Its Time for Another

But would do wonders for Memberships

How are we going to be feeling if he gets rubbed out for a year or possibly 2. I can't understand why a team in our state would choose to take a gamble like that. Even with him being paid by his old team while he's suspended we have given up a pick, will be a player down and then have a player who hasn't played for 1-2 years. Can't understand why this makes sense for us. On a side note I know the view of their lawyer is there is no new evidence from the original trial and therefore completely confident that they will get off. Says there just isn't the evidence to find them guilty. Personally I don't agree. But either way, why gamble when there is definitely a risk there. We are doing the Dons a favour by reducing the number of players they might lose if they are all suspended. They should bloody be giving us a pick.

Grow up. MFC let him down not the other way around. A series of terrible mistakes by a series of MFC Administrations let all of us down. But no one suffers more than the Full Back who watched for 7 yrs while the ball was delivered to his opponents perfectly by midfields and score assisters under no pressure. How would you feel going to work every day and knowing that doing your absolute best won't stop you from being beaten most times through no fault of your own. Good luck to him. We got Brayshaw with overs compensation. He's going to be a more important player for MFC than Frawley was ever going to be. Sam Frost will probably be a better back than him so we move on.

More interested in hearing about a 6-9 yr deal signed with Hogan. So that leaves two places on the rookie list. You'd have to think that VandenBerg gets elevated. I would have though Harmes has shown enough to be elevated as well. So we'd be looking for 2 rookies next year. Good point suggesting rookying Hunt, so maybe only 1.

Add Mitchell to that. Caught disabling players by kneeing them behind the play and gets a reprimand. Fyfe ended up missing a couple of weeks because of what Mitchell did to him. If he loses the Brownlow by a couple of weeks Mitchell will be responsible. Did the same thing to Tex Walker this year and he had to leave the ground for the rest of the game. Nasty little pot shot at the Essendon players indicating injecting himself. Wonder how he would feel if his Club had done that to him. Rotten, dirty, player. Do you hear him being booed like Goodes is.

Actually it was '97. He got drafted at the end of that year. Had an unbelievable game for Nth Ballarat who won the game. He was everywhere. I remember thinking whoever gets him is going to have a star on their hands and yet he only went for pick 47. Couldn't believe my luck that he ended up at Sydney so I got to watch him playing up here for his whole career. You can argue all you like about why he was made AOTY but obviously he didn't get it for being a footballer, he got it for being a man who fought against racism. He wouldn't have got it without having the profile he gained by being one of the greatest AFL players in history but he also didn't get it for that he got it for his off field work. Why argue about it. Move on. As far as I am concerned the booing of him this year has been the lowest point I have experienced following VFL/AFL over more than fifty years. It's a very sad reflection and indictment on our society. That it grew to the level it did and even continued last night just makes me sad. At least the most divisive PM in Australian history is gone, let's hope things are looking up. Roll on our Grand Final....... Trade Week!

He packed up and went home to SA for 4 yrs '78-'80 and came back for a year in '81 and was great. From memory he was a Board member for a while. Came 2nd in the '74 Brownlow. He at CHB and Greg Parke at CHF were probably the best combination in those positions I can remember. Soon to be finally rivalled by J Hogan and T McDonald or possibly O McD. Has the unfortunate distinction of being only one of 4 players to have played more than 200 games and never to have played in a final. Steve Smith is another one. Trevor Barker and Geoff Cunningham are the others.

I spoke to Miller about him over the pre season. He had him in the forwards group. He said he reminded him most of Dustin Martin. Very strong, strong overhead mark, good goal kicker, pack buster. He thought he might be a bit inconsistent like Martin. The biggest knock on him is his lack of a tank. He's already been running for about a month and is already building into speed and agility running and its August. How much running will he have done before the pre season even starts. The amount of running his going to have done before the pre season even starts might end up being a blessing in disguise for an extra dose of tank building.

