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.

God we suck. What a let down.

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

Really dumb question, but what is involved in sponsorship of a player?

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 dont think anyone is on the Newton band wagon are they?

Fitzpatrick isn't exactly game day ready.

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

Common sense here.

Any chance that Newton actually earn a spot in the team. He is now in his 6th year and has been given more opportunities than his performances deserve. The ball is in his court to justify his spot on the list. In fact its been that way for the past 3 years. Newton just has not worked that out. Even more surprising given we are crying out for a capable forward. I struggle to see what has held him back beyond....Michael 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.

Just thought of something with respect to the Crows game.

After the first 10 minutes, our midfield got even, or even on top of the crows.

The crows had Goodwin, Edwards and McLeod who are very experienced and proven to be very high level midfielders.

We had Junior Mc and Green. The rest of our midfield was made up of Grimes (12 AFL games), Scully (0 AFL games), Trengove (0 AFL games), Gysberts (0 AFL games) etc.

Does anyone else agree that the performance of these youngsters was not just up to expectations, but in fact well surpassed what we should have expected and may even be unprecedented in terms of the possessions gained by Scully and Trengove, who had 50 touches between them?

Jamar must get a mention too. And I can't believe how much better he's getting.

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.

Disagree with your comments regarding Meesen. I was convinced he was a spud until the games he did play for us last year which were pretty solid and if repeated for the rest of the season would have him as a reasonable prospect to make it as an AFL ruckman. By reasonable I mean far from certain but in with a chance - similar to a Jamar 3 years ago, every bit as much a chance as PJ, Martin, Spencer or Gawn. I think his injury (stress fracture in a big ruckman) is the reason for his rookie status. I'm not yet ready to write him off, and due to the nature of our ruck stocks I'm hoping he can recover from his injury. If Jamar has a solid year and Gawn can prove anything at all I think possibly 2 of PJ/Martin/Spencer/Meesen will be let go, but I'm not willing to vote which ones.

Also feel free to disagree but I don't think Garland, Blease or Watts could go straight from a Casey practice match to the round 1 side. But they will certainly add to the talent looming on anyone who dared to under perform in round 1 for us!

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.

Exactly. It was so short-sighted and amateur of all other clubs to take the up-front money and lose proprietary rights over the biggest marketing opportunity there is.

I work for a membership organisation, and it would be a proposterous deriliction of our duty and goals to lose control of the best, most visible and dynamic tool to communicate with the members and world at large.

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.