Whispering_Jack

Melbourne doing a lot of the 1%ers - tackles, smothers, knock ons etc.

Crows in front but only just - thanks to some shocking kicking for goal Melbourne 3.1.19 Adelaide 2.8.20 Meanwhile the whacker on 5aa keeps on saying:- "5aa does not hold the rights to stream its football commentaries on the internet… If you want to listen to a football commentary on line you should go to afl.com.au… [don't waste your time] 5aa will resume internet streaming at the conclusion of its internet commentary…. Thank you for listening."

Scott Thompson just got another. Only 3 points the difference.

Little wonder that our rucks are winning. Do the Crows have any ruckmen left standing? BTW: Heath Neville is one of the selected 28 not playing as he played in yesterday's Sandy praccy game. Crows just kicked their first and are getting more of the play in the second term. Melbourne 3.1.19 Adelaide 1.4.10

Quarter Time: Melbourne 3.1.19 Adelaide 0.2.2 Remember we had the advantage of the wind in the first quarter. However - note SEN report below. SEN report - Quite good conditions. Demons look very controlled in their use of the ball. More settled than the Crows. Said the weather wasn't bad and the wind wasn't all that strong.

Melbourne 3.1.19 Adelaide 0.1.1 Jamar mark and goal for our third.

Normal rules. Matthew Bate kicks Demons' second. Melbourne 2.1.13 Adelaide 0.0.0

Dees kicking with the wind. Brad Green - first goal.

... or you can try this one http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/showthread.p...2460&page=2

And how will we know if they do?

They don't have the rights to stream the commentary on the internet. What a joke it's only a bloody practice match!

The AFL has a system which enables player/managers to be registered. From memory, I believe that Joseph has always resisted complying with the registration requirements and the AFL has sat back on its hands doing nothing (possibly fearing a restraint of trade action). Yes, it's a conflict situation and no, I don't think there's much the AFL can do about it under current rules although it should reintroduce the poaching rules to prevent Joseph from using his dual role to give the Kangaroos an unfair advantage.

I think one of the most important aspects of this exercise is not the extra revenue it generates from membership sales but from the message it sends to potential sponsors, business partners and advertisers that this club has a larger following than what past membership numbers have shown. Of course, we're still going to have to work a lot harder to get our supporter numbers off their backsides and going to games rather than watching it on their tv's (look at Sunday's crowd v Hawthorn compared to the crowd at Carlton v Esendon the night before) but it's a start and will definitely help build the prestige of the club and prevent us from going the way North Melbourne seems to be heading.

Unless you're writing about the fitness or otherwise of Pickett's direct opponent after the match.

Not a bad idea. I'm sure there must be some plans to stem the tide when the opposition gets a run on although I suppose that if they exist, you wouldn't want to expose them in the Nab Cup.

Get a grip on yourself Redleg. It's the 21st century, not the mid 20th when old Jim Cardwell used to handle all of those jobs whilst wearing one hat and taking bubkes as salary. Understand this and you'll be able to manage. Whispering Jack (poster stress and enlightenment manager - Demonland)

I spoke with one of the players today and he told me that the rules are the fair dinkum rules that apply during the regular season.

I agree that we should be focussing on the real thing but we shouldn't lightly dismiss some of the problems highlighted by this game. I was disappointed that even in a pre-season game, the team was able to relax the pressure late in the third quarter. That's been one of our failings in the past and I think good teams don't relax when they have a grip on a game. Had we held on till three quarter time and gone in with a lead in excess of 30 points it would have been much harder for Hawthorn to gain that final quarter momentum. I thought the forward line set up was a bit too top heavy and static. Clearly, room has to be made for Aaron Davey in there somewhere. There were plenty of other things that didn't work on the night and thankfully we have a month to sort things out before round 1.

The most interesting stat has to be the one reported in the Herald Sun this morning. Melbourne had 199 handballs (100 by half time) and 154 kicks on Sunday night - apparently the first time the team has had more handballs than kicks. Only four teams achieved this in the 2006 regular season and Neale Daniher remarked that ..."(we) have been working on just running and carrying a little bit more." That's a bit of an understatement!

