sue

And its our fault he said that? Still building castles on scraps of information and the mis-information that is dribbled out by partiesas it suits their cause.

Still amazed how many posters are privy to so much inside information to form these black and white judgements.

Perhaps bold statements were part of negotiating. You usually start from a 'bold' position and accept a compromise (101). Frankly I am surprised how many on here know exactly what should have been done and when. We are so far from knowing what's what in all this, that I can't see how any of us can justify any position - particularly the strongly stated some hand-wring. Sure it's a forum so feel free to vent/praise, but I'm happy to admit I haven't a clue and I suspect no one else does either.

I could equally say that some people like wallowing in despair and miss no opportunity to moan and groan. Not changed 'one iota'? Really?

That is such a pessimistic view. We now have some up and coming players which we did not have before. We can all list their names compared to what went before. So to think we won't improve you have to assume that all the other clubs around us on the ladder also have the same potential for improvement. I see no reason to assume that so I will not wallow in pessimism thanks.

It constantly amazes me that some of us know more than a team of people who do this for a full-time job. That's not to say pros won't make mistakes. But the proof is in the pudding and we haven't yet see it before it goes into the oven, let alone get to taste it next season.

Well they will be beaten by better midfields which usually have depth as well. As you say we feel it when we have to rely on very poor players to fill holes. However, if we can replace them with decent 'fringe' players we will win more matches. These days you can't cover for a couple of very poor mid-fielders. Even if our best mid-fielders were star-like, this would still be true. Until we can attract/develop some A graders, we have to start winning more and building depth is needed for that. Rome was not built in a day.

Amusing to reflect on how much positivity is expressed when we nominate 18 year-old "Johnny Hasn't-Played-an-AFL-game" as an early pick in the lottery of the draft, yet how much negativity is being expressed about this bloke. Let's wait and see.

On the WADA issue, I'm presuming the AFL have told clubs of a policy to ameliorate the risk of trading with EFC. I don't think they have any corporate governance reason to make it public, though perhaps it is surprising there have been no leaks. Still there will be some risk, and whether it is ameliorated by that, clauses in contracts or whatever, or the likely length of a ban, I think we have to trust that the club has its head around all that better than us - we are not privy to the facts.

never saw a game more in need of clash jumpers

Bad example. As much as we love Jones, and especially 5 years ago, he is not a 'big fish'. By definition your 90% of players are not 'big fish', so them not changing clubs is not relevant to the equalization issue.

Your first sentence just emphasises why those players will go to top clubs and why those clubs will pay for them. Your second is confusing - if many players changed clubs each year it would not be 'picking the eyes'. So I don't understand your point. Perhaps I have confused you by implying that these players were rendered blind and thus somewhat hampered marking the ball......

So many posters are so keen on self-flaggelation that they miss the point. Sure we have been hopeless, but are the other non-top teams also hopeless? Clearly if top clubs can keep picking the eyes out of players developed at lowly clubs, equalization will not occur, even if occasionally a team likes ours appears to do well in the trade. Will we still be smiling about getting Brayshaw for Frawley when Brayshaw is poached by a top club in a few years and we have to replace him with another draft gamble?

There is an implication that some people may actually pay for these tickets?!?? Restore my faith in humanity and tell me it's not true.

Often it is just the first quarter.

If we played about 500 games a year these stats, in the absence of other information, might really mean something rather than just provide entertaining conjectures.

Actually without making that clear, the impact of Hogan's remark is pretty much lost on those who were not aware.

agree - too many kicks to oppo's advantage and handballs that didn't quite hit the target - there must be other reasons why Petracca is rated so highly. I'm always suspicious of these clips but you'd expect them to make a player look better than he really is usually.

The argument has no real merit. Under your reasoning the only club which would ever 'deserve' a PP is one where half the players were killed in a airplane accident. (Even then someone would argue the club's at fault - they should have gone by bus.) In all other cases, if you are crap, it is because you had some form of bad management. Therefore it would be argued they don't deserve a PP. There is a whiff of the Victorian-era attitude about only helping what they saw as the deserving poor.

My position on Watts is now very simple - if we get Roos and Roos says Watts is required. He is. I don't care how weak or uncommitted is is.

Fair enough BB. My intent was to critique the OP's bald statement, which if accepted would say lack of commitment is sufficient to trade someone as good as Buddy. I think you'd agree that it is not sufficient, though one would prefer star player with commitment. I agree with what you say about about relative leverage of course.

True, but you miss my point. The OP said : He has said he doesn't know if he wants to play for the club. That's enough for me to want to get a decent trade going and forget about player attachment. I said there may be lots of reasons to trade someone (as you believe applies in Watts' case), but the above is not sufficient to want to trade someone, eg. Buddy.

I think the reverse. There may be all sorts of reasons for wanting to trade Watts, but I don't think this is one of them. Few players have any loyalty to a club these days. Would Hawthorn supporters say trade Buddy for no other reason than he hasn't fully committed to the club? (No, I'm not saying Watts is as valuable as Buddy, just saying there are more important reasons to trade/retain than commitment these days. Also not saying the way Watts spoke reflected well on him.)

How predictable. You and another poster or two miss my point. I don't like threads about drafting Cloke, so I don't read them. But I know what they are about because they (usually) have a meaningful title. What about starting a thread entitled "Not the Not Tom $cully Thread" - we could put all sorts of meaningful stuff in there. Ah well, back to ignoring this thread for me. I guess I'll just have to die wondering if there was something interesting in here to read. Bye.

I expect those who read and post in this thread enjoy it, but perhaps there are many like me who don't read it because it no longer has a clear purpose and title. As a result many of us will be missing out on whatever pearls of wisdom are posted. The thread was created as a reaction to the endless discussion of $cully on other threads. That has dwindled to a trickle calculating how many thousands of dollars he is getting per kick (snigger). So at he risk of having my head kicked in, and hear the obvious responses of "ignore it if you don't like it" etc., can I suggest perhaps it is time to close the thread?