Damo

Dear Two Sheds,

I have always admired your Moniker and your avatar of tom Waits.

Your posts have been pretty much worth reading(to me) and your input thought provoking.

i dont post as much as i used to but am glad, though shocked to read your post.

Please battle on and try to keep yourself healthy.

Although I know you arent, Dont give up.

Keeping a stiff upper lip to family and relatives is difficult.

I hope I would have the courage you have shown in writing that post, the most personally confronting i have read on Demonland.

Is it possible that you could update now and again?

I think you may find a rich vein of support from many on here and I guess a few will have PM'd you as well.

Are you in inner Melbourne? Do you have a partner? Please let us know,

ThankYou for sharing your battle and thoughts, I really will be thinking of you and hoping for the best.

Good luck

Damien(franky)

We havent tasted success since we had a gun in 31

Well done Robbo.

The friendliest of all, always acted as if you knew your audience personally.

If the Demons didnt give much, you always made it worth the trip.

Best wishes.

Caro said on the weekend that Gary's speech was equal to the best speech she had heard in football.

I thought she qualified it by saying the best she had ever heard Lyon make, but a colleague disagreed.

Even if it was(just) the best ever from Lyon, it must have been truely moving.

I would expect she will mention it on tonights Classified.

Really good marking players can feel so assured of what they are about, that that they instinctively see what is coming next.

This is not 'spending it before you have it"BTW.

If you look at any picture of Gary Ablett senior taking a mark you will see he is not looking at the ball as he takes the grab, he is looking at where he will land/what to do next. I am making no comparison with Gary, Im merely pointing it out...

Seeing this in JW made my heart leap.

Also when he kicks a goal, it does not faze him one iota. This is a good indicator.

As opposed to Brad Miller who when he kicks a goal is reminiscent of Michael Palin's stuttering character in a Fish called Wanda. When he drives a steam roller over Kevin Kline who is stuck in concrete at one km/per/hr he says"Got Him!". Poor old Brad is relieved to hit the side of a barn.

I guess I did waffle a bit but the kicking around the body aspect is what I was talking about as you mention. Good to hear about his ability to create space though and on top of his natural flair if he is a great set shot then there is a lot to like about him.

I guess you have a bit of a point with Daicos but I suppose being a faster modern game it is important to have the ability to kick around the body. I am not saying Jurrah can't as I don't know, it was more an observation that he seemed to prefer the straight line (almost run up) shot at goal in general play which is not necessarily a bad thing anyway if you have the chance. I definitely can't wait to see him play.

No worries 1858

Like your work.

I haven't had the opportunity to see Jurah play this year. I have seen clips of him here and there. Can someone (who has seen enough of him) inform me of how good Jurah is at kicking at goal when not straight in line. IE his snapp kick ability either stationary or on the run. From the clips I saw of Jurrah he seemed to prefer to take the extra time to get square (directly face goal) prior to kicking which is great if you have time but time is not abundant at AFL level. Like I say I have only seen clips, not enough to get an idea of how he plays or his kicking ability when not facing goal.

I am not sure it is something to worry about.

Peter Daicos when asked this question says he always straightened his shoulders to face the goals, no matter what was coming or what the angle. His highlights prove this, although he is accused of kicking them from "all angles".

Although sometimes it is necessary, it is not encouraged. All coaches encourage you to square your shoulders and run in a straight line towards goal.

In most other team sports I may agree with you, using Mark Taylor towards the end of his career as an example. However, in AFL you can't have any passengers, and unfortunately McDonald was one of them on the weekend. He may be a great bloke and a fine leader but he still needs to lead on the ground, in fact this year we need him to do it more than ever to provide an example to the kids.

I'm sick of this attitude from Melbourne fans that just because he's a good bloke means he deserves game time when clearly he's not up to it, regardless of the reason. If he is injured then give him two or three weeks break to get over it, bring him back when he's ready.

good post. Totally agree. I watched junior closely yesterday, he is not the player he was. He has had a very good go, and should be given a few weeks off.

I thought Watts looked exhausted by Qtr time.

Pretty big build up would be the probable cause.

Brendan Goddard took a little while and he is a "tall" who has really come good.eventually.

A fantastic read. We are lucky to have such great reporting. This is the best thing ive read for a month!

I would like a talented Key Position forward that would fill in for a couple of years, until we are ready to have a red hot dip.

If we have a plethora of draft picks at the end of the year, I would like us to to use something (maybe 2 or pick 18)to trade for a proven talent.

I believe we will start having a working fast midfield and we need some marking and goal power to bridge the hole that is waiting for Jack watts. He is a fair way off.

Any talent comes with problems. If we did have Fev, (who I agree would raise the largest hackles) it would mean we would have to mature enough as a team to ensure we can stick to the right path.

I believe we would have more problems with player attitudes,TV schedules and memberships if we just keep picking youngsters.

To start the new 2010 year off with a boom KPF would rock our world. We have the picks in the bank, why not ask about the Kosis, Roughys, fev's, Quintons, whom clubs may be ready to deal with as they will get SFA draft picks when Gold Coast raises its head.

How it happened or not, I suppose is not the issue. Racial taunts had to stop, and this was a moment in time that could be moulded into anti racial taunt in the AFL.

However, I have umpired junior football since the early 80's and over 400 game, an I never heard a racial comment ever, only at me!

