Akum

Although it's the Saints who seem to be her primary target, so she's wanting to damage them the most. And she's quoted as saying the photos are of players doing drugs and pretending to have sex with each other. In other words, the pictures of players from other clubs may be at least as bad, it's just that she's more intent on damaging StK. I'm assuming that the photos were all together in a very obvious place on his computer because she was able to download & e-mail 20 of them without anybody else knowing (it sounds like she had SG's permission to use his computer). Either that or she had a long enough time at his computer to search through who knows how many happy snaps and select the 20 or so that were going to create the most mayhem. Searching through them in enough detail to recognise faces etc. Either way, serious stupidity on SG's part, yet again. Or else it's all bluff (but who's going to take that chance?) This may still have a long way to play out, if it indicates a broader problem across several clubs.

The phrase "serious errors of judgment" doesn't even begin to cover it. He's the one who should bear the brunt of the criticism here - does an "AFL groupie" with serious issues, then dumps her when she claims to be pregnant; takes compromising photos of mates, and instead of deleting them he downloads them to his computer (god alone knows what he wants them on his computer for - he probably put them in a file on the desktop marked "embarrassing photos of teammates"). His serial stupidity has made life a lot harder for many others. And if his computer is the source of the other photos yet to be published, he would know which players from other clubs are the potential future targets and will have told them already. Wouldn't he?

I take your point. But to finish 6th, our young team will have had the experience of playing in 2 finals, and perhaps even winning one of them. Isn't that better preparation for when we're serious flag contenders than no finals?

Of course the number of wins is important! If we win 11 or more, all else being equal (i.e. number of serious losses), it's good. If we get a similar number of wins (say, 8-10) we'll have to look at other measures to work out whether the season will have been a success or not. In that case, it will matter if we've won or lost a number of close ones, if we've won more quarters, if some important young players have done well, if we've had a bad run with injuries and so on. It's just that wins isn't the be-all & end-all. But significantly more wins covers a lot of other factors, because to get more wins we'd have to do a number of things better.

... and it could well prolong the careers for both of them.

I just think it's too good for us to be an accident - we get Campbell, Hawks get PJ. If the Hawks knew their premiership ruckman was fit & ready & rarin' to go, surely they would have taken him before their 5th pick in the rookie draft FGS? Especially with the problems they've had with their rucks since 2008.

So it seems we have effectively swapped PJ for Robbie Campbell. Looks like a great outcome for us, and let's face it, much more than PJ could have expected; but not such a great outcome for Hawthorn. It just strikes me that it would have been much easier for the Hawks to have taken Campbell with an earlier pick than it would have been for them to get PJ at the last gasp. It's almost like they're doing him a favour. Can the Hawks be outsmarted that easily? Or has a deal been tweaked somehow? Perhaps as part of Hawks getting Cam???

Jackie Jurrah??

The obvious point is that if Tim Harrington et al trawl this site as regularly as some think, the email wasn't needed!

Thought it was interesting when we were chasing Hale that the talk was his value in terms of structure. In other words, his capacity to be a target, to provide a contest, and to get the ball to the ground for the crumbers to feed off. This seemed to be at least as much of the reason for chasing Hale than the number of actual marks & actual goals he'd get. That's a very simplified role for a 200cm forward. And if Hale can do it, why not Spencer or Martin? It's not as if Hale is an absolute gun with much more ability or athleticism. The main difference I can see, apart from Hale being a better kick, is that Hale knows better where & when to run to get to the contest or to make a contest, where Spencer & Martin get caught out of position too often and not even get to the contest. But can't that be remedied? Is it something that can be taught? Or perhaps it's more a matter of whoever's coming down the ground with the ball, not to bomb it aimlessly but with some sort of purpose, to the advantage of the big forward. So that the big forward has some idea of what's going to happen and where they should be, rather than work it out on the spot.

Captain would have to be Moloney, wouldn't it?

So now that Hale's gone are we pulling up stumps on trade week?

Yeah injury is the big concern here. If Jamar gets injured we're in trouble. And rucks seem to get injured more than others.

By Round 1 2013, at least one of Martin, Spencer, Gawn or Fitzpatrick will have gone past Hale. And Jack will be 22, over 100kg, and won't need protection by anyone.

Do you think? We only really need him until Gawn and/or Fitzy are ready (or until Martin or Spencer work out where they need to run, or until JW puts on 10-15kg of muscle). Until we get a home-grown gorilla.

Can't blame North for preferring this over pick 32. If they keep the compo pick until 2012 it could be worth pick 19.

The problem for the Hawks would have to be the extra $375-425K p.a. salary cap pressure. Who might they miss out on at some stage because of that? And if Bailey & Renouf & Taylor manage against all the odds to stay fit, Hale may have gone from a number 3 ruck to a number 4 ruck, and probably getting paid much more than the 3 above him in the pecking order. Oh well, their problem now.

I think the theory was that we'd get more upside out of him than North could, if we handled him better, with our style of play, and with our other forwards around him. Well, maybe, maybe not. I still think it was worth a try. Oh, and by the way, we didn't lose him because he preferred Hawthorn as a club to us. The reason we didn't get him is because they had a slightly better offer. If we'd had the better offer and still not got him, then I would be more concerned about choosing other clubs ahead of us.

The Fwd/Ruck-until-Gawn-&-Fitzy-develop position is the one hole in our team structure. I agree that if TH etc are not able to fill it this year, they need to fill it next year, one way or another. But my point is that, with the excellent way in which they've gone about it with Hale (whether or not we get him), I'm sure they'll do just as well next year. They'll work out which options are coming out of contract and will be making discreet approaches to them early. By that time another year will have gone by, and if Spencer or Martin or Gawn or Fitzy have really come on in that time, we may not even need to trade. But the way that TH has handled the Hale thing, I have much more confidence that he'll get it right.

This whole story has been handled extremely well by TH and co IMO. Identified the need and responded to it early, picked out the best option likely to be available, showed appropriate interest early, made an appropriate offer, and refused to get sucked in to over-bidding. I'm more impressed by the sensible, measured, mature way that this situation was conducted from beginning to end, whether or not we get Hale.

The best comment in 22 pages.

Peter German is of course the other connection between Willi & Scorps. There's also enough interaction between Willi & Werribee for Lloyd to have known plenty about Barlow.

Their "general manager of player management" (???) is Brad Lloyd, ex-VFA (Williamstown, wasn't it?) I think he's related to Matthew Lloyd in some way.

Totally parallel. Doesn't connect at any point, to infinity in either direction.

Which TH clearly isn't, and to nobody's surprise he seems to have it well under control, with or without help from this thread.