Whispering_Jack

Those who know me would be aware that I'm pretty excited about Michael Newton's freakiness and his potential. That said however, I'm not convinced yet as to whether he's ready to be described as a rising star. Perhaps it's that I'm still trying to keep the lid on. I'll reserve my judgement until after he's done his next pre-season.

And just to show how devious and Machieavellian the Blues can be, this is the scheme they appear to be devising in order to prise the so called best footballer in the land away from the Eagles at a discount rather than negotiate honestly and give value to get value - BLUES TO LOCK OUT EAGLES FOR JUDD Would they do it? Would the Tigers be a party to this sort of behaviour? Would Judd who a month ago was considered to be a person of the highest integrity endorse this sort of a scheme? Time will tell.

At Melbournefc.com.au Season in a nutshell: Disappointing. Poor form and one of the hardest hit injury lists resulted in a season to forget.

She doesn't need to work for either 7 or 9. She'll be working for Visy packing cardboard boxes on the 3rd Tuesday of every second month between 2.00pm and 2.05pm and be earning plenty. Don't you worry about that!

I was tempted but as you may have read elsewhere I always had some misgivings. Is one individual with a groin problem worth between $7.5 and $9m over 5 years plus the loss of an early draft pick and a couple of your better players? Is it worthwhile to bid away your future and to potentially buy instability at some stage in the future? I won't say more than that because, as I said above, there are three ways for the club to move forward into 2008 and beyond. None of those involve a quick fix of the sort a lot of our supporters around here wanted. So let's move forward from here onwards.

Nice stuff from the maestro but if you were truly into his songs you'd realise that he never appealed to those whose lives were based on the accumulation of $'s and the message was therefore wasted on this bloke.

You're not suggesting that this was engineered well in advance by Collingwood and Judd or his management are you? Perhaps that might explain why Collingwood seemed so cool about not interviewing Judd until their season was over. You don't usually do that unless you're fairly sure about getting your prey.

No conversion. Juddmania is over and it's going! However, a trades and drafts board sound OK to me - what about others?

On second thoughts I don't need any assistants (apologies to Finks). The team should have enough motivation now. I'm ordering 22 life sized cut outs of you know who for tackling practice.

Oh ... and could someone please make sure that 6'8" bloke is available to play.

I'm interested in coaching but isn't the era of us old guys as coaches over? I would have thought it was time for one of those innovative shaven headed younger blokes to take over. Anyhow, I'll do it if someone can talk Chris Judd or Finks into being my assistant coach. How's that?

Well done to the pussies and let's not forget the history behind this win. Geelong won its first premiership in 1925. Who won the flag in the year after that? Before yesterday Geelong won its last premiership in 1963. Who won the flag in the year after that? I reckon we are an absolute Monty to win in 2008!!!

First things first and let's get Judd's nod that he wants to come to us. If that happens then I'd leave it to the football department to make the right decisions but I'd be surprised if Rivers was a part of any swap. Get him fit and back in top form and he could be our defensive quarterback. In his absence, we're very light on for key defenders that, as we saw today, are so integral if you want your team to be successful.

Next year the duo will be RIVERS and JONES!!!

Definitely NOT!!!

Great idea. Let's appoint a guy as an assistant and bring him halfway across the country just in the hope that he might lure lure Chris Judd into the fold. Never mind if he's up to the job, let's just do it. Sounds typical crass moneybags Carlton Football Club. Like the one about Dick Pratt trying to impress the greeny in Judd by hosting Al Gore at Raheen. An intelligent bloke like Judd would see right through that one.

Please don't mention that word in the context of this discussion !

Perhaps there's a 3 year contract at the finishing line?

Don't anybody tell him about this forum then. It's the players' revue tonight. What's he going to do? Come out in drag wearing a red and blue sequinned number and sing it's a Grand Old Flag or will it be a straight forward announcement?

He's the new generation type coach they were looking for but surely they didn't have to go through all the drama and angst with Sheeds. It was badly handled and out of character with the Essendon administration which has been solid for so long. The Matthew Lloyd gaffe about the young West Australians being tradeable showed that. I think there are a few tough years ahead for the Bombers but then again I thought Collingwood and the Kangarood would finish 15 and 16 this year so what would I know?

There's another story going around that he made a promise to his dying grandmother that he'd play for us. More "grains of salt"?

THE OFFICIAL LINE "MELBOURNEfc today confirmed that players Brock McLean and Nathan Carroll had been involved in an altercation in Munich. The players have been cleared of any wrongdoing." Next!

Seeing that nobody's willing to give it a crack Andy, here's my effort:- After Lyon's retirement, the number three was put into mothballs for a couple of years until it was claimed by its current holder and a Hollywood acting aspirant in Clint Bizzell. The talented Queenslander from Kedron Grange was recruited by Geelong in the 1995 National Draft, and he crossed over from the Cats after 75 games and 72 goals. The 187 cm 90 kg Bizzell has found his niche in defence with the Demons but his career was hampered by a broken bone his foot which kept him out of AFL contention for all of 2006 and limited him to 10 games in 2007 before retiring at the end of that season with a total of 88 games* at the club. With Bizzell gone, the Demons were left with a dilemma in terms of the next recipient of the number three jumper. After recruiting Chris Judd, Jonathan Brown and Jimmy Bartel in the trade period at the end of the season they discovered that all three players wanted to wear the same jumper number so it was raffled off to the highest bidder. Judd won a spirited auction with a knockout bid that pushed the club's finances into surplus for the first time in ten years. Bartel was given number 33 as a consolation while Brown settled for 44 and became the club's first Brownlow Medallist to wear that number. [* could somebody help out with his goal tally please?]

I'm not sure if producing AA's is the definitive criterion for judging a recruiter. Everyone's been raving about Collingwood's great team effort in 2007 but despite that there were no AA's this year. Since he became our recruiting guru we've made the finals more times than any other club bar WCE and Essendon and that was coming off a low base in terms of player quality and depth. IMO I'd rather have team success than AA's and it's not the recruiter's fault if his time at the club has been dogged by salary cap penalties, internal board disruption and a massive injury list as we had this year. That said, Junior Mac was drafted as a rookie by CAC. He also drafted the Rising Star in Jared Rivers and runner up Aaron Davey in the same year a few years back.

They're cutting a swathe through Europe ATM. Hopefullym, their aggression will remain when they return and will be directed at getting themselves fir and prepared during the mid season and at the ball once the real stuff starts again.