Grand New Flag

I have no idea what Roosy is prepared to offer Adelaide for Danger, but I would have thought that he would have wanted to keep pick 2 or 3 for a gun midfielder. It is the midfield that needs urgent attention. We need another Tyson as well. Then again maybe we are getting a PP, maybe their is confidence in landing Mitchell or another young mid with a second round pick that could help ease the strain on our midfield........ there are so many possibilities it is hard to know what is going on.

This was always going to happen. The form of the tribunal is that he will appeal and be let off.

There is a lot of truth in this rumour. I can confirm we are chasing Danger and have been for sometime. I can confirm long term discussions with his manager. However like most on here I agree its going to be a difficult sell to get Danger to the Dees. We are in the running, we can offer Adelaide the best deal, we can probably offer Danger the most money, but we are still a long shot. Much better than 1% as suggested by another poster, but still far from a level of getting excited. Roos needs to weave his magic. If he lands with the Dees we can thank Roosy.

I disagree that tanking will come back in with this model rpfc. The only gain in losing would be from moving from the 3rd tier to the 4th tier. This is unlikely because the 12th team is generally still in with a finals chance until late in the season and the prize moving down to the 4th teir would still be less than the prize for say getting #1 draft pick by coming last. Technically teams could still tank to come last and collect #1 pick. However, now the AFL has clamped down on this I don't think it will be an issue in the future. Likewise I don't think tanking to get from tier 3 to tier 4 is likely. Clearly it is not conceivable for a finals bound team to tank so no issues with the higher ranked teams. Alternatively you could takeout tier 3 altogether and have all non finals teams with an unrestricted free agency.

FA is destroying our competition. Between 1996 and 2006 every team played off in a Preliminary Final, now we have a two tier comp with the smaller clubs nothing more than feeder teams for the large clubs. The AFL needs to step in quickly before its too late. The AFL needs to adopt the US NFL FA system and must urgently make the following adjustments. Tier 1: Teams 1 - 4: Forbidden from Free Agency. These teams can only lose players not gain players. There is no compensation for lost players. Tier 2: Teams 5 - 8: Restricted Free Agency. These teams can only gain players if they lose players. There is no other compensation. Tier 3: Teams 9 - 12: Open Free Agency: These teams can poach FA with no restrictions, they can also lose players to FA. No draft compensation. Tier 4: Teams 13 -16: Open Free Agency but can't lose players. All players wishing to leave must be traded. Therefore no draft compensation required. Making these changes would reverse the flow of players. The good teams would lose players to the poor teams, the reverse to which it is today. The big teams will still have an advantage when down the ladder as naturally players will want to play for them. I call on the AFL to urgently make these changes for the long term health of our competition. No one wants to see the same teams win every year like in the EPL. AFL is only played in Australia, destroy the competition and the sport will suffer.

This is half true Billy. MFC were prepared to play games in keeping the potential return of MC from the media so as to keep the pressure off MC not to hide from other clubs as a potential raid. As I have said the club was blindsided by this and did not have it in its calculations. A couple of other points: Roos is furious, particularly with MC manager. Roos believes MC owes us. I agree that it is likely this is over a maximum rookie spot offering by MFC and MC and/or his manager wanting more. I don't believe our application for PP or special assistance has anything to do with this. If fit Roos wants MC.

The reason given was medical. MC is scared about falling back into depression..... which is fair enough. MFC reminded him of a time when he was in a very dark place. His doctors recommended not moving back and suggest a fresh environment.

