Axis of Bob

That's fair enough and well reasoned, Wolfmother. I've heard people say before that Watts wasn't best available (mainly because he didn't impact in his first year) but it's fair to say that the other contenders had flaws (Rich's running and Naitanui's lack of football nous) and Watts was comfortably in the top bracket along with a few others. Port said that they rated Hartlett as their number 1 while Geelong said that they'd take Watts first. That's why it's so hard to use the phrase 'best available' because it's so hard to measure. Did we consider him the be the best available? Who knows - I'm sure every club will consider the player they chose to be the best available. As for people ignoring Butcher, I agree with you. I think that he hasn't been getting as much love as he should, mainly due to a poor performance in the game at Etihad. He's a very talented player who should be considered among the top players in the draft - regardless of type. I suppose that is the danger in making definitive judgements on players when you have only ever seen them play once or twice.

No, that's not best available. The best available has nothing to do with how ready made a player is to play footy, otherwise everyone would have drafted Harry Taylor instead of Jack Grimes. Wolfmother stated that we should pick up Butcher (a tall forward) because picking up Watts, who wasn't best available, showed that we weren't interested in drafting the best available player. If he wasn't best available then back it up. Which recruiter said that he wasn't and who was the best available last year?

Why wasn't Watts best available, Wolfmother? Who was rated best available? By whom? How do you mean best available?

Watts and Hurley played one quarter on each other and the ball barely entered the Sandringham forward 50. It was a bit of a non-event really.

Adam Goodes spent his entire first year playing reserves. Paul Chapman played 4 in his first year (best game of 7 possessions) and 9 in his second (best of 14 possessions). Brendan Fevola played 2 games in his first year for a combined statistical total of 2 handballs and a tackle. Sam Fisher played 7 games in his first year averaging under 10 touches a game. Nathan Bock played 18 and averaged single figures in possessions. Dale Morris averaged single figures in his 17 first year games, and he came off the rookie list as a 21 year old. Matthew Scarlett played 1 game in his first year, and 5 in his second, for a total average of under 4 touches a game. All except Goodes were 2008 All Australians. Why is it important to draft ready made players?

There's a lot of rubbish in here. Depending on whether you are a Trengove fan or a Butcher fan, people either build Butcher up to be a god or cut him down to being a dud. "I don't think he'll be much better than Newton" - you are kidding yourself. Butcher is a very, very talented player who has great speed, great size and amazing hands overhead - a genuine deep pack marking threat, which is a very rare commodity. He's being talked about as a top 5 selection, possibly top 2, for a reason. Because he's good. He may not be exactly what you want, but that highlights tape doesn't do him justice as a prospect. As always the real answer lies somewhere in the middle. As Hannibal says, Butcher is a far riskier pick than Trengove. Trengove is already performing very well at SANFL level and should be a good, solid long term AFL player. Butcher may end up being an exceptional player in a rare position, but he may also end up being a talent tease and a frustration. If Bailey doesn't believe that another good, solid midfield type will get us much closer to a premiership, but that a pack marking forward is definitely required then we'll probably end up taking Butcher. Or maybe it will be the other way around. Personally, a midfield with Scully and Trengove running through it is scary for our opponents - however I sure wouldn't want to be a defender when the ball came in long and quickly with Watts, Butcher and Jurrah lurking!! There are merits in both.

loges: If Aaron Sandilands throws his arms forward to tackle an opponent then he is likely to tackle him around the neck. He will have a free kick paid against him because you can't tackle someone around the head. If Brent Harvey does the same thing then he is likely to tackle him around the chest. He has performed a legal tackle. Sandilands needs to lower his body so that he will tackle his opponent legally, just as Buddy should have lowered his body to bump him legally. Does the law of getting a mark when your catch a kick on the full discriminate against smaller players? Surely the law means that it's harder for a small player to mark on the full because the taller players will get to it first. What about around the neck? Doesn't that discriminate against tall people? Does making a kick the only way to score a goal discriminate against amputees? pitmaster: Ahhhhhhh, change! Horrible horrible change! Some other things that used to be different - women not having the vote, aborigines being classified in our constitution as 'fauna', no free kick for kicking the ball out on the full, no centre square, no club songs, 'leg theory' during Bodyline, lobotomy, burning witches at the stake, feudalism etc. Things change. Discuss the merits of what is, rather than simply say it's bad because it wasn't like that in the past. dandeeman: The definition of 'reckless' is "having no regard for danger or consequences". He was reckless because he didn't think about the consequences of his bump. He didn't think that his actions, a bump on a smaller player in Cousins, would have resulted in him hitting Cousins in the head illegally. They may not have been intentional, but by bumping him in the head when he had the choice to tackle he showed no regard for the consequences of his action, ie he was reckless. Wolfmother: Bumping a player when after he has handballed is fine and perfectly legal ....... provided that you don't hit him in the head!!! It's easy, don't bump someone in the head and the law will protect you. Bump them in the head and you're stuffed.

