Rob Mac......

Thanks rjay. Think I actually preferred the accidental Farnham clip though! I am curious however about what % of Demonlanders you think might know who or what you meant by "BG"? Cheers.

Yes Akum, you're saying what I'm thinking too. But at 7.31pm on Page 10 of the Weiderman thread, "Wiseblood" posted that unfortunately he'd just tested poorly and wasn't nearly ready to run both ways/run out games yet. ? Not being a recruiting scout going to kids games, I really have no clue. Haven't seen Nyuon but loved Harry McKay's highlight reel!

I'll trust our selectors to get it right but; Jamar's gone plus we dropped Fitzy, leaving Gawn & Spencer our only AFL ready 1st rucks, so they must be considering some ruckman! Especially a KPF/2nd ruck. I predict Watts will relieve a little by going 3rd man up around the ground more often this year, even though he's no ruckman. Also the 3 guys we traded in are all lightweight. I checked our senior list and we now have 17 players listed as under 83kg. Seventeen! So hopefully they add less lightweight/skill (Parish) & more grunt/power (Curnow, Francis etc.) ..unless they really deem the smaller player is best available by a huuuuuge margin!

I like the whole new vibe of it and the promotion; old school, yet tougher & more urban. IMO cute little demon horns & pitch forks, etc. detract from that. "Melbourne" really huge, good colours + MFC letters is what we need. Of course it'll all mean squat if we get thrashed, but look fabulous if we win.

I hadn't checked the records either when posting Bbo, but have now & miraculously I was correct !? Tas was 5cm taller than Bernie Massey. Bernies career was shorter, from 1960 - 67. Tas Johnson 1959 - 69. I was very young, but rabidly at most home games between 1954 and 1965, and thought at one stage Bernie took over FB from Tassie when Tas went into the ruck and the occasional other position especially later on. ..but Tas probably took over from him sometimes too. As i indicated earlier, Tas seemed the bigger star to me, but Bernie took over full back very capably when Tassie played other positions. E.G in 1964 it was mainly B: Crompton, Massey, T. Johnson Thanks everyone for the enjoyable reminders :-)

Saw the heading & thought it was "Big Bob." I'd forgotten he died years ago. Who didn't love Tassie Johnson back then!! Fabulous full back, kick and elite footballer. A regular for the Vic's. I studied his dropkicking closely. Someone posted that he was only 6'2", but that was fairly tall back then. Big John Nicholls was only 6'2", and when Tas wasn't at full back, we'd use Bernie Massey who was noticeably shorter. An essential part of our golden era. All the best to his loved ones.

I entirely agree Petraccattack. Re. the article, that relevant information should have been given. No excuse that everything wasn't yet known about it, transparency should mandate that they disclose whatever they know. I'd hope St. Kilda have every right to get out of the whole deal if they choose to, and perhaps the AFLPA should pay the Saints costs.

Yes Earl. You know what you're talking about, and I know that the way you say the courts look at it does seem to be the unfortunate status. I'm not a lawyer (are you btw?) but I was hoping that, under the extenuating circumstances, there might be some legal grounds to challenge that status, giving the clubs & AFL more (and players less) control over what club they play for? Otherwise the lower 10 clubs can get any number of extra draft picks, give them very few years development, then they're off to a power club by the time they're playing their best anyway.

Thank you Earl! I agree with you too. On the subject of the bloody bullshlt "restraint of trade" argument. The purpose of the draft, draft concessions, etc., is to equalize the competition. You can't do that and allow so many players to play for whatever club they want (the powerful clubs)!?! They're opposites, and that should be fine in the context of our sport. A certain amount of restraint of trade should be perfectly legal to equalize our competition. It's become too much about the players selfish needs instead of the sport as a whole.

I totally agree DC. The players have too much power now. A rule change or 2 would help. One example could be: When Luke Ball let clubs other than Collingwood know that if they picked him in the draft, they'd waste their pick because he'd sit out a year rather than play for them; Ball was showing absolute contempt for the very purpose of the draft. There should have been more outcry then, plus a rule change. Such as; had a club picked Ball and he refused to play for them, in addition to sitting out a year, he should have had to give half his following years pay as compensation to that club that "wasted" their pick. The injured club could use and add it to their salary cap. ..because every club should be able to confidently pick whomever they want in every draft knowing their pick will play for them. Anything less is unfair cheating of the draft system for which the injured club should be compensated by the contemptuous player. With that rule in place, we'd have more leverage with Howe and Collingwood now, plus increase GC or Carltons chance to draft him. Not only did Ball get away with showing contempt for the spirit of, contempt for the equalizing intention of the draft, but soon thereafter he was elected president of the players union!

Of course, match committee makes much more sense Bonkers. Thanks for the correction that I've made to my post.

Thanks for the great post LH! Not sure where you got the list, but curious to see how the rest of our full list scored. I may be wrong but thought I read that 4 of our match committee give a score from 0 or 1-10 for every player on the day.

There are a hell of a lot of players in Sundays side that don't play as well as Watts. It's a bit strange.

3 out of 3 taps to gawn so far, but none sharked by us

Loved that we got him from the start. His round the body kicking under pressure is fantastic. His set-shot drop punt kicking is so shakey, maybe he'd almost be better to play on & kick round the body every time! [Either that or practice his set shot kicking like crazy.]

Dawes most useful game this year

The only stat we're ahead in is hit outs 10 to 7, not that that's helping at all.

Yes, Brown is 8cm taller than Dunn. Fitzy should be there to help defense & Gawn who is 6 HO's to Goldy's 4 HO's, but there're smashing our midfield.

Oh Yeah, Thanks Chook! hahah I'm in Melbourne, it's 4am, ..you caught me a bit out of it here

I'll guess we'll win one more. 2 more would be great! No idea who we'll beat, probably not Carlton because - I'm curious; When was the last time we beat a team we were favored to beat?

Agreed Akum! Petrie and especially Brown are much bigger than all our regular defenders. We really, really need Fitzy this week and doubley so to help Gawn against Goldstein.

Hello Curry. It also doesn't work for me if I select "Watch Replay" on the Match Centre round 18 bar near the top of the main afl.com.au page. It does work if I go to the next bar above and hold "Video" and go down to "Match Replay". Hope you understood & it works for you. Cheers.

6 Viney 5. Dunn 4 Gawn 3 Cross 2 Howe 1 Jones Honorable mentions- Grimes tried hard, & Watts

Garlett can kick a tricky shot, but not a simple set shot in front