JP_

That's not about the B&F, that's about the votes given by forum posters throughout the year.

The leaderboard after round 19, as posted on BigFooty, for those interested. You can work out who number 10 is while we wait on final results.

Worth persisting with, for at least one more season. The rest of the depth players we have (Riley, Bail, M.Jones, McKenzie etc.) are scraggers, whereas Newton at least knows how to kick the ball. We need good disposers more than we need foot soldiers right now, and it's easier to teach players how to be fit and how to play defensively than it is how to kick properly.

I'd try to take solace in the fact that it couldn't possibly get worse than this, but every time I've found myself thinking over the past few years that the club has found a new way to prove me wrong. We should forfeit the game next week, we're causing irreparable damage to the sport just by taking the field at the moment.

This is worse than 186. I'm not sure how the club can come back from an afternoon like this. Everyone has to be put under scrutiny after this.

Scored at least one goal in all 12 games so far, multiple goals in 9 from 12. Remarkable consistency from a small forward in a struggling side.

I think what he means is that we had picks 3 and 14, and that we could have picked up Wines and Grundy with those picks if we'd kept them. Fact is that we didn't even take Wines with pick 4 (so why would we have taken him with pick 3?) and I'm not sure that I'd trust in the former MFC recruiting team not to mess those picks up if we'd kept them. Number 3 and 14 as it stands were Lachlan Plowman and Aidan Corr (neither of whom I've ever heard of) and I don't think anyone would think of trading Hogan and Dawes for those two.

Yeah, I think we need to lay off the conspiracy theories here. All the available evidence points to TB4 being used - and I think it certainly would have passed the "balance of probabilities" test - but there's no inherent reason to suggest a tainted tribunal process. The AFL got the result they wanted, but I'd like to think they got it without the need to resort to brown paper bags or ransom notes. ASADA were hamstrung by failing to get Charter and Alavi to appear, and that was always going to endanger a case built entirely on a chain of circumstantial evidence. It sickens me that Essendon and their fans feel vindicated by all this, but let's not stoop to their level by invoking vast conspiracy theories and persecution complexes. This is going to be hanging over them for a while yet (player lawsuits, workcover, Dank's trial, the appeals process etc.) so let them have this moment of joy. There'll be plenty more material to hit them over the head with shortly. As for what happens, I think we all need to hope WADA steps in and takes this to the CAS. At the CAS it will be possible to subpoena Charter, Alavi and Dank, as well as forcing key EFC members to answer questions under oath. It may not have any prospect of reaching a guilty verdict, but it's the only way we're going to get any answers, and therefore a more clearcut resolution to the saga. Essendon are going to do their best to wash their hands of this whole situation now, but they shouldn't be allowed to until they've given a full and frank account of what really happened in 2012, and who they believe should be held responsible. Until now, they've been permitted to say nothing more than "you can't prove what we took, so ner-ner-ner" but that cannot be allowed to hold. If I was an EFC member, I'd be demanding the entire club be turned upside-down until concrete answers are provided about why they were put in such a compromised position to begin with. The fact that they're celebrating a "no comfortable satisfaction" decision like a premiership tells me that enough about the moral fibre of the EFC fan-base to known that this well never happen, so the CAS (or player lawsuits) are the only option. No-one should have to accept this decision until some key questions (like what thymosin were they really injected with?) are answered.

I think it's also a phenomenon that's becoming much more common and virulent in the internet age. It used to be that one would have to get one's news from the mass media, and if one wanted to discuss an issue then it would have to be with one's social peers. In this way, it would be nearly impossible to avoid being confronted with arguments or facts that run contrary to one's own world view, and one would be pressed to adjust accordingly. These days, we can log onto the internet, and never have to hear a single opinion that one doesn't like. In politics, for example, it would be possible for me to log onto a partisan media outlet and then onto a forum populated entirely by people who entirely agree with me. I can go the whole day and have every single one of my opinions reinforced and not a single one of them challenged. It's almost inevitable that my ideas will become radicalized and increasingly distanced from reality. This is basically what's happened to essendon supporters now. They only trust some specific members of the media (I.e. Those who are pro essendon sycophants), they refuse to discuss the issue with their peers and they retreat at the first opportunity to their safe-place forums. Ideas that are expressed there snowball, and speculative ideas soon grow - through mass repetition and lack of questioning - into simply unimpeachable truths. Like their political equivalents, football fans on a football forum begin to develop a siege mentality, and become increasingly dependent on paranoid conspiracy theories to keep the increasingly unstable construct standing. For essendon supporters, this has become the simply unquestionable mantra that their is a joint afl, Asada and mass media conspiracy to persecute essendon even though they've done nothing wrong. Why any of these parties would be motivated to do such a thing is, of course, not a question that anyone there is permitted to ask. When it becomes inconvenient or even not permitted to question the basis of one's world view, inevitably incoherence will begin to set in because one is unreflectively just accepting convenient talking points without making any attempt to calibrate them against empirical reality. In such a way, inconsistencies - obvious to anyone but the group themselves - begin to set in. The club don't know what the players took but it was nothing illegal. Hird cards deeply about the welfare of the players but has no idea what the players were being injected with. Asada and the AFL are simultaneously evil, calculating masterminds and bumbling idiots. And so on -reality very quickly runs away from you if you aren't forced to take stock of it every now and then. That, incidentally, is why it's good to have people who reliably go against the group opinion on boards such as this one, rather than hounding them out of town at the first opportunity.