They were both contesting the ball. The rule states that if you elect to bump and hit someone in the head then it's reportable if you had an option to either a) tackle the player or, B) contest the football. Rance and Selwood were both contesting the football therefore their actions were perfectly legal. I don't have a problem with the rule. It's simple - if you elect to bump then don't hit them in the head.

One rule - don't hit the head!

Just cliches - 'hungry', 'push himself', 'prove themselves', 'relish a challenge', 'challenge him. It was only a 4 line post! :D Worst case scenario is that we have a highly rated player developer work with our young side for a year longer. And we won't be a premiership team in 2011 anyway so I'd prefer the player developer anyway!

Because, as the rule says, Cousins would not have hit him in the head. They only would have talked about why Cousins didn't tackle Buddy but rather tried to be a hero by bumping him. And saying Cousins is hard to tackle is no reason to say why someone shouldn't tackle him. It is a horrible argument. Just appalling. A better way to stop Cousins other than tackling him would be shoot him repeatedly in the testicles with a spear gun and then sever both his legs with a chainsaw, but it doesn't mean that you're allowed to do it!

You believe that we should maintain our aim of a premiership in the future. So we should give Bailey the best chance to do that and make sure that we remove any temptation there is to aim for short term success. If the choice is between losing your coaching career or flogging the kids for a year before they can take it, then surely it isn't unforseeable that that option may be taken. You're telling me that trading in the short term doesn't work. Exactly!!! That's why we should give the extension so that Bailey can keep with the plan. We don't want to put him in a position where he has to choose.

The rules say he should have tackled. I agree that he should have tackled. It looked spectacular but it was just an ego moment for Buddy. He had an option to tackle. Look at the video - he had his arms open to tackle and then decided that he would prefer to tuck his left side in to bump Cousins. He actually had to stop trying to tackle Cousins in order to bump him. It was harder to bump him than to tackle him! People bump into each other on a dancefloor because they don't know they are there. They're distracted by other things! Buddy knew where he was, he knew where Cousins was, and his selfish act of testosterone fuelled ego has severely impacted on his teams chances of playing finals this year. He should have tackled.

Yep, nobody is saying he'll be a mega-dud. That's why people think he'll be a top 5 or so pick.

If he knew that he needed to produce results next year or get the sack, then why wouldn't you make sure you gave yourself every possible opportunity. After all, Terry Wallace did exactly that by picking up Ben Cousins, Chris Connolly picked up Dean Solomon, Heath Black and Chris Tarrant, Mark Williams picking up Josh Carr. Why is it unreasonable to suggest that a coach would coach selfishly if he feels like his job is under threat?

The problem with the 2008 clip is that you don't get to play against Tasmania every week!!

The tribunal is there to judge whether or not the player has broken the laws of the game. The law clearly shows that he has acted illegally and committed a reportable offence. As I said, if you don't like the law then that's a completely different argument. But the tribunal IMO made the only decision they could make. The bigger issue (although fortuitous for us) was the non-suspension of Montagna for that shocking trip. That was an atrocious decision.

If the media knows that, with an extra year on Bailey's contract, there is no what known that Melbourne would sack Bailey then they will not bother to come after Melbourne. They will be looking for stories and the Bailey story would be a guaranteed dead end for them. They'd just go after the next coach. Look at this year - firstly it was Wallace and then once he was sacked they moved straight to Laidley and then onto Malthouse and Williams. Meanwhile an extension to the underperforming Worsfold has seen him fly completely under the radar. Coaching to win next year could well be very selfish. What if Bailey, knowing that he had to win games next year or face the sack, traded out pick 1, pick 2 or both for some star players who were 27 or 28 years older. Would we win more games if we traded pick 1 and 2 for Adam Goodes and Chad Cornes? Yes we would, but it would be counterproductive in our quest for a premiership because Goodes and Cornes would be finished by the time we'd make our flag tilt. It's an extreme example, but it's the sort of thing that has happened in the past - look at Richmond only taking 4 players in the drafts last year of which one was Hislop and one was Cousins!

