george_on_the_outer

Now that the Giants have cemented their place in finals, they may choose to rest a lot of players in the last round.

Every year we re-hash the same things on here. About the maximum holes you can create on your list is 5 or 6. That is because pick 6 will be in the 90's in the draft. So what is better, keeping a Bugg or McKenna, who may offer something, especially if you know what they are offering, or a 17 year old unknown who 17 other clubs have passed on 4 or 5 times? Trades are trades. Unless you trade for picks you get one player, you lose one...net zero. If C.Wagner or Lockhart are as good as has been reported, they won't be rookied, they will be snapped up in the main draft, same as we did for Fritsch last year. Just because they are playing for Casey doesn't mean other clubs haven't noticed. Mad as Hell has already correctly identified 8 who are de-listable. Balic is already gone and the chances Bernie will retire are far greater than 50% given the way he is playing. At the moment Pedo is about the only real insurance we have for Max, but will he want to stay on that basis?. Filipovic wasn't called upon to ruck at Casey when King went down this week, that says something about the confidence the staff have in him. If a player hasn't been called up this year or ever, then they are the ones in the gun. 1 gone, 1 retirement maybe 2, leaves 4 max....... Johnstone, Filipovic, Kent..... with King, Bugg and Keilty as line ball

After Hogans Heroes was "toned down" from the high marking attempts after some bloke landed on his head, and now hammies being pinged when running, what else can we come up with that doesn't cause injury to the participants.....

Don't like the statement about training on saturday....., nobody does that the day before a game.

Fixed up.......

Even worse was when no-one nominated and the boundary umpire was told to throw it in again. I despise BT's commentary, but in this case he was absolutely right....throw the damn thing in and get on with the game. No need to wait for rucks to walk over. If no-one is allowed to ruck, then let the ball hit the ground. Better still get rid of nominations, and only 2 people can contest. .....it ain't that hard! Except apparently for the AFL.

It also needs to be looked at in terms of the numbers quoted above: Does anyone really, really believe that Sydney has 1.2M supporters, or since it was a survey asking anyone in NSW who they support in AFL, what would be their answer. You can barely get any mention of AFL in that state. The numbers are then translated Australia wide so the methodology is faulty. And does anyone believe Brisbane has 1/2 million supporters? More than Carlton....really! Same problem, ask someone in QLD who they support in AFL and 1 team comes to mind. And you get even less AFL coverage in that state. How many supporters would Melbourne Storm have if you followed the same methodology? And poor old Richmond now has over 100,000 members but barely makes it to 4.5k supporters. That will blow the conversion supposition out of the water. The pity is that LH is correct and the numpties at Ch7 and AFL assume that a statistical random sample gives an accurate picture, despite the fact that supporters are concentrated in particular areas.

...Exactly...they have been 1,000 members behind us for a long time. Suddenly they discover another 3K members?

If you do a hamstring you don't "run out the match". It risks further damage, even if you can run at all. Standard recovery is 2 weeks, with most club physio's resting for 3 to be certain. I don't know why ALL clubs, not just ours, participate in this type of charade.

I would like to thank Don Pyke for his help winning the game. In exactly the same way as the Alice Springs game, he changes nothing. Kick down the wings and get it to Tex and Jenkins. Then to top it off with barely a kick or two in the match and a couple of minutes, he leaves Cheney as an extra man in defence, and lets Bayley Fritsch do the same for us. Obviously didn't want to win the game, just trying to stop us scoring.

I would take a half fit Vanders over some of those mentioned who have been selected this week.

Puff piece ( if indeed it was even written by him) from Judd. Why wasn't the article about Carlton, who also have talented youngsters, experienced older players etc. like GWS or Brisbane as well as Melbourne? Don't bring attention to the problems at Princes park.

...Finishing 9th always provided hope they could make it next year......

The talent that Carlton has on its list is considerable. However, like we were prior to Roos, you can have all the talent you wish, but you have to develop and import maturity to get results. SoS made the claim that much of the talent was sourced by letting go of the likes of Tuohy, Garlett, Betts, Waite, Gibbs. Trouble is, has that made the side any better? The results don't show it. The problem for Carlton is they got rid of their mature players, and replaced them with not only talent, but a swathe of duds, particularly from GWS. But as SWYL said, their success over many years was dependant upon buying players. Their culture knows no other, and until they learn ( as we did with Roos) that you develop the talent and you supplement with maturity, then they will be destined to the bottom reaches for a long long time. How would our side look without Hibberd, Garlett, Melksham, Vince, & Lewis? How much better is the side because of the development that went into Jetta, OMac, Hunt, Harmes and ANB who are all regular first 22 when fit? The sad thing is that like happened to us in years past, that the talented youngsters like Cripps, McKay, Weitering, Curnow etc, will fade because they are just getting smashed each week since they have no support around them. Losing by 10 goals regularly does nothing for confidence, and the willingness to turn up every week. It becomes a cancer, once again, as we have seen. Murphy is as disinterested as possible, further compounding the problem. Their situation will worsen as Kruezer and Simpson don't have much left, and to replace them will take years of development.

Yes we will. Why do you think Richmond played a home game there last night?

We are now 43,195 Saints now 42,605 Dogs now 43,300 North now 39,682

I would like to know what Nev Jetta's numbers are for 1 on 1. I reckon he is better still.

41,759 at the Dogs 42,159 at the Saints

The club's financial year finishes on 31 October. Which is only sensible to be able to report in line with the Season in which the club has operated. http://s.afl.com.au/staticfile/AFL Tenant/Melbourne/PDF/171123_2017MFCAnnualReport.pdf Taxation years finish on 30 June. The tax department doesn't care how you report, it only cares about what it is owed at 30 June. The 2 are not tied together, and neither is the point at which the club/AFL records membership.

Bloody awful game again. 7 clangers and the ones that aren't are kicks to contest. Always turns one way because he can't kick on his right and looks to handball first. Fails to go when needed, especially the nothing effort in the last 30 seconds of the game.

8-900 gram of MDMA as well.....

Don't get too excited folks.....the Saints have more members than us at 40,323....and that was a week ago.

Losing a $3M annual profit from gaming means the capital needed to replace it has to be in the order of $30 - $60M.!! I’m thinking there will have to be an announcement of a new training base for the club paid for by the AFL to just allow us to break even. And then there still remains the question of on going revenue to allow us to support the side financially into the future.

The other thing which will come into play is the increase in the salary cap for everyone of around $2M. It was effective from June 2017, but contracts would have already been signed for the 2017 year, so the can of worms opens in 2018: http://www.afl.com.au/news/2017-06-20/players-get-20-per-cent-pay-rise-in-new-cba If you have a quality young list you will be able to pay them to stay with the extra money. If you don't....then you go shopping.