Cranky Franky

Ridiculous comment contrary to all the evidence we have seen. First of all JT was not underperforming - he was injured so it doesn't lay the law down to anyone. Plus Richmond would not have bothered with a medical if the deal was a sham & both Trengove & Roos have indicated in interviews that the deal would have gone ahead.

Totally lame.

The fact that we only have 35,356 members is a real concern for our long term survival. From 2008 to 2011 the numbers grew steadily despite our lack of success. This year it looks like we will end up with less members than last year. This despite getting high profile players to the Club like Lumumba & Garlett, having the no 2 & 3 Draft picks & the debut of Jesse Hogan. Maybe supporters are tired of the empty promises and poor efforts in pre season games & beltings in the early rounds just kills the membership drives. Not sure of the demographics but it doesn't seem that our involvement at Casey & playing games in the NT has resulted in much of a membership increase in those areas. If we are going to become a great Club again we really have to crack 40,000 members in the next couple of years.

Ground Hog day AGAIN. JEEZ a post like this comes up every 6 months - Lets remember Wiz, lets remember Robbie, Lets remember Ox. It only happens 'cause we are having a carp year & there's nothing to look forward to. Totally depressing. I bet Hawthorn supporters don't spend too much time looking over old tapes of Dermie or Dunstall.

One day people will wake up & realise that Racism is a human condition found all over the world. Some of the worst examples I have experienced are In Japan by Japanese against Koreans & other dark skinned migrants. In India by upper caste Hindus against other people particularly lower castes & if they had darker skin. In Central Australlia by some Indigenous people against Non Indigenous. In the Top End by white red necks against anyone of colour. In Italy by Northern Italians against Southern Italians. Plenty of other examples as well in Hong Kong, Morocco & Indonesia. When I find a country without racists I'll let you know.

"Stolen Generations" I'm confused. My dad was handed over by his single parent father to an orphanage (in Europe) at 3 moths. My father in law's mother got pregnant in the 1940's & gave him up for adoption at birth. It seems that if you were one of the tens of thousands of non indigenous kids removed by various authorities in the last 100 years it was done for good logical reasons. If you were one of the tens of thousands of Indigenous kids removed during the same time it was done because of racism, genocide or stupidity. What are we supposed to make of the thousands of kids of all races still being removed from their parents today. Seems to me to be complex issue with a lot of grey areas.

Totally disliked Tony Shaw, Chris Lewis, Stephen Milne, Barry Hall & Lindsay Thomas on the field because of their sniping & staging but I appreciated they were good players for their respective teams. Goodes is in exactly the same boat. On the other hand love (& loved) watching Mathew Richardson, Eddie Betts, Simon Black, Peter Matera & Mickey O'Loughlin even though they all broke Melbourne's heart at times. .

Thought Yze would get well over 300 games but he just lost his mojo. Also he was an outside player & the game evolving the other way didn't suit him.

We will crack 40,000 when we win a couple of our practise matches and stop getting a flogging in the first 7 or 8 games. The capitulation against GWS & the beltings from Freo & Hawthorn killed off the membership momentum. Supporters have been given too many false dawns.

Buck up guys the slashing of wrists since the Hawthorn debacle is getting silly. Lets be realistic. We won 4 games last year & hopefully can get 6-8 wins this year. We started the season well & showed great improvement. Then injuries - Jetta, Kent, JKH, Viney, Salem, Hogan. Then a number of players badly out of form - Watts, Jamar, Howe, Dunn, Gawn, Dawes. On top of this our better mids N Jones & Tyson both look a bit proppy. You take effectively 8+ players out of our best 22 & of course we are going to struggle. Look at poor Stretch - once in the better players at Casey & straight into the Firsts. At the Swans he would need to do this 5 or 6 times before getting promoted. While last week was disappointing we will continue to struggle until we get a decent, in form group of 22 players out there. I still reckon we can take a step forward & win 6-8 games.

There is more BS written about the history of Scott Thompson than about most players (except maybe Grgic). Fact - He got on well with Danners Fact - He was not an absolute gun. He was a good & very promising young player who had injury problems. Fact - He was contracted to Melbourne & stated at the time that he wanted to go back to Adelaide for family reasons but if a trade could not be done he would stay with Melbourne. Fact - Daniher decided to let him go probably because he was licking his chops at having a pick of a number of Geelong youngsters of which they chose Moloney.

SWYL You are like the bloke moaning cause he didn't buy the BHP shares when they were $8 or that block of land at Byron Bay when it was only $3000. Everyone is a genius in hindsight. There is a large element of luck in all recruiting decisions. All we need to worry about is that our current recruiters know what they are doing - unlike previous recruiters.

You don't muck around with concussion. Hope they take a conservative approach. 2 weeks is fine Grimes can come in for him & show us what he's got.

Come on guys give us a break. The season has started & this post has a few guys reminiscing about everything except footy. Tell them to use Facebook or set up their own email network if they want to gasbag to each other instead of hijacking this site.

Vince will replace Brayshaw. Unlucky to miss out & will be back soon. Dawes will replace Toumpas.

Spot on Bossdog. I used to watch most games that came on TV now I watch very few. A lot of teams are horrible to watch. My 3 boys (14,15 & 17) would now rather watch Rugby League or soccer instead of AFL. Compared to the fast flowing games of the 80's & 90's todays footy is a rolling scrum with 28-30 players following the ball around everywhere. I reckon the interchange has a lot to answer for & i'd like to eliminate interchange completely - the trouble is everytime the AFL tries to do something the coaches whinge & the AFL chickens out. They will only do something if the number of viewers & attendances decline.

Robbie's life was celebrated after he passed away. It was done appropriately and beautifully. In the future hopefully some lasting memorial like a statue would be good however I'm not in favour of an annual commemoration I think that would be tacky.

We all have our fingers crossed for him. With some luck I reckon he can still be a 200 game player - won't be a superstar but hopefully a solid performer. Its all up to whether his body stands up.

If we approach the game thinking we will win because Ablett isn't playing we will get belted. In the last 3-4 years Melbourne has lost almost every game that we thought we would win. The only games we have won are where we were the clear underdogs.

4th in the B&F 2 years ago. Knows how to find the ball but decision making & disposal sometimes erratic. Where is he ? Hasn't played NAB Cup. Hasn't played for Casey. Not on the injury list ????

These communications glitches are often a marker of the difference between the successful Clubs & the ones down the bottom. Generally the Club has improved in this area. I can remember in the mid 90's they would invariably stuff up the memberships. I recall about 12 years ago ringing up wanting to donate $$ to the Club and being told to ring the next day because the person that sorted donations out was away.

He played in both key defensive & forward positions & kicked over 100 goals.

Not a hanging offence but geez its disappointing. Jeff is not a kid any more - he is a big boy now. A bit like the other problem he had at Carlton. his first instinct seems to be to tell fibs rather than 'fess up. He had a moral if not legal obligation to tell Melbourne about this matter. Where we are coming from we just do not want ratbags at the Club I don't care if they are good footballers because ratbags will eventually bring the Club down. He should be fined or stood down for a game for not disclosing.

Just logged on here to look at some some footy & it seems its a private site for a few mates - seriously can't you people maybe just email each other instead of clogging the site up with personal chit chat.

The most important thing that Peter Jackson can do for the Club is to make sure that when he leaves he either lines up a top notch replacement or has trained somebody to take his place. We need a continuity of good CEO's to ensure our success because the quality of the Club's CEO's over the past 25 years has been from dreadful to very ordinary.