DEE fence

Would have been sacked r5 if it wasn't for Paddy Ryder, he was the band-aid holding their whole game plan together. Saints never looked likely without Paddy, and they really got dudded on Dan Hannenbery. 

By the by, there has been talk that the bounces (throw in/up) are going to be taken alot quicker, regardless of whether the recognised ruckman is ready or not, with criticism of how long they wait for a ruckman like Max to get to the contest. If they (AFL umpires) enforce this, and we have dominant rucks ready to go, could be a major advantage to us, finally make up for when they were basterds cruelling Jeff White's leap with the 4m circle. Anything that protects the position of ruck is good, it's a feature of the best game on earth.

Everyone is talking about his off field dramas so I went and googled, the DUI and Code 12 were poor no doubt, but hardly in the class of De Goey, Stringer, Stengle recidivists. I for trust our crew to bring him into the fold, and his delivery into 50 could rewrite our conversion rates.

5 hours ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

 Dermott Bereton on Fox's AFL trade day succinctly summed up (in about 55 minutes) that McCrae doesn't put a high premium on good ruckman as did his coach Leigh Matthews, as did Leigh's coach Alan Jeans.

Clark Keating used to mail in about 3 games a year, usually including a flag, best role player ever. 

Am shocked at the goodwill from Pies fans, reading things like 'MFC is now their 2nd club' (obviously tongue in cheek), obviously a class act to generate such goodwill from that particular fan base.

Have to say with recent media, I'm grumpy on reflection now, as his 2nd half of the year performance now seems to have been faked. That when everyone else is trying their guts out smacks of a dog act. Patrick Dangerfield played to the last second with the Crows, that was class.

https://tenor.com/view/princess-bride-paper-cut-gif-10271988

On 10/3/2022 at 3:32 AM, durango said:

People forget he is an underage player I remember when a young skinny Watts came to the club and the coach thru him under the bus.

22 minutes ago, Sir Why You Little said:

Oh yes you can. 
how many Churches pay Tax?

How many Businesses owned by Churches pay Tax

God and Money are very tight 

Not sure what you are getting at? It is clear that not all 'Churches' serve God. My point was A) he is obviously morally flexible having been a CEO of a Big four bank, B) On so many levels being a banker (as demonstrated by numerous scandals, fees for no service, money laundering, wage theft, etc) is inimical to being a 'Good' Christian. Thus he was perfectly suited to Essendon (was always going to be a lightening rod though).  

And by the way not describing myself as a good anything, especially Christian, but I aspire to do better. I also 100% respect belief and the right to have beliefs, but draw the line big time at pushing any agenda that limits someone/anyone's' right to a fair go. 

I actually think you can park religious beliefs and work with all types, as much as I loathe the sentiments his church expresses, he is not a numpty his role with NAB suggests that.  He was also pretty comfortable with the hypocrisy of being a banker and a Christian - Matthew 6:24 "No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate one and love the other...you cannot serve God and money".

So one thing I think I noticed between our '21 campaign and '22, and that was the interchange rotations and the different roles Burgess and Selwyn have on matchday. Like Layzie said there is no single factor but a multitude. I do believe the reports that say Selwyn has a clue about his job and is well regarded.

But in '21 Burgess was next to Goody calling the rotations and speaking to players on the bench, I didn't see Selwyn do that this year. Either because I didn't see enough of the bench on screen (I watch everything via WatchAFL) or it wasn't happening.

To me this was a point of difference and have wondered why more than once, it seemed so slick in '21 I wondered why they stopped doing it, thoughts?

3 hours ago, WalkingCivilWar said:

 And because you KNOW Demonland is not by any stretch ignored by the Club in terms of reading content.

Some poor basterd (deliberate) from the club has to read DL? There is the reason why we didn't go B2B....

What is with the stream, have refreshed many times yet to see any footage.

On 12/16/2006 at 1:27 PM, Deeman said:

Welcome bigbob and I remember Swann as well but it was about 33 years ago not 40 when he made his debut. Very tall and the opposition worked him out very quickly so he became ineffective very quickly.

Another flash in the pan from about 40 years ago was Ed Burston who kicked six goals one week and was dropped the next.

Ed was one of my school teachers, he had more going on than just footy and it wasn't worth it to him at the time, wasn't dropped for performance.

Salem, Premiership Half-Back. A man barely alive. (Ladies &) Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world's best HBF. Salem will be that man. Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster."

6 hours ago, daisycutter said:

bonus prize for the first poster to find a bummers fan who actually approves of their new coach

Any I know have all gone Waco-Branch Davidian and are not responding to messages from the outside world.

6 hours ago, Sir Why You Little said:

You would have found him not guilty if you were on a Jury?

But your personal belief deep down was that he was guilty of the crime…

ok

I'm good with that, beyond reasonable doubt means overuling emotion, tough to do.

Sheedy (Sith Lord) and Scott (petulant North Korean dictator) will clash so spectacularly, love it!

Adem has time on his side, and being measured in his approach does him the world of good in a hot house media environment. Clubs want this approach, his time will come. 

This is so much worse than the supplements saga, it is properly evil, having a baby, either as a young mum or dad is a profoundly vulnerable time that is also super stressful, to pressure someone one way or another, and not support their decision based upon a commercial interest is so sick. I found out about this from my Hawthorn mate who has good connections to the board. He believes the report and he said Cyril has been waiting for a long time to fully give his side of the story. He is passionately obsessive about the Hawks and about as conservative as you can get. He mentioned that Clarko was known for being brutal (his words) with young players. He didn’t connect Cyril directly but thinks it likely. He is bereft and was making no excuses, however I would note that Hawthorn commissioned the report, fair play to them for doing so, and everyone deserves their day in court. I would not make any assumptions about what other players knew or did not know.

I like that the AFL appointed a KC to lead the inquiry, that is a fair way to proceed. I actually think the AFL is moving the ball on Race in the right direction for the country, not perfectly, but ever since Nicky Winmar things have been getting better for the conversations we have. When you look at the totality of what has happened in sport you can see that Racism has been a stain but at least some of the people involved have owned the problem ( maybe kicking and screaming but still). I love Australia, best country by far for so many reasons, and acknowledging that it has a dark history to resolve changes none of my love. I am a white Australian ex cop who has indigenous family members. My father who was my hero, was an utter racist(hard to acknowledge), and yet none of his five sons continued that hate, which gives me huge optimism for Australia.  @Neitz the Great I have your back.

Really there could have been another 5 who won and you would say fair enough, but effin Cripps should have been gone for 2 weeks, he left his bloody feet and chose to bump. Cripps is a very bloody good footballer, just not a Brownlow Medalist.

The little bit on Franklin's 1000th was good, pretty extraordinary footage, I love football.

9 minutes ago, DubDee said:

True but they are often not top 3 picks.  I think only Roughhead from that list is.

Think Patton, Watts, Boyd, Schache, McCartin - all absolute gun fwds in juniors and done very little.  Picking a tall fwd with a top 3 pick is risky for sure

Boyd delivers in a GF, money well spent, if we were offered a gun FF for season '22 @ 1mil with another Premiership, well I would have put into that kitty.

McCartin has the worst run of luck and then some, now a gun and likely playing in a GF as a key position player. 

The draft positions weren't wrong, more probable than not.

Watts, well I will always think he could've been managed better.

1 hour ago, Fork 'em said:

Just watched a doco on STAN about Australia 2 and winning the Americas Cup.
Of course it featured John Bertrand who spoke about how driven he was to win the cup from the yanks for the 1st time.
So driven he went to America and studied nautical engineering so as to learn from those he was going to compete against.
Anyway, near the end he was asked why he decided not to defend the cup as captain at Fremantle.
His answer ... "Content men don't win world titles."

 

It was a great doco, highly highly recommend, even my foreign mates got around it.

I think Black Adder is the answer to this thread

10 hours ago, The heart beats true said:

TMac in for Brown, JVR in for Melksham, Petty at CHF. I’d say Smith, Turner or Tomlinson to replace Petty. Yes it makes our defence weaker, but we aren’t regularly giving up 100 points.

The problem is we aren’t scoring enough from our clearance wins. This forward line looks a lot more difficult to hold than Brown and Melksham.

Petty, JVR, Fritsch and Koz as the pillars of our forward line for the next decade makes me excited.

As long as May and Lever are 100%, I think our backhalf problems (we gave up higher scores this year than last) were with injured or not right small defenders. 

I am interested to see Petty forward as he is quite mobile and is a good mark. He has progressed so much in 18 months, really solid growth and I would say most improved player for 22.

2 hours ago, Sir Why You Little said:

Our problems were structural, not cultural 

We were in every game, bar 1

We needed a Key Forward and it was not available 

Never agreed with you more.

BBB cooked, Weid NQR, ANB missed a bit too often, Gawn lost his radar (God I missed those 50m goals he was kicking every week at the start of the season), Trac launching Scuds, Melksham honest but not a Jamie Elliot, only Fritsch and Pickett had decent seasons.

Also Salem didn't seem fit and he was a huge part of '21, Bowey was off for a chunk and we had alot more injuries than '21 that affected our running power.

No one lost the desire to put pressure on but we weren't getting there in time.

I have faith we will be active at the trade table, massive thanks to the team for another season where I am super proud of the club.

The only culture I'm worried about is the MFCSS.