The Backyard Charizard

I'm sure Jeff White would be stoked working alongside King..... HaHa.... Watch the big plastic face mask he wears during training!

YM.... "R - J.White C.Judd B.McLean" This is giving me a right royal boner as we speak!!

I have been dreaming of Judd playing for us for the last 4 years! Now it may finally happen..... But.... I have a conspiracy theory! Here goes.... The deal for Judd has been done for awhile now.... Carlton copped it hard in the media for tanking in order to get picks 1 & 3.... There was a great reason for doing this! Carlton have been secretly dealing with WCE, who in-turn have been secretly dealing with Judd.... Carlton will trade either Andrew Walker or Kade Simpson.... Plus Pick 3.... In return, Judd will be their Captain in 2008.... West Coast have just been cheeky by playing him when he is not 100% so he has a chance of starting pre-season a bit late.... God I hope I am wrong!!

I have been one of the negative posters that were saying "No" to Chris Judd.... I have now officially changed my mind! The more I think about it, the more I like it..... Being a Melbourne boy at heart and wanting to come back to Victoria has pretty much given me a stiffy! We are struggling to come up with a 100% agreed upon replacement for Neitz as captain of our great club..... Judd would maybe drop a few hundred thousand $$$ a year to be wearing the colours he was dreaming about as a junior!! I can't see him going to Carlton, Collingwood, Essendon or Richmond.... If the kid barracked for the Dees then those choices are a disgusting thought! If we offload TJ, Davey and our 1st draft pick????? I am pretty confident we would have Judd wearing no. 3 for the Red 'n Blue!! Exciting times at Demonland! PS. I know this is a huge change of opinion for myself, but I have done some serious thinking this weekend and have decided that things can't get any worse! We've waited long enough!!!

I can assure you that Melbourne would not be looking at trading Davey (just yet) Give the young fella a strong pre-season and an injury free season and we shall see him at his best again in 2008.... Once he has consumed another year's worth of Tuna, Chicken and Rice he will be a dominant midfielder/goalsneak! Adelaide have made it quite clear this week that they are looking for two types of player in trade week..... A tall, marking forward and a small crumbing forward.... Let them trade McGregor to us for Brad Miller! McGregor is actually quite a handy footballer, just hasn't been given much opportunity over his career so far at the Crows! Would slot in quite nicely in a defensive role.... They can keep Bode and stay the hell away from Davey! Flash is a Demon!!!! :angry:

What's more.... Let's pay him over a million a year!!!

Let's pick up another bloke with OP..... Damn some people are intelligent!!

I for one would be dissapointed if we traded TJ.... The guy has given me no end of frustration over the years, but it would be nice to see him have a solid pre-season and a great year next year! Seriously, Trav has no-one but himself to blame for even being touted as a potential trade! His work ethic and passion (from an outsiders view) has been well below par! People rave and rave about how good Chris Judd is..... Trav.... The only difference between you and the Juddernaut is the fact that he has sacrificed his lifestyle, worked his ar$e off, and realised his full potential.... Please have a strong pre-season.... I realise injuries have knocked you around over the last few years (little niggles and bone problems) but get off the Pi$$ and show us the TJ we all know can win a Brownlow!!!!

I would be pi$$ed if we paid some crazy amount of cash for Judd!!!! We need to work on accountability, passion and pride for the Red 'n Blue!!!! That sort of stuff doesn't cost money! A few decent (not bank breaking) trades and some good draft picks is the way to go.... Let's draft our own Judd.... I for one would get sick of defending the club when people keep saying "You bought the Flag... You only won it because you paid out of your ar$eholes to get Judd!" If the guy wants to play for us, then he can, but if he wants to rape us financially to do it..... BUGGER OFF!!!

