Rolling Stone

Fancy that they want to hope Hogan is sound because they paid millions for two of the most injury riddled forwards the competitions ever seen, makes you wonder if they even did medical checks on them before they waved the brown paper bags in front of them, we know how quick the Clark trade occurred so theres no doubt that a medical check there wasn't done, the affects of Cameron Schwab will take this club years to repair.

What I will never forgive Schwab and Neeld for is their neglect in failing to consult the writings of Nostradamus before they went on their recruiting campaigns for Mitch Clark and Chris Dawes.

"'The young lion will overcome the older one,

On the field of combat in a single battle;

He will pierce his eyes through a golden cage,

Two wounds made one, then he dies a cruel death."

This is clearly a reference to the demise through injury of both players. If only those morons understood the prophesy, it would have saved us a lot of misery. You can throw McLardy in with that lot as well. He could have put a stop to this nonsense if he wanted to.

What a farce. Essendon and the players don't know what they took and the players are free to play. They should all be stood down from playing until the club can conclusively prove that the substances injected were not banned substances.

Viney Fan, I'm loathe to make emphatic statements. And with that I'm now going to make one. Garland is vital to us. So often last year he managed to marshall the defence to stop an even greater flogging. Remember we didnt have a midfield per se. I have him in my top 5 players in terms of importance....easily.

If we won only two games last year I think its fair to say that no player is irreplaceable but having said that, we can't really afford to lose many players to injury which is something which applied to all teams, more so those who are struggling like us. Based on the 4 to 6 weeks out, I would suggest that Garland won't miss much in terms of games (unless he transmogrifies into Nick Smith) so there's no need to panic.

Think they might drop back a bit this year 'Jack'. It will be interesting to see what the Chapman effect is, as we well know (McDonald) you have to be very careful how you deal with heart and soul players and Scott might have made a classic error.

The Cats are pretty confident that they've handled the succession of the old guard into the new very well. Two years ago, they gave ten new players a chance to play AFL. They have been coming along nicely and still performing at a high level. They let the veterans go at the right time and I don't see them slipping very much unless they have a bad run with injury. Selwood and Motlop are critical though.

What would he be proving them wrong about ?

Any criticisms of Watts are completely valid.

Watts has had plenty of criticism in his short career. Some of it has been justified but any criticism?

You have made such a broad sweeping statement that if you think about it, you would realise that it is totally absurd.

James Faulkner - never in doubt.

Melbourne players keep on trucking by jumping in huge fridge in sweltering conditions

But the inference here is that Bailey had control of his own destiny. I believe the reason for the schism in the Football Department at the time stems from Baileys frustration at decisions by Chris C and CS. They sent Junior on his way and Bruce, so our first tier leaders went out the door. Green and co were not the leaders we needed for 2011.

. I remember Robbo on SEN saying he was at a function with CS and Don Mclardy a few years ago and debating with Schwab about the recruits MFC should be chasing and he was adamant that CS was obsessed with nimble, fast running outside receivers as the future of footy. This doesn't surprise me at all and explains much of our first round recruiting. We blame Bailey for much of our failings but I doubt he had full control and we know he had SFA resources. In 2010 we were on track playing competitive football. A year later we were in a death spiral with a dysfunctional FD.

Doesn't correlate with my memory. Bailey was definitely adamant that Junior's days were over and I know that Bruce because he wanted two years and Bailey wasn't prepared to agree. As to your proposition that CS had control over recruiting, that's preposterous. Prendergast was the man in control of that fiasco.

Matty Bate. I'd like to see that. He was a real trier.

I was disappointed when he was delisted and surprised no other club took a chance with him. I suppose its all about youth these days.

Casey Radio just sacked all of its paid employees. Apart from broadcasting one Casey finals game this year, they stopped doing games a couple of years ago.

Sad situation out Cranbourne way. Local council locked in controversy, footy club almost broke and now the local radio station.

How do Bomber fans feel about James Hird being paid $1 million bucks in advance for doing nothing after presiding over a programme of suspect supplement injection regime on their playing list?

I tried to check what was going on at BomberBlitz and they've not only locked the thread on the subject but obliterated it altogether. Completely redacted and sent into the ether.

Talk about censorship.

The AFL’s Corruption Case

An interesting viewpoint.

Always a good read on the draft - The lads most likely.

The fact of the matter is that even if Perris decides to put his name up for the draft, there's no guarantee that we're going to draft him. That said, Colless is being angry with Roos for giving him sound advice about his future welfare i.e that he's a good enough player to test himself out in the open market at the draft where his financial position if taken, would be far better than if he limits himself as a rookie to one club.

Roos is being honest and helping to one of his former charges.

Colless is being selfish, greedy and exploitative. You can tell he's been involved at the AFL for a long time.

Wasn't there a guy called Fevola around recently and a Cousins? Shining examples of wayward talents that rehabilitated themselves at other clubs.

You couldn't have produced two finer examples of wasted human lives and bad eggs than this duo.

