La Dee-vina Comedia

Might be a problem when we play the Gold Coast. (So we should assume someone at the AFL will mandate we wear the red version in that game.) Edit: typo

i just wonder whether the media have an unspoken rule that they must find one player at each club who is out of contract in the next season so they can fan stories about that player's future.

I understand Evans already has a Commerce degree and has been studying Law part time. I could see that he might believe his future is best served concentrating on a non-football profession rather than spending countless hours in the gym and on the paddock for no guarantee of a successful football career. And good luck to him, whatever he chooses to do.

Just for you...published in today's Australian Financial Review. The headline says it all: "Generation Y thinks work-life balance more important than cash"

I'm not saying we should do this, but could the club now choose to re-list Tapscott as a replacement for Barry? In effect, that would mean (I think) that we would be taking him on as a delisted free agent...delisted by us.

So when we play Collingwood, does Dane Swan or Nathan Jones have to do something to stop their tattoos from clashing?

They've already named the VFL competition after him. Isn't that enough?

I'd just call him The Force.

Technical question: Is Billy Stretch allowed to train with the group before the National Draft?

I'm glad you qualified your statement with "generally". Otherwise Blease to Geelong shoots down what is otherwise a cogent argument.

Every interview with Frawley since his debut has been excruciating. He clearly is not comfortable in front of a camera.

The irony about this training thread is that it hasn't regressed into a slanging match about the merits of various players. Sure, there's been a bit of banter about music and Jack Grimes leadership, but how often do training threads get hijacked and the real content lost in the mire? I guess because it's a non-training thread it's immune from the usual degeneration. PS: When training officially starts, let's all try to ensure training threads remain on topic and don't regress into criticisms of players, past and present coaches, past and present recruiters and, especially, Demonland posters.

Try again. Terlich is No 31 on the WJ Hit Parade, unfortunately without a bullet.

And it's unnecessary. Trengove goes onto the LTI and a rookie can be promoted in his place. Same result at a cheaper cost and with a commitment to a player (the new rookie) for one year rather than the two required for any new player drafted. More importantly, I have no desire to see our club terminate contracts and "pay them out". Every time a club chooses to do that it reduces its prospects of getting a quality player by free agency. Who'd want to come to a club that doesn't honour contracts?

I wish Mark Neeld well. He was clearly a very successful assistant coach at Collingwood. While it might seem to be an unusual place to go, it may actually be a tactical master stroke. Of all the clubs in the AFL, Essendon might become the one that needs the most assistance in development of new players if the ASADA problems force a higher than average turnover of players (either by enforced suspensions or because players "do a Ryder" and walk out of the club). And there is a certain irony on Demonland that on the one hand posters laud MFC's appointment of Brandan McCartney - a successful assistant coach who failed (for whatever reason) at the top job - and then seem to think Essendon has failed by doing exactly the same thing.

The delay might also be a condition of his payout. It would be most surprising if the Bulldogs were to let him go and join another club before all the drafting and trading period is done. I realise that February is quite some time after, but if I were the Bulldogs, I'd like to keep him out of the system for a while.

Serious questions. Can a player that's been on the list as long as Jetta actually improve his fitness by 10%? And why isn't he at that level already? Is it because as bodies mature there are still higher levels of fitness to get to? Or have we been so overwhelmingly pathetic on the training track that Jetta, like many others, was way off the pace?

I think we're being a bit hard on BP. According to this quote, he said, "I honestly believed that he has the potential to be the equal of Jack and Tom". As it turns out, he wasn't as far wrong as we thought. Scully hasn't set the world on fire and there was discussion about trading Trengove for pick 12 which is almost "equal" to pick 11.

Maybe our players weren't aware how hard they need to train. If all you see around you are players doing as much as you do, it might not be possible to appreciate how much harder other club's train. I seem to recall a year (2008 or 2009?) where we had only three players on our list who had come from other clubs. Now we have a greater spread from other clubs including premiership players and others who will broaden the experience and, in effect, teach the home grown talent.

I think I can see what happened here. The opening post is written by a person fascinated with rock musicians who died...or perhaps did not. I assume he was looking at the Abbey Road album cover, and the idea that McCartney was, or perhaps was not dead...ergo, McCartney comes to the Demons. Obvious, really.

People on Big Brother have jobs? Really?

This line in the MFC announcement I found intriguing: "He made personal and financial sacrifices, leaving a successful career and moving interstate." I don't need to know what those sacrifices were, but it seems to be hinting at something that might suggest he wanted to go back to Adelaide (the city, not the team).

While I agree with your basic premise that the Rookie list is an anachronism, the last point you made reflects a problem at the club, not a problem with the rookie list per se. There is no reason why and no excuse for treating players differently just because of the mechanism by which they joined the club.

Pelchen spoke on 3AW last night (around 6.30pm). He claimed he wasn't pushed but sounded quite unconvincing. More relevantly for us, Gererd Healy asked him about his role in the upcoming draft. The way Healy phrased it was to ask whether Pelchen would be around to see St Kilda draft Petracca. Pelchen said he wouldn't be - but then realised he needed to say that Petracca was just one player out of three they were still considering. Again he was unconvincing - so it seemed to me that Pelchen believes St Kilda has decided it will draft Petracca.