Akum

I think there are good reasons to believe that there is a legal minefield here for Vlad, and that his position on tanking comes from heavy legal advice. If the AFL punished a club for tanking (or whatever term it would call it), it could never defend itself against the inevitable legal challenge that would follow. The club would be forced to argue that the punishment unfairly and illegally restricts their ability to run their business. The AFL would have to provide evidence that's a lot more solid than "everybody knows it's going on" or "Andy Maher & Patrick Smith agree" or "there's a media feeding frenzy about it". And solid evidence would be just impossible to come by, unless someone in the club was prepared to give evidence (Libba nearly did, didn't he?), because it's all based on perceptions and interpretations of events on & off the field. Not even that horde of sharp-as-a-beach-ball Hun journos could defend it in court. If the AFL abolishes the PP system before the end of this season, as the media hounds are baying for now, us & Freo would sue the bags off them, because our clubs' businesses into the future have been predicated on the basis of the PP system. If the AFL abolishes it for next year, or the year after, GC17 or WS18 would go them for the same reason. Given that, as others have said, the "big" clubs favoured by journos have done very well in the past out of the PP system, so by what rationale should other clubs be now denied the chance to drink at the same trough? If we were to get punished this year, is it fair that Carltank got away with it? And if Vlad gave even the slightest hint that he thought that there was tanking going on, again he would risk the AFL getting sued by a club (maybe even MFC), even if he didn't name the club, for stuffing up their business by trashing their reputation and chasing away sponsors etc. etc. He's caught in an absolute legal bind, and his only option is to deny that tanking's occurring. Their only way out is probably going to be for all the clubs to get together at the end of this season to agree upon changes to be put in place for the draft after the GC & WS drafts (2013?). FWIW, as someone implied earlier in this thread, the Dees in the last half were forced to play like teams of 20 or 30 years ago, with only 19 or 20 fit men, including 2 absolute passengers in PJ & Newton. He couldn't rest guys like Junior and Jones on the bench, there was no room, so he had to rest them on the field, like 20 years ago when the on-ballers would "rest" in the pockets or flanks - now that's "proof" of tanking because Junior was resting in the BP! PJ & Newton were utterly useless the whole game, so he had to hide them on the field too cos he couldn't interchange them. And how many goals did Riewoldt get while PJ was on him? And in those days before the draft, clubs with no chance of making the finals would try out any number of ridiculous experiments to find ways of improving their team for next year. A favourite experiment in those years was FF to FB or FB to FF; this wasn't an unusual move at all during a game, if the team was getting nothing at all from their key forwards (Barry Lawrence was one who comes to mind). FCS, Voss did it himself before the game last weekend by putting Merrett to FF, he kicked the first goal and gave them a big physical presence; a brilliant move, but Bailey trying the same thing was "proof" of tanking!

Is there ever anything useful or informative discussed on FC? It's just a meeting of the egos (Lyon excepted of course). As I've put on another thread, GT thinks that Weagles win over Essendon is definite proof of tanking, "they just happened to find themselves in front". That's about the standard of it.

Ever heard of the saying: "to certain type of person with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail"? If you believe we're tanking, then everything we do will be interpreted as tanking. Even if we do the opposite of what you interpret as tanking, that too will be interpreted as tanking. The famous legend-in-his-own-imagination tanking scholar Grant Thomas even interprets West Coast's win over Essendon, which lost them their PP, as indisputable evidence of tanking - "they just happened to find themselves in front!" You can't argue with a closed mind.

This whole episode only proves yet again how stupid and short-sighted and egotistical commentators are, to a man & woman. This is the first opportunity since Carltank that they've had a chance to beat up the PP issue. We're in a feeding-frenzy situation, where whatever Melbourne and West Coast do - whether they move players or don't move players, whether they win lose or draw - they inerpret as tanking. When a bozo like Grant Thomas says that West Coast were tanking against Essendon, they just happened to find themselves in front at the end of the game, and divas like Caro & Hutchy nod like clowns, you know that all perspective has gone. When Thomas says something like "nobody can tell me that there isn't tanking going on absolutely everywhere", you know he's seeing what he wants to see and too stupid to realise it. It's just a group of attention-seeking giant egos seeking attention. Bailey's got it exactly right - whatever he does is going to be interpreted as tanking, so he'll ignore it and keep doing what he wants to do. And let the media cretins carry on making idiots of themselves.

