drdrake

To me there are two out comes, one he plays for Melbourne or 2 he walks as a delisted free agent to who ever he wants to. All this talk about trading and compo picks, don't get excited the club he chooses doesn't need to trade with us and the AFL couldn't care less.

I would say we as a club have done OK out of free agency. We stuffed up getting Byrnes as it effected our return for Rivers and Moloney but Sylvia was a win for us and if Frawley goes and we get a Band 1 compensation this again will be well overs for Frawley. To get Pick 3 for him gives us every chance to get a deal done for a better players than Frawley.

No way, he is not for our club

Fail for me. You can't give them a pass, our skills just doesn't allow me to give them a pass. Take win loss and our defensive acts out, we can not as a club execute the skills to the standard that is required to play the game. That is the biggest disappointing fact, yes we competed, yes we stopped teams scoring, but to not be able to hit targets by hand or foot means all that is undone and when we hit targets the fumbles and drop marks killed us.

Agree, same as Cross give him a year and see how it goes. I would have a 34 yo O'Keefe in my team before the three signings we had this week.

DFA Ryan O'Keefe, just read the article on AFL page, he is the exact type of person we need in our club even if it is only for one year. Don't care that he turns 34 next year, add him to Cross these are the type of leaders we need at our club. John Longmire's quote" his will to win" that is exactly what we need to install in our playing group

I wonder what he thinks about drafting tall forwards from the Private School Competition then

Jack Watts will be a good player in a better side. He is a hit up HFF, thats it. The issue he faces at Melbourne we can't hit targets and he doesn't work hard when the ball misses him. The only way I would trade him is in a part of a deal to secure a current good AFL player, I'm not really interested in trading him for a draft pick that we use to pick up a kid.

You can only turn so many over per year. Previous posters have identified 7-9 players that will most likely be gone. That is just about the maximum you can clean out + rookies. We will have 7 senior positions to play fill at years end, 4-5 in the draft and pick up 2 through trading DFA.

2004 was the draft that set Hawthorn up Buddy, Roughead and Lewis. Imagine 2008 draft if we took Nick Nat, Hannebery and either Beams, Reddon, Shields, Zaharakis, Ballantyne. All of those 6 players drafted after Blease and Strauss.

Thats right, the Hawks also suckered in North twice to take Thompson and Hay.

I'm pretty sure Hodge was also a priority pick in 2001. I was looking at the rebuild periods of clubs, thats why I didn't include Sylvia, I based it from 2007

Not insane, logic, we have three blokes that went into the year underdone. Dawes is a spud at the moment looks like he can't move, Garland is the same and Viney has been struggling for 5-6 weeks. Toumpas is underdone, Barry and JKH no need to expose them to another flogging, protect them, bring in these three they are already damaged goods, hopefully Blease shows something and some stupid club wants him. The other two are done.

I wonder how many people actually know how many priority picks Melbourne has received since 2007. I reckon the footy world thinks we have have 4+ the fact is we have had 2, one end of first round and one before first round. Through the Hawthorn rebuild they got 3 before round 1 picks from 2001-2005, Carlton got 4 before first round picks between 2003-2007. Most clubs have been able over a 4 year period point it in the right direction, we are now entering into 5 years since our last Priority pick, 8 years of bad football and our 3rd season in a row with less than 4.5 wins. Thats 5 years of the 8 we have won less that 4.5 games, with one year, 2007 we won 5. Carlton was suspended from the draft for Cheating the salary cap and still got Priority picks.

Out: Dawes, Garland, Viney In: Blease, Strauss, Nicholson Get Dawes out and hopefully he can do a full pre-season, Garland and Viney the same. Bring these three in for their last games for our club, hopefully Blease has a ripping game and we can suck a club into giving us overs for him.

You need to get the balance right, last year was good we still managed to add Tyson, Michie and Rielly along with Vince and Cross. That period had an eye on the present and also the future, add Salem and JKH to the mix and it looks like a good drafting trading period. Mark Neeld tried the same, he got Clark paid the right price for him then added a few spuds that was all he could get. The big test is this trading period, I dare to so I'm playing under Paul Roos helped last year, this year I don't think this will have the same drawing power.

Who are these kids everyone keeps saying are tired, Tyson, Viney, Kent and Salem, the rest that played don't really count as kids anymore. Funny our kid from the GWS is one of our best players over recent weeks.

From those 21 picks, almost a full side of early picks that should be between 21-30yo, we will have 4 maybe even 3 players left on our list at seasons end.

80% recruiting, we selected players for a game plan that was finished at AFL level, skinny unskilled kids. Look at the guys that have made it most are bigger body hard nuts. We just went after the wrong players

For the past 8 years our biggest problem has been the lack of players between 22-26yo. We either had players at the end of their career or start with not much in the middle. That then forced a lot of our young recruits to be exposed to AFL footy before they were ready. We have enough players to get rid of before we turn out Watts, Trengove, Grimes and Toumpas. We will most likely have 3 picks inside 20 another late 30's. You would only trade any of those players if we needed to execute a trade for a high quality player, you wouldn't get rid of any of them for a draft pick that we use to pick up a kid.

I think Mark Neeld pointed this out, we drafted the wrong type of players for the way the game is played today. We drafted on a Port Adelaide model from mid 2000's for run and stun type of football, the game is all about contested football, big bodies around the contested footy. We drafted skinny kids that could run and in Gysberts case a skinny kid that couldn't run. The foot skills of the players we drafted would have looked good at junior ranks they would have had time and space because they ran hard at AFL level you don't have this and all our early picks except Watts have or had disposal issues. Funny every one is on Melbourne about Priority picks, Hawthorn received 3 priority picks at the start of the draft giving them 6 players from three drafts that were top 5 picks. Melbourne had 2 since 2000 Sylvia and Scully plus one end of first round. 2008 draft was the worst performance in Draft history, have a look at the players drafted after Strauss and Blease

If we go through the Col Sylvia posts from last year I mentioned this and I believe the same will happen again. The AFL will not give us a priority pick, but we will get a first rounder for James Frawley, it is my theory, same as Sylvia, on Col Sylvia's form and history he wasn't worth what we got for him, he should have been third round pick. Frawley on what he has put up for the past 3 years is worth a second round pick tops, we push for the priority pick more to ensure that we get the first round pick for Frawley. To have Pick 2,3 in this years draft is important for our club.

The get out kick, we cant hit targets over 20m so lets get in as many talls as we can to kick long, bang it 50m to one of 4 tall options. To me this is adjust to what you have rather than keep trying the same old. Hitting targets this year has been our biggest issue, we just cant on a consistent basis and we turn it over so we take it out if we turn it over at least the ball is 50m away.

Watching Dawes this year, we need another tall forward. Peter Wright fits what we need 200+cm forward ruck. Get him Petracca with picks 2/3 then grab Duggan with pick 20 odd

I will have a crack Jetta McDonald Dunn Toumpas Garland ******* Vince Jones Salem Kent Dawes ******* ******* Hogan JKH Gawn Tyson Viney Cross, ******, *******, *******