grazman

Sydney making room for Daniel Kerr. West Coast making room for two extra first round picks. I suspect that O'Keefe would be headed to the Dogs, but if he goes to the Blues he'll no doubt be given the very demanding job of a Visy spokesman on youth homelessness on the streets of South Yarra or some such crap. Robbie Warnock's already got the position of looking after lost Bunny rabbits and kittens.

I don't want Boyle and I don't want Clarke, but if they really want Carroll they can have him

Junior is my choice as well, but I think you're wrong about Brock. He matured a lot this year, and taken a lot of on-field responsibility, he should be captain when Junior retires.

Not meaning to be picky, but we played in seven in a row as well. 54-60. and yep that get's my vote.

I agree. Johnson and Bartel should've been moved forward at the start of the last quarter to isolate themselves in the forward fifty. Neither Ottens or Mooney was working for them and Varcoe and Stokes were a liability. Rushing behinds ensured that Hawthorn kept control of the ball and may have added to Geelong's mental torture in being able to steer one through the big sticks.

I would've traded him.

Mate, I'd have to say that is one of the more intelligent and well thought out suggestions I've read in relation to trading for a while. Though I don't think there's a chance in hell we would get pick 6 for Matty Warnock and Pick 17, particularly because once it's on the table to Dockers are going to want it. I think the other side to pencil in here is North. Laidley is a strange fish. He's intimated heavily that North have to readjust their list to go further. He's probably only got one maybe two years left to deliver some chocolates and has the hot breath of Dennis Pagan breathing down his neck. I think they'll trade heavily for immediate returns and their first pick may not necessarily be off limits. I'd love another first round pick and like you I'm happy to hold onto any players the club thinks it needs, but we can't live in fantasy land. Trade time will be interesting, particularly because the Saints have expressed interest in the likes of CJ, and White before (their second pick maybe?) - there's also always been muted suggestions in relation to Jimmy Frawley because of the family connections.

Next year is compromised in that GC17 have access to a number of 17 Y.Os in the QLD U18 team only.

I knew I missed someone, at least someone got 'it'.

You obviously weren't posting on the forum last year when it went down into meltdown with people that thought it was the end of the club... it's marvellous what one little word does to change people's perceptions (it's called hindsight). This time every year people who have to take none of the responsibility and have none of the available information claim that the club's problems can be solved by trading players X, Y and Z for picks 5, 6, and 7. It is a forum after all and it's what it's for, it's called the bravery of being out of range.

After watching the GF today and bemoaning another Hawthorn premiership... err Tassie premiership. I was despondent at the thought that this could be Carlton in a couple of years. I went to the footy record to try and make some sense out of how the Hawks had managed to assemble a premiership in the few short years since we had tumbled from pretenders to not-even-in-the-same-postcode! There's a danger in over-analysing something like this and probably a bigger danger in trying to emulate a system you can't possibly implement. From today's team Hawthorn have 12 listed players as first round draft picks of which ten played today. (the two who didn't were Muston and Thorp) They had five rookie listed players who also played today. Their two ruckman who I thought were more than serviceable were a rookie and second round pick - underlining why you probably shouldn't use pick one on a ruckman and casts a shadow over swapping an early pick for Warnock. I'm not really that big on number crunching - but that's obviously a fair proportion of their team that are first round picks (much higher than say the Swans or Eagles had in their premiership years) When I look at where we're heading I count ten listed first round picks. McLean, Sylvia, Morton, Grimes, Jones, Bate, Dunn, Bell, Frawley and Meesen. Obviously there's some problems there and the list should be shorter. I suspect that some teams will follow suit. West Coast have seven first round draftees, and I think they'll add another three this year. I think they'll trade Kerr to Sydney for their first pick and the Dogs first pick (for O'Keefe) I expect they'll also try and offload Hansen and a couple of others for early picks. I also suspect with trading Kerr that a priority pick for 09 is on the cards. It's tempting to think that with a little luck we could be ready to challenge again in a two or three years, but to win a premiership you need to be realistic, we need to get more class and hardness into our side. Everytime I watch a grand final it emphasises that courage never goes out of fashion. That's why I wouldn't trade McLean, Jones, Sylvia, Rivers or Green.

Nope it was Fergs who didn't want to go.

Pick 1 and a player maybe. I doubt that many clubs would be into it. Few drafts are equal. Hawthorn has been extremely lucky. One year later and rather than a choice of Hodge, Ball or Judd in 01 they've got a choice of Goddard, Wells or Brennan. Instead of Roughead and Franklin in 04 they could've been selecting from the 03 or 05 draft... They were fortunate.

Not specifically referring to Crawford. Croad, Guerra, Franklin, Hodge, take you're pick.

Hercules didn't dye his hair though

Byron should make a comeback! Is that Tassie's first ever premiership?

nup. Doesn't deserve it more than Harvey or Neita or Flower or... doesn't matter every year a premiership is awarded and some tool will get a premiership medallion and some bloke that really deserves one doesn't. That's footy - it's not fair. I look at Buddy and I see Carey all over again.

He's still a massive unit, how'd you like to arm wrestle with him?

Quick off the mark too. It's not like he needed fifty meters to build up speed either. He and Garland are the two paciest big defenders around. Add a fit Jared Rivers and I can see plenty of up-side in our defence.

It's important for to remember that Clarkson copped absolute crap from supporters and the media in years two and three of his tenure. Time is measured in premium rates in footy. Fans and the media are quick to judge, there won't be many retractions run. Personally I think we're on the right track with Bailey. Brock should be captain in two years time - he'll be better than Mitchell!

I think it's less of a concern now than what it used to be. The last half dozen #1 picks have lived up to the hype. I doubt if Freo had the first pick they'd use it on Naita if they didn't think it was a dead certainty that he'd be a 200 gamer. I'm interested to know what you think Warnock might be worth. There's lots of conflicting stories over in the East about whether he's nominated a preference yet... having said that if he does nominate Carlton it won't come as a shock, but this isn't 2007 and he's not Chris Judd. Warnock wants to come East, he wants a contract for X amount of dollars for Y amount of years and he's also stated he wants Freo to be compensated fairly. If he picks us that makes it a lot harder for Freo to achieve an equitable outcome given our position in the PSD, if he picks someone else, we're still in a pretty strong position if we want him badly enough to possibly satisfy Freo's demands ahead of his preferred destination.

Correct, but he was a zone selection by them, then traded to the cats.

This particular Journalist has made it an artform. BTW all those who annually pump up Ryan Murphy's tyres can take an early siesta he and Mundy re-signed with the Dockers today. http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sport/afl...4-19742,00.html

Just to break it down. Of this years AA. there were: 8 first round picks (incl 3 number 1s) 1 second round pick 3 third round picks 2 fourth round picks 3 Father Son selections (all of whom would probably have gone in the first round) 4 Rookie Draft picks (two ruckmen & two key backs) 1 Zone selection of the selections three were traded to their current clubs. .... but what does it all mean?

If Melbourne were to swap picks with Freo then I think there's a very strong possibility that Jack Watts may not nominate at all this year. (If he continues to improve and we continue to play the same way next year he'll be there for our first pick in 09 anyway) Who'll be there at 3 if Watts doesn't nominate... one of Vickery, Hurley, Swift, Hartlett - yeah I could live with that if we got Warnock and Mundy for one NQR and dropping two spots in the draft.