Whispering_Jack

Anyone here in favour of merging this thread with "The No T$ No B$ Thread" at some stage of the journey?

Overnight bombings in Malmö, Sweden and another "lone wolf" in Tours, France. I believe there's a move afoot to form the World Union of Lone Wolves.

Given that we've just recruited a zillion midfielders in the past two years, it's a great idea to target another one. Do we commit to getting him irrespective of whether he shows some form or the capacity to fit into the team? Brother or not, we need to make choices with the head, not the heart.

Brett Anderson of Inside Football analyses the list and takes at look at how the Demons are shaping up for 2015 ~ Inside the clubs: Melbourne

I agree with you there - there have been too many attacks on posters who provide information about training and other matters. That sort of thing leads to derailing of threads which is annoying and unnecessary. If we find this occurring in future the offending posts will be deleted and posters may be banned. I recommend that people refrain from engaging with the snipers. Thanks.

James Hird appeal verdict could derail ASADA case against Essendon 34 ... since we have no idea which way the Federal Court Full Bench will go in the case, there's also the possibility that it won't derail the ASADA case.

Both of you are addressing different issues. My comments relate to reports from training about Petracca's fitness. I haven't read any criticism of his skills or his ability to produce explosive bursts of football but I questioned why the doubts about his endurance given his excellent beep test at the Draft Combine. The beep test is an aerobic fitness test. It's meant to test a person's endurance, not their pace over short distances or their football skills.

The rumour worked with Billy Stretch so why not try it again

2015 Draft: The 15 players to watch

There are people who are questioning Petracca's general fitness and endurance but at the Draft Combine he recorded a top ten finish with 14.10 for the beep test which doesn't suggest that he lacks fitness or endurance. There seems to be a contradiction between what people are seeing on the track and the testing results. I'm sure there must be an explanation.

There's also a chance that he might get this one right. I understand that he found against Viney because he believed that he had offended against the rule relating to the head high tackle. If, after hearing the evidence, he believes the players broke the rules, he'll find them guilty.#Illinjectwithyou

Perhaps the reason Jess is not taking aim at Essendon is because his client doesn't want to sue his old club and incur the wrath of former club mates and friends there? The whole thing is yet another distraction because Jess knows that he doesn't have a hope in hell of succeeding against the AFL without also taking on the Bombers and proving what it was that they gave him. For all he knows it might have been a baby formula like thymomodulin or whatever other substance comes in that photoshopped picture of a bottle that they're so desperate to convince us the players were given. In which case, Jess' client has no action because all it does is help him sleep like a baby. Now, why on earth would a smart scientist like Dank feed his players with something like that as part of a programme to develop better footballers?#Illinjectwithyou

Injury confirmed ~ Watts up? Jack down until Christmas with groin issue

I don't think it's a leak but rather comes from the AFL charges against Essendon on governance issues from August, 2013.

Sue - I haven't been able to keep as close an eye on things as I would like but there doesn't seem to have been too many leaks from day 1, perhaps because the prosecution (i.e. ASADA) has been putting forward its case which, given the fact that it's going to take a whole three days, suggests that it's comprehensive and detailed. I heard some of the anti ASADA proponents on radio over the weekend were suggesting the case was on the brink of collapse because of the refusal of a few of the main characters to give evidence. But let's face it we all know why Dank, Robinson, Charter and Alavi aren't exactly lining up to tell their stories and yet the only thing that we've heard from the Essendon side is that these characters won't be giving evidence. The way things are going the entire defence is going to rely on the "vibe". As Chip Le Grande Bouffe put it, this case will depend on whether the Tribunal believes the players swallowed:- A. The bad thymosin; B. The good thymosin or C. Thymomodulin And Chip tweeted today - "Let me make this clear: The players would not know one thymosin from another. They only signed up after they were told it was cleared." You only need to check what B. & C. are proscribed for and you'll get the picture. The players obviously didn't despite all of the education they're supposed to be getting from the AFL. The rest of us have swallowed BS from the Essendon camp for far too long. The saga continues ...

The boys were training the house down today according to one of my sources who will be reporting as soon as he finishes some work commitments.

