DemonDave

Why would Martin all of a sudden play forward this week? We still have Miller, Bate and Newton available from last week and they form the nucleus of our marking talls. Martin did go forward and kick a few goals last year for Sandy when playing as the resting ruckman, but I see no reason whatsoever to move him from the backline, where he's learning each week how to be a better defender. Why hamper that progress?

This will be an interesting, and hotly contested award this year. Usually each year its pretty much a no-brainer that a player has a breakout 2nd year to win this, Newton took the chocolates last year, however this year there's a series of realistic contenders: -Simon Buckley -Paul Johnson -Chris Johnson -Colin Garland -Matthew Warnock It's generally given to a 2nd or 3rd year player so might rule Paul Johnson out, so I think Chris Johnson or Matthew Warnock may get it. Predictions?

Feel that as clubs start to take more notice of him, they'll be able to easily put a stop to his 'tricks' of darting sideways as soon as he gets the ball. But he has had a very promising year.

Melbourne gave up its 3rd Round pick, 37, for Meesen.

Neale will be able to vie with Neil(!) Balme for the 'Best/Most affable ex-coach of the Melbourne Demons currently employed by another club in the position of GM of Football Operations" at next years Logies....

What would Phil Collins know about match conditioning?

Great stats b42L. So you're counting Brent Moloney for us. Not doubling up in Geelongs quota I hope? Is Steven Armstrong on West Coasts list?

Issac Weetra.

So looking at the lineups, there's C.Lidell, B.Lidell for us, and Liddle and Riddle on the bench for them. Good luck to the 3XX boys if they're commentating this one!

Thought Petterd might have been given a run this week. I guess they're gonna leave him at Sandy for the rest of the year to gain some game time without the high-risk. Another week, another 3 injuries! CJ is listed as groin, yet the story on the Melbourne site says a knee. "Chris Johnson will unfortunately not take the field, missing Saturday’s match with a slight knee complaint" Wonder how serious Jeff White's knee is, and thus whether he's played his last game? What a pity that we'll have dead wood in both Carroll and Meesen clogging up our list next year.

Who in the club decides ultimately how long they wish to contract a player? ie. who would've made the decision to offer Meesen a 3yr contract? He was a top 10 draft pick for Adelaide who played 2 games in 2 years. Surely you have to play it cautiously with these kind of 'projects'?

Surely in this ridiculously over-litigious society we live in you can't think trying to take one of the Demons all-time greats to court is a good thing? You must be a lawyer. Heaven knows we have enough of those these days .

Leading Goalkickers since '96: 1996 David Neitz (56) 1997 David Neitz (30), Jeff Farmer (30) 1998 Jeff Farmer (47) 1999 David Neitz (46) 2000 Jeff Farmer (76) 2001 Russell Robertson (42) 2002 David Neitz (82) 2003 David Neitz (65) 2004 David Neitz (69) 2005 Russell Robertson (73) 2006 David Neitz (68) 2007 Russell Robertson (42) So this year is shaping up as the lowest season tally since '97, when incidentally was the last time we won the wooden spoon.

So crossing the waterway to line up for a portaloo on the outer side of the ground may be soon a distant memory? Phew!

Stefan Martin stars in "Land of the Giants"..... Those 3 could sit on each others shoulders, and one of them would be able to have a face-to-face conversation with Aaron Sandilands...

Looking at our list at the moment, its clear that we have a dearth of quality players aged around 26, which is what guys drafted in 2000 would be now, so draft penalties do have quite a long term impact on clubs. If we had picked up 1 or 2 players in those 2nd/3rd round picks (like a Newman at 55 or a Cross at 56) we'd be stronger for it. Next year we'll have our old guys at 28/29 (Bruce,Green) and then it goes back to the Millers,Rivers and McLeans almost as our next tier of experience

Unless posters on here are player-managers of all said players, then they really have no idea and can only guess what players are on, so please, don't say 'Player x is on $x' as if its fact. Its purely speculation, an educated guess at best. But it is fair to say we will have the capacity to save a fair bit of coin quite easily with the experienced players that are going to be moved on at years end. Does the club therefore have the capacity to offer Robbie Warnock the kind of big money being bandied around in the papers? It'd be doubtful. Do they pay out the last year of Nathan Carrolls contract to free up a spot on the list? Interesting times ahead for the list managers.

As far as I know there is no full-time ruck coach at the club at the moment. It was mentioned around the media that Luke Darcy has spent a bit of time recently helping out some of our ruckmen.

Nice work Scoop Jnr. Interestingly going into the game my biggest concern was also our ability to kick goals with the selected side. It was quite a pleasant surprise then that we were able to post our 2nd highest scoring effort of the year behind the Fremantle win, and crack the ton for just the 2nd time this year also.

The Pies might now be trying to offload Shaw and/or Didak given they've just released a new press release on 'On The Couch' stating that Didak was in the car with Shaw, and both of them lied about his presence to the club and police.. Todays sanctions have been thrown out, and new ones applied tomorrow, and yet another no doubt fiery press conference from the Lexus Centre which should make for compulsive listening!

Is Dalziell even eligible? He was taken as a 'mature' age recruit from the WAFL. I heard some conjecture on SEN last week as to wether he was just too old or similar. Either way the nominations tend to be given for persistence over a sustained period rather than one outstanding game, so I think it would definitely be Mortons turn this week. Which takes our number of nominations this year to 3, which is a great sign for the future...

Well Vlad will be making any comments about this game from a long way away, he wont even be in the country for the codes 150th anniversary round, but instead sipping prawn cocktails while kowtowing to our Communist overlords...

Did you guys never catch the tram to Princess Park? It stopped right outside! Public transport was fine for that place.

What is it with our more experienced players and injuries? Every time we get an injury this year, its to someone over 24 years of age. I dont think any of our youngsters this year have picked up an injury, Juice excepted, its only happening to the older guys that are hitting form (Green, Wheatley, Miller the last month alone).

That Hawthorn side that night probably had Hodge and Franklin in it, albeit 2 years less experienced than they are right now. Who out of our current side can we seriously see being an A-grade onballer and forward respectively?