Adelaide Demon

Valenti in the ruck, I have to say I laughed quite hard at that. That's what I'm talking about!!

Yep. As short-sighted as it sounds, this is absolutely true: Bailey's future at Melbourne has more chance of prolonging itself if we start to lose games. Winning three more games this year will be less beneficial (than getting the PP) coming through next year and in to 2011. Seeing as there is no pressure on him either, the positives of winning now are far less than the positives of potentially winning more next year and '11.

This is awesome. I'm so glad that we are the club to push in to the NT. Exciting times ahead!

There's your #1s since the turn of the century: # 2000 - Nick Riewoldt (St Kilda) # 2001 - Luke Hodge (Hawthorn) # 2002 - Brendon Goddard (St Kilda) # 2003 - Adam Cooney (Western Bulldogs) # 2004 - Brett Deledio (Richmond) # 2005 - Marc Murphy (Carlton) # 2006 - Bryce Gibbs (Carlton) # 2007 - Matthew Kreuzer (Carlton) # 2008 - Jack Watts (Melbourne) They're all guns, except Deledio who hasn't come on as well as he should've but is still a very good player and has room for improvement, Murphy's getting better all the time, Kreuzer's still developing and Watts, we don't know yet. So it's basically a guarantee that you are going to at the least get a very good player, if not a great one. Now picks 2 and 3 for the same period: 08 Naitanui Hill 07 Trent Cotchin Chris Masten 06 Scott Gumbleton Lachlan Hansen 05 Dale Thomas Xavier Ellis 04 Jarryd Roughead Ryan Griffen 03 Andrew Walker Colin Sylvia 02 Daniel Wells Jared Brennan 01 Luke Ball Chris Judd 00 Justin Koschitzke Alan Didak For my money, there's a better chance of getting an A-Grader with pick 1 than there is with a pick 2 or 3. Of course you could get Judd, but you could get Andrew Walker too.

Pick #1 in the pre-season draft.

Is it just me or are the calls to start selectively choosing players this week in case we win is completely ridiculous? We are playing Geelong. At Geelong.

Yeah check the link above. Brief answers and very quietly spoken, obviously shy/nervous etc. but his English is actually a lot better than what has been said. His confidence will come. Hopefully he gets some help this week because he's going to have a lot of interviews.

A thumping win over Freo will do me for the rest of the year. But... I just hope that we don't have to take the fall that finally makes the AFL change this system. I fear that we may... And, ironically, by taking the fall I mean winning games of league football.

See now that is just a joke. 6 - Cameron The Bruce 5 - Liam Jurrah 4 - Mark Jamarov 3 - Brent Moloney 2 - Bradley Green 1 - Rick Petterd.

Sorry but I just had to add that I laughed at this. HAHAHA gold!

Thrilled for him. That shoulder/collar-bone injury in '05 really put the brakes on what was shaping as a pretty exceptional career. Still a great of the club though. Onya Brucey. Kicked his 200th goal a few weeks ago too. Love having midfielders with more goals than games. Had a great last month, and a great last 18 months actually. Back to some of his best, even if he is a very different player now compared to what he was in '05. With a couple more seasons who knows he might even make 250!

Exactly my thoughts! I was thinking that yesterday when watching the match - wonder if they could get him back there just to set some records for the fun of it!!

That was a great interview there. Gee Davey has to be my favourite player now. Such a legend. And Jurrah, well his English is actually great, he's just obviously quite reticent when speaking to the media and that, but that will come. He's quietly spoken generally, but I remember Flash's first few interviews about 5 years ago, he was quietly spoken and nervous too. And now he's our best player! Jurrah, what a star. Maybe if we miss out on Butcher it won't matter too much with the Jurracaine in the Red and Blue!

About 14500.

Kempo Garland is unlikely to play again this year, Maric has just had shoulder surgery, Dunn is not capable of avergaing 2 goals a game, Newton is not capable, and whatever Robbo, Bate, Jurrah and Miller do, our forward line will still need some serious improvement. If we win four and finish bottom, depending on WCE, we will get picks 1, 2 or 3, and likely 18 or 19 (depending on Freo and Richmond). So that compared with what you're saying, pick 5 and pick 22? or 23? ?? Three top-20 picks compared to one...

Federer, what a champion, 21 Grand Slam semis in a row, no one has ever matched that sort of consistency, at least not in the Open Era anyway, to my knowledge. I believe the next best semi-finals-in-a-row is about 10 or 11 from Lendl. If he wins the US it will be his sixth US in a row, that is phenomenal, and will be back to his 2004, 06 and 07 form of winning 3/4 Slams. Since 2004 he's won 14 of the 23 majors, and 15 of 25 since Wimbledon '03. Incredible!

