Whispering_Jack

That's as I remember it too H_T. I don't think we were ever going to take both Blease and Zaharakis and most people rated the former more highly. That's how the draft panned out as well but Blease was injured before his career even started. On the other hand, Zaharakis has gone from strength to strength, played his 50th game and won a b & f. Nobody in recruiting could have predicted one would struggle with injuries while the other would seamlessly go through his first three seasons.

Not a bad idea. Please remind us closer to the time of the game Ravi. You can be table captain.

He's a smart young bloke that Max Gawn. I've said it before but I really think we'll go into 2013 with two top youngsters who both should be ready to go but from different perspectives - Max Gawn and Jack Viney.

Great news Rhett. My favourite footy programme x 4. Thanks

The reality is that everybody "butchers" the ball at some time but some butcher more than others. I recently watched one of the games in the Foxtel Close Encounters series - round 1 of last year between Geelong and St. Kilda. The disposal of players on both sides was appalling, especially in the first half. Some of the players who were butchering the ball were players who are normally pretty precise with their kicking. Perhaps I got them on a bad day or they were nervous or rusty because it was round 1 but you would have gotten the impression from that game that even a Goddard was an ordinary kick. That's obviously not the case in the long run and, from what I've seen of Strauss over the past four years, and that includes TAC Cup, VFL and AFL games, has been well above average.

Hip replacement or hip operation? I don't know what surgery he had but a replacement for a teenager sounds a bit radical.

Hey, I'll bite. Laurence Angwin is still playing football at 29 years of age and, for Demon fans, he's pretty close to home because he was signed up at the eginning of last year by Cranbourne which plays in the Casey Cardinia Division of the Mornington Peninsula Football League. I believe they share their home ground with the Casey Scorpions and they won the flag without Angwin who was injured at grand final time. Now 29 years of age is no longer a bar to being picked up in the draft as Geelong has proven with its recent selection of North Ballarat aged pensioner Orren Stephenson so if Angwin can get his act together and head off to say, Frankston, Port Melbourne or some place like Swan Districts, who knows what might happen? My dream scenario would be to see Fev and Angwin reunited at Carlton or, better still, at GWS where the could be room mates with Tom Scully next year (knee allowing) at the Breakfast Point resort.

Unless, of course, one is sitting on the fence.

... but what's to say that he won't improve dramatically gsmith12? He already has one weapon that his main competitors for the position don't have and that's his excellent disposal, particularly by foot. Add to the fact that on my one visit to pre season training, he appeared to be the most improved in terms of physical development, that's a good start. Give him time to regain his confidence after that break and lutz could prove to be right on the money.

Close but it was his ankles not knee. Chris Aitken was a favourite of mine. He first came on the scene as a 17 year old coming up from the Under 19s in a night series game at the end of 1966 against Richmond at the old South Melbourne ground. We thought we really had something in this blond bombshell and he made his VFL home and away debut in the opening game of the 1967 season wearing #5. However, although his career spanned over more than a decade he played only 14 games for 15 goals before making his swan song in 1977. Unfortunately, a bung ankle kept him down to four games in his debut season. Then in the last game of 1967 he exploded with five goals in a low scoring 4 point win against Essendon and we all thought to ourselves, "how good is this bloke going to be?" The ankle continued to cause him problems and he missed the entire 1968 season after ankle surgery. He was back for another seven games in 1969 but his ankle was shot and he was gone at the end of the season. His record in three seasons was 11 games and 15 goals. As 3031 mentions, Melbourne had some potentially good/great key forwards in those days in Ross Dillon and Greg Parke along with Aitken but, for one reason or another (mostly injuries), they were hardly ever on the park together. Dillon moved on to Norwood in the SANFL, Parke was cleared to Footscray and Aitken went to the bush and we thought he would never be heard of again until he reappeared for three more games (wearing #14) at 28 years of age in 1977. Apart from being the brother of Wilbur Wilde, Aitken is a musician himself - AFL legend takes to the opera stage and he also once stood as a Greens candidate for the House of Representatives seat of McMillan receiving 4.5% of the vote. Yet another of Melbourne's passing parade who could have been a contender but for injuries striking him down before he could reach his prime.

