John Dee

This one is a no-brainer. CAC mentioned to us at the start of the year that he considered Newton had the greatest physical talent of the 2004 draftees. He is still only 19, I think. Will definately be retained.

This all gets back to the supposed global vision of the AFL. While we all would like to see a return to a true reserves competition, it is never going to happen. With so many non-victorian AFL clubs, and more to come, it is just not feasible. AFL clubs will have to have alliances with teams, or field a team, in their home state competions to enable them to give surplus players game time.

In the VFL, I think only Geelong go it alone and only North have two affiliations. In WA and SA I believe that the AFL clubs have multiple associations. I don't know much about how Brisbane and Sydney operate other than the news last week that Nick Davis was playing for Wagga. Or was that against Wagga?

So, it gets down to what is the best format to ensure a top quality and vibrant competion for the VFL. Currently, I think that the rules are that alligned clubs have no restrictions when playing another alligned club but must adhere to the 12/10 rule when playing against non-aligned clubs. The 12/10 rule is enforced in the finals. Sandringham seem to always use the 12/10 rule. The Bullants last year were runaway leaders of the competition but didn't give a yelp in the finals as they didn't have 10 decent VFL players owing to them overloading with Carlton players all year. They have gone back to the 12/10 option this year and will be very dangerous in the finals. They have obviously decided that it is better for all concerned to perform well in the finals.

When the AFL club is carrying a lot of injuries on its list, the 12/10 rule is not an issue. Do we think that the Footscray supporters are at all concerned about this issue? It seems that we only have PJ injured, although no one knows when Moloney will play ( If we know Smith as 426, surely Moloneys new name is 'test' ). This leads to a log jam and the players lower down in the pecking order being relegated to the VFL seconds. This is really a fortuitous situation that could be changed by just one bad week of injuries.

Is the VFL seconds such a bad competition? With the assumption that class footballers are being shunted into Sandy's reserves, they surely should be near unbeatable. They are mid table and get thumped most weeks.

This is a fruitless excercise at this time of year. Without knowing the full details about just who is uncontracted it is also unfounded at the end of the year. We have to create 4 spots on the list, 3 to satisfy the draft conditions and 1 to allow for Warnock who cannot stay on the Rookie list. These will have to come from the uncontracted players or those we can come to some agreement with ( something that I think is unlikely as they would cost us money that we simply cannot afford ).

Wasn't Walters picked up by Collingwood after he was delisted by MFC? Was his claim that we payed him far in excess of what Collingwood did? I'm pretty sure that his brush with the law came after he was delisted by the filth.

Frank and Joe Rugolo. Frank did ok, Joe not.

Glen McLean, looked a million dollars. Sold to Collingwood for a record transfer fee, and never played a game with the filth.

OK, I will make a committment to get to your shop tommorror morning.

I have been waiting for the boys to be training at TBO so that I can combine a trip to your shop with lunch whilst watching them train. I don't know whether that is going to happen sonn.

Where is this store! I want my dvd!

Beauty, put me down for one.

I wouldn't mind a copy of the DVD. Am I too late?

I am old enough to remember Barassi, and Flower. The two of them were absolute champions, but, in very different ways. Barassi was a rock solid bruising footballer in the Matthews mould and as soon as you saw him you knew he was a footballer. You could meet Robbie in the street and your brain could not get you to realise that this skinny bespectacled kid was a footballer. Hird is a good comparison, but, even he is a bigger unit that Robbie could ever have been.

The game that sticks in my mind is against Carlton at the G. Robbie played the whole game on the wing against Rhys Jones, and that was the only thing the crowd was interested in. We git flogged, of course. Rhys Jones was thug, but, he was also a sublimely gifted footballer and they played just about the entire game on the members wing. As an exhibition of the skills of the game of AFL football, you could get no better.

Robbie used to play tennis at my club - He plays tennis left-handed.