During the season that's gone past I followed the young players in draft contention from afar. Knowing that our mantra at Melbourne has, for several years been the need to resuscitate our midfield, I kept an eye on three different types who could one day take their places in our midfield. I was assisted by a couple of correspondents who kept me informed about the junior scene and I watched closely the National Under 18 championships. Three players were on my radar from the very start and by virtue of the occurrence of a number of circumstances we managed to get all three with Alex Neal-Bullen thrown in as a bonus. Angus Brayshaw - the name was mentioned last year when he held his own in the solid Sandy Dragons midfield that contained Josh Kelly, Christian Salem and Nathan Freeman (all went top 10 in the 2013 draft). Zach Merrett and Karl Amon also played there. Brayshaw was one of two AIS members who did work experience at the club (Billy Stretch was the other) and I saw them both at training on a stinking hot day out at Casey in January. Brayshaw didn't miss a beat that day and looked comfortably at home throughout the session. Being two-sided and hard at it, he actually looked better than a few of our listed players who had been at the club for years (no surprise that a few are no longer there). I watched him train at the Dragons during the year (my grandsons' junior club trains on an adjoining ground) and he was always a stand out at training. One of my "spies" told me during the year that he was the closest thing there was in the draft to Ollie Wines* and that if we missed out the first time, we would be damned if the opportunity arose a second time and we didn't take it up. Brayshaw's Under 18 championships spoke for themselves - a leading ball winner, AA selection in the middle and touted as a future leader. * Wines has played in all 49 games played by Port Adelaide since he made his debut in Round 1, 2013. Even if Brayshaw is handled conservatively, there seems to be very little reason why Brayshaw should be held back if he's fit, has a good pre season and shows some form in the NAB Challenge. Christian Petracca - I still regard it as a minor miracle that we got him as well as Brayshaw. He was known as a brute of an under age man child last year and his main claim to fame was his five goal haul in the TAC Cup prelim final that got Eastern Ranges into the grand final in the absence of Tom Boyd. The following week he was one of the best in the premiership team in which Boyd got all the hype because of his three early goals on return from injury after three months. The finals got Petracca a late call up to the AIS. He then proceeded to drop kilos, work on his tank and proved he could hold his own in the midfield. All Australian under 18 honours followed and he was ultimately favourite for the #1 draft pick until the Saints leaked the news that they were taking McCartin. I expect him to initially be given a high half forward role with limited midfield exposure but his opportunities would be on the same level as Brayshaw. Billy Stretch - we've known about him for a number of years and watched him go through the junior ranks at Glenelg making the reserves final last year as well as getting some bottom age experience with SA Under 18s. This year he was promoted to the Glenelg senior team and improved throughout the year to the point where he was putting in some dominant high 20s possession performances at the end. In between, he starred as an outside mid in SA's championship winning under 18 team and gained AA honours. He was named in their best in nearly every game so I'm still scratching my head in wonderment as to how we only had to use pick #42 to get him. However, he's slightly built and I think he will need more development time at VFL level so I don't expect him to be a regular in Demon colours just yet. The added bonus was Alex Neal-Bullen who was not really on the radar until some good reports stated coming in about his ability to get the hard ball out of the middle for SA under 18s. Didn't put a foot wrong in the final game against Vic Metro when he and Dean Gore both put Brayshaw and Petracca to the sword in the midfield. ANB could get early game time if he reproduces the sort of form that saw him accumulate 30 possessions for Glenelg in the second last round of the SANFL season. And then there's Jesse Hogan!

In late news just to hand. Sam Baulderstone might have missed the opportunity to play AFL for next year but he will have something else to fall back on. He's just been signed up to star in a situation comedy titled, "My Three Tonnes".

Were any of the players asked if they could explain Mitch Clark's absence from training this week?

