leucopogon

can anyone post a link to the relevant online sign-up page?

Hope he slips through to the PSD and goes to Richmond personally. Eagles should play real hard ball with the Pies.

You say that Rivers is a smart zoning defender, yes that's true, at this stage of his development, but he is easily our brightest prospect of becoming a KPP. He's the same height as both Scarlett and Harley (192cm) and only 3kg lighter than both of these premiership KPP's. My money is that if Rivers is playing for MFC next year, he's our first choice CHB/FB starting from game 1 of the preseason cup. I'd really be loathe to lose Rivers after losing Scott Thompson to the Crows.

Rivers to Adelaide for Van Berlo!!! Oh no, looks like we're going to be the ones held over a barrel. What a shonk this is. I would expect a lot more from Adelaide for our nab rising star winner. I'm just going to reserve judgement on everything until any deal(s) are done and dusted.

God, poor old Paul Hasleby, you'd think the Dockers could have sent over someone a little quicker.

HAHAHA!!!! Gold!

Agreed for the most part Diablo, but if Judd does choose Collingwood as his only option then the Eagles are pretty much over a barrel, they either take what they can get or lose him for nothing. This whole situation sucks eggs, I know we went through it with the Scott Thompson situation a few years ago, I think we deserve some trade karma to come back our way.

Very clever of them, have you got a link to that report?

Can one of the mods make this post a sticky so we can refer to it more easily as the draft looms closer. Cheers.

Yeah he was probably sitting there thinking, "Well at least those bloody Dees fans can't blame me for this injury."

You raise an interesting point here that hasn't really been discussed as yet as far as I'm aware. What if Judd nominates more than one preferred club to play for? What do you think might happen then if say after meeting with all four he ruled out the Bombers and Carlton and said it was either the Dees or the Pies for him? Would it then be a case of the Eagles having the upper hand at the trade table, making us and the Pies compete against each other to come up with the most attractive trade offer? If Judd really likes the Eagles as much as I think he does and feels a little guilty about leaving them like this, maybe it would be a way of repaying the club that made him a star. Just some food for thought anyway.

Jeez you're absolutely spot on the money with this post mate. I was thinking these exact same thoughts as I watched the Pies in their prelim final last night and also thinking to how they got up over the Eagles at Subi as well. That kind of spirit is one helluva an advertisement for Judd. When you consider the crowd pulling power of Collingwood, the match day atmosphere they never fail to generate I think they'd have to be in the box seat to get Judd. Lets just hope that we can manage to get a good deal out of this by holding the Pies to ransom over our 4th pick. I'd take Nick Maxwell and their first rounder for pick 4 with maybe someone like Miller thrown in as a sweetener.

You guys are doing a mighty fine job of bringing me round on the Judd Bandwagon. Of our up and coming KPP, I have faith in probably only Bate and Rivers. The rest are all too early to tell or will be depth at best in my opinion. Only time will tell, but that's it... time is what its going to take and I'd say at least 2 or 3 seasons before the Brock/Jonesy/Bate/Sylvia/Bell/Rivers are all in their prime. Judd would be good, but i think at least one ready made KPP and/or a ruckman will also be vital for us if we want any sort of immediate success.

Fair enough with the Robbo call. You've probably seen a lot more of him playing, I live in Perth and don't get Foxtel so Dee games were a bit few and far between for me this year. I just based my call on Robbo on his goals tally, which, although less than impressive, was still enough to top the goalkicking at the club. I just fear that we get rid of Robbo and our scores really dry up, especially as Neita will be one year older and probably even more injury prone. We'd need a proven goalkicker to replace him, not the bulldogs 5th pick (if the robbo to WB trade happens). Whatever happens, I'm really looking forward to seeing how Bailey maneuvers in the trade and draft period. Us fans will finally get an idea of where he sees where the Dees list is really at. Also very keen to see his motivational and disciplanary influence on the player group next year.

Agreed. Isn't this trade week going to be interesting though?

Despite everything that's been written on all these Judd threads, my gut feeling is that its going to boil down to simple dollars & cents so I think Collingwood, Carlton or Essendon are probably the most likely to lure him. I think we should look at trading a combination of these guys (Trapper, Bruce, Green/Robbo) to other clubs to secure a decent KPP, a young ready made ruckman, and/or some more 1st round picks. Like dee-luded has said on another thread "the group that's 25 or older now isn't good enough to lead us to a flag so we should cash in on them while they're still worth something"

Couldn't have summed it up better myself dee-luded. After looking at the list of 25 and overs its really quite alarming. We should cash in on at least a couple of them if possible while they're worth something. My order of preference to trade would be: Bruce TJ Green Robbo (but only if we get a proven goal-kicker in the exchange) Carroll Whelan

I'd like to have Judd for sure, but for what it's likely to cost us as a team financially and in terms of lost picks and/or trading of ready-mades like Jones or Brock I don't know if its worth the punt. The counter argument I suppose is that if we do snare Judd perhaps other ready mades might be attracted to joining us in the future.

