Its Time for Another

This club really needs to get its act together. I have been following the membership tally with some interest on the main counter on the home page and it's still on 34,961 as it has been for a while. Why have it there if they don't update it properly. They obviously think it is important enough to display it on a central spot on the home page. Poor form.

Mark Robinson on AFL360 said if he was Carlton and a theoretical swap was made to send Boak back to Vic and Bryce Gibbs back to SA, he would do that deal in a heartbeat. Pretty high praise for Boak.

Shows you the serious flaws in our legal system. Here is a man, who may well be proven innocent, sitting in jail for several months before the legal system has the time to hear a simple procedural process of hearing his plea of guilty or innocent and setting up a timetable for the next stages of the legal process. He could end up losing over a year of his life in jail and be found innocent because the legal system is so, so, slow.

Matt Thompson article on afl.com.au website mentions that his co accused, Christopher Walker will appear from jail in Alice Springs. I assume he has been there since the incident. This is pretty serious stuff. Evidently if Liam wasn't an AFL footballer he would have been in jail all this time since the incident waiting for the legal process to go through to trial which may well not happen till next year. Too bad if the guy is found innocent and he's spent all that time in jail. Article in the Hun today says if found guilty he could face 14yrs jail sentence. Fingers crossed for a good defence.

+1

I wonder if he has to get permission. From memory his bail conditions required him to go and stay in Melbourne.

This is just the beginning of a very long process. He will plea, then there will be other hearings when the parties exchange their evidence and witnesses etc, then there would normally be a Committal hearing which could run for a few days or a week where a Magistrate will decide if there is enough evidence to make him stand trial for the serious offences he has been charged with. If the Magistrate decides there is enough evidence then I trial date will be set for a full trial which could run for weeks. This whole process could go on for a year or so. Let's hope they chuck it out very early. And let's hope he gets some really decent legal representation. I hope the Club will guide on that. I know of many Melbourne and Sydney Senior Barristers that go to Alice Springs to defend clients so there shouldn't be a major issue with the local Magistrates over that. More than one of them are very well known in footy circles for representing footballers at the Tribunal and in the Courts.

From memory he was gone before we could get him at the right pick

No one has mentioned the Mortons. It is quite likely they could be playing on each other this weekend. Mitch is now at the Swans and rumoured to be in the mix for this weekend. Out of the three of the brothers I still think we'll end up with the best one. Woops didn't see the above post until I had posted.

That is the system they used to decide the value of the players & therefore compensation for the out of contract players GC & GWS picked up.

Casey play this week and have two weeks off after that. So looks likely he'll play at Casey this week and then back into the team the week after.

Other than 186 we seem to have more trouble playing against their zones than any other team's set up in the past couple of years. Swans game was interesting. They were zoning in the first half and the Hawks were just pinging it around at will massing up uncontested possessions without the Swans being able to get a hand on them. When they manned up in the second half the Hawks crumbled under one on one direct pressure. Hope we see them manning up one on one and not getting sucked in to leaving players to create a 2 on 1 and watching it being released to uncontested players. We will go some way to stemming the damage if we play like that. Then we have to work out how to play around the zone if they have it. If we bomb it in like we have all year, it will be game over very quickly. If we are smart and patient it will be a less humiliating game.

This is one of the poorest posts I've ever seen. Take a tranquiliser. A big one and go to bed. You obviously know absolutely F'all about football players. Troll.

Not for the D's for Neeld, his protege.

I have also been thinking the same thing. It could be that getting them to competitive levels from what we are being told was such a low base has resulted in them coming into the season tired. The training work load may also not being helping in the short term. Your suggestion could be spot on. I hope it is and for the reasons you suggest. Also nearly all the players with leg speed on the list came into the season with under done pre seasons. McKenzie, Bail, Flash all were predominantly in the rehab group for nearly the whole preseason. Speedy half backs Strauss, gone, Blease, really struggling with fitness and development. Hopefully they will all turn around in the second half.

Someone on another thread here said that Moloney tried to be traded to Essendon in last year's trade week but Essendon wouldn't give up a first round pick so it didn't happen. I hadn't heard anything about this before that thread. Has anyone heard anything about it. I spoke to one other person who said she heard about it last year. Might explain why he was kicked out of the leadership group. Maybe he is planning to leave at the end of the year. Would be a shocker if it happens. Anyone know if this happened or not.

Add Davis to that list

This isn't quite right because if we finish 16th and hadn't have telegraphed to the world that we were already committed then it is unlikely that GWS or GC would have been prepared to bid their 1st or 2nd pick for him with the real chance they would end up with him and miss out on the other two. If they didn't take this risk then we would only have had to use our 2nd rounder. That is the stuff up I am upset about. It's not an issue of not taking him, it is an issue of probably losing our top pick when we wouldn't have if we'd kept quiet.

We don't have to answer what we're going to do, other than putting him up as a father/son and seeing what other picks other teams are going to bid for him. Liike many players, especially one's who's father's are coaches at a club, he could have been training with us without us committing to taking him.

I guess the issue is not getting him so early but announcing it. If we'd contracted him and not told anyone then when we nominated him as a F/S at the end of the year there is no way we would be worrying about GWS or GC as they wouldn't take the risk of putting up their picks for him if they didnt' know we were committed. Whoever the genius was who decided to announce it to the world has cost us a no. 3-5 pick. No team would have risked those picks ahead of us if they didnt' know we were already committed.

When I first saw the fixture I thought we'd be 1-10 or 2-9 with a certain win against the Lions and a maybe/should be against the Tigers. Those losses were obviously shockers but I'm already sure we won't be that clueless again. 0-11 isn't a shocking result given the fixture we are dealing with. Take into account adjusting to the new game plan, coaching staff etc. Plus considerable key injuries holding players back throughout the preseason. Second half of the season the list should be in much better shape injury wise and with a much better run of games, a better ability to execute the game plan and momentum, I'm very confident we will be feeling very differently be the end of the year.

Plus the Weagles Darling factor. Suspended because not turning up to training and staying out partying. That should do it, it did for Darling.

See my post above about this being his 3rd straight interrupted pre season

Last year Paul Roos said On the Couch that if you missed part of the pre-season nowadays, you were lucky to recover in the season. Cale's last 3 pre seasons including this one, have all been interrupted by injury and he has come in very under done for fitness which I am sure has affected his confidence. Hopefully this season is the least affected and given a few weeks to run into match fitness and build up a bit of confidence and the Cale Morton we are all hoping for may appear. If in say 4-6 weeks he doesn't get over it then I fear his papers might be stamped but I hope Neeld perseveres for that long to see what he's got. There's not much downside at the moment and the upside might be significant.

I think the father/son election has to be made before trade week, so any trade would occur after it has already had to happen.