Diamond_Jim

There was a saying about winning the B&F medal for the VFL Reserves as they were: It went: Good to win one but you do not want to win two ! We had a guy.... Brian Keogh who won two. Eventually he left the Dees and went to St Kilda where if I recall he had an okay career TBH... hard to get excited by Casey unless the win/loss is relevant to the development of the younger players and/or maintaining form in the older players. Years ago I liked the VFA as a separate comp. (Followed the Preston Bullants) but the AFL have just sucked the air/interest out of the lower level comp.

Actually some were clubs (unincorporated associations)... some were companies albeit limited by guarantee As clubs the committee members faced liability much the same as company directors. Legally it was a mess And of course North Melbourne floated its shares on, if I remember correctly the Hobart Stock Exchange

Gordon Lewis was Commisioner for Corporate Affairs in the early/mid 80's He tells the story of how he called the VFL (as it was) into its office and said they had 14 days (I think) or perhaps a few months to fix up their finances or he would close football. The licence fee paid by the Brisbane Bears (Christopher Skase) saved the VFL. Those days many of the clubs were basket cases. Collingwood went almost bust a few times. Clubs mortgaged grand stands to banks. ( God knows how the bank would ever take possession.) Delayed player payments were not unusual. And of course it was payment by matches so no payment in the off season for training etc. The modern AFL under the AFL Commission is an altogether different corporate structure than the old VFL.

I will not be excited by a win. Will be more interested in how and who played well in the hope that it gives me a glimpse of a winning future for the MFC. If we lose it will be just more of the "hopeless feeling" that many of us. By the way I don't want to hear the "it's been a long season...young bodies mantra." Winning well is what this game should be about.

GWS now sitting second on the ladder While we do not love them... beating Port in Adelaide is not an easily dismissed victory

We may not like playing at the Docklands but after watching a few minutes of what should have been a good game between Port and GWS the wind and rain sure plays havoc with the skills and the consequential spectacle

You should be able to google the Demonland archives for a good discussion but if I remember correctly it focused mainly on the MFC wanting Sandringham to be more cognisant of Melbourne's game plan and the development of our junior players. As an example we had a young full forward who was going to be our next star (he never made it) but because Sandy had one of the best old forwards in the game our would be star got few chances to learn his craft

the usual hollow feeling I don't want to hear that we are getting better........... WCE played badly....... we should have won by five goals

Given the time in our forward fifty few if any of our forwards have good possession numbers. May explain why we are not converting time forward into scores. Looking forward to the second half...........one always lives in hope as a Dee's supporter

From the AFL site " The Eagles are trying to negate the ruck work of Max Gawn, Elliot Yeo has had four hitouts coming from third man up. " We have to work out how to benefit from his dominance........ other teams constantly negate it. Same when Jamar was at his best

Sydney Swans football manager Tom Harley said on a 3AW interview just now when asked if they were "talking to Tom McDonald".... "No ...he is a bit outside our price range"

it's been a long decade not to mention season why do I have the feeling it will not be much different next year Frankly our best means of going somewhere is Gawn but it seems that under the present rules a dominant ruckman is relatively easily negated

A flip side and well thought out article about where Sports could not care about politics: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/jul/20/russias-olympic-crisis-lays-bare-a-prevailing-political-apathy-in-sport

Travis Johnstone's third quarter in finals against the Crows. Yes we lost but it is probably the best quarter I have ever seen played by a Melbourne player

Geelong and Hawthorn (just to mention two) have some very good players entering the unrestricted free agency window. These guys must be looking at topping up their retirement funds. Time to look at a little pain perhaps for some of our existing list for the benefit of long term gain. In an ideal world we need to add one quality top up player each year for three years. The requirement (hope) is that we get 4years (2X2) out of each player with the idea that they provide a base for our youngsters as we go forward. Cannot see us going far if we just look at players who are on the fringe of existing clubs Time to dream perhaps !!

Agree.... there certainly should be no negativity directed towards the junior players on our list. In Brayshaw's case he has the ability to be a solid if not better contributor for many years. Let's hope he achieves it. The negativity should be saved for the wasted years which have left our senior ranks so bereft of talent

speaking of alternative ladders.......... we are not doing any better on this one http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/afl-season-2016-what-the-ladder-would-look-like-if-teams-had-kicked-straighter-for-goal-20160718-gq8d5t.html

yeah but we stuffed it up the next week or so. 1990 was up for grabs............ and we missed it

Thanks for that.... will look forward to bite or two after I win the lottery !!! " And it’s the flavour of the sea that makes the Curriculum Saporis able to command the exorbitant price of 500 Euros per kilogram: if you think it sounds excessive, you need to keep in mind the way it’s grown and harvested. Obviously the limited land space in which it has to grow plays a big part: of the island’s 550 hectares dedicated to agriculture, the Bonnotte potato occupies only 5%. But the price is so high because of the harvesting method: to guarantee the quality of the product, fragile and delicate as it is, the Bonnotte must be picked one by one, and strictly by hand."

Now that the basketballers have changed their name "The Melbourne Tigers" is an easy merge (hopefully not very soon as their list is not much better than ours.)

The only thing we have going for us is the name Melbourne. We have played so badly that the brand is almost trashed beyond recognition. All you need is for a TV provider to say "we can improve ratings by reducing the number of games each weekend" and we and three others (not hard to guess but let's name them..... Dogs, North and St Kilda ) are set for merger or oblivion. The plus is that the demand for live sport on TV seems to be ever increasing so we may continue. From a branding viewpoint even if all the optimists are correct I cannot see a real recovery until we have had 10 years of success with at least two premierships. And of course Blind Freddy can see some form of draft assistance heading Brisbane's way and perhaps in a few years also some for the Gold Coast.

Lot of truth in that but I'm not sure I can take another rebuild. I despair of how we are ever going to get out of the mess caused by 10 odd years of not developing players. The fact that we have so few senior players (25-28) that give a good game week in week out means that we lack the fundamental building blocks. Most of the other teams bar Brisbane have one or two if not more. Perhaps Watts and Tyson can become those players. I just do not know. Sure we have a half dozen good young players but without a strong base we run the risk of burning them out as well. Like supporters players like to win. The modern player will not put with losing 70% if not more of their games. They get one crack at it. The talk of finals by some on this forum has disguised what has been a mediocre year... again

lucky they missed a few the score line flatters us serious lack of class in our senior players continues to undermine any real improvement

Nah... we have done that a few times on the past I am looking for a little more

An important few weeks for Trengrove coming up. Would be great to see him finish off the season strongly accompanied by a return to the Melbourne side in the remaining rounds.