If I was running the ASADA case, I would open by stating that I will present a large body of evidence (albeit mainly circumstantial) which should prove to the tribunal's comfortable satisfaction that the 34 players ingested a banned substance TB4. I would then make the point that the onus is on the players to provide a plausible alternative as to what occurred at their club in 2011/12 and ask where is the evidence and where are the witnesses? Where are the records of what the players were given? Where are the people who ran the programme, supplied the material billed to the club? Where is the chemist who compounded that material? Where are Dank? Robinson? Charter? Hamilton and Alavi? What steps did the players and their representatives take to ensure their appearance at the tribunal to give evidence to provide a plausible alternative explanation as to the substances with which they were injected? I would ask why, if as they claim they were given vitamins, are all these people so eager to hide what was inherently such an innocent project? If the best the players' counsel can come up with is that there's no evidence in the absence of Charter and Alavi (incidentally, both have very good reasons why they should not appear - and you can add Dank et al to that), then I suggest he has some homework to do over the weekend. If those friends of yours were referring to our mate David Grace QC, then he should pack some warm clothes for his forthcoming trip to Switzerland.

We are approaching the middle of December, our list has been rejuvenated with 10 changes (one of them is the re-inclusion of Nev Jetta) to the primary list and 2 to the rookie list, meaning that 25% of the list is made up of players new to the club in 2015. MELBOURNE In: Angus Brayshaw (Sandringham Dragons) Jeff Garlett (Carlton) Sam Frost (GWS Giants) Neville Jetta (Melbourne) Heritier Lumumba (Collingwood) Oscar McDonald (North Ballarat Rebels) Alex Neal-Bullen (Glenelg SA) Ben Newton (Port Adelaide) Christian Petracca (Eastern Ranges) Billy Stretch (Glenelg SA, father-son) Aaron Vandenberg ® (Ainslie ACT) Mitchell White ® (Dandenong Stingrays). We also have four more listed players who have yet to debut at AFL level - Jesse Hogan, Jayden Hunt, James Harmes ® and Max King ® which brings that percentage up to more than one third of our total playing list. Of course, a couple of the "newbies" are seasoned footballers (Lumumba and Garlett) and Sam Frost and Ben Newton have some games under their belts but that still leaves a large number of players with very little exposed form at the highest level. I've been reading the training reports and am also aware of Paul Roos' history of holding players back before giving them a taste of the real thing. We hear of stories of players at the Swans who took a while to get a senior game under Roos. Daniel Hannebery is often cited as an example after being drafted by the Swans at #30 in the 2008 AFL Draft. However, he remained in Melbourne in 2009, to complete his high schooling at Xavier College and made his debut in Round 16, 2009 for Sydney against Carlton, whilst still attending high school. In round 2010 he won the NAB AFL Rising Star award. This year Christian Salem was used sparingly and often as the sub but Jay Kennedy-Harris was given an early chance after some good form in the NAB Challenge although he was showing signs of tiredness by not longer after mid season. The question is what are we likely to expect this year with our younger players, especially those young midfielders who are said to be stronger bodied inside types, not dissimilar to (dare I say it) Ollie Wines? This is what Saints' coach Alan Richardson is telling his players - Alan Richardson tells new St Kilda players age no barrier to getting games in 2015

Christmas present? Jesse Hogan dominates Melbourne training, looks ready to make first AFL appearance

Not really in my view. It was important for ASADA to show they did all in their power to ensure that witnesses like Charter and Alavi would attend so as not to enable any inferences negative to their case to be drawn. In the absence of their attendance, the players will not be able to cross examine the witnesses but, by the same token, they don't appear to have made much of an effort to persuade them to attend (in fact I understand they were represented at the Supreme Court over the past few days and are asking for their costs). I would argue that in these circumstances, it's a bit of stretch them complaining about the lack of ability to cross examine and further, if they do go down in the action, they couldn't possibly argue they co-operated with ASADA and then seek mitigation of any penalty. I agree that we should all have the popcorn well in hand for next week's events..

It all ends today with the final nomination of international rookies. Unless Melbourne has hidden away a selection, it looks very much like our final list is settled and this board is done and dusted. Thanks to Chip Frawley for your service and I hope your final act as a Demon results in us gaining a champion footballer.

The Rodriguez case is significant because MLB is not a signatory to the WADA Code and yet the baseball authorities found guilt based on circumstantial evidence. Rodriguez was sanctioned without a positive test (as was Lance Armstrong). That part of the media throng pushing Essendon's innocence is essentially claiming that ASADA's circumstantial case against the 34 is doomed to failure because it doesn't have the evidence to sustain a case against them and that the refusal of Charter and Alavi to give evidence to the tribunal is somehow fatal to its prospects of success. I wouldn't be too sure of that!