Macca

The Australian open starts on Monday and if you want to check out the seedings go to this site ... ... Seeds set for Australian Open 2013 On the Mens side, Nadal is a notable absentee through a stomach virus (must of been a bad one) . Djokovic (1), Murray (2), Federer (3) and Ferrer (4) are the top 4 seeds. Andy and Roger are seeded to meet each other in one Semi final whilst Novak and David are a possibility for the other Semi final. (2 vs 3 and 1 vs 4). On the Womens side the top 4 seeds are Azarenka (1), Sharapova (2), Serena Williams (3) and Radwanska (4) . Slightly different seeding match-ups on the Ladies side with seeds 1 and 3 drawn to meet each other in one Semi and seeds 2 and 4 drawn to meet in the other Semi. Australia's Sam Stoser is seeded no.9 and if she gets through to the Quarter finals she may well meet Agnieszka Radwanska (4). Sam is in the same quarter of the draw as Agnieszka.

What is going on with the Lakers ?... 5 games below .500 and on a 5 game losing streak (they are at home to OKC today) . You might be on to something JJ, although Phil Jackson is keeping the faith in this article ... ... Phil Jackson believes the Lakers can make the Post-season

Ha ! I can just see Don McLardy introducing that song to the faithful Or perhaps TJ

Here is Bill Simmons weekly column from Grantland ... The Always Reliable Mailbag ... this week's column focuses on the history of Bill answering readers e-mail's (dating back to the not so sophisticated internet days of 1997) Divisional round playoffs starts tomorrow . ESPN & OneHD are showing all this weeks games 'live'. Reckon Denver and New England should both win and I'm hoping for a Green Bay victory. The Seattle/Atlanta game is really hard to pick . What's happens to the Falcons if they lose ? Early in the week I thought the Seahawks, but who knows? Looking forward to all 4 games. See y'all tomorrow morning ... All times AEDT ...you can click on any team for that teams ESPN page (stats and news etc) Sunday, Jan. 13 (divisional round) 8:30am — Baltimore at Denver 12:00pm — Green Bay at San Francisco Monday, Jan. 14 (divisional round) 5:00am — Seattle at Atlanta 8:30am — Houston at New England Monday, Jan. 21 (championship games) 7:00am — NFC title game 10:30am — AFC title game Monday, Feb. 4 10:30am — Super Bowl

As I said, it's only a small concern. Early on in this thread, a few of us were indicating that they all get their stories straight. Our club needs to be working with Dean as closely as possible.

Yeah CT, you make a good point . Non success on the field is another reason this sort of stuff might happen . With season after season of poor on field returns comes probable sackings and possible infighting . Noses can be put out of joint, grudges are often held, backstabbing can occur and the blame game no doubt starts . Fingers are pointed in every which way and before you know it, leaks can occur . Not sure how you can stop all this by the way . And I'm not specifically talking about our club - that sort of stuff can happen at any club, any time . I have a small concern about Bailey. Not about him per say but his predicament . I really hope we are working with him closely.

Sorry this is a bit late - been on the AFL investigation thread ... it's a bit of a read ... Round 1 - pick no.5 Hashim Amla (Sth Africa) There's my Proteas pick gone Cool idea this one, HT. There's a lot of tactics involved .

I've sort of come to terms with the 'why us' bit . I can only put it down to a number of possible explanations . Scapegoat Sacrificial lamb The bully element Easy head to kick They need an example to show others Sheer stupidity (in the sense of where it could all end up - where nobody wins) Bloody mindedness Investigators are incompetent Mike Sheahan's 'pathetic and disgusting' jibe The OTC set up (?) The mob mentality Bandwagon jumpers The gullible roped in by obviously embellished articles in the media Vlad overseas AA out of his depth The perceived need to find us guilty Extreme media bias Caro's vendetta against Schwab and her general one-sided and largely embellished articles about us . Humour not acknowledged (CC) Our role in all this It's like it's a perfect storm . Obviously we have to be in fight back mode. Public support is very important and can't be underestimated .We would love this to totally backfire on the AFL - and it can . A week ago I intimated that this saga might end up in a somewhat unpalatable suspended fine situation but after the events of the past few days (the ridiculous fumbling accusations and the ludicrous 'tanking win' bit) I now believe we should accept nothing more than a finding of 'No charges to answer' .

