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If this is the case then things look ominous for Meesen's career. I would have thought Bell before Meesen. btw where have you heard this? You're not just going by one of the other threads are you?

I agree, Meesen will probably be needed at some stage. In any case I'm not sure of the point of putting Meesen on the rookie list, this is the year that we finally see what he can offer for the long term. Bell or Newton on the other hand are another story IMO.

I wonder what that actually means. If by the fact that Ball's manager has not publicaly stated that Melbourne is off the table then I agree otherwise it is a long bow at this point IMO. I understand where you are coming from, you are kind of saying that boxing a person in can change the way they think. "If you have them by the balls their hearts and minds will follow" mentality. The only problem with that is that no matter what Bailey says, the situation will not change with who Ball ultimately wants to play with. If he prefers to stay with St.Kilda then he will, what are his other realistic options? It is a cliche, but it is still an important message to get across. Firstly it reinforces the type of players we are trying to mold down at the club. Secondly it also sends a message to Ball that we will not play out the desperate club routine, we have priorities like any club - something that should be respected. Ball and his manager aren't so naive that if we try and box them in that they will just relent. The other factor is that by pursuing Ball at every length it possibly only serves to give him greater currency which is what he wants with a St.Kilda contract in mind. By not pursuing him at all lengths we may possibly be helping our chances of getting him: 1) not trying to corner him and 2) St.Kilda may not have to offer such a great contract to keep him. There is more than one way to go about this. I subscribe to your POV only if the ND was in play but I doubt he'll go into the ND anyway and the club have stated a similar opinion.

This probably has no baring what so ever with our situation but the Adelaide Crows have launched their new guernseys with Reebok - the contract finishes at the end of 2012. Seems a bit odd as Adidas (their previous sponsor) likes the big profile clubs but then again Adidas own Reebok anyway. With a darker, more traditional guernsey you'd think that whoever we get would be happy as their logo would stand out more. I've read comments that our contract with Reebok expires so hopefully the new guernsey lands a big fish.

I would have thought that if they paid Thorp out then that would take up cap space for next year anyway. Happy to be corrected though.

Well at this point I must admit my ignorance here as I don't know much about Grimes or many of the draftees for that matter apart from what I've read on the net. I wouldn't mind seeing how McNamara turns out given the promising words Emma Quayle gave him a while back. Bartram - not fussed either way. Is Cheney still OOC?

I feel the same way, although 50 I am not so worried about.

Thorp training with us is interesting. I wonder if there are 1 or 2 nervous uncontracted players. If we ended up chasing Thorp with PSD1 are we likely to create another spot so we have 1,2,11,18,34 + PSD1 or will we stay as is and forget 34?

Mark Stevens of the HUN considers the first 6 picks now a lock and then the following 3 likelys: 1 Jack Trengove Melb 2 Tom Scully Melb 3 Dustin Martin Rich 4 Anthony Morabito Freo 5 Ben Cunnington North 6 Gary Rohan Syd ________________________ 7 Lewis Jetta "West Coast is almost certain to follow Fremantle's lead and go local ... Sources say Jetta may have the edge in the three-way fight to stay close to home." 8 John Butcher "The mail suggests Port wants a key forward and a midfielder. Expect it to take Gippsland's John Butcher, regarded as the brightest key-position prospect, " 9 Jake Melksham "Port would then top up its midfield with Calder Cannon Jake Melsham" ________________________ I take most of these draft predictions with a grain of salt but this one doesn't sound too far fetched.

This is neither a critique nor endorsement for Joel MacDonald although I think there could be worse players to pick in the PSD. I just thought I would put up the figures for the height of our defence and see where MacDonald compares. Going by the numbers I think MacDonald may be able to find a niche in our defence or at least be handy for depth and match ups with his height. Having said that I don't wish to trivialise the whole thing because it comes down to how good a defender you are and the team's needs but McDonald has always seemed reasonably solid and having just turned 25 ideally still has a fair bit of footy ahead of him. Using rpfc's defensive 7 purely as a guide I have bolded those players and then our other defensive options have been added as well as MacDonald. In the case of certain players I have commented if they have other possible positions they may also play (over time in the case of the younger ones) and have noted those players who are not necessarily long term options. Compared to the defenders most expected to be exclusive to the back 6, there seems to be a noticable gap where McDonald could be handy as an experienced backman. Like I said there will be a few options in the PSD for the club so I am not putting MacDonald up above anyone else (Thorp could be handy or we could stick with the ND), just thought the numbers were interesting. Thoughts? __________________________ Bennell 179 Midfield rotation McDonald 180 Midfield rotation/last year Bartram 181 No Certainty Cheney 184 No Certainty Strauss 185 Midfield rotation Bell 186 No Certainty Grimes 187 Midfield rotation - possibly exclusive mid over time MacDonald 187 Bruce 190 Veteran McNamara 190 Garland 191 Rivers 192 Warnock 192 Frawley 193 Martin 198 Ruck/utility

Wow, down to approx. $1 million in debt is a great effort. Things are almost becoming manageable.

He isn't worth a re-look, the reasons for letting him go have not changed and I don't understand the desperation some posters have with regards to the PSD. Nobody is pointing a gun to our heads and saying you MUST pick a PSD player. The club will weigh up it's options and if it beleives it is better served using ND pick 34 (or 50 if we lose another player) instead of PSD 1 then be it. Trust the club.

