This fucking umpiring is disgusting. the umpire calls "Punch to yourself, not an attempt to dispose of the ball" against North Melbourne, 30 seconds after he calls play on for a Carlton player doing exactly the same thing. Pretty much eery call is going Carlton's way #-o

Fuck me we'd be dead and burried if Carlton kicked straight.

leigh matthews is a great special comments man . i just dont get how north have a great records against carlton but are woeful against collingwood

Also, Buddha, can you not post live scores? Or use spoiler tags? I'm watching it on tv...

Apologies.
Thought you were otherwise would not have posted.
Is it not live in Melb?

and or western australia. next year ch7 have to show live friday night games

'Melbourne needs experienced coach': David Schwarz

Staff writers From: AAP July 31, 2011

FORMER Melbourne forward David Schwarz says the AFL club should turn to an experienced coach to replace embattled incumbent Dean Bailey.

Demons powerbrokers have been meeting today as the club decides how to react to their shocking 186-point loss to Geelong at Skilled Stadium yesterday.

The jobs of Melbourne chief executive Cameron Schwab and football manager Chris Connolly are also reportedly in jeopardy.

Amid expectations Bailey faces the sack, Schwarz says since Melbourne's golden era under Norm Smith, who led them to six flags in the 1950s and 1960s, they have too often appointed first-time coaches.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/melbourne-needs-experienced-coach-david-schwarz/story-e6frf9mf-1226105457283

Demons in crisis

Jesse Hogan
July 31, 2011 - 1:26PM

Jared Rivers' declaration that he and the rest of his Melbourne teammates are primarily to blame for yesterday's 186-point annihilation by Geelong may not be enough to prevent significant off-field upheaval at the Demons.

Rivers, a member of the club's leadership group, today apologised to the club's member's for the Demons' "embarrassing" performance against the Cats.

"To put up a performance like that puts a lot of pressure on everyone, including the playing group," he said as the club's players convened at their AAMI Park headquarters.

Advertisement: Story continues below "It's about care; we didn't show any care for each other yesterday. That's nothing to do with the coach."

While the future of out-of-contract coach Bailey has been clouded further by the extent of yesterday's loss, Rivers stressed he and his teammates were "right behind Dean".

"You can't put all the blame on Dean for that performance; it was the 22 players who played . . . and put in a performance like that," he said.

When asked what his response would be if the Bailey was removed by the club's board before the end of the season, Rivers replied: "I can't speak for that. We're here just to worry about these last five [home-and-away] games. 'Bails' is our coach and until we hear otherwise we're just going to stick to our gameplan and play as a group — and hopefully get a few more wins."

The chief football writer of The Age, Caroline Wilson, today told 3AW radio she believed Melbourne chief executive Cameron Schwab was closer to being axed than Bailey was, while the tenure of football operations chief Chris Connolly is also in question.

Former Collingwood coach Tony Shaw described the leadership of Melbourne's players as "horrid", while another former coach, Robert Walls, doubted the level of motivation among the Demons players.

"I'm not convinced these players don't want to play for their coach. It seems they're more disillusioned with [the administration of] their club than the coach," he told 3AW.


Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/demons-in-crisis-20110731-1i62y.html#ixzz1TfTb5Psz

AFL quiz sacked Melbourne coach Dean Bailey about tanking

Mark Stevens From: Herald Sun August 02, 2011

THE AFL moved swiftly to question Dean Bailey after the sacked Melbourne coach went perilously close to admitting he tanked for the good of the club.

Bailey indicated he entered the final rounds of the 2008 and 2009 seasons under instructions to finish as low as possible and collect prime draft picks.

"I had no hesitation at all in the first two years in ensuring the club was well placed for draft picks," Bailey said. "I was asked to do the best thing by the Melbourne Football Club and I did it. I put players in different positions."

It was enough for AFL football operations manager Adrian Anderson to phone Bailey, seeking an explanation.

Anderson is not expected to pursue the matter, but he delivered a strong reminder to the Herald Sun that priority picks were under threat. The priority system, which rewards clubs with a prime pick for winning four or fewer games, will be reviewed at the end of the season and could be scrapped.

