Dante

There is no doubt that he is contributing more than Sam at the moment and in fact he is playing very well, but obviously, long term, Sam will/should take over from him. He has been very good and it's a pity he was injured in that game last year, which effectively ruled him out for the remainder of the season, he's shown the form that Drunkin knew he was capable of and hats off to him for that. I love the way he plays the game and his strength around the ball and his clean hands and vision have been a revelation, to some of us that is, I was a bit apprehensive when they picked him but rapt that they did. He fits in well with the rest of the group and he certainly doesn't detract from our on field performance, of course if he keeps this up it will be difficult for Pedo to get a game with is a seems but that's just how it is. Great effort so far and let's hope he can build on it.

Always loved the way Gus goes about it and his left foot/right foot kicking it exceptional, there are, of course the good judges who wanted him traded and said there wasn't a spot for him. I guess some of these judges were also the ones that wanted ANB traded and Harmes delisted, but fawned over the pace of Hunt ( I like Hunt a lot but he needs to modify his game) and said OMD wouldn't make it. Gus is a smart footballer who knows were to go and where to deliver the ball, Salem is the same and will be a gun for us, one through the middle and the other coming off the back flank, got to love that. You can see the way the players gather around Gus they love him and he loves playing with and for his teammates, he won't be going anywhere and will be a long term Demon.

Balic was essentially out of football last year and this year he's been given the opportunity to settle in which allows the club can see where he sits, I think he will get another year and that he could become a handy player for us, he really is like a first year player and will get a look in when the club thinks he's ready. It's not always a situation of players competing with other players for a spot, sometimes players move to a different position or suffer a loss of form or are injured, if he's good enough something will open up for him and he'll get a game. Look at Bull Smith, how many on here would have thought he'd be in the side and playing well at this time of the year, who was he competing with, Pedo, Sam or did a need arise.

I'm somewhat surprised that we aren't given more credit in view of the absolute crap served up by most other clubs over the last few weeks. We play an incredible brand of football which is both hard and skilful, not the slog garbage that's been served up by other teams. Who wants to see 4 or 5 goals kicked between two teams in a half of football, if you do go to the soccer. No one wants to stick their neck out and call it how it is because they've been burnt before by us, but eventually they will have to, and to be quite honest I couldn't give a rat's about any of the midget brains in the media.

If you have the time and inclination, it's worth a look at the Crows board on BigFooty, my son sent me a few snippets through last night, it goes from Before the game - We have a few outs but we'll smash these frauds - They are downhill Skiers Then after the game - The umpires are to blame - They had a midfield full of Faux tough guys - We fielded our B team - That free to ANB against Milerra should have been a push in the back to him - Jesse's handball in the first for a goal was a throw - It is a Vic conspiracy to push us to a flag - The Crows are so bad they made a dud like ANB look good It just goes on and last night there were 75 pages of the tripe.

I get the feeling that Lewis is playing much better at the moment and maybe it's because he senses something special going on here, Bet he'd love so snare another flag, wouldn't that be the way to finish off a career, two flags in your last two years. That would give him one more than the 5 Dermie likes to brag about.

Did you go on one of those 24 countries in 24 days tours, is that really all you saw in Paris?

Have to agree with that, I've spent a lot of time in Paris and if it wasn't for the Dees I'd live there, it is a wonderful city. I've stood in plenty of Dog [censored] over the years in Melbourne but never in Paris. And as you would know, not all french are Parisians.

They did target him, they kept kicking the ball to him.

ANB is so important to our structure, he bobs up everywhere and is involved in so many plays that result in scores or forward 50 entries. He was very good today. How good will Fritsch be when he’s got 50 games under his belt, he is just such a good user of the ball and rarely makes a mistake. Best Melbourne side I’ve seen in 50 plus years of watching, the first time since 64 that I really believe we are good enough to win a flag. We’ve had better players but not a better team.

I think he got his weeks mixed up, it was this week we beat up on a VFL team.

I was being sarcastic, I'm a big fan of Weid, read my post again

He may not necessarily be groomed as a ruckman, chances are he will, but today you see players that size playing key position, Daniher is nearly the same height, even Paul Salmon was 6'6" tall and played at full forward. Forward/Ruck may be his ideal position, then he'd be competing with Weid.

Find a talented junior and put him in to another sport for a few years and grab him free of charge, sounds like a Swans Academy player.

They could, and they could also argue that the ball was in our defensive area a lot more last year, so he had the opportunity to be more involved. I'm not having a go at you, just putting forward another view. Personally I've always been of the view he should have been played last year and I would imagine we were aware that we were getting Jake Lever and wanted Oscar to get experience so they could fit together right from the start.

You obviously don't read Demonland too closely, don't you know that Weid is barely VFL, let alone AFL standard. He's not really injured he's been left out because of form and to save him embarrassment they've faked an injury. Etc.......

That may be so, the players that are being left out are going have to adjust and I'm sure they will do everything in their power to d so. I feel for Dom, he's done a lot of the hard work over the last few years and it would be a shame for him to miss out now if we play finals. Some on here wrote off Gus and he's bounced back as I'm sure Hunt will and probably Dom as well.

It looks like pick one in the 2008 draft has finally paid off.

Passages of play like that can seem simple when looked at and analysed later, it's have the presence of mind at the time that it important and you can't analyse that in the split second you have to do it.

One of the problems with increased depth is the loss of soldiers who were there when we were really bad, I feel for Dom and that photo of him behind the team last Sunday says it all. I think you're right and Dom will have to reinvent himself if he is to continue as a regular, I don't know if he can do that but I hope he can.

I've always been a fan, he's hard at the ball takes a good mark and is quite quick, his game against GWS at Etihad in there last round of the season a few years ago showed he could play. His in and under work against Carlton was excellent I cracked it with him in a game earlier this season as he was terrible but so was the rest of the side. He's in the category of player that always gets mentioned as trade bait but I doubt the club would me of that mind, he's a lifelong Dees supporter so that's the added bonus for him and us.

Lever makes very good decisions with the ball, and like all good players seems to have all the time in the World to make them, his composure is remarkable Yeah he got out marked by Cripps, big deal, very few players win every contest they enter but we seem to think they should. I hadn’t seen much of him before he came to Melbourne, now I have, I can see why we went after him, he’s a 10 year player and will get better as he goes along.

Carlton will never get back on track until they confront their demons and admit they tanked, the beacon of their tanking is Kruze. They've also taken all the scraps that GWS were throwing out hoping that they would get back quickly, well that didn't work. We have four ex GWS players and none of them played on the weekend. I remember once that their then President John Elliot said "Carlton don't rebuild", he got that right.

It's not fair for Essendon to have to play us at the MCG as an away game, so they don't.

Hunt isn't getting a game at the moment because of form, it's got nothin to do with Bernie.