furious d

Fair enough, may have filled in the dots a bit myself on Simmonds and Jolly as I was o/s and interstate for large parts of the early naughties. I thought they left looking for gametime. I do recall hearing a few times and I think it may have even been reported that opposition teams felt that you just had to wait for White to tire late in the year and Melbourne would start to struggle. I think our results from 94-96 back that up a bit. This is in no way an attack on Jeff White, I have the utmost respect for Jeff, I just don't think he was managed as well as he could've been. You need your best players up and firing at finals time, and we seldom had that. I looked for the gametime stats from 06 but couldn't find them, if you can I'll bet that Jamar would average 15-20 mins of total gametime in games that White played in 06/07, less than 5 mins a qtr. I'm not sure how someone is supposed to develop on that much footy. I suggested several times on ology in that period and later when I came here that Jamar would be fine with gametime and confidence. I think I recall you calling him something like a proven failure around that time. Yet 40 odd games after assuming the first ruck duties he has an AA guernsey.

I always thought he'd be a decent ruckman. Probably would have been 2 years earlier if Daniher had've been able to manage second rucks a bit better. ND would just run White into the ground until he was cooked then throw some kid who'd been gathering ass splinters for 20 rounds into the deep end. His inability to manage 2 rucks cost us Jolly and Simmonds and probably went close to killing Jamar's career before it got off the ground. Hard to tell if DB can manage 2 rucks yet, I'll let you know when he has 2 at his disposal. B)

Doughnuts anybody?

The top 8 was reasonably easy. Scully Grimes Trengove Watts Frawley Jurrah Garland Morton After that I had a group of 8 and I found it really hard to compare percieved potential against proven output McKenzie Gysberts Petterd Tapscott Wonnaemirri Benell Blease Bail The rest I've got doubts about or are just too unknown a quantity to rank higher Strauss Gawn Jetta Fitzpatrick Maric Spencer McNamara Healey

How do you come to that conclusion? On the evidence provided it's just as easy to say all those picks were needs based. We certainly needed all of them. I think Luke Molan left some deep scars around here. There seems to be a lot of angst every year over "best available" vs "needs". I don't see it as a contest. I see needs as just another factor recruiters have to consider when deciding who is best available. It would or should only come into the decision making process early in the draft if there are a few players you're having trouble splitting. As the draft runs deeper and there are more and more players that are harder to rank, needs would become more important. We'd all agree that deciding who is best available isn't simply a matter of picking the kid who is the best footballer at the time of draft day. If it was we'd probably have Daniel Rich now not Jack Watts. Potential, attitude, work ethic and athletic attributes would be just a few of the things recruiters would look at. Needs would just be another consideration, how much weight it's given would depend entirely on circumstance. FWIW I think our recruiters have been blessed during this rebuild. It couldn't have been scripted any better. Frawley and Garland in 2006, before the rebuild had started we had the cornerstones of our future defence and one had been drafted as a forward. Morton and Grimes in 2007. Grimes has future captain written all over him and needs a bit of time to get his body right so good to get him early. Morton will be a weapon but will take time like Goddard did, needs several preseasons to gain strength. Didn't Cale lose weight after surgery or illness or something last preseason. Watts and Jurrah in 2008. New forward line, just add games. Jurrah in the PSD, I'll say it again, blessed 2009, Scully and Trengove add some instant ready made class to the midfield. It's been said before but we really have been KOTD lately, and it's about damn time. I know Gysberts has only payed a couple of games but they were a couple of petty handy games for a young fella and Tapscott finished the year off strongly at Casey after injury. Most of us here, myself included, were speculating about the KPP's available in that range but our FD didn't rate them so we didn't pick them. Time will tell if we got that right but it shows we won't waste a first round pick purely on a need.

Better yet get them to swap to the dees. These tinny bastards have multiple premierships whoever they support. I agree with Billy, the cats underachieved just like Essenscum 99-01. Anyone who disagrees obviously isn't up to their necks in Geelong supporters like me and Bill;) Oh, and back on topic, I did like Maxy Rooke. Nowhere near enough facial hair in the AFL these days.

Just on SEN, sounded more like contract negotiations have stalled. Premiership winning 23 yo KPF, just took the most contested marks in the comp. I know his old man is a bit mad but we should be in his ear. I doubt he'd be going anywhere but the least we could do is push up the price for Collingwood. David is talking about nominating Travis for the draft and we have plenty of cap space. If we could entice him over for dollars it costs us nothing else, it would be a massive get.

If 2% of Chinese tune in it will probably be the most watched game in Aussie footy history.

I'll trump your bro, $350. "I told you not to give no god damn monster no tree fiddy."

Part time assistant at the pies this year. I think we should go after him. Thoughts?

I think Bails wants Hale as it'll allow us to structure up the way he wants. Fitzpatrick and Gawn will allow that structure down the track but we need someone to fill the Kpf/2nd ruck role while they develop. St Kilda says the personell doesn't matter if the structures are right. If we can get our structure right now it gives the players the opportunity to learn while they develop rather than have to change everything in a few years. Look at Leigh Brown, most here would have been horrified at the thought of picking him up. Malthouse has used him brilliantly and he's very important to their premiership hopes.

No, I'm furious, and you can't all be me

Could be the first Seymour boy on our list since Russell "rhino" Richards.

