Nasher

It's to stop clubs from trying to save coin by paying their players less; before the salary floor was introduced, clubs like Footscray were paying in the order of 70% of the cap. This means the club will be uncompetitive in the long run, as well as being unfair to the players at that club who were probably being paid less than their true worth and had no easy path for exit.

Initially if Clark isn't playing, Dawes will have a minimum of two opponents most of the time, as we saw against North in the NAB. How will you blokes who are counting his goal tally as the measure of success factor this in? And how will you factor in the "structure" he adds, even when he's not playing well? Again, going back to the NAB cup games, our forward line looked notably less cohesive in the second game, when he was absent.

How are Carlton going to "force" the AFL in to giving them home games at the MCG? What do they hold over the AFL that gives them bargaining power? My understanding is that they signed a deal to play their home games at Etihad and get paid a fat sum each year as a result, so I can't see how their demands are going to fly other than via AFL corruption.

I don't think LJ is a star of the MFC, no.

The more you post lately, the more I worry about your state of mind.

If we were to draw a parallel to the MFC, then Doherty is James Magner. Available, mature, plays a role, will bust a gut, but ultimately no good. He certainly doesn't belong in the "talented youngster" group at 30.

No doubt to tell us all that cricketers should just play and not have to worry about all that professionalism stuff. I wouldn't expect anything less. Am I the only one who couldn't GAF what the players think on issues like this one?

Wow, tough. I'm torn between demanding standards and "they're just simple cricketers, let them play cricket". Gods, I can hear Ian Chappell moaning about it from here. That alone makes me feel compelled to side with the opposing view.

It was Pick 3/13/Barry for 20, Hogan and "for heaven's sake don't nominate Viney with #1". It wouldn't have been a verbalised or written deal, just the MFC saying "pick 3 might be up for trade", and GWS being smart enough to draw the inference that they couldn't receive it if they forced us to use it on Viney. The obvious wouldn't have needed to be said (although with the tanking deal I guess you couldn't trust the MFC not to say it anyway), so there should be nothing to spring. I maintain that Toumpas being available wasn't part of the deal, it was just an enormous stroke of luck. You wouldn't be able to make that deal without saying it -- that would be inviting trouble. Nonetheless, getting all three of Viney, Toumpas and Wines was not possible. Bottom line is that had we not traded pick 3, GWS would have forced us to take Viney with it. And I can't believe you'd wish Hogan away anyway.

Mike is just another mug with an opinion, the only difference between him and us is he gets paid to post his and the rest of us do it for fun. That said, it's not really surprising that most mugs wouldn't have a Melbourne player in their 50.

Really? The thought of hindsight drafting Wines instead of the Dawes/Barry/Hogan swap actually makes me feel sad.

I was hoping this thread was going to ask me to choose between olisik and Whispering_Jack.

I hate posts like this. You can't be bothered - or just can't - pinpoint the real issue, so you just assassinate his character instead, when you have no idea if he has a big head or not. Classic keyboard hero behaviour.

Which ones in particular? Kent, Terlich and Jones look nothing alike. Could be forgiven for confusing Stark and Clisby, but of course we haven't seen them yet.

He does look like a player though. It's heartening to see a young player who clearly has the right shape for an AFL player and gets to the right spots to be dangerous. His pre-season form has been really encouraging and he should be in contention for round 1. I also enjoyed the line about changing his goals after missing out on the under 18s squad. No fuss, just got on with it. In the days of athletes chucking public tanties when things don't go their way, it is refreshing.

Teehee. Clackline.

Big guys don't get any faster either. If you use the spare ruckman as the sub, then you're sacrificing late game run, which I'd have thought was far more critical than extra height, especially late in the game. I've always held the view that the sub has to be a runner and not a tall and the new rules only exacerbate that IMO. I agree with rpfc in that second ruck these days means a forward who can spend five minutes in the ruck.

Isn't it telling that with all the choices we've got, we've got to put an asterisk on them? Ox pre-knee, TJ with a desire boost and so on. From the 90s and 00s there's barely a player anyone would take unconditionally. It's just so symbolic of the NQR nature of all the players that have passed through this club in the last two decades.

I'm not sure how you got from Macca's point to getting rid of the coaches. It's just about recognising that in this instance the coaches have a different driver to the AFL. In my work the rules and processes we have to work by change all the time and usually for the greater good of the company, but if it makes my job more difficult as a result, of course I have a grumble about it. Fortunately my boss has a lot more tact than Demetriou, but the gist of his message is the same: too bad, so sad, get on with it.

On the "mathematically possible idea", I can think of scenarios where is is mathematically possible, but implausible to make the finals, eg need to win last 3 games by a total of 1000 points and have the 8th team lose every game and so on. Could that not foster late-mid season tanking from teams who know that practically speaking they can't make it, ie they deliberately lose to allow participation in the ordering system that they would otherwise not get so long as finals remained "possible"?

The attitude than "unknown" would be better than Jordie is laughable. He'll be replaced with superior skilled players in time, but as others have already said it won't be this year. When he goes it will be because he's squeezed out, not because the coaches (who love him) decide on a whim that his kicking isn't good enough.

Good thoughts Choke; the first two thoughts that sprang to my mind were that it advantages teams who bow out early, and doesn't necessarily reward team that needs it the most; interestingly these two thoughts seem to be contradictory. I think I need to see it applied retrospectively to previous seasons to get a clear picture of how it would affect the draft.

What does being a power player off the field entail? I haven't read the article but it sounds like newspaper filler to me.

It's very tough marking to give Daniher none of the credit for the highs and all of the blame for the lows.

Last year was an all time low? 2008 will take some topping for me. As for this year, I'm excited. We've cleared away dead wood and recruited players that should help us get back to the pack more quickly. I'm expecting a new look side that hopefully has some cohesion about it. I accept that we've been disappointed before and acknowledge that I'm setting myself up for a fall potentially, but honestly if *all* I could see on the horizon was doom and dismay I'd just give up following.