Dante

Irrespective of all the above provisos, well done to both parties and I'm glad the Dee's have taken the punt on him. If it doesn't work out then so be it but at least it shows that Melbourne have lost that conservatism that's been stopping us from picking up players that may have a bit of a reputation. Welcome Harley and let's hope that we have some good years ahead, for both our sakes.

I watched the game too, and can't disagree too much with your summary. Really liked the look of Robertson and Sharp, he will be a player and so will Jackson. I wouldn't write Young off just on that game, he's better than that. Some of the other ones you mentioned were indeed underwhelming and I wonder if it was because it was the end go the finals and they were all knackered. If we picked up any of Robertson, Young, Kemp, Sharp or Jackson I'd be happy.

Yes, but would we accept 7, 10 and 15, which was proposed by LH? We will not get 7&10 for 3, unless Bell owes us one and after reading that Hogan has had more "extensive surgery", I doubt he will feel he does.

We can get the players we want with 3 & 8, not the leftovers after the other clubs have had their pick of the crop. If they offered Taylor that and he accepted, I'd expect they'd buy him a new house and a car.

Am I reading this right? You want to swap 3 and 8 for 7, 10 and 15? We drop 4 spots, 2 spots and pick up 15. Why?

Some more from the article "Bennell would add outside pace to the group if he could regain fitness, with the Demons having added Fremantle's Ed Langdon and the Giants' Adam Tomlinson during the trade period and losing Sam Frost to Hawthorn. Melbourne were also keen to catch up with stranded former Sun Jack Martin ahead of the pre-season draft but were unlikely to pick him unless he showed he was open to joining them. All indications so far are that he has his heart set on joining the Blues."

Demons hope for flying start as coaches jet off to the US Bit about Harley and Martin in here, not a lot, but the Harley part was interesting.

Howe and Frawley were best mates.

You seem too, conveniently, forget how ordinary Howe was at Melbourne.. He was lazy and unaccountable as a forward, loose and unaccountable as a back and seemed to spend most of his time on the field trying to take mark of the match. He wanted to play with Collingwood and we facilitated that for him, he would have never been anything but ordinary if he stayed with us.It was probably our fault that we didn't get the best out of him but that happens, he had a poor team around him.

I pointed out in another post that we haven't had a great deal of success with SA players from the SANFL, I notice that Dom Barry was mentioned in that clip as being, perhaps, best on ground. If I was going for an interstate player, I'd pick one from WA before SA, Jackson looks a gem, as does Robertson, I'd be stoked if we picked either of them with Young.

Are you serious? Any player selected by Collingwood is labelled a star, even if he's never played a game. Players at Melbourne that have been selected AA and played 200 games are referred to as Melbourne Player.

I see your favourite player is Max, good thing we didn't adopt that short term strategy when we drafted him. If Kemp is the player they want, they will take him.

My initial reaction was Flanders and Young but I'm more than happy to substitute Kemp for one of those two, preferably Young. I'd love to have a quick 192cm, 82kg player who can play in a number of positions. This reminds me of the 2009 draft where there were two standouts, Scully and Trengove (?), with a host of others that looked pretty good too. Third was Martin and he turned out ok, we also took a player with wonky knees who just won our B&F. Think Kemp. There were a couple of busts, but it was a pretty good draft, Fyfe taken at 20 and another couple taken at later stages of the draft who have been pretty good. This could be another draft like that. If we play our cards correctly we could walk away with a couple of really good players. https://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/ft_drafts?year=2009&t=N&s=P

I would imagine/hope the club would have a longer term view than the next 12 Months, if they are that unsure of their jobs they shouldn't be there.

I agree with Trenners, but it says something if he can win the B&F but not be good enough to play in the main team. I was talking to my son the other day about Tracc and DeGoey and raised the question, how good would Tracc be if he played with Collingwood and how would DeGoey be if he was selected by Melbourne. Which one would be the star?

Trenners won the B&F in the SANFL this year, we have had some pretty ordinary results picking players from that comp.

That's changed now, this is an update https://www.espn.com.au/afl/story/_/id/27802450/afl-draft-power-rankings-rowell-back-top-afl-draft-nears There are a lot of changes but Weightman is still outside the top 20. Flanders at 4 with a good bio.

Exactly, Weid is nearly 22 now and should be kicking 60 goes a year, if he was any good, that is. It's not like he's ever played well on the big stage either, his best effort in a final, so far, is a mere 24 possessions, 12 marks and 4 goals, useless.

I heard his manager talking today and he said Bennell is over here and he is looking after his kid, I think that it was his kid. He is fit and there are 5 clubs thinking about him and he is pretty sure he will play in 2020.

Flanders played against the two top picks and got 27 possessions and 4 goals. I had a look at his highlight package and he looks the goods to me. Young as our second pick, I’d be happy with that.

I liked/like Frost, but if you want to win a flag, he is the type of player you don't need. We have too many of those already and that's the reason i didn't go to one game this year, the first time that I can remember I didn't. We had too many players that are excellent VFL players and not enough excellent AFL players, I looked at the team in the first game and wondered how we were supposed to win. We have let a few go and now time will tell if we have replaced them decent players, it's like we were back in the Neeld era, pulling unwanted players from the VFL/SANFL. It's very rare that a club like, say Collingwood, will have a player on their list who can't get on to the senior list, if they don't think he's good enough, then he probably isn't. Good luck Frosty, hope you do well.

That's what worries me.

Very good ?

It would seem so, should have been announced between 10.45 and 12, not sure why it's not on the website by now.

That's not quite right, someone stumbled on it in the last few pages. Only an hour to go before the announcement.