Its Time Again

As a Junior coach I always followed the AFL bred philosophy. Train like you play. In this case this would clearly be a free against Petty. Don't see the point of this other than a good philosophical exercise for Nietschke in practicing body contact.

Would love to know if it's all been spent just on the Yarra Park idea. I've heard opinions from various people who work in the planning area that it is very unlikely to get up. That's a hell of a lot of money to spend on a very speculative proposal. All political parties have come out opposing it. What worries me about this site is that we might be throwing everything in for the location not necessarily the long term suitability. I mean, I'm sure they are thinking about it but if we ended up with a facility like Richmond's at Punt Rd that would be an incredible result. Obviously without the Grandstands. But Richmond spent a fortune doing that up just 5 or 6 years ago and they have grown out of it already and are looking for something else, possibly in addition to rather than replacing it all together. So if that's too small for them why is ours going to be big enough for us. Look at what Essendon have built and Hawthorn are about to build. They are massive facilities with 2 to 4 grounds to train on including indoor facilities. We will have a piece of parkland fully open to the public that we will have restricted access to part of the time as the public will have access to it as well.

If he's directly opposite it will take away his view into the Park. I'd be dead against it if I was him as well. His building would be the only group of people who will be effected by it. On a much more interesting note. The Club's accounts show that they spent $227,000 on this project in the past year. That's serious money. Love to know what it was spent on.

ET you must get that a lot. Good to see you haven't taken it too personally.

Hopefully Hunt hones his skills and becomes one of those outside mids or perhaps the other one with KK. If Jeffy rediscovers his magic we could be the compete team you'r looking for.

Woops apparently Bell has gone to Melbourne.

5 & 23 for Hogan could end up being a good deal if Mahoney weaves his magic. Crows are desperate to move up the draft order so we trade them to Crows for their 8 & 13. 8 is very fair for May & we still end up with 13, a first rounder. 5 = 1878 points 23 = 815 TL= 2693 8 = 1551 13 = 1212 TL= 2763. The difference is only 70 points which is what pick 67 is worth. So maybe some horse trading of late picks. Our 65 for their 73 which ironically they have from us as part of the Lever trade last year. Bet none of us knew that. That gets us giving them 10pts over. Good enough. KK is weaved in to the pick 8 plus next year's 3rd rounder or whatever. Then we use 13 in the draft or we get a ready made gun from somewhere that magically appears at the last moment which FD have been sitting on . Alternatively Hogan stays we get May for nothing next year as a Free Agent and get a first rounder for Hogan and end up with more than if the deal was done this year. Although by then Hogan will be sniffing a Premiership and won't go and we'll get May as a FA. Win Win.

Why?

Not much better. We've done ok with pick 53 but I don't know of any good picks at 65. Pretty much unuseable therefore no better than PSD. Clearly FD wanted to move him on. Same as Swans moving on Rohan for pick 61

Pick trading between 4 teams will get it done. We've done stuff like that before.

Are you suggesting you're going to visit him and make an offer he can't refuse. But which way.

I reckon we could get both for the price of one.

Totally unrelated to my secret sauce. On a sesame seed bun. Was just changing it when you posted this.

I'm going to have an exclusive. I'm going to be able to tell you all exactly what's going to happen with every trade. It will be 100% accurate. I've got the inside info straight from the people doing the deals. I can assure you anything you hear or read before then unless it comes from Mahoney is going to be total BS. I'm going to disclose it at 8.30pm on 17 Oct. And no I'm not the Trade Whisperer although a lot more accurate and useful.

