Chook

Exactly what I would have said. He is a chicken for not staying at Melbourne, but I obviously still love him.

When we play well, more people go to our games. When more people go to our games, we make more money. When we make more money, the AFL makes more money. What makes the AFL money, the AFL does. Ergo, when we play better, our games will be put at times when more people will go to them.

I know how you feel. I just got my membership today, which I promptly let fall behind my piano. Half an hour later and I finally got it back where it belonged.

Which could conceivably cause Melbourne to drop out of the highest league of the code it invented. I wouldn't want that to happen.

Developing your core is so important. I'm a bit of a runner, and I often find that my best form of injury-prevention and enhanced speed comes from core work.

What about Matthew Pavlich, Jonathan Brown, Daniel Kerr, and so on. Most players are professional enough to play for the Club they'te drafted to. Of the rest, enough money will get them to stay. Very few players would just go to the Club that drafted them and say, "you know what, screw you guys, I'm going home," without there being any way to get them to stay.

Although that sounds unexpected, it really isn't. I mean, when's a guy who sits on the couch all day going to exert himself enough to injure a muscle. More Exertion = More Chance For Injury.

I'm all for supporters of other clubs hanging out on these forums. Just as long as they give interesting and insightful comments. This guy gets a pass on both counts.

Didn't he miss some of the end of his debut year with some sort of injury or soreness? In addition, most people would have been saying "gee look at what this kid can do now. Just wait until he gets a full pre-season in him!" Little did we know that would cause him not to be able to play again for seemingly most of the next two years.

Exactly. Hell, it could be a sign of modesty to suggest that he's not even arrogant enough to assume he'll even be given another contract - with any team.

Won't they mean more when there are more teams? Also, the best team is still the best team regardless of how many teams make finals.

Hell no. I wasn't anywhere back in '87. And I guess that's your point; that nobody can know what it was like if they weren't there.

If he'd said "I'd love to win a Premiership with Melbourne," people would be whining "OMGWTFBBQ does that mean he'll leave after we win one. I want four premierships what a mummy's boy wanting to go home."

No, no, NO, NO, NO supergoals. Worst idea ever.

I'd be fine with him not playing seniors until he's shown that his body can stand seconds. And if 10-12 weeks is what it takes for that to happen, then I'm all for it. We have plenty of time on our hands, so it would be quite a shame to rush him in not fully prepared.

Isn't every developing team in the same boat? I Melbourne has that problem, then so will Essendon. And this "you need a mountain at full-forward or you'll suck forever" isn't true at all.

What the heck did he even say?

Is this an event that occured in frond of a crowd of zero? Surely someone saw it and can say what it looked like to them.

What was the exact phrasing of the reply?

I hope not. Obama is not the answer to our forward woes.

That's not what I said. But I have seen a few posts saying "If it weren't for Melbourne, I'd have given up this dog of a game long ago." I absolutely hang out for Melbourne games. But I also watch at least bits of every other game every week. I just get the feeling some people here wish footy was like it was in the "good old days" when forwards didn't chase and fat people got to play at the highest level.

6AM Goal-kicking 12PM Lunch 1PM Goal-kicking 6PM Dinner Repeat as desired or until satisfactory. How hard is that? It is the one area of our game in which the smallest amount of effort will yield the greatest result. A team that was capable of kicking 15 goals straight instead of 10.5 immediately goes from a wooden-spooner to a Final Eight contender on the back of five kicks of the football. If you can think of a way to get more drastic improvement through less than that many kicks per game, I'd like to see it.

I'd be down like Charlie Brown. It seems silly to me that sport should be affected by just one of the many religions to the exclusion of all others. Either never play footy on a holy day of any kind (infeasible) or just admit that sport should stay separate from religion and politics and thus play on Good Friday. I think the idea of having a special Saints vs Demons game would be great, but I just hope that the two playing on Good Friday would be seen in a positive, not negative (how dare they make light of the afterlife) light.

Martin et al. But the thing Martin has on his side is that he's smart and can obviously be taught (as evidenced by his high VCE score).Watts is great because he's smart, knows the game and has the physical attributes to go along with it. Givehim some weights and a cheeseburger as well and he'll be set.

I agree. The only thing you can't teach a person is how to be tall.That's not to say that if I was in charge, I'd just grab people who were physically right, regardless of their skills. I'd take a person with fifteen years footy experience (ie born into the game) over some basketballer who only heard of the game last friday.