JACKATTACK

Jamar wouldn't demand much and that is the problem, his current trade value is lower than his potential as a valuable player (particularly to Melbourne). Sure I would happy to see him go if Port are prepared to pay over the price (9) but I feel that now is his time, and if he left we would be missing out on the best part of his career.

I'd have Panos first, but I don't think he will be there at 11. Butcher sounds like he could be, and would be great value at 11.

Well if pick 9 was on the table I would, but I wouldn't have thought that Jamar could get pick 9.

We must hold onto Jamar, it is a massive step backwards if we lose him now.

I can hear the Dr clearing his throat again. Stick to your guns MFC 11 is enough. Unless they want to take a contracted player we don't want, but that might be hard to sell.

That is quite impressive, another potential captain on the way, who needs Brock. 'bout time to change your display name M4B, we don't need that happening.

Do you know something, or is that just a rumour? The media seem to have reported it as Pick 11 only and I would have thought the deal would have been reported on in its entirety by the MFC and Carlton.

Firstly my rating of Brock was not in the same breath, it wasn't even in the same thread. Secondly, I make no apologies for thinking pick 11 is not enough for Brock. and finally, I'm not underwhelmed by Scully or Trengove, I have been proclaiming Scully the next Judd for about a year. As for trading for picks, I don't trust the quality of the draft enough to follow this strategy any more than we already have. Of course I would prefer to have pick 22-26 than pick 34, but we'd need to trade away a player of value to do so and I don't see a big difference between pick 26 and 34 anyway.

Do you know how much he is getting, or have you heard one way or another? If you are just speculating I don't think it is obvious that he got more, possible but not obvious, maybe he accepted less money (per year) in favour of a longer contract. And if it is as Schwabb said, that Essendon had no offer then maybe his price wasn't driven up as we suspected during the week. I would tend to think that Melbourne, seeing that they are struggling to make the salary cap minimum asked Davey to take a front ended contract, Davey's manager used this against us to get an extra year. But that is just speculation on my part.

*The club got spooked because Davey is the little darling of 95% of supporters. The thought of the supporter backlash on top of McLean leaving made them twitch Agreed *Four years was too long Yes and no, yes because I don't like long contracts as they set a precedent, but no because of all the players we have he will be around in 4 years regardless of the length of his contract now, and now we can massively front-end the contract and reach 92.5% salary cap. *Davey can't handle a tag He was tagged all year, some weeks he broke free and dominated, others he wasn't as good, but still effective. *He's not an A grader, let alone a 'star' He most certainly is a star, and an A grader. *I will be physically ill if he's ever made Captain (I have no doubt he won't) Doubt he'll be captain, but would be an excellent VC, or maybe a rotating captain (though I neve liked rotating captains) *He's still a little soft, although he did improve this part of his game in 09 He's small, I don't think he's soft.

I reckon we'd take him at 11 as well. Gone massively off the boil, a bit like Rich did last year.

DId he say anythhng about Brock's departure?

So you wouldn't take him in the PSD? He won't be available there, but if he is I would be very pleased.

Completely agree, trade will be "close", but they won't get it done. And they won't end his contract and force him to the draft either.

They'd better get this sorted soon, I would like to think we could enter trade week knowing how this will play out.

Why do we need more picks?

Great news, so I've shown my appreciation and renewed my membership, and one for my girlfriend, and the dogs.

"I'd love to play for Melbourne, it's a fantastic club, a proud history and I think their list is really young and developing," Scully I'm in love.

At first I thought 4 years was unreasonable, but it does offer Melbourne more of an opportunity to front load his contract. And If you had to sign one player for 4 years, it would be Davey.

Mclean, RObbo, whelan & wheatly are gone, so there is picks 1,2,11,18. 2 more spots to find , for picks 34, and PSD1.

I suggest quickly following up the brock interview with this one:

High hopes are all well and good, and we all have high hopes for all our top picks, but the reality is that a player's quality is not determined by the pick they were taken at, or youtube highlights. Some perform better, some worse. If we're planning for the future, we have to keep this in mind and not place unrealistic expectations on the quality of players yet to play a game. Now there do seem to be a few talls around, so i'm not against taking one of them if they're available at 11. But if they are gone I would hate for us to chase a player who might otherwise go at 20 and overlook a good midfielder.

I'm not saying he's no good, all i'm saying is we don't know yet. As far as i'm concerned they're the equivelant of draftess this year. In my view directing our draft selections away from a certain type because of players who havn't even played yet is irresponsible. I do have high hopes for Blease and Strauss, but I am realistic about the likelyhood of both being 200 game players. As for Strauss, I had my eyes on McKernan here, and I would have taken Swift. But I understand these players have their drawbacks so i'll give BP the benefit of the doubt and trust that having a skilled user of the ball is a higher priority than a ruckman. Still hurts a bit that we avoided Swift because of injury concerns, only to pick Strauss who was injured for his first year while swift played and by all reports played well. Very early days though.

I like your optimism, but I wouldn't have them as certainties to make it at AFL level. Picks 17 & 19 end up being decent player's about half the time and I have seen nothing from either of them to suggest they will be any different. If anything Strauss has been dissapointing, judging him on one injury interrupted year might be a bit unfair, but better than judging his highlights.

I'd take him. My GF loves him (WC supporter). This would go a long way in my so far unsuccessful campaign to lure her to the greatest team on the planet.