RalphiusMaximus

100% agree. A new coach who takes a different approach and gives him a clear idea of what he has to do in the team will work wonders for him. It would help if he knew what position they want him to play too.

I am absolutely hoping GWS goes down in flames. It's a bloody stupid plan which seems to be built on the fact that this is the single worst place in Australia to put an AFL team. Seriously, you have a large migrant population who follow two massive international sports in Rugby and Football (the other sort), and somehow the AFL expect to be able to break their marked dominance by planting an expansion team in Blacktown and letting a bunch of overcashed kids loose on the city? Idiotic! To add to the idiocy, the reason they didn't put the team in Tasmania is that there is no competition for the AFL there!. It's a guaranteed success, so they figure there is less to gain if they move there. Really, why move a team into a location where you have virtually the entire population ready to support them when you can plant them in a place that already has two major sports taking up the entire supporter pool in the hoes that you might make some converts?

As I said to you a couple of pages ago, it started around last October with idle speculation about the sort of contracts players might get and grew from there.

Would you turn down a few hundred thousand dollars to spite some people you don't even know? Damn I hope he would

Anyone ever consider that this is why they are targeting 20 year olds? Older players, having a little more life experience, a little more idea of how their career and contracts are going to go and perhaps a broader perspective, will look at GWS and see a train wreck and possibly the end of their career. The best of them will refuse to go, and the ones who will take the money are those who have few prospects of success and financial reward at their own club. This being the case they target kids who are more likely to be dazzled by the big shiny dollar signs and the promises of quick glory that sensible people can see through.

I have no idea, I believe that nobody but Tom and his managers and maybe the list managers at GWS and Melbourne have any idea, I believe that the journo's have all been making it up and feeding of each others articles all year, and I hope that Tom stays with us. I also like poking the people who are absolutely convinced that he signed last October and has been stringing us along to make Melbourne pay for his knee surgery or whatever.

I've been thinking about that. If a player wanted to be a little conniving, he could take the GWS offer this year, cash in on the massively front-ended contract (say 1.5 mil in the first year?) and after a year or so come up with homesickness, illness in the family or whatever and ask to be traded back to their home state (lets say Victoria). Any club taking them would have to honour their contract, but that's not an issue because it was so heavily front ended that they are only going to be getting 300k or so for the next three years. Obviously GWS would be in their rights to refuse to trade such a player, but it would be terrible publicity for them and they may find themselves having to delist them and pay out the contract anyway when their form drops and they show discipline issues. Sound like a winner?

I think you're missing something here RR. There is a phenomenon observable in many locations where people interact, including this site and remarkably enough in the media, where people wishing to sound authoritative give their opinion in the form of a definitive statement. Things like "there is no way in hell that that horse can win," "it'll never fly," or indeed "he's gone." They do this so that people will assume that they have definitive information on the subject, whereas a statement such as "in my opinion he is gone" gives much more reason to doubt and admits the possibility of being wrong, despite being far more accurate. In this case we have your quote "Don't be so naive he got the offer last October" which we see has been couched as a statement of fact. This comment has come from someone with no direct connection to the events. We have also been given comments from many people who are directly involved with the events in question, such as SOS in the newspapers today "We've basically done our pitch, so it's up to him now," and indeed Scully himself who has repeatedly told us that he has not made a deal and will decide once the season is over. Given the information provided by people in a position to know, I feel it is a very safe assumption that the Ox was making use of the above tactic and trying to make his opinion sound more like fact than was actually the case. RF, I refer to the bolded section of your comment. If you actually look back almost a year you will find that the figure mentioned in relation to Scully going to GWS began as speculation by some media figures on who might be going and what they could be worth. People with experience in the industry are able to come up with quite accurate estimates on the sort of contract which could be offered with very little actual information. We then saw a rapid escalation as other media figures saw this speculation and latched on to it as a good story, running with the figures presented to them in the absence of any real information. As more journalists repeated these figures, they became enshrined as fact and over the last few months it has become accepted that they are in fact the terms being offered. We now have a second hand report on Tom Scully's comments on this matter, stating that the figures are entirely inaccurate. Knowing the origin of the figures, I am inclined to believe this report, but it is entirely up to you and others whether you will do the same Firstly, I'll thank you for so clearly illustrating my point in replying to RR above. Secondly, I personally do not believe that he has signed anything as of today. All comments to which I have access from people who might know the situation agree on this fact. Obviously nobody can say whether he has already made up his mind or not since we don't have access to Tom's mind. I will say that I believe the delay works in our favour. If he had a specific reason for leaving the club (such as dissatisfaction with the board, the coaching, the sacking of Junior or any of the other rumours we've seen), then he would have walked already. Likewise, if the GWS offer was such that no rational person could refuse, he would have taken it already. The longer it drags out, the more it looks to me that he is undecided and unconvinced. If GWS can't convince him to leave us, then he will stay (yes, I have just stated an opinion as fact). I hold out hope and I truly believe that the longer this drags on the better the result will be. Take all the time you need Tom.

