It was definitely a tall story today at the second Dick Reynolds Club luncheon yesterday. The ""Land of the Giants"" was the theme and some of the best big men of the game came together. Paul Salmon, Simon Madden, Steve Alessio, Geoff Leek, Graham Moss, Spider Burton and Len Thompson made up the star-studded panel.

As usual Tim Watson was in great form as MC of the luncheon. Watson was entertaining and took great pleasure in paying out on his old teammates Salmon and Madden. Watson and the ruckmen entertained the 550 guests at the Grand Hyatt with stories of their experiences in the ruck department. Steve Alessio spoke about trying to get any advantage possible at the centre bounce.

""When I first came to the club, I had Peter Filanda to tap the ball down to. Being Italian as well, I tried to introduce a whole new language into the centre bounce. We would speak Italian so then no one else could understand our tactics at the centre bounce. Well that worked until we played Carlton one day. I couldn’t work out why every centre bounce was being sharked!""

Dual premiership ruckman Simon Madden, praised the efforts of Sam Newman in pioneering ruckman running in to the centre bounce on different angles. ""Sam taught me to come in on an angle and then this would take away a lot of the danger. You are still going to come away with bumps and bruises but by doing this it took away all the knee injuries that ruckmen were sustaining,"" Madden said.

Brownlow medallist Graham Moss only played with Essendon for four seasons before returning to Western Australia to captain / coach local team Claremont. Although his stay at Windy Hill was not long, he made a huge impact in his 84 games with the club.

""In my time I played on some of the best ruckman going around – John Nichols, Gary Dempsey, Carl Ditterich, Sam Newman and Thomo (Len Thompson). Len Thompson was the best ruckman I ever played against and he was the only ruckman at that time that I could never beat,"" Moss said.

""Thomo was a little bit taller than I was. If I tried to play him from behind I couldn’t get near the ball, if I tried to play him in front he would reach over the top of me. In those days using your body was everything in ruck work and Thomo always gave me a hard time.""

Paul Salmon played over 200 games at Essendon before leaving the club as a 31-year-old. The main reason for Salmon’s departure was that he wanted to be a full-time ruckman and this option wasn’t available to him at Essendon.

""I felt at that stage that my tenure at Essendon had come to a close. Kevin always asks the players to be honest with themselves and I wanted to play ruck. When Simon (Madden) retired I thought that would be the natural progression.

""To cut a long story short, it was probably one of the better decisions I made in my life. It was very traumatic time leaving a club that I had been at for 16 years, but then I was happy to be given the chance at another and not retire from footy with a big question mark. I am very fortunate to have played at Hawthorn and then come back to Essendon for a year and left the club on the basis that I would have like,"" Salmon said.

A highlight of the luncheon was the performance of Mike Brady. Brady performed his classic footy song – ‘Up there Cazaly’ and another favourite tune – ‘One day in September’. Mike Brady has just released his first book - ""Up there Mike Brady"" by Noel Delbridge. Receive a free cd of Mike's music with each purchase of the book. Go to all good bookshops to purchase your copy.

Land of the Giants panel:
Simon Madden
196cm, 90kgs
Born: 30/12/1957
Essendon: 1974-92, 378 games, 575 goals

Paul Salmon
205cm, 112kgs
Born: 20/1/1965
Essendon: 1983-95, 2002, 224 games, 520 goals
Hawthorn: 1996-2000, 100 games, 41 goals

Graham Moss
196cm, 98.5kgs
Born: 14/5/1950
Essendon: 1973-76, 84 games, 67 goals

Geoff Leek
194cm, 95.5kgs
Born: 18/2/1932
Essendon: 1951-62, 191 games, 98 goals

Steve Alessio
203cm, 106kgs
Born: 8/11/1971
Essendon: 1992-2003, 168 games, 184 goals

Len Thompson
200cm, 95.5kgs
Born: 27/8/1947
Collingwood: 1965-78, 270 games, 217 goals
South Melbourne: 1979, 20 games, 39 goals
Fitzroy: 1980, 13 games, 19 goals

Matthew ""Spider"" Burton
210cm, 103kgs
Born: 19/5/1970
Fremantle: 1995-99, 70 games, 32 goals
Kangaroos: 2000-2003, 77 games, 32 goals