As a passionate Melbourne member living in Adelaide, I can confirm the comments about disliking the interstate sides.... The flat out bull$hit that we have to put up with on both radio and TV is disgraceful.... Put it this way, even Port supporters get annoyed at the pure domination that Adelaide have over the media! I know people who live in Perth and are sick to death of the one-eyed West Coast media domination.... The Filth beating West Coke is fantastic!! I definately am not a fan of the Black 'n White (can't stand them like most of us) but the more Victorian teams left at the end of the season, the better! Surprisingly though, I don't mind Port Power! They are basically underdogs here in SA.... The Crows dominate every aspect of life here in Adelaide and the Power struggle to get headlines in the paper, even now that they are the only team left from SA.... Today's paper is more concerned with Ken McGregor wanting a trade out of CrowLand than they are about the Power more than likely playing in this years Grand Final.... If Port make the GF against Geelong, then I will be very happy! It will be a great game and two well deserved teams will have made it.... I would also be equally as happy if one of Hawthorn or Kangas get into the GF against the Cats.... It is long overdue, a Grand Final between two Victorian based teams! Long live Victorian Football!!!! We all know it is the original and the best!

Living here in Adelaide, again has given me a touch more inside information on the whole Josh Mahoney topic.... There have been a few articles during the 2nd half of the season, saying how he is interested in a coaching career.... And the glowing praise heaped on him by Power coach Mark Williams, suggests that Mahoney may be well worth getting!! For one, Dean Bailey would know how he works and must also be impressed by him.... A few grabs from an article in Adelaide Williams says Mahoney is as "quality a person as anyone we've had come through the group in the past 11 years". "And if an available (coaching) position came up we would certainly look at him," Williams said. "He's outstanding and I think he's had a huge impact on the playing group, perhaps more than any of the leaders who have been in our system. He's selfless, he puts everyone in front of himself, he comes up with motivating videos, he's a very smart person, he listens but he has is own opinions and is willing to say what he thinks, which is terrific." Mahoney said his coaching appetite had been whetted by sitting in on coaching discussions and meetings in the second half of the season. "I want to have a crack at it (coaching) in the next few years and see where it takes me," Mahoney, who has a science degree and masters in marketing, said. Williams said the impact of Mahoney could not be measured by "games, goals or even premierships". "It's what he's done for the rest of the group," Williams said. "He's had a very difficult career of knocks and doing the hard yards but he's endured, tried really hard and never given up to get to the top of the mountain. And that's a great example and inspiration to us all." In my opinion it would not be such a bad idea.... And for those who question him due to him not having a stellar career..... Dean Bailey is not really a name I remember from my days watching footy!!

I just put a lazy $10 on one S.Thompson (Adel) to finish top 5..... $510 from Sportsbet if it comes up.... Also threw a $10 note on both J-Mac and Nathan Jones for most Dees votes.... Paying $4.50 and $5.00 respectively That is all my Charlie betting for this season!

I have suffered OP myself.... Kept me out for a season and still managing it week by week now! In my opinion The Juddernaut is suffering from the same problem! I don't give a toss what information is coming out of the West..... He is showing all the signs of OP Watching him getting rubbed down on Friday night by the Eagles staff definately doesn't tell me otherwise! Paying over a million a year for him is ridiculous! Yes, the bloke is a gun! Yes, he can dominate matches! But, Let's just draft well and find our own Chris Judd!!!!!

I like it as well..... Would be very surprised if it stuck tho... If it did, I would be stoked!! :D

I think we should have one for "Effort" Am I in the running for my translation of the Dean Bailey/5aa interview??? LOL :D

Well, I recorded the interview and gave an accurate description of what was said.... If it has helped all you guys 'n gals around the country to get a better insight into how the club went about their selection process then I have achieved what I set out to do! The bloke sounds pretty damn excited about the opportunity he has been given.... I believe we selected the best possible candidate for the job and I wouldn't be surprised if we have a long relationship with Mr Dean Bailey! I know it is a big statement, but being involved in 2 premierships (Essendon and Port) will stand him in good stead to evolve into a great coach! The wait may finally end in the next 3 years! Let's hope so.....