Anderson explained Bailey's defence, which came soon after he walked away from a packed press conference.

"I asked Dean what he meant ... he indicated he was playing players in different positions for his development and also that they were willing to forego some senior players in return for draft picks and try and develop young talent," Anderson said. "Also, he said the players were always trying to win."

Anderson put priority picks, the source of so much tank talk, back on the agenda. "We did indicate at the time of introducing the expansion concessions that we would re-examine the priority picks at the end of the expansion period, which is the end of this year ... and we will be doing that," he said.

"We haven't made up our mind yet in terms of what will happen to priority picks from here on in."

Bailey gave the Demons less chance of winning matches, but more chance of gaining priority picks and building a platform for the next premiership.

Asked if he was ever asked to tank, Bailey said: "I experimented to a level that meant that we got players into certain positions and we developed them in those positions."

Bailey refused to name from whom the directive came, but said: "I think the whole football club agreed we wanted to develop our players, so we did".

But while Bailey admitted he had fiddled with his line-up with an eye to the future, he stressed that the players in no way rolled over.

"You can't expect a player to go out there and just not try ... players were trying, of course they were trying," Bailey said.

In the final round of 2009, against St Kilda, Melbourne had players out of position, with the loss ensuring it could pick Tom Scully and Jack Trengove.

The Demons won three games in 2008 and four in 2009, ensuring an extra priority pick.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/afl-quiz-dean-bailey-about-tanking/story-e6frf9jf-1226105962701

Furious Eddie calls for investigation

Sam Edmund From: Herald Sun August 03, 2011 8:07AM

CARLTON coach Brett Ratten says players will regret chasing dollars at other clubs at the end of their careers.

Ratten's comments come after Collingwood president Eddie McGuire called for an investigation into Phil Davis's move from Adelaide to Greater Western Sydney, and the Crows labelled the move "unethical".

"When you finish football and life, money doesn't buy you success and premierships and (mateship)," Ratten said today.

"Being involved in it myself and having the premiership reunions, it's something special in life and where do you put a price on that.

"You have your medallion and people can give me 400 to 500,000, whatever, for that medallion. They're not having it ... money can't buy that.''

Ratten said he knew several players who had changed clubs mid-career and regretted it.


"I hope players really go through and think about what they want out of life as well, it's not just about now.''

Adelaide has warned the AFL is heading down the path of "unethical" NRL-style mid-season player poaching after Davis defected to GWS.

The Crows stopped short of endorsing Eddie McGuire's view this morning that the Giants had cheated by enticing Davis, but said it was a sad day for traditional football lovers.

"I'm not sure about cheating ... I understand what Eddie's saying, it's not ethical ... but welcome to the new world of AFL," Crows football operations chief Phil Harper told Radio Sport National.

"In the new world it is probably is ethical but as far as I'm concerned for the old footy world, and probably Eddie the same, talking to players from another club about playing for your club next year doesn't sit right.

"They do it all the time in the NRL and I look at that and shake my head because it's just not what I've been brought up with."

Eddie demands investigation


A furious McGuire this morning demanded an AFL investigation into the actions of the league's 18th club, who he said had agreed a deal with Davis during the season and outside the permitted negotiation window.

"We bang on about the salary cap and all the rest of it - they're cheating on their first signing. What the hell is going on?" the Collingwood president said on Triple M.

"I've been saying this for ages, that sooner or later this is just really going to blow up and everyone's going to do their lid on this one and I reckon this is an absolute insult to everyone in the AFL competition."

Davis and Adelaide confirmed the player's departure at a press conference yesterday, with Davis admitting his head had been turned by the huge money on offer, reported to be as much as $750,000 a season.

But Giants chief executive Dale Holmes later released a statement, claiming an agreement had not been reached.

"Under the AFL rules regarding uncontracted players, we are not in a position to officially agree to terms or come to any arrangement, agreement or understanding with Phil and his management team until after the conclusion of the season," Holmes said.

