Skuit

Just when I thought all hope was lost, my long-standing Sam Baulderstone campaign is given a fresh breath of life. While right on the verge, Max Gawn was last year cruelly robbed of becoming the tallest ever AFL captain with the promotion of Jarrod Witts to co-lead that sham Gold Coast Sun franchise. Pruess's off-season slim-down has meanwhile seen him fall out of contention for the AFL's chunkiest player accolade. Why not right these obvious wrongs by recruiting what would be the fattest ever human being to later play top-flight Australian football, a record unlikely to ever be eclipsed? Forget the supposedly feel-good story that is Bennell, preternaturally skilled beyond we couch-dwelling mortals with crushed MCG dreams - this would be literally huge. Beyond that, there's also a decent football case to be made. Runner-up in the Redlegs best-and-fairest last year, ahead of all of Alex Georgiou, Lewis Johnstone, Dom Barry, Michael Talia and Mitch Grigg - all of who you may note were given their chance on an AFL list. Was also named as the SANFL's 22nd best player last season, after averaging a huge 37 hit-outs per game. Seriously, big-bodied mature tap specialist who can genuinely kick and comes for free as a pres-season sup for a few games coverage.

A friendly reminder to my fellow Dees supporters: you're not responsible for the club's failures over the past sixty-five years. By some random quirk of fate, you support a team which has had limited modern success - due in part to many other twists of fate. Although I'm sure that it has been disappointing, that lack of success is not your personal lack of success. The majority of you probably chose the MFC when you were innocent children, many without having had any actual choice. I'm bewildered that so many of you seem so sensitive to social ribbing or criticism from the idiotic media. Your Collingwood mate wants to mock you for Melbourne's performance? Good stuff mate, well done for having watched a TV. Who cares what we title a documentary. It matters not one bit in the scheme of things, and makes absolutely no difference.

Aaron was the best player at my club.

Sweet - we found a way to back up our glorious AFLX trophy with another pre-season triumph.

I'm not sure if my OCD is going to cope with the ball being bounced slightly outside of the 'o' in Coles - albeit with a brief ANZAC Day distraction when Collingwood and Essendon are neatly aligned either side of the 'l'.

The latter may be true - as I'm currently in Morocco where Ahmit is a perfectly acceptable name.

Fancy being 201cm at 17 years and still not the tallest teenager named Deakin Pereira living in Melbourne . . . I thought we were being cat-fished - but I think that dude's name in the link is Dau Akol and the photo has been mixed up. And that Mrs Pereira was incorrect in stating that Deakin P wasn't pictured above (overlooking the wider shot). Now I can sleep peacefully. Except for the remaining question of why everyone is now named Deakin . . .

This isn't a business case. This is you simply highlighting the fact that business operations tend to be worth more than the people heading them. They wouldn't otherwise be businesses. The bolded bit is a highly flawed assumption, which is why people are paid to make actual business decisions in the first place. A business case would outline why replacing Goodwin would stem the bleeding. And then there are further factors beyond that again. What you describe as a sunk cost, others may view as an investment. Ditching that investment would then be a truly sunk cost, which business leaders would consider when mulling over that option.

MFC: Pleasant fluff-piece about new recruits eating some marshmallows with some senior players. Demonland: We're firing all our captains and have already ostracised Bennell from a playing group!!!

Why would anyone bother with this (bolded) if your scenario is in fact the case? And what was so apparent that gave rise to this rather detailed speculation? And what's this familiar path you speak of? Lumumba? Or another instance? Also, what's a manual agreement? Sounds like a (censored) in the parking lot.

On that note AmDam, do you know anyone in the hunt for temporary accommodation? Next week I'm heading to south Morocco for a couple of months. Hot-weather conditioning.

I can't fully contribute, as outside of the MFC I barely follow the football anymore. But can you show your workings Fifty-5? I would have thought Gawn is both our best player and the best ruckman in the league (at least best tap-ruck). First picked. Then you have Moore ahead of both Grundy and De Goey for the Pies regardless. Is it that you rate Moore/Witts so highly? Or you're not sold ruck impact? I think pairing Gawn with breaking mids such as Danger/Dusty would be phenomenal. Surely there would be another sufficient enough player from GC and CHB/back-pocket cover to avoid the Gawn sacrifice? I appreciate that it's a balancing act but Sexton could take the GC spot. Billings goes out. The Saints are then the problem?