Yeah, Mike rang me.... I told him to get a heart!! Carro sent me a text asking if I thought her dental work was up to scratch..... I msg'd her back saying Miss Finland wants her head back!!

Ha Ha! Well if you get past all the stuttering and destruction of the English language, they are actually quite intelligent questions!

No problem.... Did take me awhile to break it all down.... I felt like a reporter! :D

Just listened to an interview on 5aa here in Adelaide ... Hosts are Graham Cornes and Ken Cunningham ... Here is a brief description of what was said.... 5aa : How did you go about applying for the job? There was an ad in the paper, and like anyone who is looking for a job and looking to further themselves, I just applied for it. 5aa : Did you have someone to put in a good word for you or a personal contact? HaHa.... Nah....Nothing as sinister and as interesting as what people might've thought. Saw the ad, applied for it and thought I might have a bit of a chance. It was an email that I got with the advertisement and I rang the HR company in Melbourne and said I saw the ad, they said "We'll send out some questions and take it from there" 5aa : Well done, Dean you beat a hot field! Yeah, there seemed to be a few people going for it (laughs) 5aa : Give us some idea of the process these days? Well, they just asked some general questions at first.... After I'd sent them back, Chris Harris and Chris Fagan said "Look we'd like to have a chat". It was a very informal chat at Steve's house with Chris Fagan and myself and we just talked footy for a couple of hours.... It would be like us 3 sitting in a room having a quite red and just talking footy.... Just a real "get to know you" and obviously the start of the process. 5aa : And what transpired from there? The 2nd interview they just went back to people and there was 4, I guess you could call them questions, that we had to answer in a presentation form.... Your week at training, what would you do, how would you set it up, perhaps some things that happened inside the coaches box.... They didn't really touch on any gameplan issues, that didn't really happen till the final interview.... So I presented this in Melbourne..... 5aa : And the final interview? Then at the last interview you had to go through the Pre-game discussion : It was actually an Adelaide game, as if I was coaching Melbourne... You had to look at the last 2 or 3 games Adelaide had played, analyse their strengths and weaknesses and come up with a strategy and a tactical meeting about who would you play on who andthat was quite intense! Then to finish it up you had to do a post-game analysis of the Melbourne v Bulldogs game.... 5aa : Goodness, gracious me.... I should hope you had a chance to look at them thouroughly? Yeah absolutely.... You were given about a week and a bit to look at 2 or 3 of the recent games, in the case of the Adelaide one, it was Adelaide v Carlton, Adelaide v Richmond & Adelaide v Brisbane.... The Bulldogs v Melbourne game was like, you play it, they give you a copy of the game to take home and look at, and then you present it.... 5aa : So it was pretty intense! Did you have to talk to the panel as though they were your players? Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.... It was very much in one sense a role play where you were were trying to educate them off the screen, in both the pre-game and then of course the post-game.... In the room was Gary Lyon, Nathan Burke and Peter Schwabb and they asked some pretty good football questions... Also there was a psychologist in there who asked more of the psych questions regarding preparing player etc. etc.... Which was quite good.... 5aa : Gee, Dean when you left that last meeting, how confident were you that you would get the job? Ummm..... I was the 3rd person on and Damien Hardwick was up after me.... The guys in the room had been there for maybe 5 hrs before my 2 hr interview so Damien coming in 4th maybe didn't get them quite as alert as I had 'em (Laughs) Look, all I did was present, walked out and thought "Well, that seemed to go ok".... But I didn't walk out of there thinking I had the job, No.... 5aa : Was there any one thing where you though "I've really got these guys" and you sensed that you had them in the plam of your hand? Nah.... Because there's so much information to talk about and the length of the preperation and the length of interview, it was really bouncing around.... They'd bring you back to an issue and ask you "What are you gonna do with the match-up here?" or "What are you gonna do there?"..... So I never felt like "Yep I've got em!".... They just kept throwing questions at me for just over an hour.... They certainly kept us on our toes..... well.... kept me on my toes that's for sure! 5aa : And how did you get the call? How did that happen? Yeah well, Steve Harris rang me just to let me know that I was the prefered candidate and I said well "That's terrific"..... My wife was very happy, my 2 boys were jumping all over the place and so it was pretty exciting for about 30-40 mins and after that we sort of settled down a bit (Laughs) 5aa : Has it been a dream, since your playing days, to one day coach? I think after I finished playing football in 1992 and I left the AFL and I came across to Glenelg, I found that the coaching, teaching and helping element while you're playing, I actually quite enjoyed it.... Choco Williams was coaching for those 2 years and I got a lot of enjoyment out of watching the young fellas learn and just giving them little bits of advice that they would take on and they'd come up after the match, or the next few matches, and say "Thanks for that".... It just felt very rewarding and I thought well, maybe coaching might be something I could be good at.... 5aa : When do you move over there? I think the first week of December after the kids have finished school, the kids and my wife will come over, but I'll be jumping sort of back 'n forth for the next few months.... 