Vipercrunch

So how does "taking on Joe Gutnick" as you so nicely put it and rigging a vote in favour of a merger with Hawthorn as you so cleverly insinuate show us to be a club that does the hard yards and doesn't look for the easy option?

If as you say the board fixed the result to merge and not fight, isn't that an example of the club wanting to take the easy way out?

I concede that one journo (Weatley) says that only one other club (Carlton) was equally as blatant (but less incompetent). Are there any other examples? I don't have any deep knowledge of what and how Carlton went about it, just the general perception from a majority of the media that we were more blatant. The AFL probably should go after Calrton and others too in a fair world, but it doesn't lessen our guilt if they don't.

If you must comment, please read the posts leading up to it. It is a discussion about how blatant we were compared to others brought on because I suggested we were the most blatant of the lot. I have always disliked tanking however blatant it is. I am however chosing to concern myself more with what we have done, rather what other clubs have.

I'm not MFC history buff so i will just give you 2 off the top of my head 1. We (collectively as a membership - I was not a member at the time for whats it's worth) voted yes to merge with Hawthorn becuase we thought we could swallow them up, retain our identity and profit. 2. We treated Gutnick as our saviour because it would be easier than raising money other ways (rattling tins like other clubs or digging deep like Stynes was able to encourage to do).

He said we were definetely the most incompetent at doing it and but only AS (equal) blatant as Carlton. It puts us in a very short list and the most incompetent of the two. Hardly anything to hang our hats on.

At the very least we were too good to deserve a priority pick.

I hope you're correct, but we did still give 17 and 18 year old kids some of the more famous MFC jumper numbers. I would much prefer to hold those numbers back for 3rd and 4th year players who have truly become AFL players. Would it be a bad thing to give Toumpas and JV numbers in the mid 40's instead of 5 and 7?

Find any un-biased journo who suggests others were more blatant.... Perhaps you are correct, but while journos say others tanked, more often than not they go out their way to say we were the most blatant.

We haven't won anything for 48 years is because we seem to always want the easy way out. Tank now and the priority pick will lead our club out for the football wilderness. Wrong, wrong, wrong. We have a pathetic messiah complex.

Thats not the way I see it. For us to only just lose given the extreme list management we undertook is evidence that we really didn't deserve the priority pick the loss gave us. If we stuck to what I would deem normal list management, we would have won IMO. I don't know what Carlton did for those 11 losses, but the wholesale and inexplicable positional changes that we used against Richmond would be hard to beat. PJ on Nathan Brown? Hard to rationalise that one (but I am sure people will lol).

1. Each to their own, but given we undertook probably the most blatant and over the top "list management' in the games history in 2009 and then still only maganed to 'win" last place by a kick after the siren, I do not think we deserved the priority pick we received. IMO you can dance around with technicalities all you want, but it is no hollow charge. 2. IMO again here, but we did the wrong thing so we deserve to get punished. The back drop over precedence etc etc has and should mitigate the punishment but to continue to fight the likely outcome (we still await the officila verdict) is folly. We are pretty much a joke witht the public, and the only way to gain respect is to start doing the right thing for a long period of time. Journalists will go us because we have made mistakes. Caro has gone at us hard in part because we are weak and we did something she finds particularly vile. Don't get me wrong, her methods and language in some cases has often made me angry, but there is no conspiracy. She is having a crack at a soft target for doing something she really doesn't like. Heads down, work hard and let on and off field success do the talking.

I really liked the Jake Niall article too. Even down to his description of what we allegedly did wrong ('conspired to not win games'). I also liked that he put it all into some pespective against the current investigation into Essendon (Defcon one, in terms of potential fallout, compared with tanking's Defcon three). I'm hoping that this can all get sorted in the next day or too and we can put the poor decisions of 2008-2009 behind us. On a side note, I have HATED the sooking and complaining re: all this that has come from some of our supporters. If we keep playing the victim all the time we'll become like the Kangaroos in the 90's. Always went on and on about everyone being againts them. We did the wrong thing and we got punished. Now shut up and watch the football.

Not good. I hope whoever it is, is OK. Must be a serious one to bring an ambulance in though. Fingers crossed for a good outcome.

I think thats his best spot too. A game late-ish last year saw him playing that role particulary well, taking a lot of strong marks at full pace then delivering into the 50. Early Ryan O'Keefe kind of role.

I haven't read all of the 90 pages of this thread, but surely it's a long bow to suggest someones comments here are part of a ruse of the clubs defense? All this talk about activity in Demonland somehow being part of some board level power struggle or trying to out people from the club seems to me as ludicrous. Can't wait for the footy to start....

This bit made me lol. Some of you blokes must check under your bed for the boogie man every night too.

6 weeks today to go before our first NAB appearance. Looking forward to it to see if what we are gleaning from the training reports is as positive as some/most of us hope.

Last year - Fat bottomed Girls - Queen This year - Come out and play - Offspring

I addressed the likely outcome if things were as leaked/reported in my post. If what we think we know already is all there is, then this will flitter away early next year with no charges to answer. I was highlighting the folly of saying right now that we must fight all possible charges at all costs given we don't know 100% what evidence there may be. There is a possible outcome where the evidence is beyond doubt and that a court battle will do us no good at all. The whole situation has been a mess and if this does all turn to nothing I hope a journalist has the balls and nouce to find out why it leaked so badly.

Two types of list management. One where it is done not caring if you win or lose as a result. The other is where it is done deliberatly to make losing the most likely outcome. In the end it all comes down to what motives can be proven, which is what the investigation has been all about. Everyone could see the list management that we undertook. The investigation is to find out what our motivation was and then the outcome will be based on what motivation can be proved.

Yeah, i'm with jnrmac. Wouldn't that be considered draft tampering?

The international rookies don't take the place of any home grown players do they? They fit outside the cap and the normal list numbers as they are very experimental? Any player that falls into this catogory almost by default has no AFL background. The real factors are the cost ($$'s and time) to find and then develop them? I assume all clubs would do some looking (given how sometimes it can be successful), but I couldn't see melbourne in its current state putting too many resources towards it.

Should forward this email to Denham. Might help him understand what we are doing given he thinks we are just randomly calling out names and trading for whoever we can get.

/sigh I made the IF bold, italic AND underlined it and you still missed it. Only so much I can do. So "solid evidence that shows something beyond doubt" is not enough proof for a court....