Kento80

So glad for Aussie, that he made the call to stay, that he's made it back to the side, that he's kicked some goals and tasted some of the success that he had missed for so long. It must have been so hard for him to come through that time, one because of what happened, and two because of the feeling that when it did happen, he was so far away. I for one, feel so happy and proud of the strength he has shown, and can't imagine how happy and proud his family and community would feel. Stay strong champ, we are all cheering for you.

Pretty right here Doggo, the only thing I would question is the comments about Watts. I know he will be a great player for us and his development is important, but on the field he doesn't look hungry for the ball, a contest or anything much at all really. Sometimes a trip to the VFL can help to make a player realise that they are not living up to the standards required of them. That said I think you're dead right that he should have a go against the Suns, because if he manages to get into the game and score some goals, it could do wonders for his confidence and game. The flip side of that is that if he doesn't perform against a soft side, he's in trouble, and if Juice does perform well again I struggle to see how you can not give him a go. There has to come a time where any player who does not perform consistently gets dropped, and after being subbed out yesterday I feel that if Watts doesn't get up and about against what SHOULD be the easiest competition all year, that is likely to be the consequence for his lack of effort. He will get better and he will be good if he wants to, just right now I don't get the feeling he's working nearly hard enough, and until he does we can probably expect to see him spending the odd game in the VFL.

Couldn't agree more WYL!

Two glaring omissions for me are Mick Fanning - two time surfing world champion and one of the toughest competitors, and Casey Stoner - previous world champion, won first race of the season and was taken out by ill conceived manoeuvre from Rossi in the second. Also couldn't agree more with nostradeemus. Stephanie Gilmore has won 4 world surfing championships from 4 attempts. I'd venture there is currently no-one in any sport in the world with such a successful strike rate.

As if to back up my comments on Wednesday, the Hun has come out with an article on the very issue of sportsbet advertising in sport. AFL fans doom betting boom Hopefully this can get a bit of traction. I am fully aware it is a viable and important revenue stream for the clubs etc but I am just not sure it can be justified by that. The amount of cost to the community from issues related to gambling should be enough to make a ban, or at the very least some real controls worthwhile. I don't like the ads on the MFC website for "DeesBet", especially considering the history at the club with Schwarz and Ward, but think small advertising partnerships such as this are (only just) tolerable. That said, I'd much prefer we discarded that revenue stream. It's time for the boffins to get creative and find a better way to fill the void in the coffers. However the biggest issue here though is high visibility advertising. TV being the worst culprit by far, but field advertising, Guernsey sponsors all far to prevalent for mine. Why does virtually any commentary pre game have to include the odds, as if it is as important as the game itself. [censored]! I don't think for a second that the game is so hard up for cash it requires this dirty money to keep going.

I do agree a bit, however 40 pts would suffice for me easily. I think they will win back more respect by how they go about it, not how much they win by. As a side note I reckon the FD has gone about it the right way in naming a slightly different team structure, albeit on paper. A massive issue on sunday was players presenting leads for kickins, and I reckon putting Grimes to the mids with Bail and Sylvs will go a long way to rectifying that, and having Aussie, Morton and Gys in gives us a couple extra dimensions we had been short of. I am quite excited about it and hope that they actually run it like that for a bit.

Hallelujah jnrmac. As someone who has battled an addiction and seen it in others, I cannot believe that gambling advertising is still allowed. I grew up as a child thinking smoking was cool due to the beautiful adds they had and, I don't know if it was due to that advertising burning it onto my mind, when I was 13 I started smoking (despite by then being fully aware of the medical issues with tobacco) which started a 17 year battle to get it out of my life. I am now 6mths free of the bloody things, and loving life. But if removing the advertising stops 1 person going through what I did, then it is a win. I would give anything to go back and never touch them, as some of the worse damage is pretty well irreversible. If the powers that be can have the foresight to stop cigarette advertising in sport, why is it that the same foresight is curiously absent when it comes to gambling. Now I know that most people can gamble without a problem, myself included. And I enjoy a punt here and there, but why try to entice something which is such a scourge on our society. One only needs to look at the story of Schwarz to see it and I am sure there are myriad others (Fev and Ward being fresh ones). It is not a question of revenue, but one of morals. I can't understand how with the recent press relating to gambling and other issues in our game, that there is not more of a growing voice asking the question of the brainstrust.

God I hope Sculls doesn't read this bloody site, cause the things some people write on here make my skin crawl, can't imagine how he would stay if he read this s*@t.

I couldn't agree more Jurrahcane. I was camping and watched the game when I got home. Would have been ok if we were S*@T at the start, but by the time 3/4 came around I was waking the whole house at 1am. And potentially my neighbours.

So true RL. I know it sounds simplistic, but Franklins goal from the sideline beat singlehandedly IMO. As soon as he got that he was up and about, his lack of confidence from the first half was gone and it rubbed off on everyone around him. The other was the spray Sam Mitchell copped from Clarko, from what I've heard of it it was torrid and directly related with a change in Mitchells game.

Back on topic, if Bull is the official club nickname, I'll roll with that. However I reckon Mr T goes alright.

Bail n Tappy for me. Martin, Sylvia, Jamar ok but not for long enough. Although on stats it goes to Sylvia.

Stoked, glad to see the back of him after that. Although I would have liked to see one of the boys give him a little curry for it.

