Chook

Exactly. Every single passage of play in that package included at least one player not playing today.

Amnesia according to WYL. Apparently, at the start of each year, they forget how utterly hopeless they were the year before.

When you ain't got nothin', you got nothin' to lose. Give 'em hell, Demons.

I don't see the problem. They didn't have big goalposts, so they used little ones. Big whoop, wanna fight about it?

Are you bagging James McDonald, YM? I give you more credit for insight than most, but that's just wrong. Junior's a champ and deserves the Captaincy in my opinion, but even if I'm wrong about that, you can't say that he's a "diabolical" captain.

Of course. But every club currently existing is in the same position as us. There are only so many players that are going to be targeted, however, and the fact remains that James Frawley or Jack Watts are not that much better than some of the other key position players currently playing that we deserve some sort of special recognition. Nor is it any worse for us if they are taken, than it would be for Carlton if Kreuzer were to go, or any number of other clubs. The danger is there, granted, but my position, unclouded by Melbourne bias, is that other clubs deserve all the benefits that we get. I would put it to you that due to the fact that, as we all know, you can't win a game of footy with a bunch of eighteen year olds, the Gold Coast will be looking to pick up older, "ready-made" players, because their desire for immediate success will be quite high. Thus, every club needs to be equally worried that their current stars may be looked at. Basically, I don't see why Melbourne, who are in the position of having a large number of young players (and are thus going to ride out the storm of shallow drafts to come better than, say, Adelaide) with no real "stars," should be given anything that clubs such as Geelong, with a large number of likely targets for the new teams, (but a future with fewer exciting young prospects than us), aren't also given. I don't argue that we may be hard-hit, but I would say that we won't be so hard-hit as to render us doomed. In fact, there is a chance we won't be touched at all.

We're obviously going to be biased here, but I think that there's no reason Melbourne and Richmond should get protection. The reason we're down the bottom of the ladder is that our players aren't as good as those from other clubs. Which suggests that GC and GWS are going to pick players from teams other than Richmond and Melbourne. If they thought our players were good enough to take, then we wouldn't be struggling to begin with. The fact that we're bad means that the likelihood of a player being nabbed from us is lower - without the need for any exceptions being made.

I can remember a game against West Coast over at Subi when we were good, in which we dominated the 90% of the first quarter. Then West Coast scored a behind. The ball proceeded to stay in our defensive 50 for the rest of the quarter. Literally. We could not get it out of there to save ourselves. We've been bad at this aspect of the game for as long as I've watched footy.

21, not including finals. But I'll be more than happy to revise my predictions next week.

Yeah. My name's Jimmy and I had Jim Stynes to look up to when I was young at the footy. Him having the same name as me really helped me to identify with him. So I'd watch us when we were losing by nearly a hundred points and say "Jimmy'll win it for us," not knowing that there was about five minutes left in the last quarter. As long as they've got something to interest them at the game, then all is not lost.

God help us. We're screwed.

About 14 billion kilometers away and traveling at the speed of light.

That's like saying a three wheeled car needs the remaining three wheels to spin faster in order to go at the same speed.

If they're at all serious about their job, they won't look at this. Which is good, because it wouldn't do us any good. All that matters to them is training, recovery and the matches each week-end. And that's all that should matter. I'm sure they're as disappointed at being made to look like idiots as we all were at watching them play like ones. Hopefully they'll be better against Collingwood - if only a little bit.

I was worried for a second when I read that he was only just going in for surgery. Then I read that it was on the 10th of March - nearly three weeks ago. So he and Bell are almost three weeks into their recovery. When are they expected back? Round 8? Or was that eight weeks from the tenth - which would make it about round five or six?

I do the same thing. I've got to say, we've got the quietest cheer-squad in the League. So any voices that aren't raw need to get down there quick.

Fantastic post. Sounds as if you've put some thought into this.

Oh really? Last time I checked, we were on the bottom of the ladder and Adelaide weren't.

I wouldn't drop Miller and Bate anyway, because they weren't our worst players. But if you're playing badly, you should drop the players most responsible for that, regardless of their age. The only person immune from being dropped is the Captain. I'd drop Cameron Bruce because he was in our worst. And I'd do that because he's playing badly, and for no other reason.

Yeah, fine. But to blame him for our crapulence is unfair.

Why even mention Newton? He's not even in the team. It's almost as if you want to sick the boot into him.

but it's not the senoir players doing well. It's the young'uns.

I'm sorry. I thought the centre-circle was abandoned before then. If I'm wrong, then I let facts get in the way of a good rant (my first, unlike others). But it was not Melbourne who got rid of Jolly. Jolly wanted to leave and we couldn't stop him.

Betting is sinful ur all going straight to HEEEEEEEELLLLLLL!!!!!!

We lost Jolly because we couldn't see how past it White was. We continued to play him over Jolly, and so he continued to rack up the cheapies while two real ruckmen, Jolly and Jamar, were relegated to second and third in the pecking order.