Diamond_Jim

That is my concern as well. Next years first rounder could be used to trade for another player or go into the draft. Now we will have to rely upon picking up an unrestricted free agent (hard with salary cap restraints), trade a decent player (we don;t exactly have a surplus) or do nothing. Of course the pessimist in me says we will have a few first rounders next year when our full forward heads home !

and what coin do we have to trade with next year as Lewis Jones etc etc come to the end of their playing careers. Not as though we have a wealth of players we can offer up for trades

Way overs and when combined with the high salary it is much too high for a medium level performer. (By medium I mean this is the price that one pays for an elite performer and he is not that.) Oh well let's hope he delivers .... MFC does not have a great history with high priced trades

Interesting comment by the US coach: "I would love to see one of these hotshot teams from Europe come here and play in our CONCACAF qualifying and really get a taste of this and see what that's about," Arena said. "This is very challenging, it's like survival of the fittest. They could do one of those TV shows on this. Who will survive in the end, that's basically what this is."

The return leg is in Sydney .. why I don't know More importantly there are reports that Ange will resign in November .. win or lose https://www.foxsports.com.au/football/socceroos/stunned-reaction-to-socceroos-coachs-plan-to-quit/news-story/6840e7416865f28294488a53e364a13e Just saw that Chile failed to qualify ... wow

Another high humidity game (relative humidity for November.. 77%) ... temperature just a little lower than Melaka at average high of 26 degrees. Will be a very tough first leg. Any word on where the Australian leg will be played. Got back to Melbourne just in time to watch the extra time .... painful stuff..... seems to be no flow to their game. Desperately need another class striker.

Second disappointing start in a row from Daniel. Seems not to want to push Max .... Perhaps he just expects Max' car to fail as it has so many times this year. Other than the last few laps it was a bit of a yawn fest but at least there was minor excitement for a few minutes. Love F1 but it does seem to be slowly dying as a race even if the spectacle and hype are still there on occasions. Will be interesting what the new owners do.

cutting but so true fn dee. On Fritsch .. I have seen him about five times and while I have seen his marking impact I have not noticed him breaking away etc into space. Not to say he cannot (does not) do it but at VFL level the game seems to me to be a lot scrappier and less open than AFL games. I am no expert but I liken him in my mind to Gunston. A good goal kicker who knows how to position himself. His repeated pack marks are very "un Watts" like of course.

Well. In the end perhaps lucky to get away with a one all draw. Back to the hotel now. Syrian fans rightly proud of their team

Penalty goal to Syria. Aussies playing themselves out of it in the last 15 minutes 2 minutes to go

Crowd has grown to perhaps 3.5k. Lots of Australians came in at the last minute. Suspect they were having a beer outside. Both sides with chances. Australia took one but Syria is certainly in the match. If anything they look taller and stronger than the Australians. Here's hoping for an early australian goal in the second half.

At the stadium now. Small crowd.. 2k...maybe. 1.8k Syrians. No sign of rain and quite warm with high humidity.

No rain overnight and the usual warm day here in malacca. Kick off is quite late... 8.30pm local time. I assume this is for broadcast reasons back to Syria. I'll post again from the ground if possible.

Apparently Syria have been getting some of their stars back and they are now a relatively strong team. The socceroos must have just about had a record number of shots on goal in that last game against Thailand. It was that draw in Bangkok that caused them all this trouble.

Here's a picture of the goal set up. Look closely at the back posts. Sorry... Just cannot seem to get the picture to upload

Safely in melaka. A lot of rain between here and kl but melaka itself seems dry. Just went to the stadium looking for tickets. Like many things here not quite organised like we are used to. Anyway wandered in and had a good look at the pitch. Sand with flat weed type grass. My kids school has better goal posts. Actually looked a little dangerous. Found a guy who said I could get a ticket tomorrow and that they are training at 6pm tonight. It is only a few minutes from the hotel so I will go down and have a look. I wonder when these guys last played in front of what is likely to be a very small crowd.

You are probably right but it is a smart play by Collingwood as it re-enforces the 2 first round pick argument. Draft period is like chess but think three dimensional chess .... you have to look at several angles and ask what is Collingwood's end game.

Late second round or early third is my thinking. A stand out young VFL player ... he will be looked at by all clubs. Hard to see him slipping beyond the third round at the latest. The only question mark is whether he is too slight for AFL but from what I saw he has the goods. Also of course the Richmond win means that players like Fritsch may not be considered the model AFL footballer.

another middle level at best game... not sure why we are so excited Last week the standard defence was that they won by so much the ball did not come his way often. This week is that the Tigers forward line was too small. Hope he finds Goldilock's bowl etc if he comes to the Dees and everything is .... just right !!

Just preparing for the big trip to Melaka next week. Well it is not really that far ... about 500k but in the Malaysian context that is big ........ Car is serviced .. went for shave and haircut while that was being done. Boy when you get the old second scrape you don't need a shave for days. Tickets still a conundrum. The Australian Supporters group are offering a match day package for A$250. Hell one could live for a month on that. Present plan is to rock up to the stadium the day before and with my impeccable Bahasa Malay vocab (usually used only at the nasi kandar stall) make inquiries of anyone I might find. In keeping with Malaysian tradition my most important decision will be where to stop for lunch. Bean sprouts and chicken in Ipoh perhaps or roti cenai at Kuala Kangsar. The roads are very good with big clean roadside stops replete with food halls about every 100kms. Local coffee is fantastic. The local greeting by the way is often not hello .. but rather is sudah makan kah which loosely translates to "have you eaten yet". Looking forward to trying the Portuguese styled Nonya food around Jonkers Walk in the evening. Last week we had the tail end of the typhoon that hit Vietnam. Did it ever rain. The west coast of Malaysia is actually very benign when it comes to weather events due to the massive island of Sumatra being a mere 100 or so kilometres across the Starits of Malacca. So fingers crossed for no rain. Local coverage of this match in the media is about nil ... well from what I have found it is nil. So until the next exciting instalment...

On the AFL site 15 Crows players were ranked in front of Lever for last night's game. Their comment was: Jake Lever – 5 Has set a high standard for himself this season and was not quite up to that level. Did his best to float across and impact contests when he could. http://www.afl.com.au/news/2017-09-22/every-crow-rated-from-the-first-preliminary-final-

were you guys watching a different game.... not even in their top 15 in tonight's game I am sure he is better but not tonight Would you call him in the top 3 or 4 Crows players because that is what we are going to pay this guy... $800k per year ??

I'm driving down to Malacca (or Melaka as it is called here) to watch the game on 5 October. Not sure how to buy a ticket but it should not be too much of a problem ... the Syria v Uzbekistan game had 350 people. The stadium holds 40,000. Weather will be hot (around 29) and high humidity. It is the inter monsoon phase at present so a decent thunderstorm is quite on the cards. If you guys are interested I can give you a match report concentrating mainly on the colour and the food. Doubt that there will be a beer at the stadium.

what a sheltered life I have been leading.....

Trying to recall the last "big fish" we traded for. I suppose it was Mitch Clark. Dees don't have a good record when it comes to ending up on top in the big trades. Starting with my name sake and moving on... Peter Moore, Kelvin Templeton and the list goes on and on. Hope this deal proves me wrong ... different times... different players. Overall I prefer the slightly lower profile trades like Hibberd for a second rounder or whatever it was.