Little Goffy

I always thought of it as Robertson being bumped from forward pocket to make room for bloody Spider Everitt as a second ruckman. Because nothing says 'forward pocket' like 17 goals in a season. Certainly not 73 goals and half a dozen match-winning performances that were the decisive factor in your team making the finals. Noooo. I shouldn't be so harsh on the selectors, they were in a bind because they couldn't put Everitt on the bench and still have room for Simon fairly-Goodwin. Oooh, that still burns.

Faith No More - 'Last Cup of Sorrow' Has a little resonance to where we need to get to, as a club. Emerging from grief, full of rage, determined to start again and to honor those not with us anymore. But not in some stupid pre-game circle-jerk. We'll leave that to Port, I hope.

You have to remember that picking up Sylvia cost Freo nothing. Not a draft pick was ruffled.

I think the priority pick system was deeply flawed and an inadequate approach to equalisation before, and it is now an even more deeply flawed and inadequate system. It is fundamentally a cop out to avoid having to face structural injustices. Patronising and dependency-creating. It's the 'sponsor a child... and buy child-slave made t-shirts' option. All that said, if Melbourne is not eligible for a priority pick now, then it is simply a phantom and will never be enacted. Adding to the pretty decisive notes above (are we the first club ever to get no rising star nominees AND no All-Australian nominees?) Lowest goals scored by a non-debut team in the 22-game era. Lowest top goalscorer in the 22-game era. Only team with average of less than 5 wins / season in last 8 years. Next worst is Brisbane with 8.9. Only team with average ladder position in bottom 4 over last 8 years. (discounting expansions, of course, though give it a year and it wont matter) What will really [censored] me off is if St Kilda, who have clearly embraced a total bottom-out, get any assistance in the next few years. On a side note, maybe we should just straight up ask for Isaac Heeney...

From Adelaide's perspective, Pick 2 and then something else would be fair and reasonable, though I don't think they'd be so greedy as to expect 2 & 3 together. But for us, I don't think it would be appropriate to pay more than just pick 2. Personally, I don't see it happening.

I can see the April 2015 Demonland mega-sook thread now. "I can't believe we paid overs for Stretch when [censored] was still available at pick 34."

Draft well. Develop fitness. Develop skills. Clearly articulate core playing structures. Effectively practice those structures. Build respect and trust within the whole group. Ta da! The actual process for becoming a highly competitive football team is not 'complicated', it just requires thousands upon thousands of small decisions made by dozens of people, day in, day out. On that count, maybe the bottom item on that list that is most important one.

The main reason people duck and weave in city traffic is because they are frustrated, stuck in a tedious flow, and feeling like they have no control of the situation. All those lane jumps and bursts of accelerating and breaking hardly make a difference to their actual time of arrival, they just give back some feeling that you are the one making decisions and in control of your environment. Thinking of the Moore F/S bidding as 'leverage' drops into that same thought process.

Sorry. Lame. No football content. A totally impersonal add, only one character, and they are utterly grey and ordinary. Not only that, but they are an utterly grey and ordinary... baseball fan. Taking the New York Yankees thing a bit literally?

The truth of it all is, we MUST get pick 7. Aish, Wines, Haynes, Caddy, Rich, Sheppard, Palmer, Selwood, Ryder, Lewis, You have to go back to Kane Tenace to find a player who hasn't made it to a full career, and almost all of those selected have become or look like becoming A-graders.

Breaks my heart. Had two really creditable season early on and was looking like being a legitimate long-term 'meat and potatoes' player to fill out the list and have a happy fulfilling career. Worked hard without fuss, and was one of the top tacklers in the competition. Also a committed One of my personal favourite football moments was a pair of tackles he laid. Brought one guy to ground, the ball spilled out on the other side and was swooped up by another opponent. Jordie turned his 'getting back up' motion into a 'leap from a crouching start', actually throwing himself at full horizontal OVER the still-flat first guy he tackled, and laid a tackle square into the hips of opponent number 2. It was a thrill, and it made me think that at last that 'desperate edge' was finding expression in the Demons. But now... he's looking decidedly fringe and may well be delisted. I'm seriously hoping not, because when in form he can be a real contributed and can show the way when it comes to really committed play.

On the theory that sometimes what is needed is a fresh start., Toumpas for O'Rourke? Plainly it is a fair swap, without any need to be playing abstractions about what they are worth. Very simple exchange of similar players, both top 5 picks in the same draft, who both have been behind the 8-ball for the first couple of years of their career with injury and poor form. That thought also put it in my mind that both Toumpas and O'Rourke are in very, very similar situations to where Dom Tyson was not so long ago... I've said before and will keep saying; I believe in persisting with Toumpas and that he will be a quality player.

Darling, Shuey, Martin, hell, some fool even suggested we dudded ourselves with the Tyson trade because 'we could have drafted Lewis Taylor'. Some people will always sink into the second guessing and ever so superior hindsight. I really hope this thread works and keeps that sludge out of the main threads.

