bush demon

could be bigger than the dot com bubble. brisbane bears in the paper this morning with multi-million debt following port adelaide's multi-million dollar debt, following the quick-layout of green lawn strips at gold coast. it suits the afl to think that half the public are indoctrinated with this bigger-is-better corporatisation of our game.

Was going to start a Barassi-to-Carlton thread but thought I'd go with this one instead: Dees' Morton puts contract talks on hold. Hey ... imagine a GWS v Golden Suns Grand Final. Guess the crowd.

The AFL want to takeover NSW and rugby, and Tom Scully is the key pin-up boy for this expansion. To do this they have to double-cross a foundation club which signed on to the AFL's expansion plans based on a level playing field of salary caps and national drafts. The way this pans out will give a pointer to the fate of a number of victorian clubs. 18 clubs is too many clubs chasing too few premierships. the competition is usually over by the half-way mark of the season, then tanking or top four is all that matters. I am praying we can survive our courageous recovery and that our great list can be retained and achieve our dreams.

although i confess to needing a tom scully update every fifteen minutes, i think it is quite ridiculous to bid him up. all we are doing is playing into the hands of the big clubs. just sit tight, once blue mountains east f.c use up their handouts they will be sitting pretty like our lovely brisbane. never have i felt so closely to rugby as an entity.

Fate deals a strange hand. Until an unlucky bounce last September Collingwood had WON one premiership since 1958, (in 1990) and two since 1939. They had become perennial finalists before this but collapsed and were mocked roundly since the 60's as the 'colliwobbles'. Having said that, I admire what they have been able to do without bottoming out. another piece of trivia: collingwood have been defeated by melbourne in approx 15 of their last 16 finals outings.

As Oscar Wilde would have said, (apologies to Monty Python), "There is only one thing worse than correcting a spelling error and that is being corrected for correcting a spelling error". Here's my factoids, in any order: 1. The delay in reaching a decision will pump up Scully's contract value; 2. Scully has made an 'in-principle' commitment to the Dees with his earlier press conference. 3. This in-principle commitment can be over-ridden if Big Kev can get his mits on our Tom. 4. Tom's number one priority is to believe he can play in a premiership team. 5. MFC's premiership window has never been this good with our beautiful list. 6. Jimmy Stynes is the numero uno man manager and having him at the head of our organisation gives us the edge in retaining our player. 7. The media-frenzy is again building up and may hasten a decision. Last Saturday what s-his-name Maclure said on ABC774 that if our Tom hadn't signed in four weeks he would be gone.

It is totally in the interests of the GWS backers to quietly fan speculation that there is a 'done deal' because it feeds the mindgames in their overall recruiting push. another article in the age this morning saying how the push into gws will cost the league 200 million and that it will not succeed. tom would be looking at another five years of struggletown in a struggletown to get success, whereas melbourne are showing real signs that we are capable of raising the phoenix. i remember months of speculation in the 90's over stephen tingay going to fremantle, ultimately he stayed. after watching tom's positive comments post-match on friday I am more swaying to him staying. in the end i think intangibles will come into play. melbourne's list is looking extremely good and things are starting to fall into place. plus Jimmy!

rIf we had kept gerard healey that would have helped in '87, definitely would have got us a flag imo.

that 'pet' name is totally disgusting and should not be allowed on this site. if the administrators condone it then it reflects very poorly on this supporter website.

i was there during the 60's and it was at least half of them: '65, '66, '67, '68, and '69. I have been depressed about the demons since round 1, 1966 when we were clobbered by the saints in the match of the day. the game was built up as melbourne on the rise again after a disappointing '65. well i have been through a lot of wasted football matches since then.

Well it has destroyed the south australian and western australian football competitions for a start. look up a utube of the fantastic atmosphere and crowds which attended finals matches in these states. i think it was about 1974 when sturt or port adelaide beat carlton in the 'championship of australia' with barry robran starring. what a match. melbourne similarly won three 'championships' in the 50's and 1964 by overcoming the top south australian team. what exactly is 'west coast eagles'? secondly it has created fake football teams like gfc and gwfc. diluting the brand. it is called national but denies a true football state like tasmania admission. look how well tassie does in the sheffield shield or whatever it is now called. in the days before mass weekly injuries of footballers we had 18 home and away games and potentially two finals games. now we have a pre-season round of matches leading to a pre-season premiership followed by 22 games then maybe three or four finals for premiership aspirants. no wonder the clubs want to protect their players. Ps this was the game i was referring to... check out the genuine interstate, and national rivalry. not the confected competition that we have ended up with in 2011: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZqJBwvbWS8&feature=related

