Dr. Gonzo

I'm warming to Cloke - will be a good lead up/high half forward playing from 40-80 metres from goal with Clark (and hopefully Jurrah) playing 0-40 metres from goal. His main deficiency is his goal-kicking but playing a high half forward role will give us a strong target coming out of defence and he has a booming kick to get it down to Clark/Jurrah/Howe quickly. Would definitely give up 13 & Sylvia or Moloney for Caddy (preferably Moloney). Did he mean pick 4 for a GWS 17YO Draft Pick? Not sure we can afford to draft a player who can't play for a year, we need to inject players into our team from R1, 2013. Adding 2 midifielders with picks 3 & 4, Caddy, Viney & Cloke would be a massive win and boost to our team for next year - if we were able to snag Cloke we wouldn't need Hogan (17yo KPF).

Stoked about this - he hasn't dominated yet but has shown glimpses in an average side and is only 20. He has a hard body and can find the goals, something sorely lacking from our midfield group. Hope we can get a deal done. Should be up on aussierul.es.com in the next day or so - will download and have a look. The thing is will be close to impossible for Essendon to work a deal for him. They won't want to give up a player GC would want and won't have a draft pick until the late 30's to trade (considering Daniher will be a first round pick). On topic - the only two draft picks I'm really filthy on the club on was taking Cook instead of Darling and taking Gysberts instead of Talia because I thought that we should have taken Darling and Talia at the time. Can't say I was paying close enough attention before 2009 or knew as much about the players available so can't really say I'm disappointed in the picks. But before the respective drafts I wanted Darling & Talia and was disappointed we let them slip. I still think Strauss & Blease can be proven to be decent pick ups especially if they can have a couple of injury free seasons. Gysberts & Tapscott have also missed a fair chunk of their careers through injury as have Bennell, Jetta & Gawn (though Gawn we obviously knew about beforehand and took a punt). The main issue we've had is keeping our draft picks injury free in order to develop them, it's hard to do that when they can't even get out on the track.

Did you see Freo yesterday? No way in hell we'll beat them in Perth,

MCC looking very bare today - may be lucky to crack 10K.

The suns gone behind the clouds - good omen :D

Has been happening for as long as I've been watching, this was also a hallmark of the Northey years.

And Sydney's NAB Cup games during Roos' tenure. These weren't games for 4 points but there was still gambling involved and what he did in at least one situation was far worse than "experimenting" as he actively told his players towards the end of a game to deliberately lose (can't remember what year it was but a player had the ball close to the interchange and he was telling them to either slow down so the siren could go before the Swans could score and hit the lead or to kick sideways/backwards).

Tanking does not create a losing culture, but I'm open to the fact that it might reinforce it. As a club (supporters included) it seems there is this overwhelming guilt about having done what needed to be done. You don't see any of this at Hawthorn, Carlton, Collingwood etc they just get on with the job. However I think the main contributing factor to a losing culture is not having enough good players and not having the off-field resources to develop the team.

Good sttuff mate, hopefully we can put on a show for her but it's really about the event rather than the result at that age. If you enjoy it she will too just hope you're not sitting next to any "loudmouths" if things turn a bit sour for us (hopefully it's not me!) EDIT: To answer your question, of course we can win today. Well that's what I think before every match.

Or perhaps, gasp, go on holiday in the off-season!

Yep MFC by 33 points.

And we get Viney for pick 23 instead of pick 3.

I can understand those who think we need to win every game we can, but at the moment the only thing making me want us to win tomorrow is that my multi is still alive.

They're fickle anyway and will come back on board once Viney, Cloke, Whitfield & Stringer (or whoever goes 1 & 2) are ripping it up for us. Do you really think if they're going to jump off they wouldn't have done so already or that they'll refuse to buy a membership just because we finish 18th instead of 16th?

How much leaner do you want him to be? He looks skinny compared to Hayes, Hayes looks extremely powerful through the hips/trunk/upper legs.

Casey must be tanking.

Mockbuster. Shlockbuster?

Yep I've got us to beat the line in a multi (-20.5) but seeing that we only have one ruckman I'm not so confident. Our forward line does t look too flash either. Surely we will win by at least 5 goals? Surely???

Melbourne by 21 points or more ofr my multi. For this, Melbourne by 33 points.

I agree - on another note watching this game reminds me how good footy can be. After watching our games week after week I forget what great footy looks like.

Yep there are approx. 102,500 MCC members with MFC supporters making up "over 20,000" so about 20%.

I read one on BF where it should be based on percentage rather than ladder position - maybe for the teams outside the 8or bottom 4 only? Pretty hard for the coach/FD to try and tank large amounts of percentage.

And in the NBA system they still have tanking. The only way a lottery would work is if the bottom 10 sides were each in the lottery with an even chance of getting the number 1 pick. This may be so but whose head do you think will be on the chopping block? I'll give you a hint it's not going to be any of the expansion teams. St. Kilda wore a clash strip in the 2010 GF - Nick Riewoldt was going to change into their normal jumper after the game for the cup presentation if they won.

We probably should do that otherwise we might get accused of tanking by not playing our best players.

I was more stating what I felt was the current relationship - what do the MCC get out of it at the moment other than to let the 20% or so MFC supporting MCC members know that they are aligned with us?