Good Times Grimes

This is what I expect we'll see, not necessarily what I want to see. Jetta-Dunn-Garland Salem-McDonald-Bugg Brayshaw-Jones-Tyson Petracca-Dawes-Kent Watts-Hogan-Garlett Gawn-Vince-Viney IC: vandenBerg-Kennedy-Stretch-Frost

Not sure if it's the angle or not, but his legs looks very skinny.

Top Up Candidate James Hird Open to Playing for Essendon

Only a club that has Mark Neeld on their books would be at risk of doing something like that.

Having him would've gone a fair way to offsetting the loss of experience that came from Cross's "retirement". We lost 601 games of experience with retirements/delistings at the end of 2015, and added 91 games in Bugg/Kennedy and 114 in Melksham. Excluding Melksham's games, that's a net loss of 510 games of experience to an already very inexperienced side.

Their stupidity will really come through when they announce that they've signed David Rodan, Shannon Byrnes and Tom Gillies.

But also potentially what will keep us from playing finals in 2016. We still have a very inexperienced list, and losing Melksham hurts this further.

The club will find a way to pay for it without "paying for it".

It's a bit strange, isn't it? I'd quite like one as well. Would also be a decent product to try and get into tourist souvenir shops...lots of people that go to Melbourne would buy them as they're not tacky like many souvenir shirts.

Fixed.

I'm not disagreeing with that. All I'm saying is that it's impossible to judge at the moment.

Obviously it's not an ideal situation, but we won't be able to tell who won the trade for years.

WYL, it's impossible to say whether or not "this trade is a complete crock" until Melksham's contract with us is up and we see the output of Mason Redman over the course of his career. If Redman gets delisted after two seasons and Melksham comes back to be a consistent member of our best 22, then it will be a clear win for us. I understand how you feel about the Essendon 34, but to say that this trade was bad for the MFC is jumping the gun.

It sounds like he's giving himself every chance to play round one. Will be interesting to see how injuries play out over the next couple of months and who we have available for selection.

That sounds like something straight out of Chris Connolly's joke book. I'm not overly concerned about his fitness/maintaining his football shape. He'll be given a program to follow and can still see personal trainers, physios, etc. It'll just be like he has a season ending injury.

Aren't you meant to be at training, Chris?

I don't think that people "liking" Olisik's post was them trying to put you down in anyway or lessen your argument. I liked it because it made me chuckle. Nothing personal.

More than a hint there, DD36. Gravity works just as well whether Dawes is in the team or not.

But Dawes can bring the ball to ground in ways that nobody else can.

100% membership... Very similar to North Korea boasting about 100% approval for Kim Jong Un when he's the only candidate in their elections and voting is mandatory.

Just a bit of humour, C&B. No need to take everything so seriously...you'll give yourself an aneurysm.

Hogan was targeted last year....clubs knew he was our biggest forward threat from day one. Nothing will be different about how Dawes is treated by the opposition in 2016.

We knew the risks.

Statement on Jake Melksham from the MFC

Not too much can be done about this... just the luck of the draw. Knowing Melbourne, though, if we played them twice we'd lose to them twice.