Pates

The interesting thing that's coming out of this (at this stage) is that CC is the one in the firing line. But what can he be done for? IF Bails, and thus Melbourne, is not found to have tanked then what rule did CC breach? The ever broadening "bringing the game into disrepute"? Based on a comment that many say could be classified as flippant? God and just when I thought this whole thing couldn't get murkier. Whether charges are laid against the club or just Chris we should defend them. It's the new Melbourne and we will not roll over.

Just thought I'd throw up another smokey to be in the leadership group, Dunn. He's experience and one that looked like he was gone for all money mid year and then produced some good form down back. He's also one of the more out there blokes that seems to involve people at training. Might be a direct replacement for Barts. The other smokey is Jordie, clearly well regarded by the coaching staff and doesn't leave anything out on the park.

I don't deny Deegirl's claims here, i've seen some of her past work on 'ology, but I seriously doubt that anything will happen until after NY. The last thing the AFL would want is a sh!t fight over the Christmas/NY break, you could perhaps say it's a tactic to make our job all that more difficult in a defense strategy but it's terrible publicity for the AFL to do it at this time. BTW is this one of the signs of the apocalypse?

Yeah some work needed from the headline writers there! Good news that he's progressing as expected, sounds like round 1 next year is on the cards, I just hope (and expect) that they don't try and push it. He's a long term player, if he has to wait a week or two longer than he wants then so be it. But it sounds like the medical staff are ticking all the right boxes here.

Grimes/JT Captain Jones VC Clark Frawley Howe or Rodan Dawes Jamar We could hold off on Howe as he is still only young and is developing him game, possibly put in D-Rod instead. Everything I've heard about him so far is that he's been a great mentor to the young blokes and is well regarded. Most of the people that have spoken up during the Darwin trip have been in the leadership group before so I can't see it changing much.

The combination of Neeld, Craig and Misson is changing the club, and I couldn't be happier. He's been a brilliant get.

It really is a shame we've missed out on him, sounds like the guys had an emotional roller coster over the last few weeks. Not picked up in the NAB draft, training with us and for all he's been told will be a demon, gets to know all the players only to be picked up by Freo. Sounds like the coaching staff tried to make it as easy as they could for him, good comments from Neeld. Good luck to him.

While I agree he needs to develop his kicking skills, he has great great in and under ability and I see him being in our best 22 for a long time to come. It's actually interesting reading some of the comments and they parallel a lot of what Jones had to work on. Nate has incredible tenacity and desire to improve, and I reckon Jordie is of a very similar mold, he should most definitely use Jones as his inspiration for improvement. I can't see him getting to Nathans level but if he continues to negate key players from the opposition and hurt them by gaining possession for the team then he's done his job. Anything after that is a bonus IMO. You only need to look at how he's won the last 3 coaches award at the B&F to see how highly regarded he is at the club. Remember everything that's been said about Barty? These are the guys that shape club culture.

What I want to see is one year where we aren't in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. We had so many distractions last year and so many negative stories written that it would have been impossible for the players not to be distracted. Of course we could go worse next year, it's a possibility as is making top 4 (admittedly going worse is more likely), but the way we have drafted and traded we are no longer a team that's lightly framed and easily intimidated, I would be surprised and disappointed if we weren't on the up in 2013.

My concern with Trenners in 2012 was that he seemed to lose his attacking edge, but I did feel that it could be attributed to him being awarded the captaincy. He's a strong character and he wouldn't have been happy with much of his form for 2012, I'm confident 2013 will be a big year for him.

A mate is a Geelong fan and he reckons Gillies will be a very good pick up, could be a smokey for best first year. Safe money would be on Viney.

No issue with that, I have faith in him but not blind faith. What he's done with the squad in the off-season I think is exactly what we needed, we've got rid of a lot of players that have been eternal frustrations for just about everyone on this board and really I can only name Gysberts as the one that could come back and bite us. Having said that, at this point it's still all just talk. I'm looking forward to seeing them back it up in round 1.

Much as I want the new recruits to earn the higher numbers, I reckon #3 would be a good fit for Viney. Bit surprised that Dawes didn't ask for/get #31 given that was his number at the Pies and the significance at Melbourne.

Surely if their facing the axe they would re-think the use of two cranes (a bit much for the size of the show IMO), especially if the next option is to drop back to being a community show being made made out of RMIT.

I heard Hulk was another nickname of his, works on a couple of levels given his size. Hoges would be pretty standard you'd think, along the lines of Jonesy, Nicho, Trenners etc.

Hopefully will be given another home somewhere else, perhaps SBS or back to NITV. I didn't really watch it that much, there's so many other shows on at that time that are similar, but I mate of mine worked on it so it's a shame to hear it given the axe.

That's exactly it, I will confess to not being the biggest fan of Basketball but it does seem to me to be very back an forth and only gets going when a team is on a roll with interceptions etc. They need to the music and hoopla between points because there are so many and without it it might get a little ho hum. I went to the GC NAB cup tri-match this year and it was utterly ridiculous hearing music pumping between goals. Music on low volume pre-match is ok to fill the background atmosphere, but some of the crap that goals on between goals is stupid.

Pretty much all depth players, Dunn may have a permanent role but Sellar and MacDonald should be stop gaps.

One of the biggest hearts at the club, he knew his skill limitations so made sure he made up for it in sheer determination. It's a travesty that he missed out of playing finals in his first year after he played every game before getting injured in the last round of the year. I hope this cutting edge technique can allow him to get his knees to good health and it doesn't affect him for the rest of his life. Good luck for the future, and thanks for giving everything every single time you put on the red and blue.

We've escaped the possibility of us losing our picks this year which was no. 1 for me. But to hear how the club is proceeding with this is heart lifting, we have been in the AFL's pocket for a very long time and rolled over at their whim. We won't be rolling over this time. There is very little physical evidence to prove anything, and it appears any (hearsay) evidence they have can be discredited by the way the investigation has been carried out. At the end of the day they have to prove without a shadow of a doubt that our motives were based purely on us losing the games in question. Out priority may not have been winning, we don't deny this, but was it our priority to lose?

Twice he's done close to full pre-seasons only to be cleaned up in NAB/practice matches, both injuries would have set him back quite a bit (jaw and back). He was showing good signs in the second half so hopefully he can get a full pre-season and not get cleaned up by a cheap shot (not that the offender would get for it anyway).

I always thought long term the idea of us having our own team based out of Casey was the way to go, although not like this. This would be particularly costly with us possibly having to bail the Scorps out of debt.

If nothing happens to us I don't think we should sue. But I would advocate a few things: - we dump The Age as a sponsor and make it clear to the members and fans why. - impose a club boycott of the paper, not necessarily buy but comments and stories. If at a press conference and it is an age reporter asking a question (apart from Gary if he sticks with them), have a company line we use every time, "I'm sorry but our club will not answer questions from connections to The Age". - give every exclusive to the HS and the AFL website. The Age will have to get all their info second hand. We do this for one season, reassess and then make a decision to continue or rescind the boycott. If CW and The Age issue a formal apology we stop the boycott.

It sounds like this "vault" meeting is the key part of the investigation, Bailey's testimony could be one of the most important of all. I must admit I was one that got sucked into thinking the meeting was designed to talk about the prospect of tanking, when in actual fact it was a small part of a regular meeting.

Considering how quickly Gary went to Brayshaws defense (in part 2) about the arrogant idea that she was speaking for the public, could be very interesting to see how he confronts her about essentially calling his best mate that's passed away a liar. Brayshaw can annoy me sometimes, but his role as president of North has saved their club and he should be given every bit as much credit as Jimmy was given.