Dappa Dan

Jesus H. Christ... Give me strength. Do you really think Yze, or any self respecting league footballer could give a stuff what supporters think? He has a job to do, and the MEDIA attention was what he claimed got him down. He had suffered from PEER pressure from his mates, who he was denying a spot, from him betters and bosses and from the all-important media... But that had NOTHINg to do with his record. He wasn't playing good footy, and he was still being selected because of it. This peer pressure is what brought this to his attention. Had he been a normal player in the middle of his career, he would have just gone with the flow, and ND would have dropped him far sooner. The RECORD is the offending variable here. Not the fans, not the coach and not Ooze. If it weren't for the damn consecutive games hullabaloo the media would have been EVEN MORE on his case about his bad form, becuase there would have been less cause to play him! Open your eyes... both of them.

Neaves is even further away from being a AFL ruckman than PJ at this stage. From what I've seen it wouldn't solve too much.

19 touches seems pretty relevant to me. He tried VERY hard. And is slowly improving on some BAD form. Stay with him. When he's actually given something to KICK to, he might look better. What kind of future do we have when our better youth aren't even getting a game? In six weeks he'll have the quality around him to improve sharply.

:D:D:D

If I start, I won't stop...

What if I hate him? What if I think he's over-rated? What if I thought he carried on like a pork chop? What if I believe he absolutely SHOULDN'T have been playing? Otherwise, pretty well on the mark... For mine I thought the team tried its absolute guts out today, compared to other days. I won't go through positives with individual players, but I thought there were flashes of things like Bate's goal, Flash's goal and a couple of other passages (Brown's delivery I think) where the team seemed very pumped. Looked like a real team. There's only so much they could do on the day given drawbacks in coaching, fitness, injury and youth and I reckon many of them battled manfully. I was prouder of the guys today than I have been in weeks, despite some skill errors and decision mistakes.

What a massive tool. Was celebrating playing his first good game in YEARS against a soft side who have none of their best players playing. Hack player, one of the great dissappointments. His garbage today was proof positive of his mediocrity. Come back and play us at the G with the 10 players we have out... Headland you are an AFL nobody sunshine.

Newton?

With a handful of our best players in the side (Neitz, Brock and Rivers for example) the story would have been VERY different. And with a half decent umpire we might have been a chance. Farmer should never umpire again. I have no doubt the umpiring so far in this season is the worst 4 rounds I've ever seen, and the worst 4 rounds for the dees I've ever seen. I don't even want to go to the footy anymore, and we only got 16,000 there.

Jeez. Melbourne are a very poor side, but Matty Bate still has the same future he had 4 weeks ago.He's been racking up the stats, getting touches galore, and has been trying to kick at full pace to a stone statue in the forward line. When you have to pick the one red and blue jumper in amongst 4 anchors, you're going to butcher the ball 50% of the time. His clangers are bad, but then so were Sylvia's, Bruce's, some of Yze's. If you're going to sling blame about there's HEAPS of other players you can look to. Matty Bate will be a sensational player. He's played only a few bad games for the club, and he really shouldn't have to shoulder the responsibility he is. Give him a break you lot.

I think you misunderstood me, probably my fault. What I mean to say is that what I know about rating coaches is next to useless. From my vantage point I can see little that would effect anyone's decision to hire or not to hire a coach. When I said he's only "OK" at best, I meant that he's only an OK prospect. At best he could be the next Sheedy, but then so could a lot of guys. The only thing I can go on, really, is what has stood the test of time. Hiring a proven coach who's won multiple flags is ALWAYS going to be preferable to hiring an unknown. But then there's two other things I KNOW from my vantage point. A) The demons list is such that even a great coach would struggle to get them into a GF. B) The demons financial position and facilities are below par. This means that the only coaches we could entice to the club would be promising, but risky prospects, like Williams, Mitchell, Longmire, Voss, Lyon etc etc. Or caretaker coaches who have little real flag-winning potential like Laidley, Clarko and Brittain. Look, I have nothing against Mark Williams, we could do worse. But he's not Matthews, Sheedy, Pagan. At least not yet, and there's no concrete evidence that he will be. Hence the term "OK." Fair enough.

