Akum

If by "fair" you mean he didn't do his favourite trick of holding up other deals by dragging them out all the way through trade week. I thought the general opinion here at the time was that we'd given overs for both, especially Melksham, though I suppose we had to go with the picks we had.

Yeah maybe. Trouble is, at this stage of the season with finals still on (in which Lever & Gaff are still playing), nobody at either club can predict (let alone guarantee) the final outcome. Even if this poster had got their info direct from Todd Viney himself, all they can tell us is the current state of play at Week 2 of the finals. It's just too easy to be robotically skeptical about every post like this. To me, the scenario this poster put forward is the most plausible statement of both sides' opening negotiating positions that I've yet read anywhere. If it is true, as well as showing a lot of mutual respect, it shows good faith in that we don't intend to underpay for Lever. But we will work hard to preserve the 2018 R1 pick, perhaps to use on Gaff (for whom we also don't want to underpay). This is consistent with what other posters with a more established record have said, but his post goes further by pointing to how we might actually pull it off without selling the farm. So to me plausible, though of course "plausible" isn't the same as "true". It's possible to take stuff like this at face value and with a grain of salt at the same time - at face value because it fits what we do know, it's plausible and it adds a little bit extra to what we know; and with a grain of salt because it's so early and because it's obvious that there's no way of telling how it will end up. In other words, while I think it's a plausible account of where things might be at this stage, we all know it means little or nothing to the final result (and maybe we will have to sell more of the farm than we'd like to) Can we just express our doubts without needing to take the poster down?

Adelaide's second rounder this year is going to be well into the mid-30s of what by all accounts is a very shallow draft past the first handful. Unless we really want, say, Bayley Fritsch and their end-of-second-rounder is what gives him to us. 2018 is supposed to be a much deeper draft, so perhaps more of a chance of your "Sloanes & Fyffes" next year than this year.

Adelaide's supporters may whine & moan, but I'd say that over a number of years Adelaide has been as pragmatic as a club could possibly have been about trading out top-end talent who want to move. Unlike the AFL, they seem to actually value their integrity.

Maybe. My understanding is that it's a lot more corrosive and widespread than just a simple misdemeanour. Again, nothing specific, just an overall impression.

Interesting.

I'd hope our ex-Dogs contingent have enough good contacts at the Dogs to advise us to keep well away.

My mail is that it's targeted at their western suburbs fan base. They're giving them the message that their internal rumblings in the latter part of the season are all traced to one source, which they're now dealing with. Just like they did the last time something similar happened. Reading between the lines, the club could have been a bit concerned by certain journos pushing that Stringer is just the tip of the iceberg. Their message is, in effect, that Stringer is the iceberg. This, by the way, is without knowing anything about what Stringer is supposed to have done. But whatever is was, it apparently had a really corrosive effect.

Great post. Too easy to forget how damn good he was in 2010 & 2011. What struck me about Trengove in his early days was his sheer footy intelligence for such a young player. He so often seemed to be in the right spot at the right time, or was able when in heavy traffic to hit up the teammate in space. This stood out in that game against Port in Darwin where he alone out of all the much more experienced players (& coaches) fully grasped the situation at the end of the game. At a stoppage near goal when scores were level, he went third man up to hit it through for a point (both of which you could do at the time) and got us an unlikely win. There was another game, I think it was against Essendon, where we had been several goals behind but came back in the third quarter and beginning of the last. Watts had the ball on the wing, kicking into a congested forward line and Trengove timed his lead into space perfectly, then drilled a difficult set shot to put our noses in front. I think Essendon seized back the initiative and won in the end, but just that characteristic of being in the right place at the right time and executing a difficult task at a critical point in the game was just so typical of Trengove in his first & second years. I always hoped that maybe this level of footy smarts might overcome the constraints of his injury, but those constraints were too great in the end.

TOTY (Typo of the year)

WCE didn't get a goal for over an hour. Twice Port got 2 goals plus in front and choked. They had the game won twice and basically gave it away both times, and at home. Not only Dixon, but their skipper Boak missed three very gettable goals in the last half, and Wingard missed two. Leaders. I'd be pretty dirty too.

Obviously going into partnership with Max.

I think it's fitting that one of the lowest standard games of the year was decided by the type of umpiring decision that's making an absolute mess of the game. This was an embarrassment that both teams deserved to lose. Which makes it hurt all the more.

I also think that the way we move the ball forward is terrible for tall forwards. We don't seem to have grasped the notion of "kicking it to advantage" or "kicking it to your teammate's side of the contest". And we seem to discourage them from leading, either because we can't hit them when we do, or it's coaches' instructions to bomb the ball on to their heads. When we get the ball in the middle of the ground, it's far too easy for oppo defenders to predict what we're going to do. So they don't get drawn away by anybody who leads or who's on their own out wide. They just double- or triple-team Hogan or Watts or Weid or whoever, and defend the high bomb with ease. One-on-one, Hogan is one of the best contested marks in the comp. Two-on-one or three-on-one, he's got just as little chance as everybody else. Weid's got no chance until we start to move the ball better.

I think it's more that Prestia & Caddy being first-hands-on-the-ball-at-stoppages allows Dusty & Cotchin to be the mids who take the ball away from clearances (instead of at the bottom of packs trying to get it out) and therefore much more damaging. I'd like to see us think about it a bit more and use Oliver & Petracca (who use the ball by foot much better than Tyson / Viney / Jones) in the same way as Dusty & Cotch.

Funny how we all assume it must be our meeting that went well, because Collingwood.

Yep. More likely Crameri stays.

If we lose Spencil & gain Jackson Trengove, that's a huge win right there. 2017 season should have been Spencil's last chance.

If Lever & Gaff truly are within our grasp, I can't see any way we could get them both without giving up this year's & next year's first rounders (and probably more). However, we'd be getting two players of proven first-round quality for two players of likely (but not proven) first-round quality. And both the two players that we get would be exactly what we need. The risk is that we carry forward a three-year "hole" in our age profile, so that if in 5-7 years we're near the top but without a flag, we have an old list (like Norf's now) that would need a major overhaul again.

True, but if we offered next year's first rounder, it may end up being pick 18 anyway.

Apparently if Stringer stays, Crameri goes, and if Stringer goes, Crameri stays.

There are only two ways Jack will leave Melbourne: (1) He gives the slightest twitch of a hint to anybody that he may be open to leaving. Clubs would take this to mean that his relationship with the club had broken down and lead them to believe that they could get him for massive unders. (2) We delist him or refuse to renew his contract or tell him he won't get an AFL game no matter how well he plays for Casey. In which case we get nix. The idea of "throwing him to the market and see what we get back" is hilarious.

Seriously? We were forced to improvise from the Cats game to the West Coast game and we improvised brilliantly with outstanding strategic thinking. It didn't just happen, and it wasn't just a run of lucky guesses. Then from the Swans game on, all that enterprise disappeared. Either it dried up, or it still flowed but was ignored. We became rigid and predictable. Or ... we didn't???

That's my fear too bub. That's what my Dogs guys believe happened. I hope they're wrong.

Is he a free agent at the end of 2018? It makes sense to try to trade the year before his contract expires, if his club thinks he might walk. OK, he's not the ideal, but he does have the right tools, and he may be a lot more gettable. Especially if we're forced to give a bit more to land Lever. As my daughter might say, he's not Beyonce, but he's a good solid Kelly Rowland!