DemonDave

Shannon Motlop. Or if he's carrying too much condition James Cook.

Will his holding out and assessing other clubs as an option harm his chances of being made Captain?

Daniel Bell, 63 games, 1 goal, vs Footscray last year. Hardly instills confidence going forward with those kind of figures!

What? Next thing you'll be telling us David Neitz is a selfish and greedy individual. Oh wait..... Any other pearls of wisdom, oh wise and learned one?

Unbelievably Mo, Hille didnt even make the initial squad of 40. I'm also surprised the Brendon Lade love-fest at the AA table didnt continue this year, seems no matter how he plays he gets a nom. And given there's no Melbourne players I couldnt give a stuff. Having said that, when the telecast is on FoxFooty later tonight I can guarantee I'll be watching in lieu of anything else half decent to watch

Did anyone else read the article from the "A Day In The Sun" flashback section in todays sport, and noticed something funny about the photo with player 1 captioned as "Earl Spalding". Maybe he and Brett Bailey were separated at birth, but I think Bails got dudded on that one! Nevertheless, a great read, especially the quote from Todd Viney, recalling his first game for the Dees and Flower coming up and asking how he was before informing Todd that his shorts were on backwards!

Haha, they look kinda freaky some of them, the Bruce/Green one looks way too normal though, I know those guys have had a similar career path, but joined at birth?

Great memories from the Wizard, he truly made our list exciting again, right from that first pre-season game we saw him play out at Waverley. I was quite surprised at how similar his stats are for the two clubs, somehow assumed he was at Freo a lot longer and did a lot more there: Games : Freo : 131 Melb: 118 Goals: Freo: 224 Melb: 259 Kicks: Freo: 1106 Melb: 882 Handballs: Freo: 471 Melb: 417 Marks: Freo: 432 Melb: 296 Well done to the Wizard on a great if somewhat not quite fulfilled career.

Thanks from me too to BRB, been a great insight into our players when we cant get to TBO. Sad to hear it was Chris Lambs last game for the Zebras too. Is there any word on any other retirements/movings on? Still will be torn next year, on one hand be good to see our up and coming players don the Scorpions guernsey, but I'll still have one eye on the Zebras results. Can only dream of a grand final between the two!

Chris Connolly MC'd, so no surprises there. Stynes was introduced to rapturuous applause from the smallish crowd. Spoke about Debt Demolition then showed a 5 minute highlight package from the main fundraising night (as an interesting aside, did people see the Foundation Heroes list of people that donated 10K put up on the scoreboard before the game? Garry Lyons name was amongst them, I'm surprised this hasnt been made a bigger deal of). The vote on the guernseys we were informed by Stynes was at 50-50, and he did a 'cheer of support' type vote to help him decide, the demon variant was met with much greater praise than the monogrammed alternative, and he advised he'd take these findings to the board. Jimmy then introduced Cameron Schwab who talked about his origins at the club and how as soon as he was asked for the very first time if he'd like the role, he said yes straight away. Next up was Dean Bailey introduced by what seemed like a 7 or 8 minute montage of our young players highlights from this year. Bailey went on about how exciting the future is for all of them. He then asked up Jack Grimes, who was quite shy and admitted he had trouble sleeping the last 3 nights such was his nervousness. Then it was Aussie Wonnaemiri called up, he was extremely shy to the point you could barely hear his 3 word answers, Connolls basically had to keep pushing the microphone Aussie was holding up closer to his mouth. He mentioned that Josh Mahoney had encouraged him to enjoy and celebrate his goals, and thus that's where his 'frog jump' celebration came from. Next on stage was Brad Miller who spoke well, and mentioned how he appreciated the chance to play forward all year. Miller was finally asked to tell the crowd one thing we didnt know about Jeff White, and he quipped it was that he had an ear reduction surgery early in his career so large are his ears. White was then introduced to a total standing ovation, and highlights of his career were shown onscreen. He spoke well, and told the crowd he'd always be red and blue, and even if he's picked up next year he'd still be watching closely our progress. Next up Ben Holland was up next and thanked the club for giving him the chance to farewell league football with todays game, and how much he'd enjoyed his time at the club. The final of the retirees, also was met with a warm welcome as some of his wonderful highlights were shown on the screen. He's never the greatest of public speakers, so Oooze's speak was also relatively brief. I think that was about all that happened, I left when the players were all asked up onstage, only to have to put up watching two breakdancing instructors attempt to get a bunch of kids to dance in front of them, as frostbite had well and truly set in by that stage. Why hold a club function outdoors in winter? Bring on '09!

Is Jack Grimes eligible to play for the Sandy 2nds next week then? Is there benefit in giving him a run if so?

