Tony Tea

Have been an MCC member since 1982 and a Redlegs (or whatever it is called now) member since 1990. Update: Just checked the card. It's still Redlegs. Thought it might have been called Gold or Premier.

Yes, the midfielders were rubbish, and deserve all the extra punctuation marks you can spare. But the backmen, regularly out-marked one-on-one, were still too short.

No, I'm not confusing him with Hudson. If yesterday proved anything, we need to be able to stop opposition forwards taking one-on-one grabs. Rutten is the first big lump of a full-back who came to mind who is rarely out-marked one-on-one. So, have we got anyone similar? No, if yesterday is any indication. Why not give Meesen a shot. He is supposedly agile for a big bloke, but unless he takes over from White or Paul Johnson, he's not going to get a gig on the ball. He is a far better credentialed footballer than hockey-boy Nicholson. He has endurance and agility and might be able to keep up with the likes of Franklin. At 21 he's certainly not too old to learn the caper. And I repeat: We absolutely need a key big bloke down back.

We were chronically exposed for height by Franklin, Boyle and Roughead. Can John Meesen play full back? If Rutten works at Adelaide, Meesen should be able to make it work at Melbourne. Or does Rutten benefit big-time from Adelaide's flooding back into the spaces?

You used up Demonland's quota of dots.

Snore. Way to summarise current opinion, Garry, tell us something we don't know.

Spotted, D-Dave. And that's not the only mistake. Look on Page 25 to see it you can spot it, or look here.

Very disturbing. In the last three years there have been four players drafted whose dads I played with.

MeeSpace.

Did Ox say anything about Travis being offered to the Lions for pick 8?

And to compound the tankingness, you'd have to think Carlton were into Judd well before Round 22.

That Fox Sports article contains an ominous last paragraph. Ends? They better start furiously touching wood; the year's not over yet.

The new coach might be just the thing Davey needs. I'd like to hang onto him to see if Bailey can use his Port experience to turn Aaron into our version of Peter Burgoyne. Mind you, if we get an offer too good to refuse, we'd be mad not to give it serious consideration.

I second, third AND fourth Bobby Mac. Having lived in Western Australia for 15 years, there is no doubt WC fans are the most cocky and obnoxious fans in the league. Why do you think Dockers tragic, Matt Price, spends countless column inches caning the Eagles? He knows how nauseating WC fans are. Think smug Carlton fans at their worst and triple it. For a Melbourne fan living in isolated Perth - who, by the way, was introduced everywhere as "Meet, Tony, he's a Victorian" like I'd killed their dog - it was dead set unbearable. Chuck in the fact that, with only only two teams in Perth, there is saturation coverage in the papers, on the telly and on the radio. You just can't escape it. What's more, I was there when there was only the Eagles, no Dockers. West Coast dominated the news bulletins (not just the sports sections, either) and West Coast players read the weather, hosted sports reports, had jobs as sports reporters, wrote newspaper columns, did the Lotto numbers and were in too many ads to remember. It was just a nightmare. Worst of all, though, is the hard-done-by attitude of the West Coast fans. They will not concede they enjoy even the slightest advantages. It's "we get nothing!" everywhere you go. Bobby Mac, you want to know the best way to get a rise out of the Eagles fans? First remind them that the AFL (VFL as it was then) virtually gave them two premierships with early draft concessions. Rub it in that Victorian clubs were prohibited from drafting in WA. Razz them about their home ground advantage while casually shrugging off their pathetic travel excuse. Tell them they've ONLY won three flags when they should have won at least six. In short, tell them they are under-achievers. That said, I still have many West Aussie friends (maybe not so many if they read this) and now I'm back in Melbourne, away from the WA nightmare, and surrounded instead by cretinous, band-wagoning Collingw&%$ fans. Despite having a long held animosity to West Coast, I don't subscribe to the Victorian media-driven idea that the interstate clubs are evil interlopers. I would rather Port win the flag than Richmond; I would rather Sydney win than Essendon; and yes, I would rather West Coast win than Collingw&%$. What's more, I think the Poys will beat Geelong. It is Geelong after all; heartbreak awaits. That means Collingw&%$ will play in the Grand Final and because they will probably play Port, they will win. Repeat that: Collingw&%$ will win the Grand Final. Sounds hideous, doesn't it? As that noted football expert, Dr Zachary Smith, was wont to exclaim "Ohhh, the pain."

Bate to the midfield is good. I'd like to see him develop into our Simon Goodwin.

Naturally, she would have said it with a smile.

How long before Ebert wants to "go home" to South Australia?

Don't worry about it. Every time a Carlton fan starts smugging on about how good the Bloos are, or how they managed to scam a high pick, just remind them "Your once mighty Carlton played to lose. You really have sunk to a new low."

Yeah, but if she was right, she would have been the first to say "I don't want to be the first to say 'I told you so', but I told you so"; and/or the Footy Confidential personal would have boasted "You heard it here first".

So, looks like Caro backed the wrong pony on Footy Confidential last night. Those egg splattered faces in the media over the recent spate of bolloxed up coaching predictions don't seem worth the slim chance of being able to say "we were first". I mean, do the media even care that more often than not, they got it wrong? Or do they merely care they got it right eventually?

I would have been happy to get Sheeds, but not without reservations. Over the past few weeks since he's become involved in the Melbourne selection process there have been a few odd signs. Every time he was asked by a reporter about what he thought were his chances of getting a gig at Melbourne, his replies were less than encouraging. It was all "ohh, I'm just seeing what's going on" or "we're just having a chat" or "just trying to work out if it's a good fit". Yes, he was probably being cagey, but I got this nagging feeling he thinks he has nothing left to prove and saw the Melbourne coaching job as nice way to round off his career, rather than an appointment to be grabbed and shaken for all it was worth. It would have been preferable had we taken the hungry, nasty, young Sheeds of 1981 (we opted, of course, for Barassi because we didn't want to appoint a full-time coach) rather than the elder statesman Sheeds of 2007, who may, or may not, have lost his edge. With that in mind, I'm quite content to wait a few years to see how Bailey turns out.

Richmond don't want to win, either. Put everything you own on St Kilda. They are dead set certainties.

One thought: Connolly has a good press agent.

We got key injuries in 1995, too.

Jeez, I wish we were good enough to tank.