deanox

Of course they are. There are hundreds of millions of dollars of design and marketing and science brought together for the sole purpose of trapping people into addiction. The machines aren't fun to play and provide no entertainment value. The fact that only a small proportion of people even use the machines demonstrates this. They are designed to exploit. If you think that people choose to do this, that they have any control or that they have the abilty to out smart the hundreds of millions of dollars then you lack understanding of the situation.

Pokies are designed through neuroscience to entrap and addict people. People can't simply "take responsibility" these machines are so advanced they will always catch a certain percent. The government should represent the peoples interests when they can't represent themselves. That is why government should step in to protect people even if it unfortunately limits the "rights" of others especially when the rights in question are inconsequential (who really cares about being on the pokie??).

Hogan is a god contested mark, when he has a bit of form behind him. He isn't the strongest overhead; that is Weeds thing though. Weed attacks the ball high info the air. Once he gets the pace of the game he'll complement well.

Having Gawn and Hogan out for most of the year has really hurt us in this department. But looking at it subjectively, we are the 6th highest scoring team in the competition; the lack of marking hasn't hurt our ability to hit the scoreboard.

I think I disagree. Ice got a theory that our defensive zone works better at Ethihad as it is narrower than the G, where the extra width opens it up allowing teams to find a gap. Subiaco is 15 m longer, but narrower than ethihad again. "Bigger" in this case doesn't affect modern defensive. I'm really interested to see how it works for us.

Hibberd > Melksham Pretty happy with this. We paid overs last year and unders this year. Both are best 22 and I think Hibberd will be close to top 12 for us for the next couple of years. At his age he is effectively a very good quality upgrade on Matt Jones. Make our list run much deeper.

Id love us to say that publicly.

Just to throw around some other possible scenarios, how would people feel about: - Hibberd and Essendons 2016 2nd rounder (19?) - for - Our 2017 first found (12?) - Hibberd and Essendons 2016 2nd rounder (19?) - for - Salem and our 2016 3rd rounder (46?) - Hibberd - for - Grimes/other fringe player plus or 2016 3rd round (46?)

It's rough but it comes with the territory of a $60k per year job straight out of high school in an industry where you are the focus (everything is done for you and tailored personally to you: coaching, fitness, personal trainers, massages, specialists looking after you), with a chance for that to jump to $200k plus within a couple of years.

I suspect the crowd will stop obsessing about draft picks once: a) we play some finals so we have other things to get excited about b) we play finals so we don't have a top 10 pick (less exciting than pick 3) c) we have 25+ regular senior players who everyone thinks are better options for round 1 than an untried 17 year old who gets drafted (will be accelerated if the 17 year old is ranked 10-15 rather than 1-7)

I really enjoyed his highlights clip. A couple of things really stood out. His ability and the way he avoided tackles obviously, but also the ways he gathered the ground ball so easily, particularly the way he freed his arms and got handballs out to advantage and the number of overhead marks he took. I'm assuming the potential knock on him is fitness i.e. endurance, and perhaps pace over 2-3 steps. Pretty happy.

That being said i have no knowledge of whether this year's top 10 is stronger or weaker than last year's or next year's. It may be hard to to compare because this year's best 10 players are playing in a weaker competition (i.e. shallower).

We are discussing the quality of the top 10-15 players and which options are available. That is unrelated to discussing the quality of players 30-60+, which is considered to drop off. Thus the draft is "shallow" i.e. not deep.

Shallow means not deep.

I think any second forward needs to be ruck capable. Weideman may be, I don't know, but for that reason I would be trying to fill the spot with a player who is a genuine ruck forward.

I wonder if these 2 and 3 years deals were significantly front ended? We didn't have anyone to pay the salary cap to, so it is easy to front end the contact, pay the cap, save the cash for bigger fish in future years and it is reasonably cheap to pay players out later if needed.

If he was a reasonable athlete (read good pace) with a big build playing rugby he would probably be playing no. 8. A good prop could potentially transition but a lot of them are just the big blokes.

Disagree. Out isn't just that. Though they are pumped to be together. The relationship Angus has with Roos is a plus. They are happy to be at Melbourne. It isn't Essendon. It isn't st kilda. It may not be getting drafted to Hawthorn BUT it isn't horrible anymore to come to roos and the dees.

"He's gonna kill me!" Fantastic clip. There was something about those two. I've never seen draftees come to Melbourne that just looked like they were going to make it. They oozed confidence together. I hoe we see that on the field. Amazing.

Early nomination for post of the year. Love it.

I had similar thoughts. He definitely isn't Rioli, but he had those evasive attributes. When you watch him play at AFL it makes you wonder why he was taken so late. Surely that evasiveness and quick thinking was evident last year?

Ok I really don't get this. He is a new draftee on an initial two year contract. He has shown a lot of promise over his first pre season and in the first five rings of the season he has looked like he has potential. Why the need to give him a 4 year deal? What benefit is there for Melbourne? Is he threatening to leave? Do other clubs want to take him? I appreciate the show of faith on our behalf but I'm not sure why it is needed.

I was thinking assistant coach

i was quite impressed with mcdonalds bowling actually. i thought he contributed to us getting wickets by keeping the pressure so tight at one end (ie about 25 overs for 30 odd runs). he kept things tight and on the spot, wobbled them around just a little to make him hard to play which built the pressure nicely. i am not saying he will be the first choice for that 4th bowling spot normally, but i imagine that if we had a spinner playing today he would have leaked runs like a sieve (ie kreja or hauritz). maybe mcgain is different, but he seems to be a 'wicket taker' not a tight bowler. thats where warne was different in that he could do both. including the spinner could increase our wicket taking ability, but it could also diminish our ability to tie down the batsmen, releasing some of the pressure on them.

re clarkes fitness, i understand the concern, how krejza was bowling well, and there was probably no need for him to bowl. i am surprised white didnt get another go either, i thought he bowled alright day one, but probably for the same reason clarke didnt. am wondering if clarke in slip could have been as much about getting hayden a rest from concentrating as it was for clarkes injury, but probably not. RE white, i think his selection could well help us win this because we bat down to 8. we really need to score as close to 600 as possible (300-350 today would put us around 500, but i think we want to bat into day 4 if we can and post a lead of about 150-200) so that we can then try and bowl them out without having to worry about needing 3 sessions to make the runs on the last day. we don't want to have to bat a second time, unless we are only chasing 50 or so, and even then we probably dont want to be doing that because time will be an issue.