Whispering_Jack

The Essendon players' legal team is being paid by Essendon ~ Lawyers to meet players over ASADA show cause notices If he who pays the piper calls the tune I think it might be time for the players to decide to change their musical tastes very quickly. That's not a suggestion of impropriety on the part of the current legal team but this is a situation that calls for complete independence of the legal teams. For the players' sake one would hope their chances of receiving the best deal possible haven't been compromised already by the current relationship. Edit: Chip Le Grand of the Australian seems to have close connections to Essendon and if this article accurately reflects the advice being given to the players, it strengthens my opinion that they need to get independent advice and do it quickly - Essendon players told not to rush into any deals over ASADA letters

If that's a veiled reference to a certain departed player and the royalty who replaced him, let me express my disappointment about you holding up the general standard of this thread.

Signed a 2 year contract with the Crows today. Presumably now off the radar?

Some posters here need to get a grip.

Yep ... and I'd rather have 2 & 3 than just 1.

Trade Wrap

This website sets out the number of games played by each of the draft picks over the past three decades of drafting ~ https://www.draftguru.com.au/picks Despite the fact that national draft pick 1 failures often come under the microscope, players picked first have averaged the most number of games - 140. The sequence goes like this:- 1 - 140 2 - 128 3 - 122 4 - 90 5 - 99 6 - 48 7 - 94 8 - 93 9 - 87 10 - 83 11 - 83 12 - 76 13 - 94 14 - 77 15 - 66 16 - 85 17 - 64 18 - 69 19 - 82 20 - 69 From there: * the range 21 - 25 is between 39 and 66 games (the average for pick 23 which we gave away for Sam Frost was 45 games); * the range 26 - 30 is between 42 and 74 games; * the range 31 - 35 is between 26 and 58 games; * the range 36 - 40 is between 45 and 78 (the average for pick 40 which was one of the picks we received for Sam Frost was 78 games); * the range 41 - 45 is between 39 and 57 games; * the range 46 - 50 is between 40 and 57 games; * the range 51 - 55 is between 11 and 56 games (the average for pick 40 which was the other pick we received for Sam Frost was 46 games); The numbers drop away after that with a few statistical aberrations for those more famous late picks in history such as James Hird (79). The best average of the rookie draft picks is at the 50 mark with quite a few averaging in the 40's but the pick 1 average is 25. Pre-Season Draft pick 1 averages 49 games and the best average is 18 with 83 (another statistical aberration?). You'll get plenty of 40s in the early part of the PSD. What does this mean apart from the old story about damn lies and statistics? If things fall our way, we have a reasonable chance of picking as good a player with 40 than we might have with 23 so if the club rates Frost highly then it was a fair decision to do the trade.

The first of the AFL's series on high draft hopefuls ~ Going places: When draft young gun Christian Petracca said yes to footy and no to an NBA dream I thought you really had to be exceptional to make it in the NBA (even as a point guard) if you were only 186cm tall.

Former Hawthorn player Tim Boyle who writes an insightful column in the Sunday Age penned this story about loyalty in football a few weeks ago ~ Free agency proves loyalty is overrated in football. He suggests that based on his own experience, he might have been wrong to stay loyal to his club when an opposition coach came calling, I'm not certain that I agree entirely with his cynical viewpoint. I think it's a bad look when a captain walks out on a club (a la Ryan Griffen at the Bulldogs) and Nathan Jones would be acutely aware of this and of the recent bitter history we've seen with the less than satisfactory performances of our free agents who left as soon as their contracts expired. There is more to loyalty than the decision to be made by a player on the day his contract expires and Nathan Jones comes across to me as a person of high integrity who values the leadership position he has worked hard for at Melbourne. I think the club will reward him well with a contract offer of which he's deserving and that he will repay the club by making his decision early and by continuing his development as the club's on field leader going forward into 2015. Another important thing for us is that we will finally go into a season under free agency where our results are not affected by concerns that some players don't fully have their hearts in the team's cause. In fact, it's likely that a number of our opposition clubs will find themselves blighted by the free agency loyalty bug next year but not us and this will leave the club well placed to test the "loyalty" of their players this time next year.

