Nasher

You're a funny fellow, dee-luded. You as an older supporter hold Barassi in the esteem you do because you probably had days at the footy where he got you the blood and adrenaline pumping through your body. I know what that feels like - players like Jim Stynes had that effect on me, especially when I was younger. I imagine it would increase tenfold with each jubilant flag, but I wouldn't actually know and you can't expect me to. It's got nothing to do with a "high ground" - it's just that we had no opportunity to bond. Do you feel as passionately about Ivor Warne-Smith as you do Barassi? How about Dick Wardill? Why/why not? I call a pre-emptive "bullshit" if you say you do. Sure, and many of us young people - especially those of us who waste heaps of time on this forum - are pretty well versed on the history, but that's a long way from experiencing it. Whatever happened to the roll eyes smiley, anyway?

Because, like most of us under the age of 50, Chook would have no idea what a bond with a multi-premiership player would feel like? Ron Barassi to me was the Sydney Swans coach when I started to really have awareness about footy. I didn't even know he was a Melbourne player until I was in my twenties.

I think we should select Toumpas.

How about Imran Tahir? According to the Grandstand boys, it's the most number of runs conceded in a Test match for no wicket of all time. I guess we owed them a destroyed career after the Bryce McGain fiasco. It puts Nathan Lyon's performance in to perspective also. He's done everything you could ask of an offie for mine. He's also a very handy number 11 bat because he values his wicket; it means if you've got a handy lower order batsman in with him they'll still bat as if they're planning to be in for a bit. None of that nonsense you used to see with NZ when they'd start throwing the bat as soon as Martin came in because they knew the innings would be over any minute.

You can't take Demonology's award title and gloss over it by giving them "credit" for it. It would be outright plagiarism to adopt this; if I put my Demonology member hat on, I'd view this as a kick in the teeth.

For me 31 holds no emotion whatsoever - in my lifetime it's been Donald Cockatoo-Collins, Paul Wheatley and some other chump whose name I've forgotten. To me this inheritence of numbers like this is just another reminder that it's been effing ages since we've created any legends of our own.

Would you have preferred another uncompetitive year? Not that this selection is going to be the difference between competitiveness and not anyway, so I'm really not sure what your point is other to whinge and moan and pot the coach.

Addam Maric has *terrible* posture.

Fixed... again. This was caused by a twice failed software upgrade. Will get to the bottom of it tonight.

Give it a razz now.

Can't believe we've gone this far in to the thread without some inane comment about only recruiting choir boys and getting excited about what "mongrel" this guy would add. Anyway, I wouldn't bother recruiting him full stop, even with all the caveats Robbie has listed above. It would just be a complete waste of time and resources trying to keep a guy like him on a straight path, then you've got the worry of his influence over other young players, and it would be a case of when, not if he eventually stuffs up. I'd rather we found another Jordie McKenzie in the rookie draft - a modestly talented kid who would give his left nut to play AFL football and plays and trains accordingly.

Magner was welcome to nominate for the ND if he was upset about his treatment. I highly doubt that is how he sees it, though. He's still on the list and still has the opportunity to prove himself. If he makes it or not it'll depend completely on whether he's good enough, it'll have nothing to do with how many other 25 year olds from the VFL are on the list.

Bumping this thread while we were all in the middle of us all slapping each other on the back from the draft - nice one. I'm currently parading with umbrella in hand to stop from being hit by all the wee.

They were reasonable with us this year because it was in their interests to do so, but nonetheless I agree that from the perspective of parties I'd be willing to deal with, they look a lot better now than they did last year.

I'm probably alone, but I don't like this. Let the man make his own history in his own jumper number. 16 was Jack Grimes, in my mind.

FWIW I'm not a fan of mega-threads either and it's especially bad if you're using the mobile skin because you can't easily paginate on that skin. I also find the site is slower on my phone than it is on the PC, and that's in general not just when it's under siege (which it was tonight, users online record broken by a lot - the site's never in its whole history been hammered as hard as it was tonight). I don't know that having a million threads on the same topic is better though, which is what happens. I might have a look at the mobile skin at some point and see if I can improve the pagination on it. To answer your questions - I doubt the club was surprised that Toumpas was available, there have been rumours circulating in the last week that this would happen. GWS even took the players a few people mentioned they would. Also, the rumours that we were taking Wines were just hype built up by the media and footy supporters, I wouldn't assume them to be fact. In the end we'll never know who we would've taken if Toumpas was gone. The roar was because he had an army of family present at the draft. And there's an article on the MFC website where he explains his excitement: Jimmy over the moon at joining Dees Some snippets: "To be given an opportunity by the Dees is unbelievable. They have shown faith in me to Draft me … so it means a hell of a lot. I grew up playing for Lockleys Demons, so I had this [red and blue] guernsey on as a youngster at my home club in SA. The history of the club, being the first club, [which] invented the game - it’s a huge honour.” He was ecstatic that we picked him up. I seriously love this kid already.

That he was a kid who didn't have the maturity to cope with the rigours of AFL football at the time. Or he's a spud. It'll be one of those two, but I'd like to think that since he's only been on the list for an hour, we'll give him some benefit of the doubt initially...

Ah, right. It ceased to exist (89 became 88) because our list is full. You only get the luxury of passing if you still have an empty spot to pass on.

Screw that. I'm getting excited now. If I'm disappointed in two years time then so be it - I don't expect that I will be though.

If the AFL draft tracker is any indication, they wasted no time in calling out his name either. There was zero pause time for any of our picks actually. The club knew who it wanted and picked without hesitation. Frankly, with the amount of preparation that goes in to the draft these days, I'm surprised that isn't true for all the clubs.

I thought the answer to your question was obvious, I'm sorry if that offends you.

Because we knew who we wanted in advance and the player we wanted was still there?

We traded it for Rodan and our list was full by then anyway.

Yes that's correct. No vacancies.

Two grownups with our last two picks. Jones is 25 and Terlich 23 (or will be by the time the season starts). I'd say the strategy there is fairly obvious.