Grapeviney

There's still plenty of development to come, which will happen with more games experience and maturity, but I've never been more confident that very good times are just around the corner. Yesterday's game reinforced that opinion.

You mean this bus?

Please don't promote sites and other forums which provide illegal streams - you could land Demonland's owners in hot water. No doubt this information is available elsewhere online should you really require it. Thanks.

No it's not. Nothing referred to in your post qualifies as genocide. I don't really want to get involved in these political discussions but it irks me to see words like genocide and nazi (in the other thread) thrown around so cheaply. Nazi is not a synonym for a bad person, and not every act of war is genocide. It's not only incorrect, it's intellectually lazy.

I'm hoping he'll do a Spinal Tap and go to 11. I think that's as high as it goes.

Not a lot of detail in the announcement as to what is actually new - if anything - about this so-called Academy, other than its name..

Please leave politics off the footy board - thread pruned accordingly.

I wish it was closed, permanently. I know some want to maintain the rage, but, thanks to the endless appeals, we've had this saga shoved down our throats for too long now. Whats left to discuss? Who cares where Jobe's medal is? Let's assume he still has it, what value does it have - it's not like he can pawn it on the black market, or even show it to anyone. It's a medal of shame. I don't care if it's sitting in his sock drawer. I know I don't have to read it, but I'm sick of even seeing it as the next unread thread, just like I'm sick of seeing it in the media. If I was a Bomber supporter and I came on here and saw that everyone's knickers were still in a twist about it, I'd laugh my head off. It does nothing except perpetuate the us-against-them mentality they so desperately want to foster with their solidarity walks or whatever they called. At what point do we say enough is enough?

Better still if he'd said: "But I am full of the wrath of the Lord, and I cannot hold it in."

And this one's a bit of an oldie but still good for a laugh.

BeIN have started showing a series of football rivalry documentaries taking in some of the game's great grudge matches. Each hour-long episode focusses on two derbies. So far they've shown Celtic-Rangers + Slavia-Sparta, Ajax-Feyenoord + Flamengo-Fluminense, and Real-Barca + Olympiakos-Panathanaikos. Some are better than others but, for the most part, there's lots of good footage, great goals, riots, historical info and interviews. Fla-Flu once played in front of 194,000 people at the Maracana! Imagine there'll be plenty more in the series and they'll be repeated over the next few weeks with so little football being played.

The answer is (c) - both.

It's a shame the narrative doesn't match the reality wrecker. After railing against the likes of Goldman Sachs and George Soros - and hedge fund managers - during the campaign, Trump's Secretary for Commerce is a former Goldman Sachs banker who worked as a hedge fund manager for George Soros. The rest of the Cabinet positions are slowly being filled by the usual types from inside the beltways of Washington and Wall St., making a mockery of the pledge to drain the swamp. And now, after 12 months of 'crooked corrupt Clinton' calls (some of it justified I might add), we learn that David Patreous could get the nod for Sec of State - a man who revealed classified material to his mistress and who will actually have to notify his probation officer if he gets the job! It'd be funny if it wasn't all so farcical. I'm trying to keep an open mind about the Trump presidency, but I'm sceptical of populist politics, and it remains to be seen whether he can lift his vision from the minutiae and trivia about which he seems to obsess. Back on topic, we should never forget that Castro created a free, thriving, democratic and wealthy Latin American community. In Miami.

Really reminds me of Max Gawn, except that he's a lot shorter, looks nothing like him, doesn't play in the ruck and has a completely different skill set.

I'm no fan of the new design, and I agree the policy is applied inconsistently, but in the overall scheme of things there are bigger fish to fry. The club needs to prioritise different issues in its dealings with the AFL, and I'd bet (and hope) that PJ is more focussed on things like fixturing and scheduling than the colour of our jumper in a handful of matches.

If you can't criticise a player without resorting to derogatory language then perhaps it's better if you don't post at all. Repeatedly calling a player a 'spud' adds nothing to the discussion and is against the Code of Conduct. We can revisit this thread if Fitz gets another crack at it.

Nothing wrong with changing your mind, but in 24 hours you've had more positions on this than the Kama Sutra.

This thread? Seriously, there's way too much Essendon talk on here as it is.

Dear AFL, Please give us an opening round blockbuster to kick off the year, but not against Essendon because they'll be up and about, and not against Carlton because they've got the wood against us, and not against an interstate team because they don't draw a crowd, and not against a top team because that will hurt membership sales, and not at Etihad because our supporters don't like going there. Basically, we'd like to play Richmond every week (but only if it's our home game.) Yours sincerely, Demonland

That moment when you tell Todd Viney that contested footy isn't one of your strong points.

Yep, he isn't banned. And let's face it, given the lack of action so far in trade week, now is as good a time as any to log off for a bit. For me, the best thing that's going to happen this off-season has already happened, and that's Jesse. His signature is enough good news to last me the summer.

Roos could never do what Beveridge did when everyone knew he was leaving at the end of year 3. A leader can't ask a team to buy into a mission when he himself isn't going to see it through. Instead of aiming for a flag, or even finals, we've had the vague goal of 'improving' these past 3 years. This was an unfortunate but necessary consequence of securing the man we needed. It's also a reflection of where we were really at - a sub-par team whose first goal was to get up to AFL playing standard. In any case, as others have pointed out in this thread and others, we needed to perform major surgery on the list, which can't be done in a single year or even 2. Or do you think we could have been playing finals already with a list of self-believing Terlichs, McKenzies and Magners?

Been tracking this kid for a while now and he's put on some really good size in the past few months. Here he was in April: And now: