Goodvibes

C'mon mate, he's best mates with Trengove. People around here love that sort of stuff.

DD we posted at the same time and our thinking seems to be along similar lines. Interesting.

1- T. Scully 2- J. Trengove 11- B. Griffiths 18- C. Bartlett 34- M. Gawn 50- G. Weedon PSD#1- M. Thorp

The shallow nature of the draft is relevant when considering whether or not Luke Ball is worth pick 18 but in terms of opening up the opportunity to speculate a little more with picks 34 and 50 I think the delisting/re-draftig of Meesen and Newton makes alot of sense. Those who have been excited by the idea of drafting Daw, Temel and Patrick should be well pleased. Likewise those who have fallen for the idea of drafting Jack's brother Dylan.

Don't let H hear you say that. They're cattle.

Is this a joke given his Tasmanian origin?

Great stuff IWAP, where did you get your hands on that?

Colin Wiseby's thoughts on Thorp: THORP, Mitchell: Versatile tall. Main selling points are contested marking, fantastic endurance / ground coverage, clean hands, vision, spoiling. Accountable, footy smart in many respects. Good courage and wins more than his share of hardball/contested gets. '06 form overall was good but not quite as impressive as I'd hoped but he didn't really do a pre-season (due to O.P., which he is now on top of). Huge leap, very strong overhead (although I would like to see him try to protect the ball a bit more often when possible, a la Carey, instead of taking the ball directly above or a bit behind his head). Young for his age but potential Chris Grant if he stops getting ahead of himself. I rate Thorp behind only Hawkins and Sellar as the best KPP "potential package" in this draft. Capable of making CHF a "permanent" role at AFL but might be best suited to CHB. Main query as a defender would be whether a quick leading forward might show him up for pace over the first few metres. His pace is a little hard to judge as he has had O.P. and also, although he covers a lot of ground, he is not noted for hard chasing or ball-carrying and he sometimes, at least at U18 level, seems casual. I'm comfortable with his pace over a distance - for his size. There have been times when he has looked a little tardy and the main concern would be the 1st few metres. Some surprising pace when he wants to pull it out. eg in a 40m run to the loose ball, Thorp gave Petterd a few metres start but got there first and both seemed flat out. In a VFL game, Thorp kept up with Baird (his opponent) in a 25m run to the ball. Baird recorded a 3.00sec 20m and a 0.96sec 5m time a few years ago. On the other hand, Thorp was left in the wake of another VFL player on a number of occasions in one game when playing FB(?) whenever that player was on a lead. I query there though, how much was due to lack of pace on Thorp's part and how much was due to poor anticipation of, and reaction to, the opponent's take-off on the lead. Kicking is currently mixed bag but has the potential to be very good and I'm confident will be. Sometimes he seems a bit too casual under no pressure. Genuinely dual-sided. Nice economical, fluent kicking style, good depth. I noticed at 1/4, 3/4 time huddles that he seemed intelligent and very switched on. When deciding to carry the ball, he has a fairly regular tendency (more often at U18 level than VFL) to ignore the nearby presence of an opponent and approach his kick preparation as if he was in complete space (through arrogance? lack of awareness?) and becomes vulnerable to being bumped from the side as he kicks, to the detriment of his kicking effectiveness. He has some evasive ability and I'd like to see him work harder in those situations to create space before kicking. At the very least, he often takes a bit too long to dispose and his lateral awareness in such situations is not great. Thorp is very committed and I would have drafted him myself and prepared to part with a pick as early as #3 (Hawkins not being available) if I strongly wanted a KP and felt such an early pick was necessary. However, if height didn't need to factor into drafting considerations, I would prefer to take either Jetta or Proud (not that anything like pick #3 was ever going to be needed for them).

So if he was Matthew Scarlett quality you'd pass him up for whoever the next best KPF is even if the best 4 or 5 have already been picked? Black is a forward who has played in the ruck. If we were talking about Talia, the best KPP versus the best KPF would be an interesting discussion.

