John Dee

We took the best available player last year. Jack Watts was head and shoulders above all of the other players in last year's draft. If the draft was held again, we would still take him in a heartbeat.

Wouldn't Geelong of 2008 be evidence against your argument?

Richmond - Andrew Raines, [censored] Off

So we are comparing apples with apples we should only compare the points before penalties and discounts that each player received. Lloyd got 508? points which increased to 600 odd because of his bad record and then came in to 450 odd for the early plea. Franklin got some 200 odd points that would have come in to 150 odd for an early plea; they chose to take it to the tribunal and lost the discount. So, 500 points for Lloyd and 200 for Buddy. About right from my pont of view. The force excerted and the damage done by Lloyd was much more that Buddy. And; IMO Lloyd is thoroughly deserving of the penalty if only for past deeds.

The point that I was making is that Jack is well versed in the goings on in Victoria, and will not have any issue with relocating here, once the current stage of his schooling is complete.

Todd's originally from Adelaide, but he has spent a lot of time in Victoria whilst at Melbourne and Hawthorn etc Jack also has spent many years at schools in Melbourne. Todd's family are only currently in Adelaide owing to Todd getting a gig at Adelaide. Jack would not have any issue in relocating to Melbourne.

No, Scully is now ours from the tanking; Trengove is now ours for the tanking.

You have blotted your copybook here, Joeboy. "A lot to learn" is four words!

That tackle against Sandilands gets him a game for the rest of the year, IMO.

I don't know; I will leave it up to the Football Department. I remember after the draft last year CC was rumbling about re-drafting CJ as he was the best player in the PSD. What happened with Jurrah has got to be one of the greatest strokes of luck we have had in recent times; You can't expect that it will happen again.

Hey, weren't 1957 and 1959 good years? 1958 was a disappointment, but still a good year.

If Macca goes on, and I don't expect that he will. he will occupy a spot on the primary list. As he is a veteran, we would gain an extra rookie spot. As we need to free up places for the draft and the PSD, spots on the primary list are the important ones.

I think you will find that the minimum is three.

Why make wholesale changes to a system that has been in place for many years; you risk abandoning many good aspects. Try removing the priority pick and see how that goes. There may still be tanking, but that heat will have gone out of the issue. I would favour the commission sitting at the end of the year to review and award priority picks to the needy; it just should not be able to be automatically achieved. Just imagine that the priority pick was not there for us this year. We might be accused of tanking to get Skully, but not really, as we would get second prize in Trengove. Contrast this with the prospect of getting both Skully and Trengove. The priority pick makes the reward to great; all of those people who accuse us of tanking would be doing the same were they in our position.

Who would want to sponsor a club that demonstrates it does not have the business acumen to understand the system and take advantage of the benefits it has to offer. This was not the first time Miller has pinch-hit in the ruck; he does it a couple of times each year.

I have long suffered from a smidgin of white-line-fever; when the siren went, I had an opportunity to reflect and investigate my feelings. I definitely wanted him to kick it. I am not at ease with myself still; that is football in this day and age.

Essendon have big problems coming up; Lloyd, Lucas, Fletcher and the like will be leaving just as GC and WS come in.

Really? Isn't it illegal to trade future picks?

Jeff White for pick 2.

I am a bit philosphical today; possibly as a result of Dr. Karl's comments about capitalism this morning. What is the reason for anything to exist? What purpose does existence serve? Need there be any purpose to existence? I abhor religion and am comfortable that the universe is merely accidental. Does this make me happy, sad, hedonistic, anarchistic or any other thing? No, I accept the universe for what it is and take the boon of my accidental life with, hopefully, humility. If MFC did not exist, it could not win a premiership. So, for the purposes of argument we must assume that MFC exists. What then should be the nature of its existence? If the only purpose of its existence is to win premierships, how then to proceed? If you push the boundarys and cheat the salary cap, you may win a premiership; you will get found out and penalised thus ensuring that you will spend a long time without winning any more. Is this acceptable, or do we say that we have to work within the rules to win our premierships? If we decide that we must work within the rules, we have already compromised our sole purpuse. Things are never black and white; another reason to hate the filth. We all make compromises, some nescessary, some not, in the hope of moving forward, MFC is no different. It must work within a framework and have the ultimate aim of winning a premiership, but in that sport exists to cater for the more base elements that we find imbue our beings, do not discount the entertainment aspect of the contest as a service to society. MFC's seconday purpose, if you like, is to provide the contest as entertainment. Does this secondary purpose impinge upon its supposed primary purpose? It probably does. Is this acceptable, yes it is.

This leads to a philosophical issue; if you have pick 1 and pick 2, is the player you select with pick 1 the priority. or is it the player that you select with pick 2. The AFL would say that pick 1 is the priority pick, but, if you did not have the priority pick, you would select the same player with your first draft pick. In practical terms, the player you would not get if you didn't have the priority pick is the player at pick 2. Whatever, technically TJ was the priority pick; trading pick 2 to Freo got us Whitey and a fine for breaching the salary cap.

Chinese whispers ... Isn't the saying 'Jack the blind miner ...'

Memory fades ... We had pick 2 as well as pick 1; we used pick 1 on TJ and traded pick 2 to Freo for Whitey. Surely we had a priority pick?

The draft is fine; just get rid of priority picks. The only reason the debate about tanking exists is the 16 point limit above which you do not get a priority pick. Without that, this would be a non issue. I would advocate keeping the draft asis and scrapping the automatic priority pick. The commission could sit after the final round and allocate any priority picks they might deem nescessary.

That mark was also given Mark of the Week on The Winners by Wayne Wussell.