poita

The whole concept is a joke really. You would do more to promote the game, and get a better crowd, by scheduling it in any one of 100 country towns across Australia. I am all for the expansion of the game, and am very comfortable with the second Sydney team (less so about the Suns), but China will do nothing other than give the AFL executives another junket to take advantage of.

I wish we were playing Adelaide this week. We have been playing decent football for a few weeks and are ready for a challenge against a strong side. I expect us to beat Carlton, hopefully comfortably, but I worry that by next week we'll have been up for too long. This side is not good at remaining focused for long periods.

Mark Neeld and Essendon were a match made in heaven. Today is a very sad day. Thankfully we have finally moved on from Neeld's legacy, but as the primary architect of our woes, I'm glad he is far, far away from the club and hopefully never to return.

This is a distinct danger game. We should win, and win well, but Carlton will put in for four quarters. Will we?

I've said it before, Petracca needs to start doing the simple things well. He keeps trying to make the big play, when he should be just doing a lot of little things properly. Others have said that he is not team first. I think the opposite is true to a degree - you see him run to 50 metres out with a straight forward shot in front of him, and he will try some ridiculous pass over his shoulder to a teammate which will miss by 5 metres. I'm disappointed that Brayshaw, Salem and Harmes have all gone past him this year. He should be playing decent midfield minutes, but he just doesn't have the endurance to do so.

Viney in for one of Neal-Bullen, Fritsch or Hannan. Petracca needs a kick up the backside, but should stay. Weideman gets one last chance to do something useful. He is basically a witches hat at present, but it is not hurting the team yet. No way he should play against Adelaide if he doesn't get double figure possessions or hit the scoreboard this week. Garlett needs to come back when he is nice and hungry, possibly for Spargo. As for Bugg, never, ever again.

"I have suffered extreme racism during my time in the AFL and post my career from the AFL until this very day." If the AFL and the clubs were racist organisations he would not have been working in the industry and he certainly wouldn't have been paid a salary that is many times the average wage. I'm sure he believes he was harshly treated but I hate the thought of living in a world where anyone can just sue anyone else and demand financial sanctions because they feel aggrieved by things that other people may or may not have said. People become so bitter and twisted by things that happen to them, that it clouds their judgement as to whether a course of action is justified. In the long run he would be much better off by moving on with his life and not wasting it feeling angry about things that happened in his past.

We just need to be smarter with our use of players in games. I couldn't believe it when I saw Gawn rucking in the last five minutes of the St Kilda game. 4 games in 19 days and Gawn is running around like a maniac in a game that we had won 20 minutes earlier. At one stage he appeared to have tweaked his back, then he was off and running again. Like Viney, he needs to be saved from himself sometimes.

We should have been working on extensions for both Tom and Oscar pre season, but hopefully we can now lock them both away for at least three years, hopefully four.

There is far too much expansion happening far too quickly. Even the better clubs are already carrying players that are not at the required standard. Increasing the player pool by 75% over two years is just ridiculous and will clearly have an impact on the quality of the games. Expect to see less scoring and more packs developing as you have more players who can't kick straight or more than 30 metres. Hopefully we can keep the big 3 (Pearce, O'Dea & Paxman), which surely means that one of O'Dea or Paxman has to replace Hickey as a marquee player. You would think that all of the Casey players would stick around, so it then becomes a matter of prioritising the rest - would losing Hickey at her age be the worst thing if she is worth enough points to meet most of our delisting obligations?

I suspect football has always come so easily to Petracca that he has never had to work particularly hard to succeed. For the first time in his football life the expectations of him are now exceeding his performances. I hope he can respond, because he clearly has all the attributes to be a super player. At present though, he is a player who is trying to do several brilliant things a game, rather than a large number of very good things, and he is failing (eg his putrid kicking on Sunday). Brayshaw looks like someone who has always had to work harder to get to the top, and that will hold him in good stead if he can keep healthy. He'll never be a superstar, but he can be a very good player in a very good team (not the same type of player necessarily, but a Joel Corey / James Kelly type at Geelong).

I'm not particularly a fan of Weideman, but I do like the three tall forwards. Whilst I would prefer Pedersen to play, I'd still rather Weideman play than neither. Amazing though that three weeks ago we played Hogan as the only tall - what an absolute debacle that selection meeting was. Neal-Bullen surely has to come out - he has had about five last chances now and he continues to regress. Viney plays if genuinely fit, otherwise Garlett given that he starred in his last game at the Gabba. I'm assuming Salem won't be right - if he is, maybe Hunt comes out. I still have grave concerns about the ability of Melksham, Fritsch and Hannan to play in the same side. We look much better with Garlett in the side, assuming his attitude is up to scratch.