Mystery injuries of the week resolved: some silly bugger must have erected one of these at Gosh's . . .

Given Bennell's previous poor attitude, it's likely he was invited to the camp but told the club to get stuffed.

Not certain it was from Monday, but I recall someone mentioning he walked off the track 'grumpy'.

This is a bit disheartening. We need May focused this year if we're any chance of success.

I didn't think it was the forward-line stupid, until I had a werridee moment and penciled in following hopeful forward line: Bennell Jackson Pickett Fritsch Tomald Petracca (Yes, Meksham - but he and Trac can share runs through the middle).

Safe Picket? Wouldn't it be considered innovate if it bucks a century-old custom? I really don't intend this to be provocative (and it's not directed at you PF) - but I wonder how many people who feel so strongly about dual captains also feel the same way about single parenting. For such a mundane issue, there's almost something evolutionarily biological in the passion it provokes.

I think in Bennell's case your MFCSS is focused on the wrong issues at hand. He's now a paid employee of the Melbourne Football Club and we have first dibs on him up until around mid-March - it's now up to Harley/his body (the two areas of legit MFCSS concern - although no-one here seems to be getting carried away). Still, it's worth reading the first few pages of this thread and then randomly somewhere in the middle for the lols.

I'm not sure that Luke will gain much from having Kozzie as a leap-frog partner

Bravo Soprano. In just 25 words or less you've probably put yourself in the frame for some sort of Demonland triple-award - the shortest time between signing up and threatening to cancel your MFC membership, coupled with the most trivial matter prompting such a threat and perhaps the greatest first-post failure of logic. Rather than the work-load burden, I think this was a more pertinent contention: At work, would you prefer one bad boss (in the broadest of senses) or one bad boss and one good boss? By good or bad, I mean whoever the employee finds most effective as a leader, for whatever subjective reasons. I indeed have two equal-level bosses, who I've learned to individually consult depending on the matter at hand. If you shift your focus from top-down to bottom-up, would it not be better for some kid like Luke Jackson or Kysaiah Pickett to enter the club and have two leaders to look up to, and then the option of leaning toward whichever one suits them best? No matter the skill of the communicator, some people gel on an oratory and interpersonal level more than others - is it not better that we have two leaders who can get the message across in different ways? Your original post focuses on the potential negatives of miscommunication. If they are both strong leaders - even if in different ways - then they should both be on the same page, and certainly not allow factions to develop. If not, they shouldn't be leaders of our football club. And while all of the above can still be achieved by having a captain and vice captain(s) structure, it comes back to a matter of what is the difference.

My MFCSS twitches whenever his name resurfaces. The MFC seems to have escaped serious scrutiny - I'd rather it buried forever than see investigators digging through fresh documents in the hope of a Bombers' take-down.

I'm always confused about how strongly people feel about it. I couldn't give a toss one way or the other. What does a captain do in footy? (Rhetorical). Why can't two people do that? And lessen the burden/double the impact? A lot of the drawbacks mentioned by the OP exist in another manner under one captain. At work, would you prefer one bad boss (in the broadest of senses) or one bad boss and one good boss? I mentioned elsewhere that one of the world's leading strategy consultancies recently elected co-CEOs Last month, Indonesian decacorn GoJek went the same way - with each CEO focused on different areas. Maybe that's how our model operates as well - being on the outside, we just don't know.

What we do know is that Jackson was rated third by one club. (Discounting any needs-based vs best-available discussions). Also that Young wasn't rated third by at least four clubs. And that a minimum of four clubs didn't rate Green in that spot. With one of those clubs rating at least two players ahead of Green. The rest is BS - recruiters can say what they want when they don't have to back it up. In the paradoxical words of Chookrat - it's all just words. I propose the term 'chook-ratting' to apply to any such canvassing in the future.

The whole first sentence would be even more befitting for our preseasons on Demonland; '. . . it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”