Deebate

I'm surprised through this whole appeal discussions in the media, that no ones mentioned the conflict of interest and the self promotion of ones own business by Gordon, its been disgraceful.

I had the unfortunate experience of living next to Lumumba early this year. He is not the guy everyone makes him out to be. He frequently woke my family (and everyone else in the apartment block) with aggressive and demeaning abuse of his girlfriend. What made it worst was that this often happened outside the window of my boys bedroom (they are 1 and 3). We were very conflicted and what we should do, we were going to call the police once, but it settled down; another time I went outside (to shut the gate) hoping he would notice that people were always around listening/watching. Not sure how anyone can make a stand about some social issues while being a perpetrator of another.

Well said London Calling. I also heard it being reported and thought there is no better way to split the club than by the top man blaming others, very poor form from someone who should know better.

Reading this is like watching Melbourne play, maybe we have the team we deserve! weak as pi$$

She also denied that she wrote these 5 points on Footy Classified.....so I'm stunned to see her now referring to them

"Other clubs did tank, although it is important to note they did so less blatantly and systematically than Melbourne. Certainly no other club was found to have held a meeting in which some 15 staffers were allegedly addressed on the topic." Please! Melbourne did all the same things as these clubs; tried young players, experimented, sent injured players for early operations, etc. so why is it more blatant and systematic if Melbourne did it? And regarding the meeting, its extremely naive of her to think that none of these other clubs had any sort of meeting, its just that none of these other clubs have been investigate for 7 months to uncover anything. CW's theory is that if you say it enough times, then its true; if you're questioned, argue black is white. She will rarely be taken seriously again after this saga.

"are so so flimsy, irrelevant and in some cases childish" Hmmm is she describing MFCs defence or her presentation of hearsay and re-telling of past events as fact. Unfortunately for her and her brand this whole Melbourne witch hunt has opened my eyes to all her articles, unfortunately not many are accompanied with any 'real' facts

Well written. I recall that Johnson actually played pretty well at full back. And Spud Frawley had been calling for James to play forward for weeks prior to the move in that game. And Miller could get near the ball down forward, so why not put him where the ball is, especially (if i remember correctly) when one of our rucks was injured, etc. etc.

More balanced, but he basically contradicts himself in the last 2 sentences. Even if there was a plan to tank, all the coaching panel did was move players around/out of position, or not pick players, something he says earlier in the article is not tanking. Rather than reading the self-indolgent re-invention of history by some journalists, try this for more balanced article, the match review for the Melb v Rich game, R18 2009, thanks to contestedfooty.com, makes interesting reading http://www.contestedfooty.com/2009/08/melbourne-vs-richmond-round-18-match/

I'll no longer follow footy!

BM left, do we really know if his leaving was as he says and that he is not carrying any sort of grudge, the 10k alone is probably enough? Tanking, most likely, but hard to prove especially when you lose one game with a kick after the siren and the other by 40 odd points. It's actually AFL culture to tank for draft picks, its been done for as long as i can remember. Some of the positional changes were strange, but two that are always questioned really sh!t me; Miller in to the ruck, our ruckman was injured and Miller had rucked in many other games without comment from the media; and Junior to back pocket, he made his name as a back pocketer/tagger and you could quite easily argue he was sent down there to help and lead our defence. Also Frawley to fullforward annoys me a little as a lot of radio commentators (especially his uncle) had been saying all that year that he should be tried in the forward line and when he is, its tanking!

We were given a chance to win today, all we had to do was play bad, instead we were appalling! The skill level at MFC is barely at VAFA level.

his disposal got worse over the years, if only he would stop falling back on his kicking! a bad habit that never seemed to get corrected. still a very reliable footballer

sad day really. glad to see the club held strong, sad to see bruce leave. not sure there is a winner in this one.

Not sure Davey can be everywhere. Its hard to take the kick-in and then be the creative player we need across halfback. Also, when he is tagged, everything seems to go bad, including his kicking skills. He needs to learn to handle a heavy tag, while the rest of the team is developing, rather than hiding from it taking kick-ins.