Whispering_Jack

We have picked up Shannon Byrnes and David Rodan who can fill that role for a couple of seasons. I have a feeling that pick 49 which is our next pick after the f/son selection would be used on a mature age selection from one of the State Leagues. It's just a hunch based on the fact that at our pre FA/Trading briefing with Mark Neeld and Tim Harrington, a great deal was made of the fact that the club had placed Kelly O'Donnell in a scouting role specifically aimed at this area.

On the other hand, Nick48 on Demonology has posted a very good report on today's training - http://demonology.midnight.net.au

Or possibly to lift the tone of the quiz we could consider some challenging questions such as the ones asked by the compere of this quiz programme -

Ok ... this gem was sourced by The Great Pretender - AFL boss backs Dees after loss

Neither do I.

If Redleg gets on here later trying to tell you that during his quest to locate the prime banana bargain on the Gold Coast he bumped into two Demon greats, don't believe him.

How did a 30-second aside in a lengthy match committee meeting morph into a specific meeting held by the Melbourne Football Club in 2009 supposedly as a call-to-arms to its football department to lose matches? Imagination? Read first the stories written and published in the Age in a whirlwind five day spree in which its chief football writer, aided by underlings who produced nothing much to add to the subject, carried out her relentless daily attack on the Melbourne Football Club and some of its senior officials with nothing much to go on but a ½ minute grab of lighthearted comment at a meeting in a place ominously referred to as "the vault":- Tanking affair darkens for Dees Senior Demons drove tanking Secrets from the vault Why the Dees alone are facing probe Three losses that raised eyebrows A timeline on tanking What they said about tanking 'We tried to stop tanking' Jobs on line: Dees warned Sheedy saw Dees' problems coming Demons: shock & awful and finally ... a small semblance of sanity Dark artists drop the ball And this is how the rival Herald Sun dealt with revelations by former Demon coach Dean Bailey that the events that were supposed to have taken place in "the vault" had been blown out of all proportion - Dean Bailey tells the AFL he didn't order players to lose A lousy 30 second grab became the arrogance at the heart of the innuendo! Dripping through The Shrew's ministrations are attacks on two Melbourne people who are the targets of her malice. "Melbourne will be harshly punished. Cameron Schwab and Chris Connolly will be finished at the club." Connolly's sin appears to be that he cracked a few funnies but the case against Schwab seems to devolve down to innuendo and the fact that, instead of doing somersaults and handstands after Melbourne's round 15 win over Port Adelaide, he appeared "grim-faced". The problem is that said game was one of the most shyzen exhibitions of football in the history of the game. In fact, IMO it was so bad that anyone who didn't walk away from the game with a grim face needed to be institutionalised. WHAT NOW? This is your opportunity to help us build "The Wilson File" to help us uncover the reasons for this arrogant, obsessive hatred on the part of one journalist towards the Melbourne Football Club and those who are working hard to make their club a success once more. We want solid evidence here - articles with links and quotes from appearances on radio and television. Help us get to the bottom of the arrogance at the heart of the innuendo.

So where is everybody? Surely, you're not all burning effigies of Caroline Wilson? Somebody must have gone to today's training session?

Good suggestion and one that I'd like to take on board. I'm on holiday at the moment and am working off an iphone but will definitely have a crack at compiling articles Wilson has written that are derogatory to the club. Also, if she's written anything favourable about us. I also think we need to get to the heart of who has been supplying her with information from within the club over the years. That would be a more worthwhile exercise than suing her for libel.

I wouldn't be spending time and money on a defamation action against Wilson. Our major focus after this "tanking" issue plays itself out should be the team we put on the field and getting it to a point where it can compete with the better clubs and aim to play finals football again as soon as possible. Suing Wilson would be a distraction our club doesn't need.

Weather's magnificent and now that Redleg's turned up we're concentrating on sorting out the experimenting inquiry. Enjoyed watching the cup from someone's apartment overlooking the beach. Winning trainer a former Demon and James McDonald rode the second placegetter. I knew we did the right thing by letting him go!

Athol Webb

That it was "a 30-second aside" and not the main subject of the meeting in the vault gives it a completely different context to the one previously painted in the media. It makes it even more likely that Connolly was joking (as if there was any doubt with the comments prefaced by reference to "the cavalry") and casts great doubt not only on the story but on the credibility of the storytellers.

I'm told that Buckley also came out in support of Melbourne on the tanking issue stating that all clubs whose seasons are shot do exactly what Melbourne's done i.e. embarked on a policy where team development was more important than winning. Every club did it but only one of them is being investigated and that is the scandal of the year.

That is a very good get. I think the AFL might be troubled to even find a way to charge us given Demetriou's comments to Wilson. Did she ever write an op ed in the Age expressing disagreement with his views?

I think we've all had enough of this.

We don't know that he doesn't want to be at the club. All we know is that he has expressed a preference for North Melbourne in much the same way as Mitch Clark initially expressed a preference for Fremantle a little over a year ago. If he's available under our draft system, we have every right to go after him if we're interested.

Players usually change clubs for a number of reasons and McLean gave several in interviews after he left including the story about the long drives to Casey. My recollection is that Melbourne was not prepared to put him on the same coin he was getting in the last year of his 2009 contract because of concerns that he had lost a yard of pace due to his injuries starting in 2007. Carlton came in and offered more and he was traded for pick 11. I don't doubt that he was unhappy about the state of affairs involving the club in 2009 (who really was?) so I don't say he exactly lied when questioned by the panel of On The Couch. However, I doubt his response would have been a shock to the panelists. I'm told his views were known and the response he gave when asked on the night was to be expected.

We can take him at anytime up to 13 November as a delisted free agent and it won't cost us a draft pick. It will however, mean that he would take one of the spaces remaining on our list and therefore mean one less draft pick available to the club. Forget pick 88. It's a long way beyond the horizon and would only be used by us if we make a few more delistings. In other words, we gave Morton away for nothing or simply to free up a spot on the club's lists.

Now let's not get ridiculous.

Wish him well. He's learning under one of the AFL's top coaches.

I have two things to say to Bruce Hearn McKinnon, the mentor of Liam Jurrah:- • Et tu Bruce? and • I well remember Ron Barassi when coaching North Melbourne, taking Malcolm Blight off the ground after his forward kicked the most amazing goal from an impossible angle in the forward pocket. I always understood this to mean that Barassi was trying to teach his player to be more team oriented and to pass the ball to players in better position to score goals. I know he had a different motive but we can now add North Melbourne to the list of clubs that tanked and never got investigated for doing it.

I'm safely away from the heat of the action up on the Gold Coast today but I received this tweet from the Melbourne Football Club: Looking forward to some great reports of today's action.

Rumpole, I can't answer that question but I do have some vision of the interrogation -

After the Kreuzer Cup thousands of Carlton supporters were boasting about their priority draft pick as well. However, three weeks before that game, a former Carlton board member was boasting they would get the pick and how they were going to go about it. I'm waiting for a call from the AFL.