Whispering_Jack

The second delisted free agency period started last Friday and ends tomorrow. To date I have yet to hear a mention of any new DFA signings. Unless there are some last minute selections, I would start questioning whether this second DFA period is of much value.

Paige Cardona's final phantom draft.

Paige Cardona's final phantom draft omits the player I would like to see us draft at # 40 or even at # 53 and I don't know why.

Best VFL prospects

She gets it ~ the AFL doesn't Discretion not the better part of this decision

Signed at Port Melbourne. Just thought you might be interested.

I think we can improve more than marginally but we need the stars to align for once. Two years ago Port Adelaide shocked the football world with its resurgence and much of that was due to its football department being very good at executing well laid coaching and fitness plans that brought the best out of the list. Most of it was hard work but they were also blessed by having an almost full list at their disposal. Can anyone remember when we could say that about Melbourne in round one of any season? So if the stars align it could be 10 wins and possibly more.

Not all 34. I think he named 12 current EFC players suspected of being involved plus a couple who were no longer at the club.You're right with your comment about the dubious journalistic ethics.

Yep - summarises in a nutshell where we've been and what I was trying to say about the Bailey/Neeld/Craig period and if you like, Roosy's first year but there are glimmer's of hope and I remain ever the optimist that we're going to break through soon.

There's a difference between trying to get a young skillful list to play stoppage "strength" football and what Neeld was trying to do - he made it very clear from day one that the list he inherited was well behind the team he left Collingwood in every facet, especially experience, the levels of strength and physical fitness and ability to run (and do it both ways) necessary to cope with the style of game that football was evolving towards. It's been mentioned here many times that Dave Misson developed a fitness plan specifically to raise fitness levels in steps over three years to cater for this without causing young players to break down. Neeld ultimately failed to achieve success because he couldn't get the players to buy into his programme. The group was fractured, we suffered through some significant injury and personal issues among the playing group, some weren't particularly committed to the cause and others simply weren't capable of reaching even the most modest standards. We can see that Paul Roos' has also stressed the need for defensive skills, the ability to run etc. and this is borne out by the players who were delisted recently and by the types he is recruiting to the club. Fast skillful football game plans only worked against certain opposition and were no longer in vogue. They were not going to win us a flag then and won't do so any time soon. If King was saying that Neeld was trying to get his team to play strength "stoppage" football from the get go, then he didnt even understand what Neeld was trying to do. What he did recognise early on was that Neeld's plan wasn't going to work with the personnel he had at his disposal at the time but I suspect that the problems with the list were already systemic, the result of poor recruiting, poor player development and a lack of on field leadership over a long period of time. There were far too many players who were limited physically and mentally and whose pre seasons in 2012 and 2013 were embarrassing, especially in terms of their endurance running but in other aspects as well. Neeld was on a hiding to nothing from day one at the club and it was his inability to bring the team together and communicate a coherent message that ultimately brought him undone but the players under him weren't really up to it. The fact that Roosy has already turned over 50% of the list is testament to that. As far as the current David King article is concerned, it's not bad when measured up with his usual standard work. We know the club faces a challenge to move up the ladder and we also know that the combination that runs out in round one next year will be significantly different to what it was 18 months ago. Where we go from here is anyone's guess.

No he didn't. That player was Wade Lees who did unwittingly import a banned supplement and received what virtually amounted to a 2 year sanction. Actually, there's an good amount of comment on this particular thread that's more informed and I suspect closer to the mark than some of the drivel you read in the written media.

The Luke Beveridge appointment as coach of the Western Bulldogs struck me as having some similarities with the appointment of Mark Neeld at Melbourne a few years ago. A young untried coach with a record of multiple premierships at local level, more flags as assistant at AFL level and a team split by dissension and internal power plays. But the first answer to the first interview Beveridge gave after his appointment does not bode well ~ Luke Beveridge believes timing is right for Western Bulldogs coach-appointment

Neither is our sports media which is relatively silent on the matter of Fletcher and Watson (if served with notices) playing the Irish in the forthcoming IR games. Unlike their treatment of suspected doper Michelle Smith, the Irish swimmer who won 3 gold and 1 bronze at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Obviously the media and the AFL Integrity people have shut up shop.

Not only should we not stuff up and go ahead and secure the skipper to a fair deal given his status at the club and his contributions to it over his time as a player, but we should also move forward and become the predators when it comes to free agents and out of contract players from other clubs. I believe we've already been proactive with Dangerfield (and will continue to follow him up along with Tex Walker and Rory Sloane) but we should approach this bloke ~ Contract can wait, says young Giant Shiel. We've been the targets for far too long.

... and given the level of performance and attitudes of many who will have gone, an entirely necessary exercise.

She's not really pretending that it's anything other than her opinion but what she is doing is presenting her list of preferences in order and highlighting the challenges faced by recruiters in this draft. Given that Melbourne bidded its second pick for Heeney, I think it's a fair call for her to make that he's the best of this lot in the draft. It points out the unfair advantage Sydney has in this draft (and is likely to have in the next where they will be in a similar situation) and why the AFL is reviewing the bidding system. I've found most of her work to be thorough, well-researched and professional which is well above the norm for journos these days. It's interesting to note also that she not only found it necessary to increase the size of her list from 25 as it was in the past but up to 30 and for good measure has added another dozen who she found hard to leave out. That means we can expect our pick 40 to possibly be of reasonable quality in this draft which matches what our chief recruiter and our list manager also believe.

