chookrat

I reckon Cerra will be successful in his appeal. It wasn't a sling tackle and Hickey hit the ground the way he did because of the way he fell with Cerra underneath him.

Based on this list we lose to anyone likely to place in the top 8, which would mean we expect to be bundled out of finals in the first round. Collingwood, Brisbane and Adelaide look to be the matches that will shape our fortunes. I also don't think we can take any wins for granted, Carlton will start to find some for and press for finals, Geelong are crafty, GWS are no easy beats, Richmond have had some good games, North compete hard and Sydney have alot of key players out and will improve as they get them back. I'm backing us to finish top 4 and work into some really solid form in the next month.

I'm surprised about the negativity here. We lost to Port by 4 points on their home deck despite being beaten around the ball for 3 quarters in what was an excellent game. Compare the quality of Sydney v Carlton last night to Port and us last week and we are close to the mark and tidy up a few areas and beat Collingwood and suddenly we will be talked up as the team to beat.

I'd expect Caulfield or the MCG Precinct. I would be very surprised if there wasn't an announcement within the next 6 - 12 months for one of these locations. While our club is subject to the State Government led process, it is well recognised that we have the worst facilities in the league and have received the least amount of Government funding in the league over the past 20+ years, and we are participating in the process in good faith that there will be an outcome at either location.

Spot on JD, as supporters we tend to underrate the competition and then are disappointed if we don't win every game. We look at teams that are performing better and ask why that's not use given the talent we have, despite not considering the opposition talent and that every team is working on its system and exploiting ither teams systems and vulnerabilities. Personally I'm pretty comfortable with where we sit given the improvements we have made in how we convert in our F50 while our defence remains solid. I'm also comfortable that we are being beaten in clearance and contested ball as these are areas we can tidy up. Overall I think we're in a good position to challenge again this year.

With Hawthorn receiving $20m in federal, $15m in state and $5m in local government funding I'm assuming we could expect similar, at least state and federal level, potentially minus what we received for Casey redevlopment and the Gotch's paddock resurfacing. Hopefully an announcement not too far away, which I figure will be in the MCG precinct given there is nothing in the Caulfield Racecourse development. With the Commonwealth Games coming up in 2026 is there potential to tie in any redevelopment with the Games. I read somewhere that they are using regional facilities but not clear if there are plans to use the MCG precinct.

What BS, back in the Neeld era you could rock up on the day and be guaranteed entry.

This ones fine, Duncan's eyes are closed which is the AFL's preferred method of contesting the ball.

Chook I agree that the jobs that you have listed can be quite stressful as they involve working with trauma and social disadvantage, however, I don't think they would normally have the same level of stress as a senior AFL coach for the reasons I outlined earlier.

Agree, also as Melbourne FC our supporter base should have better lawyers than our competitors providing a comparative advantage.

The flipside is that if we believe we can successfully appeal then it will send the Tribunal a clear message to uphold future suspensions at its peril.

Binman, while I'm sure being a MICA paramedic is stressful in that they are dealing with life and death situations on a regular basis I think being a senior coach would be a more stressful job overall. While being a paramedic would deal with more stressful situations and real risk of issues such as PTSD, they have a high degree of job security and their work is done when their shift ends. Senior coaches have the constant stress of managing more than 50 people to deliver success in a high performance industry (noting emergency is high performance as well) and have little to no job security. Both roles are difficult and subject to burnout but there is no financial or other support available for senior coaches once they finish.

Not sure about this Chook. I reckon coaching is up there in terms of stressful jobs. Its a very public, heavily scrutinised position on insecure employment terms, you are responsible for more than 50 people many of who are young kids in their early 20's who regularly get themselves into trouble and look up to you, and every year around 20% of the workforce is turned over. There aren't too many jobs out there that combine public scrutiny, outcome based performance, managing upwards of 50 people, and job insecurity. Would be good for you to list some more stressful jobs for reference.

My experience is that I have recovered from a tendon strain and am familiar with the rehab protocol. What made me think tendon is that Clarry is already doing some running less than 48 hours after the injury and if a muscle tear I would have thought they'd have him off legs to let the muscle heal. Rehabbing a tendon involves loading it up to what you can tolerate and building on this. This said I'm not a sports physio and have no idea how the AFL medico's grade and rehab different hamstring injuries.

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.