rpfc

We have plenty of cap space... We have been frontloading because we have no-one to pay.

It's very eerie over there... The DR seems to be starting threads under your guise RGRS. I was one of the many that didn't take a shining to this bloke last year and he set his eyes on Ology apparently. Hopefully, something can be done.

He is a few years away from that, by then the contracts will be up and he can bring who he likes in.

Agree with BB re: webber. I should add one thing - the vociferous manner in which I have argued is more because of the terrible arguments from Barrett, Ryan, et al than my own belief in some diabolical need for draft assistance. I am more than happy to fight on without assistance, AFL money, Jackson, Roos, and every other thing that we have managed with the help of others. But thankfully we don't have to.

Perhaps for captain, but we are so bereft of good leaders that he and Clark were both in the LG before playing a game. As Roos said, you have got to work with what you have. Leading Teams will do something very similar with the captaincy to what brought Grimes and Trengove in, and like I say every year, the captain should be worked out every February before the season.

Is that what you think we would do? Cry into our pillow? Look at Pick 1 or Pick 3 as the messiah? I am struggling to find the differences in your position to the Gestapo-land you describe; you would like draft assistance, you would push for it, and you would move on should we not get it. Because I don't think there is much difference to what I think, many on here think, and what Jackson will do.

You are kidding me right? lol

No-one should be punished. We should take the carrot of losing away entirely, I have an idea that if you want to read further you can here: http://demonland.com/forums/index.php?/topic/32809-cure-tanking-the-competitive-percentage-determinator/?hl=determinator

Everyone knew what was happening in 2007. Lappin retired a week early as to avoid any desire to send him off with a win in a game they could win. Fevola was taken off the ground for the rest of one game as he was dominating and getting the Blues to close to a win. They had to lose 11 in a row to finish that season. Collingwood inexplicably lost their eighth straight game to NM in 2005 by a goal after being up by 6 goals with 20 mins to go. I know we love to make what the MFC do SO much worse than the rest but playing Johnson on Brown and Warnock forward is small time stuff. And again, my definition avoids this mess altogether. Trying to tie motive to the positional changes in a game? The players we sent out were in front at the siren and that is all it should be about.

You can believe about me what you will. I don't feel the need to defend my views over the last few years. Suffice it to say if you think all I do is kowtow to the status quo then you will look for the points that follow that reasoning. And 'welfare drip' - would you like me to pick on that as well? Or would that be an unfair semantic attack? Why stop with draft assistance? Reject the AFLs money for The Firing Squad, tell the AFL parachute Jackson he is not required, and hire a coach we can afford. While we talk about welfare; what about the fixture? Do we stop asking for a fairer draw? It's hard to pull yourself up by your bootstraps in an industry of 18. We should have had pick 6 in the two years we had pick 12 because of the expansion clubs. Conca and Wingard would be handy. We would have to be the most affected club from the expansion clubs concessions. Does that matter?

You don't like being referred to as weak, well no-one is calling the PP a 'quick fix' either. It's a priority for Jackson because he knows what Roos can do with that pick. He can bring in a Swallow type talent with that pick. And that is a priority for Roos. We need to improve as a club, and a part of that is getting better onfield, and a part of that is getting 'whats coming to us' and using that to find suitable talent.

Rookie list players are given a 1+1 contract where they can be discarded after one year or agree to stay for a second year. Alternatively, they can go into the draft. Magner should have done that after 2012.

And why would you? We are predisposed to want the best for the club, just like those servants that fail to live up their promise. All you, or anyone can do, is argue what they believe and attempt to convince people and watch in horror as it all falls to pieces (one can shove it in people's faces if they wish). It's like my infamous belief in the word of a 20 year old simpleton - 'I believe in Tom'. I claim to this day that I was not wrong to believe him. You claimed the incompetence of those at the club, Land rejected the opinion/evidence/proof wrought, and the horrors were proved correct and you were right. But it doesn't make us wrong that we believed in them. And that goes for every administration, even the one that tried to 'vote us out of existence' or 'eat Hawthorn whole' depending on what you believe.

The Saints should move him, but we are not the destination.

I really do not like the term 'list clogger.' We will have to dig deep into the player pools again this year. Player A is drafted at pick 80 and is immediately contracted for 2 years. He is little chance to play AFL and is discarded 2 years later. Player B is picked up on a 1 year contract and has injuries and form issues, plays 6 games and leaves 12 months later. Which is worse? The 2 year 'list clogger' or the one year pro whose body is failing him? When you draft a kid in the National Draft - they are immediately put on at least a two year contract. So I would argue that there is less risk for a Byrnes/Cross type player on a short term contract because you know what they are capable of and are not behoven to an automatic 2 year contract.

