DemonDave

Will the historical pages show Darren Cuthbertson as a past star of the MFC? No, it will show he played an amazing handful of games at the start of his career, kicking ridiculous bags of goals and taking hangers on a weekly basis. And then just as quickly as it began, it was all over for the man who started his career, coincidentally, wearing the number 48 guernsey in his breakout year. The weight of expectations showed on him, and he will be remembered as an exciting flash in the pan who entertained the crowds immensly while it lasted, rather than a star. For Jurrah to be considered a star, he will have to play a sustained brand of football for a couple of years yet.

It will be interesting to see how Liam's physical conditioning holds up after a full pre-season, this year he will be susceptible to more wear and tear, given he will have been in the system and faced the rigours of training for over 12 months. Clubs will definitely start to niggle him more as we saw in a couple of games already this year to try and mentally put him off his game, it will be upto some of the other forwards around him to ensure he keeps his focus. The possibilitys for this guy are endless and totally unknown. He could turn out to be an absolute superstar, to rival Adam Goodes in excitement and impact on games, or he could turn out to be another Adrian McAdam, lets hope its the former...

Just beat me to the full list swampy! It can be found here: Davey Wins his First Truscott The summary also shows: Other award winners were: * Norm Smith Memorial Trophy (Coach's Award) - James Frawley * Ron Barassi Jnr Trophy (Leadership Award) - Brent Moloney * Harold Ball Memorial Trophy (Best First Year Player) - Liam Jurrah * Ian Ridley Memorial Trophy (Club Ambassador Award) - Shane Valenti * Heart and Soul Player Award - Aaron Davey * Troy Broadbridge Memorial Trophy (highest votegetter by Melbourne listed player in Casey Scorpions best-and-fairest) - Shane Valenti

"Tanks for the draft picks, but this year we've come for the Cup"

Who am I? -I was picked in the Top 5 of my draft. -I am very good at clearances. -My pace is considered questionable for AFL football. -I average one of the best posessions per minute in the league when on the ground. -I am approaching what they call 'the prime' of my career (generally regarded as when you're 24-27), yet many say my best football is behind me. -I was very popular among my teammates. -In this years offseason I requested a trade to a high-profile club. A ) Luke Ball B ) Brock McLean C ) both of the above

The minimum I believe you have to draft is 3 from the National Draft. So far we have 4 free spots on the list. Therefore we could only draft 1 more (pick 18) if our list remained as is. This would mean no PSD pick, and no promotion of final-year rookies Spencer and/or Valenti (pending possible rookie list changes tbc). You'd think they'd not pass on pick 34, would promote one of those two rookies and would take the best uncontracted in the PSD (as has been noted on Schwabbys tweets), therefore at least 3 more players will go.

You were personally involved in the contract negotiations? How could you possibly know this as fact??

2008, the season Buckley finished 21st in our Best & Fairest? This guy is seriously overrated by a lot of people on here. Yes he can run fast and 'break lines', but his use of the ball is still very questionable. He's now had 4 years on our senior list and still has 'potential' to show for it. If we keep him on any longer he'll be a list clogger. If Carlton offer a 2nd or 3rd round pick for him, I wish him well playing alongside Chris Johnson at the Bullants next year.

Great to see the old demon workhorse Luke Norman sa coach of Sturt nowadays. Anyone else remember his last game for us, the fateful merger match against the Hawks where our coach decided he'd be a good matchup on Jason Dunstall at full back? Dunstall went on to kick his 100th that night, unsurprisingly...

Is the club sticking by its recently instigated policy of giving draftees high numbers until they've 'earned' the right to a lower number? The exception of course was Watts. If they do, expect a whole bunch of last years draftees to get lower numbers (Jurrah, Bennell, Jetta etc) and this years crop to be given mid-30s/early 40s numbers. Will one of the indigenous boys be symbolically given Wheels number?

I cant believe how many of these teams dont have McDonald in them. Did none of you see his last half of the year? Or is it because he's not 21 years old, and therefore you dont care about him? The story in the Age today clearly shows that Junior wants to and will be Captain again next year. There needs to be experience in our side, or we'll get flogged more often than not. McDonald, Green and Bruce add that nice balance of 'veterans' to our emerging talent. I think we'll find Junior being a back-pocket specialist for most of next year and that '10 will be his last season.

haha just beat you to it RR!

Bring back Rod Keogh! (didnt Kavanagh, son of Croswell, wear 13 WYL?)

And in another useless trivia fact about this weeks side, five out of the seven possibles on the bench have guernsey numbers in the "40's". Is this some kind of record?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but another forum on here about Jordie McKenzie linked to a local paper colour piece on him that said: "McKenzie is unlikely to line up for Melbourne in its final home-and-away bout with St Kilda on Sunday. McKenzie is due for minor foot surgery next week. He said after he recovered he would leap into his off-season preparation." So I dont know what he's been selected on the bench for. Mystifying.

