rpfc

This is what I am talking about - Jetta is a mid. Tapscott doesn't get to the right areas, Kent is a baby and a mid, Bail is a mid, Blease is a wing. Only Davey and Byrnes are small forwards and they are both about to retire or a year away from it. Get a good small forward to work at the feet of Dawes, Hogan, and Clark and it will mean we keep the ball down there and are a more dangerous proposition.

196cm small forward... The idea is that Hogan and Dawes don't have to create a contest and then be asked to fight it out for their own crumb. I don't think we should fashion a forward line that sees Watts close enough to their space to crumb from them. Watts will bring his defender into the contest, and you don't want another 190cm+ defender competing with Hogan in the air. You want to isolate him and his man, and get a small into his area at the right time. And you cannot just plug a midfielder into the forward line and call him a small forward. If he doesn't get to the right areas and if he doesn't kick goals - he is going to be easy to defend. You have to have a small forward who is aggressive offensively and can also play a periphery role.

Yes, but I baulked at your assertion that we should 'get midfield types who get their own ball and kick goals'... It's much easier to find a small forward and make them useful up the ground or in a complimentary role. Teaching mids to play small forward is tough. Get a crumber, who reads the play well and has kicked goals and teach them a complimentary role.

rjay - you are being far too simplistic with this 'Small Forwards don't exist anymore' spiel. They do exist, but some have had to bring another skill to bear so as to avoid being one-dimensional as you say. Rioli goes into the middle and is aggressive in his defence work. LeCras goes up the ground linking with the midfield. Stokes runs through the midfield. But these guys, and others, are dynamite around goals. If you ever play in a team with dominant tall forwards (which I do) and you don't have a small forward smart enough to get to the right areas (which we don't), then you really feel the effects of wasted entries forward (which we do). A small forward who can read the play and be useful when he is not kicking his 3 goals are a great resource and definitely a priority once midfielders are found.

These are the 'offending' remarks: We probably discussed this at the time but are we not being a tad sensitive? I would argue that while that message about the 'ads' he was in is more an issue for the commercial side of things at the club, allowing Jack to concentrate on his footy was the main point he was making. He didn't throw him under a bus, over a bridge, or anywhere else. Unfortunately, most of Neelds words in public are poorly worded and haphazard and they get misconstrued constantly. The amount of times he has had to say 'what I meant by that is...' would be numerous. How he treats Watts in-house is not for us to know but he is playing this week and potentially in subsequent weeks. And in these weeks we will see whether Neeld can win back his job, whether Jack Watts wants to stay in the role we envision for him, and whether the club sees him as the answer in that role.

You have to be kidding. Tom McDonald has already played more good games than Jack Watts has. Watts is a tlent without a position at the moment. He cannot play back as well as McDonald and Hogan has already moved ahead of him in the forward line - and did so last October when we got him.

When it comes to list management I like to think I am very capable of removing blinkers and seeing things for what they are. Sylvia is to be kept but I think he will leave. As a 'list manager' there is only so much power I have. Frawley is to be told that he can come to the club and ask for better terms if he wishes. Hopefully he is a RFA next year (one of the 10 highest paid players) and we hold the cards. Watts is a tough one as his skills are elite and his physicality near the other end of the spectrum. If a suitable trade was offered then you would listen to it but he is an 'asset' and you don't just give those away. In terms of immediate importance - we need experience and talent but Watts has become 'tradeable' due to our forward line and backline having 6 talls younger than 26 who are all more accomplished than he is (Clark, Dawes, Hogan, Frawley, Garland, and McDonald).

If it makes you feel better I don't think he will play regularly until 2015... Ruckmen are such an investment. Especially ones taken at 18 with bad knees.

I cannot stand the references to Moneyball in the AFL. Neeld has used it aswell. It doesn't transfer over well. Neither the measurements, nor the value aspect. AFL isn't an individualised sport and it doesn't have concrete, transferable contracts that are the underpinnings of this idea/theory/religion/thewaythecubswillfinallywinapennant.

More like a Rd 1, 2014 debut...

I would like to get one of Caddy, Wellingham, or Stevens. Caddy would be 3rd in my line.

That was a rumour. Don't believe it had a good source. I think we are quickly running out of good sources though.

Plenty of time, IRW.

For those that don't get this: Hannabal was BH's best friend until they fell out. They thought along similar lines but there is only so much one can take of 'themselves' before it gets old...

What the hell is going on here?

Yeah, I am also going to have to disagree with that last line. They'll like us when they are on the list. If you put yourself out there in the AFL industry you may not go to the club of your choice. I wasn't put off by Luke Ball being intransigent a couple years ago. Schwab wasn't put off by Clark's desire to be on the other side of this huge continent. Caddy might quickly learn the lesson that you don't always get exactly what you want. If we want him, and GC don't see a good deal elsewhere - Caddy will have a decision to make.

Tale out the tone that you read it with and take it as I meant it: It would be nice if the "Editor & Chief Football Writer" went and did a piece about how it all works as no-one in the corporate media seems to know/care/bother to understand.

I didn't say he did write it. I said it was from the club, which it is. But it is just a CTRL C, CTRL V job from this article: http://www.afl.com.au/news/newsarticle/tabid/208/newsid/130820/default.aspx I would but I am not a journalist.

Doesn't say that - players that are there for 7 years or less have no FA until they are delisted. It's complicated and the MFC website has done itself a disservice by simply cutting and pasting from a 6 month old article - Burgan should go and do a real piece and ask the AFL HQ some Qs.

Mitch Clark wanted to go home. Was he mentally fragile? He also was quite emotional about Jimmy passing. It seems that emotional fragility is either a bad thing or completely ignored when it doesn't help your point.

With all due respect - that is a beaten attitude. What would the more ruthless clubs do in our stead? We are trying to be more ruthless. Maybe we will see.

Supercoach? You can't even do deals across competitiors... These deals are pretty straightforward and hardly controversial - the two teams we are dealing with are just doing what is in their best interest by not stepping all over us. GWS want Pick 3 and GC want Tippett - if our picks can help them get those things, then they will be less inclined to screw us over. And stuie, do you remember The Veale Deal? Because you should - it involved our Backline Coach: The Bulldogs wanted the Hawk Rawlings, but so did the Kangas, and Rawlings wanted to go to the Kangas. The Bulldogs had first pick in the PSD and then this happened: Ess Got: Mark Alvey and ND6 Ess Gave: Danny Jacobs Haw Got: Danny Jacobs Haw Gave: Lochlan Veale WB Got: Lochlan Veale WB Gave: Pick 6 and Alvey All this to stop the Hawks from trading Jade Rawlings to the Kangas and force him into the draft and to a club he didn't want to go to. What we would do is far more innocent.

It ensures, assuming a conversation occurs over the likelihood of GC getting 13 in the event they go for Viney occurs, we get this: 3, 4, Caddy and Viney. And not this: Viney, 4, 13, and 30. So the deal would net: 3 and Caddy for 13 and 30. I would do that deal. (I think that makes sense - tell me if I am getting into 'olisik level logic fail'...)

Viney in the second round.

Not if it came with certain caveats...