Nasher

It's not splitting hairs at all. You made it sound like someone "decided" Viney should be second, when clearly that's not what happened or how it works. You could challenge the individual votes which is where all the subjectiveness is (which we haven't seen and for all you know, could be perfectly valid), but by arguing against the final result, you might as well be arguing against the Microsoft Excel sum function.

It isn't "a decision", it's 4x22x22 decisions. It's a surprising result but unless you're accusing the coaches of intentionally rigging the scores per game, it's pretty hard to argue with.

ONYA DIGGER

I'm in danger of falling asleep if this doesn't get going again soon.

It's because we fans know heaps more about footy than the coaches who do the votes.

Me either. Some bastard is chopping onions though.

Mahoney said they won't trade Watts unless a suitable deal is forthcoming. I'm doing the apparently unimaginable and taking him at his word.

Neither does he.

You mean they've shelved the Birdman? Dang.

Suspicious of players who never seem to establish themselves in their existing sides. Very few go on to become solid contributors elsewhere - the likes of Michie, Newton and so forth make me wary, although I accept Hartung is a much better player than those guys and has actually got some AFL runs on the board.

You mean JT or JM :-) Agree though. We haven't kept a second round pick once in the Roos-Goodwin era. 2013 ours went in the Tyson trade, and the one we received as compo for Col Sylvia went for Vince 2014 - Frost trade 2015 - Melksham trade 2016 - Hibberd trade Having two of them in our possession would scream "other purpose" given that history.

An attempt to trade back in to the first round, at a guess. It will be some rabbit plucked from a hat though. Can't see us taking two second rounders to the draft.

Lefty in the pro-trade Watts camp here. Also a moderator who is going to shut down further political discussion. (Aware you have already attempted to disengage, faultydet)

Find it hard to believe that Watts is Hogan's only mate at the club.

They've cracked the sads. That's all.

While I have supported this move, I felt a massive stab in the guts at reading that article. I hope we are doing the right thing.

How are we supposed to get pick #1? It's just daft. Leigh is clearly past it.

From the Casey reports, including the Plapp ones, he seemed to oddly get worse the longer he was at the club, after a pretty promising start. Oh well.

Yep. It'd be pointless if we traded out Watts for "standards" reasons, then brought in another player who is on the outer of his club for other off-field reasons. Melbourne is in a development state where culture and standards are still being set. It's the wrong time to be bringing in players who could negatively influence the culture, so I'd be surprised if we were at all interested in any of the troubled dogs, no matter how good they are at football.

I wouldn't call your post contributing either. If the starting point of this conversation is "all progressives have cooties" then it's not a discussion worth entering.

Just popped my head in to this thread for the first time and saw this post.

Sue, it's what the club said. It's not speculation. We’ve been very clear this is about performance and there was some talk it might be about money, but it’s definitely not about money, it’s about performance and our expectations on a nine-year, 150 game player. I've always been a supporter of Watts. I've even thrown around the odd "you are just anti-Watts" barb at people in my time, and found myself on the same side of the fence as you in most issues like this one. ProDee will be devastated if he realises I'm in his camp. The reason I back the club on this is because it's in reference to elements of his performance not evident to the average mug who just watches footy. I have no idea how Jack approaches training, nor do I know how he approached his rehabilitation from injury. What I do know is: 1) he was left out of the side during the pre-season, with the club citing training standards, 2) he took a long time to recover from his injury, and 3) he was left out again shortly after his return, 4) the club is, for the third time, citing "performance and expectations" as the reason for this discussion. It's enough for me to connect the dots. I'm not sure what you're referring to with standards not being applied to others. The club has not mentioned any other players not applying appropriate professional standards, and I can't tell from the outside. Are you aware of any?

As the story goes, Roos was a massive Lever fan - and the pick to be received for Trengove was earmarked for Lever. Lever would have been expecting to be a Melbourne player right up until the Richmond quack scuttled it. So I'd say we've been recruiting Lever since before he was drafted. Feels like the circle is somewhat complete with Lever arriving as Trengove goes, in a sad and "it's going to cost us about two more first round picks than it should have" kind of way.

Revelation is overstating it. I don't mind him, but he's a foot soldier, and replaceable.

It would be the absolute heist of the year of Macrae asked to be traded to us. I can't see it happening though. If his problem is with "bad eggs" at the Bulldogs, their management would let the lot of them go (Stringer, Biggs and whoever else) before they let Macrae walk. It's a nice dream though.