought Macdonald was quite solid.

Great work Finks! Too bad it'll be another season until you can have another!!!

Yes B) Haven't watched the replay and whilst I thought he was decent I'm still not sure I'm thrilled he was brought straight in. But play on.

6. Frawley 5. Grimes 4. Mcdonald 3. Trengove 2. Bennell 1. Jamar Frawley was absolutely fantastic I thought. Building into such a solid player in the backline (and into an animal at that). Grimes has possibly the coolest head from someone so young that I've seen. Special mention also to Bartram who I thought was very good. Bail also had a good game.

The Dees!

If Garland gets injured today after coming straight in I won't be a happy camper.

Dermie did the same thing to Rayden Tallis (sp?) didn't he?

It's an interesting thought Melbourneboy. I think a key part of membership is that it builds upon itself. A club with a strong membership seems to grow it easily out of the confidence/arrogance and "strength in numbers" aspect of having a big supporter base. Like Chook was saying the other day, it's much easier to go for a club with many more supporters. Take Collingwood for example. Heading into that game past the Ponsford stand, there were about 400 Pies fans just standing around with about 15 Melbourne fans in sight. From a young age, people get used to seeing more fans of certain clubs and I think it has a profound impact on membership numbers and growth. Many of their fans don't seem to question (or know) why their club has won one flag in 50 years, they just go along because it's the done thing. I also don't understand why people are quick to blame MCC members for our membership problem. I did some research last year (shock horror) and the percentage of MCC members who take up membership was much higher than the overall percentage of supporters who take up memberships.

No big shock.

It sounds to me like a theory that hasn't been based on fact but more of a general vibe. Now Schmidt (albeit not for his debut) was even promoted to the senior list but is on the emergency list, though he still may come in. Jordan Roughead was named on the extended bench and is now an emergency. Taylor Duryea for the Hawks also in the same boat. And now Fyfe. There goes the theory.

It's also better than David Neitz, Aaron Davey, Newton, Miller and .29 better than Matthew Lloyd. Alright, I'm getting ridiculou now.

You people? I have foxtel and watch at home. So you don't think our lack of tv matches has any impact on supporters being able to see our games?

Obviously it doesn't include shots that don't score, but 69% shooting accuracy is nothing to laugh at.

I've been thinking about Ablett today and thought I'd ask for other posters' viewpoints on the man. I didn't want to start a new thread so I thought I'd dig up this old chestnut, with a few posters' points of view already outlined. I personally feel his game has gone backwards. I don't see him being as damaging as it was even up to the middle of last season. I felt last year as though he was almost "playing for a Brownlow" and I wonder if that type of play has stuck to his game. Now, obviously, I'm not saying he's a very good player, but his 38 posession game on Monday didn't warrant a single vote from either coach and that pretty much sums up where I'm coming from.

31.14 over his career, pretty reliable to me.