old55

Some good choices from the MFC list there. In the broader AFL: Franklin - duh!, Jack Martin - could he really be better than O'Meara?, Joel Tippett - if he makes it he's a rare commodity we could have had.

As Rhino would say "sage advice": http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/get-demetriou-a-new-sport-that-is-hurting-bombers-20131205-2yu03.html

It does seems as though the AFL made a mistake not specifically writing in the condition that Hird should not be paid by Essendon while he's suspended - they mistakenly thought that Essendon wouldn't be brazen enough to do that - naive really after all that's happened, but hardly a firing offence. I'm amazed that Essendon would do such a provocative thing and further aggravate their relationship with the leagues governing body. They should be trying to build a bridge.

Cover up of what? The AFL and Essendon negotiated an outcome and an intermediary known to both facilitated it when it stalled. This has been common knowledge for 3 months.

Agreed.

The AFL negotiated a settlement with Essendon - wowee big breaking news!!! They negotiated a settlement with MFC on the tanking allegations as well. A total nothing story with News Ltd trailing Fairfax by 3 months that Wylie was involved in mediating the negotiations. What would be news is if the AFL negotiated a final outcome with WADA/ASADA in this matter.

Or 3 injuries to have him in the starting 18

The chances of him failing if he never made it onto an AFL list were 100% so to say they are now much smaller is indeed a ridiculous statement of the obvious.

All the numbers should be allocated now with the draftees arriving. They should have lockers. Rain people look forward to this information.

Prediction: http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/rookie-draft-discussion.1041998/page-5#post-31058318

We made 12 changes to the list of 44, that's pretty substantial. If we only made 4 and retained Jetta then I could see a case, but we've got a lot of new blood.

You need to understand that real inside draft information doesn't get written up on public fan forums. Well rarely anyway: http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/rookie-draft-discussion.1041998/page-5#post-31058318

It seems to me we could've gone: ND: Salem, JKH, Harmes RD: Tippett, King, Hunt, Jetta That has a nice balance of types. Best of luck to Alex Georgiou - WE picked him.

He will take time no doubt, but Fitzy has had other problems which slowed his development.

1 win is about as likely as 10 wins. If I have to zero in - 16th or 17th with 4 or 5 wins, but it's very hard to predict what might happen. St.Kilda is really the only club in our vicinity that I see being worse than last year - all the others should be equal or better than they were. I expect we'll be better but we were truly utterly woeful.

We could finish anywhere from last to about 10th with anywhere from 1 to 10 wins.

I went fishing at a trout farm.

Is that right? Well the Hawks took 4 rookie draft picks and none of them were Tsitas - who didn't get picked up. So that has to mean that the 4 players they picked up were rated 24, 25, 26 and 27 on their list. Wow are they lucky or what! I find that very hard to believe Max. How about you post the list?

EFA

A bit disappointing that we didn't pick a KPB but we had plenty of chance to take one so must have not rated any highly enough. We must rate Harmes - the pre-draft chat had North and Sydney also interested so maybe we needed to swoop. King's one grab marking in particular and his kicking look good in the highlights and he looks agile for a big boy, will be interesting to see his pace. It's hard to see Georgiou, at 188cm, covering true KPFs no matter how "tall" he plays, but that doesn't mean he can't be a player for us. I see North took Tippett, he's a good pick up for them because I reckon they are under-sized down back. I really like the look of their list now and reckon they'll be flag challengers. Tigers picked up 3 ready-mades too, they're serious about challenging too but I think they're behind North.

Slider - Pass Riser - Pass

My slim chances of winning Tattslotto were dealt a blow when I walked past the shop selling tickets without going inside.

http://demonland.com/forums/index.php?/topic/35578-we-should-have-taken-freeman/ leading by half a length.

Rioli makes cameos and Ballantyne as small fwd was integral to Freo getting to the GF, as rpfc says - it's primarily about their small forward fwd capability. The small fwd is not dead. The key observation is that while they've been very effective throughout the season they've found it hard in the GF pressure cooker, but that doesn't eliminate their value.

2013 GF - how much time did Rioli and Ballantyne spend on ball.