pantaloons

A man walks into a bar and notices a lady at the other end of the bar. "I'll have one beer for me", he says to the bartender, "and another for the lady at the end of the bar". "I wouldn't worry about her", said the bartender. "She's a lesbian". Undeterred, the patron took both beers and headed over to the aforementioned woman, sliding a beer in front of her. "So", he began, "What part of Lesbia are you from?"

Nice one, Macca. Plenty of time for the Canucks to turn it around. I've seen a few Kings games at Staples, albeit regular season games. While it's easily the best indoor stadium I've ever been to, it wasn't an intimidating environment at the games I saw there. Good luck. You're right about getting hot at the right time. Especially in net. If you've got a goaltender in insane form you can go a long way. Early days as we're only one game into each series, except the yet to commence Devils-Panthers series, but plenty of wins by road teams thus far. Obviously a great result for the Sharks today. We traded Heatley for Havlat in the offseason for the very reason that Havlat was a much better playoff performer, and he's gone and scored two goals for us today including the double overtime winner.

You must be a happy boy today. What a great start to the playoffs (unless you follow one of today's three losers). I've been a Sharks fan since the club's opening season (bought a hat, Sharks is about as Australian a mascot as you're going to get), and have followed them passionately since. It's been a frustrating but enjoyable journey. I've managed to get to a couple of games at the Shark Tank and seen us play in LA as well. (As a side story for Good Times Grimes I managed to get to a couple of Leafs games in Toronto and it's a magic experience - one of them was a game in January 2011 when Toronto scored with 12 seconds to go to bring the game into OT and the ACC erupted. Brilliant.) Anyway, the Sharks have given me good value in the sense that we've made the playoffs 14 of the last 15 seasons and have piled up the regular season wins. That has been tempered though with some soul-crushing playoff exits since 2004, and I think we've outshot our opponents in every series we've lost since then. Upset by low-seed Calgary in the 2004 WCF as our former goaltender Kiprusoff outplayed Nabokov in a year we really should have won the cup, ousted by 8th seeded Edmonton in the second round 2006 after leading the series 2-0 before losing game 3 in triple OT and blowing a 2-goal lead in game 4, upset by Dallas in the second round in 2008 and losing the deciding game 6 in quadruple OT, winning the Presidents Trophy in 2009 only to lose to Anaheim in the first round, and then falling in the WCF the last 2 seasons (game 5 against Vancouver was particularly brutal). That said, I shouldn't put forward a "woe is me" story - we've been a well-run club and a very honest team. Stanley Cups are incredibly tough to win and for whatever reason - poor goaltending, our best players not performing to their optimum when it counts, insufficient facial hair - we just haven't gotten it done. I'm struggling to contain my nervousness/excitement about tomorrow's series opener in St. Louis, and while we're rightly underdogs, I'm hoping that like a teal and black-clad AFL club who copied our questionable colour scheme did in 2004, we can go all the way with a team slightly past our best after years of regular season dominance marred by postseason failure. Bring it on.

