old55

Reef McInnes probably surprised and pleased he's at Carlton. May get a finals call up?

There might be a club that thinks we'll stay down and has the assets to back the punt. Maybe Richmond or the Suns might do a couple of picks in the mid-late teens to early 20s, say 17 + 21 from Richmond. That would put us in the frame for the ruck Dodson and a tall - there seems to be a batch of them around that mark.

People keen to get rid of Simon Goodwin should be careful what they wish for - they'll get a package exit deal.

Happier to be a Brisbane, Port, GWS or Carlton supporter then with all those Prelims they've played in? Not me, no way!

Keen to hear your opinion on Sydney, Port Adelaide, GWS, Brisbane, Carlton and The Dogs recent history - not a flag amongst them for many a year. Geelong and Collingwood both missed finals immediately following their flag. Only one of those 8 clubs can be vindicated this year and it isn't going to be "fire-breathing" Collingwood.

No doubt you're right, Kate, prompted by Whately, called Max and asked him to put Trac on the phone. After a few sympathetic "there-theres, we love you Trac" everything is apples again. All hail Kate, next Queen of Moomba!

Less than 3 minutes after she said her primary method of judging the health of the club and its culture was talking to players and their families, she said she hasn’t talked to Petracca and his family for quite some time. According to Roffey, Petracca has raised some good issues and the situation is absolutely resolvable but she doesn't know what they are because she hasn't talked to him. Contradiction and failure. She signed off the interview like she thought she'd done a top job. You can't make this stuff up!

Pretty sure Kate agrees with you ...

Roffey: "We've spoken with Trac and he's raised some good issues with the club" "I haven’t spoken to the Trac family for quite a while so I won't comment on (what the issues are)" [censored]!

If your "work situation" requires "sacred" privacy as you posted, then you should be using separate email addresses, separate phone numbers and post office boxes separate from your residential address to keep your indentity as private as possible. It's on you to take these meaures if it's critical.

I think you were asleep in the back seat and missed a large and important part of the journey ....

A bit tough to complain that we've lost Brayshaw, ANB and Petracca(?) when there hasn't been a trade and draft cycle providing any opportunity to replace them

I think Petracca will end up at Essendon for some combination of pick 8 and two of F1st, Wright, Hobbs, Cox or similar.

That's exactly what happened when Treloar and Grundy were forced out of Collingwood

Let's keep the facts straight. Lawrence asked for members' email addresses so he could send his electoral message out and the club refused to provide them. OK Lawrence said, you send my message out for me and the club again refused. So Lawrence took them to court and won.

Harley Reid - they already go to him in a marking one on one with Jack Henry and he wins it easily.

There's all sorts of titles for matches - the Derby, the Showdown, Dreamtime - this is simply "the Hate"

Essendon could get it done if it came to it - 1st + F1st + player

I've been posting here for a long time and people will have formed their views on the value of my content, but I think it's fair to say, as the artist formerly known as Pollyanna, I'm generally very supportive of the club. But not in this instance. I've come to know Peter Lawrence since he started to campaign for greater transparency and democracy in our board elections. I've found him to be of high moral character, someone with broad ranging views that I admire. He's intelligent, empathetic and generous. His actions in this matter are all about making the Melbourne Football Club better and not at all about self-agrandisement. He's paid a big cost reputationally and financially in his quest for a better club and he has directly sought to minimise the costs to MFC. As @Dr Don Duffy said, the board "won" this action against Lawrence but only after they adopted 4 of the 5 changes he was promoting during the course of the court action. It doesn't reflect well on this board that they couldn't find a way to accommodate a capable and passionate person like Peter Lawrence and ended up in court twice with outcomes almost totally in favour of his original positions.

Good question I'm not sure, but shouldn't God know these things?

I expect at least 7 list exits at the end of the season - Brayshaw, Hunter, Schache, Tomlinson, Smith, ANB and B.Brown. The good thing there is that they are all senior listed players so that gives us a lot of flexibility for new acquisitions. I hope we retain all our Rookies and give them further time to develop - K.Brown, Kentfield, Verrall, Sestan, AMW (B), KFW (B) and Melksham and Hore who add value and depth. I think we'll be looking to elevate at least a couple of Rookies to free space on that list for more speculation and Noah Yze, Ricky Mentha. I think AMW, K.Brown and Verrall are the elevation candidates.

I didn't think of that, is it something you might do Sue or something someone did to you?

I don't think it works that way. Houston chooses the club then Port do the negotiations. He's not going to be influenced to come to us because Port get better value.

Hard to believe that Houston has been put off by recent reported "turbulence" at MFC. If he has then that says we probably don't want him anyway. If it's to go ahead I think 13 from GC for our F1st and 27 from Adelaide for ANB should get it done with Houston and Port's F2nd back. Their first pick is 37 so 13 and 27 is a decent boost. We also retain our current first for this year's draft for a good mid. If it doesn't happen then we take 7, 13 and 27 to the draft. In that case we could trade 13 + 27 to Sydney for 18 + 19 and put us right in the frame for SA ruckman Alex Dodson and the pick of a bunch of talls all rated by Cal Twomey in the 20s: https://www.afl.com.au/news/1173505/cal-twomeys-phantom-form-guide-top-draft-prospects-august-ranking

I think you're discounting the leadership vacuum too heavily. North were no doubt offering 4 years and big bucks.