"We discussed an opportunity with Phil's management during the year, however that is all we are able to confirm at this stage of the season."

McGuire said: "It's just ridiculous and they're treating people like morons.

"Seriously if this is not a complete joke, Adrian Anderson must pick the phone up to Dale Holmes and belt him and hit him with whatever the sanctions are for breaking this rule.

"You tell me, if I offer you a job and you announce you're going to leave your club, your home, your family, are you going to go to Greater Western Sydney where it hasn't even started and in three months time we'll discuss wages with you?

"That's why Phil went in and resigned yesterday and said 'I've got a truckload of cash that I can't jump over'.

" 'Why would I want to go and live in GWS when I play at a club like the Adelaide Crows ... with all the facilities? I'm from Prince Alfred College around the corner, a local hero - no, I want to go and live in Penrith'.''

Davis' teammate Mattew Jaensch yesterday tweeted: '@PhilDavis16 has left for a multitude of reasons, 800,000 reasons!'

"He's an idiot sometimes, Matty," Davis said in response to the tweet.

"I'm not going to go into detail, but (that figure is not correct)."

GWS coach Kevin Sheedy said the first he knew of Davis' defection was when the player announced it yesterday and denied the new club had broken AFL rules.

"I wouldn't know whether he's signed any forms or anything," a typically cagey Sheedy said on SEN radio.

"What I'm saying is I'm glad the young man has decided to come across. Aren't you happy to see footy developing in NSW and Queensland?"

McGuire is already fighting with GWS to keep Dale Thomas, with the star midfielder still yet to sign a new contract at Collingwood.

"It's going to be hard to keep players if they're going (to GWS) without even having a deal on the table," he said.

"Dale Holmes has said that in writing and Dale is a long time executive of the AFL so he would know that you can't break the rules, he would know that to do this would be like rubbing everyone's face in it and flaunting the rules. If I was Adrian Anderson I'd be very, very embarrassed.

"It's a two part saga; there's one rule for one part of the year, another rule for another part of the year and then there's another rule for Greater Western Sydney which means ignore all rules."

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/furious-eddie-calls-for-investigation/story-e6frf9io-1226107166849

What's new at the Melbourne zoo? Primates are running amok

Patrick Smith From: The Australian August 04, 2011

THIS week has rattled all of us more than a little. Everybody was uncomfortable seeing Melbourne president Jim Stynes front the media to announce the decision to sack Dean Bailey.
Stynes is very ill. No doubt he would have wanted to do that because he felt responsible because of his role and status at the club.

It did, though, raise the question whether no one at the club was able to talk him out of such a stressful hour. Leadership at Melbourne appears ankle deep and no more.

The reason why no one intervened on Stynes's behalf is just one question that needs answering in a week where standards and ethics of both a football club and the AFL itself demand forensic inspection.

We'll start with Melbourne chief executive Cameron Schwab. On Saturday, Schwab, a veteran of club administration and politics, was out of a job. The Melbourne board had listened to the club's senior players and agreed with them that Schwab had far too much to say in running the club's football department.

His interference, the players said, had become so sensitive that coach Dean Bailey was forced not only to concern himself with match day but act as a buffer between Schwab and the players. By Saturday, Schwab knew that he did not have the support of the president or the board. Put bluntly, he was sacked.

By Sunday night, Schwab had been reinstated and Bailey sacked. Following a meeting between former club champion Garry Lyon and Stynes and a board meeting where several directors had a most profound rethink, it was decided the players got it wrong and that it was reckoned Bailey was to blame, and Schwab was not.

Bailey is the first to admit that losing on Saturday afternoon to Geelong by 186 points was a potential deathblow to a coach in his final year of a contract.

But it does not explain how board members could reach such conflicting decisions -- sack Schwab, reinstate Schwab, sack Bailey -- in a matter of hours and not resign themselves.

When all this settled, surely Schwab's position at the club was untenable even though he was back in the chief executive's office. The board had shown in the most public way that it did not support him as the main administrator of the club.

A defeat by the football team then somehow convinced them otherwise and support for the chief executive was reinstated.

