old55

If the Dogs chase and get Hall or Pavlich they can win the flag. With Goodwin, McLeod, Edwards and Burton almost finished the Crows just wont be able to break thru or get real replacement talent on. Ironically Craig is too good a coach and they'll continue to finish 4-8 for the foreseeble future - they need to replace Craig which will not be easy under those circumstances.

Correct weight, except you've got Richmond in limbo twice - and they probably deserve to be. Brisbane is the other limbo club but they're right on the fringe of the flag group and could go either way. WC may actually be able to win a flag within the 5 years - they may need to because Glass and Cox are already 28. The limbo clubs are paralysed by the GC and WS draft concessions. Free agency could mess with this in a big way.

Knights staying put "It's just a waste of time. I've got a contract (2008-10), we're still in the early part of our (rebuilding) program, and things are going pretty strongly." No surprise though when the alternative is the Richmond job - [censored] sandwich or cup of cold sick.

Yeah but it's not all roses because Blease and Strauss can't move up on that basis so this year's draftees need to go into the 50s - not that there's anything intrinsically wrong with that. Maybe they'll give Scully 55.

You reckon they're [censored], I reckon they're [censored] - but Knight's obviously doesn't. What would've Bailey done of he was Essendon's coach? Since R2 2008 I've been hoping for priority pick 1 this year. Bailey's about to deliver on that - it's too easy to say now that it was obvious that's what he had to do. What would Knights have done if he was Melbourne coach? I wager you there's plenty of posters in this thread who'd rather be Essendon-Knights than Melbourne-Bailey.

Oh really? And how do you reckon that rebuild is going? How well advanced are Essendon on their sole reason for existence? And who are the stars that are going to take them there? I agree that Bailey had an easier time making the hard decisions than Knights. But I think and have posted elsewhere that Eseendon is screwed. They are doomed to finish between 10th and 4th for the next 5 years and cannot win a flag in the next 10 years. Knights had tougher choices than Bailey but did not make them. I'd rather be Fremantle than Essendon, provided Fremantle trades either Pavlich or Sandilands this year. Bailey could have retained TJ and he could be sitting on 6 wins right now and be a "mathematical possibility". There's 6 clubs that can win the next 5 flags. There's 2 clubs whose coaches have gone fully to the well and possibly 3 if Freo have the cohones. There's 7 clubs in limbo, Essendon is one of them and Knights and their board have taken there. I should add that the entry of GC and WS has brought the situation to a point, there'd be ways around if they weren't coming.

List however many you want up to 10 then, like Kit did Remember that means you're prepared to let others go to GC or WS - I'd be amazed if you don't want to protect at least 10. BTW, the AFL has some secret draft compensation formula for clubs losing uncontracted to GC and WS so we don't lose the player for nothing.

You and Rogue are saying Bailey wouldn't have got the job if he didn't talk down the list and insist on rebuilding. Matthew Knights reportedly talked up the Eseendon list compared with Damien Hardwick who was much more bearish - Knights got the job. Knights has forged on with veterans, not traded them, played an attacking game style and won games - who'd rather be them right now? Bailey has taken a different route.

I thought it said "Do feed the lions"! You can ignore the instructions in the OP as you wish - hey it's an internet forum after all. But you don't need to include "Scully" and "Trengove" in your top 10, it's a current top 10 - top 12 if you include this year's pick 1 and 2.

With Morton re-signing for 2 years that protects him from being snapped up by GC as an uncontracted player but presumably leaves the WS door open. Which 10 players are untouchables (including Morton if he's in your list) and must be protected from GC and WS poaching. I think there's a strong case for signing this year's pick 1 & 2 to 3 years to lock them in - so you can leave them out of the list (or consider it to be 12). [PS. It should be said that I think we can protect more than 10 with good negotiation but 10 is a nice number to sharpen your thinking - see Pants good work below, it's not easy]

Didn't seem to hurt Matthew Knights. How many here would prefer to be the Bombers right now (ignoring their extra $ resources for a moment)? Not me.

FWIW I do have sympathy with what you want - I agree that a tall contested marking type would complement Watts and Jurrah and make all 3 that much more dangerous. I also agree that they're very hard to come by and if you've got early picks that's the place to get them. But I definitely don't want us to take a strong KPF at 2 just because the need is there if they're not guaranteed to be a star. I know it's hard to compare mids and KPFs if they're both quality but it's not hard to compare stars and players with question marks - it sounds like a midfielders draft and it sounds like we can get a star mid at 2.

It's rubbish night tonight and I'm hoping to find a diamond as big as my fist when I open the bin too.

No way. The guy who had $200K on the Dogs over WC was thinking similar I'm sure. We missed top 4 in 2006 by losing to Carlton twice. We missed Callan Ward and Nic Naitanaui by beating Carlton twice in 2007. We've come this far - there's two more weeks to go.