5aa : What about your assistants? Is that the slate wiped clean and you re-build again or I guess Mark Riley deserves to be there.... What about the others? Well, Chris Connolly has just been made Football Operations so the structure that we wanna go down is probably a couple of weeks away from finalising it.... But, I must admit, the Melbourne footy club over the last 7-8 weeks have held their head high and it's a testiment to not only Mark but the players to continue on and still put the efforts in which gave them a chance to win games.... So there is still some very good elements in the club.... 5aa : They haven't got a home.... How much of a concern is it to you and how do you overcome that? Well, obviously 2-3 years down the track they're moving to the new precinct which I think is just starting to get built.... But look.... When I walked in at the Junction Oval it smelled like a footy club.... It smelled like there'd been a fair bit of sweat on the floor and in the gym and I know it's not the most flashy facility going around, such as what Adelaide and Port Adelaide have got, but it really smelled like a footy club and I reckon' that's an important thing to have! A weight is a weight regardless of how shiny it is boys.... It still weighs the same! 5aa : Dean, you met the players yesterday I think it was, How receptive were they? Yeah, they were quite good.... I did ask them whether they knew anything about me or wanted to ask me anything.... But as all players do, over time I guess they will be a little bit harder with their questions of me.... But look, I spoke to them for about 20 minutes and I spoke to Bohdan Babijczuk for a fair amount of time and I gave him my views on conditioning and how important the time off is and everything..... But obviously that was really the first time I had spoken to the players and I spoke to a couple of them individually afterwards and they're fairly excited about next year! Which was a really good vibe I got off them and look some of the senior players are really disappointed about their year, and it was almost that they were embarrassed.... <Voice raises a touch> But look, there is a hunger amongst some of those senior players there and talking about how disappointing the year has been.... Some of the senior boys are talking about coming back for the start of pre-season fitter than they have before and I think that all goes well for a strong break.... 5aa : Dean, when will you, if we can use the word, "Overhaul" your list at Melbourne? Well, Craig Cameron, our list manager and our "Recruiting Guru", I have already put a lot of pressure on him already! 5aa : Have you really? Oh yeah! We'll sit down in the next couple of weeks and go through it again.... Craig's been in the business a long time and he's very well respected and he's vertainly got some views and we'll just need to nut those things out... But obviously with the list we'll certainly be making some changes.... 5aa : And who do you try and pinch from Port Adelaide? Because you've seen it happen before with Clarkson, obviously you've worked with guys there who must have impressed you.... Have you been warned off in that regard? HaHa! Maybe I'm gonna pinch 'em from Hawthorn! (A lot of laughing) 5aa : Were you disappointed that you didn't get an interview at Essendon? No, not really.... To be brutally honest with you, I rang them and asked them and they said "Look we don't think you're the sort of high profile coach we're after"..... Look, I was really impressed with their honesty and I hope they get a coach who best reflects their needs because that's what Melbourne's done.... Seriously, I'm not bitter about it at all.... I'm ab absolutely happy where I'm headed! The most important thing is they'll get someone who can actually coach I think! (I like this guy a lot already!!) 5aa : And what about Chris Connolly who also applied for the job now becoming the football manager? We spent a lot of time together Chris and myself.... We must have spent 4 or 5 hours together..... His experience of when he first got to Fremantle and building the club and all those sorts of things are very, very valuable! Particularly where Melbourne's at.... so he was really good.... Chris really has an enormous passion for the Melbourne Football Club.... I know he is a past player and a life member and all that, but he just wants to see this club back to where it should be.... And you know, after 4 or 5 hours, I spoke to Chris Harris and Paul Gardiner and Chris just ticked a lot of boxes.... He was just so overly enthusiastic about it all.... I think he's gonna do a very, very good job! 5aa : Well, thanks very much Dean.... Good luck with the new job and we wish you every success.... Thanks guys.... It's an exciting time for not only myself but for everyone involved at the club! Well.... There you go! Wasn't exactly brief, but I thought people might just want to know a bit of what was said.... I for one found it very interesting and I'm confident we are headed in the right direction....

