Fat Tony

Scott Selwood would be a great get but he is contracted for two more years and I wouldn't be that keen to part with pick 2. I could live with #2 and #20 for Selwood and #10.

If we land Roos its hard not to see us getting priority pick 1 or thereabouts.

Surely better to keep Clisby on the Rookie list another year if possible. And Bail is contracted.

Well done on Rodan getting the best out of himself and he was a reasonable value pick up, but why the hell was he on a two-year deal?

One year would be plenty.

IMO our players are close to as fit as they can possibly be. They just aren’t good enough. But I didn’t think fitness was a key problem pre-Misson either (and I think that fitness staff are way overpaid). In saying this, I hope that our 2013/14 program focuses more on power and speed and less on endurance.

The cap should be 30. While the skills are better today, the game was better when players played in their positions.

I would love to see your reaction if Demonland put Dunn on the banner.

This thread is pathetic. Dunn will be top five in our B&F this year. Against Adelaide Dunn had our most disposals (24 at 79% efficiency) and our most Supercoach points (129, 31 more than our next highest in Toumpas). The left foot pass was a bad error, but we made hundreds of mistakes over the course of the game. Dunn is no world beater and we need to find better players in coming drafts, but he is clearly in our best side at the moment and is playing his role.

I don't hate the idea of Prismall, but he was at Essendon last year.

Cain and Scipione will both probably be picked up. Cain has great skills and will adapt to the pace of AFL. He has had a great year, winning a lot of the ball and would be a step up on Matt Jones IMO. Scipione has kicked a lot of goals this year and is one sided (left) and doesn't look as natural as Cain. I think Scipione is a bit younger though. Danny Hughes (ex demon) also looks to have AFL qualities and plays a bit like Jeremy Howe. He hasn't had a great year and is possibly too old, but you can definitely see why he was on our list.

There are much better alternatives IMO. Craig is too defensive and lacks imagination. I would prefer to see us play kids, have a crack and get flogged than play two players behind the ball.

Big money offer via the PSD would be perfect.

But no quality mid would want to come to us. It is Watts, or pick ~#10-15, or fringe players like Robinson and Bell. I also think you are underrating his potential improvement.

Keep. He is improving gradually every year and doesn't have great currency in terms of a trade. Losing another senior player would also be terrible for the morale of the club.

Firstly, I like the fact that Jack Watts was honest. If he was going to stay he would have signed by now or be well advanced in talks, so he didn’t tell us anything we don’t already know. Jack is weighing up his future and he has every right to do so. I still think Watts is a good chance to stay if we can appoint a ‘profile’ coach in the near term. While Jack’s manager is probably advocating a move, I think he is likely to be offered ~$100K per season more at MFC than anywhere else. Moreover, I hope he stays as I cannot see us winning in any trade. I think he will play his best footy as he gets stronger and nobody wants to come to MFC, so the best return is likely to be a draft pick ~#10. Lastly, the anger of MFC supporters should not be directed at Jack if he goes, who, like the rest of us, has been badly let down by the club’s board and previous management, chiefly Schwab, Neeld and Prendegast.

I don’t like the prospect of paying an exuberant wage for a senior coach – even one with a record as strong as Roos – given we are cash constrained and could use the money to either bolster our recruiting department and/or pay 100% of the salary cap. I also feel we must to go down the youth route again, solely because we are the least desirable AFL club to play for at present. This means we have to highly overpay players to get them to agree to come over and we don’t really win out of such trade unless we can get the player to agree to come through the PSD. The optionality of the draft should also not be ignored and we should be willing to back our new staff to select and develop well. Looking at our list, we are also likely to be a bottom club again next year regardless of our ability to attract players, which further backs the case to build a side Hogan, Watts, Toumpas, Viney and our early picks this year. Having a coach that is willing to go down this path and sell hope to such a plan is crucial in my mind and I am not sure Roos shares this philosophy. I also favour a more attacking coach, as it is better to watch and typically sides that win multiple flags have been more attacking.

A mini draft this year would not include the same calibre players as recent years unfortunately. This article has to be baseless. No trades will go ahead without a decision on the coach.

No doubt, but I was just making the point that not all great players are 'bull at a gate' like Todd Viney and Leigh Matthews.

Hird and Pendlebury both had/have similar lackadaisical styles, both favouring balance over the space that can be created from a burst of speed. However Hird and Pendlebury both fumble less, are both stronger and braver and have better decision making. In saying this, Watts is faster than both and should be using his pace.

I think Watts is 7-10kg shy of his ideal playing weight and that he will be one of those players that takes a long time to reach his zenith. His game on Saturday was just fair apart from his two great goals. He needs to be instructed to take off every time as soon as he gets the ball.

Frawley

I cannot see an established player worthy of pick #2 wanting to come to Melbourne at the moment. I think we need to go the youth route and build a team around Hogan, Viney, Watts and Toumpas. In saying that, generally the top few prospects in any draft are overrated (because it is unknown how they will adjust to AFL intensity) and clubs would be better of splitting high picks down the draft order. For instance #2 might be able to be split into #8 and #10. Given clubs have different orders of priority, this would potentially give us our sixth and eighth preferred player for the cost of our second priority. In this draft, where there is one ‘LeBron James pick’ (Tom Boyd) and a dozen or so high quality mids, this should be strongly considered.

My thoughts on Peter Jackson and the interview: Jackson was reasonably impressive in the interview and he has made some good/tough early calls. However, I would also say the key calls have been fairly easy/obvious (i.e. sacking Mark Neeld and asking the AFL for assistance). While I think it is all well and good for Jackson to rubbish the club’s culture and the previous administration at the beginning of his term, I would be disappointed to see it continue for much longer, as I think enough is enough and we need to move forward. Once the decision on the Priority Pick is announced, I hope we don’t hear words like ‘impediment’ come out of his mouth anymore. Jackson’s comments about our older leaders, where he was referring to McDonald, Bruce and Green, were spot on. I think he is largely wrong in apportioning significant blame for our current position on our player development. I think we have just drafted players without the talent to cut the mustard. For instance, I don’t believe the argument that Jack Watts and Colin Sylvia would be much better players at other clubs (although it might appear that way because they are playing in better teams). Conversely, I don’t think we would be here if we called Dangerfield, Darling, Martin and Naitanui in previous drafts. Jackson’s comments about Chris Connelly were fair, but I thought he could have been a bit more diplomatic in answering the question. My view is that we need to move on from the tanking episode with fresh people and he could have said that he “believes the best way to move forward was with a fresh start”. I am not as anti an untried coach as the majority. Given his comments, which have really locked us in, I hope we can get a first choice candidate (Roos, Williams or Eade) and we don’t need to go for a B grader in Ayres or Knights. Overall, I am more circumspect about Jackson’s appointment that the majority here on Demonland. So far Jackson has done a lot of potting of the previous administration (and mostly justified) and I want to see him give us a little more reason for hope/excitement going forward.

I am not tearing my hair out with Toumpas, but surely we are allowed to evaluate the success of our drafting, even early on.