John Dee

If we could just get rid of Sam Blease we would have a very young team; the MFC site has him as being born in 1891. He is clearly skewing the average age of our list!

I think that this would be a good thing for all - the new club, casey and MFC. The place is more than big enough for all and the awareness that the A-League would bring to Casey would be just what they are wanting. A couple of NAB matches a year, plus A-League matches, Scorpion matches and premier league cricket and the cachet of the place just keeps growing. This in turn would make it less of a leap to consider bringing the main oval up to scratch for an AFL game.

Is that correct, Nugget? Then it must have changed since I was at CGS, and that was a long time ago. First team matches were on Friday afternoons; all of the other plebs, including me, had to play on Saturdays. Both of my kids went to CGS as well and I had to ferry them around on Saturdays, but they were never going to be in the firsts either.

Jack Watts goes to an APS school. APS first eighteen games are on Friday afternoon, at least they were when I was an APS student. There is considerable peer pressure in the APS and schools of the like for students to play for the school. I would not be averse to Watts plaing for BGS on Friday afternoons and then for Casey/Melbourne on Sunday afternoons.

Casey is pretty easy for me to get to; I saw it on the TV before I went to a practice match last year and then the North match. Both times I took my own fold-up chair and sat on the outer side. You can position yourself right at the top of the mound and get great view; the comfort of the seat is up to you.

This one is huge. The cynic in me says they wrote off so much to get a nice comfortable loss that would not get people up in arms about the AFL and the MCC chipping in $1M apiece. This write off will not happen again next year which puts us $1M in front before we start. I have no problem with your other figures, and agree that some are conservative. the proof is going to be in the pudding as they say, but I don't think we are nearly as bad off as some might think.

David Schwartz, Alan Jakovic, Kelvin Templeton

Does that mean that the Detroit Lions are going to win it all next year?

Umm ... We were in heaps of debt. If we were not, the directors would not have pushed the merger with Hawthorn. Tiger only did that as what he saw as the last resort to prevent the club from going under.

I have to take issue with you there Shaft; I think your use of the comma was correct.

My thoughts exactly. We must develop a tough, light and durable helmet for Cale that has a flashing light at the top that he can turn on to attract the attention of the ball carrier. At The Dump, I sit in the third level and it was one of the more frustrating things watching games there this year to see Cale thirty or forty metres in the clear and the ball carrier not even seeing him, the players inside the ball carrier not telling him that he was there, the runner, the waterpeople, anybody ... I know it is a lot tougher at ground level, but ...

In 2010 the ninth place finisher will get pick fourteen.

The Schwab interview on SEN last night was a beaut. I know we occasionally get transcripts of interviews from people here; if it were possible to get a transcription of that one it would be very informative. It was a long, in depth interview with Cameron about the financial status at the club and how he sees us going forward. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, getting Schwaby is going to be seen as one of the most important things that we did to get out of the mess we put ourselves in.

Monty, my question relates to a throwaway comment that I thought I heard about the conditions appled to third year rookies. I would like that explained; if I heard what I thought I heard, we cannot automatically make someonre a third year rookie. If that is true, I would want the club to lock up Spencer.

This is why the debt demolition is a number one priority; without the debt we would have made an operating profit. The amout of money that we do not have to pay in servicing our debt impacts directly to our bottom line.

To get back to the point of this thread, our current list. I heard a passing comment from Liam Pickering on SEN on Saturday morning with regard to third year rookies; something along the lines of clubs having to nominate third year rookies and that other clubs had the opportunity to object and therefore they had to go into the draft pool, or something like that. Does anyone know the third year rookie rules? Of our current rookies, I don't think Zomer or Valenti would bother other clubs unduly, but Spencer surely will. If, perforce, we have to elevate Spencer, we must find four free spots on our list at the end of next year.

I was out on my nightly constitutional and listening to SEN. Out of the blue they announced that they had a press release frm the MCC that said they would be matching the $1M from the AFL. SEN obviously rang Schwaby to get a quick comment from him. Schwaby said that the phone had not been out of his ear for about three days. He said that relations between the MCC and MFC were always very good as were relations between the AFL and the MFC. You don't have to be Einstein to work out where the problem is. Schwaby did not speak for long, but was very passionate and said that we must never let ouselves get into this situation again and that we must build a strong business that generates revenue that does not nescessarily depend to the fortunes of the football team. Schaby is very good get.

Just announced on SEN; MCC to match the AFL in giving $1m. A quick interview with Cameron Schwab followed confirming.

Where did you hear this? I would love it to be true.

Here's hoping that the boundary umpires are leading the stats for bringing the ball out of our forward 50.

Jeez guys, I am a Melbourne supporter; I have my stickers, I will get them on the car at the weekend. The Melbourne recruiting department is employed to recruit players to the club. Anyone they recruit to the club gets my support. Anyone they didn't recruit, because they passed him or were gazzumped, is not a Melbourne player and does not get my support. I will place my implicit trust in the recruiting team, and move on.

Not to bring everyone down, but, the AFL is a socialist organisation. We must delist three players from our main list at the end of the year.

I refer to the ground near Southern Cross Station as The Dump in all conversations and correspondence. I detest the place. The Dump is fine once you are in there; it is the access and egress that is the problem. The bottleneck that they have created for all those wanting to get to, or past, Southern Cross is so mind-bogglingly stupid it is not funny. There is ample dead space where they could have expanded the walkway to provide a broad smooth walkway to the station. They chose to funnel everyone into the one place for a sharp left hand turn. If you have ever walked along the walkway on the eastern side, you will have seen what I am talking about; at one stage you are walking away from the station, towards the bottleneck, and there is nothing but vacant space between you and where you want to go.

I attended a Sandy game early last year and spoke with Shane's parents. Apparently Shane was preasured to play TAC football rather than school football, he chose to play school football and was shafted by the TAC team. He then broke his leg and had to miss just about a full season when he was 18. When Bailey got to Melbourne, the first thing he said to Shane was that, at his age, he should have had two or three years of preseason training into him and therefore a much bigger fitness base. This year is a big year for him; he is just doing his second AFL preseason. I hold more hope than expectation for him, and I wish him luck.

Teddy Strudwick