The rules say what he did is illegal and the tribunal did the right thing in upholding the suspension. Franklin elected to bump insead of tackle so as soon as you hit the head with a bump that was intentional, accidental or negligent, with an arm, hip, shoulder, head or whatever then he has committed a reportable offence. If you don't like the rule then its a different question entirely, but the tribunal made the right decision. But it's laid out very clearly - if you elect to bump when you could have tackled then you'd better make sure you don't make any contact to the head under any circumstances. Buddy should have tackled him. Hawks would be wasting their time appealling.

You say that the media will be waiting for us. With Bailey on the final year of his contract they'll be like rabid dogs looking for blood. The last thing we want is for Bailey to feel like he's under pressure to get instant results and to start coaching selfishly for his own survival. So far he's been happy to play for the club's long term interests because he feels he has the security to do so. If we give a contract extension then the media will go looking for someone else and Bailey can continue to coach in the long term interests of the club.

I have been a Robbo critic but I do hope he finds another club next year. He has had a great career with Melbourne and has provided more highlights for the club, and me personally, than I care to mention. In the same way he was exasperating, he made going to the footy incredibly fun. I can't remember the number of times that I've seen the ball be bombed high in the air towards Robbo and felt a connection with every other Melbourne supporter in the stadium - a shared knowledge that Robbo was about to take a massive hanger - indicated by an anticipatory gasp as you could feel half the stadium move in their seats so as to get ready to leap in the air. Two seconds later Robbo would launch himself onto the shoulders of a well placed opponent, take the mark and the rest of the stadium would be surprised by this extraordinary feat of acrobatics. But not us, it was just another Robbo hanger. Lucky that Jurrah arrived, otherwise it would have been like an addict giving up cold turkey. Robbo did a lot of things, but above all he made going to the footy an emotional experience.

Don't worry about it rpfc, I was far too ambiguous with my reply about 'rubbish in this thread'. I also agree that there is a lot of 'Groupthink' on internet forums. There is a lot in real life as well, which is far more dangerous. It's also why you should not be afraid to argue against the majority point of view or even against your own beliefs. Not only does it help you achieve a better understanding of the issue, but it's fun too!

Clint started the thread because he was annoyed that people called Valenti slow/a poor kick and he wanted to put forth his view to the contrary. However he tried to do it amongst other opinions so that he wouldn't have those opinions challenged. The fact that he is getting annoyed that someone has called him out on the "no forward structure myth" shows his intentions in creating the thread. I found it to be hypocritical. And rpfc, what I was referring to as rubbish and what you have interpreted it to be are two very different things. Almost polar opposites. Ralphius, some people will use logic and reasoning in their arguments and others will be unable/unwilling to. The only person who can judge this is the you, the reader. In the end you will find our who those are whose opinions you rate highly because they put in enough rational thought to validate their own arguments and are open minded enough to accept an opposing point of view that they judge to be based on stronger evidence. By the same token, you will find other posters whose opinions you don't rate and will question them very heavily because you know that they are not based on fact or perhaps they have an ulterior motive for their views. For example, I do not rate Freak's opinion because he makes rash judgements that are designed purely for his own (misguided) aggrandizement - I will question every statement of his. But I know that grazman puts a lot of very good thought into his opinions first and so I'm interested to know what he thinks. Others may not rate it that way, but will agree more with the emotional responses some posters provide because it's more closely aligned to their own way of thinking. Each to their own. I know that neither Clint nor rpfc will care what I think. However I'm not trying to convince them of anything, but rather I am doing it for those others reading and also to either convince or amuse myself.

BTW, there is some real rubbish on this thread. It seems that this is a spot where people feel they can list their own misguided opinions without fear for being questioned. Funnily enough, it is what you are saying you are trying to stop. And your opening post possibly the most hypocritical of the lot, Clint.

So basically you are saying to think for yourself and be prepared to back up your opinions with logic otherwise you will be cut to shreds. Isn't that what an internet forum is about? I think the biggest problem is with people who have strong opinions but are unable/unwilling to back them up with logic, especially when they then cry about their right to an opinion whenever someone challenges their opinion with logical reasoning and facts.