"MFC Blindsided" As many of you know, I have excellent contacts in the MFC at administration and board level. Over recent years despite the roll over of staff I have been able to maintain these contacts and often share some of what I am hearing with my fellow heavy hearted Dees members via this forum. After the weekends revelations I did not want to make comment on the MC situation until I had made the contact with my sources. This what I have been told. The decision to retire from AFL was always with MC health in mind. In reality it was always a break that may have become permanent rather than a retirement. MC always (even at the time of retirement) maintained ambitions to play again, play for the MFC and repay the MFC and its faithful for its investment and support. The decision to retire was ONLY to give MC the best chance of recovery by taking all pressure off him. The full process of playing in 2015 were set out in the retirement discussions. MC only ever expressed complete desire and loyalty to the MFC. As such MFC continued to support MC in the ABSOUTE belief that if fit he would play for MFC. Essentially the ball was left with MC. MC has been in regular contact with fitness staff and coaches and on a MFC derived fitness plan. MCs return to physical and mental health has been fantastic. So much so that up until about 2 weeks ago, the MFC were extremely confident he would be recontracted to play for the MFC in 2015. In fact the confidence I was hearing from within the club was much greater than what I expressed on Demonland. MFC were 100% certain that if MC did play it would be only in red & blue and it seemed the only question would be whether to rookie him or place him on the senior list. Approx. two weeks ago MC manager was contacted as to whether MC would attend the Best & Fairest and also to initiate contract discussions. Misson had been training with MC that day and had been excited by MC developing fitness. Contact between the club, MC, and his manager has been ongoing and until this point there had been no hint of dissatisfaction or expressed desire to play for anyone else. It was at this time that MC manager let the MFC know that MC did not wish to play for MFC next year and wanted to play for another Melbourne club. The club was completely blindsided. Roos had steam coming out of his ears. I have been told by one of my sources that Roos almost blew a blood vessel. I think its fair to say, that Roos dig in his best fairest speech was directed squarely at MC.

No need for panic!

Just for the record I said and can confirm that there has been informal discussions with Bomber to come in as an assistant Coach under Roos. Bomber will not coach Essendon if Hird is in the Don House and is not keen to be a senior coach again. I understand Bomber was open to the idea.......... but I have heard nothing since. I do agree that there seemed to be some eye communication going on in that interview. I assume Bomber would be able to increase his media involvement as part of the deal. You would think he would take an offensive coaching role. Anyway this is just speculation at this stage.

I have said this for months and nothing has changed. If MC plays again it will only be with the MFC. He has been training for sometime under a MFC derived program. He does still desire to play again but this is far from certain. There will be a serious meeting with his manager in October if positive then with MFC pre 31st October.

This is very difficult to watch. But WC are seriously ON.

Thanks for all the reply's. Interesting views that I thought worthy of debate. For the record I don't believe that these player have been offered as trade bate. 1stly its too early, 2ndly this would have the danger of destroying (again) the soul of the club. However, I do believe there is probably some truth to the rumour in that I believe Roos is looking to recruit 5 mature players whilst securing as many top 20 picks as possible................ this is what any intelligent coach in his position would do. I believe the reporter has taken a statistical guess on what Roos is aiming to do and then made up who was to be offered to make that happen. In other words I believe its a made up, beat up story. In fact the more I think about it the more I am sure that there is no story here, I intend to get back to you all after I have heard word from inside the club.

It was reported on 3AW last night that Roos had a plan for a complete rebuild of the MFC list post season. It was reported that Roos is looking for 5 picks in the top 20 in this years draft and is also looking to bring in 5 mature players. We are likely to get: pick 2, pick 3 (Frawley), a good possibly (that's the clubs opinion after initial discussions with AFL) a PP at either 1, 4 or 20. We will also have 2nd Round pick at ~20. This means we will need to trade for at least 1 probably 2 or 3 picks in the top 20 considering at least one of these picks will be traded for a mature age player. Apparently the MFC is offering as trade bate the following players: Watts Grimes Trengrove Toumpas Apparently Roos is looking to trade out at least 2 of these 4 depending on what is offered. The mature age players will come from a combination of Free Agency, Trades and delisting's (aka Cross). What are supporters views on this? Personally I have full faith in Roos, you have to give away talent to get talent, clearly he is trying to break the poor culture by bringing in new core players. *** Please note this is not from my contacts inside the club, I have no idea if true. This comes from Gerard Healy and others on 3AW last night. However, they were claiming it as a scoop.