As was the effort from Bartram as third man up to get it to him. That was just brilliant. He & Dunn have been great since they came back from Casey and have shown they can improve the parts of their game that need work. It was also great to see that when the game was there to be won, it was the likes of Grimes and Petterd who stood up and took on the responsibility. We learned that Warnock & Frawley are capable of adding drive to an insipid forward line. Also, Miller and Bate made great contributions in the midfield - Miller had 2 possessions in the first half as a forward and 9 in the second half, Bate had 23 for the match. Stef & Spencer showed that they're both far better young ruckmen than Pattison & Vickery. Jones showed that at least he's capable of high quality disposal - that was the big surprise to me. The thing I like best is that even at this early stage of development, the team has shown that against average teams we can stay in the game even if we're not playing well and are getting outplayed, just by sheer effort and tenacity. All we need is to learn how to do that against top teams in the years to come, and we'll be very hard to beat. Compare that to the many beltings last year. Oh, and PJ and Newton both left us in no doubt about their future.

To be fair to KB, he has maintained all along that there's no tanking going on. What "alarmed" him was the other commentators giving it to him during this game and trying to get him to admit that Melbourne were tanking, and he was struggling to understand some of our positional changes while at the same time trying to argue that we weren't tanking. As he explained this morning, now that we know how the game turned out, the boot's now on the other foot. He's saying that DB is a lot smarter than his fellow commentators, who "aren't as smart as they think they are", because the positional changes that he was struggling to explain during the game actually nearly won it for Melbourne. It's all the other commentators who were bagging him who are now twisting and turning in trying to explain how a team that's truly tanking could muster such a great final quarter effort with only 19 fit men (and only 4 rotations for the whole quarter!) and still be in front at the final siren. Even Patrick Smith, who believes that there's tanking everywhere, had to admit that this weekend's results, where we lost by a very unlikely goal after the siren and WC beat Essendon and lost their PP, has probably put paid to the tanking debate for this season, once and for all. He's now trying to argue that the AFL needs to do something about it because even if it's not going on, tanking is something that so many fans have so much trouble with. KB now feels that, though he struggled to uphold the "no-tanking" side of the argument during the game, he's now been vindicated well & truly by the way it turned out.

As we know, this wasn't a tanking move yeaterday, it's actually something the club's been putting some preparation into. It was such a good move that it almost won us the game. Mark it down as one for early next season in a game that we really need to win. And Jones' disposal was surprisingly good too. So has he been tanking for the past few weeks but changed his mind this game? Or has he been doing some hard work on the worst aspect of his game while the club's supposed to have been tanking? If we're really tanking, then we're doing it all wrong.

I'm an avid anti-tanker - I want us to try to win, not try to lose. But I'm a pro-experimenter - I want us to try out as many experiments, no matter how counter-intuitive or left-field, for the rest of this year so that we can find out as much as we possibly can about things that might help us in the years to come. I have no doubt that if we'd had 22 fit players in the last quarter, Newton & PJ would have spent the whole of it on the pine. Some of DB's experimental moves actually worked so well as experiments (Warnock & Frawley forward, Miller onto the ball) that they nearly brought us a win. But I'm 100% glad that McMahon kicked it. And 100% glad that the players gave it everything; they left nothing on the field. And 100% glad that some of the experiments worked and we learned heaps that will be valuable for the future. It's a hopeful sign that the footy gods might be thinking that we've had enough adversity and that they need to start pushing things (like Scully) our way.

I was prepared to give him a go if his field play was up to the standard of the past couple of weeks (trying to ignore his atrocious kicking). If he'd kept that up for every match until the end of the year, he'd be worth keeping and working on his kicking. But if he can't maintain even that mediocre-at-best standard and if yesterday was his worst (it was his worst wasn't it? surely not even he could play any worse???)when he's playing for his career every game, then it's over. If his best is average and his worst is dreadful, and if he can't hit anywhere near average against a team like Richmond, then how can we possibly keep him?

But don't we already have FFs in Warnock & Frawley???

Sorry to spoil the party, but I don't think we did chuck the game. If McMahon had kicked to his usual standard (10 out of 14 disposals ineffective), we would have won. If we tabnked, we must be the only side in history that plays better when we're trying to lose!!! Tanking to me means what you've said - chucking the game, playing with the sole purpose of trying to lose. Nothing that happened yesterday was tanking under that definition. Even before PPs, clubs with no chance of making the finals would always experiment with players in different positions, especially if the "orthodox" line-up was doing badly, because they might learn something useful about their players for the future. But this isn't playing to lose, FCS. I thought we learned a lot yesterday. For example, Griomes and Petterd marked themselves down as two that will stand up when the going gets tough. And if we'd won, the moves of Frawley & Warnock forward would have been matchwinning. It's by no means unusual for sides to win games by shifting a tough defender into an ineffective forward line. I bet anything that when we're in the top 4 in a few years' time, this very move will win us an important game against a top side. It would have been much more suspicious of tanking if DB had not made any changes and left Newton & Miller on the forward line & PJ in the ruck. That's the only tactic that would have guaranteed a loss. But having said all of that, I'm still hugely relieved that we lost. But we didn't lose because we played to lose - we lost because we were very unlucky - or I should say very lucky!

