rjay

Dotting he i's...etc. good move with the new ruck rules. A boundary umpire gets a lot of height and distance and is the real deal, if a ruckman has to work on his timing which will be crucial now that wrestling is out it is best they do it properly and not with one of the support staff throwing it in half a.... This FD is a professional outfit.

I agree, and I'm positive we are on the right track.

Who knows yet but Billings is a good prospect, haven't seen Taylor. Check out the draft experts they've got some stuff up already on how they think things will fall.

I think Rendell was the messenger who got shot for political gain. It's a pity because the issue he broached deserved a lot more thought , maybe in the end it was just all too hard for misfud. It was just easier to treat it as a political football and him a casualty which is not an unusual response unfortunately.

Not so sure on this, I think he may have given Neeld a let out... but it's one we will never really know.

I know some that have been well wide of the mark and often confuse fact with opinion. Sorry to jump at you on this one 'WYL' but in the last few months I've heard so much BS from 'someone in the know'. I'm happy your source is reliable and positive about the future, we should all be.

Even board members.

...and

Coterie members usually like to feel they are on the inside, they aren't. They do get a bit more access to the club but their opinions, and they are opinions are often way off the mark.

I think the betting has been closed on this, the only questions are what time today, who and what paper.

Watching him at training the other day he is loving having Barry there and he will be a real positive influence.

Very interesting. I would think it would be pretty hard to separate the club from the individuals particularly when one was the coach, would the gambling commission fall for that? Then when the other clubs get pulled into the mess gambling in the AFL as a whole would have to come into question. A fine mess they have got themselves in at the AFL, it will be interesting to see how this pans out, the sooner they get to 2 the better.

I think "Big Red' is going by the starting times, we only have one 1pm Saturday game which is usually the televised game. You would have thought with all the close finished last year that we gave good value but maybe there is another agenda we don't know about.

Looks like I missed the split rounds, still a bit of a dogs breakfast of a draw. I would think there should be no interstate clashes until they can sort out the bye and split rounds.

Good player cut down way to early with the knee. We never got to see the best of him unfortunately.

No limp, no bandaged knee, moving freely. He is looking good, I hope he can stay injury free and get a full pre season. He will be a real bonus for us if he can.

If he puts in a few more games like the Box Hill one he will be well in the mix 'Fan' but because of his injury plagued season in 2012 he is being handled a little like Evans with his training loads. I'm really looking forward to seeing what he can do, good size, nice kick.

Read the whole thing, it was made initially in answer to another post. ...forget about it.

Don't just take one sentence out of what I said 'Maurie', you are better than that. Although you are probably right that my judgement of it is a bit flawed given that I never bothered to watch it. It always seemed a bit of a toss to me so I didn't waste my time. My overall point is that whilst I am not a fan of CS or CC, now is not the time to get into that debate. There are some that think it's a good opportunity to take a cheap shot and don't back it up with any evidence.

Thanks KC, looks like the bye coincides with the MFC bye which is much better but they still have that interstate thing which is a bit of a pain. Do you know how Casey have recruited with non aligned players, it looks like the MFC players and some intense competition for senior placed will add a bit more this year. Hogan will be the big one to watch I guess and hopefully some of the listed players will be available for finals.

I'm not a big CS fan either and never bothered with his whiteboard bs, even though I'm a football and MFC tragic something just kept pushing me away from it, never saw any of it. Don't agree with you about Neeld at all, we didn't have a good season but I'm prepared to wait until his 3rd season to judge whether we got our man. My feeling is we have but lets wait and see on that one, unfortunately it's more than a one year fix. By the way if Bailey let CS and CC walk all over him he wasn't the man for the job, simple as that. ...and I don't think now is the time to be pushing the anti CS & CC line, as I say I'm not a fan but a lot on here are impressed with how things at the club have turned around at least financially. I will accept that until someone gives me some solid proof to the contrary, not just implying things without posting any evidence to back it up. Let's get through this and see where things stand then. This is not the time to get even, it only hurts the club.

Denham bags the club and CS in particular but I haven't heard him over doing the tanking thing with us, don't confuse his dislike of the MFC with the tanking debate, that has been CW pretty much on her own with some help by the me too's who want to get in on the act (not mentioning you Jay). Denham is the only journo I've heard tip a bucket on WC and he gave specific positional moves that helped them lose and get the draft picks they were after. Connelly and Fine have been more even handed and Pat Smith is running his own unique take on it, I know a lot here don't like Smith but I like that he puts up a good argument and is thought provoking even if I don't agree with him, he can't ever be accused of being anyones stooge.

We certainly went from disaster to disaster but it was pretty much off field stuff. We didn't have a great on field year (understatement) but I think part of that was Neeld wanting to assess each player on the list before making wholesale changes. Whilst I agree that we have a group of inexperienced coaches we do have Craig and Rawlings who both have senior experience in the mix. The year we had would have given the coaching group a lot of challenges that would have fast tracked their education I would think.

That may well be a positive.

...and that's about it 'Macca', whatever it's called that's what we did.