titan_uranus

Loving the early season form of the Bills. Great for football. The Browns have played pretty nicely as well. Also good to see the Saints, Packers, Seahawks and Patriots all get some early losses. Gives everyone a hope that some of those teams won't just roll through the year dominating. Surely Washington has to bite the bullet and play Cousins over RGIII even if he's fit? And surely it's Bortles time in Jacksonville?

Pretty big news from Sanderson. They were a freak Richmond win away from making the finals. They must be seeking Goodwin.

You didn't provide any reasons, other than the 'go home factor', to which Toumpas has responded. So, in fact, on the only reason you had for not drafting Toumpas, you were, like usual, wrong.

I think curfew aside they don't like having interstate sides playing on the Saturday night before the GF, in case they win and then get home late. It should be a 2.10 or 2.30 start, but Channel 7 doesn't want that, so the 'compromise' is a twilight game - leads into the news which is good for 7, but Port still gets to finish up at 7.15 and get back to Adelaide to ensure maximum recovery times if they win.

Meanwhile, of course the Hawthorn v Port game is scheduled for 4.45pm. What a rubbish timeslot.

Really? This is Demonland, you know.

Anything, anything at all except a Hawthorn v Sydney GF. Hawthorn v Sydney is about 95% sure of happening and there will be 16 clubs' worth of supporters who will just about not care. The double chance is the reward for finishing top 4. If you reduce the incentive to finish top 4 you reduce the importance of the home and away season. If you want to win the flag you have to work hard. You either work hard during the year to win enough games to get into the top 4, or you work hard during the finals to win 4 games instead of 3.

You genuinely believe that one player (i.e. Wines) would have won us games off his own bat last year? I understand that he would have been a good player, but there would have still been 21 other MFC-2013 players with him. Pretty hyperbolic to suggest that Wines alone would have won us more games. And that's not even considering that Wines would be significantly less developed at this stage of his career if he'd come here instead of to Port.

Equalisation is a hugely important part of the game. Of course Marsh is going to advocate for the best FA he can get, that's his job. But unfortunately FA is the antithesis of equalisation. FA is severely hurting the weaker clubs, but if the weaker clubs can, despite FA, close the gap on the stronger ones, then FA will be a perfectly acceptable thing. The issue is whether it's possible for that to happen. I think it is, as I see a lot of things other than FA that can be addressed (e.g. fixturing, marketing, revenue raising and sharing, etc.). GNF's FA plan isn't so bad though.

Saying 'every player is tradeable' doesn't really mean anything I don't think. I'd be surprised if there were similar words said directly to the players. I think it's more a message to the other 17 clubs that if you're interested, come ask.

As I see it, Clark has retired on the genuine belief that he needed to spend time away from the game, and in the process his manager has orchestrated a situation in which, should he return in 2014, he wouldn't be tied to Melbourne. The club has respected Clark's situation and agreed, having no choice (if we'd tried to force him to remain contracted to us imagine how that would have looked). So, as it eventuated, Clark has improved, and now wants to consider returning. He's probably received advice along the way, whether from a doctor, his manager, or someone else, along the lines of 'you need a clean start' or 'you don't want to go back to Melbourne, that's where it all started'. Due to his manager's foresight, he's now able to pick where he thinks he's most suited, and that doesn't have to be Melbourne. So he's started looking into other options. In doing so, in some manner he's upset the club, which appears to have assisted him in his recovery and at the least would have expected he commenced his process with them before exploring other options. It may well now be the case that he's burned bridges with us and we're now of the view that we'd rather trade him. If so, so be it, but I'll still be disappointed if he leaves us, the more so if he returns to his decent/best form, and the more more so if he does it for Hawthorn or another powerhouse.

At least Hawthorn is going to have a challenge in its prelim. Sydney's going to get Geelong or North Melbourne. A Hawthorn-Sydney GF would surely be a total bore to everyone other than the supporters of those two clubs. IMO the only way that's going to be avoided is if the winner of Fremantle-Port is able to beat Hawthorn the following week.

Is it possible we haven't heard anything from Clark because his agreement with the club requires confidentiality on his part? Everything so far is still unsubstantiated rumour, so I'm still content to wait and see.

I suppose it's solely that he was onto Roos well before anyone else was, including contract terms. It's probably just that his 'rumours' have been about positive things for the club. Regardless, even if he's just 1/1 with Roos, I'll take that over an unsubstantiated Barrett quip.

At the moment it's Damian Barrett's word over GNF's. No other sources provided. I'm sticking with GNF, whose track record is solid, until there is some sort of reputable source or, preferably, direct word from Clark or his manager. I also would have thought that should be wanting to leave his manager could just have come out and said it. Instead, he simply said Clark's looks likely to want to play again next year. It's all very weird.

Richmond's 9 wins sucked far too many people in. Their list is sub-standard and they rely on too few to carry them. They also really only had 1 strong win in the 9. They got what they deserved and I'm glad the whole Richmond 'fantasy' can be put to bed. On the upside, their first draft pick is now 11 and they will probably overestimate their list and not make the hard decisions.

This was GNF in July: GNF posts keep me sane.

We may as well give up if we think Clark might make a return and we don't want him back. Assuming that's rubbish and we would want him back, if he decides he wants to stay in Victoria but play for someone other than us I'm not sure there could be any worse thing to happen. Could this club suffer a bigger kick in the guts?

Why wouldn't we want him?

This club has always been obsessed with numbers. When players on higher numbers improve people start frothing over moving them 'down' from 47 to 19 because 19 is a number you have to 'earn' or something. It's all absolute poo. Player comes to club, player gets available number from 1-54, player plays career in said number. Really can't stand all the 'he's earned a move to a lower number' crap.

From what I've seen of Frost (not a huge amount) I'd entertain adding him to the list but not at the price some on here are suggesting (i.e. nothing better than a third round pick).

Once a genuine superstar but appears to be past it. Regardless, we should all be patently aware of our culture and leadership problems. Swan not only fails to assist in either regard, he drags those problems backwards.

Source? I have this: "Clark will remain on the Demons' list for 2014 before being delisted at the end of the year, although Mahoney would not be drawn on the financial settlement surrounding Clark's contract – labelling it "inappropriate" to discuss at the time."

I have the suspicion they're showing it this week because it's the kickoff game and technically part of NBC's 'Sunday Night Football', rather than a regular run of the mill 'Thursday Night Football' game. I liked those TNF games, they often involved teams you don't usually see during the year.

I doubt it. He's not at the same level as Ablett, Pendlebury, Selwood and the like. In all seriousness though, it's going to be really interesting to see how he goes in 2015. Will he keep his form? Will he even keep his spot?