Lucifers Hero

I don't have much evidence, rfpc. But it seemed a reasonable thought at about 7.00 this morning when I was still on my first espresso ? . To take your question a bit more seriously - he has been 'good' in the sense he has stayed largely in the background (or some would say that is where Jackson has kept him) which has enabled Jackson and co to get on with their jobs. However, if Bartlett plans a higher public profile he needs to do a lot of work on his PR and media presence. Curtailing his defensiveness will help and as much as some on here don't like it, to 'play the game with media' folk, especially influential ones. As yet I haven't seen many signs that he has much media savvy. Whether he continues to stay in the background is yet to be seen and I'm prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. But yes, I share your broader concerns.

WOW. That is a bit of a surprise. My bad for saying 2021 earlier in this thread that may have misled other posters. So Jesse is an FA at the end of 2020. That puts him in a tricky spot for contract renewal. He can't extend for just one year to 2020 - too obviously his FA year and shows lack of commitment. Can only imagine the club would (or has) asked for a long(er) term given our performance has clearly dispelled his prior doubts. He is a proud and private young man and genuinely appreciate of all MFC have done to support him. He will be very wealthy whatever he does. Can't imagine just $$ will take him to Freo. So it will be very Interesting watching this play out and see what Jessie really wants from football.

Thank you. Yep, it has taken 5 years to remove all players who for whatever reason didn't make the grade in the Roos/Goodwin era, some of whom were mature age players that came to fill list gaps and have since gone. 5 years - not very long really with a lot of hard-ache decisions along the way. The only players pre 2014 are Jones, Jetta, McDonald, Viney and Hogan (??). An unbelievable turnaround. The fab thing is, of the senior players OOC in 2019 everyone of them would be a starting 22 at an AFL club if not with mfc. That means we will have few to delist next year and more than likely will be trades (this year or next). So not only have we totally rebuilt our list we have also positioned ourselves to get good value draft picks in for the players we lose.

Weird that Saints delist Freeman who had finally got his body right but was given only two games to show his wares and they trade in Kent whose body is no more reliable! Even if they do get Kent on the cheap it still seems not much improvement. Saints have done almost as bad a job as we did and Carlton are doing with their top 10 picks and their development. They will be in a world of pain for some time to come, especially as they have little trade currency this year. Not the best place for Kent to go to but he probably had little choice and little interest from others. Wish him all the best at Moorrabbin.

Updates for Delistings, Reitrees, Trades and 'B' Rookies. We now have 7 senior + 1 'A' Rookie vacancy. My guess is we will use pick #104 and maybe #86 to upgrade Keilty and/or T Smith as both have been rumoured to have contracts in the offering. Nothing to lose using those very late picks for them. That would leave 4 live draft picks with at least 5 senior list and 3 'A' Rookie list vacanies. Vand rumoured to have a contract soon to be announced. This leaves JKH and Dion. Given the changes already there is a very good chance they will have new contracts. JKH has done enough to warrant one and Dion has done a fair bit of work in defence with Jetta so their might be role there going forward. Worth a one year contract to find out. After that are no more 2018 OOC to be decided. That leaves contracted player' futures: namely, Tyson, Garlett, Hogan. Still lots of water to go under this bridge!!

She has been attending/co-hosting the function with other journo's for nigh on 20 years. You don't think her absence would have been noticed and questions asked? What do you expect her to do - leave it for another journo to 'break the news' with their own spin or for her to own the situation and speak to it directly?

Caro acknowledged that Barlett was not happy with an earlier article. They discussed it last week and he said. ‘I’m bigger than that, no big deal.’ You can raise all the questions you like but the facts we know: Caro has been co-hosting this function for the club for 20 years. She wrote an article over the weekend. Bartlett withdrew the invitation a few days ago and did so thru our media department (who according to Caro cited the reference in the latest article, to diligence around the Pert appointment, as the reason). As I've said in earlier posts, to me the ban is churlish and the communication thru the media dep't lacks courtesy by Barlett. Other people on here might have different values to mine but my views on this do not equate to 'passing full judgement on Bartlett' in general. He is an excellent President.

Here is an intricatre trade between Port, Freo and Brisbane. (https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/afl-trade-news-threeway-trade-discussions-begin-to-send-lachie-neale-to-brisbane-picks-to-port-adelaide-and-fremantle/news-story/50aa9995716b2deb3cc588af146fcce2 Not shown but Port gets pick #10 from North for Polec. Later pick trades also involved. In this Freo keeps their current pick #5. Pretty good deal for Freo to have picks 5, 9 and 10. Question is what do they do with them? Morris hints at Freo usng #9 and #10 for a Hogan trade (or to stock pile young talent). Nothing definitive but should start tongues wagging and excite quite a few on here. If Jesse can't/won't commit now, then it best he is traded as MFC have answered his past doubts on where we are going. Also, I'm sure he would want to avoid the personal toll of the media harassing him about a new contract throughout 2019. Its a big burden if he stays for 2019 without a contract renewal. We would also want to avoid the distraction that media attention would cause. If that Freo deal was offered and Jesse wanted to go we couldn't turn it down. We lose a great asset but at the end of the day all parties are better off and we can concentrate of football.

Not the same situation at all. Fergie is addressing a group, not a specific person . And there is nothing in this to say Caro has lied. Few AFL people would like how Caro goes about things. Most President's and CEO's just let her rant! For example: Eddie was on FC last night. He and Caro have the ultimate media love/hate relationship - just watch them go at each other. He above all has good reason to ban Caro from everything at CFC but he has a thick skin and is very smart - Eddie strongly believes in the 'keep your enemies close' philosophy. Bartlett could do well to take a leaf or two from Eddie's book. Especially as it is a gig she has done for MFC as a volunteer for about 20 years. She didn't need to give up her time to support our struggling club. And he could have given her the courtesy of a call to withdraw the invitation rather than thru a media manager. Bartlett has not done the club any favours here. There will come a day when he needs her influential voice. She would be in her rights to say 'sorry mate'!

