mo64

You can be a periphery player and still put your head over the ball when it's your turn. Natural talent doesn't preclude you from doing the team things.

I totally disagree. We're in a competition that is designed, via the salary cap and draft, to make all teams competitive. It's inevitable that clubs are going to have peaks and troughs when it comes to on-field success, hence it's imperative that the club's revenue stream isn't reliant on on-field success. Maurie, 'good marketing and building a modern image' is what every business strives to achieve, but in a football sense, how about coming up with something tangible, before dismissing Jacka's proposal. As Jacka stated, we need to think beyond the square.

I think you make same good points Jacka. Our supporters need to take note of what has happened to Footscray and North Melbourne since they've changed their names to the Western Bulldogs and the Kangaroos. They've become easy targets of the AFL's push to expand into other regions. It seems that the club now recognises that we rightfully need to push the 'Melbourne' brand far more than the 'Demons'. However, being a Man City supporter for 30 years, I assimilate the United nickname with the arch enemy, and would find it hard to yell out 'Go United'!

WJ, I'm looking forward to your spiel on the colourful life of Robert Walters. As a Melbourne supporter who grew up in Strathmore, that game against Essendon is my most memorable game attended. Going to the game with my fanatical bomber mates, I was expecting another 100 point thrashing. But when Walters kicked 6 goals in the 2nd quarter against state players in Ken Fletcher and Garry Foulds, I thought I was witnessing a miracle. I had bragging rights for the one and only time in about 10 years.

Spot on Hannabal. The thing that I most admired about Brisbane during their premiership reign was that their lightly framed players were not afraid to put their head over the ball. Players such as Lappin, McRea, Power, Ashcroft and especially Hart, would have all been categorized as soft outside players when drafted, but under Matthews' coaching, they never shirked a contest. Let's hope DB instills this edict.

Another thing you don't understand is that trades and draft selections of recycled players are not the domain of the recruiting dept. Recruiting officers don't spend their time watching AFL games. I'd suggest it's the senior coach who'd make the call on trades and drafting of recycled players.

Great suggestion PDP. We really struggle against power forwards with big engines, ie; Brown, Pavlich and Reiwoldt. Bate has the engine, but probably not the strength. Give him 1 or 2 years of physical development and playing experience, and I could see him being an ideal FB. A vast majority of the best key backmen started their careers as key forwards.

What will the drafting of Kyle 'Dick' Cheney and Tom 'Robert' McNamara do to Sino/MFC relations? Or maybe they were drafted for their expertise in defense issues? Hmm, I'm not sure if it's a good idea to send them on our next trip to China. We could have an international incident on our hands. I suppose any publicity is good publicity!!!!

CAC's role was diminished with the appointment of Chris Connolly as Football Manager. I'd say that had a fair bit to do with his departure. Good luck in the future CAC, Luke Molan excluded, you've done a great job.

Well said Jarka. Just as a matter of interest to some, a mad keen Richmond supporter I know, who regularly attends TAC cup games, had this to say about Rance on PRE, based on the under 18 carnival: "Ok. At the risk of starting a 20 page thread out of nothing, here goes. (Geez, here comes the serious Redford. How boring.) These blokes have been studied for 3+ years. They don’t slide in the draft for no reason. And Rance slid a long way. And I mean a long way. Here’s why. Firstly, without wishing to sound like a killjoy or endure the roth of the ‘on the fringes’ Brightsiders who hardly get to a game or to any clubs outside of Richmond and whose love of Richmond doesn’t allow them to at least even contemplate reality of most things football visa Richmond, or what the outside universe may think, the fact is that rightly or wrongly, a lot of clubs viewed Rance as lacking composure and execution. Anyone watching game 2 of the National Carnival would have seen this. Rance turned the ball over time and time again coming out of the backline. He has an awkward guiding of the ball in his kicking action just like his old man Murray. (Anyone who hasn’t seen Murray, go and watch some footage of his ball drop.) Rance likes to rebound and run hard off the backline. And I mean hard. That’s good and things go well when there’s no pressure, but when there’s traffic and/or decision making involved, he can sometimes drop away. The upside for Richmond is that he is a strong and big defensive player – which we desperately need. He is also very hard at the ball which we also need. I liken him a lot to Adam Hunter - albeit Rance being 2cm taller than Hunter and Hunter starting initially as a forward. Hunter, despite showing promise in his early years made mistake after mistake. He would run that big body of his in straight lines and always attempt to do the right thing, but he made a lot of mistakes. Eventually, he worked the WCE system out and became one of their most valuable players. I’m hoping Rance can become the same player for us. Question is, does Richmond have the same structure and discipline in place to allow him to grow into a similar player. Dunno. He could be great. He could struggle. Who knows. I'll wait and see. Regardless, I think it is crazy the expections some people have on what is, after all, a pick 18 player."

It's fair to say that we would have had to give up picks 4, 14(TJ) and 21 for Chris Judd, given that Carlton gave up 3, Kennedy and 22. We now know that Cale Morton, Jack Grimes and Addam Maric were the price that we would have paid for Judd, and only time will tell how good they will be. Of course there are immediate financial benefits of picking up Judd, but the downside is salary cap pressure over the years of his contract. But purely from a list perspective, i'm not unhappy that we didn't get Judd.

I'm pretty sure Phil Partington played under '19s for us, but never played a senior game. I think he ended up playing for Dandenong in the VFA.

Player managers Paul Connors and Dan Richardson were on SEN for an hour discussing the draft, club by club. Paul Connors reaction to Melbourne's picks was "We brained em". Both were very upbeat about our selections. Connors suggested that had Morton gone to WC at pick 3, we would have picked up Grimes at 4.

Good point Chaser J. I think we've learnt our lesson about drafting key position players out of perceived necessity.

Ok, i'll be more positive. We've got less deadwood than last year!

There's still some deadwood that needs to be culled!

We've picked footballers first and foremost, rather than speculative athletes. Can someone confirm how many rookie selections we have?

By the sound of his bio, he seems like a Jared Rivers type.

It was John Merrick, but I hope Maric is a FREAK!!!!

Not necessarily Jack. If Sampi's fit enough, I wouldn't mind seeing him play as an attacking back pocket, a la Johncock, Wocjinski, or Chris Johnson.

It's Addam. I'm rapt with this pick. The common thread so far has been that all 3 picks have good kicking skills. Good to see!!!

Scott Selwood

Palmer

It makes absolutely no sense for us to draft a ruckman with a 1st round pick. We could have just traded Johnstone for Wood, and saved our 3rd round pick.

I concur with these sentiments. I'd much rather Veszpremi and Marric at 14 and 21, as they have an X factor, than Dangerfield and Taylor. I'd also prefer to take a low risk, guaranteed return player at pick 4, hence i'd take Palmer or Masten over Morton, and leave the X factor selections to picks 14 and 21.