Whispering_Jack

So who's the likely pick 5 or 6?

Paige Cardona writes on Bound for Glory News about Tyler Roos, son of you know who - Bloodlines Roos is on the Sandringham Dragons list and here she described his round 3 game: Sounds like he might become a footballer with some decent coaching.

Goddard is intense organised and busy. But we're not talking about Brendon

Strange things happening at the selection table with the dumping of top goalkicker Shannon Byrnes. I reckon Mick Malthouse can't contain himself and is giggling about his stroke of good fortune. Can't see us winning now that Player X is out of the team.

Absolutely not. If we get 10 goals up at half time over those [censored]s from Carlton then I want to go for a 20 goal win.

And the last of pen pictures from the 2014 draft

Angus Brayshaw who trained at the club along with Billy Stretch as part of the AFL's work experience programme, continues to impress. Brayshaw, Lamb shine as Pies down AIS

Don't hold your breath Redleg. We saw what the AFL did under pressure from the other clubs and in the interests of preserving GWS' first pick. Not only that - there are a few Melbourne supporters who hold the view that we can recover without the handouts and who will loudly rant that priority picks are unnecessary or at least undesirable to assist in our recovery and will make a loud noise to that effect. This, despite the fact that the AFL has rules which indicate we're definitely entitled to draft assistance by any measure.

The next instalment of AFL PROSPECTUS prospects -

You know, I've just come to the realisation that this thread is the only one on Demonland where more than 50% of its regular posters are sane. Does this mean the club's in trouble?

I know. I was thinking more about the strange types who blow into the thread from time to time.

Tomorrow is April Fool's Day lads ... please be on your best behaviour.

Agreed. I like the way they've managed to inject youth into their team in recent years.

That attitude surprises me OD because, in other words, if you're right then there was no reason for the upheaval of last year when people advocated a scorched earth policy that resulted in the removal of numerous individuals blamed for the club's failures. In truth, while some should have gone, the real culprits had already been dispensed with. Those 15+ goal hidings were the culmination of many factors. I'm confident we're on the right track to repair the damage and if we continue on this path, we will improve dramatically by the second half of the year. We're not going to kick 10 points in a row every week or lose more of what's effectively left of our ruck and key position defenders by half time.

Jeremy Howe says "hello".

How can you not feel excited by the sight of that full forward line?

But they're getting their national comp even if it kills off a couple of the club's in football's heartland.

An article from the AFL website about father/son prospects which suggests that Billy Stretch is currently ranked a second or third round draft prospect - Doing their bidding

Amen to that and now back on topic, I think it must surely have been a triumphant moment for this thread that the co-captain of this august football club and one of the nation's premier sporting organisations told an audience of 650 adoring supporters that his daily dietary regimen involves the consumption (inter alia) of at least eight bananas. I thought I would share this news with you while it was still ripe.

We're left with T20 and the Aussies will at least tie the series courtesy of the Duckworth-Lewis system turning last night into a 7 over match. Stupid.

Continuing the series of pen pictures of prospective 2014 draftees from the AFL PROSPECTUS. The first of these is apparently a future superstar -

The number of talls available at the pointy end is interesting. I hope whoever we take can stand up during the pre season

I prefer to go with Patrick Smith's view that this is all about how modern cricket is played. The days of gentlemen cricketers is well past and while I note your point about there not being another test or innings to play in this series, I'm sure the mind games will go on when next they confront du Plessis who stonewalled us in Adelaide a year or two ago. That could also include the coming T20 games including the world championships and next years World ODI Cup.

Shannon Byrnes kicked 25% of Melbourne's goals yesterday.

Interesting watching the ABC's Offsiders programme today. The two female panelists were Tracy Holmes and Caro and IMO their prim and proper PC denunciation of the Aussie's behaviour towards Faf du Plessis demonstrated their complete ignorance of the mind games involved in cricket's art of sledging. Du Plessis had earlier called the Australians a pack of dogs and questioned their ability to attain reverse-swing in the first innings. The Aussies returned fire by giving du Plessis a barking send-off when he was dismissed and, during his innings taunted him about his ball-tampering charge last year. The ladies thought this was immature and childish. Masters got things in the correct perspective describing the antics as funny. Heaven help the sport if the likes of Wilson and Holmes take control. Anyway, that's it for Aussie test cricket until October when we're due to take on Pakistan in three tests in UAE and then four home tests v India in our summer. I wonder if we'll ever see Harris again post surgery and whether our young gun pace bowlers will be healthy by then. It's a bit like waiting for MFC's talls to get fit.