I'll try to come up with a few suggestions around our biggest mistakes when looking at the current list and why it's so poor. Chiefly, we have extremely little talent and leadership in the 25 and over bracket at our club. While we can debate the merits of some of Prendergast's picks (and yes, missing out on Darling was a catastrophe most were worried about from day one), our current shambles is less about his picks than about what happened between 1999-2006. I'm not going to touch on player development as a 'mistake', but it's clear that has been sorely lacking as well. Some of what I'm going to list aren't Melbourne mistakes, just negative events that happened outside of our control. Where are our leaders and good players aged 25-32? Here goes... 1999: MFC found guilty of salary cap breaches and stripped of its 1999 first round pick (#3) and second and third round picks in 2000 (#32 and #48). For the record, Aaron Fiora was taken at #3 in 1999, but maybe we would have taken Pavlich, who went at #4. Picks 32 and 48 in 2000 were no names, but missing out on the opportunity to pick anyone outside the two best players in 1999 hurts, especially with the calibre of someone like Pav still around. 2001: MFC spends pick 9 in the 2001 superdraft on Luke Molan, and backs it up by picking Aaron Rogers (not of the superstar from Green Bay fame) at 26. Most articles written on the pick at the time expressed surprise that we had picked Molan much higher than he should have been selected, but Melbourne was after the "toughest player in the draft", and got their man. Neither he or A-Rod would play a game for Melbourne. 2001: A flurry of trades were confusing to decipher, but effectively (thanks Demonwiki), Melbourne received Bizzell, Ellis, Vardy, pick 26 (A-Rod), and pick 55 (Brad Miller). Bizzell was the centrepiece of the ins there, and had some (albeit brief) very good years in red and blue. In exchange, Melbourne lost a homesick Jeff Farmer, Brent Grgic, Troy Simmonds, Pick 17 and 41 (Playfair). What hurts is that #17 turned into James Kelly. 2002: A bit of a stretch here, but Steven Armstrong's injury in the Bali bombings certainly didn't have a positive impact on his playing ability, and a promising early career didn't amount to much in red and blue. 2002: MFC trades Shane Woewodin in a salary dump for pick 14, which is used on Daniel Bell, and takes Nick Smith at 15. 2004: Scott Thompson wants to go home to Adelaide due to family reasons. We essentially got Brent Moloney for him in the trade period, but in Scott Thompson, we lost a player who would have been our best over the last 8 seasons, and an easy choice as captain. 2002: MFC trades Darren Jolly for pick 15 in the draft, a defensible move if you can draft well, given Jolly's output. We used the pick on Lynden Dunn however, after taking Bate at 13. Neither are starting 18 players. Not a whole lot of talent was taken after them, but with that being the case, the Jolly trade doesn't make sense. 2004: Troy Broadbridge passes away. 2005: MFC had a trade completed for Brad Sewell for the meagre sum of Ryan Ferguson. Unfortunately, old Ferg refused to go, and instead of having Sewell currently running around in his seventh season of play in a Melbourne guernsey, we have to rack our brains trying to remember how many games Ferguson played for Melbourne after that ill-fated trade. Thanks for the loyalty, but in this case, no thanks. There must be other instances I'm forgetting - I'm not writing a thesis on this or anything. But when we look at our sorry team, our leadership void, and our sickening midfield, oh how things could have been different with Scott Thompson, Brad Sewell and James Kelly running around today, stuffing the ball down Pavlich's throat. Hopefully that brightens your day.

I feel sorry for Mitch Clark. At least he will be well recompensed.

I'm not watching the game, but it is clear that at 6 frees to nought, the umpies have just cost us the game and the premiership.

What I am suggesting is that his remarks are just that - remarks. Unless they impact upon the way EW does business or interacts with people, they are just the ramblings of their CEO on a social media site. One of the CEOs I mentioned made remarks that impact upon his company's corporate social responsibility. For me, that's much worse. Make no mistake, this is more about the media response to his comments. It cannot be a surprise to most of you that there are CEOs, just like there are people throughout the community, who make offensive remarks or hold 'offensive' views. It'd be nice if he wasn't racist or sexist, but in the grand scheme of things, there are bigger fish to fry. It is not his comments in isolation that may see the MFC ditch the sponsorship - it is the media attention. I have already pointed out numerous sponsors who contribute in horrific ways to the suffering of people around the world, but receive little media attention. I imagine it is the media frenzy that will push MFC to action here moreso than his comments. In essence, it is not that Melbourne has a sponsor that is quietly offensive or unethical, as most AFL clubs have, that may see us want to change sponsors. Rather, it's that the stench of our sponsor is being splashed all over the front of newspapers that will do it.

Free agency will be a good addition, and at least with our version of it clubs are compensated. Jamar's getting on, and if he goes and we receive a compensatory pick it's not the apocalypse. I would however like to see the AFL introduce something similar to the NFL's franchise player tag, where every club can nominate one player each off-season who they haven't yet agreed to terms with, who has to stay with the team, or if they leave, the club that takes them must give them two first round picks.

While Pollis certainly made some woeful remarks, when the dust settles on this one, can we transfer our energy on club sponsors to issues around particular sponsors that are actually important? A quick scan of the 18 club websites showed me, and this is just the ones I know about, that: * Five clubs (with three different companies) wear apparel provided by companies that currently or recently manufacture goods in sweatshops. * At least six clubs are sponsored by companies that provide life-destroying goods or services (alcohol and gambling) * Three clubs are sponsored by companies with a proven track record of human rights abuse * One club has a sponsor whose CEO made absolutely disgraceful marks regarding the homeless and charity that made news within the last 3 1/2 years * One club is sponsored by a company that has been involved in dodgy practices regarding player payment I find it frustrating that we can muster up such a frenzy over an issue like this, but can we turn a blind eye to blatant injustice around us that ruins lives. I'm not putting a position forward on where Melbourne goes to from here, but merely pointing out that as sponsors go, Energy Watch is hardly at the top of the nasty tree. Unfortunately, the timing couldn't have been worse.

