Bang Bang Bang

Delisted players from this club seem to find new homes more than rejects from any other club. I put it down to other club arrogance, "we can un-Melbourne him" type attitude. Almost without fail, these players don't get "un-Melbourned". They stay the same. I doubt Blease will be any different. Paul Roos is only human like the rest of us, and thus can make mistakes, but he is one of the best judges of AFL talent that there has ever been. If he doesn't rate Blease, then that's good enough for me. That being said, I wish Sam all the best. I really thought he had something back in 2011/12.

And gave us 8 years of quality service. He shouldn't be listed there with the others.

Fair enough, an honest omission is possible. Let's wait and see. I'm pretty confident it will be out of those 4 and this thread will die (until Lever plays a breakout game at another team, of course).

"Every reason" such as ... ? We have picks 2 and 3. Then don't appear again until the third round. He has nothing to lose from making the 3-4 names public knowledge. It won't affect what St.Kilda does at pick 1 and it won't affect what the teams after us do. Most importantly, it won't affect our next pick. There's no need for the mind games that you often see in trade week and through the season. That's why Mahoney was quite happy to make the names public when he was asked. He didn't have to. If we were seriously considering Lever then Mahoney would have dropped his name in there.

His best game was his first. The writing has been on the wall for a long time unfortunately. Would have been nice to see a player of his size and strength make it. Best of luck Luke.

https://soundcloud.com/sen1116/the-run-home-melbournes-josh-mahoneyHe says the shortlist is down to 3-4 at 5.42 then at 6.48 rattles off Brayshaw, Petracca, McCartin and Wright as the four "around the mark". I think that's pretty easy to read between the lines. Unless you think Mahoney is telling porkies (for no good reason) or Lever will magically re-appear on our shortlist before draft day then he won't be a Demon.

I have no doubt we would have been looking at him, perhaps as recently as a few weeks back. But Mahoney himself has publicly volunteered Petracca, Brayshaw, McCartin and Wright as the final 4 on our shortlist. He has no reason to be lying through his teeth, as St.Kilda are the only team to pick ahead of us and all the players will be gone by our next pick.

Agreed! I don't reckon you can go wrong with McCartin. He may not be an out-and-out star down the track (impossible to predict which of these kids will be). But highly rated big-bodied kids who like a contest normally have long careers at this level.I would have liked another midfielder in Brayshaw's class (doesn't seem to be one). I also liked the look of Lever's highlights. However, I can't see McCartin being a failure in the AFL. That has to be appealing.

Yes he did. He said at the beginning that it was down to 3-4 players and when pressed he gave 4 specific names: Petracca, Brayshaw, McCartin and Wright.

Lever is not on our shortlist for picks 2 and 3 and won't be there at 40. So, we can cease posting in this thread, I always thought he was a hack with dodgy knees anyway.

Stupid, unoriginal, kick-a-team-while-they're-down article. Michael Rogers, you are a hack.

Really? We needed him while Garland was out injured and we would have needed him again if one of the defenders went down injured. I thought he did his job pretty well. List clogger? I hate this term. What harm or "clogging" was he doing sitting on the rookie list. Will trust Roos and co's judgments on all these things of course and this decision is small fry in the scheme of things... but I think Alex deserves a bit more credit than that!

Yeah, I agree that's a strange call. Georgiou was better than Garland in the games he played this year (granted Garland had a poor year). He was handy depth I thought. Good luck to him.

This is the line of thinking that saw Jack Watts go at #1.

I never saw much in Strauss. He seemed to lack that competitiveness all players need at this level and his much vaunted 'elite' kicking skills went to water once in the pressure cauldron of the AFL. A good VFL player and probably one that looked great in his younger days but that's the way it goes for many players out there. Blease, yet another player that showed so much promise in his early games then faded into obscurity. It's alwaysa little sad to see players delisted regardless of their story. Good luck to them both.

His 2006 season was every bit as good for a young player as what Tyson did this year. BOG in our most recent finals win! I really thought he was going to reach the level Nathan Jones has. In the end he injuries and lack of pace caught up with him. Unpopular opinion, I think he would improve our side and I'd take him back for free but I realise this probably won't happen.

I think Chunk will stay. By the end of his career he could have 5+ B&F's and be regarded as one of the club's all-time best players. He'll be able to earn some good coin while doing so. Surely if you're the captain, the challenge of getting this side to September has to appeal more than a cheap flag at one of the destination clubs? Will wait and see but I'm confident he'll stay.

I think Sylvia's problem was laziness, not arrogance. Petracca's been quoted saying some pretty cringe-worthy things, but cockiness isn't always a bad thing. Jack Darling was pretty similar back in his draft year and he's turned out just fine! Petracca will go to the Saints anyway so I'm not too worried about him.

I agree with most of this except Lever apparently has a boxing background (mongrel) which offsets the skinny factor a bit. Also, I reckon we can be a good side with just Hogan and Dawes as the key targets. We need to focus on other areas before key forwards, IMO.

He looks pretty good, doesn't he? You can't call a guy a future star based on a 1 minute video but everything he did in it was impressive. I'm not a big fan of skinny kids, but if he's right into his boxing then there's no chance of him being another Watts or Morton, at least. Couldn't care less what his 20m sprint time was. Watts ran one of the fastest ever back in 2008 and I'm still yet to see any evidence of that on the field. He looked pretty quick in the video. Will trust Taylor to make the right call but at the moment, you can put me in the Brayshaw/Lever fan club with all the other YouTube experts

Lever looks like he could be more of a 'prototype' midfielder than a key back. His highlights were pretty impressive, dare I say it, some Fyfe-like moments. Clearly, a one minute video isn't nearly enough for me to have an informed opinion but that never stops me at this time of year.

Jason Taylor is paid to make these decisions. I hope Roos leaves it to him. BTW, I enjoyed reading your rumours. Cannot be 100% certain your not sprouting bulldust, but it made trade week a heck of a lot more enjoyable. Nobody is forced to believe them, I believe the haters (and you know exactly who I mean) are jealous of the attention and praise you receive. Ignore them.

Who is going to step up next year? Our list, once again, has a shortage of players in that optimal 22-24 age bracket. Blame poor drafting from the Prendargast era. We can't expect Toumpas, Viney and Salem to step up yet, while are older guard won't get much better.The new recruits and Hogan (who is still a baby) will help us a bit but it's going to be another long year I feel. Would love to be proven wrong.

You'd think we will probably throw a figure close to $5m at him over 5 years. Something along those lines. Whether he wants to flush his chances of a flag down the toilet for a few extra bucks remains to be seen. I hope he does, but suspect he won't. Watch him go to Geelong.

That's way too simplistic and often not the case. Just ask the Saints and Shane Savage. EDIT: You beat me to it Carlos! Good luck to Cheney. I always like seeing players like him succeed elsewhere.