pantaloons

I've added the years on the list (or at least since debut) in the far right column next to the names of each Melbourne player there. Only Brian Wilson and Robbie Flower had more than 4 years experience. Not to mention Garry Lyon missing the finals series with injury in his second season. What a remarkable run with such a young team. That game still burns though.

Besides the sports science role, I'd say it was pretty obvious that he would have the best chance of playing 22 games in Melbourne's midfield. I doubt money would have been a big factor.

Good call. I'd like to think that at the end of this season and next, there are good players out there deciding which club to play for who see how Paul Roos maximises the talent of almost every player he's ever coached, who is taking this team places, and who is the man to entrust with their immediate playing future when once upon a time they wouldn't have given us the time of day.

You guys are all missing the big issue here. The air raid siren before the game. How long have they been doing this? It makes the trumpeter look like an ingenious idea.

Why would the club have to fold? There's a fair gap between a dozen players out for 1-2 years and a club folding. I'm sure we'd be generous enough to allow Essendon enough sixth round picks to fill out the rest of their list.

For now on Hogan, I'm just going to work on the premise that if he does ask to go home at the end of next year, we'll be well compensated. There's no threat of walking into the PSD unless we finish above WC or Freo (quite possible with West Coast given their love of "list management" practices every couple of years), so it's either one of those two teams coughing up at least one of their best midfielders or he stays. I'm not going to go into emotional meltdown on this one unless he goes and we end up with some hack like Naitanui in return.

I now have to find a use for all that manure I've been collecting over the last 48 hours.

Personally, I wouldn't appeal. It's not that such a disgusting decision doesn't warrant appealing, it's that the AFL makes their own rules here and the avenues for appealing are a front and a joke. It's on us to provide new evidence, and seriously, if grown adults couldn't have the common sense and intellect to throw out such a farce of a charge immediately, we're not going to be able to convince the same group of ninnies that they were horribly wrong with a new camera angle or scientific evidence. We'll just end up losing him for more than 2 weeks, and even potentially Queen's Birthday. Not appealing doesn't mean that the club isn't furious.

If he didn't hit, you must acquit!

Should be a league-wide player boycott this round.

There could be scenes from the Iranian hostage crisis at the tribunal if he gets weeks. This decision is a genuine threat to the future of football.

We'll be relying on getting 46,000 Melbourne supporters to the game if we want 50,000 there on Saturday night.

Good question. It's probably a bit of most of those you've listed, though not so much #4 against Gold Coast and Sydney. Lots of points 3 and 5 though. It's funny to hear people in the crowd still yelling 'man up' to our players while the opposition chips the ball around the back line because we've limited their options upfield. It's nice to see opponents unable to pile on goals against us in a hurry.

Jon Ralph on SEN about 20 minutes ago sounded incredulous when someone brought up the Tex Walker tweet asserting Viney could be looked at. He suggested Tex may have been on the turps and that Viney was just going "low and hard" for the ball.

On a positive note, if he does get suspended, the Free Demon Jack Facebook page and assorted paraphernalia from a few years ago can make a comeback.

I didn't see the game but have seen the highlights of the incident on the AFL app. I watched it the first time and it didn't even register to me that he might be in trouble. It'd be a complete disgrace if he was cited. This competition and sections of the media and fans are irrationally obsessed with suspending people. I just find it weird.

I'm looking forward to 1.21 GigaWatts so we can all go back to 1955.

You know it's a bad loss when you wake up in the middle of the night having nightmares about it. Game 7 was one of the worst sporting losses I've ever experienced, and certainly the worst loss in Sharks history. Gee, San Jose becomes just the fourth team in NHL history to blow a 3-0 lead, and the Chiefs suffer the second-worst choke in NFL playoff history all in the same year! But enough woe is me... Blackhawks in 4 kings in 5 Bruins in 5 Pittsburgh in 6

Except if you're Hawthorn in 2004. Or Collingwoood the following year. Or West Coast in 2007. The list goes on and on. Sorry, but we are more an exception than the rule. Any semi-competently run sporting club around the world would have at the very least been playing finals after all these picks. We've just been scarred by complete drafting and development failure.

Or Eddie McGuire calling Kane Cornes a c-bomb during a TV interview tonight.

Well, it shows how tough the last seven years have been that I come away from a 31-point loss quite pleased with proceedings. It's the first time I've seen Salem live and he looks quite the classy player. We haven't had enough quality kids coming through in recent years obviously so I'm looking to the progress of Salem, JKH, Viney, Tyson, Toumpas and Sasquatch Hogan for some hope for the future. Baby steps with this team. As others are noting, attacking running and mindset are required for bigger scores, but when we've had neither good attacking or defensive running previously, it has to start with defence. I got in the car and listened to a solid 20 minutes of Melbourne talk on 774 too so that was a bonus. Scott West seemed unimpressed with our player development during his tenure there and indicated we hadn't invested enough in that area in the past and it has cost us with the number of high draft picks who never really developed and are either no longer at the club or languishing in the twos or in rancid form. Not stuff we didn't know, but good to listen to someone who had involvement at the club. All in all, not a night to be too upset about. We are getting better.

If you are feeling antsy about this, it is your own fault for not accepting the moment he became a Demon that he would either suffer a career-ending injury before he played a game, or would leave on a 10-year $15M deal to the west after 2 years and become the greatest player of all time.

I'd still be pretty confident at this stage. Whatever happens, it's been a monumental rise for the Avs this season. Incredible. And Cooke is just a dirtbag.

I think the umpires realised we didn't deserve to win yesterday and make two straight sackable decisions that led to the match-winning Suns goals in the final quarter yesterday. That said, as noted, the goal review decision was hilariously bad, and the standard of umpiring seems to be better this season.

I don't know if it has been mentioned here before, but after a final quarter Melbourne goal (can't recall which one and I certainly won't be watching the replay to find out), both Nathan Jones and Jack Viney came from the field for a breather. This worried me, and my fears were realised with a Gold Coast goal immediately after. They are never both allowed to be off the field at the same time again.