Jaded No More

Well I think they looked at the calender and went "why are we looking at a calendar instead of writing up Bruce's one year contract" Bobby, I know you've been a big supporter of Bruce, and so you must be upset by his departure, but just remember that Bruce is no better and no more entitled to a special deal than Neita or Junior were. Both took one year contracts and both were valued by the club. Bruce thought he was worthy of more, and he wasn't. Good luck to him.

Calm down, it was clearly a tongue in cheek comment. Sheesh!

Really great job. I love the 7 players, the background colour, the lighting and the balance. Much improved since the first try. No may I suggest you stop listening to the anally retentive complaints of people who probably don't understand how time consuming every tiny change can be? It's looking pretty sweet as is!

No player likes being handed their marching orders, and I suppose some players feel more entitled than others. For some, it was wrong place wrong time, because we were in a rebuilding phase. White, Yze, Robbo, Bizzell even Brown could have played another 2/3 years and would have if we were in a different position. But we had a duty to develop a list, and for every one of those departed senior players, came another space on the list for a youngster. When you consider that the likes of Bail, Bennell, Jurrah, Martin and so on were late picks, PSD picks or rookie picks, than you can start to understand how valuable those departures were to our current position. It's a tough industry and these days it's not enough to be best 22 right now, you need to also be best 22 for the future or your position will always be vulnurable. I have no issues with how we've handled recent departures, or indeed how we've handled our list building, trades and drafting. We are in a far better position now than we were 3 years ago when White, Yze, Robbo, Neita, Bruce and Junior were still on the list. If you're not moving forward, you're moving backwards, and that is pretty much suicide in football.

LJ... and it will be amazing!

I doubt there will be any new stock before December. Our old licensing agreement only just expired, from my understanding. That means production on the new merchandise would have only just started, and with Chinese New Year approaching fast, there is also a big chance we won't be seeing anything before next year. Factories are a nightmare this time of year.

OK then, can we trust the source of the above list? And by that I mean, was it published in the Herald Sun? Because Tom McNamara has been training with the rest of the group, so either someone forgot to lodge a form, or someone who wrote the list forgot to cross check it.

Do you need to permission to train with the club you've just been delisted from?

The less said about his departure the better, but he can shove his morals where the sun don't shine. We don't need players who think like that, or players who let their managers think like that.

Perhaps, but their presence in 2011 wouldn't increase our likelihood of winning a flag in 2014, and that's all, and I assume the club, cares about.

I don't think anyone here wants to see him fail, but we are all realists. Don't think the missing ingredient in his career thus far has been donuts... except for maybe the ones he's been getting on the field.

Those were exactly my thoughts. He looks huge, and not in a good way.

If we were as mean and ruthless as some are making us out to be, we would have told him that he had until trade week to make up his mind, or we'd actively seek a trade for him. We allowed him the luxury of leaving us high and dry a day before we start our pre season. How on earth are we possibly being accused of being in the wrong here?

I'd love to know which player can walk into Dean Bailey's office and get a guarantee on their future role at the club. As I've said, he is completely entitled to look after himself and his family's future, but as supporters we are also entitled not to feel as though the club has let him down. We were happy to pay him and have him stick around, and we would have backed him again if he had a good year and played 2011 the way he played the last few games of 2010. He obviously didn't feel confident in himself that he could do it.

I don't begrudge Bruce for a second, but I also don't buy a lot of what you've said. Bruce has not once been dropped in the 12 years that I've been a Melbourne supporter. Even in the last few years, with our focus on development and youth, Bruce maintained his position in the team week in week out, despite some ordinary performances and ordinary disposal. It is a cop out to say that he was happy with the contract terms and the money but he didn't feel confident enough that the club would continue to play him ahead of other players. Even when we were tanking, Bruce still played every game. I actually think that Bruce knows his time is almost up, and that if he could get a 2 year contract elsewhere, it would be the only way he could extend his career beyond 2011. That is his right and his choice. Of all the senior players we apparently let go too early or replaced with younger players, not one was picked up by another club. That tells me that we have continued to do the right thing and that our timing has been very good. As for Junior, Bruce kind of screwed him over with his late departure, as I'm almost certain we would have kept him on the Vets list had we known Bruce was going to ditch us on pre season eve. We needed to get rid of one veteran in order to elevate Green and free up cap space and list space. We decided we wanted Bruce because he was younger and still had an important role to play down back, and he threw that back in our faces. So much for loyalty.

I'm pretty sure the club has already planned how to cover for his loss, given he was never going to be part of our next premiership team.

Our young players will look at Green, who at 29 is most likely going to be our new captain. This has nothing to do with age, and everything to do with wise list management. Bruce simply wasn't good enough in his later years to warrant a longer contract or a guaranteed spot in the side. In fact, nobody is ever guaranteed a spot in the side. This is the nature of footy. Players come and players go. If the rest of the group can't deal with that, I suggest they go look for a new profession. We have done nothing wrong by Bruce, it was simply a matter of two parties not coming to a mutual agreement. It is not our job as a club to bend over backwards to keep someone who is on the fringes.

HAHA! I predict a new alias is about to emerge to tell us all how wonderful Bruce's departure is. It's funny how when he's gone, you always get a few naive, new posters asking where he is, but when he comes back, they cry to the mods that they want him out.

Hopefully it means we can take Tommy McNamara in the rookie draft.

It's because you suffer from MFCSS and you should seek treatment immediately. If it was that important for us to keep him, we would have.

I have mixed feelings of WOW and Meh. Interesting.

Think back to what happened following the GF that got Collingwood into strife... from what I've heard he wasn't far from the action.

Not only is he an average player, he is only an average person. I don't think the club would bother to be honest.

Morton tweeted that he's gained 9kgs since last year. I envy someone who can gain 9kgs and still look like Kate Moss' skinnier sister. Bastard. But seriously, I'm pretty impressed with Scully, he looks to have gained some muscle on that small body of his, and Grimes looks to be in top shape too. So now can we please start the season next week? I'm impatient!

Thank god we're sticking firm on this. Anyone know whether Jamar is eligable for the Vets list next year?