You learn something new every day. I'm quoting Demon Wiki which is an impeccable source (I hope): Graham Osborne DOB: 30 June, 1947 Debut: Round 12, 1966 against St. Kilda at Moorabbin Last Game: Round 22, 1977 against Collingwood at Waverley Games: 146 Goals: 61 Career Statistics Wins Draws Losses Winning % 48 1 97 32.87 From: Toora Number: 7 1966-1975, 24 1976-1977 Ken Osborne DOB: 26 September, 1948 Debut: Round 17, 1966 against Collingwood at MCG Last Game: Round 11, 1968 against Carlton at Princes Park Games: 13 Goals: 7 Career Statistics (external link) Wins Draws Losses Winning % 6 0 7 46.15 From: Bentleigh Number: 51 1966, 36 1967-1968 Graham was recruited at the beginning of 1966 from Toora which is a dairy town in West Gippsland while Ken came through the Under 19's and was originally from Bentleigh. Graham had dark hair while Ken's was light brown and there was certainly no family resemblance in any shape or form.

I know less about soccer than you do but their defence looked pretty shoddy. Kevin Muscat was a big loss at the end of last season but he was a bit of a loose screw in the latter stages of his career.

I watched a bit of their game yesterday and I reckon they're tanking. As long as they don't recruit a kid with wonky knees and a fat father next year, they'll come good very quickly.

Close but it was Ken Osborne and he wasn't Graham's brother. Graham worked in settlements at one stage at the NAB and had a son playing at Sandy in the early days of the alignment with Melbourne. He had a number of ordinary seasons and was a bit mistake prone at times until moved to full back very late in his career where he found his niche to be a pretty good player for a little while.

Many years ago while still at university I had occasion to go to the old Herald Sun building in Flinders Street where they had a library of their old editions. Initially, it was about doing research for an assignment which I completed quickly enough but then I started looking at their sports pages and ended up staying for hours and then coming back a few more times - it was so fascinating reading about the games, articles about players and the issues of the times, even the practice matches and the pre season reports about new recruits. I suppose somewhere, those newspapers must still exist on microfish or computer - if you have the time and are into that sort of thing, it's a great education and an enjoyable way to pass your time (even if a bit nerdish).

I wonder if Jake Niall reads Demonland?

You'll be happy to know that Kennett has left the building over at Hawthorn and his replacement is ... anonymous.

It's true that Cameron Schwab is the CEO but I think the question about not selecting Rockliff was one that would have been better directed to BBBP himself. I can't answer for him but I imagine that his response would have been along the lines that in order for him to have selected Rockliff we would have had to have forgone either the pick that we used to get Rohan Bail or the PSD selection that ultimately was used to secure Liam Jurrah. The question you have to ask yourself is whether you would be happy to have Rockliff and not one of those two? On Rockliff training with the club, that's true but, from memory he did so after the national draft and before the PSD and rookie drafts. As Rude Boy has pointed out in The Liam Jurrah Story, Liam was a late inclusion on the list of players eligible that year and, in the event, we took him with pick 1 in the PSD. Brisbane then picked up Rockliff with pick 5 in the PSD. Had the Lions looked elsewhere then Rockliff would have been available to us with pick 1 in the Rookie Draft because there was only on PSD pick after Rockliff and that was Richmond which took Ben Cousins. BBBP would then have had the choice of Tom Rockliff or Jordie McKenzie and there's no doubt that whoever he would have chosen there would have been no shortage of people coming along three years later saying that he'd made a monumental blunder and picked the wrong bloke.

Rhett, If Foxtel is considering re-introducing "Last Time they Met" could I humbly suggest you wait until after Saturday, 5 May, 2012 before doing so. Geelong v Melbourne @ Skilled Stadium on 30 July, 2011 is not a good look.

