Go the Biff

Yep, if you say that I'm tipping you'll definitely be first

If they are going to do it then they should go the whole hog. Hold the function at the G and have the XC60 pull up next to the statue of Barassi. Jack emerges from the passenger side door in Melbourne jumper to the flashes of media cameras. Column inches to be had out of that. And then, if we need a bit more spice, future captain Brock, who is driving the XC60, drops a burnout & fishtails across the park towards Punt Rd. McLean wins a $10k bet (ideally from Nathan Carroll) in doing this which he donates to the club. More column inches & a bit of a liven up for the Volvo image !

Many moons ago - a Friday night match, against North I think. I watched one of our new young players go round. He didn't get a lot of the footy but he slotted two beautiful goals from the half forward flank & showed a fair bit of composure. Promising youngster thinks I. After the game, in hope of scoring some free drinks, I went to meet some mates who were in a corporate box. Part of the deal was that after the game, a couple of players come & visit the corporate box for a chat. So while I'm enjoying the free beers, in rocks David Flintoff. He had some skinny little kid tagging along with him. At that time, my mum was collecting autographs so I thought I'd get "Flints" signature for her. Nice bloke David Flintoff & he duly obliged. As he handed back the pen & paper, the skinny little kid in his squeaky, skinny little kid's voice pipes up "Do you want mine too mate ?". Didn't have a clue who he was but I thought I'd humour the kid anyway & handed over the sheet. When he handed it back the signature had a little 52 on the end. Only then did I realise the skinny little kid was the guy I'd watched slot two goals from in front of the members' stand. That was the start of Stinga becoming one of my all time favourite players. He went from No 52 to 15, the number worn by one of our greatest wingers in Stanley Alves & he did the number proud. Later, when Robert Flower asked the playing group who thought they could take on his famous No 2 it was Stinga who spoke up & said "I will". Stinga went on to honour the number of the greatest Demon winger. While injury certainly diminished his output, his best was awesome. When Freo joined the comp, Stinga was one of the main players, along with Stewie Lowe, that they targetted to recruit to their new team. Such was the regard in which Stinga was held. He took one of the bravest, most skilful marks you could ever see running full tilt with the flight of the ball. It was against the Crows in Adelaide & is indelibly stamped in my memory. It summed up just how good his best was.

True - had his issues that boy. Some very [censored] off parents at Ranges when he got picked up ahead of their kids

If you can't post what's the point of hinting ? Reliable source - wish I had a dollar for every one of those I heard about in trade week ! Johnson's form entitled him to an offer of a one year contract. No more. If he thinks his performances at MFC entitled him to any more then he's farting higher than his arse. He had to wait for Brown & Ward to retire & for the club to hit its lowest point since the 70's before he could get a game. If he wasn't Alan Johnson's son I'd have wanted him off the list two years ago when he'd shown about as much as Daniel Hayes. In fact given he's been tapped up by & is heading for Carlton, I hope CJ's remaining career emulates that of Daniel Hayes !

Thanks for the encouragement HT. Back when I played, when the footy was up the other end it wasn't totally unacceptable to be leaning on the goalpost dragging on a cigarette you'd botted from a mate over the fence. Might struggle in your competitive environment ! And Rhino summed it up - the fact that we are crap doesn't preclude other clubs having crap players as well. RH falls into that category.

Houlihan - pfft. I'd rather we drafted me. I'm fat, old & unfit but at least I'd give a [censored] & have a crack !

Three but bumped out to five as 'Pies & Freo each had a priority pick. Pies took Fraser with #1 and traded pick 3 to Richmond (who infamously took Aaron Fiaora). Freo took Haselby & Pavlich with 2 & 4. Still a few useful players to be had though.

Probably a fair assessment. I did think though, that he was trying to be more considered in his ball use in the games prior to his (latest) season-ending injury.

No. University withdrew from the VFL. While some of their players came over to Melbourne, the two clubs did not join forces. The first of those links you provided says that there's no evidence of the two clubs merging. Uni reactivated after WW1 but elected not to resume in the VFL. Its the same club that's playing in the ammo's to this day.

Sautner's first goal. 10 points Cats lead. 28 minute mark

Oops - typo, meant 54. Sandy look shot though. Geelong by 16 points in the shadows of full-time. Sandy 1 goal after half time.

9.9.63 Cats lead Sandringham 8.8.64 at 3/4 time Sandy have scoring end in the last quarter (13 of 17 goals at one end). Had an interview with Dean Bailey on 1611 XX AM at half-time as well. Mono, don't think I've head Grimes name mentioned but may well have missed it. Working at the moment & the broadcast is very much in the background.

