Nasher

So did I actually. Seemed like a pretty stunning move. Like you I also know sweet FA about this Kennedy other than his bloodline.

Thanks very much for that. Hopefully it does just turn out to be a minor setback then. Either way, I think we'd all agree that it was better to find this now than after another stuffed season and potentially a stuffed career.

Kind of ironic, really. Besides, I imagine we would've heard something if anyone had disappeared. It didn't take long to surface last time, and if there was a concern I imagine the club would want to knock it on the head ASAP.

If that is true then it is an utter joke. That really is Contracts 101. No doubt the Casey lads around here will find a way to blame this on the MFC anyway.

What I don't understand is how can he have hot spots in a different spot to the original injury, when he's barely been using the foot at all? In my armchair expert opinion that's a bit of a worry.

That's a good question. I have no idea where Grimes' ceiling is, but it'll be interesting to look back after 5 years or so on the list. We've seen plenty of times in the past with players hitting their ceiling almost immediately (like Bartram). I doubt that's the case here, but even if it is then we've got a good player on our hands. If it's not ...

Nice one. Giving BP a large bake for not doing his homework, but getting Jetta's name wrong. Twice. He's one that got away and I'd love to hear BP's thoughts on what he did to follow up when told by about Lewis Jetta by Neville Jetta's mother. The answer might be nothing, but the answer might be that he followed up and just didn't think the kid looked any good. He wouldn't be the first kid to look like a spastic at 18 and a weapon at 19. Aaron Davey said he (Davey) was as slow as a snail until he was 18 or 19. Would anyone have drafted him if he was slow? I'm going to reserve judgement on BP on this one for now. What we shouldn't do is 'cut our losses' as you seem to be suggesting and draft him just because we've already missed out once. We draft him at 11 or 18 if he's still available and if it can be argued that he's the best available. In other words, treat him like any other player in the draft.

Personally I think we should stop hedging our bets with Valenti anyway. Commit to him and give him two years, or get rid of him. A third year on the rookie list would be a waste of time IMO.

Saying we don't 'need' any more of a particular type is like saying there is such a thing as having too good a side. For every good player you add, you squeeze out another one who's not as good. It's a cycle that needs to be constantly added to.

It all sounded plausible until this bit. Now I just hope the bloke was pulling your leg.

I don't know much about Everitt, but if he's any good at all then we come out way, way ahead in that deal. Sydney and WB would both be receiving players they could just get for free anyway if they really wanted to. Everitt would be too high a price for WB to pay for Hall. I imagine the trade for Hall being a fairly token one considering Sydney have lost him whether the deal gets done or not.

My wishlist: - No activity during trade week (beyond the deal already done), unless we get really lucky and are able to offload some of the contracted spuds we're stuck with, but I'm not holding my breath. - Don't know or care who we draft, I'll completely defer to BP and his team for that. I don't know squat about the draftees and unlike so many at this time of year, I'm not going to pretend I do. Exciting eh?

Jamar's a better ruckman than Blake. He'd be comfortably second though, sadly. I don't rate the guy. No interest at all in the others. Especially not David Johnson, they're kidding right? I laughed out loud when I saw that.

Exactly. I don't really get how picking them at 2 instead of 1 is going to alleviate the pressure any. They'll either handle it or they won't. If we're that concerned that one will handle the pressure better than the other, then make sure they're always present at the media commitments together and let the one who is more comfortable wear more of the heat, it'll help spread the load. Actually, that should happen regardless. I am hoping that in today's recruiting 'science', a firm head on the shoulders should be a criteria for pick #1 anyway. Pick whichever one is better at 1, and the other at 2. Surely it isn't that hard. Edit: Also belated thanks for the updates KrazyJay et al. As someone who doesn't watch the young blokes, reading stuff like this gets me pretty excited at the possibilities at draft time. Your enthusiasm is infectious.

No. We've agreed to the deal, we now honour it.

It lives on infrastructure that is funded out of the pocket of a few guys who use it for completely different purposes (including myself), basically. The "silent involuntary" partners are guys who know me, but don't know anything about the site other than it exists and it lives on their server.

If we had any older players with currency left, I'd toss them all at Sydney for 6 and see what they nibbled at. However, we don't, and to extract 6 we'd have to be offering up one of our better younger players. What would be the point in that? I fail to see what value is added by trading say, Grimes or Morton for a draft pick. It makes no sense at all and only pushes our flag window further away.

Exactly. And there seems to be a Bradshaw rumour every year. Edit: Dur, might read the whole thread next time.

My first thought when reading the article is why it needed to mention that the guy was Indian at all? How is it relevant to the story? We may be improving on our collective prejudice to other races, but we've still got a long way to go to removing the needless distinctions altogether. I agree. Assault is definitely OK just because they're young men.

Agree, the deal happened far too quickly for it not to have been considered. Brock wanting out may have come as a surprise, but it was a surprise that had been planned for, if that makes sense. Responsible list management at its best.

Seeing him iron out Nick Maxwell(?) and his match against Hawthorn were a couple of the highlights of my year. On the latter, it's not often that a player in a side that never even looked like winning the game is far and away the best player on the field. The umpires obviously agreed as per his 3 votes. That was an enormous personal effort. I can't think of many bigger ones in a poor side in my lifetime. As per the Frawley thread, Sylvia was the second of three reasons why this season was worth watching. There was an article about his commitment to the cause and his recently developed maturity during the year. We see these every year but this one particularly resonated with me and I believe him 100%. I'm very confident the renaissance will continue next season. I can't wait.

In fairness, at the time the Brisbane Bears were a basket case, in a very big way. I'd have made the same decision at the time in Buckley's shoes too, and to be honest, I doubt it's all that high on his list of regrets, even without the premiership he would crave.

Exactly. I wouldn't say a million miles ahead, but definitely ahead, there is no such thing as too much quality.

I'd um and ah over Walker for about five minutes, then say no. He'd be a really good player if his career could ever pick up any sort of momentum, but it hasn't and probably won't for reasons already mentioned. We might as well give up on footy now if we recruited Fisher and/or Cloke.

Existing thread here: http://forums.demonland.com/index.php?showtopic=17334