Nice. Hey - feel free to hate us! Having teams to loathe adds to it all. It's my birthright as a Laker fan to hate the Celtics, and vice versa for Boston fans. At least Sacramento is less than a couple of hours from San Francisco so if you ever wanted to catch a game while on holidays its a quick car ride from a popular destination. I chose LA because in Grade 5, someone brought a Lakers basketball to school, so I decided that would be my team!! Had no idea at the time what they were like or where Los Angeles was! Thankfully given LA's location I've been able to get over there a few times and catch a few games. Bandwagoners are the bane of genuine fans of a team. If Melbourne ever make a Grand Final again, watch as most Demonlanders can't get a ticket due to bandwagoners and corporates lapping them up. Shannon Brown unfortunately left as a free agent. He and LA were good for each other - he got to make a name for himself, win two rings and establish a career, while his energy and athleticism were very useful for the Lakers, particularly in the second championship run. I don't grudge him going for a little bit more money one bit.

Punch Vlade Divac for swatting the ball out to the most clutch player in NBA history in Game 4. Look, as a Melbourne supporter, I can sympathise. The Lakers have had our fair share of heartbreaking defeats - a string of them against Boston in the 60s, Willis Reed in the 70s, the clothesline series in 1984, losing as favourites in 2004, Boston's record comeback in 08 - but because we've been making the Finals on average every second year, there are always chances to redeem ourselves, and I've seen us win plenty so the memory of some genuinely heartbreaking defeats don't sting as much. With Melbourne and Sacramento on the other hand, the chances for glory have been few and far between over the last 40+ years, making the close defeats that much more scrutinised. Had we beaten Hawthorn in 1988, I wouldn't look back at 1987 with the same desire to go into the foetal position every time I think about it. So yes, we got the benefit of a lot of calls in Game 6 in 2002 (though we certainly didn't get the best of it when we lost by a point in Game 5). This was a series when we had the best of the refereeing in a tight series, and in the end that was one facet that helped make the difference (as did Game 4's crazy finish and LA's experience at the end of Game 7). Again, we've had some favourable games from officials, and some ones where we've copped the opposite (stretches of the 04 Finals, Game 2 of the 08 Finals off the top of my head), but if you're up there long enough it usually evens out. Unfortunately, the rivalry with Sacramento didn't last long enough. The Kings just needed to hold on a little longer as our days of dominance with that particular team ended that season. What made you pick the Kings, Tankey?

This post is the most depressing part of today. A soul-crushing performance to the extent that it has drawn a pessimistic and frustrated post out of our resident optimist. All parts of our club need to face the reality that our midfield is disgusting. This is not new information. It needs some serious fixing, and whether that comes from trialling other players like Watts in there, through the draft, trading, differing styles or other means, it needs a complete reboot. I kept muttering "Win a clearance" today like a deranged man, and realised I've been saying the same thing for years, but little has changed. The game plan was utterly predictable, but I need to see it in action when we aren't getting skewered like a pig in the middle of the ground. Our limited and stagnant forward entries certainly didn't help. I can't believe it's still only March and my post-game attention went straight to the November draft. Depressing.

Paying homage to Paul Hopgood.

I was being a bit facetious with the Aussies - it was a hypothetical. We're not going to win anything this season. And no, losing to Patty Mills is not a win-win any more than losing to Collingwood in a final would be a win-win because Pendlebury used to go for Melbourne. Sessions should be a good pickup, but we've been rubbish since acquiring him. Losing Fisher to dump his salary was a joke. His experience and leadership were invaluable. As for the Laker nickname, yes, it is quirky. That said, it's in keeping with most relocations where the history is retained (Sydney Swans, Calgary Flames, Utah Jazz [thoroughly ironic], LA Dodgers and so on). Keeping the Lakers name brought with it the 5 championships won in Minneapolis, and a recognisable brand as the most successful team in brief history of the NBA.

No chance here. I've been a Laker since 1989 and they're the only sporting team I follow that I've seen win a championship. If we eliminated Mills, Bogut, Andersen and Jawai's carcass in the playoffs en route to the championship I couldn't be happier. It didn't take me long to fall in love with the history and tradition of the Lakers and, like with Melbourne, the origin of our players is less important than the jersey/guernsey. As for Kyrie Irving, I wondered when he made the decision what I'd do if in his shoes. My biggest concern would be figuring out which country I felt the greatest allegiance to. Obviously, then he has to decide between being a borderline selection for a country that will win the gold medal every Olympics, or the starting PG for a country that will finish 4-16. It would have been nice though!