No way. Maybe these two won't ever deliver a 9/10 or 10/10 performance, but in years to come they're the ones who will put in and deliver 6/10 or 7/10 every game, win or lose, top or bottom. A top team needs those types as much as the superstars like Watts or Jurrah or Scully are going to be. They both really need to be played every game for the rest of the season, because they seem to get better each game IMO.

If we remember back to the days before the PP, coaches of teams that had no chance of making the finals would often experiment with players in unusual positions. That's what DB is doing IMHO. I have no doubt that if he had made no positional moves in the last quarter, we would have lost by more and he would have been accused of tanking along the lines of Wallet & Cotchin. If we are tanking, then we're not very good at it. But we actually are getting pretty good at making much better-credentialed teams look very ordinary, and at not letting teams run away with the game once they get on top of us. All good for the future. The tabloid media is so thick and blinkered that they are now seeing everything that happens as tanking, without being in the slightest bit aware that if what they see as tanking hadn't happened, they would interpret that as tanking too. We're tanked if we do and tanked if we don't, so DB may as well do what he wants, as he said.

Also shows that with all the experimentation in the world, there is no guarantee that we won't pick up an unexpected win if the other side is lousy enough. DB has soared in my estimation. Everything in this game went right - he learnt a lot about a number of players, the team showed a massive amount of character to almost snatch it with the odds stacked against us (I thought it was only very good teams that get back to win games they should have lost - we came so close). But for all that, we lost and the PP's still intact. As I said, everything went right.

Good post dimmy, I'm with you. I also agree that at this stage in a season, we're playing to gain something for next year rather than to get wins this year, and this would still be true if there was no such thing as a PP. But we still haven't sold our soul (which is what tanking is to me - trying to deliberately engineer a loss). FCS, we nearly won the thing, and only lost it because of a 50m kick after the siren. If McMahon had not goaled with his kick, the pro-tankers would be up in arms, saying that we had the chance to tank and we blew it, instead of rejoicing that we'd tanked! The team played to win and I'm so proud of them. We had 19 fit men at 3/4 time, then Riv got an ankle injury in the last quarter, and the boys showed heaps of character not to lie down. But I'm also mightily relieved that they lost too. I take Jaded's point of view - the footy gods are starting to smile on us by snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. And I'm again going to have my cake & eat it - the fact that the team is developing this level of character makes it much more fertile territory for Scully & Trengove/Rohan/whoever to come into Cousins, Deledio, Cotchin & Tambling is one of the better AFL midfields, at least on paper. And with our best midfielders out, the young guys did a great job to keep us in the game and then very nearly snatch it. And I bet you that at some stage when we're a top team in the next 4 years, the move of Warnock or Frawley into the forward line will win us an important game against a top side. They definitely added bite to a forward line that has lacked it all season. We have plenty of good strong tall defenders, we found out today that some of them can cut it as forwards in an emergency. There were a lot of positives to come out of this game. I'm still glad we didn't win, but it was not because of lack of effort by the boys.

Could there be even the slightest chance of the Dogs having another crack at Robbo? The only reason for even entertaining this thought this is that their premiership "window" is probably 2009-2011, and they have some key players (Johnno, Aker, Hudson, Eagleton) who probably have only a season or two left at the most. And their lack of key forwards of any description is what made them look so bad against the Saints, especially because Welsh is on his last chance. They can't bridge the gap between them & Saints/Cats unless they get a forward target. This is surely all that's driving their interest in Hall, but there will be too much opposition from within the club. Robbo could be an attractive consolation prize, with no apparent downside to those outside this club, who would be there to just attract the best defender, straighten them up, etc etc for no more than the next year or two until Ayce Cordy or someone can take over. We definitely couldn't expect a lot for him, but you never know. He may well do better with the service he'd get from their midfield too.

Old55, I know this was a while ago, but I was actually supporting your point about the merged club. When I wrote "No, this is a critical point. You don't like it, but it encapsulates the issue" I quoted your post but was addressing other posters who had tried to brush your point aside as irrelevant because it didn't suit them to have to confront it. I think it's THE essential question, that's been dodged but still not adequately confronted. Apologies for the misunderstanding.

Great to hear about the kicking coach. Would be fascinating to know which players he's had most to do with. He'd have to be putting in triple time at least on Jones, Bruce, Miller & Juice, just for starters!