Got Hodge at 50 to 1 for the brownlow and Hall at 23 to 1 for the Coleman before the season started. Both were lookin good about rd 16, but neither will get up

I thought front loading was structuring the contract so that more is paid first year less later. These payments are actually supposed to be paid in later years acccording to the contract but are brought forward as there is still space to fill. It's more how I understood it. If you're simply structuring contracts to pay mopre early it doesn't create the gap in the same way.

Rather than repeat this ad nauesuem on the various suggested trade threads I thought it'd be better to have one place to argue the merits of not trying to trade for experienced players just yet. With so many youngsters on our list it's nigh on impossible to know what we've got just yet. We need some time to sort through these kids and work out exactly what they can do. Players drafted for one position often forge long careers playing somewhere completely different. They develop at different rates and draft number is no guareenteed indicator of who will make a contribution and who wont. It's no use talking about filling holes on our list just yet because we have no idea where those holes will be when our premiership window is opening. Take the second ruck problem for instance. It looks good on paper to go after a Mitch Clarke right now and I agree we struggle in this area, but what if Max Gawn and Jake Spencer both become serviceable or even good in the next year or 2. We will have wasted a big chunk of salary cap space and maybe traded away decent picks or young players. We would be loaded with rucks and be looking to trade one out before long. On whiteboard wednesday a few weeks back Tim Harrington explained why we were paying nearly 100% of the salary cap this year. It's not that contracts are front loaded as many suggested here. As I pouinted out at the time that solves nothing in 3 years when you have to re-sign everyone. We are prepaying contracts which is very different and creates a bigger hole in our salary cap the lonnger we do it. I'll try to explain it simply for those that didn't see it. For simplicity say the salary cap is $10milliom p.a and our contracts for that year add up to $9.2m and $9.5 million the year after. We can bring forward $800,000 from the second year and pay it this year. That reduces our salary cap burden the second year from 9.5 to 8.7 million. This means we can bring forward even more the year after. This will be offset a little by our young players demanding more money as they improve but we should still have a massive gap to be able to secure a quality player to adress our most pressing need when the time is right. I'd be especially against trading away any of our first or even second round draft picks for the next 2 years. I think the club has set itself up to not have to go too deep in the next 2 compromised drafts. The thing that has made us so ordinary the last few years is the hole in our list of players of players aged 27-29. 2 years ago that hole was players aged 25-27. You can't do well with no players in the prime of there careers. I'm terrified of recreating this problem 8-10 years from now. We need to find some draftees theses next 2 years who'll add something to our list and I don't want to be relying on late picks for that. I'm not completely against trading and we should consider any offer on its merits but I don't think it's time to be chasing any big fish hard just yet. We need to be patient imo. When we can legitimately push for the top 4 would be the right time.

Elite disposal and decision making apparently. Its still early and I'm no expert but I'd be happy with this kid or Tom Lynch for pick 12 at the minute. I think they could both be considered around that pick by draft time.

He's been tearing it up in the TAC finals. He'll test well at draft camp too. Wouldn't be surprised to see him rated around the top 10 by draft time.

Too early for us to be doin this sort of trade. Next year or the year after would be better for us to do a major trade. If you saw Tim Harringtons whiteboard Wednesday a few weeks back you'd understand why. For the next year or two we are creating a massive gap in our salary cap that we can use to net a big fish. The longer we wait, the more we'll have to throw at said fish. The other bonus of waiting is we'll have a better understanding of the gaps on our list that need filling after the kids have matured a bit.

I'm surprised you're still here. Surely someone whose support for the MFC is so fickle would have left when Woey or TJ or Robbo or any one of countless other players were shown the door.

Do you think the decision could hinge on any changes to the interchange rule? If the AFL decides to limit rotations I think that could put Newton ahead of PJ as a second ruck option, and lets face it PJ will never be good enough to be a #1 ruckman. Newton was pretty good last week. His ruckwork was pretty good and despite the claims of the ignorant worked hard around the ground, was better than Jamar actually.

He's not a natural crumber either, pretty sure he was considered a mid when drafted.

It's a dificult call from the outside. All the leading candidates seem to have at least one defiecency from where we sit. It's uncertain if Green has the necessary respect of the players as far as being captain goes after being left out of the player voted leadership group at the start of 08. Davey can spit the dummy when struggling with a hard tag. Moloney may struggle to stay in the 22 in a few years and I can't help but think it might end in tears like Richie Vandenberg. Bruce may not be best 22 for much longer either. Rivers has only just been elevated to the leadership group and has only recently got back into top form after a long period out of the game. I voted for Green but I'll back the club to make the right call. They seem to be kicking goals all over the place at the moment. We've had Leading Teams at the club for 3 years now so if it is left up to the players to vote for the captain it won't simply be a popularity contest. It'll be more of a respect contest. If the coaching panel makes the call I'm confident they'll have all the necessary inormation to make the right one. It'll be interestind to see who gets it. On a side note, when do people think it'll be announced? Could be months off.

Fantastic attitude, fantastic work ethic, fantastic career, well done Junior. Hopefully the club will organize a testimonial dinner. I for 1 would be happy to part with a few hundred to pay tribute to oneof the most underrated footballers ever.

C+, but I'm a hard marker. I reckon a D- is a just pass, premiership is an A+. I said preseason 6-8 wins would be a pass. If we drop our last 2 it drops back to a C.