Grapeviney

You seem incapable of discussing anything without referencing Israel and the Jews. Funny that. But I'll play along. Israel isn't perfect, far from it. But the criticisms you make, and those you refer to, all get an open hearing in Israel itself - there are genuine opposition parties, real elections, a free and open press which is regularly critical of the Government of the day, and groups like Breaking the Silence are allowed to say and do their thing. That's what happens in a democracy. Arabs sit on the Supreme Court, and in the Knesset. Try doing any of those things in the countries which surround Israel and you'll lose your head, or your hands, or whatever it is they do with political opponents in that part of the world. Not that I'm expecting any of this to sink in - we could be discussing the migration habits of passerine birds and you'd still find a way to blame Israel. It's a staple of left-wing ideology these days. By the way, the next time you try and reference these discussions on the footy board, as you did again the other day, your posts won't just be deleted, but you'll get a holiday from the site too. Shabbat shalom

My mail is that Watts won't play.

I reckon the AFL are fudging the figures. The official attendance for the North-Saints stinker was 26,000, which means the ground was supposedly half-full (Etihad holds 53,000). Anyone who watched on Friday night and saw the cameras panning over empty stands knows it wasn't half full, not even close to it. As a comparison, we had 33,000 at our game v the Bulldogs, which seemed about right on the day. But there's no way we only had 7,000 more. I reckon the real attendance for the North game was closer to 15-20k.

Cheer-squad leader Sophie Galer will be our very special guest on the Demonland podcast tomorrow night. Sophie has been involved with the cheer-squad for nearly 30 years, a role that requires an incredible commitment of time, money, energy and effort - a contribution recognised by the MFC last year when she was the joint winner of the club's Volunteer of the Year award. Tune in tomorrow night at 8.30pm as we ask Soph about her favourite banners over the years, who's hit the bullseye, and what it's like to be a member of the mighty Demon Army.

Bit of a mountain out of a molehill but I didn't like it when I saw it pre-game. The fact that the players got 'a little talking to' (Watts' words) about it suggests the coaches are of the same opinion. Best let your football do the talking for you, especially when, as others have pointed out, we haven't achieved anything yet.

The noise of the crowd in those final minutes was just incredible. And the anticipation of watching Watts run the length of the ground, and then the ecstasy when he calmly slotted it, is everything I love about sport and football.

Don't know where to source figures that disprove this but I don't agree. I did a journalism degree about 20 years ago, at a time when only one institution - RMIT - offered it. There were 50 graduates a year, and another 12 or so doing it post-grad and that was it. The ABC had about 10 national cadetships a year, and Fairfax / NewsCorp about half of that in each of their metropolitan markets i.e. 5 at The Age, 5 at the SMH etc. Beyond that, you had to go bush to get a gig. Nowadays, every uni and TAFE offers a number of journalism and communications degrees, so you have hundreds, if not thousands, of students graduating every year, and only a handful of cadetships / traineeships. Of course not every graduate wants to be a journalist, but many do, and the jobs just don't exist. As Fifty-5 said, most end up working in PR, comms, spin doctoring etc. There's a plethora of those jobs, but if you want to be the next Richard Baker (Kate McClymont is better), it's nigh on impossible to get a gig in a metropolitan newsroom these days.

There's also the massive torp he kicked from inside the centre square at Waverley against Carlton in the '88 Prelim (last passage on this clip), and this beauty against Fremantle at the 'G, also from inside the centre square. Others worth a mention: Lyon again, kicking the winner against West Coast in the '88 Elimination (end of this clip), and Todd Viney from the boundary line in the opening seconds of the '87 Elimination. Also like this one from Schwarz. But the goal from Robbie at the 1.50 mark of this video is one of the best I've ever seen from an MFC player.

Late last year Eddie slipped past Wiz on games / goals but their records are remarkably similar. Farmer played 249 games for 483 goals; Eddie has 14 more games and 27 more goals, with both averaging 1.94 goals a game. Milne's record surpasses both - 275 games for 574 goals at 2.09 goals a game. Interestingly, Jeffy (277 goals from 156 games) has more goals in fewer games than Cyril (273 goals from 185 games).

Only if you're a simpleton who fails to understand that 2010 was a lifetime ago with a different list. You're effectively saying that because Trengove et al were young in 2010, Clarry and Trac should be older in 2017. It's beyond illogical. Supporters need to stop foisting their own emotional baggage from previous rebuilds on the current group - they're not responsible for the failures of the past.

Has really improved his goal-kicking this year, especially from set shots. 2015: 40.29 2016: 29.14 2017: 20.6

Poignant pic of Roughy embracing Jesse after the game the other week, no doubt offering condolences. Coincidentally, it's 1 year to the day since his own cancer diagnosis. Thankfully, Jesse's prognosis sounds a lot more positive than what Roughy initially faced.

Good article here about the resurrection of Nev's career and his ongoing battle v Eddie, with club-by-club figures showing we (Nev) have kept Eddie to the fewest goals in recent seasons. Sensational effort against a truly great player.

Exactly - not all head knocks lead to concussion. Some of the amateur guesswork on here is based on nothing more than uninformed speculation. I'll wait (with fingers crossed) for the club's assessment before hitting the panic button.

Even putting his family situation to the side, the criticism of Hogan is way off base. He came back to pre-season in tip-top shape, was arguably the best trainer over summer, had a great JLT series, played an excellent game against the Saints, and was pretty influential against the Blues, even if he did drop a few marks he'd usually take. All things considered, his attitude, effort and output have been exceptional. He'll come back when he feels the time is right but I won't be putting any expectations on him even when he does return - the coming months are going to be incredibly hard for him.

*Weideman As you say in your post, it's important to get the basics right.

How much better is Jeffy from set shots this year? Good to see that both he and Trac have really improved their goal-kicking. Garlett has 15.4 so far (after kicking 40.31 in 2015 and 29.14 last year) while Trac, who kicked 12.11 last season, has 11.2 to his name. Jeffy is on track to kick 40+ again and I wouldn't write off CP5's chances of doing the same.

Clarry needs to stop throwing it. Oh wait...

We just spanked them on their own turf in front of their own smug supporters - why the hell are we reminiscing about the 2000 Grand Final?

There's already a thread to talk about the drug cheats. They don't deserve another one.

The Black Dog Institute does some excellent work in this space and there are lots of good resources on their website. They've also published this great book where depression sufferers tell their own stories from the first onset of the illness, through diagnosis and then into recovery / management. There's lots of great little tips in there about how to deal with it as people tell their own coping strategies and what they do to help them stay healthy. There's also a chapter written by the partners / families of those people where they talk about the strain that mental illness can have on relationships and different ways to mitigate it. There's a similar book on bipolar disorder which I've found to be really useful. Good luck mate! Like others on here, I'm happy to chat if you ever need someone to talk to.

Jesse was on fire that day. In addition to the great mark and goal you've described, there was also this ripper right on 3/4 time.

Mini-bump. Just another reminder for those who may have missed it - Mel Hickey will be joining us on tonight's show to talk about the women's competition, her love of footy and life as a Demon. If you've got a question for Mel, you can ask it here, post it in the podcast chatroom when we go to air, or even ring in to the show and ask it yourself. Mel will be on-air near the top of the show, so tune in at 8.30pm.

Largest ever home-and-away crowd between the two clubs. Also the largest home-and-away crowd we've played in front of since '64, and the fourth-largest in MFC history. Not bad for a club that was on its knees just 3 years ago.