Last time we had the priority pick in 2003 we traded our 2nd rounder pick 20 for Ben Holland on the back of drafting two superstar midfielders at 3 & 5. And we got another "top 10 pick" as F/S at 36 too. We were rolling it it!

I'm definitely not suggesting he's #1 flag ruckman. I'm a fan of a robust clearance creating/clearance winning/hard tackling ruckman like ... gulp ... Jamar, but I think you can only afford one in the 22. Spencer may develop into another of this type. I am suggesting Hale as a tall marking forward target who complements Watts and Jurrah. He has shown he can kick goals and will require defensive attention - to some extent it's about the threat. This will free up Watts and Jurrah. Also I think a mature tall now will help accelerate their development by taking some focus - assuming Robbo is gone the alternatives right now appear to be Miller and Newton who have their limitations. In turn ultimately Hale wont get the best defender, they'll go to Watts and Jurrah, and he can be a more effective player than he is now. He took a really heavy knock early this year against Hawthorn and was stretchered off - this may have affected his performance this year. The other half of the equation is he provides is a 2nd ruckman who earns his keep on field and doesn't take up a place on the pine - we can run 4 midfielders off the bench which gives a huge advantage. It's just a suggestion, there are alternatives, Martin may be able to develop into this role, we've got a few more years up our sleeve before we're challenging and we could do this type of trade in any of the intervening years. Hale will be getting towards the end of his career around 2015-6 when we'll still be challenging (for our 3-peat?) but I'll take the 2014 flag thanks.

Who's undervaluing him? I just equated him to pick 18. If you want quality you've got to give quality. North wouldn't trade Hale for a battler. I like Rivers and I hope North would too. We've got to look where we've got excess to fill deficiencies

Would you think 18 is reasonable? I would consider it - he'd solve a major gap (depending on where we think Martin will end up). We've maybe got an excess of tall backs and depending on how North want to use Hansen (i.e. forward if Hale was gone) - maybe North would be interested in a player trade, how about Rivers for Hale?

I like the Hale idea, he would complement Watts and Jurrah and give ruck relief without having to carry 2 ruckmen. I believe List Manager Tim Harrington came from North - I reckon we'd be unlikely to threaten them - we'd need to do a fair deal.

Agree on pick 1 but the chances of the bottom team getting a pick somewhere in the first 4 is still something like 75%. You could increase the number of balls (as discussed here by others) and decrease the number of teams in the lottery to get an acceptable formula which balances giving a fair chance with elimating certainty. I think the 128 balls and the 100 balls scenarios tip it too far towards the current situation but there's a balance in there somewhere.

Yeah sure WC, Collingwood and Adelaide will all be killing each other to win an extra $100K

Small enough risk to tolerate to stop talk of teams losing deliberately - one number on the roulette wheel. Maybe teams will tank out of the finals to get the chance? You could restrict the lottery to the bottom 4 if the odds make you queasy.

The draft system needs to change to stop all this talk about tanking. Lottery system from BF (and elsewhere): 16th 8 balls 15th 7 balls 14th 6 balls 13th 5 balls 12th 4 balls 11th 3 balls 10th 2 balls 9th 1 ball 1 ball from the 36 is drawn for the number 1 pick. Continue until pick 8. If a team that has already been drawn is drawn again that ball is discarded until an undrawn team is drawn. 8th gets pick 9 thru to 1st at pick 16. From the second round onwards just revert back to 16th getting the first pick in the second round. There is not sufficient incentive to try to finish 15th or 16th over 13th or 14th. The 9th placed team has odds of 36 to 1 of getting the number one pick so you can imagine that it wouldnt happen very often. Priority pick: Retain it but have it always at the start of the second round. There's benefit there e.g. a player like Blease but not enough to tempt a team to deliberately lose.

I don't know about you but some ambiguous feeling of honour that we defeated Richmond and North Melbourne late in 2009 is going struggle to sustain me thru another 46 years of watching other teams coaches and captains holding up the premiership cup.

I agree many thoughtless and potentially hurtful things are posted anonymously on internet forums. But there's a difference between the two cases you raise, in the tanking case the mainstreeam media is cooking up a storm on the topic and more and more often goes to the internet for content - let's face it they don't have any real content on the matter. Posts like yours throw petrol on a raging fire - and can cause only problems in the court of public opinion. The individual player posts are potentially individually hurtful to the players involved but are unlikely to have any major impact on the club - if it is communicating properly with the players they will know where they stand with the people who count at the club and that's what matters. I do agree that the "we're not like Carltank" position is ludicrous and people like Robbo (recently saying on MMM that he was amazed in 2007 when they missed early goals and left Travis un-marked) should shut-up and concentrate on their knitting. There's absolutely no proof that any club has tanked and there's definitely no value for Melbourne supporters in trying to make a public case that MFC have. If you feel that way and can't handle it, you'd be better off communicating directly with the club and making a judgement about whether you can support us in future. IMO it would be the height of hypocrisy if you're cheering Tom Scully on in future. FWIW I communicated directly with the club and proferred my total support for their current strategy.