The Chazz

Will be interesting to see how Ladhams goes at Port (they picked him with the very next pick after we took Filipovic.

So, a lot of people on here would be forming their opinion based on the highlights reel. So I might as well do the same. This bloke reminded me of watching a young Jack Fitzpatrick. His kicking style needs a blood lot of work. In the dozen or so taps they showed, I reckon 30% were effective. One thing that he does appear to have in his favour would be speed. The Rookie Draft is such a lottery (more so than the National Draft), but we always seem to have that knack of finding a player. Is it going to be this bloke? I doubt it, but I wish him all the very best, and hope that he finds himself on the primary list on the coming years. (FWIW, I made the same call about Max King about 3 years ago).

Only ones I disagree with are the McKenna/Grimes & Hannan/Newton. Just adding Lewis has improved our list. He is so much better than any of the players that we lost. I'd also have Hibberd level (at a minimum) with the best of the players we lost. As mentioned above, we clearly believe that our young players, in particular those selected at the top end, are what's going to take this footy club to "contender" status in the coming years. Ballsy decision, but I'm supporting it.

Generally this happens.

It's an interesting topic, one that I know gets raised on here time and time again. To be honest, I'm neither here nor there with regards to the NT sponsorship/arrangement. I'm absolutely supportive of any entity giving good money to our club, and there is no doubt that in our financial dark times that this source of income has been a blessing. The argument is about it being at the cost of infield performances for not only that week, but the following week too. Realistically, we have been a poor team for the past decade, and using the NT experiment as a reason for us losing games is an excuse rather than a reason. Is it something that we should continue long term? Who knows. But at this stage, while we are making a profit, we are still along way from being a powerful club that can afford to knock back good dollars. If we come out and win 3 particular games this year, both the NT games and the 1 after one of them (we have a bye after the Alice game), then we will likely hear noting of the agreement. If we can start playing a consistent, high quality brand of footy, I'm sure the local communities will really get behind us, and we may find that the interest in our team grows substantially, which will likely see an increase in revenue. But, if we are playing that level of footy, I'm sure playing those 2 games at the MCG will be just as financially beneficial. There would be something pretty special about us being able to take our next premiership cup on a road trip to some of the communities in Central and Northern Australia.

Great result considering; - Roos final year wage was still part of that (which some believe was too much) - We saw an increase in home ground attendances, even though 2 of our home games were played in the NT (which some don't believe we should do) - We basically have QBD game as the only home game where we host one of the "big" clubs I'm actually amazed that some people haven't asked to scrap the NT deal completely, now that it seems we are making a profit each year...

Pokies aren't helping North Ballarat's VFL team from a financial point of view.

Don't believe it was 10:19am (the photos were posted on the website at 9:25am. Looking at the other photos, I'm thinking it was just as they were crossing the finish line.

Pretty sure the target is to break the 10 minute barrier for the 3km time trial. With that in mind, and going by Gus' watch, he's closing in on that mark, and you'd expect with another preseason under his belt, that in 18 months time we should expect him to break that barrier. It'd be interesting to know where Gus did actually finish, and how far behind those in front of him he was.

So you mean we shouldn't be offering Craig Mottram a Cat B Rookie spot?

Love reading this... "When Lewis hit Jesse Hogan on the chest in a drill, the former Hawthorn vice-captain joked that the star forward should get used to that sort of service, to the laughter of his new teammates." http://www.afl.com.au/news/2016-11-21/star-demon-recruit-jordan-lewis-hits-the-track

Thanks for posting this WJ. I have seen little of Smith, so have no idea how he is progressing, but did rely a little on this forum to keep me updated. There seemed to be a little bit of ramping going on toward the end of the year, so much so that some posters were calling for him to be elevated to the primary list. Needless to say, I was very sceptical about that, and while you aren't our list manager, your above post has confirmed that I should hold off a little longer before I sell the farm for the boy.

That it is real? That Jordan IS a Dee? I've been waiting for someone to tell me it was all just a sick joke...

You're right, Daisy, it is my opinion. But your line above in bold probably supports my opinion. Maybe the club just don't think it is an issue at all, regardless of how a small minority of supporters email them telling them that it's crap. I actually don't know what we're disagreeing about - sorry!

Point is, the ones that truly care about it are the ones contacting the club. Until this one, I have never cared about our away strip, and as much as I dislike this one, there is not one part of me that is interested in emailing the club about it. I would bet that of the 20k+ members, those that dislike the jumper will be like be, and not bother contacting the club. Is it going to make me cancel my membership? No. Am I still going to go to games? Yes. Is it going to make me buy/not want to buy the away strip? No. Is the jumper temporary, and they will try a different design next time around? Yes. Hopefully you can see where I'm going with this. The club will take our thoughts on board, be polite and respond, then press "delete" quicker than they pressed "send". If you don't agree, start a petition and let's see how many signatures you get.

This is the problem. We have over 20k members at the moment, and only 98 people hate it. The reality is, of all the members, the main ones that would give a toss about our away jumper would be posters on here. I'd imagine this is why the MFC couldn't give a rats what emails they get, as they know it'd be from the very small minority of people/members that are totally upset with it. As I said on the first page, I do think this design is yuck, but generally I have zero interest in what our away jumpers look like. I have no interest in buying an away jumper anyway.

Jack looks like he has been pumping iron with Gysberts in the break...

You would presume it's because Barlow was offered a place on the GC primary list, and that any DFA that we are potentially looking at will be offered a Rookie list spot. Means more money and "more" security for the player.

No more on the topic for me thanks Stuart. We'll revisit at the end of 2017 (if we need to wait that long), and I will happily have a chat with you about it then. In the mean time, I'm out of the thread for fear of getting a ban.

Seems pretty reserved...

Wasting their time with me, Vagg, have never bought an alternative strip top.

Happy to voice my opinion, Stuart, but think it's far from damaging to my reputation if he does actually turn out to be a good pick up for them. That said, I don't think your views on Green have been reserved, so we will know in due course. If Green's failure means the drug cheat linger for another year at the bottom, I'm sure I'll convince you to hop on the "we dodged a bullet" train prior to the 2017 starting.

I don't understand the need to change it (what felt like) every year. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this year's jumper.

Gone to Essendon... Glad we did our DD and didn't pick up this bloke.

I actually think it would be better if the red trim was blue. I know it'd basically make it a white and blue jumper but there would still be red in our logo. As it is, with the red trim, it just looks awkward.