IWAP

Can someone explain to me about the last stage. If Cadel makes up the time tonight - is he guaranteed 100% to win? ie. is it considered bad sportsmanship to overtake the yellow jersey on the ride into Paris?

He is out of contract. From a list management point of view our options are 1. Retain on primary list. 2. Delist and rookie 3. Remove from primary list (but we can put him straight back on in 2013 under AFL compassionate rules, if we want to). I feel for the kid, and you'd want to give him every chance to continue his AFL career if he can get his personal issues sorted out. I think at this stage no.2 would be the most beneficial outcome for both parties.

If he was to go, there is a future player of ours who i'd love to see in his number

It will benefit us. Unlike Football Park, they'll be as unfamiliar to the ground as we are.

What an amazing player, and from all reports a top bloke. My condolences to family and friends.

From the 2009 draft Fitzpatrick or Gawn are yet to be signed. Oh and apparently, Scully doesn't have a contract for next year either. Not sure if anyone was aware of that

I'm aware how contracts work, but it means that its not as simple as delisting either. Dunn may have a little bit of currency, but i have doubts whether Bate would be sought out by any other clubs. It seems to me we may have to make a couple of tough list management decisions at the end of the season.

According to this article, both are contracted until the end of 2012.

I think any booing was done by a very small minority. I followed his game today, and heard no booing, but just a few bronx cheers when he fluffed it (a few times)!!!

Thought another good game today by the young kid. Goes in hard, has pace, and loves to take the game on. Still a few things he needs to work on, but i reckon we'll be seeing plenty more of him in the red and blue.

Spoke well, and was very confident that Tom would stay. Basically summed up what the sane people on this thread have been saying. Any suggestions that Tom has signed elsewhere, is tantamount to an accusation that he is lying. Stated that there is much going on behind the scenes that the public and media aren't aware of.

Wasn't there a rumour before he was drafted that Carlton were trying to claim Scully as a father-son selection, as he was the illegitimate son of one of their former players? I'd say the Scully to Richmond rumour ranks alongside it for credibility

If i recall correctly, there was a rule introduced last year that a player can step away from football for a year on compassionate grounds, and be allowed to rejoin the list the following year. If we were to try the delist and rookie approach, i very much doubt that any other club would pick him before us. For a combination of factors, i'd be surprised if he is on our main list next year

The one Essendon player constantly linked with GWS is Michael Hurley who comes out of contract end of next year. Trust me thats the signature that Essendon really want.

Gary has it slightly wrong, and I think Emma Quayle is the only journalist who has a proper understanding of the rule. Clubs strike it rich on early calls So we'd potentially be able to trade for him from GWS, but he wouldn't be eligible to play for us until 2013. We would still need to trade something valuable (high pick/ decent player) to GWS to snare him under this rule.

Stockdale also goes alright. Would like to see both get chances on an AFL list one day.

The only difference between Buckley at Melbourne and Buckley at Collingwood is the quality of his team-mates. He looks fine when Collingwood are dominating (which lets face it, is the majority of the time), but in times this year when the pressure has been on, there has been his trademark stray kicks, and bad decision making.

There is a big difference between appointing Jimmy to this position at the start of the season, and this week. I'd imagine it was meant to be deliberately deceiving and shows that The Age is really no better than the Herald-Sun these days for muck-raking. I still have some reservations about the president overseeing the football department, but at the very least i'd like to withdraw my earlier condemnation in this thread.

Agree with this post. Jimmy has done a wonderful job with this club to date, but this just smells of trouble. If its just having a football person from the board keep in touch with the football operations, why is McLardy Jim’s replacement. What does he know about the on-field side of things? Whether intended or not, he has just placed a whole heap of more pressure on Dean Bailey, and really contradicts what he said the other day.

Given that Fitzpatrick played well in the reserves, and Campbell is due back soon from injury, it will be interesting to see how Casey manages the balance of Newton, Bate, Fevola, Mcdonald, Cook, Howe, Spencer, Gawn, Campbell, Fitzpatrick, Warnock. Unfortunately someone like Gawn / Howe / Cook / Mcdonald will have to play Casey reserves with so many talls

The piece that he wrote on the funeral for Aussie's old man was quite a good read.

That would be great! Although anywhere else we buy in the area will cost a bundle as well

I'm with Samsara on this. Mr Morton it seems to me like you are advocating for free speech, then trying to censor Nathan Jones at the same time. I'd be more concerned if that sort of comment came from the offical MFC twitter account.

I think its more the justification for convincing TBC members to agree to relocate to a better spot

The full proposal with lots of lovely graphs and figures for you has been available to members since July 2010. Maybe its just me, but i've received several documents from both MFC and TBC in the mail, not to mention a few emails from TBC regarding the matter. Its just a shame that it has taken this long to go to a vote. Merger discussion paper I'll guarantee thats more than Collingwood members got. On that note, i don't really see the comparison. Collingwood spent 14.5 million to buy their pubs. We are getting ours for free (but we need to take into account the debt, which seems quite managable given the value of TBC). The median house value for Bentleigh this year is $880,000 - but that doesn't take into account that Bentleigh is a big suburb, and TBC would be in the most expensive part, being close to the border of East Brighton. The median value in this area would be considerably higher than the areas bordering Moorabin. The size of the property means we would still be making money on the deal, even if we had to sell up after 5 years. The cost / benefit of this deal seems pretty good to me. Nothing in business is ever 100% guaranteed. Who would have thought the big brother house incident from years ago would end up biting us in the bum.