praha

I will boo him till my throat is sore when (if) we ever play against him. I can't wait till we are flying at the top of the ladder, and we come across teams like Carlton and Collingwood that have picked up these young players for nothing.

He played 7-8 good (never great) games in 5 years and people are crying about his loss?

If the fixture is to be influenced by anything, it should be on field performance, not off-field performance. Carlton have sucked for 6 years and get a wonderful draw. Collingwood get a great draw no matter where they finish. Either way, NOTHING should influence the draw. It should be 100% even, with each club getting the same amount of Friday, Saturday and Sunday games.

I'm also tipping a huge crowd. 25,678. Sorry, I meant a huge crowd for a Melb-North game.

Good point in the article, but I hate Caro's style of writing. Incoherent.

I hate this whole, "getting a better fixture because you pull better crowds". What an utter disgrace. This league is going to be like the Premier League in the UK in 10 years, with only 4-5 major teams and everyone else just making up the numbers. Why not be like the American leagues and distribute TV appearances based on performance? If you have the worst record, you only get 2-3 national games. Make the playoffs and you get 15-30. Collingwood didn't make the finals for 2 years in a row from 04-05, yet still got a miracle draw. They always do. Their record doesn't mean anything. They could finish 10th, average crowds of 60k a game and get 7 Friday night games, 9 Saturday games, 3 Saturday night and 3 Sunday. We'll finish 5th, average 35k-40k, and get 1 Friday night with 8-10 Sunday matches. The only way to have an even draw is to have a 30 round season, each team plays each other twice, one away and one home, and there are 2-3 breaks inbetween. Eliminate the pre-season cup and introduce Exhibition games, where each team plays 2-3 games of 2 35 minute halves. Seriously, the way the fixtures is done is stoneage and unfair. The AFL is making matters worse for low drawing clubs. Rewarding clubs with high attendances and not performance is only going to create an even more lobsided competition. Don't be fooled into thinking the league is rewarding/punishing onfield performance. It should have no implications on the draw. Only on the TV appearances. Everyone should have an evenly distributed draw.

You can't fix a problem without acknowledging it. People are so "negative" because they care too much imo. If they didn't, they would just sit back and not care about the problems. That's not saying that all people who are positive don't care, but I'm just saying that it's OK to criticize sometimes.

Terrible draw. Can't we once, just once, play Geelong only once and only at the MCG. Every year we either play them twice or meet then once at SS. What's so bad about giving us Saturday games? Even a twilight? I'm convinced: The AFL hates the MFC and wants us to die a slow and painful death. What a disgraceful draw.

We're losing a whole bunch of experienced players and bringing in younger, inexperienced players. It's not that our list is bad. It's just going to get younger and more inexperienced. With inexperience comes pain and failure. Now Fremantle. That is a bad list.

Really? I'm sure we would have been out of the finals had we lost? I was 8 lol

1994 Elimination Final win over Carlton, 2000 semi win over Carlton, come back this year against Freo.

Nah, I just expected someone to come in here to stick up for him

Actions speak louder than words indeed. I remember Gardiner making a similar speech, talking about how it made him sick to the gut that we hadn't won a flag in 40 years and that it was partly his duty and the players etc. to bring it back where it belonged. We all know how that ended up. The only difference is though that Gardiner rarely spoke directly from the heart, instead mostly from a sheet of paper. Schwabb's was from the heart. You can tell. But, it also makes me worry. I think his dedication stems from a knowing of how badly in shape the club is. He's emotional because he knows we're on the brink of non-existence.

The more distant we are from the shambles of a coaching squad Daniher put together, the better. And please, don't come in here with your, "he was great for us" crap, because the way I look at it, we sucked a majority of the time he was here, and that makes me unsympathetic towards his departure.

I left it to someone else to start this discussion after seeing this, but didn't expect the original OP to see it in a positive manner. 1pm start. Sunday. Grand Prix at 5pm. Those are 3 factors that on their own would see a decrease in the crowd. I'm starting to think the AFL (Andrew Football League) is forcing us out, along with North. Idiots. And then Andrew comes out and says we have no brand. Well, how about helping us, giving us a Saturday arvo game against a top-drawing club and give us the opportunity to start the year off on a high note (off field), instead of fixturing us against a team that will see a crowd of no more than 30k. Idiots.

Tough, but true. Letter in the Your Say in HUN today.

Wow...surprised we got a mention there.

Is that Moloney with his back to us, stretching on the floor next to Sylvia?

I don't believe it. I don't believe it!

More admins...

Fixed.

What I had to say:

Being competitive is obviously easier said than done. I don't expect us to better the win:loss ratio from next year, but I don't expect four 100+ point losses or whatever like this season. We're losing 4-5 veteran players (probably more) and adding younger players. We were inexperienced last season, and we'll be even more inexperienced next year. We need to draft well and wisely and go with a strict youth policy. If that means pain next year, then so be it. I'd rather see no improvement next year, but substantial improvement from then on in, just so we can get our high draft picks used to playing AFL football. The last two seasons have been an aging process. We haven't been rebuilding, but rather getting rid of/fixing the mess that Neale "I stayed 5 years too long" Daniher left. Next season is officialy the beginning of the rebuilding phase. Don't expect much improvement onfield. That will come from 2010 onwards imho.

I better get at least one nomination here. Best Poster - High Towe Most Entertaining poster - Yze Magic Funniest poster etc? - not sure

Cale Morton is a better 18 year old than Cam Bruce. Just thought I'd slip that in there.