What really amazes me is that Hird's away on holiday again. To my reckoning, this is the third time he's travelled overseas since returning from his year-long, member-funded sojourn in France (including missing at least part of trade week!). The extent to which he puts his own interests before those of the club is just staggering, and he doesn't even make any attempt to pretend otherwise.Quite apart from anything else he might have done, this should have the EFC members baying for blood. Hird must really have the club by the short and curlies in some way, because I ccouln''t imagine any other coach in the league getting away with such a blatant disdain for his basic duties to the team.

One interesting angle I haven't seen discussed anywhere is the possibility of the Essendon players getting done purely on "intent". So far as I'm aware, it isn't necessary to show that an athlete actually took a prohibited substance under the ASADA code, merely that it was their intention to do so. If memory serves me correctly, it has actually happened that athletes have been banned for merely ordering banned substances, even where it was clear they hadn't taken them. Now my understanding is that the INs specifically charge the players with using banned substances, but I'd be curious to know if the prospect of a conviction still stands even if they can't definitively finger the exact players injected with TB4 and the exact times and places these injections occurred. EFC apologists seem to have it in their heads that in the absence of hard, concrete evidence for specific injections of a specific substance at specific times that the players must be cleared. This, however, is a ridiculously high standard of proof for a doping case (perhaps even for a criminal case, where circumstantial evidence can often be enough) and I think they have to be a little more sensitive to the present realities of the case. Namely, that the EFC players signed consent forms permitting the injection of "Thymosin" which should be enough to ping the players on intent alone, and I can't quite understand how they've been able to convince themselves that even the evidence circulating in the public realm wouldn't be enough for a conviction. The only doubt here seems to be to what "Thymosin" refers to, but given there is a long paper trail linking TB4 to the club and literally nothing linking "Thymomodulin" to the club (and which is never referred to as "Thymosin" anyway) I really don't know what paths the lawyers have to get them out of this one (save having all the evidence thrown out, which is obviously what they've tried very hard to do!).

I have a copy of the post that was made on BF if mods give me permission to post it. Basically, presuming it's genuine, it would indicate that ASADA has concrete evidence and eyewitness testimony placing TB4 on the EFC premises, as well as the testimony of specific players that they were injected with TB4. It's only a summary, though, so it doesn't mention what that evidence is or who the witnesses are. Still, again presuming the post was genuine, and ASADA aren't overplaying their hand, at least some of the players are surely boned right now.

The Age article says "Adelaide is interested in the South Australian Trengove, but it is understood he would rather remain in Melbourne". (link)

I think the question isn't what Trengove is worth on the open market, but what he's worth to us. He's 23 midfielder, with great leadership qualities, and - injury permitting - will likely play a reliable 100+ more games with this club. In other words he's exactly the kind of player we'd be looking to draft in to the club under other circumstances. I want to see improvement in this club quickly, which is what Trengove can contribute to next year and beyond, presuming he's over the worst of his injury troubles (which would seem to be the case if he's passed the medicals at Richmond). Taking pick 12 to the draft would just be crap-shooting, and I'm not sure we're a club which has the luxury of taking gambles on players who may or may not come good 3 or 4 years down the track. Unless there is another experienced player we're looking to trade in, the fact remains that - for us - Trengove is a more valuable commodity than pick 12.

A pretty good argument as to why this trade would be folly. That year we went in with picks 1, 2 and 11 and look where it got us. This year we're going in with 2, 3 and 12. "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce." - Dr. Karl Kennedy

What? On the face of it this seems ludicrous. For pick 12 maybe, but this is a number 2 draft pick that we've put 5 years of development into and who undoubtedly has his best footy ahead of him. I can only think that there's something else in play here. Either his foot injury is much worse than we think, or there's another player we're targeting that we need pick 12 for. According to the article it's not like he's requested the trade either.