Wonder how they reconcile that value with what the market has actually been doing over the past few years. For instance Judd picks No.3 (Chris Masten) and No.20 (Tony Notte) and now two-time Coleman Medallist, six-time leading goalkicker and premiership player Josh Kennedy.Treloar for picks 7 & the next years 7. Lever for 2 first rounders. And there's a few more. You can't compare either of them to Hogan. One is a very good midfielder but not in the top 10 midfielders in the league. The other is an intercepting 3rd man up backman who isn't even a key back. Hogan is significantly ahead at this stage of his career on all statistics against all the top key forwards in history including Dunstall, Lockett, Carey, Kennedy Franklin etc etc Key forwards are much more valuable than any other key position players. A backman just has to punch and react to a forward. A forward has to be able to read the play and know where to lead and then be able to mark a ball on a lead and in a pack. Hogan is a freak can do all of that plus elite athletic ability and agility so can play all ground. We'll be looking on him in years to come going Jeez he used to be an MFC player. Who are they kidding. So much of the journalism nowadays is so ill informed. Can't believe they get paid to deliver that standard of work. Most of us would be sacked if we performed our jobs to that standard.

We can't do this at this stage. Under the rules we have to use our first round pick next season. We have to use a first rounder or it might be 2 first rounders in a 4 year period. We've given ours away the past 3 years so have to use it next year. At this stage I'm not sure what they are going to do. We have 6 delistings or transfers from the main list so far and that doesn't include Hogan & possibly Tyson. We only have 4 picks. I believe we have to use a minimum of 4 draft picks a year. Possibly we'll upgrade T Smith & I guess Keilty although that would be a surprise. We could do that with the really late picks that would otherwise be junk picks. But it doesn't leave us with anything to trade with as well as go to the draft. Looks like we'll have to do some horse trading for picks.

If I'm Freo I do whatever it takes at the high end of overs to get this across the line. Hogan is a once in a generation specimen. Big bodied forward with elite athleticism to run in the midfield. He hasn't reached his potential yet. He's regarded as the player with the most upside on our list. If I was them and I had to give up pick 5 and Cerra who they've only had for a year of development and who is ultimately a flight risk and which means they go to this year's draft which is one of the strongest in years still retaining pick 6 they'd have to seriously entertain it. I don't know if the Brayshaw connection will push us towards him but Cerra sounds like he's elite and on another level to Brayshaw. I don't really know either of them other than reputation. What do people think.

Ethan apparently if you post it in triplicate (ie 3 times for you West Australians) he will believe you. Any idea when there will be an official announcement.

There's been no matching to date. Can't see a Club stopping a player who's out of contract from going home etc. If it was us they would get a better pick by letting it happen than trying to do a trade. I think they'll end up about 4th or 5th after finals. I would say their compensation will be a band 1 which would be the first pick after their first pick which if they finish 5th after finals would be pick 14. A better result than any deal they could do with us if they threatened to match. A pretty reasonable compensation for him.

I believe Curnow was 191 when drafted. He was therefore seen as a tall midfielder but too short to be a key forward. So at that stage he wasn't a direct comparison with Weid. We went Weid so we'd get a key forward. Since he was drafted Curnow grew 3 cm's and is now 194cm so has become a viable key forward with the added bonus of great athleticism. A lot of Clubs also didn't go for him after he lost his licence drink driving the week before the draft. He already had a bit of a dodgy behaviour reputation before that incident. Blues rolled the dice with another potential Fevola and so far the gamble has well and truly paid off. Of course in hindsight you'd now take Curnow over Weid but I don't think you can criticise the decision at the time. I have my concerns about Weid but I am also still hopeful he'll turn out ok. He has all the attributes just seems to have lost his ability to read where to be and to impact contests. He looked better 2 years ago. He's shown he's got the package hopefully he'll come on.

I swear there's a bunch of recruiting assassins on here.

A horse is a horse, of course, of course, And no one can talk to a horse of course. That is, of course, unless the horse is the famous horse on the course of course.

You mean RMS or Gallia

Thank God for that. I was worried you were going to quote some unreliable source like a friend of a friend's friend or someone who knows someone who knows a family member.

Ha! Ha! I see what you did there even if I don't know how. I see it but I don't believe it. Andrew when you read this I just want you to know I didn't write that. You are only worth $500 and be grateful for playing for the team you grew up worshipping like all of us but we don't get the honour of playing for it like you will. Sooo lucky.