If Schwab is to run the club effectively he must make major decisions -- he has to get a new coach for starters -- and the board must trust him to get those major decisions right.

But that understanding, that implicit confidence between chief executive and board has been broken irreparably. Schwab thinks the board was persuaded that he was interfering in areas that were not his specific domain. The board got a decision so wrong not only did they rescind Schwab's termination, they sacked someone else altogether.

How could Schwab have the confidence of the board? How could Schwab feel assured that the board is up to the task of running a club in the competitive market of the AFL? Schwab must move on if the club is ever to function as a competent business and football club.

Or Schwab should stay and the board resign -- the lot of them. Whatever, there are no sensible or workable protocols that allow Schwab and the board to operate in good faith and with mutual respect ever again.

Does Schwab stick around and wash the dishes for another 12 months -- the length of his extension -- and then move on next year? Have new guidelines been drawn that separate the chief executive from the football department? If so, how demeaning for Schwab who has been part of the revivals of Fremantle and Melbourne as stable financial clubs. Maybe, because of the friendships within the club, Schwab and Chris Connolly have been given a fresh season to find alternate employment.

More questions still. Bailey in his farewell news conference on Monday said that he helped the club to reach its aim of being best placed to get early draft picks.

That is he tanked, ensured that while his players went out to win, obstacles were put in the way that made that impossible. Lack of interchanges, players winning in their positions moved inexplicably, senior players overlooked. Melbourne and Bailey were doing nothing differently to other clubs hunting for priority and pole positions in the draft. Yet the AFL administrators have the gall to say this was not manipulating match results but merely manipulating player positions. Do you believe that? Of course not and thus the AFL treats us like dills.

And what of Phil Davis, the GWS's latest signing announced this week. Wait on. The AFL says it is not a signing just a hovering of the pen above the dotted line. But nonetheless the pen hovered close enough to the contract for Davis to hold a news conference and say he was leaving Adelaide at the end of the season after accepting -- but not signing -- an offer worth about $750,000 a year. Bring on the Giants.

Question: how is that fair to the other league clubs that battle to put together the best teams possible when the new franchises can so easily flout the law by signing new recruits in what is invisible yet indelible ink? Surely the draft and trade is compromised when one club has the go-ahead to recruit players in circumstances and with methods the AFL does not condone with other clubs in the competition.

A week of a lot of questions and precious few sensible answers. As for Schwab at Melbourne, well he should be the elephant in the room. But when you work in a zoo no one much cares.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/sport/whats-new-at-the-melbourne-zoo-primates-are-running-amok/story-e6frg7mf-1226107745959

Police to quiz Richmond player over death threat

August 6, 2011 - 2:51PM

Richmond player Jake King is being investigated by police for allegedly threatening to kill a Melbourne man and his family.

Police applied to the Bendigo Magistrates Court this week for an interim intervention order against King after the alleged victim raised safety concerns, the Bendigo Advertiser reports.

Senior Constable Tim Elliot told the court a report had been made to police regarding the alleged threats and the matter would be investigated.

Advertisement: Story continues below Any person charged and found guilty of making a threat to kill could face a maximum 10 years in jail.

King and the alleged victim, a 29-year-old man from Sunbury, were not present at the Bendigo hearing.

The matter was adjourned to Broadmeadows Magistrates Court on August 24.

King, 27, of Northcote, must appear in court on that date to contest any intervention order.

It is understood King has not yet been served with the interim order. A police spokeswoman today said the order had not yet been served.

The spokeswoman said police intend to interview King over the threats.

King is set to play for Richmond against West Coast tomorrow at Patersons Stadium in Perth.

A Richmond spokesman today said the club was aware of the matter, but would not be making any comment.

King has played 71 AFL games since he made his debut in 2007.

- with Adam Cooper


Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/police-to-quiz-richmond-player-over-death-threat-20110806-1igc6.html#ixzz1UEuvldfy

Collingwood paying 1.01 v Port Adelaide. Good odds for a punt IMO.

With driving rain, it could be a close-run game actually.