He'd be ok, but as far as I'm concerned a good VFL coach who's proven only that he can win flags with the best VFL/AFL affiliate is only an ok proposition. It really depends on what direction the club takes. If they sack ND, then recruit a Laidley/Clarko type to be a caretaker coach just to develop the list, then that's ok and I don't care who coaches as long as they know how to recruit and blood players. But if we're serious about a flag within the contract period of whoever we recruit in the next 3-5 years then it has to be someone with a better pedigree. Sorry. Nothing against Mark, but this is no time to make a punt. Oh. Sorry. Was only taking the [censored] Occo, and I thought you were too, so disregard that last post of mine... Right, now that that's done, I'm concerned for you. Thomas was one of the worst coaches in recent years. And don't even think about quoting his record of prelims and stuff. He underachieved. Best case scenario is that he does a Balme and takes a role in some club's footy department, but that's unlikely since he's a proud man and is well known for his religious love of the Saints. The man will never be a senior coach again...

Yeah. Not bad.

- Do you mean that on draft day a rival club can come out of nowhere and claim another clubs F/S with little or no warning? If so that can be eliminated by making clubs claim the F/Ss weeks before the draft. This gives everyone time to sort it out so that everyone is decided, but.... - This is a very good point. If these rules are implemented I reckon this will crop up sooner or later. - Actually, I reckon that's the fun part. In the case of Tomahawk, there is EVERY chance that he could have been taken at number 1. Every recruiter in the land would have been on him. The interesting part is when it comes to players like CJ or the Johnsons (Tomi and Marc) who will probably never go round 1. The Blues could claim them, then the dees, having seen them at Sandy may bid a second rounder. The demons may have paid too high a price and the Blues end up having lost nothing really. There's some skill to it, and it adds a dynamic to the trade/draft system. But at a price. Unfortunately some kids can potentially get screwed out of playing for their dad's club, which would be sad, but fair. The F/S rule has the potential to undermine the whole idea of having a draft in the first place.

Well that should solve the mystery of where the signature on my posts comes from. No denying how inspirational I found the great man's words.

Crowley, Crowley and Crowley... And I don't care if it's fairly or not....

For Christ's sake Occo!!! Fair Dinkum, stop posting stupid things about important subjects like this! You know as well as I do that the only man for the job is Judge.

occo... a) He is quick. He catches most guys he tries to catch, and keeps up with the fastest leading forward when on the lead. I'm not sure where you get it from that he's slow. Maybe last year when he was still under that injury cloud. B) Perhaps. You're entitled to your opinion there. But I'll still disagree. He's picked up a number of possessions in his time, and there's certainly to reason to suggest he is a POOR reader of the play. Not everyone can be Rivers. c) His kicking skills are as strong as you can ask for. Not everyone can be Trav! Under pressure a number of times this year he's found matched-up targets and hit them perfectly at distance. On this you really should have a good old gander at him this weekend. Hopefully he won't let me down, and if he doesn't, and you miss it, well then there's nothing more I/we can do.

I'd have to see a finalised model, but I reckon the "bidding" system shows some promise. In short, when a F/S eligible player comes up, the father's club can claim him with (I think) the usual 3rd round pick. If another club likes the look of him they can "out-bid" the first club by bidding with a higher-round pick. If all other 15 clubs bid the same as the original club, then the original club wins and can recruit the player. So for example, if MFC wantss to recruit Chris Johnson they claim him with thei 3rd round pick. Then, say, Carlton makes a bid with their second-round pick, and MFC matches that. Even if MFC's second round selection comes AFTER the Blues' second round selection, it still counts as "out-bidding." In other words, even if the Blues had selection 22, and the demons had selection 28, the dees would still get him. To use the Tomahawk example, let's say the Lions wanted him last year (and they would have, you'd presume). They would bid for him with their first-round pick which came in at pick 4. The Cats could then out-bid them with their pick 7 despite it being 3 spots lower. So if you can make sense of that poorly explained mess and you see errors, feel free to correct.

Happens to me fairly regularly.

Worse still, if someone gives you a bit of lip, and you mishear them, then it's ok to smack them repeatedly. Even worse than that, the next time a player is sledged, he can go ahead and take a baseball-bat to the guys head and when the tribunal comes to them and asks "why?" he can say "I thought he said my Mum was ugly... but that's ok. Misunderstanding. I'll just hand him back his jaw and we'll forget the whole thing..."

Ditto. I lived interstate/Overseas all of the last 2 seasons. Demonland was my LIFE! Now I'm back in Melb, and unemployed. It's STILL my life!

Nice entries under "favourite players."

OH JESUS CHRIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT DID MFC EVER DO TO YOU?!!!!!!!!! EH?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ed: ANSWER ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HA!....