w00dy

i thought he played pretty well against us when we beat Adelaide earlier in the year. But there's a lot of duds who have had good games against us over the past decade.

i still can't get past the irony of him labelling himself as the 'list manager' after what he did to Richmond's list when he was coach...

think everyone is being a little harsh on him. recently there's definitely been a focus from him supporting equalisation measures, and especially the demons, when nearly every other journo has added fuel to the fire of the Frawley's not worth pick 3 debate. plus he seems to be in the Dees corner. can't say that about many journos...

got rookied by the Dogs, but didn't cut the mustard, which says something given their lack of KPPs. Played at Norwood for two seasons, and moved into the middle this year where he had a very good season as an inside mid, after playing at full forward last season... would be definitely worth looking at, and would provide flexibility as a forward option as well as a mid. Pace is the question with him I believe.

not sure this is the best time to break this story, it could really hurt our trade negotiations for Mitch. If true, it's likely that it was this event that triggered his depression, and that he's injuries he had were just coincidental. You can imagine the playing group shunning him, giving him a cold shoulder. There couldn't be anything more depressing when you're playing footy.

Trade value will depend greatly on where Billy Stretch gets taken. If there's no Mitch in the deal, and Billy's taken in the 3rd round, I'd expect it would probably be our 2nd and 4th round picks, for Lumumba and the Pies' 3rd rounder.

If North won tonight he may have struggled, but I think they'll bring him back in against the bigger bodied Sydney midfield. That's assuming Hawthorn win of course.

I'm not sure the clause will be invoked ahead of this month's trade period. However, the potential for it to be used can be used as leverage against Essendon to accept something lower than what they would like for him. Currently they want a first round pick and a quality player for Ryder, which seems ridiculous given he faces a potential ban, clearly wants out of the club, and could potentially walk to wherever he wants, for nothing.

Think we played him out of position for most of his time at Melbourne. Never looked like a defender, but we played him there because he could kick. Should've tried to make him an outside winger (where he played in U18s), delivering the ball forward. I know we tried him a bit there at Casey this year, but think the horse had already bolted.

Not sure we need to give up too much for him. Pick 2/3 is surely enough, if we throw in the Toump, I'd want 10 back. If we can't get the deal done, and he wants the Dees, we wait a year and he walks as a free agent?

Yep, finished second on a votes per game basis, only behind Jonesy. Terrific effort from Cross, shows how much the coaches rate his effort around the contest, and gets a well deserved second year.

works well if you end up with a good zone, e.g. Hawthorn. It took them from being mediocre to a powerhouse, all on the back of getting allocated a strong zone. MFC on the other hand...

and the rest of the cap. If Mitch's salary was minimised for this year, as his manager recently suggested, under the new equalisation rules that can be shifted into future spending, essentially giving us at a guess, $1.2 million more next year than we would've had otherwise... add to the fact we would've been under the cap I guess anyway, we've got some coin there to spend...

I don't think this is necessarily correct. If a player is not de-listed by the club voluntarily, i.e. the club wants to contract them but they refuse, and they're not eligible to for free agency, then have to enter the draft in order to go to another club. So Mitch won't ever be a de-listed free agent. The interesting thing with Mitch is, if he technically retired, and the Mal Michael clause is in his contract, he won't be allowed to enter the draft like Michael did, as he'd be in breach of contract. So if we made the deal properly earlier in the year, the ONLY way he can get to another club is through a trade. He could only enter the draft if we consent to it, which I doubt we would.

Just got dropped for finals

If Jesse wants to stay, he stays. But, if he's making noises about leaving... And Nat Fyfe is open to a trade... Do we pull the trigger? I'm inclined to say no, but gee I'd think about it...

Watching that I'd say we have a 20-30% chance of him staying. He looks Gawn. Obviously not a direct replacement, but seeing Stef Martin get back into the Brisbane team reminded me of his early days when he played down back. He was fast, staying with players on the lead, and strong enough to deal with the big forwards (something TMac struggles with). Could be a backup down there? He's not suited to the forward line where we made him play as well as the second ruck. I'd love to see what Roosey could do with him, he obviously didn't work well with Neeld.

exactly right, they're on set wages plus match payments for their first contract. This means that clubs that aren't paying 100% of the cap can front-end contracts even further (up to an additional 450k or so) until there's enough cash left over to spend it on someone worthy.

In: Dawes Out: Gawn I like the look of Toump as the sub, and think he may now get that role for a few weeks in a row like JKH and Salem did. So keep him in. I think Frawley starts forward, but if Cloke even looks like getting on top of his opponent, then he needs to go back. Cloke is too strong for anyone in our back six at the moment, so if he looks threatening then I think Chip needs to take him. We can then switch either Dunn or Howe forward.

I always thought something was wrong with Cam, because he'd shown far more at North Melbourne than he had for us up till last season. But on his performances last year, he was lucky he was contracted because he was gone otherwise. But he's built and added onto the form he'd shown in glimpses at North, and it's great to see. He's now a really enjoyable player to watch, clunking contested marks, and really getting around the ground a lot.

Exactly right, our draw is much tougher in the second half of the year. We've only played 2 sides in the top 8 up till now (Sydney and Gold Coast). But we've improved so much, that we'd be 6-3 or 7-2 from those games if we played them in the 2nd half of the year. We should win at least three games in the back half of the season, but it's hard to see us winning more than 6. Of our remaining games we teams outside the 8 in the Bulldogs, Essendon, Brisbane, GWS and West Coast away. The rest of the sides are in the 8, including Port twice and North twice, Key games coming up against the Pies, and Bombers. If we can get a win in one or both of those, then who knows. But 6-8 wins is a realistic goal, what I was thinking at the start of the year, and could've been 10-12 if things went our way...

Hardly Neeld like. Your IQ temporarily diminishes once you put a channel 7 jacket on. Roos will know him well, and be aware if he's up to the job or not. I think he will be.

He's been doing most of them this season. They have been pretty honest all season, but these were the harshest so far. Very different to last year however, which gave us very little insight.

We should fight this, it's a ridiculous decision, and I'd be pretty confident that he'd get off. Yes it was stupid, and he's probably guilty, but this was not medium impact. Glass demolished someone earlier in the year and got low impact. Fight it MFC.

Loved how he demanded the ball at the end, it was kicked to him, and he took the contested mark.