Instructive about where the Club's at now compared to the past. PJ came in and his first comment was what a lack of experience there was in all areas of the Club. Neeld put together a bunch of raw coaches many of whom hadn't even been in the AFL system. That means in turn none of them had a broad network of contacts. PJ brings in Roosy, he has a massive network of contacts himself. He brings in experienced people around him, including George Stone who's been around as long as anyone and obviously has a huge network of contacts that stretches to this scenario. Those contacts contact George, he tells the Club, the rest is history. Another example is Dane Rampe at the Swans. Couldn't get picked in any Junior NSW Rep teams, went to Melbourne played with Williamstown, Dogs said they liked him but didnt' pick him. Went back to Sydney, gave up on the dream, played at UNSW. Roosy's son was playing in the same team, he sees him, tells the Swans and bingo they get another unbelievable recruit because of the network. Clubs like the Hawks have these networks and have been using them for years. We are just starting to get ours and its starting to reap rewards already.

Actually I read or saw an interview with him and he said his Ainslee Coach was friends with Georgie Stone and rang him and told him to come and have a look. It would probably have been Kelly O'Donnell or someone else in the Dept that did the actual looking. Georgie was a bit busy doing something else. ie Coaching the midfield.

Ha! I love it. Don't worry I looked for all the reasons we didn't want him either in case we didn't get him and I have to say you've done a better job than me and on the other side spent time finding all the reasons we did want him if we did get him. I also couldn't be happier. Petracca is definitely a safer bet than Paddy. Paddy could end up being a Roughead and if he does good luck to a fellow cellar dweller team. But we could well have the next Dangerfield without getting Dangerfield. And have the money to get Jeremy Cameron next year who there's obviously no comparison with big Paddy. So could be a triple win.

Make that 3. 2012 draft wasn't too shabby either. Hogan Toumpas (Still think he is going to be a gun. You don't lose the skills you came in with. You just battle injuries, bad coaching, loss of confidence. Roosy will fix him) Dawes Pedersen (Who would have thought. I admit I was having fits over this choice) Jack Viney Dean Kent (Starting to look like he's going to be a really good player) Matt Jones ( Has done his job until decent players arrived. Don't see him getting a great deal of game time anymore) The rest including Terlich were junk picks so didn't cost anything to go in and to go out.

Don't you just love this time of year. It's our Grand Final. It's all downhill after today. Everyone on here is buzzing away, happy, optimistic and even being nice to each other. I've had a couple of belly laughs reading some of this stuff today.

There you go. I would have spelt it with an "e" on the end. Bugger I'm not going to get drafted. My 16yr old got knocked out in a game this year and had a month worth of concussion tests which include these two gems. If they do the same tests they also have to go through the 12mths backwards. I was going to check myself in because I was having as much trouble as he was. Didn't realise you had to be a genius to know how to play footy. I understand Buddy has a bat or two flying around the bellfree and it hasn't done him any harm.

I wouldn't worry, I think you're copyright is very safe.

Agree. Brayshaw and McCartinnnnnnn!!!! That would be Merry Xmas as well. Club clearly stuffed up this year by not getting picks 1,2 & 3. So SNS I gather you would take the P man over McC. I guess if I had the choice I would take him as well but in the long term if McCartin turns into a Roughead then we may well have got the bookends with Frost of a 10yr spine that you can fill in a team around. If we end up with Petracca then we still have to find a key forward. Midfielders are a lot easier to find than key forwards. Having said that I'd salivate at the thought of a midfield with Petracca and Brayshaw. Then we get Jeremy Cameron next year and we're set. I wonder if the Saints are eyeing off possibly getting Cameron next year and deciding on Petracca with that in mind.

It's a bit of a strange one and shows how badly the AFL have invested in the northern markets. Basically the AFL want to address the fact that there are a fraction of players on AFL lists from the biggest state in the country and from Qld. I believe last year there were no players recruited from NSW. I guess it also addresses the go home factor. So for some bizarre reason the AFL has put it on the Northern Clubs to spend their own money to develop junior players throughout Qld and NSW. In return for this significant investment and risk they get access to the players they develop through a father/son bidding system. The problem with the system as I see it is that the AFL should be running the Academies not the teams. But as long as the teams are then they should be entitled to first bid at the players. Sydney have spent millions over about 5 or 6 years investing in their Academy. About 6 years ago they started inviting every Junior footy player in NSW to come in for screenings and have around 500 junior players coming up through the Academy each year. After all that investment and all those players they are about to get the first player, Heeney, and the Eddie McGuires of this world then go beserk about the unfair advantage.

