Its Time for Another

He packed up and went home to SA for 4 yrs '78-'80 and came back for a year in '81 and was great. From memory he was a Board member for a while. Came 2nd in the '74 Brownlow. He at CHB and Greg Parke at CHF were probably the best combination in those positions I can remember. Soon to be finally rivalled by J Hogan and T McDonald or possibly O McD. Has the unfortunate distinction of being only one of 4 players to have played more than 200 games and never to have played in a final. Steve Smith is another one. Trevor Barker and Geoff Cunningham are the others.

HT I'd be very surprised if the the Insurance won't cover your son's injury even after your employment stops. Insurance has to cover injuries that occur during the insurance cover. If they occur during that period it doesn't matter if the treatment continues after the cover is terminated. I'd check up on this but I'd be very surprised if this isn't the case. The HR person probably doesn't know if they think it doesn't.

I believe he has the potential to be the greatest ruckman of all time. Dempsey, Madden and Cox are probably the three historical standouts but this kid is going to be something very special. When I first saw him live I thought they were b'sing about his height. He looks way too balanced, athletic and agile for his height. Sandilands is the closest in height and never had the mobility around the ground. His height is already showing a massive advantage where he can easily outreach "normal" sized 200-203cm ruckmen but is also more athletic than them around the ground. Biggest weakness is his tank. If you look at this stats most possessions are in the first half. Once he has the km's up and gets the tank he is going to be special. Don't know what was wrong with him in the first qtr last week but in the 2nd & 3rd he more than matched Goldstein in the centre taps and the whole game changed.

Interesting how the trade news is starting to ramp up big time. All sorts of players are being mentioned with all sorts of Clubs but Dees are conspicuously absent. Hope that's because the new regime understands the value of not leaking anything to the press. I hope it's not because all the players we were fantasising about have no intention of coming to us and have already indicated to the press where they want to go. Fingers and legs crossed it's the first and not the second. It will be a bit disappointing if Roosy's cache failed to pull an A Grader during his reign. I suspect with the way the teams still playing it will take another year before they are playing well enough to attract A graders. Personally I'm not too worried about not getting Dangerfield. I think we're too far away to justify spending $700k+ on him. Would probably end up like Judd at Carlton. In the big picture would be hard to justify the money spent on him for the overall performance of the team during the time he was there. Who do people think the A Grade midfielders are that would be worth $700k+ and out of those who would be a fit for the Dees. Established A graders that come to mind are Fyfe, Ablett, Dangerfield, J Selwood, Pendelbury, Bartel?, Deledio?, Cochin? Hawthorn have a few but all too old for this conversation. I would say Fyfe at 23 is the only one young enough to warrant that sort of money for the Dees. What would you pay for up and comers like Jaeger O'Meara, Treloar, Coniglio, Prestia, Crouch etc. Seems crazy to go around paying $700k+ on them.

I agree. The team is called the Demons because Checker Hughes used the term to describe how he wanted the players to play. Pretty core to the value of how the team plays out on the field. I would love to see a ferocious Demon, perhaps on the Away guernsey and used to promote the Club on other merchandise. I really liked the Bulldogs guernsey when they had an angry looking Bulldog on it. I liked the Schwab logo I like the new one although its very MCC. Whatever.

That's the core of the whole saga. The Dees kept the records you would expect and those records provided proof that cleared us. It's completely inconceivable that you would run a campaign like they did and not have extensive records not only of what they took but email trails discussing it. I've never seen a team come back from one pre season so physically altered as that team in 2012. They all looked like body builders. By mid season half the list was suffering from soft tissue injuries and their season collapsed. I'd personally never seen anything before like the impact the sports science/medicine people were having on that Club that season. I wasn't thinking PED"s at that time because I didn't dream any team would be that stupid. What would be the point of running a program like that if you weren't scientifically tracking the effect the "supplements" were having. They were taking blood tests to assess what they needed so how weren't they taking blood tests to see what effect they were having. Eg your bloods show your immune system is down take this injection to improve it. Two weeks later we are taking a blood test to see how that worked or whether you need more. There would have to be records of all of this. It's logically impossible there weren't. You telling me that a coach wouldn't be asking questions and wanting to see answers to explain the most extensive injury creating program in AFL history. Oh no, no emails, no records. Yeh right. Logically there had to be records and logically the fact none were found indicates they were destroyed. Logically the only reason you would possibly have for destroying them is that they recorded something you didn't want anyone else to see. Connect the dots. I'm comfortably satisfied.

I spoke to Miller about him over the pre season. He had him in the forwards group. He said he reminded him most of Dustin Martin. Very strong, strong overhead mark, good goal kicker, pack buster. He thought he might be a bit inconsistent like Martin. The biggest knock on him is his lack of a tank. He's already been running for about a month and is already building into speed and agility running and its August. How much running will he have done before the pre season even starts. The amount of running his going to have done before the pre season even starts might end up being a blessing in disguise for an extra dose of tank building.

Good point. Teams like Melbourne are probably paying way overs to mediocre players because they don't have enough good players to be paying higher amounts to. This will probably create a problem when they get a bunch of really good players and have to tell the overpaid mediocre players they are getting significant pay cuts back to what they are really worth.

I'm not sure. But makes sense. Either way will be a big blow to the Swans if he goes. Losing an experienced player for a relatively low pick in a dudd draft for a mediocre kid will be a real blow. What a lot of people don't realise about the Swans is how much of a rebuild they have already done. A few weeks ago there were 9 players in a game with 50 or less games. Why spend $100's of millions on a new team, GWS, to promote the game in NSW while at the same time destroying the exisitng team that has a fickle following that turn off in droves once they become uncompetitive. Hawks just go out and recruit Lake and then Frawley to fill backline holes, Swans are about to have the same holes but can't trade in players to fill them. Colless's description of Fitzpatrick's behaviour shows you just how badly that man is damaging the game. Time to go. All about his ego being out of joint over not getting his choice of Buddy to GWS.

