Dees2014
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Everything posted by Dees2014
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I'm surprised that a number of posters on here seem surprised by this development. What we have learned from this episode is that someone's stance on this scandal seems to be determined by a. Whether they are Don's supporters ( Daniel Andrews, Robbo, Chip Le Grand, Thompson - global head of news limited, Linda Dessau - Victoria Govenor, Lindsay Tanner), - or b. Using the episode for self aggrandisement or self promotion (Gordon, Tracey Holmes, Beveridge, this senator). Anyone with a minor public profile is almost guaranteed to get a headline by making unsubstantiated remarks about the scandal, particularly if they give a fig leaf of hope for the rusted on Bomber fans, many of whom seem to think that they have been subject to a huge conspiracy and as Hird keeps on say "truth will out and they will all be saved" well they won't be, but it doesn't stop some from using it as a platform for their self promotion. Fortunately, none of it will make any difference to the outcome.
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Saturday Talking Point: The NAB Challenge
Dees2014 replied to Whispering_Jack's topic in Melbourne Demons
I think there is a distinct commercial dimension to this. The AFL for good reasons do not like to be out of the sporting spotlight for long. At this time of the year (February/March) cricket has wound down, the NRL has started, and the A League finals are upon us. The AFL cannot afford to cede that commercial sporting space to their two main sporting rivals - hence the NAB Challenge. My criticism of it is that it could be made more serious, and therefore more important, which I think was what was driving McGuire's comments, but I suspect the clubs themselves are the ones that choose the "glorified practice match" format, so it is inevitably a compromise. -
Not sure anymore what the Murdoch Press is trying to prove in this now. Their lies and distortions are going to make zero difference to the outcomes, unless they think they somehow can influence the damages claims coming down the pipeline against Hird, Little, Essendon and the AFL. TheY can't of course, but seemingly it doesn't stop the sicophants on the staff of the Murdoch press from doing their obsequious numbers anyway. If nothing else, an interesting study in physiology. Someone will write the thesis someday.
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Yeh, the irony is that we will be well above PA on the ladder this year. Next....
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Intraclub Practice Match - Friday 19th February, 2016
Dees2014 replied to Whispering_Jack's topic in Melbourne Demons
I would have thought 3rd or 4th tall. With 4 now on the bench and reduced interchanges, it means I think we will be playing two ruckman, possibly Gawn and Frost (although Gawn and Spencer worked very well in the best win of last season against Geelong). This means the forward talls will be 1. Jesse 2. Dawes/Weideman/Huelett 3. Resting Ruck. 4. Watts (roving half forward). This will be great for Jack when he can at last use his height and speed against smaller opponents. Also can't wait to see Max taking screamers in the square at regular intervals. -
Try the AFL "benevolent" fund. They have most to gain in shutting Hird up.
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2015 Player Review - # 48 Jack Fitzpatrick
Dees2014 replied to Demonland's topic in Melbourne Demons
I think he might. Has great speed for a big bloke, and bot a bad mark. Facing the Hawk's elite mid field as a forward I think he might be very effective. Good on him if he succeeds -
Beveridge IMHO was totally motivated by cosying up to his employers. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if Gordon put him up to it having some understanding of how those involved have operated in the past. After all the Dogs are seriously affected by the Essendon fallout. Their problem is they are blaming the wrong people: like the MFC, they should have had nothing to do with the Bombers post the 2012 scandal until the issues were clarified. For an organisation heavily associated with crisis management lawyers, supposedly expert in risk management, you would have thought they would at least get that right. Instead, they blame everyone else but themselves.
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Yes what I find interesting is that people's attitude to this is either driven by traditional loyalties (ie Essendon supporters), those who will lose out of it (the AFL, clubs who have traded with Essendon to get players - the Dogs, Port, Saints, and ourselves to some extent, although mercifully our hierarchy seem to have the sense to stay quiet), opposed to the rest from other clubs who are almost universally anti Essendon. The pro Essendon people cut across political loyalties, socioeconomic groups, and wealth. Likewise the Senate select committee. The pollies driving this are almost all Essendon supporters. It has nothing to do with their jobs as politicians - they are purely doing the bidding of Tanner and Hird on the public purse and in the time they should be using to run the country. A complete disgrace. Fortunately, in McDevitt we have a hard nut who will run rings around all of them.
