Redleg

Think you mean Jordie Mac. Cook also played yesterday.

Great article in today's Age by Tim Lane. He says the selling of home games is a form of tanking even though it is based on a need for money. Says the AFL allows this to happen and together with their draft incentives has created this. Refers to teams resting players for finals as also tanking. Therefore every club has tanked if these are the definitions. RR, I agree with you. Get good players and win some games and your culture can change quickly to a winning one.

I know we shouldn't criticize umpires, but I just watched the last quarter of Saints and Pies and Saints were umpired out of it. Disgraceful really. Pies get 2 soft frees for first goal and then several holding the ball ones, while Kosi smacked in mouth while marking is ignored and then O'Brien given free for arm chop as Saint running into goal to tie up game. Replay showed no touch at all and even commentators admit it was a shocker. Saints couldn't buy a free and Pies got them for nothing. Would love to hear Watters presser. 25 frees to 14 in Pies favour as per usual.

Quite a few of our selections are turning out that way.

Interesting question. I don't think there is any provision to add players to the list, so you would have to play short. It would be very embarrassing for the AFL.

Because MFC has been going for 150 years and GWS is in its first year and therefore everything in respect to GWS is forgiven.

Having watched the GWS win today it is clear that draft picks, if used correctly, are the gold of AFL football. GWS have a sensational bunch of young kids and they have clearly drafted well. We haven't. If we use our draft picks well this year, get JV as a second round pick, do a couple of good trades, we could be back in business a lot sooner than many think. GWS have shown that young mids can play well in their first year, so we have to pick a few good ones.

Not if you saw their Coach in the rooms with 3.5 minutes left to play. He looks shattered. His job is on the line tonight.

Me too.

Now you are talking.

Casey will get mauled against that Carlton side.

Paul Roos in his Herald Sun column today on tanking, used Paul Gardner's comments as proof of it happening. That is one of the reasons PG shouldn't have made the comments. It has hurt our club.

Guerra will get three for hit on Chapman, will get off on bump to Podsiadly and Shiel will get three for elbow off the ball on Christensen. I think there was another but I can't remember. Great game though. Hawkins has really come of age. Took him a few years. I hope Cook gets a bit longer to see if he can make it.

Brett Ratten on AFL Access said he thought there was nothing in what Brock said to the AFL. Believed it would all go away. Defended Melbourne saying they were into development as were all sides who missed the finals. Leigh Matthews said some of the moves against Tigers looked funny, but Ratten said they weren't as he had seen them before even against Carlton and other clubs tried players in many positions as well. He agreed with Matthews that no one has ever been told not to do their best on the field. Also said he believed there was no smoking gun.

No problems sunday, it will be 16 lovely degrees. I will be in my usual seat in the AFL section.

The reality of all this "tanking" talk is simply that unless a coach admits that he directed players to lose a game, or a player admits that he was directed to play poorly by a club official, there is no evidence of "tanking". That of itself would have to lead to that coach and maybe the player being banned for life. No one to date has reached that level. The best we have is suspicion, at unusual coaching selections or moves. That is so far from proving "tanking" as to be laughable. Unusual coaching selections and moves have been part of football since it started, especially involving teams that are out of the finals race. Sheedy even dropped the whole forward line two weeks ago and brought in a bunch of first gamers. Was he trying to win or develop his list? Freo dropped 12 players against the Hawks in Tassie when they were due to play them again the next week in a final in Perth. For the final the 12 came back in and they won. Did freo therefore tank that last game? How many clubs and games would need to be thoroughly examined if there is action taken against the Dees? I just hope no Dees officials are interviewed because that means it never even got to first base. Would this be the question asked of McLean by the AFL-" did any MFC official tell you to play below your best". Did you hear any MFC official ask that of any other player? If the answers are "no", how can it go further if the best answer that can be given is " I thought some of our moves were strange".

You already do if you are a member. You get to stand for election to the Board or vote who gets on, if there is an election.

You are correct, Paul and his Board like all our Boards tried to do their best and he and his Board did a lot of good for the MFC. That should never be forgotten. Having said that, Wednesday was not his finest day.

Yes in 5 more weeks. I hate to admit this but I am listening to a 70's disco mix while I read Demonland.

Good luck Clint.

Oh well, I get to see those orange jumpers this week, that should be my footy highlight. Oh, I forgot, Gary Ablett.

First OTC on monday with Brock, then Insider on tuesday looking at our 09 game against the Tigers, then the former President bags the club on wednesday and today the back page of the little paper goes into detail about a function we are having to raise money for a war chest to chase players. Now I was invited to that function and my invitation arrived two weeks ago. Who leaked that invitation to the press and why have they sat on the story for two weeks? Obviously timing is why they sat on it. Now we are being hammered, is the perfect time. It is becoming clearer that there are people within our club who want to see the club harmed. They obviously have links with the press. Maybe they just want the current administration turfed and will do anything to see that happen. If this is true, then it is very sad. Jimmy as one of his main goals wanted to bring all supporters together. Looks like that is a dream.

Finally a little gem on this thread.

And so it should have, as nowhere has he said" I deliberately threw games or told players to do so". Every coach would do the best thing by their club and clearly have in the past.

Disagree. I was offended by it, as were most Dees fans I spoke to today. You are correct in what you say he said. However, as a former President he should not say anything that is critical of the club publicly, especially when those comments may lead to a sanction against the club. If I was him I would have said "no comment" or something like " of course they weren't tanking, they were looking at development of the list just as every other club does when you are not playing finals". If you love the club, you don't sh-t on it and he did. I am also a former official of the club and I would never, ever have done what he did. Privately yes, publicly no. He could have said nothing at all.