I have a feeling that you might be right and the pick was taken in the Frost trade as insurance to allow us to make a decision to go either way over the coming weeks. There will need to be further delistings to accommodate such a pick.

McDevitt talks big here but I think he's still open to making some generous offers. Essendon warned ASADA wont go easy on players over supplements saga

Seeing they've committed to taking him at that pick under the academy bidding rules, there's a fair chance.

Me too ... and we're done with Clark for now. Thanks

This bloke might be of interest to some even if he's not a midfielder ~ Top draft hopeful Patrick McCartin finds the right balance.

@theagesport: CRICKET I Windies abandon India tour over pay dispute | http://t.co/GOPiQ81q3C The way the Windies have been going lately I'm surprised they were getting paid at all.

I always assumed that St. Kilda would go for a Wright or McCartin simply because of their deficiencies up forward which will be magnified when Nick Riewoldt retires. If you look back to their heyday of around 2009/10 their strength was the combination of Riewoldt/Koschitzke and they never adequately replaced the latter when he started going downhill. That their only trade involved off loading a tall who plays forward and ruck was another clue to what they might be thinking with their first draft pick. There will certainly be some decent midfield talent around at their next pick but the best of the KPF's will be gone.

One thing I noticed about Paige Cardona's latest phantom draft is the lack of South Australians. She has more Western Jets players in her top 20 than players from the winning state in the National Under 18 Championships. Sam Durdin makes it in at #10 and her next player is Alex Neal-Bullen at 23. Harrison Wigg (39) is the only other Croweater in her top 40. Sturt's Dean Gore doesn't even make her list. Knightmare rates him as a "high level difference maker". Either the coach of the SA Under 18 must be a genius to have put together a winning team from the material he had at his disposal or we are grossly underestimating the ability of youngsters from that state in favour of our own. I commented about the lack of love for South Australians in another thread. I hope our recruiting people are on to this - I'd hate the SA clubs to benefit from the Victoriacentric mindset that some people have towards this draft.

Paige Cardona's phantom draft mark 5 -

This from Paige Cardona's most recent phantom draft released yesterday - Goodyear's name also came up in Knightmare's phantom draft at a much lower selection.

AFL trade and free agency period winners and losers

If anyone who has been following the Essendon doping scandal closely reads this and swears with hand on heart that Caro is a great journo then they have their head way deep up their backside ~ Bombers players tipped to accelerate doping cases against them. Leaving aside the substantial amount of gibberish, there's very little there about the substance of the case made in the show cause noticed, there's commentary about alleged "admissions" that various things should have happened earlier (but no explanation why) and lots of sympathy for players and the possible deal-making to come. It's not hard to guess where she gets most of her info from despite this pearler ... "Neither AFL boss Gillon McLachlan nor Essendon chairman Paul Little would comment on Friday night, with spokesmen for both suggesting ... " Yeah, right

Paige Cardona's Phantom Draft has us taking Angus Brayshaw and Paddy McCartin with picks 2 and 3. She has Jake Lever going to GWS at pick 6 but I have a feeling that he will be a strong contender for our pick 3.

Hi Ash. I warned you about coming to this thread. The bad news is that the standard of proof required under the WADA Code is likely to not only be satisfied in this case based on most of what I have read (and the Bringinshaw test applies to allow such a conclusion to be reached). If the players don't provide adequate explanations infraction notices will follow and the players face up to 2 years' suspension from playing. The good news is the the ASADA boss likes making deals and if he's as amenable with these players as he was with the NRL players (and the circumstances were somewhat different), you can expect a fair amount of leniency in terms of discounts with the negotiated deals. And because of the passing of time and the number of players who have retired or been delisted (and the Bombers have barely started that process for 2014) you might have only a dozen or so players left under sanction. I think they will miss half a season but they might get lucky and go for less. Life will go on - it might be without Hird, Reid and Little but nobody's going to allow Essendon to die just yet. However, there's every chance that the reputation of Australia as a great sporting nation will take a hammering as a result of light sanctions against the players.

So ... here's Titus O'Reilly's Knee Jerk Reaction

This is from Luke McAlister's Phantom Draft