17 point lead to Sandy at half time 7.5.47 to 4.6.30 Yze with a couple Djekerra getting plenty of it for the Cats

I'd like Warnock as well. While PJ & Jamar have improved, neither show enough to suggest that they'd be a No.1 ruck in a good side which is what we are trying to build. I'm happy enough with either of them as a No.2 ruck though. If you could combine Johnson's skills & agility with Jamar's grunt & new-found desperation in packs (maybe throw in Meeson's running ability) you'd have a pretty useful player. As it stands though, we have three NQR's. We need a first ruck badly & Robbie Warnock ticks most of the boxes.

Spot on Nasher. He's an exciting prospect. Knows the right spots to run to, seems to have great vision & every now and then does something that just oozes class. Of the top 4 picks I wouldn't swap him for Kruezer or Masten (although that Cotchin kid looks a ripper as well).

Not at all. Read the Fuzz post but this time try to comprehend it. Although on the evidence so far I hold faint hope of that happening.

Which is a lot different to saying he's a bad kick. I'll leave you to sort through the nuances.

While not ready to declare that we have the new Langford, Ayres & Mew, there is a bit to like about our three talls. One of those elements is that they appear to be interchangeable, giving the backline a bit of flexibility - a valued commodity in a game where players are regularly rotated in, out & around forward lines. I'd expect continued improvement from Garland. I'd hope for continued improvement from Martin. Just get the gut feeling with Warnock that what we're seeing might be all we get. But if that's the case that's ok, it's nice to watch a key defender kick the pill without having my heart in my mouth as the ball leaves the boot. An Essendon supporting mate was fairly impressed with Warnock. A few of Lloyds goals were unstoppables. He thought he matched Lloyd in a lot of one-on-one contests & forced him into positions where he hasn't kicked goals for two years. Unfortunately for Warnock, Lloyd got his kicking mojo back on Saturday. Warnock appears a lot stronger than in previous years.

Read Fuzz's post. He appears to be one of the few that's watched Morton all season & has retained some degree of recall.

That will just about do. With a blue rather than white background perhaps ? White lettering. How are your Paintbrush skills Grimesy ? We are Melbourne first, Demons second & [censored]-all third. The Melbourne Fire idea though, would be great for a new franchise. I wonder if that was considered when the Storm & Victory were being named. Helluva lot better than the insipidly named South Dragons.

Plenty by the looks of things. In Stynes defence, there was only one occasion in his long stint of consecutive games when he shouldn't have played. He had a torn / ruptured medial ligament & couldn't turn to save himself. Should not have played that day. There was one instance where even he had conceded he would miss a game. Torn (intercostal ?) rib cartilige. He did play & was BoG by a street. The suggestion that he was regularly patched up & subsequently failed to contribute on the ground is complete [censored].

People seem to miss the point about the rivers of gold flowing into Geelong's coffers courtesy of their boutique stadium. Simply put, demand exceeds supply. If you have around 25,000 wanting to get in where only 22,000 can fit, you can snip the 22k for a bit extra for the privelige. Reserved seating etc is where the coin is made. To suggest Melbourne play games at Geelong is the dumbest of dumb-arse ideas. Second only to the notion that we'd make a quid out of it. Play anyone else but Geelong at Kat Park & the demand won't exceed the supply. Instead of locking punters out, you'd be trying to sweep them off the street into the ground just to make the crowd look half respectable. Play Melbourne v Freo at Kat Park & as someone above pointed out, you'd be lucky to get 5000 making the trek down Hwy 1. The same situation would occur were a 20,000 capacity stadium be built at Casey. To make it work you need more than 20k regularly wanting to get in so that you can charge a premium. Won't happen - not in what's left of my lifetime anyway. The only way it could work is if a smaller stadium were to be built in the shadows of the CBD. That's not likely to happen either as it would be taking business away from the MCG & Docklands. And for those waxing lyrical about Geelong's financial performance, don't forget they were in worse [censored] than we have ever been in. Whatever his subsequent achievements, the best thing Cook ever did for Geelong was to convince the (National ?) bank to take a three million dollar loan write-off up the arse. Without that, they'd have gone the way of another Bellarine Peninsula icon - Pyramid.

You might want to revisit your matchups to achieve your objective Wolfie. Garland played on Farmer when we last played Freo & beat him soundly. That was when I realised just how quick young Col is. He gave Farmer a start & caught him on the lead on a couple of occasions. If you're fair dinkum, put Jamar on Palmer !!!