Thanks for the reply. The coaching change is actually fantastic for KC. Not necessarily because Romeo is the head coach (though the players seem to love him and we'll be much better defensively with him at the helm) but because Haley's out. Poor relationships with the players and the front office - his firing was long overdue. Crennel's a good fit for right now - comes from within the organisation and coached the last 3 games of last season, so there's no familiarity issues. Agree with what you say on the unpredictability of the AFC West. Who could have picked Denver to win it last year or KC the year before? Not me! Maybe it will be another surprise. While I like Rivers, he wasn't great for stretches of last season, and San Diego's days of dominating the West are done for now. They've had some FA losses this offseason too. It wouldn't be staggering if they took the division though. On your QBs, I like the top 5 and I don't see many changes there. Romo has proven time and time again that he is not up to it when it counts. Highly overrated in my opinion. Big Ben's not at Brady's level (who is?), but I've grown to appreciate a QB like that who can just take a physical pounding week after week and still stand there and take a hit from defenders. Stafford-Megatron combo is gold. Knowing Detroit, they'll find ways to implode, but they have some exciting pieces. Playing in the same division as GB and Chicago gives them little room for error though, and it wouldn't take a complete failure for them to miss the playoffs. Just a quick question: do any of you buy the NFL's equivalent of the NBA League Pass or NHL Gamecenter? I've got League Pass and I can watch any game, regular season or playoffs, though I just use it to watch my team's games. OneHD's NFL coverage is excellent, though there usually aren't many Chiefs games on. Cost me just under $200. Just wondering how people have found the NFL's equivalent to be.

I'm not buying the Denver hype. Obviously as a KC fan I can be accused of bias, but I'm usually very pessimistic about the Chiefs. It would take another colossal injury barrage for KC not to take the AFC West this coming season though. The Chiefs were a botched FG away from the playoffs last year without some of their best players for the entire season. Whatever your thoughts on Tebow, he took what was generally considered a rancid team at the beginning of the season to some miraculous wins, an improbable playoff berth and a stirring playoff win. Denver has obviously added a huge piece in Manning if his neck doesn't snap in half, but KC's additions for 2012 are Charles, Berry and Moeaki back from injury, Hillis, RT Winston - top 5 at a crucial position is a massive upgrade on Richardson and will help the running game immensely, Boss and Routt - this is a downgrade after KC lost Carr, but not a disgraceful #2 option behind Flowers. Youth is on KC's side. The one thing that is not, is that it's a quarterback's league. Cassel is not an elite QB, nor in the top 16 QBs, and that's being generous. We won't be going anywhere serious until that's solved, but the team is set to be amongst the playoff action for a while, provided the front office's notorious stinginess doesn't allow for regression. Bear in mind also that KC and Denver have 12 common opponents next season, play each other twice, but then KC plays games against Indy and Miami, while Denver plays New England and Houston. Didn't want to turn this into a parochial post, but on re-reading it is a bit! Whatever happens, I don't see whoever comes out of the West reaching the AFC Championship game - that's a big step from where these teams are coming from. Bring on the next season though. Can't wait.

Thanks Jim. Few of us will leave as large an imprint on the world when we leave. What an outstanding contribution to the club, the game and the community. Very sad for his children - as a father, it's unimaginable.

Oh yes - I'd forgotten/neglected that they made a prelim in 04 and were some Nick Davis magic away from the prelim in 2005. The Dogs offered us pick 39 for Bate.

