The heart beats true

Viney, Toumpas, Jones, Pederson, Rodan, Byrnes and Gillies. 7 new players. I would suggest that says an awful lot about how the football department rates our drafting and development prior to their arrival. No mention of Dawes so he didn't come up. I'm kind of looking forward to Sunday now. Young blood and some bigger bodies. Should at least be different.

I'd say he has about 12 weeks. If the season starts like it did in 2012 then things could get out of hand. The media is begging for us to fall apart. It's a lot if pressure working under those circumstances. I feel for them, but if they are up for the challenge they will rise. If not then, well, it's just like every other year for the better part of a decade.

Agreed biggestred. I'm sure the AFL sells member info to Foxtel for nothing if they agree to keep paying a billion for the TV rights. Having said that I qualify as a tragic. I go to all Victorian games and record every game on foxtel. It's surprising how much worse we looked the second time round in 2012.

I think it's time we accepted that Garry uses his relationship with the MFC to benefit his media career, not the other way round. He doesn't get paid to support us and he's honestly expressed frustration about being asked to do anything for the club. I think it's time we stopped asking for his help and instead acknowledge that the advice he has given hasn't been good. Having said that what he says about the club is all true, the problem is that it's really just making it harder for us at this point. We know we suck, the whole world knows we suck. Pointing it out is pointless. And, if Riv struggles in a much more ruthless environment then he won't be sleeping well, he'll be waking up for the early game like Cam Bruce before him.

NAB cup form on a regional ground in early March? When he does it on the 'G in June I'll be more convinced. He always looked like he's a battler to me.

Watched the replay of the Richmond game tonight and thought we looked better than when I watched at the ground. One thing that really worked against our game plan is the ridiculous last team over the boundary free kick. With less midfield runners on the ground and the Tigers fresh legs combined with the speed of the carpet at Docklands we got run over at times when Neelds game plan would usually see us competing for a 50/50 ball on the boundary. I noticed a few players kicking the ball more in the corridor than I'm sure they'd be allowed in regular season. I wish the NAB cup didn't have such stupid rules. Don't hold your breath for us to be much chop in this form of the game. It doesn't suit us, even with our best team on the park.

When I heard Jade Rawlings say that the club is treating Mitch's foot like a complete reconstruction, like an ACL, I took that to mean they will be very cautious with him. I'd be pleasantly surprised if he played in the first month of the regular season.

We have 3 problems. One, as you've noted is spread and run in the midfield, another is skill. If you don't run hard to create the next opportunity and your teammates can't hit a target when you do the hard work it doesn't exactly inspire you to keep working. I felt like in both games I watched opposition players wait out wide for us to make skill errors and then get a break away. It makes us look like we are not working hard enough when the opposite is often true. The running endeavor was right (positioning will come with experience for the younger guys) but if the skills aren't right then you can be the most elite runner in the game and still look lazy. The 3rd problem is that we have very little on field ability to shut the game down. once a team has a run on the siren has to go before we reset. That annoys the hell out of me.

At the ground. 3 things stick out: 1. Umpires have forgotten that its not about them. 2. Why is Jesse Hogan not allowed to play this year? It's not helping his, or our, development. 3. We have ZERO midfield. The team plan is get the ball to Jones. Opposition sides have already figured out that's what we have to do. Hoping the boys can make a more solid show, but this surface makes us look painfully slow.

There is no winner in this. I was mad with Liam when he walked out on the club and I realize now that most of it was selfish because he could have been a great player for the club and I would have loved to watch him star for the Dees. I wish him the best now. I suspect his world is getting smaller and smaller and the problems he'll face are bigger and bigger.

This is absolute [censored]. To draw a line between sexuality and AIDS in this day and age shows exactly why we need social awareness campaigns. The majority of people with AIDS are poor Africans with little to no education. It's not 1983 anymore. And this whole argument about the 'majority of the actual public' is proven to be untrue as well. On last count 60% of the Australian population supported gay marriage, one of the highest approval ratings in the world. Seriously, if you're going to speak you might want to think first.

I know what you can do right now, today. We should all be telling anyone who will listen (fans, media, anyone) that we 100% support the club in planning for its long term future. Tell them that it's been such a successful tool for other clubs including Collingwood, Carlton and WCE and that we did the right thing. Not only was it right but it was encouraged by the league by the rules they put in place. The only shame is that we havent benefited as well as others did. We have to change the context of the argument from did we try to lose to why we planned for the future, and why the league encouraged it. The story isn't us. It is the mistake the league made in its system. A mistake they've now rectified.

Well done Nicho. A testament to hard work.

