The Great Pretender

Is that all we have to look forward to for the next six months?

Make it 2, Toumpas and 21 for 10 and 29.

Nakia's father is a cousin of the father of Che, David and Cockatoo-Collins. The word is that but for a leg injury he carried this year, he might well have been a top 20 pick. Definitely worth a look because he has real X factor.

A quality young midfielder and the best KPP coming up through the system. What could go wrong?

Compared to the rest of the venues in the Frankston area, it's prestigious. Congratulations to Maxy!

Who do you think we'll get in 67 day's time?

I was told Zaharakis has a tattoo on a normally concealed part of his body. Tattooists usually use needles don't they?

If Petracca and Brayshaw are ready to go and are as good as they're cooked up to be then who's to say that in a year or two they won't be better than Mitchell and/or O'Rourke. I don't see there's a problem if clubs want to play hardball.

Any club that behaves unrealistically in this process runs the risk of being treated likewise by the other clubs. Such an attitude will backfire.

... err ... yes ... um ... we all know we drove MC out of the game and Neeld's fingerprints were all over LJ's machete ...

Could end up on the trade table.

About three or four Carlton players have either retired or been Bootsma'd out of the club.

Which cheats?

Mark Neeld must be giggling his head off.

The Armstrong camp was very strong on threatening legal action to stop any form of criticism or attempt to discover the truth about allegations of performance enhancing drug use, I believe.

Wasn't Gysberts' problem that he lacked a tank? I seem to remember Demonland pre season training reports always referring to him bringing up the rear of the field during running work. If that's the case, shouldn't this have been identified when he was recruited?

Essendon, Dank and Hird are all deep in this but going on what was claimed by Peter Jess, the manager of two Essendon players, the AFL doesn't come out smelling of roses. Jess outlined his concerns but what did the AFL and it's so-called "integrity" people do? Nothing. Probably too busy trying to nail Melbourne because Chris Connolly stuck his head in a room for a minute and cracked a joke. I'm not trying to minimize the severity of the tanking charges against Melbourne but here you had the AFL selectively attacking one of its poorer and weaker member clubs for doing what had been going on for 10 years by others and condoned with a wink, wink, nod, nod while ignoring the possibility of systemic drug cheating going on under its nose by one of the stronger clubs. Shameful.

The teams last met in the second week of May and the Western Bulldogs ran out winners by 16 points in a game that could have gone either way after Melbourne led by 5 points at three quarter time. With 20 minutes gone in the last, Melbourne was pressing and looked a likely winner. How well we remember that run by Matt Jones that should have been a certain goal and the soft free to Stewart Crameri that resulted in a goal. These were the two momentum changers that turned the result against Melbourne.The question is whether anything has changed six or seven weeks down the track and whether the different venue will have an impact on the teams? Both of them are experiencing the highs and lows of football. Both of them were unable to translate exciting victories a fortnight ago into back to back winning performances last weekend. In fact, they both disappointed and it was if they had played out their grand finals the week before. So now the time has come for action and Melbourne has a point to prove. It failed last week to beat the North Melbourne "hoodoo". It must now overcome the Etihad one which has lasted for seven years since it beat the Dogs there in 2007. It's time.

Karma?

Is it against the COC to call someone an idiot or deluded?

Fair go and give it a break please. I'm sick of these posters who use every opportunity to revert to what happened last year when things don't go right under the new management. If you must know, the injury issues happened last year as well and Paul Roos was supposed to have changed the training format to tailor it to his own needs. Most of us are interested in what happens at training and how the players under an injury cloud are going. We're not happy about the injuries to our keys and ruckmen but we're not interested in anybody's paranoia about the past either. I look forward to Saty's report and thank him in advance.

There are your potential "ins" for Sunday - Evans, Blease, Clisby and Gawn with Jetta (still on the rookie list) and Salem (too young) unlikely to be promoted. Did Viney play?

It's nice to see Mitch on twitter posting tweets about his photography. Hope to see him back at the club soon.

We didn't win on Saturday night.

Well, er ... only three quarters and it was the development league game and Casey had far less depth available but ... yes they were flogged.