Before I begin, Dr. Who, your point about looking at our player development is valid. It's been raised more than once on this site that, for a variety of reasons, we haven't brought players on as well as other clubs can. Would NicNat or Martin be the players they are currently if they had been drafted by Melbourne? Would Cale Morton, whose first two years were just about as good as I've seen from a Melbourne player, have had his career head towards the rubbish tip if he had been drafted by another club? There is however nothing wrong with Clint Bizkit taking a look at our draft picks, and I think it's a good exercise. We can all be hindsight heroes, but there's nothing wrong with accountability. Barry Prendergast had the easiest job in the country next to the person who tests the chocolate at the Cadbury's factory while he was at Melbourne. If I was being flippant, I could argue that Melbourne could have saved their money, and just looked up Burgan and Wisbey's phantom drafts and top picks list and come up with at least the equal of what we drafted, given we had the absolute prime seating from 2007-09. (But I won't). Just for giggles, here's how they saw the 2007-09 drafts (I couldn't find Wisbey's 2009 effort). Burgan: 2007: 4. Morton 14. Dangerfield 21. Harry Taylor (Had Grimes at 12, Maric at 20) 2008: 1. Watts 17. Schoenmakers 19. Beams Had Blease at 16, Strauss at 34 2009: 1. Scully 2. Trengove 3. Talia 4. Gawn Had Gysberts at 24, Tapscott at 19 Wisbey: 2007: 4. Masten 14. McNamara (LOL) 21. McEvoy 2008: 1. Naitanui 17. McKernan 19. Shuey (Had Blease outside the top 40 and Strauss at 18) I'd actually like to compare us to a couple of sides who put their lists together really well - Geelong and Hawthorn. Both sides had a few years in a row of excellent drafting which helped anchor flag sides. Here's Geelong's effort as I see it, with an asterisk next to premiership players: 1999: 8. Joel Corey * 15. David Spriggs 17. Ezra Bray 23. Daniel Foster 31. Paul Chapman * 38. Cameron Ling * 47. Corey Enright * Traded for Cameron Mooney * 2000: 44. Josh Hunt * 71. Daniel Lowther 79. Hamish Simpson (Traded a bunch of early picks to get Kingsley, Murphy and White). A poor year. 2001: 8. Jimmy Bartel * 17. James Kelly * 23. Charlie Gardiner 24. Steve Johnson * 40. Gary Ablett Jr (F/S) * 41. Henry Playfair 69. Matthew McCarthy 81. David Johnson * 2002: 7. Andrew Mackie * 23. Tom Lonergan * 36. Tim Callan RD: Shannon Byrnes * Rookie elevation: Max Rooke * So in the space of four consecutive years, they dragged in 15 premiership players. Eight years after the first of those drafts and five years after the fourth (which if we're using 2007-09 as a template makes it 'target 2014' for Melbourne, for those of us scoring at home), they won their first flag in 43 years, and the first of three in five years and possibly more. Those 15 players during the flag era were also surrounded by some mature talent (Scarlett, Harley, Milburn, Ottens, Wojcinski) that they either drafted pre-1999 or traded in. Harry Taylor was a great pickup on the eve of the dynasty. Interestingly, and I'm not drawing any correlation here, their entire big back stocks do not come from the boom 1999-2002 drafting period. Onto Hawthorn: (will get there in a second - my computer isn't churning this stuff the way I'm typing it!) After spending ages at the keyboard to have gremlins reinterpret the data, I'll just add this on the Hawks. From 2004-07, they drafted 11 premiership players for the 08 side - Roughead, Franklin, Lewis, Young, Ellis, Birchall, Guerra, Gilham, Renouf, Rioli and Dew. They also had the likes of Crawford, Croad, Hodge, Sewell, Campbell, Brown, Bateman in their flag side. Ultimately, if we pick a year out of the sky and say 2014 is meant to be our year (7 years after the start of the rebuild), then the experienced guys to go along with the 2007-09 draft class will be Frawley, Jamar, Jones, Garland, Sylvia and Clark. A few short there. The 07-09 group will need to step it up.

I've got a lot of respect for what Malthouse achieved as a coach, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't somewhat nervous about what we're going to get out of Watts over the next 10 years. I'm not dismissive of what he says, and I won't be too precious about any criticism this club cops about our on-field efforts because of our rancid displays of slop over the last 5 years. I will say though that I find it interesting that he talks about ambition. I'd have thought that coming to Melbourne as coach, winning a flag or two and putting yourself in the 'greatest coach of all-time' discussion would have shown ambition.

If only. That's one of the main gripes about Foxtel - that you end up paying for a lot more than what you actually want. I had Foxtel for years and thoroughly enjoyed it, but times have changed. All I got it for was so I could watch AFL, NBA, NHL and NFL. Now OneHD has great NFL coverage, I pay have access to watch every NBA game of the season live or whenever I have the time, and I can find a friend or relative to watch Melbourne games with when the Dees are interstate and only shown on Fox. I just can't afford the $60+ dollars on Pay TV any more - I assume IQ is just $10 extra per month with this deal, as Foxtel is as useful as a bag of vomit without it. Again, if I had Foxtel, I'd enjoy it. It provides countless hours of entertainment, but they will need to continue to be creative about how they deliver their packages, as people will continue to watch the TV/movies/sport online when they want to.

Yze Magic could surely get a run.

That gentle hum you can hear is the sound of MFC membership cards across the state being sticky-taped back together and scraped off the insides of microwaves. Very early days - SEN were babbling about top 6 after we won the two NAB games at AAMI last year - but if we're associated with toughness, discipline, defence, pressure and accountability, that sits well with me.

People are still talking about this guy more than 12 months after the speculation started. Depressing. I'm looking forward to the blowtorch being directed elsewhere. Here's a start: Michael Hurley dodges talk on future