pantaloons

It'll be interesting to see what Melbourne could get in the form of draft position for Jamar. We nabbed pick 15 for Jolly and traded Simmonds previously. I doubt there would be any teams out there willing to give more than a third round pick for the big Russian at this stage. He'd only fetch a third round pick due to the lack of big men floating around in the system inflating the asking price of ruckmen.

I believe it was Andrew Jarman, the mad monk.

I'll see if I can look it up later for you, Jarka. I'm not exactly sure, as that was a very messy trade period. We picked up Bizzell, Ellis and Vardy, and picks went flying everywhere. I can tell you that we didn't pick up Armstrong with pick 18, as we didn't use it. We took Armstrong with 25. Incidentally, we picked up Miller at 50 or 52.

I'll just clarify a couple of things that have been said thus far regarding the Farmer trade. He had made his mind up to move on at the end of the 2001 season, but was adamant that Melbourne be compensated for his departure. I believe it was pick 18 we acquired for him, and the reason this was all we were able to get for him was that we needed West Coast to come to the party to show an interest to up his bargaining price. Unfortunately, they had Phil Matera and didn't show an interest. Brad Green was picked up in the 1999 draft at 19 and had nothing to do with the Farmer trade.

At this stage, and pending fitness: IN: Yze, Bate, Rivers OUT: Holland, Miller, Ward If Sylvia and/or Whelan come up too, then that's great. I've lamented Brown's disposal for years, but despite numerous clangers he played one of his better games yesterday and threw himself around like a kamikaze, especially in the last quarter. He can stay for now.

That wasn't the first time it happened yesterday either unfortunately. What Neale said was right, and I can't see how he was having a go at Travis Johnstone. As the kick-in man, you've only got a limited time to kick the ball before the umpire blows his whistle. As not one single clown gave him an option in the pocket, he did the right thing by playing on and kicking long to a teammate on the boundary. Unfortunately, our lack of defensive discipline cost us at the thrown in.

If they make it six grand I'll deliver a bone-jarring tackle to Scott McLaren moments before he puts the whistle to his mouth to award a game-deciding free kick against Aaron Davey.

Hopefully the TV networks' shameless money-grab will be shot down in flames by the AFL. How about Channel 10 actually tries to cash in on the public's hunger for all things Grand Final by finally putting on some decent post-game tellie instead of reruns of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid or MASH after the game. Extended highlights, reviews of the season, panels, anything to wrap the season up. It may not be a raving success, but it would surely be better than what they currently serve up after the game. At least give it a go for one season, there is nothing to lose.

I read his article when it was published, agreed wholeheartedly with it and e-mailed the link to a few friends because I thought it hit the nail on the head. I'd have to crack an egg over my own scone before I threw one at Greg Denham.

Thanks to Peter for his contribution to the club. My sympathies go out to his family.

I'd like to see Green spend a lot more time in the forward line, and it will be interesting to see how another coach will use Brad in the future. I don't like his field kicking, but if he gets back to spending a fair portion of his game time in the forward line, I'd imagine we'll see the valuable sharpshooter we had from 2000-02 return.

That's not what I read, Jaded, and its not the first time players have had to shed muscle for speed's sake. The point about premiership teams requiring bigger bodies is correct.

I seem to remember wildly projectile vomiting after reading that Nathan Jones had lost 8 kilos of muscle in the most recent off-season to improve his endurance.

I think I read somewhere in the paper that Pavlich will stay with Freo if he thinks they're capable of winning a premiership. On that logic, the 0.01% chance we had of getting him is gone. We'll need a gun ruckman with our top pick if he's the best available.

There are probably a lot of negative things I could post about Melbourne players right now, and I'm not criticizing people here for doing so, but today's match unfortunately highlighted the extreme gulf between West Coast and Melbourne right now. As poor as we were today, the Eagles were awesome. There is probably a smaller gap between Richmond and second place than there is between West Coast and second place at the moment. Their midfield is strong, wins the ball, their ruckwork is purposeful, and they hit targets. I thought Carroll had a shocker, but it couldn't have been easy having Judd and Kerr running the ball out of the middle at a million miles an hour with no pressure and slamming the ball onto Big Q's ample [censored] every ten minutes. The pressure they put on the ball-carrier is immense. It was like watching an AFL team against a little league team. Almost every time Melbourne had the ball, it seemed there was no one to kick to in an advantageous position. We were absolutely strangled. As for individual player analysis, where do you start? On the positives, I thought Johnstone was very good, and given that he had zero options to kick to all day, it was a miracle he only turned the ball over a couple of times. Petterd continues to rack up touches. Sylvia looked excellent until his injury. I'll be very disappointed if he misses much time. We have serious forward line issues though. Miller is just the walking dead at the moment. I can't see his AFL career continuing for very long if his form doesn't improve. Neitz is struggling to get back into it, and Davey is spending more time up the ground. I know this isn't a new idea, but surely its time for Green to go back to the forward line. His field kicking is comical, and he has a much better understanding of how to play as a forward than as a midfielder.