Had a pretty good squiz at our list for the past hour or so and it made for frightening analysis. Here's a summary: Analysis 1) No true KPP in their prime (all are on-ballers, utilities or smalls) 2) Of the players approaching their prime only Miller could be considered a true KPP and he’s a fringe/stop-gap player now Summary – a couple of good young KPP prospects are vital for the future 1) Ruck stocks are abysmal. Only decent ruckman is a veteran 2) All other ruckmen are young and/or fairly ineffective Summary – Desperately need to get a ready made backup to White preferably 23-25 years old. 1) Players approaching their prime (23-25) are fairly lacklustre with the exception of Rivers and Davey. A real concern for the coming 2-3 seasons. Summary – Looks like MFC will be likely to “bottom out” for the next season or two unless some decent ready-made KPP are traded for. Our stocks in hard-nut midfielders is pretty high (ie. Jones, McLean, Moloney, Sylvia) We need KPP badly. Judd can't win games on his own, especially if he becomes more injury prone with age. I just think that we're barking up the wrong tree chasing him and our list deficiencies are so obvious (KEY POSITION PLAYERS) that if we do any trading/high drafting it should be the KPP's that are targeted. Hope my prediction of us bottoming out isn't right, but without a proper spine, I can't see us competing for a flag anytime soon.

Haha, I was thinking about something along these lines as well.

From the Realfooty article about not wanting to play for the Hawks, I don't believe it. Where are the quotes? To me the typical footy journo is like a fisherman who chucks berley in the water to stir up the fish into a feeding frenzy. I will only listen to quotes on this matter, no inuendo, indications or hearsay.

Agreed Demons 32. Pies will probably get him but the more I think about the complexities of all this the more I think it could be one gigantic stalemate and Richmond might get him. What a controversy it would be.

I can understand the hysteria surrounding Judd but for God's sake, will people take off the red & blue tinted glasses for one second here? You talk about clubs like Essendon and Carlton being a million miles away from a flag and then say that leaves us as the front runners. Do you even think before you write that kind of stuff? We're in exactly the same boat as Carlton and Essendon. We don't have a rosy future either, its rebuild now for us, so what good would having a superstar midfielder do us? Judd's the kind of player that a team gets to put the final missing piece of the jigsaw into place to have a tilt at the flag. Melbourne based clubs in this position to my eyes would appear to be a) Collingwood, B ) Hawthorn c) Kangas d) Saints e) Essendon. In my eyes Carlton and us are barely in the game. Our claim to Judd is tenuous at best. I reckon the big winners out of this deal are going to be West Coast.

Just quickly, I read in the paper "The West Australian" an article by Mark Duffield in which Eagles chairman Dalton Gooding is quoted as saying: "They (Carlton) have the No.1 and No.3 draft picks and we would see that as the minimum for Chris." also, "Unless Collingwood can trade some higher draft picks, it (a deal for Judd) would seem hard." Interesting quotes, to put it into context, the headline of the article was "I want to be a magpie" and the thrust was that the reporter had good mail that Collingwood were Judd's preferred club. No quotes from Judd himself though, seems like speculation or hearsay. Still the Dalton Gooding quotes are interesting. So they want picks 1 & 3 minimum for Judd. Could be just playing "hard ball" but if this is the way the Eagles are going to deal, then I really think we might be out of the race. Like people have been saying, it will be up to CJ to pick his preferred club and I'm sure a deal will be worked out but I just can't see him coming to a rabble like us at this transitory period, couldn't possibly be that appealing, even if he was a Dees fan as a kid. I reckon he'll go to Essendon who have a fairly high pick plus high picks from recent drafts that are WA boys (ie. gumbleton, ryder) plus the room in the cap and the financial clout. Or, the Pies, but they would need to do some serious maneuvering in the draft. I hope it would cripple them to try and trade for Judd (ie. they would need to offer Thomas and/or Pendlebury to get Judd). I think we should give up on the idea and also, this talk about trading Robbo, holy SHI&!!! If we got rid of him, we'd be the least potent scoring team in the league bar none next season. The guy's carried our forward line for a good 3 or 4 seasons now. Madness.

God help us all if it pans out this way. In 4 years time, the core of the WA under18 team that just whitewashed all comers will all be going back to the West. It'll be like the Eagles of the early 90's all over again. 80% of my preferred draft picks this year are either WA or SA kids. Frightening.