Dom's going to be something special but that was expected. Vince and Cross's output was expected. You could argue Giorgiou, although he had a well known reputation in the SANFL so people had an idea of what to expect. Michie is shaping up very nicely but also had a great season in the WAFL last season so there were expectations. I don't think you could call any of these a "Find". To me a "Find" is a player no one knew about and you find them when you didn't know you had them. Surely on that basis JKH is the find so far. By the end of next year it might well be Jayden Hunt.

afl.com.au article today saying compo picks are staying. So at least if he does go we'll get a very good compo pick. Unless we pick up a free agent but not sure any available would suit us. Mundy is a bit old for our purposes.

There's a lot of talk about compo picks being scrapped for Free Agents and RFA. Knowing our luck that will come in just in time to lose a player like Chip.

Fascinating how it's the Coach Neeld's fault when we drafted badly under Prendergast in 2011 but we credit the recruiter Viney not the coach Neeld when we recruited well the next year. I would love to know how much of the recruiting decisions are made by the Coach and how much by the recruiters. Is the coach's input just about what type of players are needed for the game plan or are they out there finding and selecting players. Everyone blames Bailey and Neeld for the disastrous recruiting during their coaching periods but is that correct. Bailey evidently wanted tall players who had stamina to run and carry all day and thus we got a bunch of tall skinny players. The game was changed overnight from non contested, run and carry to contested footy when the bench was changed from 4 to 3. Not necessarily entirely Bailey's fault. Morton was the standout player at pick 4 in his draft. Wasn't entirely Bailey's fault that he ended up the player he did. Neeld seemed to have a philosophy for big bodies for contested footy. Seems about right for the way footy is heading. Don't know if we can blame him for all the duds that were recruited. He might be responsible for getting the older players to add off field experience but none of them cost anything in picks. On the other hand he seems to have had his hands all over the selection of Dawes and Pedersen. Clearly in the last draft period all we needed to get was mid fielders. Always a much easier task than finding key position players. Can you credit Roos with finding all the recruits we got for this season or is it the recruiters. I reckon there was an element of luck involved as well. I doubt Adelaide would have let Vince go if they hadn't have had draft picks stripped from them. People are going to keep crediting Roos but is that right. My guess is he says what type of players he wants and the recruiters find them. I wonder if it was him or the Swans recruiters who started looking for players who couldn't get a game like Josh Kennedy and Mattner and poaching them. Now we have Michie. I would say Roos's genius is communicating clearly to those players what their role is and they execute it better than they would have where they were. .

Just had to add an extra post so it is the 7,000th post on this thread. OMG

And this is on this thread because

On a slightly different tack. I thought the decision to play him yesterday was one of the best decisions the Club has made in quite a while. It would have been very logical to drop him after the shocker against the Lions the week before. That potentially could have done a lot of damage to the kid's psyche for a long time. Instead of that they gave him another go and he played one of his better games. Great player management as far as I'm concerned. I am confident he is going to be an absolute gun. His innate ability to know where to run to spread and his composure to pick out best options and then deliver to them accurately can't be taught or developed. He is a player who in Hawthorn, Geelong or Sydney wouldn't have been seen in the firsts this year. He needed a season to get over his surgery and build up his body at Casey. I'm confident this will happen, he's already shown signs of it. But he's shown plenty of the other attributes that will make him a very rare player. Ollie Wines wouldn't have won us any more games than we have won this year. Hopefully we'll recruit a more experienced midfielder next year from another team who will be more ready to go than Wines and then we'll be grateful we've got Toumpas. I'm not knocking Wines by the way. He's had an outstanding season but Toumpas is a rare talent, much rarer than Wines.