Whispering_Jack

If every player in the team tried as hard as Godders we might still have been beaten today but it wouldn't have been by much. If you want to pick on someone, pick on the players who are putting in half hearted efforts.

When did I say that?

There's no right time to get injuries but I'd prefer that we don't get them if and when we're a chance to make the finals or actually in them.

BTW, Heff was a late inclusion in Essendon's team yesterday and one radio station gave him an award for his good play. I'm not sure what the award was about because I was handling an episode of road rage at the time from a driver who thought she had right of way even when facing a stop sign.

I saw Isaac Weetra at TBO yesterday and he also said he was pretty confident of coming back from his hamstring problems next weekend.

I was watching Adelaide v Bulldogs tonight and I thought the Doggies lost the game because of their slow movement out of the back line (or perhaps it was Adelaide forcing them to do that). Whatever the case, the Bulldogs looked a lot cleaner than we did last week. I don't understand why, if the run and carry game was designed to win us games at the interstate grounds that happen to be long and thin, that we have to use the same game plan at the MCG which we handled pretty well as it was last year.

If I remember rightly, that was the game when David Neitz broke his jaw or sustained some sort of serious injury.

Welcome John. Stick around and I'm sure you'll renew aquaintances with an old school teacher from McKinnon High days!

Paul Chapman and Ryan O'Keefe would have come in handy over the years.

Sinclair was never on the club's supplementary list but in those days it was possible for top age TAC Cup Under 18 players to fill in the numbers for AFL reserves sides. I remember Greg Tivendale playing for Melbourne reserves once and Brad Green played for Essendon reserves while with the Tassie Mariners. So it's possible that Sinclair might have played reserves football but I can't say for sure if it was with Melbourne.

Good point Nasher. However, while you're right in saying that we have our fair share of adults here and that they add a well reasoned touch to the discussion, we've always encouraged young people to contribute and some of them are more articulate and clever about the game and their team some of the oldies. By the way, Scoop Junior was, in fact, a teenager when he started writing articles for Demonland! This chatter about "over-excitable teenagers" and the whole Strawberry Fields thing is just mythology that comes from one or two individuals whose own pathologies and overblown egos have more to do with such nonsense than anything else. The majority of Demonland and Demonology folk get along fine. Let's leave it at that and get on with discussing the footy.

The email states that "over 3,000 MCC members have taken out the Club’s new MFC/MCC membership option for just $40 but there are still over 15,000 MCC members who barrack for MELBOURNEfc but do not help us out financially."

Puhlease, leave me out of that until after the next general election. As I said above Newton still needs some good performances in the bank before they can promote him but having said that, he's an intriguing prospect. I really meant it when I said at a different time he might have been under strong consideration for a game this week. Remember the days when clubs would pluck 17 and 18 year olds like Alan Noonan and Peter McKenna out of the suburbs or the bush and they'd be ready to go straight away?

You're right. It would be courageous to play Newton this week. I think he's at around the same stage as Lynden Dunn was 12 months ago and therefore getting close. It was at this stage last year that Dunn put together a few good displays and suddenly he was in the team to play Geelong. Similarly, Newton needs those additional top flight performances at Sandringham before he is given a place in the team.

Obviously after early in the second quarter when we were down to 20 fit men, we used less rotations but the official figure of 17 for the first quarter was extraordinarily high IMO. I watched a few other games over the weekend and I don't recall any team's prime movers being rotated off with our regularity and especially not when they were playing well. I understand the need to rotate and the demands given the speed of the game but I'm stunned that blokes have to be taken off the ground while playing really well to be given a rest just minutes into the first game of the season. The result of all this IMO was that the team never gained any momentum during the game after the first half of the first quarter.

Good summary Dappa Dan. I have a feeling that Jace Bode might have taken part in the game (he was listed as #46 in the programme and I'm sure he was running around the boundary but I have to confess that I didn't notice him). As far as team selection for next week's concerned, I regard the MFC Football Department as rather on the conservative side so they won't make too many changes in my view. Paul Wheatley is a certainty to come in and Jared Rivers , who missed this week still getting over his hamstring strain from a couple of weeks ago, will come in. At most, there will be one other change - possibly Colin Sylvia for any one of half a dozen players who disappointed on Friday night. At another time of year and possibly at another club, someone like Michael Newton might even get his chance as early as next week but I can't see it for Easter Monday. I think you'd want to ease in a player like him very slowly and if possible into a team that's travelling well. He really did show something but he's not quite ready although if he keeps on working hard at Sandy he might just get into the Melbourne side in the first half of the season. Petterd and Garland are impressive future prospects but most of the others like PJ, Godders, Doggy & Bizz - I'm sorry but picking them at this stage would be like moving deckchairs on the Titanic.