Please stop making me depressed!

I am so furious and embarrassed by that performance that I have not been able to face demonland til now. I spoke with Simon Meredith this morning who is my IT man. Simon was umpiring his first game after nearly dying a couple of months ago. Its very rare for him to umpire a bottom of the table clash, but the AFL decided to give him a warm up game with us on the weekend. It was the first time he had umpired us since 2006. He said in all his years umpiring he had never seen anything like Melbourne's performance. He realised something was seriously wrong early in the game as no Melbourne players were complaining about Giant free kicks. He had never seen this before. Further he said there was little talk between the Melbourne players and no on field leadership. Jonesy and the other senior players needed to do more. Just passing on his comments.

I went to training for a while this morning. It was awesome to see Hogan in full flight. What a man mountain, a very fast and agile man mountain!!! Think he will make a debut in the last couple of games. I can't wait!

I confirm everything that I have earlier said in this thread several months back. The prospect of 11 remains in play. PJ, PR and the club will say nothing and even go as far as playing games to keep people off the trail as the chance of success is stronger if the pressure on him remains low. I was recently told the move back to Perth was partly to ensure that he did not attract this attention and thus pressure. It was also to give him time away from everything to continue his recovery and to give him time to assess what he wanted. Clark has not given up the dream of playing senior football for Melbourne again. He has been training on a Misson derived program in Perth. He must first prove a minimum level of mental and physical fitness, he must then prove the desire to return is strong enough. His pending return to Melbourne is a very good sign and he will now start to slowly ramp up training, but don't get carried away, Clark still has a long way to go. Like Frawley that club just don't know whether he will or will not be on the list next year. If he plays again it will only be for the Dees.

This is what I am hearing: * Paul Roos will sign for a 3rd year............ its as good as locked in. * There has been informal discussions with Bomber, as senior assistant next year. There is a good chance Bomber will end up at Dees but unsure of what his position will be in a succession plan. * Paul Roos has been working very hard at encouraging target players he wished to bring to the club. This is all unofficial and via managers as season still on. I am told these talks are going VERY well. * Confidence of Frawley staying is low. Club has been preparing for his departure. However, still not 100% that he is leaving.

Anyone who watched this 17yo simply dominate last year at Casey would realise that Hogan is far more than just a talent. He is the first player I have seen on our list the oozes superstar since the Ox. Unfortunately 3 knee reconstructions curtailed the Ox, if it was not for this he would be spoken in the same breath as Carey, Judd, Mathews, Barrassi today. I am more than happy to pay what ever it takes to keep Hogan at the Dees. $500k per year would be a minimum I would think. Mark my words, if Hogan has a good run with injury's through his career he will end up being something between Carey and Lockett........ he is that good.

We also appear to have a plethora of developed KP Players that may well become handy trading pieces. Plenty of clubs have a shortage of KP players. This opens up possibilities of 3 way trade.

I have no doubt Roos will look to trade our first or second round draft pick for another gun, young midfielder. This is most likely to come from GWS or GC.

It is true that Mitch has left to live in Perth. Just goes to show that not all the info I get turns out to be 100%. I was told from those inside the club, that if he ever played AFL again it would only be for the Dees. Moving back to Perth does seem contrary to that!

Good advice, if we are winning may refrain from yelling "your no good off the juice, you dirty cheats" As tempting as it is, self safety must come first. I think they will come out firing but be mentally weak. If we can get on top their wheels may fall off. Last years 145 point loss is still very painful to me so I am really hoping we smash them.

We are still a rubbish team that has won a whopping 9 games in 3 seasons and still got 70,000. Sure, this year it was a highly defensive game and not all like watching these sort of games. So what! Bigger crowds and more offensive games will come as we improve. There is no risk of losing QB at this stage.