Inner Demon

I don't mind all the added speculation and rumour mongering on Ricky. It'll just make the club look that much better when they re-sign him.

Crucial point for the critics of resting Scull & Trenners to consider. If Miller playing deep forward for the majority of the contest lost nearly 4kgs during the game, how much do you think the two boys playing on the ball would've shed?? There's only 77kgs on Scully to start with, it's pretty understandable that he wouldn't be right to go if he lost 5-6kgs.

6 Green 5 Frawley 4 Gysberts 3 Bartram 2 Davey 1 Moloney

Interesting fact: The AFL did not invent the capitalist, market-based system. More clubs than not have nearly gone broke over the last 20 years, regardless of their on-field successes, some of those clubs are now thought of as "power" clubs and/or are quite wealthy and turning good profits, ie. Hawthorn, Fremantle & Carlton. If it were true that the AFL somehow held down the poorer clubs and created an expanding gulf in wealth inequality then these clubs couldn't possibly have climbed back up. Melbourne is currently treading this path back up, with considerable assistance from the AFL.

Players had no run in their legs. We knew this was coming after the Darwin clash. No disaster. Next week is the test.

You're confused about cause and effect. The AFL didn't give the top clubs more supporters, those clubs earned them one way or another. From there it is a market system, there is greater demand for more popular clubs on free to air, so that who the networks choose to broadcast. If Melbourne had 50,000 members and drew that number to each game then we would get the plum time slots. But we don't.

No, it wasn't a fair question it was the same kind of baseless arrogance always seen from the Bash Bailey or Bash Club brigade. Somehow assuming to know better on topics they couldn't possibly. In this case the football department's judgement of a player's fitness is brought into question. Laughable.

It's a worry. The Cats love it in the wet down there. This could get ugly...

The Father/Son bidding system wasn't introduced when Hawkins was drafted. In fact, Geelong's ability to pick him up that low was one of the final triggers that made the new rule necessary. Hawkins was a Round 1 draft pick in anyone's book back then.

Do you really believe the AFL "deliberately create" a situation where Collingwood, Essendon, etc attract more players to games and higher numbers of supporters?? Wake up. The question put forward by this thread is indeed, a very sensible and thought provoking one. The realistic among us realise the benefits from a club-building and cultural standpoint in continuing our work in Darwin. However, given the reports we've been hearing about the difficulty in recovering from the ordeal of playing up there, it is a serious question as to whether when Premierships are on the line, we ought to be putting the players through it. It's the kind of question you'd love to ask both Dean Bailey & Cameron Schwab at the same time.

Remember we are dealing with the exceptional circumstances of expansion clubs during this time. The realities are that a lot of players are probably going to wind up with contracts above what the market would pay in normal circumstances. We've already seen this with the D Martin situation. That kid isn't worth $800K/year, but if Richmond want to keep him, they might have to pay him pretty close to that. We will have to do the same thing to keep a number of our elite kids.

Oh dear, Jordie McKenzie is the other bloke rested. That hurts our engine room.

Darwin game was always going to take it out of the kids. Real shame they miss out on playing against the best, but they're not going to learn anything if they can't at least run with them. Also, Dream Team/Supercoach disaster.

Scarlett is out for Geelong. Handy.

Somehow I don't think Cam Schwab is going to think it's a good idea to conduct the grand unveiling of the Club's new emblem months in advance on his Twitter account. If we make the reasonable assumption that we won't be re-branding the club mid-season, if for no other reason than I'd be willing to bet AFL guidelines prohibit such a thing, then I would suggest we won't get our new emblem until sometime in the off-season.

So you'd like to see us leave out young, talented players who have earned their places in our side by performing at AFL level in deference to someone who has done exactly nothing so far other than grow to a certain height?? No.

GA means no guaranteed seating. Whether there is walk-up seating at Skilled or not I just don't know.

Lot of ground to cover for Fitzpatrick to crack into the forward line next season that already has Jurrah, Watts, Bate, Petterd, Wonaeamirri, Bennell, Green, Sylvia, Jetta & Miller all jostling for position.

Sorry, two mornings before the game. Still, with a little forward planning, tickets to Skilled aren't all that difficult to come by. In fact, there are still General Admin tickets available right now.

He wasn't, his injury is recent. Regardless, if he's too injured to be playing this year, just like Gawn, then there's still no explanation for why he should be on a faster timeline than Gawn in cracking into Casey seniors let alone the MFC team, and beyond that playing well. The OP was predicting we'd see Fitzpatrick making an impact on the MFC team next season. From my perspective, this is as unrealistic as the calls last year/early this year to see Blease do the same. None of those 3 players have played a game for Casey seniors, let alone a number of good games for Casey seniors to earn elevation, and even beyond that play enough games for MFC to start being important members of the team. It seems that in this age of constant updates and 24/7 information people lose track of time somewhat and lose perspective in how long it genuinely takes players to earn a spot in the side.

Way too early to call. Fitzpatrick isn't even playing well enough to crack a game for Casey seniors. That is a long, long way from playing AFL at all, let alone playing well at AFL level. I don't see why you'd put Fitzpatrick more than a year ahead of Gawn in terms of development.

You're dead right, it's not that hard to get tickets at all if you're just a little bit organised. If you wake up the morning before the game and decide you want tickets, then yes, you will probably find difficulty.

Sounds as if this will actually be a new emblem rather than a new 'logo'. If so, that sounds terrific. To under the difference I am talking about perhaps contrast the Brisbane & Adelaide 'logos' with the Collingwood & St Kilda 'emblems'. Am I on the right track here??

He was on the list for the 3 weeks of footy he missed. He then came back and played a so-so game for Casey, then last week was a VFL week off for a state game. He will be back at Casey again this week.

Just a thought to temper the whole "We must prioritise development of a #2 ruckman" drive. This concept seems to assume that our 82 game #1 ruckman, Mark Jamar, has suddenly become fully developed. We're talking about a guy who was in and out of the team as recently as 2008, managed 6 quality games in 2009 in an injury-ruined year and is just 9 games into what is effectively his breakout season. He has tonnes of development still to do as a ruckman. He is going very, very nicely, but he needs to keep that up for another couple of full seasons to really establish himself and get Sandilands/Cox type consistency in his game. Don't worry about rushing to develop our #2 ruckman, let's get our #1 ruckman there.