furious d

Hope he's right. I'd be very happy with Lynch or Gorringe.

"Even in my interview with Melbourne, they said 'we've heard you're a bit of a lad,' but I'm pretty quiet around the boys, really,'' Darling said." Just a gut feel but I don't reckon we'll take him.

The AFL would have to see that jumper as a clash with Hawthorn. Do Hawthorn even have a clash jumper? If not they better get to work on it.

It'll make for a much quieter post season round here in 2012. Imagine the bulldogs boards now, "who,ll we get with pick 50 something" or whatever their first live pick is.

Cheers

Where'd you find that info E?

There has been plenty of people suggesting the club has handled departures badly over the last few years. Not 1 of those posters has had a suggestion of hoe it could have been handled better..

Agree, only one party has played this immorally and it's not the club. How is honesty immoral Cam? This pea hearted weakling ran from the challenge of earning his spot and dumped on the club to cover his rectum. WEAK! Can't wait to shower him in abuse next year and I hope and pray Beama runs straight through him.

So if I understand you correctly the club has no right to delist long term players. Are you ND?

I'd be very disappointed if Cam left for money. He's been on considerably better coin than Ablett the last few years. If, as the Aus suggests, he left for a pay cut and more security fair enough. The way he's done it so late is disappointing and won't endear him to us fans. Anyone who's blamed the club in this thread should apologise. It sounds like they did everything short of giareentee him a game, and it would have been a very bad move for the club to do that

http://www.afl.com.au/news/newsarticle/tabid/208/newsid/94573/default.aspx Jetta is contracted till 2012. So is Strauss, Spencer, Bartram and anyone else you might be thinking of delisting next year that I didn't mention. I doubt we'd terminate contracts early. If Martin, Maric or Warnock make themselves undelistable next season, like Bartram and Dunn did this year, it will be very hard to find 3 without trading players out. Prove me wrong. Bigfooty contracts thread here http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/showthread.php?t=767361

How many players at any club can be confident their club will back them until THEY retire? Football is a highly competitive business and you perform or you're out the door. If we chase a free agent it's pretty obvious we want them. You don't offer someone 3 years on good coin so you can retire them as soon as you can. I'm amazed that so soon after the disaster that was 2007/2008, people want to return to the Daniher era policy of letting players decide when their time is up.

The club should have moved on Neitz a year earlier. We'll never know if the club made the right call on Junior but 5 weeks out for a hammy does hint that his body might have struggled. Players can't always see that it's time to go aand the club doesn't owe players pension years. At a similar stage of their development Hawthorn sacked their skipper, Vandenburg, let Everitt walk because he wouldn't agree to a 1 year deal and enforced 1 year contracts on Crawf for the remainder of his career. Didn't turn out too bad for them.

Jakovich??? I thought he could barely move by the time he left us. The only thing I find concerning is supporters who think the club has no right to move players on. And owes it to them to allow them to play until they decide to give it away.

The reason he didn't get an assurance from the club is not because of our track record, it's because the club was offering a 1 year contract not a 2 year contract. If we guarentee him an extention it's no different from a 2 year contract. The club was seriously burnt at the end of the Daniher era by the sudden end to great careers and is right to protect itself. I think, and it's only my opinion, that the club was forced to act on Junior because Dunn, Bartram and possibly Bail saved their careers this season. I said in some thread at the start of this year that we didn't have enough potentially delistable players coming out of contract and that if a few found form we'd be in trouble. It gets worse next year. Finding delistings is going to be very difficult next year. Martin and Maric look all but gone. After that it get's hard. Wonaemirri? Warnock? After that it gets REALLY hard. You either get rid of project talls after 2 years in Fitzpatrick and Gawn, break contracts, Trade players out for whatever you can get or consider Gysberts, Scully, Morton, Sylvia or Green. Everyone else is contracted until at least the end of 2012. We must delist at least 3. The club would have been negligent to be giving assurances about contract extentions in that environment. If 2 of Martin, Maric, Wonna, Warnock or, dare I say it, even Newton finish next season in our best 22, Bruce may have been in the gun. Anyway, I'm happy the club stuck to it's guns. This will cost us a bit in the short term, but nothing in the medium to long term imo.

In the draft picks thread you said something like "if Essendon don't take Caddy they have rocks in their head." (Sorry don't know how to qoute from another thread.) Nice to see you confirm that you think they have rocks in their heads, I concur. A pretty good effort E. Nice to see you gave us my dream result, jeez I hope Atley slides. FWIW I don't think his kicking is too bad, not elite, but solid imho.

Cam is entitled to play hard ball, as is the club. I think players have to be careful when pushing for more money. If you don't provide value it can shorten your career. Cam is playing a dangerous game if he wants to play beyond this year.

"But if he wants to remain at Melbourne, he will have no choice but to accept a one-year extension." Very happy with that last line. Nothing against Cam but we're not a retirement home, if you're over 30 you get a 1 year deal, no exceptions.

If Atley or Caddy slid to us I'd take them. I'd take Darling ahead of Smedts IF the footy dept was confident he could make it as a power forward. He's about the same size as Fevola and Neitz so I don't think his height alone rules him out of playing that role. If they thought he's more likely to make it as a medium sized forward rotating through the midfield I'd prefer Smedts. We are already stocked up with mid sized forwards.

We seem to be thinking along similar lines E25. You omitted Gaff, Polec and Heppell from that list so I assume you think they're certain to be gone by our pick. If by some miracle either Lynch or Gorringe slip to us we'd have to take them. I'm not squemish about grabbing a ruckman early if he's best available and I think if Gorringe lasts to us he'll be that. I doubt either will get to us but if 1 did I'd be stoked. Of the rest I really like Atley, Caddy and Smedts. All of them could play HB/Mid which is a need, they're quick and have good skills, and all are a pretty good size. I'd expect at least 1 of these to be available as that's 11 names in total and the chances of me correctly naming the top 11 3 weeks out is pretty much zero. The wildcard for me is Darling. Question marks over his height and off field behavior make him hard to place. I think he's 50/50 to still be there at our pick and I'm confident that if he is a rick cranium (not saying he is but there has been speculation) we'll avoid him like the plague. If we pick him I'd back our recruiters to have done their homework. In reality I'll back whoever BP picks at 12 but I hope it's one these guys.

I'd love for Atley to slide to us, he could play Grimey's role as well as rotating through the midfield. Not likely but possible imo. I'd be interested to hear who others think are no chance to get to us. Swallow, Bennell and Day obviously, and I'd add Gaff, Polec and Heppell as dead certs not to last to pick 12. Lynch and Gorringe are highly unlikely but everybody else is some chance. Atley is probably least likely to get to us of those remaining but I think he's about the best we could hope for.

Spencer is already a better first ruck than PJ. To play in the ruck you have to relish physical contact, PJ never did. I'd have Big Jake in the ruck if Jamar goes down, we'll lose a bit but you have to blood young rucks sometime. Next year is not a flag year so it wouldn't hurt to see him get a little gametime. I don't see Gawn as necessarily 2 or 3 years away as many suggest. If he get's his body right I don't see any reason he couldn't play next year if required and form permits. He could possibly fill the role we had earmarked for Hale. I don't like putting limits on kids and there's plenty of examples of young ruckman having an impact by their second year.

When did this happen? Surely Geelong would've been able to afford Ablett if this is true. Not saying it's wrong but I never heard it, got a link?

Trapper for me. Never delivered consistently

You're right we should have kept those blokes, what's a few more spoons.