"Melbourne's earliest selections are expected to be invested in teenagers Tom Scully and Jackson Trengove" They'll get his ****ing name right one day... (at least it wasn't Trengrove I suppose)

Which has to be a great thing WJ. You'd think that with the inception of GWS in 2012 that the NSW/ACT talent would have been well tapped into anyway going forward.

Looks like Ted got the chop. He was on his last yr as a scholarship player and wasn't transferred to a rookie spot prior to list lodgement 1 (last Friday). As it now stands we don't have any scholarship kids.

I missed the Fulham v Liverpool game, was Torres substituted (at 1-1) because he needed a spell or because Benitez got ahead of himself? I know Torress has a bit of an injury cloud but Liverpool make me laugh. They manage a win against the mighty Red Devils then follow it up with a loss to Terry McCann's lot lol. Liverpool truely are a joke.

But we don't have space for them in the regular 38 unless we only want to use 3 draft picks.

Yeah, I showed the itemisations on the previous post (to the last - if that makes sense) but you are right, I hardly see the point in having more than 2 veterans either. Are you 100% sure that a VL player can just go back to the PL withouth being delisted and re-recruited? I would have thought that a PL nominated veteran could be "un-nominated" but I think the rules are pretty rigid once a player actually goes on to the VL. I see you are on a front loaded contract btw , as for hoopla I think 450k is a over the odds - I know we need to make the cap floor but that is too much considering I took a cut for the team. :D

I haven't seen him live and youtube clips don't count but I must admit that in 1 of the clips he showed pretty good vertical lift and reach for a mark surrounded by players and dare I say it it was Tippett like.

NP 46 is logical for us because we have 2 players who are on the veterans list (well if Bruce isn't yet you'd expect him to be) and we have no other additions. Because we have 2 veterans then we can only have 6 rookies. Again, from afldraftinfo: "Clubs may list upto 8 rookies minus the number of players on the veterans list (i.e. 1 player on the veterans list = maximum 7 rookies allowed, 2 players on the veterans list = maximum 6 rookies allowed)." ATM Hawthorn have 1 "Outside Veteran" which means 39 total senior spots + 7 regular rookie spots = 46. Now the descrepancy that you have brought up is (I beleive) related to NSW Scholarship rookies, as you will note on your link it stipulates a Scholarship Elevation for Johnston. Every club can have up to 6 scholarship listed players (Melbourne currently have just 1 - Ted Strudwick) and Hawthorn prior to the recent elevation of Johnston had 6. If you go to afldraftinfo and read up on them you will see how they work and how many each club has. Take Hawthorn for example, if you go to their site and look at their rookie listed players there are 6 yet in the link you have added there are 7 which includes the recent transfer of Michael Johnston. Going by Hawthorn's rookie list details, Will Sierakowski also was a NSW Scholarship kid elevated to their rookie list. To cut a long(er) story short I think that scholarship elevated rookies may not take up a regular rookie spot so I hasten to guess this is why Hawthorn have 9 rookie spots in total ie 7 regular + 2 scholarship elevations. I am sure there are many dees posters who would be able to confirm this one way or the other. Either way, afldraftinfo.com is pretty handy and can be relied on unlike wiki. ________________________ Now, on another note, I am going to do a Demonland search for Ted Strudwick to see if anyone knows anything about him.

The Veterans list contains 2 players maximum. For season 2009 our list breakdown was: 6 Rookie List | 38 senior List | 2 Veterans List Giving a logical total of 46 - now that each club has been granted 2 extra rookie spots this will change to give us a potential 48 in 2010. A team can nominate more than 2 Veterans for salary issues however any over flow from 2 must take places on the regular senior list. Hence in the case of a club with 6 long serving (vetarans), 4 of them are nominated only and are on the regular senior list. Where some clubs have excess players is due to more rookies spaces such as with some interstate clubs in order to promote development ie Sydney and Brisbane. _________________________________________________ From afldraftinfo: Veterans List A player may be put on the veterans list if they are over the age of 30 and have played for 10 seasons at the club. A club may list upto 2 veterans – any additional nominated veterans will remain on the main list. When a player is moved to the veterans list he can’t be returned to the main list unless he is delisted and re-drafted by the club. Nominated veterans (both on the main and veterans list) allow clubs salary cap relief to the amount of: 1 nominated veterans – 50% reduction each 2 nominated veterans - 50% reduction each 3 nominated veterans - 33% reduction each 4 nominated veterans – 25% reduction each etc.

I would have thought so. On another note, each club has 2 extra rookie spots added don't they? I don't think this will have a profound influence on our decision making process but you never know.

Some of these player reviews you have to take with a grain of salt but I must say that for a player who had limited game time, McKenzie's review did stick out to me at the time. Even if we can't get him on the senior list you'd think he would be a strong contender for the mid-season nominated rookie in 2010. He could compliment our list of young mids well or at least keep them honest.

You'd think that if Thorp was a hot potato that the Hawks would not push too hard in a trade but having said that it is Hawthorn. Still, I think they got the correct amount of interest in the end - not much.

Yeah, I agree with all of that. A matter of "watch this space" I suppose, to definitively know why he left (or was booted) but at this early stage he doesn't come across as a viable option to me either.