RalphiusMaximus

I was just really interested to hear what a current draftee has to say. Not disappointed in the least in what you got from him. Great job.

???

That's just what I was thinking. Also, if it's 7Mil for 9 years then it's well below what the Hawks are offering.

How quickly can the "Bloods" culture disintegrate now that Roos is gone?

He's a little young for Chelsea though.

Hand wringing is rarely a sign of celebration. It is more generally used to indicate angst. Hence the entirely understandable interpretation that you were talking about not understanding why people are upset over this.

Lots of people talking about pick 2 coming into play. I'm not sure we'd go there, although the ones with us getting pick 6 back could almost work.

There won't be any movement on the Cost of living allowance in Sydney. The AFL need them to be a highly successful club. They can't afford to have a Sydney-based club at the bottom of the ladder given their tenuous market share there. If Sydney turn into a flop they will lose their audience very rapidly to the other codes.

http://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/2013-10-01/we-had-to-get-roos-dawes Very interesting chat with Chris. Damn he's well-spoken.

GWS aren't getting screwed. They now have a couple of million dollars to use elsewhere and pick 1 to use on Boyd. I'd say that's a better position than if they had scored Buddy on that money.

I have no objection to giving pick 2 to the Pies if they want to trade for it. Not for Shaw though. Pendlebury would do the trick I would think. I do like in the Mahony interview he has said that they have identified a few players in the league who they rate as being worth pick 2 and are going to see if anyone bites. Sounds like they have their limits pretty well set and aren't going to jump at the first offer being thrown at them.

Nate is contracted and the best player at our club. No way in hell will we look to trade him, and he doesn't have the option of walking until his contract ends. Even then I can't see him wanting out. He's fought for this club from the moment he walked through the doors.

Did really well in the agility tests at the combine and has shown that he can play. We could do worse, but as has been mentioned, would probably want to go to a WA-based side.

And still you will not back up your case. To quote an interesting little article: Of course, this is referring to the ability to produce verifiable facts to back up your stance and provide weight to your opinion. This is something that I have repeatedly asked you to do, to no avail. As such, I can only assume an uninformed opinion on your part. There is also a recent article dealing with strongly held but uninformed opinions which you may find interesting.

So he was drafted as a forward/mid. They have played him consistently as a forward and kept him out of their already stacked midfield.

And I singled out Milne who was the best goalscoring option for the saints in the drawn GF and it's replay and but for an errant bounce would have kicked the winning goal in the first match. I can add Mark Williams to this who was top goal scorer in Hawthorns GF win. Carlton's 2011 win over Essendon in the qualifying final where Betts kicked 4 and Garlett three, we'd have to count that. We could also go to the Port Adelaide premiership where 11 of their 17 goals came from their small forwards. Once again, you have simply stated your opinion as a fact and assumed that people will agree with you without thought or scrutiny. Your response to my requests for ANY evidence to back up your claim is that I should go through the statistics for every final for the last ten years to disprove your unsupported claim. How about you do the legwork to actually come up with a valid case to support your opinion instead of endlessly repeating unsubstantiated claims? As for your semantic crap about who is and isn't a specialist forward or who counts as a small forward, all I can say to that is it sounds like a desperate attempt to remove players from consideration in case they disprove your point.

I was not aware that they weren't being counted. Interesting.

How does it prove your point? That I am unable to find Norm Smith counts for most of those years? The absence of evidence for one side does not prove the case for the other. You have consistently failed to provide any actual evidence to back up you opinion and simply resorted to stating it over and over again as fact. At least try to make an effort here. Give me figures. Give me something other than the statement that "in big games consistently let you down." You need to be able to back it up. I'll also point out that but for a nasty off-break, Milne would have kicked the winning goal against the pies with seconds left on the clock in the drawn GF. As it was he was equal highest goal-scorer on the ground in both that game and the replay. I will also address the following: Firstly, LeCras is indeed a specialist forward. The fact that many of his goals come from marks is irrelevant. Also irrelevant is the fact that Brad Johnson was the primary scoring avenue for the dogs. The fact that they were able to make finals repeatedly with a small forward being the focus of their attack is if anything justification for my stance. He was clearly able to impact contests both during the home and away season and in finals. Returning to my earlier posts, the figures I am presenting show that a small forward who is able to kick 50 or so goals in a season is not at all unusual or unattainable. I have listed a number of examples over the last decade. They need not be one-dimensional players as some seem to be suggesting. To claim that the only possible way to fill this role is to have genuine midfielders who can rotate through the forward line is at best a simplistic view. We are going to see again this year that the successful teams provide a mix of doctrines. Fremantle is very likely to play in the GF given their home prelim and they are playing a specialist small forward/tagger who's job is to negate attacking defenders and has still managed to kick 33 goals. Tell me he shouldn't be in their side. How about Luke Breust with 38 goals this year? What is he if not a specialist forward? Meanwhile Geelong and Sydney are more prone to the "midfielder first" mentality and rotate many players through as they need.

Not a chance. First of all he won't be rated that highly and secondly we will no doubt be taking at least one FA ourselves, so the compo will be diluted. Most likely if we take Cross and Sylvia walks it will be seen as an even swap.

2012 - Milne was 8th in the coleman. Betts was 10th. 2011 - Milne was 5th. Betts was 9th. Garlett 11th 2010 - LeCras 4th, Milne 7th (Brad Green 8th) 2009 - LeCras 5th 2008 - Milne 9th, Motlop 10th 2007 - Brad Johnson 7th, Ebert 10th 2006 - Johnson 3rd, Williams 9th, Farmer 12th (55 goals) 2005 - Williams 6th, Milne 7th 2004 - Matera 9th 2003 - Matera 6th, N. Brown 8th 2002 - N Brown 3rd, Milne 8th. Far enough back you think? I'm struggling to find Norm Smith vote counts going back for a decade. Perhaps you can provide them for us?

Did I ever claim that we don't need mids? It's pretty much a self-evident truth that we need to get the best quality mids we can this year, but that isn't what this thread is about. I simply stated that I disagree with people claiming that the specialist small forward has no place in today's game. A good small forward would improve our forward line without a doubt, and there are a few out there who we could certainly use. Some of them could even work up to being handy midfield pinch-hitters as well.

Milne for one. Eddie Betts. Rioli, although they play him in the middle from time to time isn't really a mid. Lecras isn't so much a crumber, but is a permanent small forward. Jake King has been filling that role at Richmond, although he's more a defensive forward than a goalscorer. Balantyne at Freo. I don't deny that some clubs do like to use mids in that role and simply rotate them, but there are plenty of specialist small forwards out there who are doing just fine at their clubs. They give plenty of value.

Disagree. There is always room for a small forward who can snare 50-odd goals a year and apply defensive pressure.

I've mentioned this before, but the Saints have a rookie named Minchington who could fit the bill. He's had a couple of games with them this year and certainly didn't disgrace himself. He's quick, hard working and can kick a goal. Probably not he best talent, but he will never give anything but 100% and you know he'll do everything humanly possible to succeed. We could do worse than to ask after him. Edit: Here he is

He's not contracted but does not qualify as FA, therefore we'd need to get a deal done or else draft him when he walks. I can't see a realistic deal we could make that would not be paying overs for him, although Richmond have made a habit of picking up our discards lately.