Fat Tony

The whole free agency thing will be the death of us.

Although it is a poorly written article, Mark Robinson is really making the point that we need to be patient in our rebuild and I agree with him. It is difficult to know what to do with our pick #2 without knowing who we would intend to take if we use it, how good they are versus the broader AFL (not just the draft pool), if they may be available at a later pick and also without having a good understanding of the depth of the rest of the draft. If we plan to take Aish or Kelly, we need to estimate their value (be it Griffen or Gaff) and we should only trade if we get sufficient return. If we intend to draft someone who is likely to slide to a later pick, we should consider trading our pick down the draft. Overall, I doubt trading the pick will be a good move because we are such an unattractive destination at the moment and we will be rejected by players worthy of the pick. I also side with Robinson on the Vince trade because of his age and because I think pick #20 is overs.

I understand we need midfielders and believe Vince would add to our team, but we should not be going after fairly average 28 year olds that cost high draft picks and command a big salary for four years IMO.

Martin is chasing money and Richmond will not get his value in a trade. I think we will trade Martin and Richmond's first rounder for #2.

We are always better off going for someone out of contract, as we are then dealing with a forced seller. For this reason we are better of going for Adams and Martin ahead of Swallow and Sloane. We can always use pick 2.

The uncontracted player can choose to go into either draft (think Luke Ball and Kurt Tippett) or agree to a trade.

He is chasing money isn't he?

I reckon Martin is worth the risk on a big money, two-year deal via the PSD. While he is a great footballer, he isn’t worth pick #2 given his off field behaviour.

Despite the lack of success with our mature-age recruits last year, I am generally all for it as long as they are on one-year contracts. We should be looking at given a lifeline to players like Cross, Chapman, Tuck, Lovett-Murray and O'Hailpin because they will typically provide better output than a late draft pick and come at no cost. In saying that, I think Jolly is cooked and we would be better off getting games into Gawn and Spencer.

Byrnes was a mistake in two parts. Firstly, he reduced our compensation for Rivers and Moloney. Secondly, he was signed on two years.

Adams should be our primary target as he is out of contract and GWS will have to deal if he chooses MFC. A trade for Swallow should only be done if we believe we are long-term winners.

I think we chase Cross, but only on a one year deal and then reassess. We need to learn from the mistakes of Byrnes, Pederson and Rodan.

I think the player's club can force the player into the draft. We should be chasing Docherty with a PSD bonus.

Depends on the price (contract and trade), but at his age and likely value we are probably better off going for some younger midfielders or players in their 30s who we can acquire for nothing.

Tom Boyd

Poor clubs like us will be hurt most if they take away the compensation for free agents. We will become a gateway for other clubs to pick off our best talent. FWIW We should have delayed our request for a Priority Pick till the last minute.

We should be chasing both players but neither are worth pick 2.

Not all early picks are equal. We really need to nut out how good a prospect Aish (or whoever we rate at #2) is versus previous early picks to estimate its value.

Is he out of contract?

O'Keefe and Scarlett both considered leaving and were vital to premiership sides.

I really don’t think we want another KPF. IMO we could build our whole forward line around Hogan as the sole KPF if required. The kid is that good but will need space around him. Remember Freo has one foot in the Grand Final with Pavlich, Mayne and two gun crumbers as their permanent forwards. To your first question, I think even if Clark, Dawes etc are fit and firing, their trade value may not increase by as much as you think because a) the forward line is overcrowded and not working and/or b) our midfield is still likely to be weak. In saying all this, once we are at the draft table we must take the best available, which would be Boyd if we have #1. For this reason, we should aim to trade the pick as long as we can get fair value (even if #1 is split into other early picks because we cannot lure players).

I also think we should (hypothetically) trade the rights to Boyd but it really depends on if we can lure sufficient value players/midfielders away from their clubs. We haven't been able to do this recently without waving big money contracts, so I won't hold my breath.

I presume you meant Hogan rather than Franklin the second time. Buddy is a special player in that he is really a 200cm small forward and Roughead is very mobile also. I am not against taking Boyd if he is that good, but IMO we would need to trade out other players for midfielders for it to work.

Watching the Swans' performance on Friday night makes you question if a forward line of Dawes, Hogan and Clark will be too tall. I don't think you can take Boyd (if we can get him) without trading something out or playing Clark in the ruck.

Why don't you nip around to Neeldy's in the Delorean? Oh actually, he has no regrets.