I suppose it isn't a stretch to ask whether anyone here remembers the game the weekend after Jimmy announced he had cancer. Davey gives away a free before the bounce. Boys hit the field with a vengeance I've never seen before at the MFC. To those of you who will point it out, I know they were more experienced than the squad we have now, but I don't think anyone can argue the effectiveness of the unwavering determination the boys had to win that day despite the abysmal season they had had till then.If you have that absolute determination to win you will not win every game, but you will make a damn better stick of it than yesterday. I do not want to see thugs on field in an MFC jumper, but by no means do I want to see players that aren't willing to put their bodies on the line to make sure they get the ball, affect the spoil, bring the ball out of the backline, cause a turnover or kick a bl*@dy goal. These things are basics, things you are taught when you are young, attributes these kids would have admired in their heroes when they were growing up. The skills will come, and for some the mongrel might come too, but I worry that it is an attribute that some of our KEY players need but unfortunately lack. Just try to imagine the filth winning the flag last year without it, I reckon I can pretty safely say it wouldn't have happened. Some of it will build as the players build a confidence in their strength and skills, and also a confidence in the gameplan their coaches teach them. All we supporters want to see now is not the final product, but at least the foundations for it, however unfortunately it is not at all evident at the moment.

Not beyond my understanding at all, I just don't agree with something you said, as it just doesn't stack up to reality. And clearly I am not alone (see below) Due to his midfield positioning, quite often mistakes by Jones will be stopped before resulting in a score against us, and sometimes even by himself. Whereas a player who turns the ball over by a wayward kick in the backline will quite often be rewarding our opponents with a score for little to no effort. Let this not be construed or twisted to suggest that I dislike Grimes or Davey or the like, I just firmly believe the eternal criticism of Jonesy to be quite over the top and sometimes unfounded. As you said yourself e25, "Jones wasn't quite as bad early on as I thought on the day", and that is what I am talking about. People look at him unfavourably and "on the day" mistakes are all they notice.

I sense a case of rose coloured glasses here. Grimes mistakes fine, Daveys mistakes fine, Jones mistakes unforgivable. If you look for mistakes that is all you will see, If you look for a player doing things right that is all you will see. If by halfway he's still "terrible", then I'll change my views, but until then "Carn Dees, Carn Jonesy"

Thats what I thought too, and god I hope you're right.

Not arguing that he made a number of mistakes on the weekend, but it is the first game of the year, and if you look at other players you'll soon find a whole host of mistakes that really cost us on the weekend. I don't know why but for some reason mistakes by Jones seem to be more heavily weigted than other players. Maybe it is because people have blinkers on a bit more with out "stars" than they do the lower rated players, or maybe it's the tatts which make people think he's a bit more flashy than he is. p.s. I'm actually not having a dig at your assessment, just trying to work it out for myself, because I really can't agree with the doom assessments on him

Yeah it was Jetta, and Trenners didn't catch him, but Jetta didn't really pull away, so I say he made a real good account of himself.

I've got a few points to add, as I have Jonesy as one of my favourite players, and can't see that changing. 1. Questions of his speed interest me, as I know he isn't lightning quick, but did anyone else notice the chase of Sumner down the wing in Q3 (?) on the weekend. He didn't catch him, but a player regarded for being very quick didn't pull away either. 2. Running goals from 50+. Him and Sylvia are probably the main two players in our side that can do this regularly, and do. Very important, and not rated highly enough (by fans not FD). 3. Not every player in our squad will ever be highly skilled, super slick stars. To make a team you need a combination of these stars, and a whole bunch of other players who serve a purpose. I agree they need to limit his turnovers a bit, but I believe that the FD rate his output and 'mongrel' on field very highly and rightly so. And I also agree with some other posters that people don't seem to notice too much of the good he does. 4. He has made the leadership group due to the role he plays in mentoring and helping with the development of our younger players. And while he has been around a while, he is by no means a veteran and probably ahead of his years in this regard. He trains harder than anyone, bleeds red and blue (which should not win him a position, but is a nice quality for a player to have), motivates others (has taken Scully and others under his wing) and sets an impeccable example as to the levels of professionalism required of modern day footballers. 5. As for talk of Viney, just stop. It's stupid and I'd quite happily not hear of it again until the time is imminent. All in all, Jonesy sets an example to our players that is almost unrivalled, and holds his position in our 22 at the moment. Quite probably in a couple of years he may be pushed aside by better players, but who knows, he may also surprise. That said, I'm not into talk of a couple of years, because all that is relevant is now, and people need to remember that from time to time. Lets please ease up a little. If he has an absolute shocker, of course criticism may come, but look a little closer and maybe you'll find that time isn't now.

Gold, absolute gold. And so is this thread rpfc, will be looking forward to how it tracks.

Exactly DL. And I potentially don't mind it moving forward either, because if it work, it works.

Well clearly we help, quite considerably, the clubs financial position. And I don't mean by purchases such as guernseys etc, but ongoing memberships, debt demolition campaign and so on. The foundation heroes (of which there were more than 300) each contributed $5k and some much, much more. But in a way even though I just have my membership, it is just as valuable because it is more than I can afford. But these constant contributions mean that we do need to know these details, deserve to know these details, because we deserve to know that the Club (board, administrators) are using the money responsibly. In this case, I think they are ok, but it is a grey area relating to good corporate governance. I think that CS has done an amazing job and deserves the trust of the Board and members, but there is no question in my mind as to our right to know, or question for that matter.

I spose the question the Club should ask in deciding if this is right (technically) or not is "Would we grant a realistic loan to a lower employee?" I suspect that if an Admin Assistant or someone a bit further down the chain requested a loan, even though they may be able to afford the repayments and their job may be fully secure, that the Club would say no. And if they did say yes then they are opening themselves up for any employee to make such a request.

That's pretty much the reason I started the thread. Couldn't quite work out the reason it was required. I have borrowed money off a boss before, as I wasn't able to secure a loan, but I can't see Schwab having that same issue.