Dante

Dunstall hates Melbourne and always has, he's one of the few idiots in the media that still spouts the Melbourne/Snow line, perhaps, in light of the falling attendance of Hawks supporters, it may be their turn to hit the slopes. The guys a clown who just doesn't do his homework and has been out of the game too long to be relevant any longer.

It would probably be better to have an after game facility at the G somewhere for a little eat and drink, although it may not be as frequented as it once would After the game, most do what you do and go home. Drink driving laws have changed the face of after game celebrations.

Then it becomes arbitrary, if a player miskicks the ball and a teammate marks it 20 metres out, does he get the 30 or 7 seconds. It could be a pack mark in the goal square or a mark in the opposite pocket of it's a kick across goal, who decides which it is and on what basis. Imagine if a player in a grand final marks the miskick and is winded and the umpire deems it to be a 7 seconder and he has to play on without the time to steady.

Plapp always says of Jack in his summaries, he's playing very good VFL football, this says everything to me. I'd love to see him get another game but we need to win games to get a shot at finals and if the club haven't seen him as an option so far this year, there must be a reason.

One fact that is indisputable, this year we have beaten Carlton twice, three if you count the JLT, the Sainters once and Essendon once, all sides we've struggled to beat over the last few years. Sometimes it's not the size of the win that's the issue, it's the symbolism and the fact that we are in the ascendency, they've had the wood on us, now they haven't.

Carlton had about 20 possessions in the first couple of minutes and they were all little chip kicks that were largely ineffectual, their stats were inflated by the number of back and forth kicks and marks all night. We won, that's all that count, I couldn't care one way or another if some of their players had 35 possessions, they played keeping off and that's not how you win a match. Let's not forget they would have started favourite tonight with anyone that had a brain and we beat them. Jeffy had 7 possessions and kicked 3 goals, that's far more important than someone getting 4 possessions in 30 seconds and not advancing the ball more than a few metres. Great win by the boys tonight and yes we made some mistakes, but you do if you take the game on, Vince and Lewis turned the ball over, but I'm happy to have them in the side and when we get our core players back they will probably turn the ball over a lot less. BTW I really hate it when posters say a player was putrid, that is a comment that is way out of line. We had a lot of rusty players and players playing out of position tonight and when they're not they will do better.

Two things. if the Houli incident happened this week, after the Bugg incident, would he have been given 6 weeks? if someone else commits an offence of a similar nature this week, should they get 8 weeks, are we going up in units of 2 per offence?

Houli hit a player with an elbow and knocked him out, in fact he was out before he hit the ground. Bugg hit a player and knocked him to the ground, the player got up and left the ground under his own steam. Houli got 4, Bugg got 6, why is that? Houli's hit was worse but he gets two weeks less, that's not justice that's just the AFL trying to send a message, trouble is it was a little late, they should have done that with Houli. At no stage did Bugg try to deny or underplay the seriousness of his action, Houli did, there is a serious unfairness here.

I think that playing White sends a message to the VFL players that you are never forgotten and if you do what you need to do, you will get a game if the need arises. Most of us would have picked half a dozen ahead of White so good on him for perservering, Trenners an emergency is promising also.

I liked White for what he showed in the GWS game a little while ago, but as you say, it's a bit strange they didn't replace Jeffy with another small forward.

One thing in our favour, come finals time, is the number of games we've played in front of large crowds and pressure cook atmosphere, much more taxing than playing up at Star Track stadium in front of 2500, if that. The Collingwood game was as intense as any final you will see, as was the Weagles game last weekend, one away, one at home

Interesting comment you made about Hunt, he's looked a bit flat for a few weeks in my opinion, in fact since he got that knock. I may be wrong but he seems to be slightly off the boil, I guess it happens to kids his age at this stage of the season.

If I really thought your posts were intelligent and thoughtful, I wouldn't have worded my post the way I did. Your posts on this thread are argumentative and very much convey the view that Clarrie is a cheat who tried to get another player suspended by staging an injury. Your view, not mine and I'm not a moron, a moron would presume to know what happened without really knowing at all. I'll accept Clarrie view, you can please yourself. Thats my last post on this thread and if your overblown ego wants to respond, you'll be talking to yourself.

If you were intelligent and thoughtful you would have stated you opinion and then quit, instead of trying to argue with anyone who disagreed with your intelligent and thoughtful opinion.

You've spent a lot of time on here defending Schofield and conversely condemning Clarrie, have you got a vested interest? I think the West Coast coach's comment and this comment by the defence council, are just some of what Clarrie now faces. David Grace QC wanted to use a report from The West Australian newspaper, which wrote Oliver said the stray elbow was "A cheap shot. I probably shouldn't have fallen over but I was sort of scared". if your comments are an indication of a Melbourne supporter will say, then God knows what a non supporter will, This will probably put the Cale Morton video on the second page.

They are sensational figures for us and the fact they include Alice make them even better, we would have been in front of Carlton if we'd played that game at the G.

We were a shell of a club in 1966 and never recovered, mainly because we had no one to show us the way and no backbone in the club, the MCC ruled the roost, go dees. Northy had a dip but no facilities and not enough support from the club, we were against clubs that were far more professional and that applied to the Balme and Danners era's. We had some great players and should have won a couple of flags but we were under resourced in both facilities and support staff. We have no excuses now and I see no reason why we can't win the flag this year, there is no "next year" in football, you go for it when you can, the situation changes every year with new innovation and game plans. We have the players and they must grab the opportunity when they can, we played great football in 1998 and in 1999 lost some players had injuries to Lyon and Tingay so we crashed. Let's go for it, we are capable and the opposition is not as strong as it's been in other years.

Obviously the MRP considered it intentional and maybe now the clowns that heaped it on Clarrie will apologise, doubt it.

Absolutely no staging, he went down instantaneously, he was stunned and that hit caught him right on the sweet spot. They should take a look at the hit he took from Rioli, he showed enormous courage and resilience bouncing up from that The media will try to turn anything in to a sensation, if they can.

Yes, best 22 in my view. I've given my reasons in another thread.

So how do you arrive at your top ten? Is it output, potential, years of service, value to the team as a player, or is it another variable. Hogan has hardly been on the field this year yet you rank him top ten, Track has lots of potential and will be a star, but what has he done that makes him better than Salem. Watts has been very good this year but so has Salem. And so on and so on. You could argue the case for several other players, if you want, but it's only your opinion and you may be wrong.

Well within the top ten, unless you are one of those suggesting that he be traded for a second or third round pick, last draft period, then you mightn't think so.

I've mentioned this before but I'll say it again, Nat Jones said a couple of years ago that Salem loved the hard stuff and I'd say he'd know if any player was shirking or soft. To suggest he's been soft in the past is just stupid. From the moment I saw him play I knew it was just a matter of time before he was a star of the competition. He is now.

I was talking to someone today who is heavily connected to the Bullies and he said Bernie will probably be suspended before the end of the year, I informed him he's been done once this year already. He mentioned that Bern's an assassin. He also commented that he'd never seen a more aggressive Melbourne side,ever, he asked me if I had and I had to admit that I hadn't. Our reputation will continue to grow if we continue to play the way we are.

I'd like to mention Harmes, he's a favourite of mine so I'm a bit biased, but I reckon he's an integral part of our forward line. He is hard at the ball, not afraid to go for a pack mark, tackles with a certain amount of vigour and is quite quick. He also gut runs and always offers up a lead, if he'd kicked straight, he got 1 goal 4 behinds from his 18 possessions, we'd be talking about close to BOG, but he gets no love on here. Very hard worker James and he's only played 34 games, lot of improvement left.