Bring-Back-Powell

On what planet is Melksham depth? He is one of the classiest ball users and goal kickers in the side and we bitterly missed him for those 10 or so games.

His problems started in the first quarter of the first game of the year when he missed 2 set shots for goal against Port which would have given us a 4 goal lead on both occasions. That set the tone of the entire year, and some of his errors and skill level was pathetic for an established AFL player. Strange because he was one of the rare players that had a full pre-season. Still, he kicked 25 odd goals in 2018 and jagged a 3 brownlow vote game, so I can see why he was retained. Would be very border line for round 1 if we're full strength though.

I wouldn't mind him. Did he not kick 16 goals in 5 games at the end of 2017?

Will play 22 games next year due to the genius move of trading Frost for a ham sandwich and the unreliability of our 2 expensive defenders.

Judging by his Instagram photos I think I know the answer.

A little bit of extra pocket money put aside for Jack Martin? (otherwise maybe 1 of the 2 survived)

Is this the same Jack Martin that begged and pleaded to be a Bomber this time last year? Unless there’s a clear threat that he’d sit out the season, or would be a toxic member of the playing group, just be a little ruthless and take him in the PSD. Even if he’ll only sign a 1 year contract. We need to further leverage what was a most unexpectedly disastrous season. We’ll got 2 top 10 picks. We’re getting a bottom 6 draw. Lets take advantage of pick 2 in the PSD!

The fixture will tell the story. The fact that he technically didn’t announce that we’re playing 10 games at the G leaves me a little sceptical (even though I don’t mind home games at Marvel) If we end up still playing 9 home games at the G and 1 at Marvel, then yes, he’s mislead the members and should’ve just announced that we’ve withdrawn home games from Darwin. Ofcourse, we could end up playing the 10 at the G, no home games at Marvel and I’ll be the first to put my hand up and say I was wrong.

Take your point there. I would also bypass Martin if he 100% doesn’t want to play for us. But at the same time he’s not a free agent and therefore shouldn’t have the right to pick and choose which club he goes to. He hasn’t earnt that status yet.

I wonder if Collingwood, Richmond, Hawthorn or Essendon would do the gentlemanly thing and allow Carlton access to Martin, if they had the pick 2 in the PSD?

If he misses more than 6 games next year, we’re finishing bottom 4. He was the only reason we beat Carlton. He was a key reason why we lost to mediocre clubs such as St Kilda and North on the run home. He’s kind of important.

Yes.

I can’t see the upside in trading Frost. Would love to hear the club’s rationale behind it. We barely got anything for him in return aside from a future second rounder in a hopelessly compromised draft, and our defensive stocks just got weaker. Clearly the club hasn’t learnt it’s lesson that you have to have rock solid depth in your key position stocks. They found out the hard way as a consequence of exiting Hogan and Pedo in the one hit - result was Melksham as our sole key forward in a home and away game. Now we’re doing the same to our defence. Robbing ourselves of an integral part of our defensive stocks while relying on injury prone players to hold it together.

Hopefully he was mates with May. May strikes me as the sort of teammate that wouldn’t exactly be everyone’s cup of tea.

MCC members most certainly don't get free entry, so you're right in the drop off right there. AFL members do though. You'd hope all standard members that have free entry would get along to it...because well...they still get free entry. Hopefully (if we do get a home game there) we can play one of the higher drawing interstate clubs there such as Brisbane, Sydney or Adelaide to retain some sort of home ground advantage, and at the same time not record a disastrously low crowd. However I suspect you're right in that it will be a Marvel tenant.

100% it is. Miles better than Darwin. A pity of most of our fans won't turn up to it.

Unless the club specifically says we'll be playing 10 home games a year at the MCG (which they haven't), I bet this home game will be at Marvel.

Maybe they used him as trade bait, where as they knew Garlett would be no chance of garnering interest??

Possibly one of JFK or Stretch survives, but certainly not both. He shows a few glimpses in games but ultimately probably not good enough if you're still asking questions of him 6 years later.

I also heard at the time that Taylor (and other recruiters) rated him a top 10 player if he hadn't been injured throughout his junior years.

I guess Joel Smith, VDB and KK could do with some more company in rehab.

We’re such a nice and accomodating club.

Hopefully the club puts out a statement sooner rather than later declaring our intentions, just so we don't have 250 pages on this thread. I highly doubt we'll be interested in picking up a high priced inconsistent player.

2 goals a game at the lower level probably warrants slight consideration. We need to add depth to our forward stocks. It's critical IMO as we'll just end up losing the majority of games next year if T Mac goes down again for weeks. The forward line we put out against Sydney (Melksham as the number 1 key forward) was a disgrace and poor list management.