That is an awesome and hilarious piece of journalism. I will be quitting my job first thing Monday morning and heading off to the Herald-Sun asking for a job in a newly-vacated sports writer's position.

Good call, Old fellow. If he gets the job done for the remainder of 07 and accepts a small salary for 2008 that could be very good. We traded for him in order to help toughen up our team in September, and as that's not going to happen in 2007, I'd like to see him impose himself physically in the finals one last time in 2008.

1. Neitz 2. Johnstone 3. McLean 4. Bruce 5. Rivers 6. Robertson 7. White 8. Green 9. Davey 10. Yze 11. McDonald 12. Jones 13. Carroll 14. Moloney 15. Whelan 16. Bate 17. Sylvia 18. Pickett 19.Bartram 20. Godfrey 21. Bell 22. Dunn 23. Miller 24. Petterd 25. Ward 26. Holland 27. Brown 28. P Johnson 29. C Johnson 30. Wheatley 31. Ferguson 32. Frawley 33. Jamar 34. Bizzell 35. Buckley 36. Warnock 37. Newton 38. Garland 39. Neville 40. Weetra

Not 100% sure, but I think that might have been Luke Speers, who was also picked up in the 1998 draft.

Sandy has the bye every week.

I feel for those who have to make the call on Daniher at the end of the season - I'm glad its not my decision. Whatever they do, they'll have a lot of angry members wanting to make a lot of noise and incinerate their memberships. I'll make a few points on Neale from my perspective, some of which have been mentioned already: Neale took over a team at a time when the club had just won the wooden spoon with four wins and a percentage of about 12. The club was in complete disarray and Joe Gutnick, for all the good he did the club, didn't make life any easier for Neale with his chronic verbal diarrhoea in the media. He not only survived a club which was unstable off the field, but then had to contend with salary cap penalties, the likes of which Carlton have blamed for their current vomitous plight, while the Dees went about picking Green at 19, Wheatley at 20, Whelan at 50 and Bruce at 64, all 100+ game players. Neale's sides have made the finals in 6 of his 9 years as coach. I agree that 10 years is a very long time to coach a side without a premiership, but if we are basing his sacking on not winning the flag in his tenth year as opposed to the other nine then that's not particularly fair. No coach in the league could have taken the Demons to a premiership this year with the accursed spate of injuries we've suffered. Paul Gardiner is right in saying that Neale can't be judged solely on this season when assessing his contract status at season's end. In addition, I'm sure sure that in this climate, with the difficulties asscoiated with winning the flag as a Victorian club, especially an impoverished one like the Demons, that success can be judged solely on silverware. I'm not decided on what we should do at the end of the year, but if he gets the chop, which he probably will, I'll thank him for always putting the club's best interests before any selfish ambition to keep earning a paycheck some coaches have.

I think the fame brought about by the release of his memoirs a couple of years ago must have gone to his head.

Jones and Godfrey would have to be two of our most consistent performers of the season, but I doubt they've attracted huge votes thus far. Godders' last two blanketing performances have been sensational.

I'm surprised there wasn't a full-scale field-invasion after the Neitz free kick from half of the crowd on Sunday, such was the vehemence of the Demon faithful. In close games, there are plenty of moments that contribute to the end result, but it is the last key moment that has the final bearing on the result. In this case, the final two moments were David Neitz getting crucified for a completely inconsisent and incorrect decision, and a comical deliberate against James McDonald. Sure, we could have kicked straighter, but so could Port. If the old St. George kick-o-meter was still displayed on the scoreboard, I doubt many of our behinds would have had a greater than 50% chance of going through, whereas the Powers missed a lot more gettable chances.

A fair tackle in play as Guerra's was on Bruce a couple of years ago that effectively ended our season. If he goes it will be another complete farce from the AFL, the only sporting organisation that could make the ICC look competent at the moment.