The list of dodgy seasons is immense . Even non priority pick years could be brought into question . 2006 - Bryce Gibbs cup Yes rjay, and the Lions of 2011 . Remember that game late in the season when they lost to the Crows after leading by over 20 points upon entering the time on period? They could have only received a priority pick before the 2nd round of picks but at the time that particular pick was up in the air . Fairly sure they qualified for that priority pick with only a total of 4 wins, but the AFL decided not to award it to them One of their senior players made a vague reference about the way they were finishing their season around that time.

If the Hawks had not received a priority pick in 2004 there is a very good chance they wouldn't have picked up Buddy Franklin at all in that seasons National Draft . As it is they received picks 2 (Roughy) and 5(Buddy) . Without a priority pick they would have probably had pick 5 only . How do they win the 2008 flag without Buddy ? They don't . Leigh Matthews described Buddy's year as the best year he'd ever seen from any player . The Hawks lost 12 of their last 14 games that season including 2 losses by 1 point and another loss by 4 points . Wonder if there were instances of '3 minutes of fumbling' in those games ? We've got the videos - all we have to do is look at them . ... Season 2004

Imagine 14 banks being robbed by 14 different bank robbers . Only one is identified and caught . The other 13 bank robbers escape identification and are never caught . The authorities have absolutely no idea who the other 13 bank robbers are . The caught and identified bank robber couldn't really claim innocence on the back of the other 13 unsolved robberies . Obviously not . Now, imagine 14 different 'tanking' seasons by 14 various clubs . Imagine if All these tanking seasons could be identified with a bit of investigation . Then imagine that the authorities decided to only investigate one club in one season and completely ignore all 13 other transgressions . 2001 - Saints, Hawks. Eagles *2003 - Dogs, Blues 2004 - Tigers, Hawks, Dogs 2005 - Blues, Pies, Hawks 2007 - Blues, Tigers 2009 - ?????? With the exception of Richmond in 2007, all the above clubs received a priority pick before the 1st round of picks . (Wallace has admitted not making any 'moves' in their round 22 game vs St.Kilda . This game was played on the day before the infamous 'Kreuzer cup' or 'Judd cup') Some big names came with those priority picks including Judd, Ball, Hodge, Cooney, Griffen, Thomas, Roughead, and Murphy . Also, Cotchin, who wasn't a priority pick, but is a top player It could be argued that Judd was tanked for twice - 2001 and 2007 . It's any wonder he's gone a bit haywire on the field with his crazy indiscretions . It could also be argued that all the above 'priority pick seasons' were 'tanking' seasons . It's all there to be investigated . The same sort of tanking 'evidence' of those seasons could be uncovered if each possible season (and team) is given a 6 month investigation . Quite a number of years would be needed for these investigations of course . 13 x 6 months = 6.5 years . Unless the AFL want to 'fast track' everything and bring in some more 'Haddad and Clothier' types . Not forgetting the ensuing court cases that would possibly follow . Edit : The bank robbery analogy is there to highlight that in our case we could point at other indiscretions and say - "What about them? It's transparent, everyone was watching, we know who they are and we know what they did" The threat of highlighting these other 'dodgy' seasons in court is very real and one that the AFL must be acutely aware of . The possibility of other clubs being found to have gone down a similar track as what we have (list management etc) could be our saving grace . The AFL won't want this to go to court . *We received a priority pick in 2003 but we really were rubbish that year

In a perfect world we'd have no loud intrusive adverts . No water boys on the ground . Limited use of the 'runner' . No fireworks or bells and whistles . A few hard driving rock songs up until about 15-20 minutes before the game may not be for everyone but as of right now there's nothing but loud adverts and the overuse of ground announcements . We're never going to go back to curtain raisers so it's ads or music - easy choice really . The songs would need to be reasonably familiar to people who like either retro or new (or for those who appreciate both) . So it's mainstream rock (or pop) . Having said all that if they played the following track by Marilyn Manson I wouldn't be complaining ... this gets me pumped ...

Bon was unique . Brian has been upfront for 32 years now ! Was never a AC/DC freak but liked a lot of their songs . They still hold up ... Always felt that good rock and our game is a great mix . Can't stand the ads though .

And something far more recent from 'Switchfoot' ...if it's not blaring loud it doesn't work ... no wrinklies ...

Just mix it up . Some retro and some new stuff ... maybe Aussie primarily ... gotta be real loud with a slant on driving rock . Here's one from yesteryear for starters ... dee-luded posted 'Highway to Hell' with Brian Johnson up front but I prefer the version with Bon Scott ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_5kv8QeBBc

I was a bit of a 'razz' man myself, back in the day . Those triangular shaped globules were a sight for sore eyes on sweltering days Occasionally the 'glug' would be purchased (or not purchased) but more often than not it disappointed ...