I know it's difficult to accept where this club is at the moment, and I know it's tempting to turn our malaise into a kind of moral issue and to blame factors like laziness, ineptitude, "culture" and so on for where we are. However, while the presence of all these factors amongst the staff and playing members might have played a part, I think it's important to look at just how unlucky we've been over the past 7-8 years. I know we haven't helped ourselves along the way, and have frequently made the wrong decisions at important times, but I don't think there are many teams who could have been competitive with the kind of luck we've had during this time. So what do I mean by luck? Well, I mean specifically our luck with regards to drafting and injuries. With drafting, I know there is a certain "science" to it and that we may have selected the wrong players at times, but - for the most part - we have selected players (in the first rounds at least) who had been universally regarded by the entire scouting community as being worthy of the position in which they were selected. If we hadn't been unlucky enough to select these players, then they probably would have been taken in the next few spots by a team that - as it happens - must have had a lot more drafting luck than we did. Here are the top 20 picks we had from 2007-2012: - Pick 1: Jack Watts - Pick 1: Tom Scully - Pick 2: Jack Trengrove - Pick 4: Cale Morton - Pick 4: Jimmy Toumpas - Pick 11: Jordan Gysberts - Pick 12: Lucas Cook - Pick 14: Jack Grimes - Pick 17: Sam Blease - Pick 18: Luke Tapscott - Pick 19: James Strauss Literally not one of those players has come on in the way we expected. Only Gysberts and Cook could really be classified as "surprise" picks (where the recruiters selected players much higher than they were anticipated to go), but the rest were all universally considered to be justified picks at the time. Partly we can blame player development, of course, but that only gets us so far. For example, Scully, Morton and Gysberts have gone on to play with other clubs, and none of them showed any more than they did at Melbourne, so it can't merely be a matter of "culture". Furthermore, player development requires some luck - so that new players are able to come in with experienced players bearing the brunt of the load for their first few years, so they have time and space to learn - and we never had that. While we shot ourselves in the foot by offloading players like MacDonald, Yze, White, Moloney and Bruce a little prematurely (with the universal consent of this forum, I seem to remember!) the fact is we just never had the cattle to help the younger players along. Partly this was down to having a bad list to start with, but even then the best and most experienced players we've had have spent more time injured than they have on the park. These endless injuries over the past few years are the second heap of bad luck we've had to endure. Let's take the players we've drafted there: Scully missed half his second season with a knee injury. Trengrove and Grimes have been hobbled with serious foot injuries. Blease and Strauss have both suffered broken legs. Toumpas and Tapscott have continually missed pre-seasons with hip injuries. It's difficult to develop these players when they can't get on the pitch, or - at best - are forced to get on the pitch playing with the equivalent of one leg! Watts is the only one of those 11 top 20 picks who is both not an abject spud and who has had no serious injuries during his time at the club. And for the rest of the team? In the last four years Dawes has missed 14 of 40 games. Clark has missed 47 of 62 games. Grimes has missed 25 of 84 games. Hogan has missed 18 of 18 games. Jamar has missed 33 of 84 games. Viney has missed 11 of 40 games. They aren't walk-up starters, but Gawn and Spencer have had knee reconstructions. Cross has broken his leg. Trengove has missed 16 of 18 this season (and I'm sure he was injured before that), Garland 7 of 18 (and I'm sure he isn't 100% now). When you're already struggling, you can't afford to have these players on the sidelines so often - particularly when you combine it with the poor drafting. Then, just to top it off, we can think about Jurrah, Clark and Wonaeamirri leaving the club for personal reasons at the height of their powers; Rivers, Sylvia, Moloney and Scully leaving via free agency (not the best players in the world, but I suspect they'd be best 22 atm); and so on. In short, we just haven't had any luck lately and I doubt that any teams would be particularly competitive if they had endured what we have endured. I don't wish to make excuses, nor to suggest that the club isn't ultimately responsible for where it is today: quite clearly it is. What I want to stress, though, is that a lot of the misery we've suffered over the past few years most certainly has been outside of our control, and it may represent the difference between us being a competitive side and the pitiful mess we see before us at the moment. These kind of miseries tend to be self-compounding: a team going well can afford to absorb a few injuries, or bad drafting choices, or players leaving the club: a bad one can't. Injuries have stifled player development, which has stifled onfield performance, which has stifled players development further. Small discrepancies in luck at the beginning can snowball into massive problems further on, through a kind of positive feedback loop: that's the essence of chaos theory, and if there's one entity in the world that currently embodied the ethos of chaos, it's surely the Melbourne Football Club. The only bright spot to come from all this is that - at some point - the luck has to start turning. We will eventually begin to draft players who know how to play and who spend more time on the field than in the medical rooms (Salem and Tyson are a good start). Until then, perhaps the best thing for it is to recede from it all with a kind of ironic detachment, to trust in Roos and to shake your fist impotently at the sky. I'm not sure there's much else for it.

