Nasher

Hah. There is a ripping contribution from Clint Bizkit on the last page of that thread.

Pretty safe bet I reckon Clint.

Sorry mate, I laughed.

I wasn't expecting Sylvia to smash it, but it's really surprised me in the level in which he has been a complete and utter bust over there. They'd have to be pretty disappointed, I reckon. Suckers.

It doesn't really say anything, and calling him a 'reject' is a slap in the face. Cross was one of their key players when they were a top 4 side, and he's lost nothing since then really. He is just a product of a struggling club with a lot of promising young mids managing its list. I'd go out on a limb and say if the Bulldogs still saw themselves as contenders, they'd have kept him. So long as his body holds up he's the sort of player who will play at a decent standard pretty much forever because he's never relied on pace. His core attributes of clean hands, big tank and fanatic attack on the ball won't deteriorate too much as he gets old.

Even with their glut of inside mids, I was surprised Bulldogs let him go. Didn't look anywhere near finished in the games I saw him play in '13 and had an excellent year for us. Could very well have snatched the B'n'F if not for the injury. It's not outside the realms of possibility that he'll notch up 50 games for the MFC.

Maybe - I like him as a forward though. Runs hard, uses his pace well, knows where the goals are. Rotations through the midfield are fine, but I like to see him on the HFF charging forward.

I agree, and I expect that's the plan. The new coach - be it Goodwin or someone else - will also have two years having been involved heavily in the decision making and learning about the players, he won't be coming in cold like a coach from the outside. That pre-existing relationship has to be of massive benefit. This was how Roos became coach of Sydney in the first place, and Longmire seems to be going okay as third generation in-house coach. Sydney haven't hired their senior coach from outside their own system since Eade in 1995. I'd been really uncomfortable with this successor idea mostly out of fear of losing Roos, but as things start to take shape I can really see the merit in it and find myself at ease with the idea.

All the best coaches were new coaches once. I'd rather take a shot at the next great coach - with all the risks that includes - than take on proven middle of the road coaches like Voss or Ratten. These names are the only really viable alternative to the new coaches; the best in the business don't tend to move around a lot. I know you're afraid of getting another Neeld. We all are. We could get another Neeld, but we could also get another Ken Hinkley, or another Neale Daniher. I'm pretty comfortable with that. Unless we get really lucky and Alastair Clarkson feels like a change of scenery, it's a new coach for me.

What would you offer to Adelaide? Conversely, what would you accept if the situation were reversed? Say it was Nathan Jones on the table (and look past "nup, not on the table" for the sake of interesting hypotheticals). During the Bailey years I knew someone who worked at a club and participated in trade week. He said that all the clubs had a different approach to trading: some like Essendon would do its best to offer ridiculous trades to try and screw you and ultimately do very few trades because other clubs would stop wasting their time. Other clubs like Sydney under Roos would work out what they wanted and offer up a fair price straight away and the deals would get done quickly with no fuss. They had a model of being easy to do business with, and had a lot of success at the trade table a result. I want us to focus less on being tight and focus on getting the job done. Don't try and get Dangerfield cheaply, acknowledge that he is an asset and will be expensive, offer accordingly and get the job done. Don't forget that in this trade it is Adelaide taking all the risk, given they are loading up on draft picks. We of all clubs should be aware of how horribly that can go wrong.

I think history shows that there's a reasonable chance that you can risk getting a modest player at 2 or 3 and that it's not that much bigger a risk at 9. As supporters we greatly overestimate the value of draft picks IMO.

Is it massive overs? It's two maybe guns (2 and 3) for a known gun and a maybe gun (Dangerfield and 9). Toumpas is an unknown quantity - call him another maybe gun, to help balance out the risk on Adelaide's part. Not sure if I'd do the trade, but I think I would. I'd at least give pause if I was on either side of the trade. Edit: beaten to it by sweet Dee!

I didn't get the impression that his running was anywhere near the level of Matt Jones. That is *the* reason #45 gets a game, and why he'll keep getting a game for a while yet. On Clisby - I thought he looked okay last year, so it's disappointing that he didn't come on. No big deal though, he was a minimal risk venture.

Agree - fell away towards the end, but was consistently outstanding before that. The polling in the B&F agreed. I've never had such a complete and thorough reversal of opinion of a player in all my life supporting this team. Let's hope he's able to continue - in my mind he's gone from one of the worst players ever to play 100 games for the MFC to setting on the path to be a well respected 200 game player. Well done Dunny.

Gosh, that was an horrendous spelling effort by me there. *Gives self an uppercut*

It could be that Neeld exerted his power over Todd, or it could be that Todd rated Toumpas the better player, like everyone else in the industry who counts. Just putting it out there. Not sure what I'm even doing in this lounge anyway. I hate this topic and I hate the flagellators who keep bringing it up.

I think we just need to stop with the self-flagellation. I don't understand why Melbourne supporters want to inflict mental anguish on themselves by reviewing this over and over and over.

It was definitely Robinson. http://www.foxsportspulse.com/assoc_page.cgi?c=1-118-0-0-0&sID=60264&articleID=9389642&news_task=DETAIL

An upgrade on what we have is what we're after, isn't it? Incremental improvement - as much as I'd love for Luke Hodge to fall on our lap, I suspect slow improvement is what we can expect trades until we can home-brew our own star off half back.

A minor pick upgrade is better than nothing I'd have thought. That's about the limit of his worth though.

Whenever I am tempted to dismiss a running defender out of hand, I remind myself that Dean Terlich spent a considerable amount of time playing that role for us this year.

Surely you can see this difference between being allowed to discuss, or even criticise religion, and saying it is okay to religiously vilify an individual. One is fine, the other is reprehensible.

DA, I find encouraging religious vilification just as offensive as practicing it, hence the ban. We (forum admin) generally support people's right to an opinion, however we also believe that this is an important social issue, and saying "religion is free game", i.e. you are welcome to abuse people as much as you like about their religion, is not a message we will support, or find acceptable in any way.

He has his weaknesses, but this is just silly. No player who plays like that plays 200 AFL games.

Pointless stat: if he comes across, his first game for us would be his 200th AFL game. He's experienced, still relatively young, has hardly missed a game in the last 5 seasons, and is exactly the type of player we need as described by Scoop above.