Harcourt

"They are clearly confident of signing a BOJ sponsor this season rather than going through with just the one."

One would seriously hope they are confident!

By "going to be a superstar"" do you mean like a bona fide absolute A+ Brownlow medal winner superstar?

If so then I would argue strongly that none of Gysberts, Howe and particularly McKenzie will be superstars.

Superstars are players like Ablett, Bartel, Pendlebury etc.

He seems older than 26 doesn't he, if he was 24 he'd be perfect for us.

Would be a great get but he will either stay at St Kilda or go to GWS.

Saints would want both our compo picks though.

His supercoach output is interesting:

2005 - 22 games - average 81.4

2006 - 20 - 86.4

2007 - 18 - 81.4

2008 - 15 - 79.5

2009 - 22 - 95.6

2010 - 20 - 79.2

2011 - 11 - 68.3

2012 - 1 - 57.0

Can everyone ease up on Watts. He is far from a dud pick despite what the NikNat loving media would have you believe.

Why didn't the apology include any reference to disclosing confidential conversations (true or untrue) to third parties This apology is just not good enough I don't see how anyone could trust Mifsud with confidential information, which places a big question mark over his effectiveness in his current position

Bring back the roller coaster!

Yes that is a positive isn't it - we've managed to irradicate the week on week off inconsistencies of last year.

The tigers will beat us by 10 goals minimum.

Why are people bagging Watts? He was probably one of five that were okish imo.

A little harsh on Watts I'd have thought. He was quite good in the first half.

So crazy to speak of getting Bailey back. Especially when Neale Daniher is available.

Brilliant! The sad thing is I was actually thinking this during the week! lol.

I'm sure we would all take 3rd - 15th - 5th - 16th or whatever his record was right now!

In:Petterd, Sellar, Dunn, Bennell

Out: Moloney (inj), Tynan, Davey, Blease

Very impressive as always.

They say the darkest hour is right before the dawn.

I knew someone would say that sooner or later (again).

It's lucky "we have a number of contingencies from both a revenue and cost perspective in the event that we don't achieve our preferred outcome".

I was starting to get a little worried!

Just by the way, if Neeld did happen to address the indigenous boys as a group why is this racist and why is everyone up in arms? Are we being a little over-sensitive??

Yes I can see that it would be seen to be treating them differently because of their race but the indigenous boys identify as 'brothers' and a collective group. They will offer each other support and make their way to each of the opposition indigenous players at the end of each match to shake hands and chat. They freely talk about themselves as a collective unit. Is it a case of double standards?

Not saying it is or isn't but it's hardly a hanging crime is it? Paul Roos got away with saying indigenous players have less endurance and hardly a word was muttered in protest yet I personally would find that more offensive. But what if it's true? Why is it that the last 30 or so world record 100m metre runners have been black? It it racist to say that they are better runners? Or does the evidence simply overide that?

Totally agree with this.

Apart from an AFL employee being completely exposed as a loud mouth who can't respect confidentiality this story is so over blown it is amazing. It is like journos know they have a few days of column inches to fill so just run with anything to do it.

And by the way IF ANY of our players are bitching to outsiders about how much training hard sucks then they can seriously GAGF.

IT SUCKS BEING RUBBISH FOR THE LAST 5 YEARS AND YOU SHOULD BE THRIVING ON BEING SHOWN WHAT IS REQUIRED TO BE COMPETITIVE IN THE AFL.

If you don't like it then the AFL is not for you. It seems to me that too many are just happy to be making a bloody good living playing footy and putting in only when your contract is up.

It's almost like we have to just lop the top off this list and only concentrate on those under 25.

Who is this guy Misfit and what exactly is his role description?

It seems to me that the indigenous players want to be treated like everyone else right? Then why do we seem to have a special AFL employee assigned to looking after their welfare only? Misfit just seems to be a little germ who likes to big note himself to increase his own level of self importance.

How the hell do you "counsel" someone who is essentially just a big mouth who doesn't understand the basic concept of confidentiality.

Does the session go something like:

"Counselor": Yeah just stop blabbing everything you hear that is confidential to all and sundry in the media.

Misfit: OK no problems.

Session over?

What a complete w ank.

I missed the first half Hour, would anyone have recorded it, maybe, some kind heated soul could put the Beamer thing on youtube??? cheers, dl...

It really isn't worth seeing or thinking about dee-luded. Completely beat-up load of rubbish.

I'm starting to really think the media saturation of AFL is slowly turning me off the game.

There's simply too many journos all trying to outdo each other with any tiny piece of irrelevant c rap they can lay their hands on. So Beamer said "the coach" BIG #$^$#ing DEAL! Neeld said "i" instead of "we" - are you serious??

It's partly my fault for watching 360, Footy Classified, twitter, forums like this etc so I guess I only have myself to blame but honestly, some of the absolute c rap that passes as a story these days in quite staggering.

Completely agree with you RobbieF.

He said the other day that the irony of him now fronting both Reach and the MFC wouldn't be lost on Jimmy.

Thanks Don.

This is the one we're used to:

I definitely like the old one better than the new one. The new one seems to have a different baseline that just doesn't sound right to me.

A lot of our "average" players really need to step it up this year If we're to make an impact. I found it tough to put together a best 22 for round 1 that would beat very many teams to be honest. It's lucky we have Brisbane this week, safe to say I'll be fairly worried if we can't beat Brisbane at the G without JBrown.

Listening on SEN tonight with Viney they where interviewing Brisbane lions assistance coach Adrian Fletcher. They where saying that because quite a few teams have new coaches that there would be new game plans to go with it . They asked Adrian what he thought of Melbournes new gameplan his reply was . Its become obvious that the Melbourne players have been instructed to kick it long into their forward line at all costs . This is where Mitch Clark is a crucial part of that game plan , but he said that it was a predictable game plan and that the other teams will employ a flood in front of their forwards to counteract it . Then it would be up to the Melbourne players to keep it in their forward and hopefully kick goals but he said it would be interesting to see how Melbourne go with this tactic from the opposition .

I think you mean Finey - as in Mark Fine. Unless Todd Viney was actually inteviewing Adrian Fletcher.....which I doubt.

Matt Rendell is on Footy Classified tonight. I reckon he'll say that the game is heading in a direction where endurance is paramount and sports science shows blah blah blah whatever he supposedly said.

How long have the AFL known about this? Sounds like they've been trying to dispel this myth and mount an attack on "sports science". It will be interesting to hear the coaches views on how 2+2 interchange would influence the game. The AFL seem to want to get rid of the press and get players to play positions but I'm not sure 2+2 would do that.