Go the Biff

Wouldn't touch either of them. I thought the idea of trading was to improve your list. Jude Bolton has been a very good player but his best is past. Great worker, courageous but has lost a yard of whatever pace he had & his kicking skills are Godfrey-like. He won't shirk an issue but he won't win you a game either. Playfair, unlike Bolton, has never been a very good player nor will he be. Who's next - Leigh Brown ? Kepler Bradley ? Just because players become available doesn't mean we should make a play for them. I swear there are posters on this site who would give up a first round draft pick for Barry Norsworthy if he was declared to be "on the table".

Only on Melbourne message boards

Giving the old leopardskins yet another workout YM ?

Disagree WJ. If it was all about cold, hard cash he wouldn't be leaving WA. I'd suspect he had an exit strategy planned when he signed his last contract and that the events of the last year have convinced him to implement it. I also suspect that clubs can wave cash, players & draft picks in the Eagles face until the cows come home. Won't matter. Judd will decide where he wants to go & will tell the Eagles to strike the best deal they can. Just hope it's us.

Holy snapping duckshit..get rid of that picture & hope he never sees it. He looks like an alien. Are you trying to drive him to Carlton ??

Agreed - we are in no position to slag anyone off. Even the toothless Tigers beat us. Besides, Friday is not about the despised 'Pies anyway. They will take their unwashed masses & flourishing balance sheet into September & bugger it up again. Why should we bother hauling out some tired banner to state the bleeding obvious. F*%k 'em. Besides, if I was to stuff a banner into my Gladstone bag, there'd be no room for my red & blue tartan travel rug & my thermos. Certainly couldn't conceal one beneath my tweed jacket. If your heart beats red & blue Friday is about Neita - the other mob are just there because someone has to be. Go Number 9 !!!!

Correct Rhino. It's a popular myth that Neita started his career as a defender. He was a forward until circumstance sent him into defence.

Jaded I'd be hoping that Essendon do that for us. After that I'd like to win them all - finish off the year with a bit of momentum. Might be useful when punters are deciding whether to renew memberships in 2008. It might be the light in that long tunnel that convinces members that there is cause for optimism & that they want to put their hands in their pockets & be a part of it. Might also be useful if we do end up in the trade market - we need anything we can get to make us look an attractive destination.

You may well get a top 10 draft pick for him. For all we know that top 10 pick may well turn out to be Luke Molan Mk 2. Or Luke Ball who despite his class looks completely stuffed. They are not all guns & precious few of them are ready made players. I can't recall too many sides being successful by trading their best players to improve their lot. Even Hawthorn, the model that the media would have us all adopt, only gave away dead wood. Rawlings, whose knee was buggered, Hay, whose head was buggered & Thompson who was not without his issues. What a seller's market that was. Didn't see them offering Crawford up though.

The PJ non-selection was mystifying. CJ on the other hand has more than earned every demotion he's received. Buckley is interesting - would like to see him get a bit more game time so we can assess whether he has the ability to get plenty of the footy given the opportunity. Has some skills, has a nice Bate-like side-step. Not convinced that he has clean hands though.

or 5) he wants to learn the caper as an assistant to Sheedy at Melbourne, succeeding the old coot when he passes McHale's record. Bollocks I know but I thought I'd get a few on here salivating !

Your comments on the other three have some varying degrees of merit but this is just fantasyland stuff. Exciting prospect ! Awesome ! Ferg has at no stage been awesome. In fact in all the time he's been here there are only two games that have caused me to wonder whether he had a future. His first appearance in a pre-season cup game when he did an excellent negating job on Richo and the Broadbridge game against Essendon when the footy just kept on finding him. Ferg is courageous but his skills are moderate, his strength in contests inadequate and he loses his feet far too often. He is an excellent footballer at his level and that level is not the AFL.

The leopard prints must be in a sorry state now YM

You'd have to find him first. Apparently he's buggered off up the coast & they're not expecting him back anytime soon.

