whatwhat say what

nahas? nuh-uh.

surprising. all our membership collateral has webjet all over it. reckon i might wait for the official club announcement...

The priority of the afl at the moment is to convince gws of the importance of senior bodies being brought into the club. Hence the doomed buddy chase, now shaw. I'm surprised they're not going for the likes of cross as well. It's not a good look to have the newest franchise only capable of beating our pathetic mob. At least gc17 have baby judas.

Taylor could slip to second or third round. Most clubs are fearful of drafting kids who are 5 foot 7 inches or so, which is why Rodan - who similarly dominated underage football as a midfielder - dropped right down the drafting pecking order in his draft year when the Tigers picked him up. Taylor could similarly play in excess of 200 games - he can play footy, and has tremendous pace. Wouldn't be at all surprised if he doesn't get picked into the 30s, although it's also possible he could go pick 10, it all just comes down to a club being willing to take a risk on a little bloke as opposed to someone who is over six foot but might not be as 'natural' a footballer.

You would expect so. It'll be interesting to see how the Buddy deal plays out. Might be failure, might be great work. Salary cap will likely double in 10 years, so his wage will be a drop in the oceans of cash splashed around.

I'm expecting band 4 too. It's a bummer.

Reid is still there.

I can't see him playing til 32 - hope we haven't offered him a four year deal.

I would presume it'll be band 4, unfortunately.

Like for like replacement with Sylvia - not a 'smart' footballer, not overly skilled, chooses when to go and has had an incredibly inconsistent career. Would do it for our Sylvia compo pick, so after second round, so 38ish I guess.

Summary of Mahoney on Trade Radio: Presence of Roos has ‘lifted’ the club. Club is aware that on-field results have been unacceptable. Discussions with Sylvia were very clear – he was a required player through the midfield. Free agency gave him an option, he rejected our three year deal in favour of chasing a premiership. Moving on… Still chatting to clubs about pick 2. Trade is a three week period; week 1 hasn’t even finished yet. It’s unlikely to be a straight swap, more likely to be players and picks. Pick 2 is a valuable pick, and the combine last week shows that it’s a quality field of players available. Still open to trading the pick for the ‘right’ deal, still ‘highly likely’, but it won’t be given away. We directly inquired about Rockliff. He and Shuey are the sort of players we’re interested in; both of their clubs said that it was no dice, and Rockliff wants to be at Brisbane. We did not offer 2 / Jamar for 7 / Rockliff. There have been no discussions re Jamar leaving the club. The Jamar story was not true, hence why we responded to the news story. Looking at Cross. Process is it will come post-trade period. Our ruck stocks are pretty well set, so Jolly would only come in if there was movements with our ruck stocks. Roos’ discussions with Watts have him ear-marked for Mundy-like role, who started as a half-back before moving into the midfield. The focus of the pre-season will be on him getting right for that role, but also expect him to be able to play back and forward. Rawlings has done a great job with our backline, and he’ll continue in that role. Really tough period not just for our skippers but our whole leadership group. Leading Teams comes with Roos, so decisions will be made after that process has run its course. Decision on Cuddles was made by the board as part of the structural changes to the club as a whole. There’s no guarantees we’ll be able to replicate Port’s climb back up the ladder, but if the correct decisions are made then hope springs eternal, with good young talent injected last year, as well as senior bodies like Matt Jones and Terlich. If you look at us compared to other teams, we’re 2-3 short in terms of midfield depth and experience. That’s what we will be trying to address with this trade period. Going through our process for the senior assistant role, Dew was a candidate who presented to the club extremely well. Right now, he would be one of the preferred candidates. Tudor was not involved in the process. Missed the stuff on Bassett; work interrupted. Trade period is difficult as it’s quite long now and players are overseas on holidays.

Bassett raved about him on trade radio, highlighting how slick and poised he is.

dew has been coached by john cahill, mark williams, and alistair clarkson, then worked as an assistant under paul roos then john longmire. he's great in the media, as anyone from adelaide will tell you. oh, and he used to nail teresa palmer.

Myers is not worth pick 2, not even close.

pretty happy with my call on boyd. still think billings is all class.

Port won't want him. Once Big Red went down, Lobbe was one of the competition's dominant ruckmen, operating solo in the back half of the year. Hawks as Pies are both going with youth as their rucks (with Hale and Q Stick able to offer some support), while GWS have got Mumford. I expect the size of his contract will be a major impediment - will we be, yet again, part-paying a bloke who's not on our list?

probably, but there's a hell of a lot more work rate than there is currently with the addition of savage, sewell, another jones who looks as tenacious as his brother, and class and application in hogan.

if savage comes to us it's not to be as a small forward option; it's to be as a pure mid. other than that, i like yr trade ins, although laidler i'm not sure about.

excellent point deanox.

we need to sign chip up on a big deal this year to encompass 2014-2019. problem solvered.

thanks again for all the work you do!

bring it on!

Not sure that's true. Jesus was an average footballer as a kid who didn't appear that interested, and it was the football development and coaching - not to mention the hard word put on him by another father-son, Matthew Scarlett - that turned him into one of the best players the game has ever seen.

bassett is off to be goodwin's right-hand man at the bombers apparently.

That'd be massively in our favour.