You put some serious work in to that post, nice work! I have to say that I can't see us winning more than we lose before 2012. I think a benchmark would be to make finals in 2012. I think 2012 we should be a finals side, winning a dozen. After that, we hope that we continue to develop. If we were pushing for 8th in 2011, then great, but I am not expecting Finals that soon. Hawthorn went 4 wins (2004), 5 wins (2005), 9 (2006), 13 and a winning final (2007), to 17 wins and 3 finals wins and a Premiership in 2008. I think we all agree that their rise was massively rapid. I think it is reasonable to expect us to take a year or even two more than they did to get to the point where we are pushing for top 4 etc.. Anything beyond top 4, you just cannot predict. I think that from our current position and with out current and future list though, I would like us to have at least two seasons of being a consistent top 4 side, winning 14+ games, in 2013/14/15. Whether we achieve more than this, and whether we can sustain this, of course it is far too early to tell. Of course I (we) would love a GF and a victory in one, but we cannot 'expect' that from this far out. I think it is reasonable to expect us to be winning more than we lose within four years though. [2010 - 5-6 wins, 2011 - 8-10 wins, 2012 - 11-12 wins, 2013 - 13-14 wins etc. etc..]

For mine our ruck department is far from 'resolved'. Jamar was brilliant on Saturday, the best game I've seen him play (or can remember anyway), but one great game against poor opposition does not define a career. Johnson will never be anything and is completely rubbish. (I am not bashing his character or the man, he is just an awful footballer at AFL-level, this is my view. Disposal - 2/10, decisions - 1.5/10, tap work - 2/10, work-rate 7/10. Enough said.) Spencer and Meesen should be given time. I heard Gerrard Healy throw up the idea of us trading for Jamie Charman, I actually didn't think it was the worst idea I'd heard. Don't have a clue what Brisbane would want for him though... ???

How about we try our behinds off this week to win. IF we win, we will be on three wins. Then when we play Richmond, North and Freo in a row, we can try our butts of to win them too. In fact, we can try to win every week from here to the rest of the season. And we might win two of them. We aren't good enough to win three out of eight. I think that if we miraculously got to four wins before the winnable game against Freo, then we would need to reassess, but that is not going to happen. Hopefully Freo can be our fourth win of the year. (And West Coast, Freo, Richmond and North can pinch a couple more each.) I think considering supporting a loss when we only have two wins on the board is quite frankly disgraceful. Of course I want Scully and Trengrove/Butcher et al, but I also want Melbourne FC to earn some respect back in this competition. Let's win a couple more games this season.

Channel Seven's committment to football has become a complete and utter disgrace. No two ways about it. And 45hotgod, gee what a piece of play Eishold's was though, I mean I'd only read about it and then I saw it on Fox about a month ago in a 'worst misses' category on Before the Bounce and the whole panel was nearly in tears with laughter, I have to say that it is, objectively, the funniest shot at goal I have ever seen. As a Dees fan it is a lot more than just a miss but it is still an amazing bit of play that I want to see again! "Eishold with the shot..."

I would say that Martin has improved. We know that he at least is a quite capable defender. He's shown improvement for mine. I agree that Buckley should not be in the negative, he's played one game, he is under 'stagnant' if anything. Really, really want him to play a few games this year and then kick on and play 20 next year and show what he's got.

1987 Preliminary Final Hawthorn vs Melbourne Anyone got a clip of the Eishold shot at goal? Need to see that again.

The term 'elite' is thrown about a fair bit these days. Maybe if I said 'our only A-grade player'?? He's a step above anyone else we've got at the moment, only other is Green who could have claims to being able to make any of the decent sides in the comp.

6. Davey, A. 5. Bruce, C. 4. Sylvia, C. 3. Grimes, J. 2. Frawley, J. 1. Martin, S. I would really prefer to only vote for the top four, they were the only players worthy of a mention.

Bruce: 2nd-best on, one of his best games this year. Davey: our only eilte player. Without him it would have been the 80-point loss it threatened to be. A brilliant first-half. Green: Not involved enough. McLean: Must be rested immediately. Playing him in his current state is hurting both him and the side. Warnock: rarely sighted. Watts: Not involved. Should never have played in the first place back on Queen's BDay, now he's in, play him next week and take it from there. Miller: Not involved. Paul Johnson: Fuking atrocious, one of the worst ruckmen getting a gig in the league at the moment. We have no other options though, unfortunately.