Let's not forget that there's a connection between Cousins and Martin.

When Benny came to Tigerland, one of the players who came under his influence was Daniel Connors who became Martin's roommate and together they shared the experience of some of the delights of life that make these lads such happy boys for a while. Richmond's culture stinks and they must be in a dilemma over this bloke.

Their problem is they now know that Martin's value on the open market is zilch. Caroline Wilson forgot to mention this salient fact in her article. In her eyes as a propagandist for the club she supports, it must hurt her to say that Richmond want to keep him when the reality is that they don't really need or want him but they are stuck with him because there are no takers for this drop kick.

The whole thing has been badly handled by both Richmond and by the Martin camp.

Pure and simple.

Smart recruiting and better coaching.

So Watts is still going?

He's the one who has to do the final tick off for the Roos coaching appointment once it gets Board approval.

Tom Couch (hamstring) test

Jack Fitzpatrick (concussion) test

Jeremy Howe (concussion) test

Nathan Stark (ankle) 2-4 weeks

Jesse Hogan (knee) 4 weeks

Sam Blease (ankle) season

Shannon Byrnes (foot) season

Mitch Clark (foot) season

Michael Evans (foot) season

Daniel Nicholson (groin) season

David Rodan (knee) season

James Strauss (shoulder) season

The extraordinary thing about our injured list is its capacity to expand during the week after the list has been announced. They are what's called around here "the mystery injuries of the week".

The following players not on the senior/rookie list are not playing this weekend:-

+ Rohan Bail (reason - probably emergency for tomorrow)

+ Mitch Clisby (reason - suspended)

+ Troy Davis (reason - believed to be a hamstring injury)

+ Joel Macdonald (reason - retired)

+ James Magner (reason - unknown)

+ James Sellar (reason - probably emergency for tomorrow)

It's tough on Casey to field a strong side of AFL listers when all of these things happen. Injuries can't be avoided but why did we need to hold back two players for tomorrow's game?

6. Nathan Jones

5. Cam Pedersen

4. Jack Viney

3. Mitch Clisby

2. Dean Kent

1. Matt Jones

Melbourne has hardly fired a shot this year despite having the man who was reputed to be the world's greatest fitness guru, David Misson whose job description is "Elite Performance Manager". When he was at Sydney they went through the weeks leading up to the finals and then right through to the big one with virtually no injuries, having to make only one change to their line up in the last ten weeks before the grand final. With a settled side like that, they were odds on to win a flag and win one they did.

When he was appointed to the Melbourne job I thought "happy days are here again" but the reality has been no change. We just keep getting important players injured. Like James Frawley on the eve of a game v GWS which has this flash young FF kicking lots of goals. Last week it was Colin Garland and Dean Terlich was one of the mystery injuries of the week. What next.

Things were looking up for a while and we had only one or two changes every week after Neil Craig took over but this week, I think there will be changes aplenty. And there will have to be if we are to get up and win in the long, cold shadow of Phil Scully at Skoda Stadium.

Don't know why but I'm tipping Melbourne to win by a point.

If all the "tests" are passed then we can still put a competitive team on the ground.

Demetriou should now be angry at Mclachlan.

As it was Mclachlan who was told about the relationship with Danks by Melbourne officials.

So therefore it was Mclachlan who withheld important information to Demetriou.

Looks like we are in the clear, in the reference to lying and witholding information.

Seems to be just a matter of whether we did anything wrong in administering a cream on Trengoves foot.

This allegation would be easy to defend as nothing was ingested and the drug was only recently banned so its a legal minefield for Wada and the AFL.

Sound very much like the AFL has some, well ... um, corporate governance issues. Where's the communication between Vlad and McLaughlin? Probably in the same place as the communication between Vlad and Anderson over tanking.

No matter, such things are only important if we're speculating about unknowns involving one of its constituent clubs.

It has not just been banned as an injectable....it has always been banned as it was never approved in the first place. It is ok as a cream as comes under cosmetic regulations

Where does one find these "cosmetic regulations"?

If there is one thing the MFC should do right now...

Get some heavyweight legal eagles ready standing by to defend this club to the hilt against the overt bullying by the AFL. I find it incredulous that the DimWit CEO did not declare that the MFC briefed them fully about Dank in February.

As a paid member of an AFL club I have had a enough of the AFL blaming everybody else other than themselves each and every time. DimWit CEO has a messiah complex and needs to go,

He probably didn't know.

I suspect that whatever happens, it will all be done for show and the end result won't be too embarrassing for either the AFL or the MFC.

With the ramifications of the Essendon situation up in the air, the AFL won't be all that keen on the tanking issue growing legs. It wouldn't take much - a disgruntled ex-player or official from another club and the sport will be immersed in scandal for the whole season and perhaps beyond.

There's a real danger there for the AFL CEO in view of the many pronouncements he made that club's don't tank. I suspect that Caro is ready to strike and use that article she wrote quoting him after the Jordan McMahon game.