You have given a good reason to hold a grudge against me, not past servants. My issue with hazy, and there was a point of detente when he and I saw eye-to-eye was with an abject refusal to give any credit for any positive. We can dig up old threads and hash out old arguments in which we all point to the nuances of what we said - but who are we to settle the scores of past administrations of the MFC? And as for the motive of tanking - if you can prove action had a causal reaction to a particular motive then yes, you can prosecute. You and I may disagree, but a joke about aggressive Zulus (the guise of MFC fans) advancing toward the club if wins continue, does not constitute motive. Now if they had an Assitant Coach admitting to the desire to lose - that would be different...(and I bring that up only to point out a better example of motive, not as a 'they did it aswell' defence) And tanking occurs all the time, I hope that people are not so naive that they think the removal of a PP will end what they think is 'tanking.' Teams will still lose and minimise their chances of winning in bad seasons. It's life in draft regulated sports. Fans/journos/execs of the NBA look at ways of removing the allure of tanking, their equals in the AFL attempt to 'capture smoke with their bare hands' looking for motive and punishment. I know what is the better use of time...

So you listen to Schwarz and ignore your own 'lying ears'?

I wanted to deal with this seperately because it is not really relevant to my own vision of what tanking is. McLardy, CC, Schwab, Ridley, Gutnick, Szondy, Gardner, Harris, and every other Demon that comes and goes as the latest scapegoat for our plight as my sympathy. I have personal experience with grudges held for a great number of years at this club and while I called for McLardy to leave in Rd 2 this year, and put forward the idea of moving past Schwab before he received his latest and infamous extension, I don't hold the contempt for them that others do. They are not evil, they are Demons that on occassion, have done a laughably bad job of running the club. But once they have moved on they should not continue to recieve scorn, nor we waste our energy. If we are a club that is to consolidate and hopefully grow, we cannot continue to hold the hate we hold - there are some that (and I bring this up to derision every year) still hold grudges against players in the near-merge of 1996. You don't forgive people because they deserve it, you forgive them because they need it. And in the end, so does the club.

It is a strong argument - to take away draft assistance that would normally be awarded - we mean we would be punished. Therefore, the Not Guilty verdict officially becomes farcical.

We didn't tank - and before you roll your eyes - my argument does not reject reality: we tried to manipulate a few games to secure a better draft position. The reason why I said we didn't tank is because I have a narrow interpretation that stops at the water's edge of players being told to lose. And the amount of internet I spent explaining this would make Al Gore roll over in his grave so I will give the clift notes: If playing someone in a foreign position is a part of tanking, that will create a problem. If sending players for early surgeries to prepare for next season is tanking, that will create a problem. If playing young players and ignoring others is tanking, that will create a problem. And if only some of these are tanking, or is tanking only at particular times of the season, then where does it stop? When we removed all our older players at the end of 2007 and sent our fortunes through kids - we were intent on bottoming out. That is in the spirit of tanking. But is it? I am of the view that if you cannot legislate coherent and stable rules ito govern a practice then you shouldn't bother. The NBA has a lottery draft, but it still has tanking and it does not care. It overlooks it because it is impossible to prove motive with these moves that define tanking. The AFL knew this but wanted to win the PR week, hence our fortunate use of CC's remarks as a pressure valve to get us out of a mess that cost Adrian Anderson any future at the AFL.

It really does not matter, games won, it all comes down to perception. And from what I can tell from Jackson - he will attempt to get some help from the Commission. I think we will be awarded something, but only as much as to not cause too much of a stir. Basically enough for Barrett to smugly say "I never thought they deserved a PP, and the AFL agreed with that premise." But also enough for Barrett to smugly say "the MFC can't say that the AFL hasn't helped them out - they have been given Jackson, Roos, and Pick(s) X - those first two funded out of AFL house." I really don't care what these awful journos say, but the AFL unfortunately does. They like winning their PR game each week.

I sympathise with the 'we should not look for picks to save us' argument but I would argue that that argument is not an argument against a PP or draft assistance but our reliance on simply taking these boys and then waiting for them to save us. Which I agree with - there was nothing worse than listening to MFC officials reel off names as though through osmosis they would become consistent players, stars, and leaders. The rest of the arguments are deeply flawed.

So "the effort you put in during the week?"

Since when are we out of jail? And the AFL gives out these cards because occassionally, clubs need them to keep the sport from degenerating into an EPL-like experience where only a few rich clubs can win. We got a lenient judgement in your view - so did the Bombers. We got emergency funding - so have countless others. Now we look for draft assistance - that has been given, again, a number of times. How about if the AFL say "You broke the rules 4 years ago. Now have draft assistance because these are the rules of the a game that wishes to even up the competition." I find it difficult to stomach the idea that the AFL was right not to punish us with draft penalties because it would be a disservice to the competition and then argue we don't deserve the draft assistance that would be given to a club that is a disservice to the competition.

I interpreted it as "we can't prove anything but we fear the public outcry over the entire tanking issue so we are coming down hard on a joke from your FD head about it." We paid for our 'sins' in that one game and the sins of Carlton (lose 11 straight to get Kreuzer and Judd), Collingwood (lose 8 straight to get Thomas and Pendlebury), and back-to-back PP years from Hawthorn after having 5 years of 10+ win seasons.