hardtack

Hope they start Fitz at full forward rather than Rivers.

I'm pretty sure Schwab was in Guangzhou a couple of months ago; so I think things are happening (albeit slowly). I expect that they may become more active once the trade period is done and dusted.

Actually, there were quite a few locals at the Shanghai game...yes a lot of expats as well, but I would have thought the percentage of locals was pretty good considering the lack of knowledge of the game and considering that the Chinese tend to stay away from most sporting events in droves. Even a major event such as the Shanghai Tennis Open has "fans" brought in the fill the corporate boxes. Another initiative I think you overlooked is the AFL Institute that has been started in Guangzhou in the Guangdong province.

Hird?

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!!!

If we had taken Darling in that draft, the chances are we still would have been watching him top the West Coast goal kickers tonight.

I thought so too, but now I'm more inclined to think that HSoG is just someone someone who has a mean turn of phrase, but actually has very little substance...maybe it's Caro? ;-)

No, that would be repetitive :-)

sad news indeed... or as Maynard G would have said, "wow, that's rough Riff!".

Thanks.

According to Caroline Wilson in this article http://www.smh.com.au/afl/afl-news/blues-dig-deep-as-mick-suits-up-20120830-253kt.html, Ratten's sacking was entirely dependent upon Malthouse being available to coach at Carlton: "With an emotional Carlton president Stephen Kernahan confirming yesterday that Malthouse's availability was a key factor in the sacking of his premiership teammate" Apparently a $3mil 3year deal is being touted, but there is also the additional expense of paying out Ratten. Kernahan believes his tenure may soon be over as well, given that he has presided over 3 coach sackings involving early payouts. Probably a dumb question, but I have little knowledge of the way a coach's salaries are managed... does this have any impact on their salary cap and consequently on their ability to afford Travis Cloke?

Unless someone from the board was to answer these questions, no-one can give you a definitive answer. Was Schwab really about to be sacked, or was he asked to back off where player affairs were concerned and told to do what he does best? Just what exactly was his patchy record... there have indeed been 12 pages, and you are yet to provide anything concrete and refuse to disclose who you are or where your qualifications lie; the only statistics of any relevance were provided by PaulRB on page 11 and you responded that statistics were meaningless and proceeded to provide a fantasy "report card" as your rebuttal. How can anyone take you seriously????

Didn't I read somewhere on here yesterday that MacKay has just re-signed with the Crows?

You just outed yourself Chauncy Gardener? ;-)

Alterations made where appropriate: You deserve no opportunity, particularly when it is your own self motivated agenda that has brought on any (albeit it, quite mild) abuse; as for "irrelevance", it appears that is a word that you use to describe any comments that dispute your agenda. Well, as my mother always told me, we do tend to see our own faults in those around us.

Let's see him get through a full pre-season without any off-field indiscretions... if he can manage that, I believe he can step up and possibly even find himself back in the leadership group.

Huh?

I would suggest ending it... there is no reasoning with the unreasonable.

And therein lies one of the issues I have with this thread... Cronk is a Storm player, he is NOT the Melbourne Storm. The topic title should actually be "Storm player Cronk's view of Dees training". Perhaps the topic starter is a trainee journo at the HUN? ;-) Yes we do have a few skinny kids, but our biggest problem is that we lack pace. Jones, Magner, Tapscott, Clark, Frawley, Beamer, Sylvia, Sellar, MacDonald, McDonald, Jamar, Blease etc aren't exactly walking skeletons, but, apart from Blease, unfortunately lack the pace to get clear with the ball.

HSoG will tell you that 186 was down to Schwab. HSoG = acronym/anagram for Herder of Scape Goats.

This is one thing that really annoys me... without Schwab at the helm managing the debt demolition, the chances are that the whole thing would have collapsed in a heap... the supporters put up the dollars, yes, but to manage a debt such as the club had and to encourage the supporters to contribute to the extent that they did, needed a very astute mind at the helm. Do you perhaps consider organisations such as World Vision to be pointless because it is the public who donate funds to help the world's poor and starving? Is it really as simple as that? The other thing that really irritates me are those critics of Schwab's sponsorship deals who will blame him for the EnergyWatch debacle and at the same time, cite the fact that other sponsorship deals (Kaspersky for example) were the result of supporters going in to bat for the club. Too many forget that even though a supporter in an organisation may bring the possibility to a director's attention, a company such as Kaspersky has to be convinced of the viability and size of such a sponsorship deal, and it is entirely down to Schwab to do that; sure it didn't work out as well as it could have, but despite losing both EnergyWatch (through no fault of his own) and Kaspersky (for reasons no one here is entirely clear on), he followed up, managing to find us two good sponsorship deals at a very difficult time in WebJet and Opel. The fact that one of these has taken up the option to enter a second year of sponsorship, speaks volumes for Schwab and might possibly lend a lie to the reasons some here were saying resulted in Kaspersky opting out.

i have taken one good piece of implied advice from this thread... logic should never be attempted after 1am.

I'd prefer to see them release the shekels during trade week...after which will come the cricket season, in which case they can release the bats.

Not quite sure of the point you are making here IRW, apart from the fact that it's easy to come in after the fact in order to prove that 20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing. We all (big and small) speculated on an outcome, and the thoughts were that we either did or didn't want him at the club... I don't think there was much speculation about it being a done deal or not.

I tend to disagree with this view that we have so many bad players... I think that with a couple of our underperforming older players gone and replaced with a couple of experienced FAs plus some well used draft picks (actual or as trade bait), we could see some of our currently maligned younger players starting to step up a level. As Monnocular mentioned in another thread, Jones would make a perfect mentor for the likes of Jordie M and I have no doubts could inspire others to lift their game over the pre-season. I have my doubts we could make top 8, but we could well be knocking at the door. As for Richmond Jonesbag, I think they are destined to remain in limbo as was typified by this year's performance when they all but had a top 8 position tied up and they then dropped their bundle (yet again) to kill their finals hopes.