Little Goffy

Well, that escalated quickly. I've got very little patience for religion in general, and am entirely confident that individuals, humanity in general and even Earth's ecological systems would be in a much, much better state without the toxic presence of people claiming to have 'divine inspiration' to declare arbitrary, often cruel, and often dysfunctional codes and castes. A society's entire system of 'law and culture' starts to turn in on itself as soon as any person or utterance is declared 'sacred' and above debate or criticism. 'Vilification' should not be confused with criticism and calls for ending special privileged status of religion. Although, normally that confusion goes in the other direction with criticism and resistance to compulsion being taken as offence and, of course, blasphemy. But religious vilification? Nope, nope, nope. Got no time for that. Abusing a person because they practice any given faith? Nope. That's just being an 4rsehole. Off you go, your presence in a packed, mixed, crowd event is not required. If you insist on ruining the school camp for everyone else, then you will be sent home. Religious vilification is different to racism in some mostly superficial ways, but functionally it's just the same old 'identify the in-group, identify the out-group, abuse the out-group'.

His best was adequate... Make of that what you will.

Interesting observation. Certainly all the draft reports from the likes of Emma Quayle describe this as a very open draft. Picks in the teens would seem to be disproportionately valuable this year. Meanwhile, I'm going to declare the 2001 draft as the official 'bony-4rse bonanza' draft. Luke Ball Leigh Montangna Nick Dal Santo Sam Mitchell Brent Reilly James Kelly Gary Ablett Jr Adam Schneider Campbell Brown So, that's 9 out of the total of 16 players from the 2001 draft who made it 200 games. Plus 'rangy medium forward' Jarrad Waite, assuming he plays 14 more games, would make it ten out of 17. Welsh, Medhurst and Rodan were also handy contributors for their 150+ games. The second best draft ever was a draft packed with short, skinny types who shouldn't be taken before the third round.

Ah, finally the fog cleared and I remembered the name I was looking for - Percy Beams!

If we do recruit him, I hope someone has a camera on Picket Fence's face when the name is called. Can't wait for the nickname avalanche. Seems like a legit player though. Naasty Hobbitses... nasty sneaky hobbitses.

http://www.afl.com.au/news/2014-09-08/clark-return-not-definite?utm_medium=RSS If Clark did move to another club it would likely be through this year's trade period, although Young said Clark has made it clear he does not want to let Melbourne down. "Mitchell would not walk away from the Melbourne footy club without them getting compensated," Young said. "Mitchell also did them a massive favour by walking away from a very lucrative contract and also free up a space on their list."

Yeah, if Clark's intentions are to try to do right by the Melbourne Football Club, then he needs to have a very serious word with his manager about letting a story run out and wild like this. Not good for Mitch and it is already harming the club.

Apparently someone else got into her phone and trolled Mitch. She deleted the post and has apologise to him.

Gee, it's all Schrodinger's Cat at the moment. It seems the spin about Clark not wanting to be at the Demons was started by Barrett, who blatantly salivates at any chance of things going wrong for Melbourne. But, the possibility has to be considered. I count four possibilities; 1. Mitch Clark decides, after 'investigating' the possibilites, that AFL level, complete with the rampaging media scrutiny that instantly inflated the moment there was even a murmur of activity, is not for him. Plays out a stellar career in the VFL or WAFL. Perfectly reasonable. 2. Mitch Clark comes back to the Melbourne Football Club. Every sheds a tear of joy and bursts a lung cheering for him every time he gets near the ball. 3. Mitch Clark decides that an AFL re-start is a good idea, but it needs to be a genuinely fresh start at a new club. He goes out of his way to ensure that Melbourne is well compensated for his loss, and chips in a solid whack of currency to the Reach foundation, recognising that there are so many people dealing with mental illness that don't have anything like the unconditional support (and salary) that Mitch has received. 4. Mitch Clark restarts his AFL career as a 'delisted' free agent, with no compensation for Melbourne, and is forever remember as the guy who used depression as a ticket to be an 4rsehole, doing real harm not just to the club but everyone suffering under the stigmas of depression. I have no problem at all with possibilities 1 to 3. But if 4 happens Mitch will become the first player I have ever made a special point of booing, any chance I get. A lot of people, including me, put their own feelings second, in favour of showing empathy and acceptance for his problems. And like I said, it is not just the club being hurt by 'Number 4'; such behavior would basically give a free hit to anyone out there who wants to portray depression and anxiety as a sook's disease. I'll be watching closely. And, in accordance with the Schrodinger's Cat analogy, until someone opens the box I will unfortunately be experiencing the emotions of both the acceptable and unacceptable scenarios.