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Robbie, Good post. I think we need to accept that there are large sections of the AFL community (not only at Essendon) who simply do not understand the implications of what Essendon have done, or don't want to know. Sadly, as much as I admire the Roos regime, I think the MFC is amongst them. I think it is not generally wilfull (at least with non Essendon supporters), it is more a naivety about the real world, and seems to be worryingly present with Goodwin who was the person who championed the arrival of Melksham to the club. If you don't believe me on this, just look at the posts after I questioned several months ago on here what I regarded as the negligence of the club in having anything whatever to do with Essendon under the current circumstances. There were many DL'ers who clearly thought that it was the ultimate impertinence to question the wisdom of the club hierarchy on this. If the club were a corporation, at the very least the Board Risk Committee would be fired, but more likely the CEO as well, such is the level of incompetence this represents. This by no means is confined to the MFC, but it does I think partially explain why the EFC saga has continued for so long to get so much oxygen when it had no justification for doing so.
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BB try opportunist lawyers continued riding on the gravey-train. They have about as much chance as Hird's spurious appeals IMHO, and the judges will be just as scathing if they get that far which I doubt.
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On that basis, I doubt they will even get to have the appeal heard at all. In other words, their next step ie having CAS give permission for the appeal to be heard, won't happen. I think a previous poster hit it on the head when he said if this is being funded by the EFC insurance company, then they must be terrified of what comes after. And so they should be. The last desperate throw of the dice I would have thought.
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I agree SWYL, they did, if I remember rightly for pick 12, but did not get away with it because of his medical condition. The reality of the harsh world of trading. With doubtful fitness, that would not have been a bad deal for us. However, leaving that aside, the club has still invested considerable resources in him and shown considerable patience. The point I was trying to make is this contrasts with the lack of patience and poor development practices with so many of our top 20 picks since 2008 who's have been pushed aside when they did not develop into our saviours almost immediately. I think we would all agree that the professionalism of our player development has gone to several levels higher since Roos arrived which will only lead to good outcomes.
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For all the noise, the AFL is going nowhere when it comes to the WADA code. They simply have too much to lose. The government and the rest of the Australian sporting establishment will come down on them like a ton of bricks. Australia for a whole lot of reasons cannot afford to thumb its nose at world sport. It is as simple as that!
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The complacency the AFL has exhibited is just staggering, and appear to continue to think they have so much power all they need to do is to manipulate and spin any situation they come across for their own ends. As the biggest and most powerful sporting code in the country, they have become equivalent to many fat and lazy, and immensely powerful multi national corporations - they come to suffer from hubris. There can be no greater demonstration of this than the Essendon saga and this is at a time when their main rivals for the leisure dollar are getting stronger not weaker. It think I am right in saying that of the largest top 50 corporations in the world 30 years ago, less than 50% of them have that status now. Through their arrogance and complacency, and aversion to change, they eventually wither and die: or worse, become irrelevant. For those of us who love Australian football, this also helps explain why a number of us have spent so much time and effort on here advocating that justice be done in this saga, and why local institutions had to act appropriately. This is more than can be said for the AFL. Thank goodness for the integrity of the men and women of ASADA, WADA and CAS who inspite of immense political and media pressure stood firm and eventually delivered a just outcome.
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I think you have to give our medical staff some credence here. If there were any doubt he could not stand up to a full game of football after his recovery I suggest he would have been delisted. The question is when will he be ready. The club has invested a lot in him over the last three years, and has IMHO shown admirable patience in his development which has not been the case in so many of our top 20 picks in the last 10 years to our considerable long term cost. There is no doubt this year is his last chance to again show his early form to pay back the faith, but if it works it would see us in the top eight this year. Petracca, Jones, Vince, Tyson, VDB, Brayshaw, Viney......and an in-form Trengove, would be quite a mid field and would propell Jesse towards a 100 goal season and a long term future with the Dees. A nice thought!
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I'm sure the club would love Weideman and/or Huelett to step up in the NAB Cup. Personally, I'd much prefer them for round one than either Dawes or Pedo as they are the future. Likewise Petracca for either Kennedy or Kent. I suspect though we will not see these new recruits until the second half of the season unfortunately. Then there is Trengove who no-one has mentioned yet...
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Jack, I probably should know this, but is it possible that if they were silly enough to appeal to the Swiss courts, that the penalties could actually be increased on appeal as can happen in some of our courts, especially since the 15 point summary you posted seemed to suggest that at least in some areas the players may have got off lightly. Now that would be interesting!
