THE TRADING CHRONICLES 2009: ZERO MINUS ONE

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THE TRADING CHRONICLES 2009: ZERO MINUS ONE by The Oracle

IT AIN'T OVER TILL IT'S OVER

My head is spinning madly.

The 2009 football season was supposed to be officially over last Saturday week when the MCG siren sounded to put an end to the AFL Grand Final.

The triumphant Cats made their way down the highway to Sleepy Hollow to celebrate and get shickered in the shadows of Skilled Stadium with Billy Brownless while the sad Saints disappeared to another place where they could drown away their sorrows. Game over, season over ... bad call.

I rummaged through my cupboards, found cricket whites now slightly discoloured and reeking of mothball odour, went to training, stayed up all night twice watching the Aussies come near to snatching defeat from the jaws of victory against Pakistan then two nights later demolishing the Poms in far off South Africa, rolled the arms over and even snaffled a wicket of my bowling offies in the fourths yesterday before having a few frothies with the boys. The conversation however, wasn't about the cricket or the Spring Racing Carnival.

You're right!

It's as if the season hasn't ended. All they could talk about was the Fev and the footy and a couple of them were even imbibing in a manner befitting of the man on that fateful night at the Crown Casino.

The fact is you can't get away from it. You turn on the telly and the news is virtually about nothing else. A couple of Cats had their Grand Final jumpers nicked. Fev's parking his car in Orchid Avenue while trying to pick up a takeaway spag bol for the kids. Pick up the paper and Mike Sheahan's come out with his top 50 footballers. Switch on the radio and Kevin Sheehan is waxing lyrical about some kid who did a 14 point something beep test and another whose standing vertical jump came close to knocking off Trent Croad's record from 1997. It's even on Face Book and Twitter where great men are telling us that " the trade week promises to test the purity of the human spirit."

So you can take your global financial crises, carbon emissions, threats of nuclear war, earthquakes and tsunamis anywhere else on earth but here in the centre of the universe, the only thing that really matters is Fev's final destination or that a homesick Darren Jolly wants to play for Collingwood.

Welcome to the unreal world.

In this world of ours, the next week is going to be all about football's meat market and that's the real reason why my head is spinning so madly at the moment.

The media is full of trade talk and while rumours abound suggesting some of the most improbable trade scenarios involving players and picks that aren't going anywhere, the week will not be the snooze fest it has been for the past few years when an ever-dwindling number of players was changing hands. Last year the number was down to a mere half dozen and the final result provided barely a blimp on the radar despite the numerous rumours and false alarms that attended the week's proceedings.

This year promises to be different. Already there are stories of a couple of done deals and the word is out that a few more are close to completion.

The landscape has changed with the advent of two new teams GC17 and GWS slated to enter the competition in 2011 and 2012 respectively and the introduction of new rules to accommodate their entry. The newcomers are the beneficiaries of some you beaut rules that will make life a lot harder for those existing clubs that are desperate to replenish their own stocks for the coming seasons. This year's draft has been emasculated by changes to the draft age which reduces the incoming pool of new players by one third while next year the draft will be decimated for almost all but the team from Gold Coast. The following year will be a bonanza for Greater West Sydney.

The new clubs will also have preferential status when it comes to snaffling up uncontracted footballers starting from the end of next season. Pity any club that's on the verge of bottoming out right now!

The emphasis on trading ahead of drafting has certainly become the centrepiece of the recruiting plans of a few clubs with the Hawks leading the charge. Top draft picks have been laid on the table as Hawthorn has changed tack on the policies that famously brought them premiership success last year. If things work out the club might well dispense with its first two draft selections and loose change to pick up the prize scalps of Shaun Burgoyne and Josh Gibson. The Hawks believe they can still find some rare gems with some shrewd and discerning decision-making even at the bottom end of what many would term as a "shallow draft".

And they can cite this year's All Australian team as a prime example of why early draft picks are not necessarily the key to recruiting champion footballers these days.

Nick Riewoldt, Brendon Goddard (both first picks in 2000 and 2002 respectively), Chris Judd (3rd in 2001) and Joel Selwood (7th in 2007) are the only top 10 draft selections on the AA list in a year when not a single top five pick from the last six drafts has managed to make the grade. There were three father/sons and another three were picked in the 11 to 30 range. However, nine selections were taken beyond that number in national drafts (including Fev himself at 38 in 1988 while three Aaron Sandilands (2002), Matthew Boyd (2003) and Magpie skipper Nick Maxwell (2004) were rookie promotions. And that was when the drafts had some substance and weren't as compromised as they will be this year and in years to come.

What does all this mean for Demon fans in these difficult times? Our club doesn't have the current day champions and lists such as the All Australians (we didn't even feature in the short list of forty) or that of Mike Sheahan yield us little joy so we're thankful that a handful of top twenty picks including the first two will keep us all excited over the coming months. Melbourne is also primed to benefit from a trade week that promises heightened activity. After all, it's said that if you've got nothing then you've got nothing to lose and on that basis, the Demons could well have everything to gain in the week to come.