hardtack

Sure did... the added advantage of that particular game was the opportunity to actually meet and talk to everyone from the players, coaches and admin people to the guys that paint the logos and boundaries; the only downside to not being a part of the "official" tour group was probably the fact that I missed out on the official functions, but that didn't really worry me too much... I was never short of things to do :-)

Don't worry HT, I have given that consideration, and I wish it were that simple - I'm easy to relocate, but young kids are another story :-) It's funny, even though I have lived in Sydney for a tad over 30 years, I still consider myself a Melbourne person. I will however be visiting Melbourne for a couple of games in 2011... my frustration stems from the fact that my membership does not get me the same benefits as a Melbourne based supporter unless I care to fork out for transport to and from the game (a distance of approximately 1000km) :-)

Maybe if you lived in Sydney and were a fuly paid-up out-of-state member you might re-assess that comment. It is self-centred, yes... but it is also out of the frustration of not being able to head down the road on just one afternoon of the year to see the Dees play live. I'm just venting... so sue me :-)

I had already seen the draw BK... why do you think I'm not happy. I live in Sydney and have not been able to wander down the road to a game at the SCG or Homebush since April 2007 and it looks like the next opportunity may be in 2012 when at least there will be two Sydney based clubs increasing the chances of a Dees game here.

Not happy!! Yes, it appears to be a pretty good draw in 2011, but I am extremely disappointed that yet again we have no game against Sydney in Sydney... that makes almost 4 whole seasons without a game here... over 124 games since the last time I could travel down the road to see them!!!!!

Well, consider what it's like for us Sydney based Dees supporters... we have not had a game here since (I think it is) April 27th 2007. That is over 80 regular home and away games between drinks!! I wouldn't be complaining if I were you :-)

From the point of view of a Sydney based supporter, that is good news as we haven't had the Dees play here for the past two years; can't wait!

It wasn't so long ago everyone had written off Mark Jamar... who would ever have thought that he would make All Australian. Another is Jordie McKenzie, a bolt out of the blue making a big impression straight off the rookie list... unlike Davey, he was completely unheralded.

Haha... no HT, I didn't get to try either I'm afraid. In fact, I don't think I even saw a pie or a can of VB around the place, but did see a few people carting in cases of Pure Blonde. It was hard enough wielding a new 120-400mm lens without the added degree of difficulty that a skin-full would have thrown into the mix :-)

I heard a couple of team officials commenting on how big a ground it was. I got to walk around on it on the Saturday and overall the surface was very good; but this seems to be something that maybe they are good at over there... on the Shanghai to Kuala Lumpur leg of my flight home, I was seated next to an expat Australian who lives in KL who played in the Asia Cup on the Saturday (won by Dubai in a final against Singapore) and he was telling me that the ground they played on was built from scratch in just 6 weeks and that the surface was superb. I commented to Scott West that I thought the surface wasn't too shabby and that it was certainly better than Etihad... to which he responded that even his back yard was better than Etihad. The stadium itself was definitely not up to AFL standards, but it is a "heritage" building which I believe means it cannot be altered. It is said to seat 10,000 people, so I get the feeling (if that 10,000 figure is correct) that the crowd was not 7,000 as reported, because there is no way it was almost three quarters full... more like half-full I would think.

I have uploaded a few of my photos from the Shanghai Showdown to Flickr, so rather than linking so they show here, I'm just providing a guest link to my Flickr account... follow this link: My Flickr The photos have been organised into groups: "Jiangwan Stadium, Yangpu District, Shanghai" "Training Saturday 16th October 2010" "In the Rooms before the game" "It's Showtime!!" "After the game presentation and "mingle"" I also have to acknowledge Chris Connolly for his great help in helping me with tickets to the game and in allowing me into the rooms to photograph... over both days he made sure he could help me as much as possible and needed absolutely no prompting... a wonderful person! It is little wonder that there are so many quality people at the club now, with guys like Chris and Jimmy as their mentors/sources of inspiration. So if you happen to be reading this Chris, thank you so much for your invaluable assistance.

Could someone please direct me to the topic where I might find some information regarding progress of the David Hale trade wheeling and dealing?

So essentially, the title of the thread is entirely wrong as he is NOT actually going, and he was "thrown in as a potential" (by the radio guy, I assume) while in the next paragraph "You are all just jealous that Tom could pull a 19 year old Miss Universe". Please don't ever go into film direction... IMDB may not have room for all of the continuity issues

Nate Jones and Campbell Brown will have a clash of heads... Campbell Brown stretchered off, Jones up on his feet as if nothing occurred and goes on to play his best game of the season.

You probably would have said the same if 4 weeks ago I had said I thought we were in a position where we could possibly be playing finals football this year ;-) Nothing wrong with dreaming.

I tend to disagree. I would have thought that if we lose another game before round 22 and we are no longer in finals contention, then Bailey will give Tapscott a run. It would be an invaluable for him. I would also expect to see Fitzpatrick get a run.

All he needs are a few bullet points - it reads like a list.

Yeah, I was considering going along to the Saturday event at the Shanghai Rugby Football Club... so please feel free to drop me a line on [email protected] and hopefully we can arrange something between now and then. I'm in Shanghai from the 14th to the 19th.

Posted this on Demonology and thought I may as well post here also: I have just paid for my (air) ticket to sporting heaven to attend the Shanghai Showdown (via Kuala Lumpur where I will attend the Malaysian MotoGP race the week before). So... I'm wondering whether anyone else here is likely to be going to the game as well and if so, whether there had been any thoughts of a meet up before or after the game. For me the tour option was just a wee bit (well a lot really) expensive, so I'm traveling independently having opted for the cheapest possible economy flight and cheap accommodation in the Min Hang district which means a bit of a trip to the stadium. Also, if anyone else is on a limited budget and trying to find reasonably priced accommodation, you might like to try this site: C-trip.com.

I was wondering when you would trot out the race-horse analogy; and you wonder why we consider your comments to be the stuff of fairy tales?!?!? Teams and individual players will ALWAYS strive for the finals, because that is precisely why they play the game. Do you seriously think that they are going to start tanking in order to avoid playing finals football??? Finals experience is invaluable, regardless of the results as it gives them a sense of the occasion and a taste that they will want to experience again the following season... if results counted and a smashing demoralised a team so much they could not recover by the following season, then we probably should not have won a game this season following the beating we were given by Hawthorn in round 1.

Well said Arthur

The argument that they are not ready for finals action yet is spurious at best... there is a reason why they say that teams with finals experience generally perform better in the finals, and we all know the best way to get finals experience... don't we?

Yes, they could be referred to as "The Sons of Satan"

Hang on... are you saying that he now has no talent as it was all contained in that "pustule they removed from his big toe"?? ;-)

Sorry belzebub59, but what a load of tripe! You can be sure that each and every week Bailey is hoping his charges will go out and win; in fact I'm sure that is now his expectation. Yes he has been experimenting and trying to give the younger players more experience at the top level, but you will notice that this is happening far less than last year, because now winning is what it's all about. We may have tanked last year to ensure we got the best of the draft picks in what was the last uncompromised draft, but you can be certain there will be no tanking this year to ensure that we don't have to play finals footy. Do you seriously believe that Checker Hughes, Norm Smith, Ron Barassi et al would have ever considered taking a "tortoise and hare" approach??? Essentially, finals are just more games to be won, and winning is what every player's expectation should be.