praha

We all know it's going to Bruce. What we think we see on the field just isn't enough. We don't really know what he's like in the locker room, and Bruce might be more respected among the playing group. But I think it will be between Bruce and Davey.

No. I don't want to be another Richmond and keep old players signed up just to be loyal. His time has passed and is no longer needed. That's the reality of football. We can't afford to resign players who we know won't be around when we win our next flag.

12,000

For me, I absolutely hate it when Hawks fans start abusing their club because of their year this year. I mean, they've won so many flags in the past 3 decades. But then again, I guess after you've had so much recent success, you just can't except mediocrity. The current generation of Melbourne fans are sort of used to it, and I think that if we won a flag, and then crashed the following year to 10th or 11th, I seriously wouldn't care. I'd probably think, "well, we won last year." I just need to see us win something.

Welcome to Demonland Mr. Newton.

Anyone critical of this move, what exactly would you have us do? Do a Richmond and keep 3/4 30+ year old players on our list, instead of essentially replacing them with future stars? If Robbo, Whelan and Wheatley really cared about the club, they'd accept that they are no longer part of its success plan, and can no longer offer anything beneficial to the team.

We must be one of a few teams with a negative record against the Fremantle Queens.

Michael Newton - Achilles? Since when did achilles mean crap?

I haven't watched it or even seen footage of it since I actually saw it in person. I have no intentions to ever watch it again.

Robbo and Whelan are gone at the end of the year.

Carlton. But it won't happen.

Gold Coast will officially be my most hated team. They are literally getting a premiership handed to them on a silver platter. If they don't win a flag within 4 years of being in the competition, it will be a miracle. They will be unstoppable for 5-6 years.

Yeah, I'm sure he's "injured"

Feel free to abuse me for asking, but... who the hell is T-Mac. Tracey McGrady? I don't think he is switching sports anytime soon, especially to one where his pay check will be 1/100 of what it is now.

Freo are never a sure bet, no matter how far ahead they are.

:lol: :lol:

The day I saw in the paper that Newton had been resigned, I remember thinking "are you joking!?" He is probably one of the worst players in the league. You all know how there are some players who are exceptional at VFL level, but just can't make it in the AFL? Well, he is a decent VFL player. What can that tell us about his ability in the AFL.

Pretty much what I said in the crowd prediction thread. Happy it's not our home game.

I think we're in a position where anything "bad" that happens is actually "good".

I think the space between 16th and 15th should be larger. Remember, the bottom placed team is often very far off from the 15th placed team, as we were last year. Giving the 16th team 8 balls and the 15th team 7 balls gives them 15th 1 less chance to get the No. 1 overall pick. Should be something like: 16th - 100 balls 15th - 40 balls 14th - 30 balls 13th - 20 balls 12th - 10 balls 11th - 8 balls 10th - 5 balls 9th - 3 balls If a team is eligible for a priority pick, their ball number goes down to within a certain percentage of THE NEXT TEAM WITHOUT A PRIORITY PICK. So, say Melbourne and Fremantle, who finish 16th and 15th, are eligible for a priority pick this year. They will get the first two picks (priority picks), but then Fremantle ball total will go down to within, say, 20% of 13th place, and Melbourne's will go down to within 20% of 14th place. This is so as to reduce the amount of chance they have of getting No. 1 and No. 2. 2009 lottery example: Priority selection/s: No. 1 - Melbourne No. 2 - Fremantle So the first two picks are Melbourne and then Fremantle. Their placings in the lottery are irrelevant. Then, the draft starts in the placings of the lottery. Remember, Fremantle and Melbourne both had their ball numbers decreased, as they were eligible for the priority, so the number goes down to within a certain percentage of the next team WITHOUT a priority pick. Lottery ranking: 1. Fremantle (They got lucky in this lottery. Only had 23 or so balls) 2. North 3. Melbourne (unlucky buggers! Had 39 or so balls) 4. W.C. and so on. If the AFL wants to keep the priority system, there is ALWAYS going to be tanking talk. If you incorporate a lottery system but take away the priority selection, then a team like Melbourne, who has been bad for going on 3 years, only gets 1 pick in the top 10. It's lose/lose, really. So it's just a matter of implementing a way so a team isn't 100% guaranteed 2 picks in the top 4 or 5 picks. Does that make sense? lol

This is coming from a man that was pretty much given a red carpet back to Melbourne (the city), and was earning 500k+ for 10+ years. Not only that, but we had to pull strings (illegally) to get him here. If he really cared about the club, he wouldn't reply to some random on Twitter, and would try to make a genuine effort at the club, because all it seems like are sour grapes.

13,456

They've actually made two finals appearances: 95 and 2001. I think we've made great strides this year. We were the better team going into half-time against the Saints, we could have beaten the Swans and we almost beat the Doggies. I know it's never a good thing to accept losing, but look on the bright side - this time last year we were losing games by 130 points against the Cats and getting pounded by 80 points against the Tigers.

I'm sorry, but we were better than the doggies and better than the crows that year. Adelaide might have beaten North in the prelim and that would have made us the favourite for the flag. We were second best behind North going into those finals. Forget about the ladder. Oh well. 11 years ago lol

We should have won the flag in '98. I get angry every time I think that that crap Adelaide team got to play an injured and tired Bulldogs in the Prelim, but we get North. They may have beaten North, and we would have had an enormous chance against the Crows again in the GF.