chookrat

Or he's made his decision he doesn't have the drive to see through a rebuild so wants to do the best thing by the club to start preparing for their new coach now. I respect what he's achieved and that he has chosen to step down when he has earned the right to stay on given his success at Richmond.

I'll start by qualifying that I have no medical qualifications whatsoever and no information from the club - I'm wondering if it is a tendon rather than muscle injury, which have a much less certain timeframe and rely on progressing through 3 stages of rehab, and the medicos are putting him through tests to understand which stage he is at. Given he is moving well he's probably at the second stage which is ensuring the tendon has sufficient strength before progressing to the third stage which would involve ballistic movements, e.g. plyometrics. It seems tendon related as if it were a hamstring muscle injury he would be resting it at this stage. For tendon injuries after the acute stage (which it seems he has already passed) the rehab aims to load the tendon up and then finally specific training for the tendon to handle speed/power.

Disagree BBP, it would be near impossible to have the impact graded as low due to 'potential' to cause serious injury. In this case I'd expect we are appealing to back in Hunter for contesting the ball and are confident our appeal has a reasonable grounds to succeed. Also re the JVR appeal, does anyone know whether the AFL covers our legal costs? It wouldn't be cheap to go to the Tribunal and Appeals Board and given the finding surely the AFL would not expect Melbourne to cover costs, especially given the MRO misinterpreted the rules rather than interpretation, and that the Tribunal made the same mistake.

Someone needs to collect them and put them into the Yarra.

Good to see we are challenging. With the exception of the JVR incident, where the MRO and Tribunal decided they would apply a duty of care outside of the rules, I don't have an issue with how the MRO have adjudicated over the past few years as there is a grey area re the players intent, whether they had a reasonable alternative etc. We also don't see which incidents were looked at and why the MRO determines they do not warrant a fine or suspension. Re Hunter's appeal I'd like to see the Tribunal withdraw the suspension on the basis that Hunter was contesting the ball and took reasonable action to avoid high contact and that the manner that Rozee contested the ball resulted in the high contact.

Layzie, agree that our intensity is a bit down but that some on here mistake the faux tough guy stuff for playing hard. I think we do need to play with a bit more of an edge, but also appreciate that if we play that way for 23 rounds then we will be pretty beaten up come finals time. I'd rather we play well and win most games at 95% intensity and ratchet it up for the last 5-6 games before hitting our straps for the finals rather than limp into finals and go out in straight sets.

Exactly rjay, looking back to iur first match vs Brisbane last year we made then look silly by playing tough, accountable and skillful footy ehile they ran around like headless chooks with their faux tough guy act. We're better off not getting sucked into that sort of stuff, but obviously need to be more accountable in and around the contest than what we were vs Port. This said we lost by 4 points vs a team in very good form despite our poor showing and should be able to tidy this up iver the next month.

Agree noting the simplest solution is for Brayshaw to replace Oliver and bring in Harmes who can play midfield, forward or back. We can then rotate our usual support brigade through as well as provide more midfield minutes to Kossie and Rivers to mix things up.

Does anyone know how long we have to decide whether to challenge Hunter's suspension? Based on our clubs home page we have not yet indicated whether we will accept or challenge.

The club statement on the suspension has left the door open for us to challenge. I suspect the club will look at Hunter's action, whether he elected to bump, and weigh up an appeal based on their odds of a successful challenge. My take is it's pretty line ball whether Hunter bumped, braced or turned sideways to protect himself and gather the ball in the same motion. Players are allowed to brace or protect themselves when gathering the ball but if they elect to bump then they are in trouble.

The 29% bodes well for our next generation of supporters as in 25 years many of these will multiply. One thing for sure is its a good time to be a Melbourne supporter, we go into every game believing we are a good chance to win, play a good brand of football, generally get the result and are always in premiership contention.

For what it's worth I don't think Christian loses much sleep when the Tribunal or Appeals Board override his decisions. One does not become the Match Review Officer by caring about what others think. Agree with your second point. In this instance Rozee was out of control and owes himself a duty of care.

At the risk of quoting myself from an earlier post, here is what Sonia Hood from North Melbourne said at a function today and I think she perfectly captures the situation. “There are two parts to the Hawthorn situation: there are some shocking and substantive allegations in the public domain, which I won’t repeat but which relate to terminations of pregnancy and separations of families,” Hood said. “Those are contestable and are strongly denied, and a process was put in place eight months ago to determine whether they happened. I’ll leave what happens next to that process. “But more than that, there is clearly a huge amount of hurt on both sides. And an adversarial system and an adversarial process does not deal well with hurt." “It deals with right and wrong and punishment, not hurt, not learning and not the sort of understanding of one another and moving forward we need to get to if we’re going to have any chance of moving on.” “We need to find a way to build bridges, not battle lines”. Hawthorn embarked on a truth telling process of which its contents were leaked to the media and was then used as the basis as an AFL investigation involving lawyers and sanctions.

The footage makes it look like Hunter was moving towards the ball because the camera is following Rozee. If you follow Hunter relative to the signage painted on the ground he is practically stationary and all he does is turns his body and picks up the ball. Shouldn't have even been a free against in my view.

Hunter was practically stationary and in the same motion he turned his body he picked the ball up - there was no separate bump and collect action. It probably shouldn't have even been a free kick as you're allowed to pick the ball up whether another player is contesting or not. The action that would be more worthy of a 1-2 week suspension is Viney's slide which is quite a dangerous action.

Noone watching the game would have thought there was any chance Hunter would mark that ball.

The report should have been confidential along with the investigation that is currently underway. A part of me wonders whether Kennett initiated the report as a way of diminishing Clarkson's legacy to enhance his own, as there is no way as President you initiate such a review without having an idea of the sort of issues it will uncover.

Agree fully, since Brad Scott left the players have had virtually no stability with multiple senior coaches as well as overhauls of the footy department and executive. I feel for Clarkson in this as while the truth telling is important as a society we are too quick to condemn people including the people who chose to tell their story along with the coaches involved. I hope we see Clarkson back at North and that he can continue to contribute to the game.

Harmes is a true clubman and Melbourne person who has ridden the lows and highs and been really important for the team, culture and supporters. This said with our list profile I think it will benefit both parties if Harmes can find a 2 - 3 year deal with another club that needs an experienced midfielder either to provide cover for a young midfield or as depth for another contender. Also he's at 147 games and I'd be all for him having the opportunity to reach 150 if he does want to pursue his career at another club.

Ankle roll in the Sicily tackle. Spoke to Ben Dixon after the game and seemed ok. Should be good to go next week.

The AFL would say that Brad's conduct reflects poorly on the AFL, to which Brad could include a second envelope stating that the AFL's conduct reflects poorly on the AFL.

Maybe Brad green should send another tweet, help hurry things along.

If the suspension is upheld I hope that Tom MacDonald wears a Van Rooyen mask while he plays.

Does anyone know whether Van Rooyen is allowed to play if they are still deliberating come the opening bounce on Saturday?

I think the issue is his use of the facepalm followed by this is ridiculous. I wonder if the AFL will withdraw the please explain should the Appeals Board find that the 2 week suspension is in fact ridiculous.