This is an extract from a forthcoming chapter of A HIGHWAY OF DEMONS which relives those heady days of Neale Balme and the mid '90's game plan. It's part of a radio transmission picked up in deep space on the Tardis as it plummets its way through the space/time continuum. Sound familiar? "And Umpire Robinson bounces the air conveyance. It hits the rubber knob and Jimmy Stynes palms the ball beautifully to his left where Todd Viney runs onto the ball, grabs it and handballs back to Dyson who goes to his right and finds Brett Lovett who chips it out to Glenn Lovett who handballs backwards and into the hands of the running Neitz who comes out of the centre half back position and spots Steven Febey on a wing. Febey accepts the lead and kicks the ball to the half-forward flank and finds Garry Lyon on his own. The captain marks and plays on kicking to the space between centre and centre half forward which Jimmy Stynes has run into. The Irishman's by himself and turns around to find Todd Viney who runs onto the ball, grabs it and handballs back to Dyson who goes to his left and finds Brett Lovett. Lovett chips it out to the other Lovett - Brett. He handballs left to the running Prymke who's come out of the centre half back position and he goes to the opposite wing where he spots Matthew Febey. The Mouse turns around and shoots the ball across to half forward where Shaun Smith takes an absolute speccy. He plays on and spots Jimmy Stynes by himself in the space between centre and centre half forward but, oh no... it's been intercepted!"

My query is about rotations. I understand that it's necessary for coaches to give midfield players a breather during the game but I feel there is a danger in what I call "over rotating" players off the bench. Beamer, for instance, started like a house on fire and must have had about five telling possessions in the opening five minutes of the game. Then, he was rotated off the ground. IMO we rotated ourselves into a hole allowing St. Kilda to recover after we had the early ascendency at 3.2.20 to 0.2.2. At that point in time we could easily have run over them but we were too busy finding which player to rest next rather than to attack with our best 18 when we had the opposition on the back foot. Any views?

There were a few strange umpiring decisions but no more than in most games. The problem was that the way we played was always going to set us up to have free kicks paid against us. If you handball two or three metres to a bloke standing still with an opponent bearing down on him, he's likely to get caught. If you play from behind your opponent in a marking duel, the rules are not going to favour you. Let's face it. We played dumb football and were treated by the maggots as dumb footballers deserve to be treated.

Hope I'm not out of line saying this but I don't think tonight's really a good time for Collingwood jokes.

It's a variation of the West Coast "run" and "carry" game plan and it's called "walk" and "worry".

I thought I made it clear why I wrote what I did. It has nothing to do with my feelings about John Hay. I actuially do feel sorry for him but his comment about having had his "fair share (of illicit drugs)" but that he "got over that pretty quickly," is not only wrong - it's dangerous. The fact that he believes this removes any aspect of his being classy out of the equation as far as I'm concerned. I personally don't believe that he really got over it pretty quickly at all and what you saw last night seems to suggest that he's delusional as well as suffering all of his other ills. I have spent 35 years in a profession that deals with the tragic results of the attitude behind the comments he made and it's definitely not about pushing anyone's barrows. I just want the people who read this topic to understand that if they decide to experiment with illicit drugs they might be entering a very dark place from which some people never return.

Jaded, You're right that the cause of the illness is not all that relevant to Mr. Hay but it is certainly relevant to those unsuspecting and gullible young people out there who might believe they can experiment without the possibility of there being dire consequences in the future. They are the people I was addressing, not Hay. Unfortunately, a mythology has developed over the years that says it's safe to experiment or that says experimentation with illicit drugs is no worse than alcohol or cigarette smoking which are legal so why not experiment? The reason why not is that you might end up a vegetable or worse one day - and the people who really suffer are your family and friends.

This poor kid has a sad story to tell but I feel a lot sorrier for his family and friends who have had to endure his circumstances. As a lawyer I have to deal with similar cases from time to time and I can tell you all that this is a very familiar story. I feel a lot sorrier for those who saw him last night or who read the words in today's Age article and who believed the following:- "In the younger years, I had my fair share (of illicit drugs) but I got over that pretty quickly," Hay said. "I think most young people do experiment with drugs." "I experimented with recreational drugs (when I was) 19, 20, maybe 21, and that was it. Before you believe the garbage about him getting over the use of illicit drugs pretty quickly you should do some research into the relationship between the use of certain illicit drugs and mental illness. I'm not suggesting that Hay's experimentation between the ages of 19 and 21 caused his subsequent mental problems but scientific research does show a connection in a number of cases. To think therefore that you can experiment at a young age and that it might not have an effect on your mental well-being later in life is foolhardy.

Yes and Yes (is that three words or two?)