I think the work a player does off field for the club and his teammates is held in just as high a regards as their onfield deeds. -Davey acts as a mentor to all of the indigineous boys, and also his image is marketable as a 'brand' for the club. -Moloney in conjunction with Junior, provides all of our draftees with a 'history of the club' package each year which includes DVDs and books so the kids know the sort of club they're joining, and is also responsible at least once a year in taking all our first year players on a boxing camp. As far as I'm aware he's done both these things (along with junior for the former of course) off his own bat because of his love and respect for the club. I dont think we've seen a great deal of charisma from either when interviewed in the media, Davey comes off perenially softly-spoken and somewhat shy, while Moloney just seems to be one the media dont pay a lot of attention to so its hard to gauge. Both these men posess many great characteristics that show they are clearly born to be leaders.

The Magic Moments is an awful butchered, rushed release. There's the same footage of a Jeff White goal twice, some commentary that does not match the pictures at one stage, a truly amateurish release. I felt ripped off when it got to the end of that DVD. Avoid.

Wont it be ironic when we have a Jack Trengrove running around recruited from SA, and a SA club (Port) has a Jack Trengrove running around recruited from Victoria?

Joeboy I found this on the Bullants website, I think this sounds right: Q. What are the qualifications for A.F.L. players to participate in the V.F.L. final series? A. The full answer is long and complicated, but the basic qualification is seven games with the V.F.L. club (senior or reserves). There are a number of exceptions to this rule covering players with long-term injuries with a reduced requirement for V.F.L. participation. The V.F.L. issues clubs with progressive lists from around round 16 as to which players are eligible or what the requirements are for the player to achieve qualification. Generally most clubs will have anywhere between 16 and 20 players eligible.

Jamar has clearly become our No.1 ruckman this year. Why would we trade him for someone like Salopek who cant play consistently good footy for the horribly pea-hearted Port Adelaide? He got dropped again this week. Just because he was a Top Ten draft pick does that mean he'll be any good if he moves clubs. But clearly this is already a done deal based on the concrete evidence we've been given, so I'm probably wasting my breath here. NEXT!

Why would it be the end of Bartram? I thought he's been playing decent football of late, and is no longer a 'danger' to us when he is about to dispose of the ball as he had been in the past. Plenty of players have been rotated through our side over the last 6 weeks, you couldnt play Whelan, McDonald and Bartram all together as we dont need 3 back pockets, so Batram gets rested to get Wheels to his 150th. Also, the Dockers didnt see fit to drop anyone after their stirling display against us last week. Freo. Way to go.

This year is the first in a long, long time where our delistings/trades/retirements arent going to be clear cut and obvious, ie some player will get delisted who are perhaps considered unlucky to be cut. That shows the different composition of our list nowadays, there's not too many out and out duds (ie.Weetra, Neville), still a couple of sadly now passed it vets (Ward, Holland etc in previous years are the equivalent of Wheatley, Whelan this year), or trade baits wether 'controversial' (Johnstone) or beneficial (Grgic etc). By the week, Valenti is exponentially improving now that he's been given a couple of consecutive games to adjust to the tempo, and is showing the kind of form he does so regularly for Casey (and Sandy before that). Will he earn a permanent elevation? Difficult to say, we'll see how he goes in the heat of it against two finals bound teams rather than the dregs of the AFL cellar dwellars, but I for one would rather keep him than draft someone at pick 60-odd. I guess Spencer is in the same boat. Outs: Whelan, Wheatley, Robertson, Buckley, Bell and/or Newton

Tell that to the precious Pies. They very dubiously were given full use of Olympic Park precint (ie.The Olympic Park ground and Lexus Centre), shunting Atheltics Austraia and Vic Institute of Sport out to somewhere else because It was too far for them to walk 350 metres from Goschs Paddock to the Lexus Centre The story is here, I may have emoted and fuzzed the facts slightly, but you'll get the drift of it: http://www.theage.com.au/national/collingw...90811-egz0.html

A whole round dedicated to Brad Green? A great gesture by the AFL in my opinion.

McNamara definitely showed some good signs yesterday, but his fitness levels are well, well below that of an AFL footballer. I sat very near the interchange yesterday, which was an interesting experience, and he was constantly having to signal to the bench to take him off for a rest. Given this, I doubt he'd play next week. Same with Bail and Bruce, Bail straight away after 5 minutes knew his day was done when he came off, he looked very disappointed, and Chris Connolly on the bench had a very long chat to him, which was good to see. The Doc didnt look very confident when checking out Bruces arm in the last quarter either, it was a big hit he sustained, so he'd be doubtful. It effectively meant we had 1 fit player at the end, and that most of the time was Jetta who similarly doesnt have enough of a tank for AFL footy yet either. Would think therefore all 4 would be out next week.