Contenders - 2010 - Howe at 33 McDonald at 53 2009 - Max Gawn at 34 2007 - Stefan Martin, PSD pick 3 2006 - Frawley pick 12 Garland, pick 46 2005 - Jones pick 12 Bartram, pick 60 2004 - Dunn pick 15 2003 - Davey, Rookie pick 3 You have to go right back to Davey to find a real 'nailed it' kind of pick. There are a few 'good value for where they went'. But Jones is the only really outstanding player we've drafted in ten years, followed by Frawley. We can hope that some from the recent drafts, including Howe and McDonald, might take another step and make us look back and say, yeah, we got that right.

What could rapidly turn things around would be to get even a 'good-ordinary' full season of AFL football out of several players who really ought to be able to. I think this season we saw poor form and/or injury run from several mature players. Dawes, Garland,Trengove, Grimes and Watts, and for what it is worth, Frawley, should all be looking hungrily at 2015, knowing they can each get much more out of it than they did 2014. The rest of any quick change would have to come from the young ones and any recruits. Obviously Toumpas would be disappointed about his progress to date. Salem showed glimpses but was not bringing us whole AFL-level games. Nor should that have been his benchmark for the season. Similar story for Kennedy-Harris. Hogan we all know the gap between what could be and what was in an injury-ruined 2014. Let's speculate that from all of that mix, plus new recruits, we get just five additional players delivering consistent AFL standards. That's huge, but also only takes perhaps 1 in 3 to lift. Realistically, it seems Frawley will be our only player 'lost' from this season who actually played significant games, so it is just about all upside.

As a player I've often thought he was a bit overrated, and I agree with those who have said he would likely get found out playing in a defence under constant pressure. The 'galloping' runs are impressive and he'd definitely add that element, but our team is already full of players who are good at a couple of things but slack at everything else. As for being a tool, it really, really annoys me that he keeps taking basic points I agree with, like 'try not to use gay as a slur', and then escalates and turns it into an outright power play. It is almost like his game style, looking for the big break up the middle to define the game, but not doing the small defensive things consistently. I dunno, when it comes to managing personalities I'd rate Roos a long way ahead of Buckley, or Malthouse for that matter. And Lumumba is a valid AFL standard player. So I wont cry if we do get him.

Our Scott West.

Yep, Jones rolled along at 120 Supercoach points for the last 6 rounds, to Dunn's 60. There's not too much to be inferred from Supercoach, but momentum is probably one thing.

Special award to honour consistent, highly respected players who were cut before their time by a club that they had given more than a decade of sterling service to. A.k.a the 'never forget, never again' award.

No. No he didn't. He took the award for being the player making the most effort to promote the club in the community, and is keeping it safe, ready for a suitable occasion to shove it up your [censored]. Some people, it's all about them, and their little princess vendettas, all day long.

Would not be near the top of my list.

Carlisle, Zaharakis and Heppell from the Bombers, all as free agents, ought to sort us out. Generally, I'm still inclined to try to grab the not-quite-stars. The seriously good players who live in the shadow of absolutely guns. Prestia not Ablett, Hill not Fyfe, Sidebottom not Pendlebury, and so on. Gotta collect them all!

Pow! I'll be singing when we're winning. I don't want some 'Soap production has increased by 84% this year, can I borrow your soap?' mentality to creep into (further into?) Demon culture. Y'know why Singapore fell so easily? Because 'everything is fine'.

Look at that straw man go! "Those hysterical people, losing their brains over it, going crazy all over the media!" It was a dumbarse thing to to, lacking a basic grasp of sensitivity. It got a brief mention in media and hasn't really been run with or beaten up at all. Even the criticisms on this thread have just said 'it was dumb and insensitive, they should cop their whack, apologise and do better in future'. The only people losing perspective on it are the ones putting it into some kind of conspiracy theory about the evil leftist ABC climate-alarmist soccer-mum socialist Asian lesbian evolutionist latte-sipping thought police.

It's a nup and a nup from me. Neither bring enough positives to balance their weaknesses.

Agreed. I think this discussion has run its course and that seems a good summary..

This season was a failure but not to the extent that I feel like writing off next season as well. That's progress. I guess.

A [censored] can do whatever a [censored] wants to do, but it doesn't mean everyone else has to sit quietly and not call them out for being a [censored]. Edit: originally this post included some examples of appalling costumes based on recent Melbourne Football Club tragedies, but I just couldn't put my name next to it.

Ward and Jones would be a 50/50 call. Burgoyne is lucky that he looks good while he does it. He's not ahead of Jones at all. Ellis I can only assume is there as a HBF, despite Malceski and Brodie Smith already being there. There's no way in hell he's above Jones as a Mid!