mauriesy

They're not 'free'. They still have to work within the gaming laws (and the political system probably). And they'd face litigation if they made a unilateral decision without any evidence. Are you (and WYL) seriously suggesting they'd impose a penalty (e.g. licence withdrawal) based on 'match fixing', if the (contrived) AFL report findings were that we'd done no such thing?

You're accepting Wilson's reported figure as gospel? I thought she was 100% wrong in everything. No we're not. 'Bringing the game into disrepute' (or some such charge) is by no means 'match fixing'. You need a reality check from all the gloom and pessimism. Either that or you're just continually plain wrong.

If the charges do not relate in any way to match fixing, then the club's gambling licences are not at risk from the Gaming Commission.You don't think the MFC and AFL wouldn't agree to carefully word any report or charge to exclude that possibility?

Not if the AFL report, as McLardy says, contains no evidence or charge that Melbourne "worked hard to lose games of football in 2009" or that "Melbourne manipulated football results in 2009".

Not according to WYL. We'll be bankrupt by the end of 2013.

It's just amusing that Caro's piece on Friday turns into a 'report' on Saturday (and, surprisingly, on the AFL website). She endows her own opinion with a degree of official authority. But what's the real, official report? We still don't know.

The unofficial finding sounds flimsy, childish and schoolyard to me.

Jeez you can crap on and over-exaggerate.

Caro sticking to her guns.

I'm with BH. Despite the voluminous arguments here, or what Wilson says are 'unofficial' positions, or her referral to them as 'flimsy', I don't care about them, or anyone else's excuses here, or real (or feigned) indignation, or journalists barking from the sidelines to sell newspapers. They're all peripheral and fill up pages. I only care about what is in the AFL report, Melbourne's official response, and the outcome. I just hope it's positive for the club.

I think BH would more correctly say the 'proof of the pudding is in the eating'.

If the natural corollary is that an internet forum can be 'looser' with checking facts, then I certainly wouldn't rely on what I read here.

An erroneuous view is just that, whether it's in the pages of the Age, or here.

No it hasn't, because no one here has a certain grasp of the facts either.

That's irrelevant. I'm talking about the quality of the debate, not who says something and what position they're in.

No one here has been a 'great defender' of Wilson. IMHO, she doesn't need my defending her one way or the other. I have, however, along with others, made calls not to pass off speculation and rumour as facts, regardless of which side of the debate you fall on. I could go back through dozens of posts here where conclusions are drawn without a shred of evidence. So that is equally as true for Demonlanders as it is for Caroline Wilson. She's just more noticeable because she writes for a major daily. Some of the character assassinations here vis-a-vis Wilson's vindictive campaign against the Melbourne Football Club are just pot-kettle-black. I'd kind of hoped we could rise above it all until the real facts are known.

Perhaps posters here should also take note of that sentence.

I think the 'unofficial defence' she cites consists of all the reasons put forward by supporters, particularly on this and other forums, not by the club itself. Maybe it shows where she's getting a lot of opinions (I won't say facts) from. Clearly it also shows that a lot of what passes here and elsewhere for facts, and information about any defence, does not necessarily side with the club's real point of view. Someone will switch on the lights, hopefully soon.

At least get it right ... she said one of the 'lame duck excuses' was that Melbourne was too weak to punish. In other words, she's saying that's a poor excuse, not that Melbourne is weak.

You can count the number of insider traders taken to court on one hand. You'd need only a finger or two to count those actually found guilty. It's hard to prove ... very much like 'tanking'. And IMHO, the appropriate response is not "We want to get off because all the others did it" but "If we are guilty, then others should be charged too".

But it's got everything to do with providing a relevant defence. The defence that 'everyone was doing it' is about as valid as an insider trader getting up in court and saying 'I'm not guilty because the ASC didn't chase/pursue/catch all the other insider traders. So you want it both ways ... you think we 'probably' tanked in 2009, but in response to possible charges, you want us to say adamantly that we didn't? If Caro and Fairfax are that concerned about subsequent defamation litigation, there's no way they'd come out with this morning's piece reiterating all the things she's said earlier.

Actually he said "intraveniously".

After Melbourne picked Molan in 2001: The father of the family he was billeted with died of cancer a few months after he was drafted. Molan broke his leg playing for Sandringham in 2002. He missed five weeks early in 2003 with a cartilage tear In mid-2003, in the one incident, he broke his collarbone, received concussion and ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament. Delisted at the end of 2003, he was drafted back as a rookie, but cut at the end of 2004. Recruited to Frankston in the VFL in 2005, he broke his leg in a practice match. Then managed no more than four consecutive games in two seasons due to chronic hamstring injuries Retired, he's still only 29. Is anyone suggesting that Cameron (or Daniher) could've anticipated that? Wonderful hindsight.

Dom's brave new world

And they've got a new tape recorder with an unbreakable on-off switch.