Well Port are upholding their end of the bargain, giving the gold Coast Kangaroos a right royal flogging, just kicked 8 consecutive goals in that last quarter!

Congratulations to both Yze and White on long and distinguished careers at the MFC. Reading the tribute to Ooze on the MFC website just now, you forget how good a player he was. An interesting aside, with the retirements of these two, it leaves just one All-Australian representative (one 1 occasion) on our list for next year in Junior. Would any other club boast such a desolate figure?

Whoops yep, Cameron Schwab! Thanks HT

I agree with Joe Rugolo, and his brother Frank, why should we allow Collingwood supporters the ability to vote on this? If they were to present two strips, one black and white stripes, sorry I mean white on black stripes, and the other a monstrosity with a clown on it, I know I'd take great delight in voting for the clown strip to watch them running out in it next year. So too would every Carlton, Richmond, Essendon etc fan... The only real clash's we have are with Essendon and Freo for mine.

Then if it was Stynes that decided Ooze should get to 300 games, I have major concerns. Also, I was under the impression we hired Slade group to find us a new CEO (at no doubt considerable cost), and yet all I read about Craig Camerons decision to rethink and accept the role was that Stynes kept ringing him asking him to reconsider. Should that not be the role of the Slade Group to canvass and follow up candidates, not the President? I know Jimmy is only new to the role, but if he doesnt want accusations cast on him as being a control freak, he needs to let selectors and consultants undertake their roles independantly and trust their decisions.

Yze's revelations that he was picked last week purely to get to 300 games, and that he only played with the aid of an injection as he was unfit throws Baileys assertions about no token games out the window. He's also consistently said the side would be picked on form, and he if was true to that word also White and Yze would have played many more games given their Sandy form at various times, being constantly named in the best 3. I think Holland will be given a game...

Yep we got Watts, he was wearing the Number 4 guernsey. He had a big mop of unruly hair on draft day, but shaved it all of in the gruelling pre-season. Some other interesting notes from the pre-season of '09 I witnessed upon stepping out of the DeLorean: -Some of our 2nd and 3rd year players really look to have bulked up, no honest, even the perenially skinny ones -Colin Sylvia only ran laps due to an ongoing groin complaint -Dean Bailey had lost weight -The boys were showing off our new clash guernsey, all red with a blue "MFC" logo emblazoned on the middle -Casey fields was looking very green and in great nick -Brad Rawiller, the winning Melbourne Cup '08 winning jockey of Weekend Hussler, was down to watch training, apparently he's a demons fan So there you go. While I was there I placed odds on Geelong to win the Premiership, as I also found time to go down to their training, and they're flying again...

At this time of the year, a corked-thigh from last week can be a season-ending injury, the list always looks over-dramatic. What I dont want to see in 3 months time is half of our list doing rehab or not even getting out to run laps when summer training commences. We probably knew in December/January that seemingly half of our list had missed the most part of the off-season gruelling training regime, and thus would be underdone/underprepared or not even available when the real stuff started earlier this year...

Care to give us a hint as to which club your cousin plays for? And I havent seen the big Q-Stick play too often for us this year in the midfield!

"but i suppose that it might not be an accurate figure either, considering it was the total debt plus this years 'expected loss'. if we had a great second half to the year, the loss would not be as great, a particularly poor second half would be even worse... " Given our pretty poor and understandable crowd numbers, you'd expect it to be on the worse rather than better side. So to put my pessimistic cap on here, lets hope they have plenty of new strategies next year so that we dont lose another $2M. We are without a new major sponsor as yet, and our shorts sponsor (The Age) going through a massive cost-cutting phase. Add to that our list will be even younger next year and thus you'd expect us to be similarly placed on the ladder (thus gate receipts will be affected), its going to be a major uphill battle to get into the black next year.

I just posted in the future..spooky. Think I might grab me a Sports Almanac next time I'm there....

Am I correct in assuming our debt before the start of this year was $3M, and we're forecasting a loss this year of $2M, making a total debt of $5M, of which some $2.8M has now been wiped off? Leaving us still $2.2M in debt?

According to the match report in the Herald-Sun (at least Sandy managed a match-report!), Meesen suffered a stress-fracture in his ankle midweek, so he's definitely out for the year....

So with all the hoo-hah about this, the question is will Warnock be worth all the fuss? This year he only managed 9 games, spent large chunks in the WAFL when his team was getting beaten every week, and averaged 11 posessions and 8 hitouts, without kicking a single goal all year when eventually promoted. These are Jamar-esque stats, so why are we so excited? And dont tell me it's his potential upside or potential, as we were saying the same thing about John Meesen after trade week last year. I'm not saying it will be a mistake to get him, just think the rose-coloured glasses maybe clouding the real picture for the glass-half full crowd.