Akum

Better load up on the pads, just in case!

Something that just occurred to me about this is that arguably Adelaide was our best game for the year. For someone like Dangermouse to consider us as a viable proposition, we need them to think that we're worth the risk, that there are better times to come. It might be easier to get him thinking this way, having seen us at our best, than someone like Shiel, for example, who's only seen us when we've been horrible.

It's totally out of character for D'land to worry about that! We ignore it until the last minute. Then we panic.

Sums it up best for me. Doing OK for a fringe player likely to be delisted if he's not traded - already up to his 3rd club on the "rumours" table.

You're saying we couldn't use "a decent rebounder"???

Great suggestion! Let's go for Danger AND Fyfe!!

Always thought it was spelt "nyuk". Exquisite blend of pedantry & irrelevance.

More like a puddle

This is it in a nutshell. On the other hand, there are top-4-or-thereabouts clubs which are well-off for talls (so could spare a spot on their list for most of the season), with a view to MC, in the best circumstances, breaking into their team in late 2015 and being the big KPF that makes the difference between a GF and a finals also-ran. That's the temptation. It's just that we simply can't offer him that. And he may well end up having to "take it or leave it" with MFC - not as the "honourable" thing, but as the "pragmatic" thing.

I understand your points. It's not a matter of discussing contracts - FGS, there was coffee, so that can't happen! I'm sure Roos would have just sketched out the basic parameters of what coming back to MFC would involve, from MFC perspective. And the problem is IMO that, even on this "basic parameters" level, what we want and what he wants are diametrically opposed. We would have liked more time to get him used to the idea of a highly conditional arrangement, to be expanded later if things went well. In our current state, that's the best MFC can offer him. He, quite reasonably, will want a secure arrangement - base salary, main list. What he earns from whatever remains of his footy career will have to last him. What we want is a big risk for him. What he's likely to want is a big risk for us. The actual numbers are just details.

The question is: What is Mitch Clark worth, as of now? If another club wants to offer him a highish base salary and a spot on the main list, he'll have to take it. Because we can't afford to offer him that, most of all from the point of view of list management. Look at our rucks & KPs. Hogan's not yet back after a whole season. Frawley's probably gone. Jamar in the twilight of his career. Spencer injured most of the year. We simply can't afford to keep a main list position for someone from whom the odds are against taking the field in 2015. It is not unreasonable for him to want the security of a highish base salary and a main list position. We're simply in no position to offer him that.

A balanced and reasonable opinion. Although, in all fairness, it does overlook re-injuring his Lisfranc.

Doro wat??

... and have you noticed that since GNF's post, there has been much more of this sort of sensible trying-to-come-to-terms-with-things and much less of the wild speculative drivel from before? Surely you & Nasher & rjay aren't suggesting that it was wrong of GNF to impede the sewerage flow by posting something approaching information? And GNF never claims that he has the "truth", he just posts what he's heard, and is careful not to post anything he's heard that he thinks might harm the club. Must say I'm struggling to understand the "GNF-shouldn't-have-posted" faction.

Acute case of poster envy. You need to see MC's doctor.

Only if at least one of the 5 was from the goal square.

Just out of interest ... What's the correct technique for catching farts?

What the hell is a "Demonland consensus?" And how would I know it if I ever saw it??

Love to know what Addis is like from the ground - it's absolutely breathtaking from the air, isn't it? My wife is from Cameroon ("Akum" is actually her family's village - amazing place, wonderful people) and when we go back to visit the folks, we go through Addis. Have you had a chance to go to Axum & Lalibela?

Bet there were a lot of "sharks" in London & NY. Hope you didn't conserve too many of them!

Strange days indeed!

Reckon we should give Jesus Christ a run in the seniors. Move Dunn to CHB.

See, I reckon that someone who comes back about a dozen times to continue to slam the one player they don't like, even though just about everybody (including a certain coach) disagrees with them, DOES mean to be harsh. In fact, the main reason they do it is to be harsh. That's what gets up everybody's nose. You don't want to let it be. And you still think it was a pretty routine humdrum passage of play that won us the game, and Jordie deserves no credit for his part in it? Well, maybe you ARE the only one in step, and everybody else has it wrong.

When Merrett (I think) took the initial mark with just less than 2 minutes to go, Goddard was screaming at him to kick it backwards to any one of 3 unmarked defenders. Stanton sprinted from the other side of the ground across towards the boundary line forward of Merrett, screaming for the ball. Monumentally dumb. If he'd stayed where he was, Merrett would have turned & kicked it backwards and they would have run down the clock. Stanton then built manfully on his stupidity by spearing a barely-15m pass forward to Chapman that nearly went out on the full, and the moment was lost.

One of the true pleasures of parenting is the right - no, the duty - to embarrass your teenage kids! Enjoy! And happy birthday.