A good point I'm surprised hasn't been made before Dappa (not that I've read anyway). If you read enough on here you'll find cases mounted for all of Ward, Brown, Yze, Ferguson, Holland, Godfrey, Bizzell, Warnock, Neville, Wheatley, Pickett, Miller etc to be given the arse come season's end (contractual status notwithstanding). The problem with that is that numerically, you have to replace what you delete. The deepest analysis on doing that is "draft kids". Your early dispatches & Jaded's suggestion that this is not a deep draft are key points. Some who are on shaky ground on our list may well find their careers extended by a year based on our recruiting staff's assessment of not only this draft, but of the the next couple as well. They may decide that this is not the draft you want to use six or seven picks in and be stuck with youngsters picked on spec tied to the club on mandatory two year contracts. Someone posted in a thread yesterday (cbf checking back) and used chess as an analogy. In some cases, the appropriate strategy is to hang on to some of your pawns in order to use them to greater effect later in the game.

Good topic. I'm a fair bit older than you YM but I'll try to restrict my selections to the era that you'd be familiar with B Wight Hughes A. Johnson HB B. Lovett Neitz Grinter C Tingay Wilson Flower HF Lyon Schwarz Robertson F Farmer Jakovich G. Healy R Stynes Viney Johnstone Int White Spalding Yze Greg Healy A few unlucky but I picked the interchange on the basis that firstly, you need a second ruck. Agree with the poster who said White was better than O'Dwyer. Strawbs could mark & ruck but his kicking skills would make Wardy look like Darren Jarman. Yze & Spalding get the nod as they could play both ends & in Yze's case, go into the midfield. Sugar (& Trapper's) selection highlight the fact that we haven't had a rover since Henry Coles. Would have liked a better full back but Hughes would get a fair bit of support from Wight. Thought Ingo was terrific for Melbourne but Danny shaded him. I also moved Neitz to CHB which allowed the traitorous Healy into a forward pocket where he kicked over 70 goals in successive seasons. Were you around to see him play for Melbourne ? Sounds like you've been comparatively lucky. You missed the 70's & early 80's. By those standards, 2007 would be a good year !

We went to the States. Same time as the Irish experiment that gave us Earley, Stynes, Wight. We brought back a 16 - 17yo kid (Glen Ryan I think his name was) who was supposed to be a gun across a number of U.S. sports. Saw him interviewed on World of Sport & that was the last I ever heard or saw of him.

Possibly because he's not an ex-AFL player. Harvey, Ratten etc had distinguished playing records which had already placed them squarely in the public eye. Riley by comparison has long flown under the radar - low enough to get gravel rash. Similarly, how many journo's were pumping up Neil Craig for the same jobs before he claimed the gig at the Crows ?

Seen enough of Ferg. Rather invest the game time in your other options Warnock (contracted next year) or Garland (development). Miller should definitely play. If he's not on Brown then he should be the one to drop into the hole, blocking Brown's leads. You can knock his skill set but Miller does not lack courage. No point bringing Clogs back this week Brown would just get on his bike & play up the ground where Clogs is less (than) effective.

Not as much fun as being there when he & Danny Hughes would regularly try to throw each other over the fence into the crowd. Certainly put on a show those two but there were times when I genuinely feared for the safety of those sitting in the front row ! Bloody good full forward Taylor was - played most of his career on a bung kee as well.

Agreed - but worse was Carroll's half-arsed attempt to shepherd for him. Had Nathan put on a half decent block rather than throwing out a token elbow, we'd have had a 2 on 1 and a good chance to clear the ball

Wouldn't let him in the front door. His colours are red & white.

Think you're reading way too much into that - possibly seeing what you want to see. There have not been too many times when the best player in the caper has been available over Daniher's tenure (not that Judd's necessarily going to be available - this is media / message board fuelled conjecture). If the best player in the caper is available, your usual rules go out the window. Hence Gardner's "Probably" response. That's my take anyway.

The mohawk guy is Angelo. Hails from down the peninsula if I recall correctly. Mad Demon fan - he was "the face of Demonology" last year. He agreed to having a pic of him with the red & blue mohawk on the home page there. Doesn't post much but when he first got on last year his username "The Mohawk" sort of gave up his ID straight away. Love it when he gets shown on TV - he is the opposite of the stereotype that we're depicted by. I'd like to see someone tell him that he's a Range Roving snow bunny !

Good girl Jaded. Don't ban yourself for swearing Don't modify your post Don't delete the thread Sticky it !