This has been my ongoing question throughout this whole thing. Does the AFL have a contract with each team that states that every team will do everything in it's power to win each and every match it plays in? Does that mean they'll fine clubs for sending injured players off to surgery if they look like they won't make finals? It's not as simple as saying 'we tried to lose', it's about the intent as opposed to the action. The action in this circumstance actually helps us in the Richmond game. We could never have orchestrated a kick after the siren. If we'd been beaten by 12 goals thats a whole other issue. Can you be guilty of thinking something benefits you that the league put in place? Did we think we wanted to lose? How can you prove a thought from a legal perspective? And for those of you who say the club shouldn't seek legal action against the AFL I genuinely think if the fine is large they should consider it. Imagine if the Government created a system and then private enterprise took advantage of the system for long term gain instead of short term thinking? We'd call that great foresight. I think the AFL knows it made a mistake, but I think they don't know how to fix it. This is far more their issue in my opinion than it is any one clubs. If the MFC bears the brunt of it I'm going to go ballistic.

She obviously gets paid to write a minimum article a week over the off season and she threw this together in about 15 minutes. If the MFC does face sanctions over this then it will get really ugly for the AFL. All of a sudden your implicating 4-8 possible other clubs and they would then need to investigate and act accordingly. And what would it mean for the club? We'd struggle to get any sponsors involved and it would put the AFL under more financial pressure as they'd have to prop us up for exploiting a system that they put in place. It just seems like they'd be crazy to make a spectacle of this. The Tippett thing is an obvious breaking of the rules. What happened with Melbourne is murky and only gets murkier if we get sanctioned. It's lose lose. If we were a better side you could argue that we took advantage but if anything it's obvious that we haven't taken advantage. You just have to watch Rounds 1-23 of 2012 to see that.

I think the only reasonable way to look at it is that the club gets an F for its performance this year on field. Now we got rid of 15 players, only 1 of which was a regular player in a terrible team by the end of the season (Rivers). We replaced them with a couple of premiership players, 2 of the most exciting young players in the land (about to be 3 come draft day), and added a few bigger bodies to support a list that is still very young and developing. But somehow we are expected to stick to the same plan that got us the F? I'd say we deserve a B+ for being proactive and making changes.

With the exception of Rivers (who if you watch the games in hindsight clearly suggested to the club he was leaving) all of those players couldn't get a game for large parts of a season in which we won 1 game against an established club. 1 game! You can make an argument for Liam Jurrah but with what he's facing why would you want to? Seriously folks. We won 1 serious game for the year. I find it amazing that anyone's concerned if we trade 90% of our list. They've shown they aren't up to it.

Some of you need to calm down. We have a culture of losing and of thinking that it's ok because we'll be good in 3 years when we get enough games into everyone. Well guess what b*tches? Not anymore. We've shown we will be ruthless. We've shown that we know we made mistakes in the passed. What did we lose? 2 experienced FA's that were always going to leave, and some skinny guys that couldn't get in our best 22 when we had 12 injuries and were losing by 10 goals plus each week. What did we gain? Bigger bodies, forward speed, and folks who have been there and done that. I'm so tired of Melbourne supporters bagging the club because they haven't recruited properly yet wringing their hands when we dare do something about it. The times they are a changin.

It's time we moved on from the potential of kids and started trying something else. For those of you who keep rabbiting on about Gysberts potential feel free to leave your cell phone numbers here and in 2 years when he is our new Cale 'The Rake' Morton I'll call you and scream down the line. This is a deal that's about a continuing culture change. It's about time we did something.

Just playing devils advocate here, but how is this any different to when Cam Bruce left? Just because we have a name for it (Free Agency) does that make us more accepting of a player leaving for a better contract and walking from the club?

Agreed. And for those of you concerned about what may happen in 4 years time because of this draft don't be too worried. Trenners and Watts will only be 25 and Viney 22 and they'll all have learned how to lead the new blokes coming through. Well done Demons. Great job to date.

Well done Dees! Added structure, enormous potential, pace and 2 premiership players in the last 2 weeks. We are getting the October we had to have.

While the forward line looks more competitive we still need 1-2 midfielders that can help us maintain possession. I have concerns about Trengove's speed and spread and he and Grimes need to be getting 25+ each week to be at AFL standard. I'd like us to add someone to help with that. I think its fascinating to watch midfielders decision making at trade time. Those in demand are looking hard at whose in their midfield 'team' as they are aware of how important that structure is. We have really struggled to get anyone even half interested in us. I think it shows how poor we've been in there in 2012.

I think some of the naysayers are ignoring the structure of our game plan. Dawes is there to fill a role that suits our contested line kicking, and you'd argue that Byrnes was brought in for the same reason. We can't keep kicking to Clark 4 on 1 and hoping he clunks it. I think Mitch will be delighted when the deal gets done and Shannon Byrnes will be happy too. To compare him to Sellar is a poor comparison. Only this year has Dawes done much more ruck work as a result of the change in the way his team played. He's been a specialist forward until this year. It's also very widely reported that hes played for 2 years with damaged hands as his team needed him as the pushed for a top 2 spot. If he gets those right he could be anything, but what he definitely is is a big body that's ready to compete this year and in case you missed seasons 2008-2012 boy do we need that.

I still think the 'Bring back Juice Newton' post tops this, but it's a pretty close race in a very densely populated field.