They might have them in this week's edition of Inside Football. On sale at all good (and bad) newsagents on Wednesday.

I agree with most of that although I'll add that this was our first attempt at a different style and we simply couldn't expect it to work with full effect all evening when half of our most talented players were on the sidelines. I'm not making excuses for the defeat, it's just that I don't think this competition is all that particularly important in the scheme of things and our coach and football department have made it clear that their objective was to have the team right for the regular season and peaking at finals time. Interestingly, for the second year in a row, West Coast and Sydney who played of in the finals in '05 and '06, lost their opening Nab Cup games. In fact, every team that won at the weekend finished lower than the team they beat. No offence to Carlton or Launceston, but I'm happier that we're having a hit out this week against Adelaide (albeit at Mt. Gambier) with minimal restrictions on playing lists and outside the public glare of televised Nab Cup madness (the rules give me the absolute Eartha Kitts). IMO it's better preparation for the football department than a gig in Tassie (with apologies to Nasher, Tassie Devil and our other Taswegian friends) against the Bloos.

There's a lot of questions there and despite them being rhetorical, I'll have a crack at a few of them. Do you think lists have a "cycle"? Yes they do but not in the form of cycle that you can universally compare all teams with like a clock face because a clockface is one dimensional and this discussion has shown there to be several dimensions to measuring where your list happens to be at. I'd be delighted to have a dozen 23 year olds all with Chris Judd's ability but no two 23 year olds in the competition are alike and there's only one Chris Judd. Would you have called Brisbane's list young or old (improving or in decline) in 2005? Brisbane has been a club in decline since 2004/5 and it had less to do with the structure of the list than with - (i) the personal interplay between the coach and some of the players, (ii) salary cap issues, (ii) a bad run with injury and (iv) the failure of some of its prized recruits to come to the fore as quickly as was originally anticipated. Do you think it would have been reasonable for Melbourne to trade an early draft pick this year for a player who was (say) 27 or 28 and provided something we needed over the next 2 years? I know I'm sounding like a broken record but I would have tried to get a top line ruckman with 4 to 5 good years in him for a second rounder because, as you know, I'm not satisfied that we're doing enough to cover the situation with Jeff White. The rule changes pertaining to ruckwork and the passing of time have reduced his effectiveness from the time he made All Australian (2004?) until now. He's getting very close to the end of his career and I'm not convinced that our other ruckmen can step into his shoes and be competitive against the best ruckmen in the competition (although I look forward to tomorrow night to see how The Russian, PJ and possibly Shane Neaves go in White's absence). The draft wasn't likely to provide us with a ruckman fitting our selections so if we wanted another ruckman then, we needed to trade. But, as CAC explained, it would have been difficult to trade for another ruckman during the 2006 trade period. The pool of potential ruckmen from other clubs wasn't that particularly strong and the good ones might be asking why go to a club and play second fiddle to White for a couple of years and also compete with Mark Jamar for the understudy's position? I wouldn't have traded a second round selection as Sydney did for Spida Everitt.

Congratulations Josh to you and your partner on Jacob's birth and well done for getting him involved with the club so early in his life. It's a good choice of name too!

The FD must be contemplating playing Neaves because I don't see why they would have named a replacement for Ben Holland at all. Either that or they're sending him a message that he's getting close. As for replacing Holland with Newton, I don't think it would be a good idea. Based on all of the information I've received from those who saw him in Tuesday's practice match, his (Newton's) performance was very much below par. The message they would want to give him from that is that if he wants to play in the big time, he's got to produce some good form to justify it first.

This is an issue that I think is an important one for the club. I raised it at the Demonland/Demonology sponsorship meeting and while Craig acknowledged it, he wasn't as concerned as I am. Three years ago, we didn't have a player 30 years and over. We're getting to a stage where we now have several abnd, as DH pointed out, if they all happen to retire at once, we could be in a position whereby we're going to have to make a large number of changes to our list all at once. I think this could expose us somewhat - especially if it happens in a year when the draft pool is not strong. As for ruckmen, we know it takes a long time to develop good ones and therefore the planning needs to be longer term. In terms of your clock theory, we might fall over the precipice and end up at 3am before we know it.