No, this is a critical point. You don't like it, but it encapsulates the issue. The merged club would have been a shoe-in for premierships. The merged club - in fact, any merged club - would be one of the strongest in the comp, more or less straight away. And the whole concept of a merger was created by people who thought that ultimate success (i.e. premierships) were the sole reason etc. In refusing a merger, Melbourne chose to reject almost certain premierships for something more intangible - the continued independent existence of something that they felt an attachment to. It begs this question: if Melbourne were TODAY offered a merger by another club - say, for argument's sake, North or Richmond - and Melbourne were going to be the major partner in the merger, would you choose the almost certain premierships that would follow over the continued existence of Melbourne as an independent club? This is a real test of your poll question - is the essence (or sole purpose) of a club's existence just to get premierships (implying that everything must be done to get one) or is there something else that drives a club's existence, whatever it is? It's a twist on the earlier question posed by Axis of Bob - who would be prepared to sacrifice everything for a premiership, if it meant the club becoming something else? If the very essence of a club is not worth sacrificing in order to get a premiership, then your poll question is answered.

You're probably right, like I said it's just an impression, I have nothing to go on. But do you see the point I'm trying to make about Robbo, and about others such as Junior & Whelan who are about to retire? I think the club is making a concerted effort to keep them connected after they finish playing, and I support that wholeheartedly. Bagging them at this stage in their careers isn't going to achieve anything.

In the AFL, the ultimate aim is a premiership. But you can't plan or develop strategies for that, because it depends on so much that's out of the club's control. So a club can only work towards improving its performance as much as it possibly can, and puts in place plans and strategies to achieve that. So the Casey development and alignment is a strategy to improve performance. Player development is to improve performance. Getting the right draft picks - Scully - is to improve performance. None of these things can guarantee a premiership. I think the ultimate goal for all of us is a Dees premiership. But what floats my boat week to week is to see signs of improved performance. That's why I enjoy every game - not because it brings us one week closer to an eventual premiership, but because of the signs that we're going to get better. The Swans game, for example, had no bearing at all on whether we'll win a premiership in 2013 or not. But it was great to see Jordie, Morton, Cheney, Jurrah play so well, to see Stef do so well in the ruck cvontests to at least hold his own against one of the best (though Jolly killed us around the ground), and dammit, even to see Juice & Miller improve everything except their kicking. Which is why I think you really need to tone down this sort of gratuitous & unnecessary abuse against anybody who doesn't see things exactly the same way that you do. Express your opinion, by all means, but abuse of this type doesn't advance your argument one bit. You do make some good points for your argument, but play the ball and not the man. Of course, I voted ©. Of course the ultimate aim is a premiership, but it's not the only aim, or the only reason I follow the Dees. We are actually allowed to enjoy our connection with the club without it depending wholly on when we win our next premiership.

This is true to an extent. On the other hand, if he'd kicked straight on Sunday he could/should have got 4 or 5, despite all his other deficiencies. And he did heaps more than Jesse White, who's supposed to be good, have lots of potential etc. The point is, what do we want from him? I suppose when it comes down to it, if he can get even just 2 or 3 goals a game, he's worth his place in the side no matter how bad he looks, or whether he gets them by pack-crunching marks or not. If he plays every game & gets 50 goals in a season, that's a good contribution, worth his place in the side. Especially if he keeps up his current level of defensive pressure. So IMO, whether he makes it in the AFL or not is purely down to whether or not he can improve his kicking for goal, especially from set shots. And that's just impossible to predict.

I'd like to make one point about Robbo, and I must stress that it's from an outsider perspective. The Dees don't seem overendowed with ex-players retaining close involvement with the club after they retire, and on the contrary a number of them seem to have left on less than ideal terms and even feel quite negatively towards the club. Now this is just an impression, not based on anything resembling facts, it's not something I can back up. Jimma has done a great job getting some of them back this year (most obvious example being Lyon), but considering the great history of this club, we of all clubs should be doing a lot better in respecting those who have gone before. So it's important IMO that from now on, people like Robbo (who has given so much over his playing career, on & off the field) and others like him continue to remain connected in some way. Same applies to those like Junior & Whelan - Whelan seems to have been a great support to the younger indigenous players, which is why he needs to stay around after he retires too. Some of DB's recent pronouncements about Robbo, plus Peter German's overly gracious review of Robbo's game on Saturday, make me think that they see it this way too. I get the feeling DB has left Robbo in no doubt that he's not part of the plans in 2010, but wants him to stay on good terms. If it means we have to be patient with a few sulks from Robbo until his farewell game, then considering all he's done for the club it's a tiny price to pay to keep him around after his playing career finishes.

Unfortunately Jack had to go home straight after that match to study for his VCE exam the next day. Would have been great to meet LJ in his pre-Jurrahcane days tho'. Yeh that was the worst day. My partner came too, she's sports-mad but it was her first real game of AFL, she kept saying things like "why does that guy keep hitting Jack when the ball's up the other end?" We couldn't have played much worse. That game made a lot of us start to feel like the team wasn't getting anywhere and the club had no future.

Joeboy - missing you already Please hurry back!