I'm thinking of going to at least one of the interstate games this year. Anyone know how far the La Grande apartments on the corner of Mitchell and Knuckey Streets, Darwin is from the Marara Oval?

Waratah playing ATM and trail the top side Nightcliff by 8 goals about 5 minutes before half time. None of those big name fly ins playing for them today. They're 4th on the ladder after being undefeated to round six and will probably drop another spotbafter this round. Next up is Aussie's team, the Tiwi Bombers, but Wona hasn't done much since coming back from his ankle injury. He could be up against another former Dee in Shannon Motlop.

I could also ask what happened with dazzledavey36? One of the most skillful players I've seen in Forum Footy but you haven't come down lately. Are you still playing footy? Manson, as we know, failed to get drafted and hasn't been seen at the NTFL club Waratah since (nor have Brendan Fevola and Kayne Pettifer). In the interim Waratah have dropped most of their matches with the exception of last week when they beat competition easybeats Darwin well, um, easily. My Darwin spy tells me the word from the Waratah camp is they expect to see the above trio back soon but, in Fev's case that's unlikely because he's been in hospital after a spider bite and a staph infection. Fev won't be back at Casey either because apparently, they're not spending on costly players - all of their recruiting is apparently aimed at locals and former TAC players. I'll follow up my sources to see if there's any news about Manson.

This is one that touches on my own curiosity more than anything else and it's about promising footballers who create some interest and then fade away into obscurity. The history of the VFL/AFL is littered with them but they are becoming more rare under the modern system of drafts. There was the story discussed here a while ago about a player mentioned in a brief Demonwiki item - former Highett full forward Graham Douthie who came down to Melbourne and kicked eight goals in his first practice match - an intraclub game at Albert Park on 1 March, 1969. According to the Age report on the following Monday entitled Demons have new spearhead hope he kicked six on regular full back Graham Osborne to three quarter time and two more in the final quarter (from drop kicks) when moved to CHF. Douthie kicked only one goal in his second practice match and, though he was assigned number 40, he never played senior football. A different story is one about a young Cranbourne player Rian Healy whose story was referred to me early last year. As a 17-year- old he was outstanding for Cranbourne in the opening round of the MNPFL Casey Cardinia competition kicking five goals in a game played under lights - Cranbourne Eagles Young Gun Steps Up. It was his first game after graduating up from the Under 16s. His coach, former Demon Doug Koop said he was ready to play after doing a preseason with the Dandenong Stingrays. "He's not your typical skinny 17-year-old. He has a decent body on him and he really showed some good signs," he said. After that I heard nothing much about him although it was reported that he was nominated for the Pakenham Gazette Young Gun Award. Apparently, he only kicked one more goal in five games with the seniors and he finished the season in the under 18s. I wonder what happened to him. Was he a flash in the pan? Is he trying out for the Stingrays or will he, like Douthie and many others, end up fading out of the limelight?

I've bumped up this thread because I was having trouble logging on to Demon Wiki. Surely, it's not involved in the wikipedia stuff going on elsewhere in the world?

Unless you're close to the players then you really don't know the character traits of the players involved and therefore it's difficult for us on the outside to gauge whether a player is right from that perspective. When interviewed on SEN last weekend, Mark Neeld gave nothing away and refused to dismiss any possibility - even joint captains (which I personally don't favour). I was left in no doubt that Neeld regards this appointment as fundamental to the future direction of the club and that his decision will be based on the need to look forward and not back. In terms of the age group from which our next captain will be selected, I think it will therefore be somewhere between Jack Trengove and James Frawley. I admire the ability of Jack Grimes as a player and think he's going to make a big difference when he gets on the park regularly, something that is now well overdue. He's had to endure that difficult period on the sidelines while things came crashing down at the club and it would not surprise that this experience would have added steel to his resolve. Everyone speaks highly of his character and he's my personal favorite for the job.