Whispering_Jack

From the AFL website:

PF. Surely you've heard of a club foot?

Interesting. Although Barry is from the Northern Territory, he would continue our recent link with Ballarat as he played this year with the North Ballarat Rebels in the Under 18 TAC Cup competition. The Rebels were the top side but were disappointing in the finals. Our resident TAC Cup watcher Stevo was at Visy Park for Preliminary Final Day when they were thrashed by the ultimate permits, the Oakleigh Chargers and reported in PRELIMINARY Knightmare on Bigfooty has Dominic Barry going at pick # 66 in his Phantom Draft Dominic Barry Height: 183cm, Weight: 78kg, DOB: 07/03/1994 Recruited from: North Ballarat Rebels Style: Player comparison: Range: 30-rookie Profile: Very quick outside midfielder with a good combination of speed and endurance. Has a real slippery, evasiveness to him and has really nice agility. The speed is the real feature of his game and both ways it can be a real feature whether it be with his chasing or offensive running when he can get into space. His numbers are very solid for a player of his type but to improve will need to develop some more consistency in his ball use. Chris25 has him going to Hawthorn at 78:- Dom Barry (183cm midfielder - Alice Springs) Every year I talk up players from the NT, and most years they slip through to the rookie draft. I think that is what will happen with most of the other NT boys, but Barry looks special. He is a very smooth moving winger, not too unlike Stephen Hill. Sometimes his kicking can let him down though, which is likely what will see him drop. But he runs hard, marks well and can go forward. I reckon someone will take the punt on him quite early, because with a few years of development he could be a great player.

This time last year we could have throttled them for stealing Tom Whatsisname but look at this! Melbourne and GWS cosying up together to do a deal for pick 3/Jesse Hogan:- Dees circle Hogan I think it's called love.

Now that Jack Viney is done and dusted, we can look forward to two years of argy bargy about young Billy. My information is that Billy is coming along nicely, growing taller and like Jack, can't wait to play for his father's old club. Only about 2,600 posts and 185,000 views to go!

Well done. I hope someone thinks to save as much information as possible in case this problem arises in future. Good luck to all Demonologists and don't forget the game on 21 October 2012.

Too true PM. It's just another line and length piece of abjectly p155 poor journalism from Denham who would be better off simply not writing about us in the interests of accuracy in reporting.

Day after day that fool Denham of the Australian gets it wrong when it comes to Melbourne - Giants hang on to young ruckman Mark Seaby, Jesse White likely to be shown the door as Swans pursue Kurt Tippett Another epic fail.

After my head stopped spinning I actually arrived at the view that this is a nice piece of lateral thinking.

Redleg, I will SMS the outcome at 10:05am. Please make sure you have your iPhone on silent, otherwise the Magistrate will have us both up for contempt of court.

Congratulations to Norwood and their coach Nathan Bassett. West Adelaide held to just 8 goals in two finals - I reckon we should grab him as a defensive coach.

Mark Neeld and Tim Harrington made it very clear last Monday night that they have a premiership plan and the objective this year is to bring in a mix of experienced players and youth. They're not going to give away blue chip draft picks unless they get value.

I watched part of the Under 18s on live stream. Grundy's Sturt was overrun after leading at three quarter time and lost by a goal. The big boy did well dominating the hit outs (although the opposition shared a few), got 18 touches and kicked two goals in a low scoring game. Loped around a bit but line and length for what you would expect from a seniors ready footballer in a game such as this. WWT were clearly the fitter side and had a few in the midfield who ran the game out well. Champion Data Stats are here Norwood v Centrals reserves grannie now streaming but I think I'll go out for a coffee.

It seems to me that the details of the alleged trade as discussed in the article actually set out what Collingwood would be prepared to offer to get the deal done, perhaps the opening gambit in their negotiation. I would suggest that if this happens then there's a fair bit of water to flow under the bridge before its consummated. The draft pick will change or possibly disappear and a player or two from our side might end up at the Pies. Whatever the case, it's certainly no done deal.

This is all about what a club becomes after so many years of lack of success and so much failure. I can recall as a youngster when we were the strongest club in the land, you weren't really concerned about who came in and who went out of the club. We were the champions. We won premiership after premiership and we had an aura of invincibility about us. Imagine a time when you would wake up on Saturday morning and you knew your team was going to win. There was the occasional loss and you took it hard but you knew that next week, you'd win and it would roll on and on and you thought it would be that way forever ... We lost the aura of invincibility on Queens Birthday 1965 when St. Kilda broke our eight game winning streak from the beginning of the season. The club literally fell apart and from that day on, we were searching for new messiahs to lead us out of the football wilderness. I can remember most of them. I recently came across an article written in the Age about a successful recruiting trip that Jim Cardwell made to Tasmania where he signed up a couple of that State's leading schoolboy footballers in July 1965. We had a wealth of new recruits in 1966, the best being Ross Dillon who could have been anything but broke down with a knee injury six games into his career. After a year out of the game the feeling was that he would never reach the heights predicted of him. Soon after, Cardwell announced he'd signed the best schoolboy footballer in the land - a midfielder from Broken Hill named George Lakes. I got to know him briefly when he came down but he never made it and was eventually cleared off to the Swans. Then there was Tassie Medallist Graham Molloy and later John Tilbrook, both of SA and many others along the journey. We got one genuine star in Robbie Flower and a handful of triers until Barassi came and developed the Under 19s with Slug Jordan and introduced the Irish experiment. We were on the right track around 1987 when we recruited three interstaters in Warren Dean and Earl Spalding (WA) and Todd Viney (SA). Together with the young talent coming through like Jimmy and Garry we managed to return to finals football and even made it to the grand final in 1988. But the search continued as the ups and downs came and we never got it perfect. Perhaps we might have if only we lost the Kreuzer Cup in 2007, a result which could have seen us get Cotchin that year and both Watts and Naitanui the following year (we would have been entitled to a first round priority pick in those circumstances). Amazing that we're being investigated while the AFL looks away at what Carlton did then but that's just an aside. It is what it is and we've learned our lessons well. The Daniher and Bailey years are over and it's clear to me that we're no longer taking the recruiting short cuts. No one saviour is going to help us, not even young Jack and that's why I remain ambivalent about the whole pick 3 v pick 26 thing. In the end, it's going to be the total package of our overall recruiting efforts and how we train and develop our players when we get them that will determine the path that our team will travel along in the years to come.