Perth Band 'Eskimo Joe' released this song a few years ago . They wrote the song in memory of Heath Ledger (the band were in New York when Heath tragically passed away) . Heath was also from Perth . From wiki ... Macca 12.0 Some powerful words in this song ...

Get set for fumbling to become a stat this season . Teddy Hopkins will be salivating at the chance to add another item to his 'Champion Data' system . Dream team participants will be having nightmares trying to figure out which players are the 'fumble kings' . The fumbles category might end up rivaling the 'Key Performance Indicator' for top billing .

First of all, there's the '3 minutes of fumbling', now it's the supposed 'tanking' in a game we actually won . You've got to wonder whether Vlad read over the 800 pages of 'evidence' . Or maybe he did, but it's hard to imagine someone of Vlad's street smart ways letting both of these utterly absurd accusations go through . Both the fumbling bit and 'tanking win' bit couldn't be too difficult to disprove so why on earth are they part of the 800 page dossier? Why would you weaken your own case? We could use these 2 ridiculous 'charges' as a way of breaking down the whole case . Use their own evidence against them . All accusations contained in the 'tanking win' could be disregarded in other games that have been looked at and if they've mentioned 'fumbling' in other games then all 'actions' related to fumbling could be disregarded . (if, of course, we first disprove intentional fumbling and have the 'tanking win' disregarded) Just use your imagination on what fumbling is connected to - one example is : we fumbled the ball, they picked it up and kicked a goal With regards to the 'tanking win', anything they mention in that Port game (for instance, some positional moves) could therefore be disregarded in other games (losses) If one more 'absurd' charge happens to surface then this whole saga is going to look like more of a farce than it already is .

Think of the repercussions if by some absolute miracle the charge of fumbling sticks ! The mind boggles with the permutations Tribunal nights could be a tad busy if 'fumbling' is somehow 'outlawed' Suspensions could be as follows ... I week for an accidental fumble 2 weeks for a reckless fumble 4 weeks for an intentional fumble 1 full season for a 'Lairising' fumble

Maybe we can borrow 6 words from Vlad's famous words "There is no such thing as fumbling" (on purpose) I can't believe Haddad and Clothier have put the fumbling bit in as part of the charges (?) . Just goes to show how detached both of them are from what is reality and what isn't . We can only hope there are copious references to 'fumbling' throughout the whole report . The 'Fink' could have a field day (whether the whole saga ends up in court or not) The fumbling bit has to eventually strengthen our position even if there's only one mention of it . How on earth do you prove intentional 'fumbling' ? It's just ridiculous . Though maybe 'Mack and Myer' have tried to lighten the mood and decided to add some comedic elements to the investigation

Just a quick heads up HT . When it's a persons turn, can you pick any player to fill any spot in the team or is it specifically done in batting order? (for instance) . You can give me the answer when stipulating the rules when posting the 'Best XI thread' (if you prefer) . Cheers

This suggestion of intentional 'fumbles' is really quite embarrassing for the AFL . The 3 minutes that mattered ... The players association could step in here and it casts a huge slur on any player involved in the now infamous 'Fumbling fiasco' or 'Fumble-gate'. The accusation is so ludicrous that it's quite amusing . Is there a fumble count ? Is the opposition team allowed to fumble in the same 'said' 3 minutes . Can we pluck other 3 minute periods of games where there were more fumbles? It's so stupid it's laughable . Who were the chief perpetrators of these 'fumbles' ? Did the Tigers have a bigger fumble 'count' in other 3 minute periods' ?

Bruno Mars doing some impersonations . You'll possibly have to full screen it for the full effect . This bit is put together from a Saturday Night Live episode of a few weeks ago ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiKghWWQq9U

There's at least 2 ways of looking at the reduced rotations ... 1 - The AFL knew about it at the time and turned a blind eye . (why would they not know, being the governing body?) The club/Fink could argue that and therefore possibly have the 'charge' thrown out . 2 - The AFL didn't notice or they could say they didn't notice . We could argue that they should have noticed (back then) and because they didn't, it's partly their own fault . The club/Fink could argue that the AFL weren't strong enough on their own rules (back then) . Thus making the 'charge' hard to stick. Those are the 2 things that come to mind but there are probably more ways of looking at it . My view has a fair bit of bias . The Pro AFL view is one that I'd like to see explained (by anyone)