Swooper Northey

The State Government has announced funding of $15.5m for Richmond to enhance facilities at Punt Road Oval on top of $15m of federal funding. North just received $7.3m to do the same. We're being left behind when it comes to developing our own training base. For years now we've heard about 'confidential stakeholder meetings' without the club showing meaningful signs of progress.

Never thought I'd say it, but I'd also be open to Ross Lyon.

I have always supported Goody but am losing patience with the growing trend of being dictated to by opposition teams and not having the ability to react. From the first bounce it was easy to see Geelong's tactic of chipping it around through the midfield. We did nothing to counter that. Geelong had 54 more uncontested possessions and 60 more marks. How do we let that happen?

Having seen highlights of yesterday's practice match, it begs the question why we couldn't have access to the 'G for training during this period? The ground could surely cope with a few training sessions held throughout the week. There are four lots of changing rooms, underground parking and ample meeting space not being used for corporate functions at the moment that could easily be altered for lockdown purposes. It's wishful thinking, but it would be great if the club could come to an agreement with the MCC for this unusual season.

Weideman for Jackson. I'm not critical of Jackson but he's raw and will take time. Weid has to be ahead of him at this point. Pickett for ANB. OMac for Smith Also need to find a way to get vandenBerg in.

It's seriously concerning that we couldn't wrestle back the momentum at any point. The signs were there in the second quarter and we just didn't respond. 1.2 in the second half in an indictment. A hollow victory.

Elsternwick Park is less than 10 kilometres from the city and close to public transport (train, tram and bus). Not only is VAFA headquarters a facility that could be further developed for elite purposes, but there is also the disused public golf course next door. Whilst not taking away from local council's desire to use that area for more open public space, the size of that land could easily accomodate a training facility particularly if it could also be used for local clubs and school sport. As it stands there is a decrepit golf club house near the corner of Glenhuntly Rd and New St. You'd think that space alone could make way for an admin and indoor facility. Meanwhile at Dendy Park the old athletics track has been torn up and is now grass. The club could lay a proper track (like Collingwood have only several lanes) so that it can be used for community/club use, then develop the adjoining area with state of the art facilities for the MFC. I realise neither option is our ideal scenario of being in the heart of Melbourne, but moving out slightly past the city could provide more scope and flexibility for the club as the years go by. I'm concerned about the time and money that will go into developing something in the CBD only for it to be past its used by date after a few years.

Although I'd love to see us with a training base near the MCG, I feel there won't be the land required in that area to cater for our growing needs over time. Going outside the 3000 post code to locations such as Elsternwick Park or even Dendy Park could present better options. Neither are far from the city and could open the door for public/private partnership with either local council, schools and sporting clubs.

I agree that the announcement would have impacted our preparation and I heard Max say something to that effect, but playing Devil's Advocate, it didn't seem to be a problem for the Eagles. I want us to become a side that doesn't get rattled by outside influences and can cope regardless of the situation.

Shane Woewodin.

From memory we took Jamie Shanahan with the first pick in the 1998 Pre Season Draft and although he clearly wasn't the same calibre of player as Peter Matera, he filled a hole for us in 1998 when we were in desperate need for a strong, experienced full back. By 2000 Al Nicholson had replaced him in that position, but you wonder if we'd had been as balanced as we were in 1998 if not for Shanners. A quiet achiever.

I went along to the AFLW match last night at Moorabbin and saw St.Kilda's impressive facilities for the first time. I left thinking what an indictment it is that the Saints have better facilities than us. In the time that we've been looking for a solution they left Moorabbin, developed Seaford, buggered up that arrangement, left Seaford and redeveloped Moorabbin to create an elite practice venue. What have we been doing? Creating 'facilities working groups' and what appears to be endless high-level talks with 'stakeholders'. Enough is enough. We have to see progress on this issue otherwise we'll be left behind.

I'd love us to finally crack the code on this issue. While in an ideal world the Melbourne Football Club would have its training base in Melbourne proper, I wonder if any training facility in the established Melbourne sporting precinct will give us scope to cater for the growing requirements of elite footy? I fear we will quickly outgrow any new facility in central Melbourne and find ourselves in the position of playing catch-up again. Soon enough all clubs will want huge training bases with a minimum of two training grounds, large indoor practice areas and the ability to hold closed sessions. Can inner-city Melbourne accommodate these demands? Hawthorn's new facilities at Dingley will soon be the envy of other Victorian clubs. West Coast opened its $60m home in Lathlain last year. It consists of two training grounds, one the size of Optus Stadium, the other the size of the MCG. It also has a 60 metre indoor training hall, gyms and a lap pool. This will become the standard for other clubs to chase. Moving beyond the 3000 postcode might give us more ability to establish such facilities. Elsternwick Park is an interesting proposition, particularly as the public golf course next door to the established VAFA ground has been closed and is being turned into community open space. Would there be more ability to establish the facilities we need in a location such as this, given it could also be used for community purposes? It is only 10km from the CBD and easily accessible by public transport.

An excellent appointment. Peter will be fantastic for our club.

Would love to see Ooze back at the MFC.

We should never, ever be seen in the royal blue of the 70s and 80s. It was symbolic of a shocking era in our history and a weak administration that allowed us to compromise our colours. I can cope with white ahead of that!

Excellent summary.

Good call. That's most likely what I saw. Thanks for clarifying.

Was just watching Game Day and saw Kent listed as having a hamstring injury. Has anyone heard any more on that?