The other shoe drops when the story is told about when Nicky did a week or two for spitting on Greg Williams.

It wasnt the reason given in the press but by this time Nicky was wearing proudly his skin pointing and had had a pretty good run in the brownlow.

It was well before Gavin Wangeneens win and would have made Nicky the first indigenous winner.

Greg Williams had always denied (rightly, Im told) that he had any aboriginal heritage, but rumours abounded and the story was that Nicky believed Greg should be black and proud. Hence the spitting charge. There are some interesting stories about Nicky Winmar...

Its a great celebration.

I would like to nominate Nicky Winmar for the AFL Hall of Fame for doing one of the most famous, brave and inspiring acts I have ever seen on a football field when he lifted his St K jumper and showed them the pride in the colour of his skin to racist taunts of the Collingwood crowd at Victoria Park. For those too young, Victoria Park, particularly the Collingwood members flank was one of the most abusive and nasty sections of football spectators in Australia. There treatment of opposition players particularly coloured was well known.

It was a small step to start the total re education of the VFL/AFL and the public about the manner in which indigenous people are regarded treated and respected in life.

A wonderful act that was so important in igniting change in the affairs of indigenous people. May they continue to prosper and flourish and bring their special skills to the game.

At the time Winmar had said that he was representing his guts to get up and get a win, as told to me by someone at the time who knew Joffa Cunningham. Then the story grew legs(not intestinal fortitude) as a show of black skin and Nicky much preferred this version. I believe this version of events. Great player all the same.

This year we are capable of beating any team in the comp other than the Saints and the Cats. But we have to be at our best and playing at the G.

I'd tend to think with a slightly more potent forward line and quicker midfield we'll start to win those close games.

I am coming around to this opinion too.

Which makes me consider the club using a low draft pick plus player to get an out of contract, mature, Key Position Forward at the end of this year.

I believe we need someone for next year to be another focus, just as Robbo has given the youngsters the confidence to kick to the forward line.

Jack Watts is too far away. We need interim measures.

I dont consider 27 to be too old for our needs, and I dismiss avoiding big forwards that are a "bad influence".

Most big forwards that are any good are considered by some "bad influences".

We should believe in our strength of character after this year to remedy obvious temptations.

While I understand the logic of dismissing the idea on the basis that the KPF may not be part of our next premiership, I think it is time to start putting together winning culture. This year looks to be a pretty good cattle market and our time is at hand.

Great to see a Melbourne Player playing full Forward for our affiliate team.

Stuff Sandy with their focus on their own player Nick Sautner.

This is what I want with the new partnership.

Go Scorps!

Because we can' afford to pay for the same technology/sports sience initiatives as the other clubs. Plus we are cursed!!!

lets get a sience going. We can call up the dead and get curses lifted. We just need Whoopi Goldberg.

Whelan puts his body on the line. He has the chops to be given lee-way.

Paul has more talent than most on our list and has spun his career out for a long time.

But how would he have fared under say, Malthouse? I remember not only how much woey was paid but how much he paid with his body. Chewed up quick. Paid well but.

Would Wheaters have made it if his balls were to the wall?

We at MFC will never know.

I would have preferred Whelan in 31.

Thanks for the memory. I still get a kick out of Bub's "Ohhhhh... Honestly"!

Maybe it has been brought up elsewhere...

But what about the move by Richmond to get Graeme Polak onto the 'special case/Ramanaskas" list as the long term injured list was "a bit unfair" and there view seemed to be that they were helping out a basket case that may be viewed as community service.

He played and showed a bit apparently in a intra-club match just two months after they felt unjustly treated!

Devious pricks they are,with that certainly smell of K.Sheedys work.

Good kid good stock.etc...

But the last time someone stuck by their word on behalf of the MFC we got the Cockatoo-Collins twins.

A promise to a sick mother that was plainly a joke in the eyes of many pundits.

Why the football club should suffer someone elses prideful promise may not bite us this time.

But history not only repeats, it should be respected.

Donald and David were much worse selections than Luke Molan and IIRC about as high.

I think Ben did his level best and it shows how difficult it is to change such a long and sustained period of bad habits when you have divested yourself of decent friends.

It's disappointing (yet understandable) that Alan Johnson feels the way he does. I hardly think alienating club champions is good PR policy. But then I concede that we can't go pussyfooting around these sorts of issues all the time, or people will continue to use us as a doormat.

Bailey probably wasn't going to castigate him until after he pinched a footy. Surely CJ knows how hard up we are.

The players all have to buy a sherrin of their own and put their name on it. They are then responsible for bringing it to training.

He probably took his own footy with him. I would.

I have watched Charlie Gardiner play a fair bit last year and I believe he is twice the talent of say, Shane Birss (really crap kick at full speed) and would get a game at MFC pretty easily next year.

But the facts are that we dont need to "top up" with hardly any senior players. A tall forward would be good...

We need to draft youngsters in this high quality draft and thats what St Kilda is doing.

They are looking long term although they had a pretty successful year in 2008.

We should be getting blokes off the bus not putting them on.

Paul Williams seemed a good bloke and it is hard to pull up your socks when you dont have any.

But Im not upset he has gone.

I wonder how Dean Bailey rated him?

The Bulldogs have a lot more running centremen in the mold of his own type of play. He may do well there.

We need quality fast insiders, but with the group we have, we do need a Todd Viney type of assistant coach.

Funny this didnt happen last year.