I heard Cordner explain what happened to him in his last couple of seasons at the Dees. It was a shocker. He went over on his ankle and the Club Doc diagnosed it as a bad sprain. He came back after some recovery time and he would start alright but as soon as he warmed up it would be agony. He fought it for nearly two seasons then went to a specialist who discovered he'd actually torn the tendons off the bone. Because it had been misdiagnosed it was too late to operate on and it basically destroyed the rest of his career.

Swans are banned from trading any players that are worth more than the AFL average of $350k so I don't think its possible. I don't think he could leave even if he wanted to. That Swans ban is an absolute disgrace. I believe if he leaves Swans it would be to go home so unlikely to go to Vic. Although as you say, look what happened with Mitch Clarke but then again look at what happened to Mitch Clarke after that scoop. He is an absolute gun. Elite kicking skills and jet pace. Tends to drop in and out of games a bit. But can be a match winner when he's on.

Yep positive. I wasn't there in '71. The one I saw was a spectacular "point" unfortunately not a goal. Unforgettable for the length unfortunately not the accuracy. I think it was '74.

Saw him kick a post high point from near the centre of the Western Oval. Monster kick, still the biggest I've personally seen. Physique reminded me of Mickey Conlan. Big barrel chested. Tree trunk legs. Not overly tall or fast. Very disappointing in the end. Never lived up to the Messiah hype when he arrived. Seemed to remember hearing he ended up playing for Old Melbourne or someone after he finished his few years with us.

Phew. I thought you'd started a thread about me. ?

If they get banned the rebuild will take years. Good luck trading players in to what will be a non competitive reserves team for 2 yrs.

Anyone know what's the story with his current long term injury?

Don't believe everything you hear on 3AW. The brand new multi storey complex right adjacent to the Westpac Centre is just about finished. They have just finished building a $1.5mill studio complex in the existing complex and have plenty of space there and are in fact expanding the space there. So wouldn't credit this rumour. Plus extremely unlikely the MCC would do this when there have been ongoing discussions about the footy dept moving back in to purpose made facilities in the G in the revamped Southern Stand when its completed.

As well.

I agree with your criteria in the last paragraph but if you have a look at Grimes DE% it is very high. He seems to have cut out a lot of his clangers since he's come back in this year. Mind you I couldn't bring myself to watch on the weekend so hope he didn't prove me wrong. The art of delisting players is a very easy one. I could name half the players on the list. Probably more. The art of recruiting good players is a very hard one. No point in delisting players unless you have better ones to replace them. Heres hoping and praying we net a couple of big fish this year. Otherwise the wilderness beckons for more years to come and the Roos era will come and go with a wimper.

Well researched. I stand corrected. But that JC dude did crack a mention. Had the position wrong too. Must have been the thought of him leaping like he had the wings of an angel that made me confuse him with RH who did that without Holy intervention. Couldn't say the same thing about that waddling accountant he never left the ground mentioned in the actual quote.

Yeh I heard about him. Replaced Royce Hart at CHF if memory serves me correctly. Resurrected the team single handedly apparently. Was overheard at 3/4 time saying He was on a Mission from God or something. Or was that just two very naughty Orphans I'm getting confused with.

That's terrible news, especially at his age. I wish you both a speedy recovery. They say the healing process is much better the younger you are. I read a player saying somewhere very recently, the last month or so, that when they did their knee it was a short sharp stab of pain as they did it and then no pain at all. Sounds like what your son went through.

I was there that day. Hungry was always so good at milking a free from nothing. He'd been doing it all day. It was such a bizarre way to do a knee, jumping up in the air to remonstrate and coming down and collapsing, pretty much never to play again. I didn't know about the earlier knick that probably explains it. He looked like he was going to be a star.

Forget it. Swans are banned from trading anyone other than a player for the average wage of $350k.

I looked into it for my son. No joy. The Club's insurance wasn't any use to us. Can't remember the details of why but it was very limited. Another suggestion is if you are going into your GP see if he does the concussion test. My son was knocked out in a game last year and was badly effected with concussion for five weeks. I of course being a deeply caring father told him to grow one and toughen up. When I finally took him to a concussion specialist because he was still so crook on the Monday, (at the medical centre at the SFS, does the Waratahs so figured would know a thing or two about concussion) she put him to bed with absolutely no brain stimulus. Had to lie there for two days in a dark room staring at the ceiling or sleeping. Not even any music. She did the standard concussion test on him which is quite a detailed series of tests which included bizarre things like saying the months of the year in reverse order, repeat an ever increasing list of numbers and words etc etc. To be honest with you I tried to do them as he was going and I reckon I would have failed it too. Maybe says more about me than the test, they might just have put me in a padded cell with my results. I figure everyone who plays a sport like AFL ought to do this test when they aren't concussed so it can be used as a baseline if they ever do get concussed and need to be tested. So if your GP does them and you're going in with him anyway I would strongly recommend it. My son recovered just in time for the finals and went on to play in a very unlikely U17's Premiership win against the side that was at least 40pts better than every other team in the Comp. It was his last game for the Club so a great way to go out. Incidentally my son's knee at around the same age as your son's recovered within a few weeks. Of course depends on severity of the injury etc but hopefully your son will end up having the same season as mine last year as long as it's not against the Doggies.