Sorry Balls, I have to disagree. We should never, ever be seen in that insipid royal blue of the 1970s and 80s. It's associated with an era of complete rubbish. It looked as weak as the white jumper. Navy blue and red is Melbourne. Nothing more, nothing less.

And with HD broadcasts and big flat screen TVs, coverage of the game is clearer than ever before. So it begs the question, how many uniforms actually clash? In the majority of cases, a novel idea would be to see the away team wear white shorts.

And what about when we eventually host Essendon? Why is okay for them to wear a red clash strip against us, but we can't against them? That doesn't make sense. Did you notice that Gold Coast wore its red uniform against Essendon and St Kilda last season. Nothing was said about it.

Some of you might get a kick out of the AFL's response to my queries about clash uniforms following our win over Gold Coast at the G last year. The answers to my note are in red and come from Tess McManus, the AFL's Match Day Operations Manager. Whilst I appreciated the response, try and make sense or see logic in these answers if you can... From: Sent: Monday, 1 August 2016 9:12 PM To: AFL General Queries Subject: Query for the AFL - clash uniforms To Whom It May Concern, as a long-time follower of the VFL/AFL competition I was hoping that someone at league headquarters could help explain how it determines which uniforms teams wear each week? In days gone by, the rule of white shorts for the away team was a very simple concept to understand, but the current situation with clash uniforms has never really been explained to the football public because there doesn’t appear to be any hard and fast rules in place. I can’t see a logical pattern in how decisions are made and would appreciate the AFL’s insight into how the system works. There appear to be clear examples of inconsistent uniform policy every weekend which causes confusion and often frustration amongst supporters and followers of the game. The basic policy is to have one “dark” team and one “light” team where possible. I am a Melbourne supporter, so for the sake of this correspondence, I will use my club as an example. I am sure however that supporters of other clubs could raise similar queries. Melbourne v Gold Coast last Sunday was an interesting case study. Earlier in the year when these two teams played at Metricon Stadium, the Demons were not allowed to wear their traditional red socks. They instead wore a different set of red and blue hooped socks, to reduce the risk of clashing with the Suns. The above is not entirely correct. The Melbourne FC were allocated “clash” socks and as they did not request to wear their home socks, we did not change the initial allocation. That was understood and considered a reasonable outcome. However on Sunday when Melbourne hosted Gold Coast at the MCG, the Suns as the away team made no change to its uniform – i.e. both sides played the game wearing red socks – see above. Given the AFL’s desire to stamp out clashing uniforms, I’d love to know why this was the case, particularly when Gold Coast has a white clash uniform with blue socks which it rarely seems to wear. The same issue also seems to play out when Melbourne hosts the Brisbane Lions at the MCG. In recent seasons, the Lions have worn their Fitzroy-style red, blue and yellow jumper with predominately red socks against Melbourne (a red and blue team which also has red socks). Why does this repeatedly happen, when Brisbane has multiple uniforms to choose from, yet the AFL puts them in the combination that clashes most? The colours of red are completely different (the Lions almost orange) and therefore we don’t believe it is an issue and neither club has ever raised it as a concern Curiously, the Demons (red and blue) and Port Adelaide (black, white and teal) are deemed to clash by the AFL and are forced to wear alternate jumpers when they meet – correct, both considered “dark” uniforms, yet Collingwood and Carlton, both clubs with dark jumpers (both with dark backs with white numbers) don’t change their uniforms when they play one another, even though Collingwood has at its disposal a predominately white uniform for its use which more closely resembles its original jumper. We believe the Guernsey’s have enough of a distinction due to the amount of white in Collingwood’s Guernsey’s however on occasions the combination of shorts can cause confusion. We are working with both clubs to ensure we prevent this moving forward. When Melbourne (predominately navy blue) played the Bulldogs (predominately royal blue), both clubs were allowed to wear their original jumpers, which looked fantastic. Yet when Adelaide (predominately navy blue) played the Bulldogs (predominately royal blue), the Crows were forced to wear their yellow strip – this was a request of the Adelaide Crows. Again, it is hard to see the logic in this, particularly when Adelaide and Essendon (both dark colours with red in their guernseys) wore their traditional jumpers at the Adelaide Oval last night. I would love to understand how these decisions are reached. This is something we are working on with Essendon – I agree, it definitely wasn’t the best distinction. These are just a handful of examples that I can draw upon which points to the confusion and inconsistency surrounding this issue. There are many more that I could point to. Out of respect for a loyal supporter of our game, I would greatly appreciate some insight into how these decisions are made.

I've written to the AFL about the inconsistent clash jumper policy because it's one of my biggest gripes in the current game. After repeated emails to a generic address I eventually got a response from Tessie McManus who is the Match Day Operations Manager at the AFL. Her email address is: [email protected] I'd encourage you to make your thoughts known because even though I appreciated the fact that she responded, she couldn't really provide a sufficient answer to my many queries. These included: 1.) Why did we have to wear a white clash jumper against Port when Adelaide wore it's predominately navy jumper in its away match against the Power? 2.) Why were Carlton and Essendon both permitted to wear their traditional uniforms when they met, yet we had to wear white in our away match against both clubs? 3.) Why did we have to wear hooped socks against Gold Coast at Metricon, yet in the return match at the MCG the Suns made no change to their uniform? 4.) Why is Brisbane allowed to wear its Fitzroy themed red, blue and yellow jumper against us, with predominantly red socks? These are just a handful of examples that I can draw upon which points to the confusion and inconsistency surrounding this issue. There are many more that I could point to.

Yep - go for [email protected]. I'm worried though that the inbox will be manned by a work experience kid. Perhaps it needs to go to Jennifer Watt or even PJ?