Whispering_Jack

George Lakes?

Thanks for all your reports folks ... although I never got the answer on Jack Watts. Perhaps BH was too busy getting jobs for you guys through his employment agency.

Interesting interview on the subject with Mark Neeld on NT news:-

Here's the Inside Football pen pic

Hope he finds a new home - Discarded Demon Matthew Bate says he can have an impact at a new AFL club if handed a lifeline

Kevin "Shifter" Sheehan's top 30 players for the national draft:- Shifter's top 30

Incidentally, be on the lookout for another tanking inquiry beat up about to hit the news. It's about the strong arm tactics used by the UN investigator running the show warning Melbourne employees who know stuff all about anything much that they had to co-operate with the investigation. Adds nothing at all but fills space for the punters to read about things less morbid than the Aussie bowlers being mauled up at the Gabba. My take on the use of the strong arm tactics used by the UN investigator is that it's a response to strong arm tactics being employed on the AFL by gambling industry watchdogs. And while we're at it, can anyone shed some light on this? Grant Thomas - Wikipedia Why on earth would Grant Thomas call Wilson a liar?

This is fantastic and surely a sign of better things for the Melbourne Football Club. Forget the sheer ignorance about the meaning of the word "troll". For the first time in my living memory, Demon fans are being looked upon as "ferals" - we've joined the great toothless masses, never again to be looked upon as inhabitants of ski lodges, cigar smoking denizens of the Army & Navy Club and partakers of high tea on Sunday afternoons. We've broken out of the private schoolboy mould and can now proudly join the ranks of the football proletariat, ruffians saying and doing the unspeakable. Thanks Crikey for liberating us from a lifetime of being recognised only as genteel wimps. We're now officially "ferals" and we're out to get anyone who tries to stand between us and the premiership. Anyone who's been to training lately can see that it's rubbing off on our players too - look at them. No more nancy boys and it's a prerequisite for all in the Demon army to be "feral". Even Jack Watts will be on carry over points in 2013!

Robbie Flower.

Five actually, if I can get a leave pass from she who must be obeyed.

This is what I mean when I refer to the damage done to the club by the media's treatment of the "tanking" story - Denis Pagan urges the AFL to go easy on Melbourne for tanking Denis Pagan is a nice bloke and his sentiments about the AFL not going to hard on us over tanking are well and good but there's a heavy presumption of our guilt running throughout the story. The propaganda effect has won out and in the eyes of the world we're guilty of an offence before we've even been charged, seen the evidence or put our case. Our jails would be brimming full if that sort of thing happened in society. Worse thing. There'd be no lawyers because once somebody accuses you of something, you're automatically guilty. That sort of thing doesn't even happen in totalitarian societies where, at least they give defendants a show trial.

Thanks BH - look forward to it.

I'm not sure but I still think the question of whether he can go into either the ND or the PSD depends first on when Port Adelaide delists him. If they don't do it until the final list lodgement (i.e after the national draft), he doesn't have much of a choice. The other item of concern would have to be on his disposal and decision making which is questioned in the article. I haven't really noticed him in any of his games so I don't know but if it's as bad as painted here, I'm not that sure the club would go for him. Of course, they said the same about Andrew Swallow back in the day when he was a draft hopeful and he drifted down the draft rankings as a result, yet he worked on that aspect of his game and has become a top player for the Roos.

BH, on a scale of 1 to 10 how do you rate Gysberts and Morton as against Taggert? Also, if you're going tomorrow (or anyone else for that matter), I'd appreciate an assessment on Jack Watts i.e as to whether you think he's built himself up over the two months since the season ended. I'll probably be at the Gabba taking in another sport but look forward to everyone's reports with great interest.

Please folks ... let's keep it friendly and genteel around here just in case the real Carowhine, er, um ... Caroline has look in here. We don't want her to think we're a bunch of savages like her mob who put our memberships in microwaves when they're unhappy about things. We're not like that at all. We just look at things on the bright side.

On the subject of the early stages of pre season training, this is a fairly significant article - Dees back in better shape this year: Rawlings When Mark Neeld and Tim Harrington spoke recently about the club's tactics and strategies for the free agency/trading/drafting period, Mark Neeld stressed that he and the football department had been disappointed at the way some of the players presented for pre season in November 2011. Reading between the lines, the disappointment reflected the fact that some players had not applied themselves to the programmes set out for them during their break in September/October. Neeld vowed that there would be "no surprises" this time around. It seems that all those who have remained at the club have got the message.

He's actually played three at Casey but was only 100% in one of them and that was against Box Hill when he was close to BOG and kicked a couple of goals. I sat next to him at a club function this year and he sounded keen to atone for his injury riddled year and to break into the Melbourne team at some stage in 2013.

Sorry to spoil things but I couldn't help it. He wore #2 because the VFL was upset about one of our newspapers publishing the players' numbers and were worried it would affect sales of the Footy Record so they changed all the players' numbers. I reckon it cost us the flag. By the way, RDB played in six premierships not five - 1955, 1956, 1957, 1959, 1960 and 1964. Frank "Bluey" Adams was the other Melbourne player who played in all six flag winning matches. Please make sure RDB doesn't find out you tried to short change him a flag because he would never let you forget it.

Two connections actually. The first is the connection between Judy and Colin Garland (fourth cousins twice removed and replaced once on the interchange bench). The second was that she appeared in a concert in Melbourne p1zzed to the eyeballs and she was heckled off the stage. Three months later Melbourne won the 1964 Grand Final.

Tweet from the Melbourne Football Club - This is the time to check out those stories about Rory Taggert being as big as a Sherman Tank (oops Freudian slip - forget the reference to the Tank, I was only joking. Oh, even joking is no defence.) ... horse.

Ron Barassi.

Oh well old dee. You can still take a lead from the song and look on the bright side because, they might be taking away the notebook and the pencil but they're letting you keep the straight jacket!

Maurie, that's because we're all "long suffering"!

So what if we're being hounded by the media rottweilers who want to see us wither and die as a football club? Forget about our lowly position, the tanking enquiry and the fact that our VFL alignment is on the chopping block. Here's the answer to all of our problems:

Does the Age still sponsor the Walkleys?