timD

I think that is right - although I disagree on Viney. We'll see when he is 22-23.

I'd rather be us than essendon, the dogs, richmond, the saints, freo, north, carlton... All of them have massive problems with their lists. We have just one problem: no genuine elite players. Tyson might get there. Hogan might get there. But no-one is there yet and without them we will not win anything. It all comes down to development now and I think our group is well-focused on that.

The EI stuff caught me by surprise too. Because of the proliferation of psuedo-scientific, psuedo-psychological instruments (I'm looking at you, DISC, and you, MBTI), I heard about EI and thought it was another one of those. It just isn't. If you are on Linkedin, try to find Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic. He is a guy who writes well on lots of these sorts of topics and has done a heap of work about EI. You can often catch articles he puts up (that he has written or that cite him) and it is an easy way to get a high-quality, plain english precis of the EI stuff. EI in an 18-year old IS unfinished...but the building blocks are already well laid down. EI adults is very straightforward to assess, but you have to got to steer a course between a lot of helpful looking total nonsense. I would not by surprised that the hawks are doing this well - I've met their sports psych a few times and he is a really good (and sharp) fella.

Great stuff from RPFC and TGR. I get drawn to the EI stuff (funny that). Given its importance, my interest is in how you assess it. I know the current assessment of EI for draftees is pretty underwhelming. I wonder how EI is assessed when making coaching appointments? My bet is interview data. The flaws with this method are well-documented. I hope like hell the club is assessing this with something a little more sophisticated than interviews and reference checking.

Lucky man! I've found their English IPA a bit autumnal - and I'll try it once the seasons change. I think the advantage of boutique stuff is that you drink less and like it more -everyone wins.

Best Pilsner I've had in ages - Panhead Port road pils. NZ beer from purvisbeer in richmond. Excellent Also the American IPA from Mash (WA beer) deserves a mention. Quite resinous.

I think that Lunar Silhouette is TDI's attempt at humor (he is referring to Moonshadow).

All I can do is hope the we succeed. I don't hope that Clark fails; that just makes me a nasty, small minded person. What I do hope for is that we rise above the selfish, duplicitous manipulative nonsense the club has been exposed to and thrash the pants off the cats when we next see them. And I hope that Clark is unable to play ever again and retires friendless and alone.

You were and continue to be the exact type of "pompous blowhard" you have a go at. Righteously defending not being abusive to players, while being abusive to posters, is insightless and self-indulgent. Making only your type of comment 'legitimate' is controlling and self-important. You disappeared when Neeld went because your righteous scrawl was exposed as the total tosh it was. Your fanboy training reports have not changed in tone or detail despite melbourne being a genuinely terrible team for years. And you certainly do care what others think - you respond with predictable regularity. It aint trolling them, that's for sure. Get the message, champ.

What a spiteful, snide effort. People are dead and you use it for a failed point-scoring exercise. #takealonghardlookinthemirrorclown

I did do 3km in about 13 mins on two months training having 0 base to start with. It is a crap time and certainly a joke.

Hi Smithy, Millions do disagree. They lose out drinking bad beer that costs too much. There is a wealth of excellent beer now available. Also like to mention Hawthorn Pale Ale and the pilsnser - both very good IMO and widely available.

Carlton draught is not beer. Coopers was great during the beer dark ages. It's been left in the past and that is a good thing for everybody. Mountain Goat risks being the Coopers equivalent of the 2000's. Respect is due to them given their innovation and main-stream success in a market dominated by shocking beer + cartels. Best beer - Kooinda Estate american ale (the green) and the black IPA. Awesome. Just awesome.

Grimes has been shackled by so many things at this club: the club feuding, the playing group, his on-field role; his off-field role. This is the first year of his footballing life that is not this way. I have my doubts that he can make it. That said, nothing would make me more pleased than to see his cut the game apart. And if there is a single player on the list with the character to do so, it's Jack Grimes.

Yes, because talking about football is indicative of performance during war.

Clubs were doing this decades ago. It is old. Doesn't mean it is bad. But it is nothing new at all. Daniel Harford spoke about doing these things at hawthorn and carlton, and Grant Thomas was roundly rubbished for introducing it at the Saints. What is sad is that it's new to us. Like my mum being amazed at a smart phone.

He took 6 weeks to get over the appendix op. I don't think that is usual.

Could you elaborate? And do you think McCartney = insurance policy?

I just hope they've done more than a series of interviews. We've tried that before. It also concerns me that someone who demonstrated poor judgement and (for all i've heard) no positive influence on a bad situation is going to be our senior coach. Now good judgement and integrity are central elements to leadership success. I have many questions and sadly will have to wait and see with answers.

? He has every reason to be lying through his teeth. The real question is why he'd tell the truth.

This is just wrong. Listen to Jackson. We are so bad that other team's supporters don't turn up to watch their team beat us. So the league doesn't penalise other teams for playing melbourne at the MCG and losing heaps of money. It is fair - just not to us. The thing that will turn it is getting better. And this is where everything comes down to selection and development. The only way we get better is to (a) select the best and (b) make them better. In every area of the club. If our people strategy is not the best, then we are stuffed. Everything else stems from that. All judgements, policies, plans etc. Now, we have demonstrated that, as a club, we cannot get the right people in the right positions without the AFL installing the two most senior leaders (Jackson and Roos). Let's hope that their strategy works. And that they replace themselves adequately.

I remember the outrage when it was suggested (by me and a few others at the time) that Jimmy step aside - or be forced to - because the club was foundering under his leadership. There is some quote about glass houses...need wikipedia...

I have it on good authority that he told Ben Holland, as he was about to run out, that it was his last game. In front of the group. No-one had any idea. Nice work. The notion that loyalty and good intentions are somehow related to superior decision making is disturbing.

Thanks GNF. I love a good rumor and reckon you're closer to the pin than most. Cheers!

If Roos cannot trade for them, his team absolutely has to draft/develop them. All we have is hope...and a long tale of disappointment to date. We need this team to break this cycle and we need a few more years to see if they do. I hate time.