Reading each week about jumper clashes, it makes me wonder why the necessity to junk tradition and watch a home club team run around against 'unknowns'? Often there is no jumper clash at all, it is some cheap AFL initiative to water down club loyalty for the sake of television ratings or whatever reason. the next time i watch the 'afl-approved demons' play away i lose a bit. when i see them in some photoshopped jumper... it's just not the same. Anyway, rate your ten worst afl initiatives from 10 to 1. This can be over the last 25 years. By the way, my all-time worst is the shift from VFL Park to Etihad Car Park. My second worst is the botched finals system which allowed adelaide to trump us in 1998 and progress to a premiership - despite being flogged by the dees during the finals series. Oops, i forgot dumping state of origin football, and creating the AFL in the first place, so: 10. the clash jumpers. problem is the clash jumper usually clashes with itself. 9.No reserves or u19 game before the main game. 8.agree with another poster: disgraceful ticketing arrangements for the grand final. 7. Fixturing, which gives the pole position profit-wise to a select few clubs. 6. Allowing two teams to have the 'match of the year' gifted to them in perpetuity, regardless of their position on the ladder ('Anzac Day' clash) 5. The loss of Saturday afternoon football 4. Junking state of origin football 3. The finals series which requires an undefeated team to win three consecutive matches to win the premiership 2.Creating the AFL in the first place. 1. Creation of Etihad Car Park, demolition of VFL Park, Waverley. Apologies to omitting from my top ten the afl-designated 'legend' status. supporters and lovers of australian rules are the ultimate arbiters of legends, and aren't interested in another such afl tick of approval: john coleman was a legend long before the afl and long before it created this monty pythonesque concept. ron barassi was a rusted-on legend without some wacky belated announcement.

E remember the 1988 elimination final when we were being flogged by WCE at VFL Park Waverley and Sean Wight went to full forward (from fullback) and almost singlehandedly brought us back into the game with powerful contested marking. He also did a great job against Dermot Brereton in the '87 prelim. even though we lost. He often played the fullback position like a soccer goaly, very inspirational.

yes that came across as a concession speech to me when i heard it.

i think Norm was angry because he knew melbourne would no longer be able to compete on a level playing field because the other clubs were spending big to lure players (marshall/ farmer) but under the coulter law there were severe limits on what a club could supposedly offer a player. even if norm had stayed i have no doubt we were headed for a fall because the other clubs were already out-recruiting us. under jimmy i feel we have gone past this period of shame and self-analysis and can look to a brighter future. the question mark is whether DB is also "melbourne at this stage", and how the current coaching committee will also view his coaching performance in the coming weeks.

When i started barracking we were the '64 premiers. the channel two screen said, 'final scores 8.14 to 8.10' or something close to that. our family suddenly went to england and a year later in australia our team was pathetic, losing round one in 1966 to stkilda. we have been pathetic ever since. all through school years i somehow imagined a renaissance. dillon, parke then onto alves, wells, flower, then to healey. into the eighties and a seeming miracle with john northey. then to another seeming miracle in david schwartz in the 90's. then robbed disgustingly by a corrupted finals system in 1998 which saw eventual premiers adelaide overtake us in 1998. then at the rosstown pub carnegie in 2000 with face paint and one russell roberston mark in the third quarter. then travis johnstone and middling muddling 2000's. never have i been so affected by a demon loss as thursday night, not even the '87 preliminary final. at least in that game we gave a damn and belted hawthorn but couldn't put on scoreboard pressure eventually wilting. simon eishold i forgive you are a hero at least you took a big grab near the siren and could have got us into a premiership play-off v a toffy carlton. then thursday night when the players ran round some west australian football ground so bogged down with their pay cheques and counter meals they could barely get within the breath of last year's wooden spooners.

What is brad green on this show for? watching him commentate on other teams and giving them a pat on the back after our more than pathetic effort thu. night makes me squirm. he doesn't look like a captain. he is a goal sneak and a clever forward line mark. so get off the television.

Any red-blooded demon supporter would walk out and snap the flag in half and say get a real one boys!

brisbane are giving the sainters some curry. our bad patch really started end of last yeasr when we lost the last three, continuing into pre-season. ps we are only a brad green mis-kick away from being 3 wins, 1 loss, one draw.

When I read the title of this blog I thought that it was going to be about our club's major review process currently underway, and along the lines of, Why are we doing it during the season, what if it suggests that the coaching's no good, or that major structures aren't right. Wouldn't it undermine the team's chances? With the Age article this morning suggesting that schwabby is having a go at Bailey there is potential for major disruption. Regarding injuries, last year the constant criticism was that a player was always a week or two away and that was a week or two away from Casey, not the Firsts.

2006 we got in the finals. seems so long ago.

Something worth celebrating, even though the competition hasn't been top-shelf. Maybe five years since we were this high?

Hannabal the cannibal. lucky for the internet or noone would know you exist.