Nasher

I probably wouldn’t in your shoes either to be honest. In retrospect it’s impossible to know how one would react. I can see your point of view and the one I put forward now.

You were making some sense until the last paragraph. Last time I checked, tackling was an instrument of the game and punching was not.

I love my brothers dearly but I don’t think someone punching them is any worse a crime than if that same person had punched someone unknown to me. If I could move on from a mate punching a random, I could also move on from a random punching a mate. In my eyes the Bugg and Gaff punches are equal, even if I pretend it’s me and my brother in place of the Brayshaw boys. I also reckon I’d be able to pretty easily push it aside enough to be professionally civil with the player. There’s no requirement for Gaff and Brayshaw to be best mates if they become teammates. I accept my perspective isn’t universal though and that most people are a lot better at hanging on to grudges than me. Anyway I hope I’m not seen as endorsing the punch. I’m definitely not. It was a reprehensible act.

Angus seems to manage just fine with Bugg as a teammate.

old dee, cast your mind back to the Melksham trade. He got rubbed out for the season a few short weeks after the trade was done. The outrage and frustration at trading a valuable second rounder for a player who couldn’t play was palpable. Now nobody gives a toss, because he’s playing good footy again. When you recruit a player with a huge amount of footy ahead, the value plays out over their entire career, not just year 1. Lever will more than repay the cost. He had already started before the injury. If short term success was the measure of success for a trade, Mitch Clark was the greatest trade in history.

Great article. I didn’t know Hibberd and Melksham were such close mates before they came. Obviously they’re grown adults, but still being able to walk in to the club together would have taken the edge off the nerves. Because I’ve become a spiteful footy supporter, my favourite part about all this was that Melksham was Watts-level (or even greater) whipping boy at Essendon. The fact that he’s come here and become an important member of the team and even pretty popular among the fans gives me great morbid pleasure. Suck it, Essendon. Hope it stings. When he’s going he’s an such enjoyable player to watch: a reliable contest winner, gets the ball to boot very quickly, and is an absolutely fantastic kick. He won’t always fire which is probably what separates him from the very best, but no doubt he’s an asset to the club. Congrats Jake on the 150!

Do you understand the difference between anecdotal evidence and actual research? This is not the first time this week I’ve seen you call on your very narrow personal experience to draw a very wide conclusion.

That’s a bit like selling your car just in case someone steals it. When Jesse gets to the FA stage, he’ll be a RFA anyway. If he comes to the club with an offer and wants to go, we make the other club come up with a suitable trade, Dangerfield style. I definitely wouldn’t pre-empt it though. Save that stuff for the paranoid and the insecure, and back ourselves to keep him. This is all hypothetical anyway. I’m very confident he’s not going anywhere. I know some people think footballers are all filthy liars, but the quotes from the article listed by @ProDeereally resonate with me, because they align with exactly what I thought would happen. So long as we could successfully navigate those first few homesick years, he would develop in to an adult that was settled in Melbourne. That’s precisely what has happened.

This is what playing AFL footy until you’re 40 does to your brain.

Do you take that view about people in general, or just football players?

Happy to go on record and say there is absolutely no chance, whatsoever, that he is going anywhere. Zero. No source, just confidence: belief in his character and belief that players would want to stay at Melbourne.

Why would he leave?!

There would be a degree of setness to it. A few times I’ve seen Gawn smash it out to Brayshaw running at full pace. That kind of play has to premeditated. They would also have to plan for the unlikely event that Gawn doesn’t win the tap as well I guess!

I wasn’t expecting him to be the huge possession winner he is. Has had over 30 possessions in 4 of his 12 games, and at least two of those where he didn’t were prior to finally being put in the guts. Having an outstanding season. I wasn’t as worried as many others that he wouldn’t hit his straps, but nonetheless it’s a relief to see him out the other side of the issues and playing with confidence.

This poster was also famous for “I’ve had enough of Tom McDonald” a few years ago. If you’d run a book on hardest bundle dropper I’d have wagered the house.

It’s not that interesting; there is absolutely zero chance Brayshaw goes to Freo. More chance of us getting Andrew here than Angus going there, and even then that’s remote.

Okay, I’m listening.

Um, I read their BF forum and all I saw was how to work Hogan or Brayshaw in to a trade. Their views aren’t worth squat.

I had literally never heard of Ed Langdon until the weekend when I saw a quarter of the Freo game. Just assumed he was from WA and a relative of that white haired muppet who used to play for West Coast and now makes a living stirring s*** in the WA footy media.

It’s so hard to have this conversation with a straight face.

Maybe they’ll bully him when we play them like Adelaide did with Lever.

?

I often wonder what happens behind the scenes with these multi-sport talents - especially the basketballers, when they’ve chosen the other sport, then suddenly rock up at Cat B rookies in the AFL. Given that there’s daylight between the career prestige and cash between the NBA and the AFL, you would owe it to yourself to have a crack at the former first and fall back to the latter when it was obvious it was not going to happen.

Prestia choosing Melbourne also would have required Melbourne to choose Prestia, of course. The vast majority of the time the players are going to choose the club that pursues them the hardest.

I feel for McCartin. The way the footy public crush these early picks with expectations and them flog them mercilessly with them disgusts me. He needs to be given time and patience, there’s no doubt about it. I don’t feel for the Saints fans though. Years of being kicked while down by other supporters has made me bitter and spiteful. I get a bit of a kick at seeing them seethe.