We have reserved seats on level 1 of the Southern Stand. There were large numbers of Richmond supporters in that area on Tuesday who had purchased seats on Ticketek. I don't like it, but I don't blame the club for selling seats when Melbourne supporters don't bother coming.

Tend to agree with this. There are just too many of these stories floating around to think that it is a happy camp at present. Hopefully there are just one or two dissidents who can quietly be ushered out the back door. If it is more widespread than one or two, then clearly there is a major problem that Jackson and Mahoney need to handle immediately.

Lever is making Lumumba look like a committed, competent footballer at the moment. His lack of composure and awareness, together with his atrocious disposal, surely warrant a stint at Casey. If I didn't know better, I'd wonder if he'd actually played the game before at a decent level. Yes, our defence collectively has been woeful (with the glaring exception of Oscar McDonald), but Lever is the biggest culprit. As a loose man he has had zero impact and has offered zero support for his teammates; as a true defender he has been flogged by everyone from first gamers to D-grade hacks.

Lever has been a major disappointment to date. I never expected to get a quality lock down defender, because he was never that at Adelaide. But his poor positioning, his lack of workrate / intensity and his inability to help out Oscar at any stage have been a damning indictment. As I've said before, I suspect the club significantly understated the impact of Daniel Talia as a reliable, intelligent footballer on the game of Lever. Perhaps Jake needs Jordan Lewis to be telling what to do and where to be at all times, just as Luke Hodge is doing at Brisbane. Either way, Lever is underperforming himself, and he has thrown the entire defensive group out of sync. Something needs to change pronto, or we will be flogged this week.

The more I think about this decision, the more I hate it. My 7 year old son has probably never seen a poker machine in his life, and certainly wouldn't know what to do with one. For most people they are out of sight and out of mind. I certainly can't see anybody forcing people to use them. On the other hand, sports betting is absolutely everywhere - at the football, on the TV, in the newspapers. My son certainly knows all about the odds, even though nobody in the family gambles. It is a far, far bigger problem, not least of all because it can be done any time, any where without anybody knowing. For the AFL community to decide that pokies are the work of the devil on one hand, but support the betting agencies on the other, is incredibly hypocritical. However this is fairly typical of an industry that chooses to go all in on certain causes and turn a blind eye to others, depending on the views of its financial backers.

Yet another example of a small minority of people not wanting to take responsibility for their actions and hence the majority who do the right thing and have some self control suffer.

Here's a tip for the simple minded who don't like this thread: don't read it, don't post in it, just ignore it. Carry on with your lives as though it never existed. Let those who want to talk about Jack Watts do so.

If stupidity was an Olympic sport, there are a number of employees of the MFC that would be strong favourites to bring home the gold medal in their respective weight divisions. Not only do we allow Jack Viney to destroy his foot by playing him early against all prevailing medical wisdom, we allow Tom McDonald to do the same thing six months later. At least Viney's problems stem from regular season matches - the club was stupid enough to let McDonald play a shitty exhibition game two months out from the season. Given the countless half truths and outright lies spoken by everyone from the coach down since Viney's initial injury, I can only assume that we will spend the next 23 weeks enduring the same regarding McDonald's problem. Time for the club to man up and admit to their errors of judgement and give honest timelines for the returns of both Jack and Tom. PS. Vandenberg - indefinite, McKenna - indefinite. So glad my membership dollars are paying for these two to not play football for the club.

Double post, sorry.

I would like to join.

I understand why we have moved on from Luna Park, but I thought yesterday was a little disappointing by comparison. There were really very few activities for kids, and no rides, and I thought they could have made better use of the players (Jordan Lewis was fantastic interacting with kids in the arts & crafts section, but far too many of them seemed to go missing for large parts of the morning. I get that it is not fun signing your name for two hours straight, but surely it is a small price to pay for making a few kids happy). My suggestions for next year: 1. Have a signing area for the big name players where you only need to line up once, rather having to line up ten different times. 2. More players helping out with the activities, engaging with the kids. It is a great way for the younger kids to become comfortable interacting with fans, in a relaxed environment. 3. More rides / skill activities. Even run a mini clinic or two. 4. Have a bit more space between activities, so that lines are not running into each other. PS. When you advertise something as being at the MCG, I was hoping it would actually be on the MCG.

Salem has been a big disappointment over the past couple of years. There is no doubt he has all the tools to be a very good player, but he needs to get his head right (like a number of his mates). Hopefully this is the year that it starts to happen for him.

McKenna, Vandenberg & Kent - what a waste of list space. Hopefully Tyson and Garlett are on track for the St Kilda game.