In the op's audio, Caro says she and Bartlett chatted about the function last week and all was good. The article I quoted was published over the weekend in The AGe. Yesterday she gets a call from our marketing department to say not to attend. That sounds like a knee-jerk reaction and churlish, especially after a near 20 year history. We can't go banning journo's when they write something we don't like. Not good for business.

It seems Bartlett didn't want her there even tho she had been doing this gig for nearly 20 years. Apparently, it was her passing reference to Pert's appointment and questioning the mfc due diligence in this article https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/the-storm-before-the-calm-at-melbourne-20180921-p50587.html was the reason for withdrawing her invitation. It is Bartlett's prerogative to invite who he wants but I reckon it is churlish of him. I didn't like the article but it went unnoticed and it is a shame it and the Pert appointment have now been brought into the spotlight.

Hope so and doable if we win the premiership. But it seems COTY is the one whose team goes up most spots on the ladder from the previous year. Interesting to note Clarkson has never been honoured with this award. Odd, as it is a peer voting.

One of your best joeboy! Very fair!

Because he won't sign a contract extension which expires next year. If he isn't going to extend why keep him hanging around. And, our club doesn't need the media distraction of a 'will he, won't he' commentary throughout 2019.

1. Buckley 2. Simpson 3. Goodwin http://www.afl.com.au/news/2018-09-25/buckley-crowned-aflcas-coach-of-the-year Voted by all AFL Coaches: "AFLCA members voted on a 3-2-1 basis after the weekend's two preliminary finals, factoring in season performance, available resources, player talent and team management". Reckon Goodwin would be quite happy with that and how 2018 has panned out for him and the club.

Kudos to MFC for telling them now they won't get contracts. It gives their managers time to find another club to which they can go for free as they will be Delisted Free Agents. It is a respectful way of letting players go, unlike some clubs hold on to their players till very late in the trade cycle in the hope they get a pick of some small value late in the draft. I would be very happy to see any of them find their way to a new club.

I find it a bit surprising that May is coming to us as he was slated as a shoe in for the Pies. Hawks also chasing him hard. But if he does come to us it will be nice to get one over Coll and Hawks. MFC = Dee-stination Club!

Please read or quote the paragraph that followed that line you selectively extracted from a very well reasoned post and realistic option for a trade!!

Those who think we will play 'hard ball' need to think again. We started off doing that with Lever (1st rnd + 2nd rnd picks) and then gave in. And last week Jason Taylor said: "If we target a player we think can help our list improve and it's an area of need; we believe in dealing fairly with the other clubs involved,". So don't expect us to go all tough guy now. Having said that I can't imagine we will give Jesse up for just May. GCS have pick #17 so I could foresee Freo's pick #5 to GCS for May and pick #18, a pick we can make very good use of - gets us back into the first round and could get us the outside run we need or package it up for an even better first round pick. Edit: that is better than the Lever trade which was pick 2017 #10 and 2018 #15.

Has he retired? PR says he won't be offered another contract. I draw the distinction only to say that another club may pick up as a Delisted FA and if so good on him. Whatever the future holds I wish him and his family well. He has been a terrific, flexible and willing asset for us and a very loyal team member. Will always be a red and blue fave!

The rejection of the pp is a good sign. It is the second time this year the AFL Commission have turned down an AFL Admin proposal. The first was when Gill had set up a fanfare press conf to announce the GF would be a twilight game only to have the Commission knock it on the head. The reason for knocking back the pp's is: "...Carlton have got 18 first-round picks and they'll get the No.1 pick again this year. "Gold Coast have got 15 first-round picks on their list and they're going to get picks two and 15 this year if Tom Lynch goes to another club...they'll get pick three..." Well hello, as if blind freddy couldn't see that in advance When combined with the Commission's stance on pokies this is good progress with some accountability for Gill and Co. When Fitzpatrick was head of the Commission it just rubber stamped what Gil and Co wanted (especially if it helped Carlton).

Based on the polling we may not get one. Yes we have the players who deserve one but getting enough votes for one is a different matter. Viney will start taking votes from Brayshaw and Oliver. Along with Max claiming his fair share they may all finish in the top 5 or top 10 but all too good to separate in the votes. That is one star-studded midfield, the likes of which hasn't bee seen since the Lions of the early 2000's. Sadly, the Brownlow means less and less each year so Max, Ollie, Gus and Jack can rotate for the Norm Smith medal ?

Umpires clearly don't like 'stagers'. They started paying frees against him. Teach the sod a lesson.

I thought the same thing. There seems to be as much unconscious bias by umpires in Brownlow voting as there is with supporter 'affirmation' based free kicks. I wondered whether Oliver is in the same boat. The umpires could not have missed all the undeserved talk of 'diving' and 'throwing' and he is a cheeky sort of a guy. Rapt for all our players and the team. For us to come second in team polling is another strong indicator of how far we have come over the last 4-5 years. @Ethan Tremblayloved the instagram by Gus sending up the AFL. Reckon he will get an invite next year! He might start Hi-5's with all the umpires next year, not just Razor. Huge achievement for him and a great way for his family to end the year.

I don't really know. For the last 18 years my Redleg seats have been in Level 2 N8. Now that I have upgraded my niece to Redleg they are in Level 2 N6 (same row, wait listed to be together). So, I assume Redlegs are level 2. When the MFC memberships open there is often an MCG map showing the Reserved, Redlegs and Trident areas. Or I am sure the membership dep't would be happy to answer,