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Yes I was stupid enough to turn on SEN this afternoon to listen to the Jade Rawlings interview and was unfortunate to have to listen to 20 mins of Connolly before he came on. Connolly is just appalling. Has no knowledge, insights or commonsense. If anything, worse than Robbo and that is saying something. At least Robbo has a sense of humour (sort of). How do these journalists get jobs, let alone be taken as "experts". Ruined my afternoon!
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Mmmm, I don't think she cares given what I have heard her say in the past on this issue. Her journalistic reputation will be shattered by this but she appears to care not. James has her under his spell - akin to Abbott under Credlin's spell. Totally against any rationality, unless other things are afoot. Still we can only expect both will be condemned by their own utterings so and by the subsequent reaction, as Hird was after the Wheatley interview.
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WELCOME TO THE MELBOURNE FOOTBALL CLUB – JAKE MELKSHAM
Dees2014 replied to Theo's topic in Melbourne Demons
Not sure that is the case. If it were, and MFC officials expected him to be rubbed out, and we still drafted him, then that is appalling. More likely in my view was that most MFC officials had their heads in the sand like the rest of the AFL, drunk about the power of the League, and oblivious to the wider world (literally) about drugs in sport, and the power of WADA/CAS. Let's face it, the numerous protestations about the Essendon saga where senior officials at wealthy football clubs and indeed the AFL protested that decisions about the drug soaked Essendon under Hird had "taken them by surprise" and "we are not prepared for this" just are not credible. In my corporate life, if I or any of my senior executive had have said that to the board we would have rightly been sacked on the spot. The AFL world is clearly a powerful sporting culture, but it is staggeringly naive when it comes to the commercial world, and the risks you take in that world and how to survive them. Or is it simply that they are all lying like Hird, oblivious to how foolish this makes them look, and how incompetent. I suspect the latter. -
I do think this needs to be investigated. The only one to have been really identified has been Zakariris (sp?) so far for the simple reason he didn't like needles! What are the other reasons? Maybe there are others amongst them who opted out on moral grounds, or dare I say it on the legal grounds as laid down by the WADA code. If this is the case, then clearly they are extremely relevant to this case, and should be heard. If they were, Essendon would hate it!
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It just shows how little they understand the process. They can only appeal on process grounds ie WADA/CAS have not followed their own rules, or it is outside their jurisdiction. They must think CAS/WADA are complete idiots. The best of luck!
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Good question - one of life's great mysteries. Maybe she and Stan Grant are mad bomber supporters , but I thought she was from NSW. In any case, she ranks with Robbo as being the most biased in the media on this issue, and one of the most powerful because she is a senior producer with ABC News and Current Affairs and therefore control the choice of "expert" commentators on this issue on the ABC radio and television. That is why so often throughout this affair the ABC chooses one of Hird's tame academics to give a totally biased (and usually wrong) perspective in favour of Essendon. One of the few times I can remember ABC News being so consistently wrong and lacking in integrity. It is a very poor reflection on its senior management.
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Isn't it time to condemn the Players Association?
Dees2014 replied to Dees2014's topic in Melbourne Demons
Here are the current AFLPA board members: Brad Sewell Chris Dawes Brad Sewell Leigh Montagna Ted Richards Murray Brown Jimmy Bartell Matthew Pavlich Patrick Dangerfield Will Minson This is the way the AFLPA explains its role on its website: The AFL Players’ Association (AFL Players’) has a 40 year rich history and has entrenched itself as a key stakeholder in the AFL industry. With a 100% uptake of membership, the PA has grown in influence and size to become a respected champion of players and the game. It is the belief of the AFL Players‘ that the core asset of the AFL is its players and central to this, as key stakeholders of the game, players deserve to continue to have their voices heard on all issues pertaining to themselves and the game. As an advocate for its members and the broader community, AFL Players’ is passionate about instilling a sense of integrity and belonging and showcasing these players as people first and athletes second. I would have thought that was a reasonably good quality board, but on the website nothing about governance or formal reponsibilites, which probably means it is not a high priority. Nevertheless, it is difficult to see this group if they were acting as an independent board that they would be so blatantly acting in the interests of Essendon and the AFL. Gill pulling the purse strings again? That's my guess