Jaded No More

Good on North Melbourne for not caving in. I would be devastated if the AFL was forcing us to move interstate, as would 26,000 odd members. If the AFL is so desperate for another QLD team (why? Brisbane can barely fill up the Gabba as it is), they should make a new one so they can pump it full of money, steal everyone's best players and give them draft concessions until they win a flag and the AFL feels vindicated that their stubbornness has paid off How on earth can the AFL make its clubs put 42 of its 44 players up for grabs anyways? What about what the players want?

The first thing Miller needs to get back, is his confidence. He has none, and it does not matter how aggressive or talented a player is, if they haven't got confidence they are not worth a dime. Hopefully Bailey and his 'no limitations' policy will help Miller gain that touch of arrogance that he had back when many amongst us (myself included) rated him very highly. I have a soft spot for Miller because he is a really fantastic person and I would love to see him succeed. He isn't the most gifted player on the list, but one thing he does have is a good head on his shoulders. He just needs to start believing that he is an AFL player again.

Would be good if we could get that figure up to 10,000 by the end of this year. With Christmas coming up, it's not unrealistic to sign another 1,200 members this month. We really really need to try to get to 30,000 this year. The poor year we just had will put a lot of people off, but hopefully with a new coach, a new direction, and our big milestone year, our fickle supporters will pull their pennies together and sign up. Every single membership counts!

From what I hear, the players are being worked so hard this pre-season and Bailey is such an uncompromising leader of such a strict regime, that if he does adopt a love child, there is a damn good reason behind it. Bailey ain't taking crap from nobody, and if he sees things in Miller, than that is good enough for me. I expect everyone's aggression to make a comeback in 2008, or even appear for the very first time

Come on now, I'm only looking out for our backline's best interests! Besides, I'm no longer allowed to check out footballers

Thanks for all of your hard work. Can't say I wish Richmond any success, but CAC certainly deserve all of our best regards.

Am I the only one who thinks that Jared has put on a significant amount of upper-body weight? Maybe it's because we haven't seen him in action for a long time, but in picture #7, you can see him on the far right (wearing a cap backwards) and his arms are clearly huge!

Us cool people at M51 all seem to call him Ricky... or maybe I'm just too loud to hear what anyone else calls him :D Ricky is definitely a good name, especially if you used to watch Ricky Lake (and I did... oh the shame! )

I was only kidding before. Besides, taste is a very individual thing, there is no right or wrong. Here are some more. I did one with a different red, which is a bit deeper, since not everyone can wear bright red. Sorry about the poor quality of the illustrations btw, for some reason when I uploaded them to photobucket the quality dropped significantly!

Haha. I knew a lot of people will look at it and go "what the hell". I personally think men's fashion is very boring, you don't have to indulge my rebellion against the usual silhouettes though. I'm sure I can come up with some more 'boring' designs

All official gear is boring and conservative. The way to raise revenue from apparel sales is to create a diffusion line of sorts, or a 'supporter line' if you will. The club needs to create apparel like tops, hoodies, caps etc... which people will actually want to wear, and not just to the MCG. I'm talking fashionable garments, with different graphics but still keeping that red and blue theme and having something on each garment that present Melbourne. Young supporters, who are the future of this club, will be more inclined to buy this sort of gear because it'll be versatile and they'll be able to wear it outside of football games. That means not only more sales, but more exposure. I don't know of any club who currently does this, and IMO it could be a real way of raising extra cash. I've made a couple of examples really quickly. One is a shirt/ t-shirt, the other a cap. Would any of you guys actually wear this stuff? Because obviously nobody is going to wear that horrible red polo. Ugh! P.S.- That shirt was NOT inspired by Ben Cousins

You guys are all class. I bet the girls just can't get enough of you Get back to the topic!

Still waiting for official confirmation...

Michael Newton, Brad Green, Colin Sylvia, Clint Bartram and Aaron Davey were part of an eight-man group that stood off to the side and took part in stationary hand ball drills when the intensity kicked up a notch. I'm sorry to sound so negative, but it seems as though Sylvia will never actually partake in a pre-season from start to finish. He is rivaling the great 426 for time spent on the 'not quite right' list.

Very disappointing news if true. We'll probably never know just why he has decided to leave, but regardless of the circumstances, I'd still like to thank him for all of his hard work and for bringing some absolute gems into the club (especially Brock :D).

You do realise that it takes time to move your entire life to the other side of the country, don't you? I assume one or both of his parents work, they have obligations, probably a house they'll need to sell. So yeah, they might be making the move to Victoria, but they won't be at training tomorrow that's for sure.

Those bastards are sure milking OUR 150th birthday for all it's worth. Would rather see other teams' players get injured thanks.

We've made finals for a number of years now. This year however, a lot of things went wrong. Not only injuries, but I think the coach's message fell on deaf-ears, our new game plan didn't work, we ended up relying on too many ordinary players and the list goes on. When you peel back all the layers, we have some deficiencies, but which team doesn't? The more time goes by, the less we rely on our senior players, and the better I believe we'll be. There is no reason we shouldn't make finals in 2008 given that our kids keep progressing. We should expect improvement from all our kids, especially the likes of Sylvia, Moloney, Davey, Rivers, McLean and Bartram who all had big injury worries this year. Apart from Neita and White, no key player on our list should be declining, and that can only be a good thing. Besides, you just never know what sort of transformation Bailey will have on our list. We don't even know what sort of game plan he'll come up with. At times, this team can and has looked brilliant. If Bailey can find the consistency that we've always lacked, than who knows what we can achieve. Will we win the flag next year? No. But I believe that we SHOULD make the finals. We are not anywhere near as bad as we performed this year. 2007 was a complete disgrace and it should be wiped from the record books as far as I'm concerned.

Well considering that some of them have to move their life halfway around Australia...

I love players who have character, not just skills. This kid sounds like he has a seriously great character, which will compliment the likes of Jones and McLean beautifully. Cannot wait to see our midfield up and running and FIT! I don't remember ever having McLean, Jones, Sylvia and Moloney all fit and going at the same time. Now add Grimes and Morton to that, and it's a wonderfully strong midfield.

I've actually heard similar things. I was told that Connolly is fairly involved in the coaching side of things, and that the program the players are undertaking this pre-season is completely different to anything they've ever done. Also heard that Bailey is a complete hardarse who won't take crap from anyone, and has already put a number of players on notice! It left me smiling all night after I heard that.

Every game that takes place in Victoria... just got to find enough original excuses to get out of work to go to Saturday matches. No interstate games for me due to serious lack of money.

I think we're all waiting for DD36 to get drafted, so that Demonland can finally make its big claim to fame! Get on it!

Thank god. Men should never wear bright red... ever! Poor Bater must look like a giant tomato in that top. As a fellow red-head (partially now), I can sympathise with just how unattractive that would look!

Don't care if the rule stays, just as long as they change the interpretation. Really, in years gone by, an obvious push in the back resulted in a free which is a completely fair rule. It's the over umpiring this year and the complete inconsistencies that ruined the flow of games. I don't see an issue with having your hands on your opponents back, as long as you don't push them out of a contest, it should be left alone.