sue

but he didn't use it correctly so maybe he did write it.

There's a reason to barrack for Fro in the occasional game.

Bell's sentence: "As such, we have informed Melbourne and Jesse's management that we will not be continuing further with the due diligence process." has amateur pomposity written all over it.

Where there is uncertainty over who is the designated ruckman, the ruckman for each team will still be required to nominate to the field umpire. Presumably they mean uncertainty in the umpire's mind. So players will now have to read umpire's minds now in order to know they need to nominate. Appalling they haven't fixed the contact below the knees rubbish. The new 50m play-on rule sounds like madness. The penalty is often too big already. If the player receiving the 50m wants to get to his new mark quickly the main impediment is the speed of the umpire running backwards. Will he be allowed to overtake the umpire? Will that be the moment he calls play-on? Will the oppos running alongside the player getting the 50m have to stay 10 metres away I wonder? Has the AFL thought out the details?

"They haven't spoken to us about anything that entertains us at all about doing a deal." Rather mangled use by Josh of the word 'entertains'. If he had said that Freo had said something to entertain us (with helpless laughter) he would have been closer to the mark.

While I suspect you are broadly correct in that a player wouldn't do a medical without serious interest in moving, things may be far off being set in concrete on either side at that stage. A club may well wish to do the medical before being too definite about terms since they may wish to make a smaller offer if the player has some potentially limiting condition. That said, the broad terms could be agreed with sufficient escape clauses if the medical discovered issues. On the other hand I could imagine a vaguely interested player (who is tossing up options in his mind) being induced to do the medical with just arm waving vague offers from the club to 'look after' him. If you are going to inspect facilities/get a feel for a remote place, you might as well do the medical at the same time. While I suspect a good manager wouldn't allow that, I could easily imagine a player wanting to do it. BTW, did Trenners have a firm offer before he met the Richmond docs?

I doubt Jesse would be insulted by Freo making low offers. I'm sure they'd be telling him it's just their opening gambit and we love you. Of course they may find it is their final offer if MFC walk away.

Where and by whom was that stated?

Re your questions: I'm just guessing....: 1. Keen because we'd rather lose him now than in a year 2. We don't know they aren't enraptured. They may just be very odd negotiators. 3. Maybe WCE are or would like to be but I understood they had nothing to trade now.

BB you keep hinting that there is a secret big cross against JH, but at the moment the only evidence of it is Freo's weak offer. Until someone produces some more evidence, I'll just assume Freo are just waiting till next year.

Too late. There has been a lot of pre-emptive whingeing already.

So much confidence in Weed..... I just hope he lives up to it because so far he has just shown a glimmer.

Without wishing to agree with olisik, playing that 'what if' game is not useful. That could be said for any trade and there would be no point in having these discussions at all.

Come on, isn't it more likely that they are being asked to make a final decision on a deal which is out of the ordinary.

Well that's good news if he stays at the MFC. Does Freo use the Richmond docs though?...

But surely the bold bit above is entirely consistent with what I postulated. I don't see how your next sentence follows from that. The story I postulated seems to be complete and self-consistent to me. So I won't defer to your nose smelling something fishy for the moment. Let's see what happens.....

What is it that has happened or is about JH that causes that doubt OD? His behaviour, injury? If so, I'm far from convinced about what has been said about the latter (even though I have expressed concerns about his attitude from time to time). And as for injury, we would be just guessing. Or is it something else that concerns you?

It is entirely possible the MFC did have burning desire to keep JH, but when it became clear he would not extend his contract, that desire was tempered by the possible gains in trading him now rather than being almost forced to in a year. If I was a gambler, that's were I'd put my money.

A "tele-prompter error" reminds me of the old "computer error" excuse. I am impressed that AI has now got so advanced in tele-prompters that the device is deducing the news in advance of it happening.

You don't have to name names. You can at least state something like "from someone my mate's girlfriend knows at the club" and we can give it the weight we think it deserves. But if you just state "Hogan is now talking to WCE" we have no way of knowing if it is just an idle thought, a troll or based on fact. So it's just a waste of space and 300 fodder. Of course if a poster has a good reputation for getting it right in the past, then bald statements are more acceptable. But that is rare and most of us don't keep a league table of who got it right in the past.

Fair enough, but how about stating your source and what level of credibility you give them when posting. I'm sick of posts which make some bold assertion without giving me any background to enable me to judge its reliability.

But how will we get to 300 now!

That is ridiculous. For all we know JH has made his position clear and the delays which are causing us to head to the magic 300 (having passed the miraculous 200) have nothing to do with him.

I expect the MFC are mentioning those precedents to Freo. Ignore the media chatter.

Ha ha. Some things can clearly be only a matter of opinion since in this case the only proof is for those posts to be banned and then see how long it takes to get to 300. Meanwhile in a parallel universe we can continue with assertions like: "Hogan doesn't think the Freo wage offer is large enough". And compare the two threads.