I guess what frustrates me is that the "will he/won't he?" situation is not necessarily created by Luke Ball but instead by us. It's our impatience and our willingness to over-react to every little he said/she said piece of gossipy crap that is presented to us, either through a newspaper article without a direct quote or an internet rumour without a source. The timeframe is pretty simple. Luke Ball's name emerges as a possible big name that might slip through to the PSD. Demon fans hope that this occurs. Luke Ball fails to get to Collingwood and appears unlikely to re-sign with St Kilda. Demon fans hope Melbourne make a play for him. Within hours of draft Melbourne official make public their interest. Luke Ball's manager makes it clear that Luke is going overseas and that Melbourne should be patient. At this point 95% of posters are penciling in Luke Ball's name into their hypothetical "Best 22's of 2010". Excitement grows over the next week in anticipation of Luke's return to Australia. Upon Luke's return we here nothing official. Still nothing official. Still nothing official. Still nothing official. Demon fans grow impatient and feed off the scraps of internet gossip and innuendo. Most Demon fans lose patience and start rationalizing that he won't be part of our premiership 22 anyway. More emotional/irrational fans start slandering the guy because he hasn't declared his love for all things Melbourne within 72 hours of returning to the country. 'Australian' newspaper article (3/11) gives strongest indication yet that Ball isn't going to come to Melbourne. Most Demon fans resort to abusing Luke Ball for his attitude towards the MFC. Did he ever give an indication he wanted to come to us? Did he ever shortlist us and heighten our expectations? .000001 % of Demon fans who felt the capture of Luke Ball would be a positive improvement to the list (help groom younger mids, create positive public vibe about our direction and future, potentially add membership and sponsorship and get a few kicks in the centre square) are disappointed that it now looks unlikely that he won't be coming to the MFC but understanding of his predicament and equally excited about the young talent already on the MFC's books. Did we learn nothing from the Judd fiasco?

I can't wait for this saga to turn full circle with Ball ending up at Melbourne. I'm enjoying the backflips on this thread. If Ball changes his mind I'll ready myself for the triple twists. So many people are suggesting they're "over this". I hope the Melbourne Footy Dept don't give in as quickly as most posters here. Until Luke Ball is directly quoted, I'm not prepared to hang him. In fact even if he is quoted as saying he doesn't want to come to us, I'll completely understand. I have a fair amount of sympathy for the guy. I posted somewhere else that we might as well send out our forum footy team. At least we'll know they'll "bleed for the team". Luke Ball is a professional. If the cards fall our way, talks with St Kilda break down and he doesn't like his chances of getting to Collingwood and wants to stay in Victoria, he'll come to us. Admitedly that's looking quite unlikely at the minute. But if it did happen, I'm more than happy with the ability of Luke Ball to re-focus and commit to his new team. Who knows, in a couple of years, he may even "bleed for the jumper". "Bleed for the jumper" may well be the new "un-Australian". Blaaah

I really struggle with the idea that St Kilda would be prepared to let him go unless they thought he had a very limited future. As a player with much talked about 'leadership' credentials I'm surprised that the papers haven't been filled with stories quoting concerned team-mates announcing their support for their former skipper, talking up how important he is to their quest for a premiership. If a young player with attitude issues but a heap of talent is delisted by his club, we're quick to consider our club's ability to "turn him around" and a thread instantly appears promoting us taking him. The vast majority of posters quickly oppose the idea and the words "culture" and "cancer" are often mentioned. If a more experienced player with injury issues is delisted we always seem to think that those injury issues will go away. Do we honestly think we have the facilities and the track record to unlock Luke Ball's obvious injury problems? Do we honestly think that St Kilda would let Luke Ball go if they thought he had it in him to reproduce his All-Australian form?

Says the guy who spends much of his time at 'Bay 13' calling 12 year old bigfooty posters "flogs". You have so much to offer in terms of footy nous but instead spend so much time scoring points at the expense of fellow Melbourne supporters. And the worst part of all? You get guys like me, recently become a Dad, enjoying quality time with my new family and having a break from work. I simply couldn't be more positive about life right now and in the spare time that I find myself with I log on to my favourite website to indulge my passion and find myself getting frustrated at the personal crap that's flying around this place. And what have I gone and done? Had a crack at you and probably added to the negative tone of the site. Well done H.

Non-holiday link!

Why don't we just send out our forum team! We'll at least guarantee some passion. Time to re-evaluate where we're at and get serious about how we can improve our list.

I think we need to be realistic as to where we're at. We're obviously not the most attractive option right now. Surely, we should do whatever we can to get a player for nothing that will improve both our list and our culture. If we have to play dirty so be it. Ball might be [censored] off but I'm sure he's smart enough to understand the nature of the business he's involved himself in. If he doesn't want to stay with the Saints we need to do all we can to make him feel like it's an "us or them scenario". Once he gets here, we all know enough about Luke Ball to know that he's a proud competitor and he will give his all for Melbourne. And in 12 months time when the talent (that we all know in on our list) starts to emerge he'll be looking forward and not back.

I'm not sure why we needed to reveal this publicly. Surely the knowledge that Melbourne may in fact use one of 11 or 18 in the ND on Ball may have helped persuade him against rolling the dice and trying to get to Collingwood. What's to be gained by revealing the desire to keep picks 11 and 18 out of the Ball situation? To settle the nerves of irrational posters who think pick 18 will definitely solve our KPF deficiencies?

