Freddy Fuschia

Thompson is a class defender. It's unlikely that we could lure him away from the Suns.

It would appear that cheating is part of the Hird mentality at Essendon.

Training starts at 8.45am today due to the heat.

You're kidding right? If you're comparing these guys' collective performances in the goal kicking over the years tell me which combination comes near them?

The standard required for proving intent isn't any higher than in any other case and the signing of the waiver forms covers that base.

The Russian is 30 and Shannon Byrnes turns 30 in April.

Not to mention The Filth.

Nothing about Jako in the training reports.

Blame Neeld for wanting his team to work hard like all the others.

They should stand down the AFL Commission and have a Senate Committee look into the way they've been running the competition. Enough is enough.

Do we know anything about Alan Jakovich's back? Heard a rumour that he might not be quite right for next season.

She has updated her phantom draft and she usually comes close: AFL draft 2013: Emma Quayle's first round prediction Welcome to Demonland Nathan Freeman.

Almost every phantom draft has Sheed going to WCE at 11. Most have some variance with other choices but nobody seems to think that a club would bite the bullet and take a risk with this player at 7 or 9 for eg. Why?

With the AFL National Draft due to be held tomorrow evening, I'm staggered that there isn't a separate thread on Sandringham Dragons midfielder Christian Salem, especially as it's starting to sound like he's the one we're going to select with pick 9. Peter Ryan covers MFC for the AFL site and this tweet from him suggests we might go for Salem ahead of Freeman

Fox Footy is replaying every game played during the season on a round by round basis. I taped the Round 23 game between GWS and GCS primarily to see Dom Tyson who was playing his second game coming back from injury. I thought he started off a bit slowly and improved over the course of the game. It was a fair effort from him in the circumstances to get 18 disposals and there is clearly a lot of improvement in him. His teammate Scully just went (13 disposals). How he was placed in their b & f beggars belief. The GWS performance was completely overshadowed by Gold Coast who were totally dominant with the Brownlow Medallist killing it and Bennell, O'Meara and a few others outstanding. Strangely enough, one of their players who blitzed was Mav Weller who was surprisingly dumped from the Gold Coast list after picking up 27 disposals in that game.

Scharenberg is the best player in this draft by a long way. If he's available at 9 it would be a major shock but one that our recruiting people should recover from quickly enough to call out his name and number. If not there then I have this feeling that Sheed is the type of player who would fit the Roos style the best and we'll go for him.

If Vlad wants it then there's a good chance he'll get it. He already owns one AFL Club (us) and with a number of others on the breadline because of the way the competition runs, he'll soon own half a dozen. Then he can simply direct who takes what players.

He doesn't have much reason to laugh as an Essendon supporter. Apart from the thrashing their peptide laden team imposed on us early this year we beat them regularly during one of our darkest periods as a football club. Lets see how that mob of drug cheats perform once ASADA gets off its butt and issues infraction notices. Then we'll see who's laughing.

Some more post Neeld departure urban mythology. It's been well documented that the racist accusations against him have been discredited as invention and further that the club gave Liam solid support even after he left the club, all the way through the trial and beyond. It's easy to try to find scapegoats in these situations and our country does not have a pleasant history in this area but those who try to deflect blame away from the individual who is mainly responsible for Liam's problems - Liam himself - do him and his people no favours at all.

Yeah. Davey was stiff to get delisted while Leroy Jetta kept his spot. Unless it was because of contracts it's hard to work that one out.Problem for Alwyn is his age and the fact that clubs shouldn't be touching Essendon players until at least after the final ASADA report comes out.

Mark Fine told an interesting story on SEN about Ahmed Saad. After being dropped Sandy he had a poor game and suffered a quad injury forcing him to be placed on the 'No Training' list. Later in the week, Saad was busted by ASADA. Naturally, Saad missed the St. Kilda squad of 25 players to go to the Brisbane game and the CEO publicly announced Saad would not be playing. However, when the CEO took the Thursday and Friday off, Watters included Saad without his knowledge or that of his assistants or the players who were livid when it came to light. A lot of stories like this about the coach.

In the chain of corporate governance the buck might well have started with Danks but it sure as hell flows all the way up to the top. Demetriou knew there were potential problems with Essendope, peptides and sports scientists in general. He simply wasn't vigilant enough and didn't act soon enough.

So much wrong with your viewpoints and I am happy to differ with you on them but this point is where I really take issue. I hope our new coach doesn't carry that sort of defeatism into 2014.

Would have won the Brownlow by now if only we did the right thing after 186 by giving Bails a 5 year contract extension.

You know it's going to be very hard when you have a record like that and most of the football world including some of your own supporters don't want you to get assistance that's been put into place for the purpose of helping clubs in that very position.