Might be a little premature to have this conversation just yet. A few weeks ago, we would have had Bail and Pederson out the door with Dunn right on the cusp, but I think they're all looking pretty safe right now. I'd love to see all the names listed above get some game time in the seniors (Casey form warranting, of course) to see what they can do under Roos before drawing a line through them. It would be great if we got to the end of the year with a lot of difficult decisions to make.

I think Watts' problem is that he was always able to get by in the junior level because of his talent, size and athleticism and he's just never learnt to do the more basic things that less naturally gifted players have had to learn right from the beginning. I don't think it's always down to lack of effort with him, and I don't think we need to belabour the point that he's never going to be someone with the drive or desire of Nathan Jones, say, he just needs to know that not everything done on a football field has to be done gracefully. He's almost trying to hard to make everything he does look poised and effortless, with the result that he just ends up looking like he's not trying. Take note of all the times he goes for the ball one-handed or stops and props looking for the killer pass - sometimes it's better just to run in a straight line at the ball and boot it away haphazardly once you get it. It doesn't look as good, but it would certainly be more effective.

The Ablett / Jetta decisions looking pretty important now. :-/

For God's sake Dawes.

Okay, Plan B time Paul.

Think it might be worth moving McKenzie onto Ablett now and to leave Jones free to find his own ball. He's starting to tear us apart.

Need to get to the loose ball first and put more physical pressure on them when they have the ball. They've been a lot more eager than we have in that regard and should be winning but for some bad misses. Otherwise, we're doing okay I think.

As Melbourne supporters I think we're all used to failure and disappointment. We've witnessed some pretty miserable times over the last few years, but even during the worst moments there was cause for hope. We could assure ourselves that we would rebuild, gain some high draft picks, get some games into the kids and eventually re-emerge as a premiership contender. We could stomach 2008 because we all knew that, after a season or two of pain, we'd be back with a team full of young-guns that would be the envy of every team in the league. I don't think any of us could have really "enjoyed" the Bailey years, but at least we were able to delude ourselves into thinking there were signs of progress or that we were heading in the right direction. Every drubbing only brought us one step closer to a priority pick, afterall, so there wasn't much downside was there? Now, though, I just don't know what we have to pin our hopes on. This will be 6 consecutive years down the bottom of the table and we're literally in a worse position than when we were in 2007. None of our high draft picks have come on, so we can't even cling to the ephemeral hope that we can tank our way back to competitiveness. You could give us the first 3 draft picks for the next 5 years and it wouldn't make any difference: we'd be playing them in a losing team with no leadership to speak of, destroy their confidence, then flay them alive on our messageboards for failing to save us from ourselves. Morton was drafted as a kid with sublime skills; 4 years on, he can't hit a barn door. Trengove, potentially a number 1 pick, is yet to have a standout game and this year can't even get his hands on the footy. Jack Watts - the kid drafted as the solution to our tall forward woes - returns from two games in the seconds to play as a loose man in defence. None of them have shown any real progress since being drafted, why should we expect the next batch of youngsters to be any different? Some might console themselves by thinking that Neeld is instilling some toughness in the players, demanding accountability and adherence to structures whatever the consequence on the scoreboard. If he has been doing this, then frankly I'm not seeing any signs of it. We have literally never looked like a less capable football team. We can hang the senior players for going missing, and while they must accept their share of the blame, perhaps they can be excused for failing to show leadership. They were, afterall, dumped from the leadership group by a guy who'd only been at the club for 5 minutes and replaced by a couple of 20 year-olds. For all their faults, it must be difficult to find the motivation to lead when the coaching staff shows you as much confidence as that. Say whatever else you like, Neeld has completely lost the players. So where to? Changing coaches doesn't work, high draft-picks don't work, changing the leadership group does't work... what's left? Do you want to tell me this just a practice season? That we should be too concerned about the results, because the real importance lies in Neeld drilling the players with what's expected to them? Fine, but my reply would be that we've already had 5 seasons like this where the results are "not important" and where has it got us exactly? At some point we're actually going to have to start playing real football instead of making sacrifices for some distant point of glory in the future that's frankly looking more and more distant with each passing week. Besides, what's my motivation for watching / attending games where the team I support isn't really interested in competing? Perhaps I should just step away until the team decides they've undergone enough "training" or "practice" or "got enough games into the kids" to actually start trying? When do we expect that'll be? So I don't know. I'm completely bereft of hope, and when a fan can't find even the flimsiest pretext to cling to in hope then what point is there? Why am I enduring this misery when I don't expect it to lead to anything except more misery? How can I take another five years of this crap and retain even the slightest bit of passion for this team? What, finally, do we have to look forward to? Can anyone give me anything?