Most people seem set on Scully and Trengove at 1 and 2. Most people seem set on KPP's at 11 and 18 and most people seem set on Dylan Grimes at 34. Few people have us picking beyong 34. I'm not saying this won't happen but just want to expand the conversation a little. All of the KPP have knocks on them. If Butcher is gone before 11 our Footy Dept may not rate the next batch of KPP's as first round quality. In other words, if Black has issues with consistency and Griffiths is injury prone and Carlisle too speculative and Panos too one-dimensional and Talia not considered dangerous enough forward why wouldn't we do what we always suggest we should with top 20 picks and simply take "best available"? If Butcher is gone, in all likelihood one of Koby Stevens, Gary Rohan and Luke Tapscott will be available at 11. Who would you take? I'm all for taking the next best midfielder and investing pick 18 on the more speculative KPP. We obviously have a serious need. Watts will need a big body next to him but we can't reinvent the draft to suit us. All of the experts are telling us that this is a shallow draft and particularly weak in terms of KPP's. I don't want to lose Brock McLean and spend pick 11 on an overly speculative player. I'd rather add Stevens, Rohan or Tapscott and take one of Griffiths, Black, Carlisle or Panos at 18. Thoughts?

Well if the Herald Sun is to be believed (cough . . cough . . splutter) then Richmond are pretty keen on Dustin Martin at 3 and are pretty happy with their key forward stocks (Post and Vickery) and Essendon were also mentioned as having a midfielder as their priority. Just wonder how far Butcher will slide. It could be the most interesting aspect of draft day. If Sydney are genuinely into Rohan and Port take a local or don't have a pick before us after trading it away then we might just get lucky. We're allowed to dream right?

I expected that I'd be seen as a doomsayer but references to "self-loathing" and "fake hysteria" is a little over the top. The original poster posed a simple question: "How on earth can you send young men out there who have trained there guts out for months to try and win a game when there is an alternative agenda happening in the coaches box?" I happened to agree with him. I've spent my entire posting life on this forum attempting to highlight the positive. I think I have a history of posts that suggests I've always supported the club, it's players, the footy dept and the administration. Something a little bit different happened last year and I'm amazed that so many have managed to happily consume the fact that we've deliberately lost games over 2009. Don't worry, I was one them. Now, I'm simply asking that we stop to consider the possible fallout. If you were a talented 22 year old looking for a new club would you choose Melbourne? Would the events of 2009 influence your decision? If you were already at the club and you looked up to Brock McLean or Russell Robertson as a role model, would your confidence in the football dept be shaken? If you were a 79 year old diehard supporter and member like my father who has grown up with the pretty simple premise that you "win at all costs", how would the events of 2009 impact on your level of support? I'm bloody excited by the prospect of Jack Trengove and pick 11 but at the end of the day we're talking about 2 young kids. It wouldn't take too much to go wrong for the expense to be too high.

I was suggesting that when people point to Carlton as tankers they generally highlight the round 22 game. I made it clear that I have no doubt that they tanked. I was trying to stress that we've taken the art of tanking to new levels. Posters on this site take great joy in highighting the negative cultural issues associated with Carlton (Visy corruption, tanking, breaching the salary cap). Well guess what we've been caught cheating the salary cap and now we're viewed as the biggest proponents of tanking going around. The AFL is having to respond to questions because our own former players are venting their frustration. I'm sure the AFL (who are still propping up this club financially) are thrilled to be talking about tanking less than a week after a terrific grand final. I'm not suggesting our actions over the past 4 months haven't given us a genuine crack at a premiership, I'm purely considering the possible negative ramifications. Maybe I should put my head back in the sand and continue to convince myself that Brock is slow and unnecessary, players still respect coaches who make it impossible for them to win games of footy and public perception doesn't matter when you're trying to lure a quality player in the PSD. Oh and thanks for the lawsuit advice. WTF!

That made me giggle. Taking the [censored] out of two posters with one sledge. Nice.

I agree. Love the way he goes about it but he's a "no" for me. I'd be more worried about someone poaching Spencer but others here don't appear to rate him or the potential for other clubs to be interested. The change to the rookie rule might just save Simon Buckley's career.

Would you be laughing if it was Jurrah, Watts or Grimes?

Hawthorn traded core players and played inexperienced line-ups expecting to lose and received a priority pick. Carlton were genuinely terrible and the only evidence provided to support claims that they were tanking involved the round 22 game againt us. Of course they didn't want to win and of course they were angling towards the priority throughout the entire second half of the season but at no point did it come close to what we did. Do we all need to sit down and watch the Richmond game again? I'll repeat again, no-one has even come close to replicating the obvious and calculated attempt to manipulate the priority pick rule as us. My point is simple, we will not know the ramifications for some time yet and supporters of this club shouldn't put their head in the sand and think we're through the worst of it. Sure, as supporters, we're confident we've had to sit throught the last of the engineered losses but we're yet to establish the damage done to the fabric of the club, the relationship the coach has with his players and the mindset of the playing group. I cross my fingers that the damage is minimal.