Awesome! Can we all stop talking about it until an announcement is made?

Funny, I stopped reading there as well. Got a bit bogged down in misty-eyed reminiscences of bygone teams and how mighty the jumper once was.

So a guy who has absolutely no information other than what he has read from other sports journalists and in all likelihood has never even met Tom Scully has just come out on radio and announced his belief that TS has been lying the whole time and that both he and the club are engaging in a face-saving exercise right now by pretending that he is still making up his mind? Man, I really wish these hacks would man up and say this crap to Tom's face instead of hiding behind their microphones. Is it so hard to believe that he told his manager not to bring him any contracts until his season was over and that they would talk about it then?

No thanks. They took a hell of a lot of kids, and like every draft some of them turn out to be duds. I see no need to take a punt on a kid who has already had a shot at AFL and failed. Let them play a few years in second tier competitions and show something special before we think about them again.

I can't see a place for any Melbourne players in the squad. We've been pretty ordinary across the board this year.

I like it.

I have to remind everyone of what Warnock did to Barry Hall last year. 11 disposals, 1 mark, 1 behind, no goals. Hall kicked 80 goals that year. Warnock dominated him all over the ground, outmuscled him in marking contests, outsprinted him up the ground and introduced his face to the turf at least once. That is what he is capable of doing to the big forwards, and for some reason DB decided to shelve him and go with the younger backs all year instead. We desperately needed his size and strength against the Eagles and Pies in particular, and could have used him to shut out Hall again this year instead of letting him have his way with Frawley. Personally, I think there will be a lot of interest in him during trade week and I'll be very interested to see where he ends up going. Wherever it is, I hope he gets the gametime he deserves and gets a chance to show DB and the rest of his detractors exactly how good he can be.

I know I don't understand the formula being used, but how does JT make up those points when he didn't poll a single BOG this week and didn't get a vote at all from many of the judges? Seems a little far-fetched to me.

Post more please. We need people who let reality in every now and then to balance the hair pulling, frothing at the mouth, the world is ending types who so often derail sensible discussions.

Two posts before yours dude.

They take bets on who will coach us next season. There has been a drastic run of bets on Ross Lyon, shortening him from 9-1 down to 2-1 for the job in under a day. As such they have decided that there may be something fishy going on (such as news leaking early) and have stopped taking bets until they have looked into it. Funny thing, they close the book when they think they stand to loose a lot of money because everyone is backing the same person. They never close the book when they think they're going to make a lot of money though. That hardly seems fair.

lol. Maybe they'll offer us an inside midfielder... McLean perhaps?

He was very good yesterday, the first half in particular. If it weren't the end of the season he certainly would have earned another game. I'll be interested to see if he stays with us.

Realistically, if he's going we'll hear about it sooner. The longer it takes from here for an announcement the better for us as it means he's negotiating with the club. If he's decided to take the deal he'll make the announcement and go.

Wow. I hadn't realised he was that old already. I guess we can rule him out then.

Interestingly, Chance Bateman is in a similar boat at the Hawks. He's struggling to get a game and could find himself out of the finals team given the form of some of the youngsters. What are the chances (pun intended) that we could do a straight swap?

I predict that if we start at 0-4 or 0-5 next year the following events will occur: People will be screaming for the heads of Morton, Jones and Bennell (assuming they are still at the club). They will also say Josh Mahony has to go because our forwards lack structure and leadership (once again assuming he is still around) There will be at least one person on these boards declare that they are sick of the heartbreak and are never going to another Melbourne game again. {*}The theme of "we should have taken Martin/Cotchin/Rioli will be revised. I feel very safe in my predictions.