Inner Demon

Macdonald = Joel McDonald = James Write that down.

If this happened in a Private or Public company we would have OH & S all over us demanding to know why. Ummm... Really?? Worst comment I've ever read on these forums by a very long way.

Yeah. That Bohdan Babicjuk just isn't doing enough to strengthen our players' jaw bones. Worst running coach ever.

If you're going to have a tantrum every time we're 3 goals down you're going to have an unpleasant year champ.

All the info is on the website in the 'Corporate' section.

Then why not say, "efficient user of the ball" or "quick decision maker" or any number of other descriptions that would accurately reflect what you were talking about?? Your definition of "mobile" is just flat out incorrect.

Dunn is 6'3", 93kg, mobile. Spent time as a tagger so has good defensive mindset. Kicked 13.10 from 11 games in rookie year. Works for me.

You are correct [censored]. He played as a forward for Tassie, and in fact, in his initial games for Melbourne. He's more than capable of going forward and probably should given the current team balance.

To hammer home the point, as of right now Newton has proved that he is lazy, selfish & soft. In general, he's proved he has no place in a senior AFL team. He is a quite serviceable VFL Full Forward. To clarify again, I agree that Fitzpatrick has done nothing to this point, and I don't believe he has earned a spot in the team at all based on his pre-season games. I think he needs a lot of time at Casey to help him develop, as is the norm with all young, big kids. Particularly given his background (CFS issues) he may take a little longer to come along. In the context of this discussion, it has been suggested that Newton could be thrown into the team 'to attract the attention of a defender' and 'maybe kick a goal or two' (paraphrasing). If indeed, Dean Bailey was to have a particularly bad stroke and decide this was a reasonable strategy, I would rather see him put Fitzpatrick in this mythical, bystander role than Newton who seems to play that role without being asked to. In summary, I consider Newton our absolute last resort for the so-called full forward role, Fitzpatrick is probably second last.

No. No cut off. You might be thinking of the promotion opportunities for Clubs with no Veterans who need to fill their list. Even then I'm not sure there's a cut off. With promotions for LTIs, rookies can be promoted whenever there is a space on the list for any period of time. For example, if in 8 weeks time it turns out Newton earns himself a spot in the 22, he can be elevated into LJ's spot until such time as he is fit to return.

I agree. Don't get me wrong, I'm not pushing Fitzpatrick's selection, I'm just putting him ahead of Newton.

If this presents an extra opportunity for anyone, I'd pick Jack Fitzpatrick over Michael Newton.

We have 2-3 Top 22 players not on target for Rnd 1. Let's not get too dramatic.

Why is that a bit rough?? There's no gate receipts in pre-season, what's the difference?? If anything this is good. WC aren't usually as strong in Melb, perhaps some chance for a win.

Precisely. Realistically only Cale & Liam are in our Best 22 from that list so it's not as if we're massively depleted all of a sudden. Rookie upgrades are on a needs only basis, not automatic if there's an injury.

Agree completely. Short of winning, which nobody reasonably expected, yesterday's game was almost everything we'd have wanted in an early-March hitout against a Top 8 side on the road. Excluding injuries of course, but that's footy, every Club has them.

Agree to disagree on Meesen. I wasn't suggesting any of Garland, Blease or Watts would be ready for AFL Rnd 1. I consider it to be a fantastic result for those players to be playing for Casey by Rnd 1.

All great news. Injury list is looking good. Gawn was a known quantity, he was always going to be a mid-season return from well before we drafted him and like all kids his size won't be a factor for 2-3 years at least anyway. Meesen is irrelevant, he's probably 4th in the pecking order on our rookie list and would've been delisted if not for contract. He was put in the same basket as Newton for good reason. If we've got Garland, Blease & Watts all playing at Casey by or before Rnd 1 we're looking good.

Good result all round. I particularly like that Bate is back on the park this weekend. Our injury list is shrinking quickly, on the way to being in good shape come Rnd 1 *touch wood*

Please, please, please stop calling every tiny, little thing that happens on a day-to-day basis ~CRITICAL~ I promise you that even if we fail to score and lose by 200 points in a practice match at Casey or indeed inflict a world-record beating on a full-strength Geelong it will create nothing more than a blip at either end of the scale and the sun will rise the next morning and business will carry on as usual and our short, medium and long term futures will be almost entirely unaffected. The one and only difference is that the bored, hysterical people who carry on like pork chops about every little thing will call someone at the Club who has vastly better things to do and waste their time shrieking about their baseless concerns.

If it's part of the 114 deals at $2mil - which is a massively insignificant $17500 per head I might add, which isn't impacting on players' decision making by and large - then Ken Wood has ticked it off. That's his purpose. If it's occuring outside of those figures, then it is illegal and we've already seen what happened to Carlton if clubs want to roll the dice on that front.

These endorsement contracts have been around since God was a boy. Media deals are included in this basket of '3rd party deals' too. They're not ultra-secretive, brown paper bag, sneaky deals that are tearing the competition apart, they are already examined and cleared by Ken Wood who is the meanest bastard going around. They are normal business dealings with high profile sportsmen that, outside of 1 or 2 examples from a pool of over 730 players, will in no way impact upon the normal business of list management now or in the future. Honestly, there is nothing to see here folks, move along.

Oh please. Spare us your 'professional' indignance. You can't really believe that a footy Club should've turned down a quarter mil per year (in a deal that the AFL leaned heavily on the Clubs to take) at a time when they were $5mil+ in the hole because it was just vital we were able to update training session timetables on an up-to-the minute basis.