old55

It's intriguing. WC are tanking for sure and accidently beat Hawthorn a few weeks back. But the dual incentive Freo have to lose - first WA pick (or Scully if we win 5) and to tip WC out of the PP may just be overwhelming. Then if as probable the picks went "MFC, Freo, MFC" it's possible WC could miss out on both WA preferences depending who we like. I was tipping Freo but now I'm not sure - may be the first nil-all derby.

Yes it is about Scully because if we finish 14th with 5 wins we'll get one player with high skill and potential, if we finish 15th with 4 wins we'll get one player with high skill and potential and Scully. It may also mean the the difference between pick 5 and pick 3 but that's splitting hairs, the difference is NO Scully.

No-one has said Scully = certain premiership and you do your argument a disservice by making this incorrect claim. I have said that no Scully = no premiership because we are severely disadvantaged and need to take every chance we have. There's a big difference between these predictions. We've got almost no chance of winning a flag, if we take every advantage and opportunity offered to us we may just pull off a miracle.

Added that one in - are there any others - I couldn't see any pre-97 but I may be missing something.

Good point - added that data

1st round PPs (added next pick on 45HGs good advice) (added TJ in 97 on Jarka's good advice) team / Priority Tally ============== Hawthorn 3 = Ellis, Roughead, Hodge Carlton 3 = Kruezer, Walker, Murphy Western Bulldogs 2 = Cooney, Griffen St Kilda 2 = Riewoldt, Ball Collingwood 2 = Thomas, Fraser Melbourne 2 = Sylvia, Johnstone (converted to Grimes) West Coast 1 = Judd (converted to Masten, Kennedy, Notte) Richmond 1 = Deledio Fremantle 1 = Haselby Pick # / Player (next pick) / Draft / Team ===================== 1 Matthew Kreuzer (next pick traded for Judd) 2007 Carlton 3 Xavier Ellis (next pick Dowler) 2005 Hawthorn 2 Dale Thomas (Pendlebury) 2005 Collingwood 1 Marc Murphy (Kennedy traded for Judd) 2005 Carlton 3 Ryan Griffen (Williams) 2004 Western Bulldogs 1 Brett Deledio (Tambling) 2004 Richmond 2 Jarryd Roughead (Franklin) 2004 Hawthorn 1 Adam Cooney (Ray) 2003 Western Bulldogs 3 Colin Sylvia (McLean) 2003 Melbourne 2 Andrew Walker (next pick lost thru salary Cap penalty) 2003 Carlton 3 Chris Judd (Sampi) [Judd converted to Masten, Kennedy and Notte in trade to Carlton] 2001 West Coast 2 Luke Ball (X.Clarke) 2001 St Kilda 1 Luke Hodge (Freo traded the pick for Croad, then picked Polak) 2001 Hawthorn 1 Nick Riewoldt (Kosi) 2000 St kilda 2 Paul Hasleby (Pavlich) 1999 Fremantle 1 Josh Fraser (Danny Roach (pick 7) - swapped pick 3 (Fiora) with Richmond - neither took Pav) 1999 Collingwood 1 Travis Johnstone (next pick traded to Freo for Jeff White, Freo on traded to Richmond who picked Ottens) [TJ converted into Grimes in trade with Brisbane] 1997 Melbourne

I wonder if there's any correlation between supporters: - who want to win very game for the remainder of this year - who are willing to tolerate more losses this year for #1 pick and - who like to kick long down the line to a contest - who like a backwards switch

Fine - let's hope we don't have to find out I am right.

It's a good analogy HT but I'd put it this way - we've got less resources than other clubs and a worse draw. The only advantage we've got, and it's fleeting, is the ability to get better personnel in. Currently we're starting 0-30 down every game. A better list will enable us to start 0-0 at least. If we don't get better players in than other clubs then we'll never win a flag. "Scully" wont guarantee us a flag, but not getting him will guarantee that we wont win one. And it's only going to get harder for us with new teams with draft concessions and free agency. This is the last fuel stop for 20 years.

Jurrah's an exciting talent with a great leap, pace and specially a very good kick. He's made an impact. Now opposition teams will put some work into him and come up with tactics to combat him. He seems to play from behind a bit and they'll focus on this. So he'll have a new challenge to overcome - but he looks like he's got the tools to work with.

You're jumping the gun, we've had 2 morale boosting wins when we were at a low ebb. It's not a problem until we've won 5 and we can still manage to win only 4. I can guarantee that we'll look back with joy if we've got Scully and despair if we haven't.

Best wishes to Jim and family.

I think you are correct.

I may have been projecting but I didn't see Worsfold smiling when they cut to the coaching box - I thought he was grimacing and thinking this is not going according to my script.

I don't think it's a big difference either, what I'm talking about is stitching up pick 1. If we win this week there's some possibility that we'll win 3 more and WC will lose every game. I want that out of the equation.

It's painful to prefer losing - however one comfort may be that if we lose this weekend then that should be the bottom of the bottoming out and we should not have that ambiguity in future - we can always hope and barrack for a win from then on. If we lose this week I don't think we can win 5, it would mean four wins from Port, Richmond, Freo, North and Sydney and that would some sort of turnaround. I'm looking at just one more week of pain ...

This is the week to lose - breathe deeply.

Wow a bit of dog quality in that Seagulls line-up.

You do have a reputation for being a lame brain, but surely even you can see that you're not helping your argument that Cale will never put on any weight when you point out the fact that he's put on substantial weight since he joined the club.

give me their BMIs at the start of their careers - I repeat - you just don't know at the start of the 2006 season Mitch was listed as 184cm and 77 kg = 2.39 at the start of the 2009 season Cale was listed as 192cm and 83 kg = 2.31 i.e. at the same age (because Mitch is almost exactly 3 years older) they were very similar builds, in fact Cale was relatively heavier

Quite frankly, you just don't know. Troy Simmonds anyone?

Mitch Morton has a strong body now, yes he's shorter, but there's every reason to believe that Cale will follow his brother's morphology.

It's not tough at all - there's an excellent chance that Miiller, Davey and Rivers will be around to enjoy the fruits - if they're good enough. Green and Bruce will be gone but can enjoy being part of a team on the rise - they had their time in the sun under Daniher but couldn't pull it off. There's no guarantee of a flag from this rebuilding because we're up against it in so many ways - fixture, resources etc. But there's an iron-clad water-proof dead-set-certain guarantee of NO flag if we don't do it.

OK fine. It's on record that mo, iva and rojik reckon that Tom Scully wont make any difference to our club. Anyone else want to jump on board their bandwagon. I'm tipping it's going to end up a lonely 12 year ride and they'll be denying they were ever on it in 2 years from now. Let's see. BTW I think youi'll find Rhino has the memory of an elephant ...

exactly 7 more losses this year