I've posted elsewhere that I'm a big fan of Jack Viney and the way he plays but I couldn't help notice the irony of your comments considering you style your website name after the legendary Norm Smith. Norm was a champion of the club who brought two "sons" into the club. The first wasn't really his son but he treated him like one and adopted him into his family home whilst a teenager. That "son" was Ron Barassi Junior and, like Norm, he became a champion of the Melbourne Football Club. The father/son rule was brought in for Ron - his father was one of the first Diggers killed in WWII. But in his first game for the club, Ron was 19th man and sat on the bench for the entire game even though the team was getting flogged. Then he was dropped the following week and it took him several weeks to get back in the side and for him to finally run out onto the field of play in a Melbourne guernsey. Norm's other son was his "real" son Peter Smith who also played for the Melbourne Football Club. He wasn't much good as a footballer and, after a couple of seasons, he was cleared to Carlton. Not a single membership card was destroyed on the day he was cleared. It doesn't matter if you're the son of a champion or anyone else in a team sport. You have to earn your place on merit and when we do confirm Jack Viney's nomination as a player with this club tomorrow, it won't just be because he's the son of a champion, but rather, because the club believes he's worthy of being so nominated.

Kelly O'Donnell now holds down the portfolio of "pro scouting" at the club. We also have a former policeman who investigates the histories of all potential recruits to ensure that there are no surprises about their background or character if recruited to the club. It's becoming a big business.

The big news from today's State Combine is that Michael Riseley from the Casey Scorpions blew them all away with 15-4 beep test which turns out to be the best of the week including testing of the young guns and internationals. Mind you, his brother Jeff ran in the London 2012 Olympics so it's in the family!!!

Last Sunday morning I went with my son and grandsons to the MCG on community day at the football and I noticed the first written rules of the Melbourne Football Club painted on the walls. You can see them as you go up the escalator on the way to the Tridents section. The kids were fascinated by Rule VII. For those who have never seen them before, here they are:- The Rules of the Melbourne Football Club May 1859 Committee T.W.Wills Esq. T.Butterworth Esq. W.Hammersley Esq. - Smith Esq. Alex Bruce Esq. Hon Treasurer J.Sewell Esq. Hon Secretary J.B.Thompson Esq. I. The distance between the Goals and the Goal Posts shall be decided upon by the Captains of the sides playing. II. The Captains on each side shall toss for choice of Goal; the side losing the toss has the Kick Off from the centre point between the Goals. III. A Goal must be kicked fairly between the posts, without touching either of them, or a portion of the person of any player of either side. IV. The game shall be played in a space of not more than 200 yards wide, the same to be measured equally on each side of a line drawn through the centres of the two Goals; and two posts to be called the 'Kick Off' posts shall be erected at a distance of 20 yards on each side of the Goal posts at both ends, and in a straight line between them. V. In case the Ball is kicked behind goal, any one of the side behind whose goal it is kicked may bring it 20 yards in front of any portion of the space between the 'Kick Off' posts, and shall kick it as nearly as possible in a line with the opposite Goal. VI. Any player catching the Ball directly from the foot may call 'mark'. He then has a free kick; no player from the opposite side being allowed to come inside the spot marked. VII. Tripping and pushing are both allowed (but no hacking) when any player is in rapid motion or in possession of the Ball, except in the case provided for in Rule VI. VIII. The Ball shall be taken in hand only when caught from the foot, or on the hop. In no case shall it be lifted from the ground. IX. When the Ball goes out of bounds (the same being indicated by a row of posts) it shall be brought back to the point where it crossed the boundary line, and thrown in at right angles with that line. X. The Ball, while in play, may under no circumstances be thrown.

The combine results of Joshua Kelly are super impressive for a bottom ager who won't be eligible to play AFL until 2014. Our resident TAC Cup watcher Stevo told me that Kelly didn't have a good finals series but he certainly looked the goods in the Under 18 Championships and his father Phil Kelly was a great at both East Perth and North Melbourne (not quite enough games for F/S). An outside chance of selection by someone in the Mini Draft but the opposition for one of the two places available is hot!

Shades of the person who inspired this thread but with a difference. Tippett can blame it all on the delayed effects of all those concussions and he never lied to the supporters either.

You should keep it that way too.

Latest news anyway is that Kurt Tippett has issued an official statement via the AFL this morning that he will request a trade to the Sydney Swans.

Interesting thinking there Einstein. In other words, if the MFC rated the top four as follows:- 1. Whitfield 2. Grundy 3. Toumpas 4. Viney Then we could only get two of our top three if one of the teams above us elected to nominate Jack ahead of us, theoretically putting themselves at some risk if they were just acting to get up our nose. FWIW I think we would take Viney anyway but the situation is one of great interest not just theoretically. If GWS or GCS nominate Jack for the fun of it I'm certain it will have repercussions in the future and I'm not sure they would take the step anyway.

Nevertheless, perhaps it might not be necessary to signal how desperate you are to the rest of the world.