As previously said, Great Post!! It is out of 3 in my opinion.... Port, Geelong and Sydney.... Port I really believe they are the ones to beat.... Strong defence, Strong midfield and kick a$$ forward line! September is where names are made.... Some names to watch Cornes Boys Burgoyne Rodan (Amazing comeback) Westhoff Daniel Motlop (Their version of Darren Jarman) Geelong Still believe they have what it takes to go all the way..... Similar strong points to Port, just need to believe they can do it! The team under the most pressure from their supporters tho.... Waited a long time! Yes, Port recently beat them at Skilled.... But that was without Bartel, LingFish and Ablett semi-injured.... Names to watch Mooney (Inspirational to his team-mates) Son of God (My favourite player to watch from an opposition side) Ling Ottens Bartel Steve Johnson (The Cats version of Darren Jarman) Sydney We all know what they are capable of.... If any team can handle pressure and win finals matches it is this one! Firing at the right time.... As they always seem to do.... Names to watch Adam Goodes (Need I say more) Kirk Barry Hall (Can turn a match) O'Keefe Davis Micky O (The Swans version of Darren Jarman) Now the dark horse in my opinion is Adelaide! Just yet to see if they can kick enough goals to win the big ones! The references to Darren Jarman are obvious for anyone who has followed Grand Finals..... The ultimate X Factor!!

Yes, Congrats to Selwood on his stellar season and good luck to him and the Cats in the finals.... Jones has had a terrific season and thouroughly deserves to be 3rd.... But, to those who think he will add a Bluey to his list of honours..... Think again! J-Mac has it in the bag! Leads posessions, tackles and has been in and under every pack for the season! Not saying that NJ wouldn't be a deserved winner, it will just not be this year....

3 words regarding the hiring of Connolly You Little Beauty Best news I have heard for awhile.... Apart from the Bailey appointment of course! Chris will bring Red 'n Blue passion, a fantastic knowledge of what is needed to achieve success, a strong understanding of how a financially successful club runs and also an insider's view on the WA sides! He had issues at Freo that prevented him ever taking them to their full potential and I am stoked to have him on board at the Dees!! Welcome back Chris and may you enjoy the ride we are all about to take!

Posted by me on 20/08/07: It will either be Sheedy or Bailey!!! Mark my words.... Living here in Adelaide and being involved in local footy has given me a nice insight into the workings of Dean Bailey..... The bloke was a shyte player, but his coaching prospects are enormous! Mark Williams is no mug! Port have done some amazing things over the last 5 years and Bailey has flown under the radar a bit in the media.... He is the real deal... Just a shameless boasting post!! :D

I think it might be GOUT Or maybe he is suffering liver damage?!?!? Sort ya [censored] out Col.... We are still waiting!!!