He also seemed reasonably confident of our ability to be able to pick up a quality player at this pick noting the history of some of the players selected at this level. Todd Viney pointed out that we were very happy to get JKH with 40 last year and of course, we know that Luke Parker went to the Swans in the Lucas Cook draft.It was fairly clear that we were always going to make way for a pick at 40 but both Taylor and Viney said that the Barry decision caught them by surprise. He returned from the break having done virtually no work and he admitted that over the past year he had lost his passion to play at this level and was more interested in returning to the community he left in the mid teens to pursue an education and perhaps a career in tennis.

I was going to post this here this morning but the thread mysteriously disappeared into the ether for a few hours. I went to the club's draft information night on Thursday evening which featured Jason Taylor and Todd Viney. They discussed the club's 2014 trade and draft strategies and the development of the club's list. The main thing I came away with was that the only imperative when making selections 2 & 3 was to take the best player available. Of course, there's still a subjective element there because the "best" would have to comply with the style of game the head coach and football department are striving to achieve. Jason Taylor gave his brief impressions of the four leading candidates for picks 2 & 3, stressing that they were not in any particular order - Christian Petracca, Patrick McCartin, Angus Brayshaw and Jake Lever. He gave brief pen pictures of all four and I won't go into exact details but they were generally in accord with what the better draft watchers in the media have been saying. The impression I gained was that the expectation is that Petracca is likely to be picked by the Saints and that we're more likely to take McCartin and Brayshaw ahead of Lever. I gathered this mainly from his body language and voice when describing the players. I could be wrong but he sounded quite enthusiastic about McCartin and unless he's a very good actor, it seems to me that he'll be taken ahead of Lever if it comes to that. Taylor and Viney's best 4 differs from that referred to by Josh Mahoney in a recent interview (he had Peter Wright in there and not Lever). Taylor also said that he was not fazed by McCartin's diabetes issues (he was in receipt of updated medical reports) or the fact that some consider him a similar type to Jesse Hogan and he believed that if we took McCartin they would complement each other. I wouldn't worry about any other player as a candidate for 2 & 3. The choices will come from those four names. I also attended a charity lunch for Les Twentyman's foundation for homeless and troubled youth and Paul Roos was keynote speaker. While he didn't cover any specific ground relating to who we would pick here or anywhere else he did stress the importance of character and commitment of young recruits, something about which both Taylor and Viney were both strong in their presentations and which their best four definitely fit very well.

Assuming guilt is proven and I see that as a likely outcome, the Tribunal is unlikely to impose such a laughable penalty because it would automatically result in an appeal by ASADA or WADA to CAS where the result would probably be an 18 month suspension for the players. Even a 6 month penalty or one that keeps the players out for ½ a season would, in all likelihood give rise to an appeal. An AFL Tribunal that wants to be lenient to the players would have to be mindful of this.

No need to panic.I checked with AFL House and we still have picks 2 & 3. Our finest tech people are onto the disappearing thread (I think).

Patrick Ryder would be doing cartwheels over the very thought.

I'm referring to the material covered in the lengthy quote from Demoneyes' post of yesterday at 07:10 PM containing a convoluted story of conspiracy surrounding events involving a number of the parties involved in this saga connecting events with political and financial conspiracies.

The game's not the same without Richie, Greigy and Bill in the combox together. It's all monotone, monotone and more of the same. Fair dinkum, not even the Third Man could get any material for a best selling CD out of this lot!

I went to the club's draft information night on Thursday evening which featured Jason Taylor and Todd Viney. They discussed the club's 2014 trade and draft strategies and the development of the club's list. The main thing I came away with was that the only imperative when making selections 2 & 3 was to take the best player available. Of course, there's still a subjective element there because the "best" would have to comply with the style of game the head coach and football department are striving to achieve. Jason Taylor gave his brief impressions of the four leading candidates for picks 2 & 3, stressing that they were not in any particular order - Christian Petracca, Patrick McCartin, Angus Brayshaw and Jake Lever. He gave brief pen pictures of all four and I won't go into exact details but they were generally in accord with what the better draft watchers in the media have been saying. The impression I gained was that the expectation is that Petracca is likely to be picked by the Saints and that we're more likely to take McCartin and Brayshaw ahead of Lever. I gathered this mainly from his body language and voice when describing the players. I could be wrong but he sounded quite enthusiastic about McCartin and unless he's a very good actor, it seems to me that he'll be taken ahead of Lever if it comes to that. Taylor and Viney's best 4 differs from that referred to by Josh Mahoney in a recent interview (he had Peter Wright in there and not Lever). Taylor also said that he was not fazed by McCartin's diabetes issues (he was in receipt of updated medical reports) or the fact that some consider him a similar type to Jesse Hogan and he believed that if we took McCartin they would complement each other. I wouldn't worry about any other player as a candidate for 2 & 3. The choices will come from those four names. I also attended a charity lunch for Les Twentyman's foundation for homeless and troubled youth and Paul Roos was keynote speaker. While he didn't cover any specific ground relating to who we would pick here or anywhere else he did stress the importance of character and commitment of young recruits, something about which both Taylor and Viney were both strong in their presentations and which their best four definitely fit very well.

I'll give you an answer to that on the top three picks thread where it more properly belongs given this one's for pick 40.Safe to say that I'm now more inclined to thinking that we would take McCartin (if available) ahead of Lever.