Pick 2 for Tyson was a steal on its own. The upgrade put us in position to grab one of four very highly touted midfielders, Freeman, Sheed, Aish and Salem. The spare pick exchange at the end also turned 72 into 54, which got us Viv Michie from Fremantle. It was a no brainer and a huge win.

If Pick 3 comes our way for Frawley. Get Petracca with 2 - no messing around, just grab the best mid and run. Trade Pick 3 to Gold coast for Picks 8 and 15. Picks 2, 8, 15, 21, Stretch. Bake in a medium oven, slowly increasing heat, for 2 years. Meanwhile, anyone noticed the 2015 free-agency pool? Clean space in the salary cap by bringing in draftees now, and front-ending everything we can for the 2014 season. Aim for some natural, credible development in 2015 then go all-out at the 2015 free agency pool with a clear mission of acquiring multiple serious players simultaneously. I guess what I'm saying is, I don't think now is the time to go after big names.

It is perhaps one of those tragic ironies of a traumatised club psychology. "We've had too many attempts at fairytales in the drafts, this time we should avoid sentiment and go with the guy generally considered the top-3." I do take comfort that Dom Tyson, in effectively his first season, has been comparable in performance despite significantly adverse 'conditions'. We have finally got one right, Tyson was a steal for little more than a pick shuffle where we still netted another quality player.

Done Deal.

Meeting in person with Collingwood before giving any notice to Melbourne gives it all a bit of a sour taste. And I agree with other posters who've noted that it is not generally helpful to 'change environments' for clinical depression, given it is, by definition, a condition you carry with you, inside you, whatever your circumstance, however joyful. However, anxiety disorders (which I recall had been mentioned at some point early in the year) there might be a case, given the nature of triggers and the like. Honestly, I'm no longer concerned by the specific compensation. Given his situation, injury history and so on, he'd be unlikely to be valued as a 'good second round' pick even in the fairest of exchanges. I just want it to all be done in a respectful tone that doesn't set up Melbourne Football Club as the losers taking another whack. Also, can we have our 2013 priority pick now, since it was denied on the basis of Clark coming back...

Speaking of priority picks... Over the last 8 years Melbourne has averaged less than 5 wins a season. No other club has an average below 8 wins a season. Also. Melbourne's BEST individual season in these last eight years, (8 wins and a draw), is a lower result than the WORST AVERAGE of any other club (Brisbane, 8.9 wins). In other words, our most successful season in the last 8 years is worse than what the next worst club's supporters can expect in any given year. Hand it over Gil, and Caroline Wilson can get stuffed.

He's a prize-winning [censored] and played a part in breaking Carlton's culture. Only an average player, too. Would be really disappointed to have to put up with him in our colours for two years.

Heard that before somewhere.

A 'auction' process for the good time slots might be useful. Every club is given a standard allocation of money to use for bidding for time slots. The clubs can bid for slots based on how they anticipate the season will go, what their marketing plan is, etc. If a club chooses to keep things lower key for the year (anticipating poor overall performance) then the leftover allocated money is theirs to use for other promotions and development. It still maintains the 'big crowds overall are best for the game' concept, but makes it a lot more democratic and fair. Of course, it is all pointless until the accumulating disaster of free agency is reigned in. And if there is anyone out there that you happen to meet who thinks that the AFL is still a fairly even competition, here are the figures - In the last ten years, the top 6 AFL teams have accounted for 70% of all finals wins. That's 1 final/year on average. Remembering that it is impossible for more than one team to have 3 finals wins in a year. And remembering that for a group of six teams to all be getting so many finals games, they must be playing eachother more often than not. The number is extraordinary, disturbing, and definitive.

#housekeeping Can't say I'm interested in many of Carlton's players. Or at least, none that could be realistically available. Just a pick upgrade, thanks. Cheers.

A dumb call is still a dumb call. Don't care how much time to ride horses, you still can't call them cows.

Your comment is an odd kind of naive, old dee. Brandis, on behalf of the government, was explicitly and gleefully using confusion and outrage over 18c to drive a political wedge and to promote the government's 'narrative' of a noxious Labor-Greens alliance of political correctness, reckless spending, and mindless senate obstructionism. He would've been delighted for the senate to block it. Could have used it as an extra little bludgeon to wheel out at any useful occasion. Would have been cheerfully in their slogan-structure, the community sector equivalent of the financial sector 'debt and deficit disaster' message. The plan to repeal 18c was dropped once it became apparent that despite efforts to sow confusion, once people and especially civil society groups understood how 'gentle' 18c already was, nobody would care enough to get worked up about it. They just wouldn't buy the idea that there was any kind of magical threat to democracy through 18c making it unlawful to persistently and untruthfully vilify and defame people.