RalphiusMaximus

I would love to have him at the club assuming they thought his knees would hold up. The kid is an awesome talent.

I was under the impression that Melbourne were looking to establish ties with China and maybe look for recruits in that direction. Has that notion been discarded somewhere?

Bombers are notoriously bad traders, always asking way over the odds for their players. The flip side of this is that we don't have to agree to what they ask. He's still well and truly worth making an offer on.

New draftee contracts are all set by the AFL. The top picks I think get slightly more money, but the conditions are basically the same across the board.

If GC bid their no. 2 pick on Viney and we let them have him, then that pick is locked. From that point on they are unable to use it for anything other than taking JV in the draft. They can't trade it, bid with it on another FS candidate or offer it in the mini-draft bidding. If we are forced to cough up our pick 3 for him, the same would then apply to us.

I am truly impressed with how badly the AFL have done this year. NicNat as first ruck over guys like Cox, Jacobs and Mumford? Cox in the forward line and Pavlich left out all together? Genius.

But what about the one that was? NicNat got the slightest touch on the face while being monstered by Jolly and was immediately given a free in front of goal. While there was certainly contact to the face, it was the slightest brush across his cheek. Paying crap like that is one of the things ruining the game for supporters.

I agree that GWS will not bid on Viney. GC are another matter. They are playing silly buggers in their comments to the press saying that they need a good inside mid and Viney is the best in the draft, but there could be some truth in it. If they are truly looking to draft for type with their pick 2 they could very well make a legitimate bid on him. It would in that case be a win/win for them. They either get the best inside mid in the draft or they force our hand and reduce the number of live picks ahead of their second pick in the draft. The real question is are they really thinking that way or is it all just silly buggers before draft/trade time?

At the AFLs discretion? Sounds a lot like the priority pick rule to me. No transparency in the system, just rewarding whoever they want to reward. I have a sneaking suspicion that we will be underpaid for our players this time around; The AFL has to be aware that they gave us over the odds for Scully, especially in comparison to what other clubs were given. I would expect a bit of a square-up this time around.

OK, on October 8th at roughly 10am, the FS bidding will take place. What happens is that each player nominated will be "Auctioned" off to the clubs, who will be offered the opportunity to bid in draft order (ie GWS, GC, Melb, WB etc). Once all clubs have been offered a chance to bid on the player, the nominating club (in JV's case, us) will be asked if they wish to match the highest bid. If they do, they are required to commit their next available pick after the bid to that player. This pick is now removed from all future transactions. It can't be traded, used to bid on other FS prospects or used to draft another player. In our case, our great concern is that when bidding starts on Jack Viney, GWS will pass (as they would be risking Whitfield and we'd let them have Jack at pick one in a heartbeat), and then GC will bid pick 2 on him. This would require us to commit our third pick to Jack, thus preventing us from using it to trade or draft later on or concede and allow GC to have him, in which case their no.2 pick is now off the table in all future transactions. Our ideal scenario is that GC decide that it's too big a risk and they need to keep their no. 2 pick for the draft (or to trade for Tippett) and Viney goes on to later picks. In this case, we would certainly see another club put in a token first round bid on him, and we would be forced to commit our second round pick to drafting him. There is virtually no chance that no club would bid a first round pick on him, but in theory if none did and GWS and GC failed to use their second round picks, he could slip further.

As far as I know any player who leaves his club through FA scores them a compo pick, unless they bring in a free agent of roughly equal merit. Chances are that we won't see anything for Beamer because we are looking at bringing FAs into the club and they will be considered fair compensation for his loss.

Assuming you mean that we've used pick 3 on Viney, I don't see how that changes anything since we still won't have pick three to offer them, and our pick 4 will still beat pick 5.

Why do people think we can trade Jurrah? The guy has walked. He has no trade potential at all. If PA want him, he's there's for the taking in the Pre-season or Rookie drafts. Also, why is everyone hell-bent on giving away pick 3 in the mini-draft? Pick 4 has exactly the same value and then we have a pick ahead of GWS instead of behind. Seems obvious to me. The only club with a pick that can beat 4 is GC, so anyone else who wants into the Mini-draft will have to offer their first round pick plus a player, in which case they would beat us whichever pick we offered.

The logic is flawed. I may be wrong in this, but I am under the impression that it's not up to GWS to decide who they trade the Mini-draft picks to, but rather the picks go to whoever makes the best offer, therefore pick 4 trumps anyone but Gold Coast unless they throw in players.

The fun part about this is that it's directly opposed to what the rules actually say. If the player has prior opportunity and the ball is knocked out of his hands in the tackle, it's holding the ball. The official "interpretations" are simply ways for the AFL powers that be to change rules without going through the proper process of the rules committee.

Folks, you do know we have a very good source on these forums for Garland-related news right? I'm sure he can tell us whether Col wants to move on or not.

I rather like the Goodes comment above. It would be pretty sweet to see him play that sort of role for us, but I don't think it will happen. Most likely he will keep going in the backline and pinch-hit as a forward on the odd ocasion.

Thanks for the clarification. The earlier post seemed to be saying you thought that JV would be taken in the 17yo draft, which is of course impossible. Re Jurrah, I don't think anyone has ever doubted his skills, but he always looked lazy on the field and was lacking size and strength, and this is where the doubts came from over him as a player. Also, the way he handled his departure from the club was shameful, which kind of ruins the happy memories.

Funny thing. A bombers guy on Bigfooty thought it would be a bargain in their favour. Every club has their whipping boys.

Story with all the results. Garland 6th, Howie came 7th, Trengove 8th, Frawley 9th and Dunn 10th (won't that upset some people!). Interesting to look at the top 22 in the list. Might almost be our best side.

Jordie!

The fact that trade week happens after the FS bidding is done?

Obviously I've been a big supporter of the club making a move on Gumby. I think if we can keep him fit he'd be a huge bonus and a big help to Mitch up forward. If we could snare him with a later pick then it would be a huge bonus. I wouldn't want to give too much up for him though. I saw on Bigfooty that someone suggested a swap for Petterd. I would probably be happy with that, although it would be better with a pick thrown our way as well.

Honestly, the article in the age is nothing but a collection of the latest set of draft rumours and speculations. There isn't anything new or interesting in there. On the Viney front, I would dearly love to get him with a second round pick, but if we are forced to take the best inside mid in the draft with (effectively) pick 4, I can live with that. We still get a shot at another bloody good player in the top 5 as well as a spare mid 1st round pick. That's a pretty decent draft for us provided we don't screw it up.

It increases their trade value. That's something.