Dr. Gonzo

I hope he plays on next year. Would rather him than Bate or Petterd.

Both GC & GWS would love a player like Viney to complement their midfield. Let's face it, it would be great to get Viney with a second round pick but there is a less than 5% chance that this will happen. Let's just be happy that we are guaranteed this kid who is exactly what we need and resign ourselves to the fact he is going pick 3 - anything else is a bonus. In fact the only way I could see him slipping to the second round is if GWS beat GC giving GC pick 1, GWS pick 2 and us pick 3 & 4. This would make it unlikely GC would bid for him and if GWS can be convinced that we would trade pick 3 or 4 for MD#1 if we can take Viney second round (but not if we have to use pick 3 on him) they may see it as beneficial to let him slide. Otherwise I just can't see it happening.

1) GWS will beat GC this week so GC will finish last and have pick 1. 2) The MFC will pick Viney no matter which pick we have to use. 3) If we make the 'gentlemens agreement' as suggested in the OP the team with pick 2 (GWS) will know that pick 1 will not be used to nominate for Viney as soon as the FS bidding starts (as th bidding is done in order of picks) so they effectively have nothing to gain by passing on him as our side of the deal will be void. If they do subsequently bid on him with pick 2 we will have no recourse to do anything about it as admitting to it would be admitting to draft tampering. So the deal as suggested in the OP cannot benefit us and in fact can only harm us.

Considering our club leaks like a sieve I wouldn't have any confidence this could be handled discreetly.

Sylvia is most definitely not an A-grader. LOL old dee, no more than a third round pick? I think you overrate draft picks way more than anyone here is overrating Caddy.

How smug is he? I wish he was on radio because I'd ring up and ask him "Roosy, did you try to win every single game as coach of the Sydney Swans?" When I get the inevitable "of course" in response I'd ask "what about NAB Cup games?" No doubt he'd try to guffaw it off as "well it's a practice match not a competitive game." I'd ask "so do betting agencies not run odds on NAB Cup games?"

I agree with most of this but you can't have your cake and eat it too. If you start looking for a replacement don't expect Schwab to stay on if we can't find anyone better.

Hmm yes forgot about that - does put a spanner in the works.

To be fair if you were sitting on the other side of the ground you may not have known.

Haha he also said on Saturday that Freo would get smashed and couldn't see how they could possibly kick 16 goals to win the game.

Would want to try and squeeze out a 2nd-3rd round draft pick as well if we're giving up a player like Sylvia or Moloney as well or wouldn't mind trying to get Toy thrown in as well as I mentioned above.

Did you know he'd been injured?

Fair enough - there was an instance today (last quarter I think) where he was around a contest near the 50 metre line HBF and he was clearly out on his feet, could barely raise a trot. The runner came out to him a minute later, don't know what he said probably something like "c'mon mate, there's only a few minutes left". It does make it hard to build your fitness when your constantly battling injuries though. He's basically at square one (had injuries last year as well from memory so it's not surprising that he had a crap PS).

It was clear to those sitting near the bench he had injured himself. He went down into the race clutching his wrist/arm. A couple of minutes later it was announced he was subbed off and there seemed to be some cheers go up from the southern stand side near where the cheer squad was. Wasn't overly loud or anything, but then again there was only 18K there today.

Pretty hard to impress when you've had a broken ankle, come back in the VFL and then break your jaw. His form last year and early this year was horrible, but I think since coming back into the side the last few weeks he has been playing well and presenting a target up forward. He may not end up being a starting 6 in our forward line next year but would make a good depth player for us (which considering the injuries we always seem to suffer will be required).

Missed Rivers - would re-sign him as well.

Yeah probably fair enough on Bennell, he has played a decent chunk (he's played 50 games? Really?) - I think you're wrong on Caddy though, he didn't shine today sure but how many Suns players did? It's hard to stand out in a team of slop and he has shown earlier this year that he would be an automatic inclusion in our 22 (would rather have him than Bail for instance and probablyh a few others including your man Bennel ) On trying to work out a trade with the Suns, if people think 13 & one of Moloney or Sylvia is too much do you think it would be worth trying to work Josh Toy into the equation as well? He was a very highly rated junior but hasn't been able to make an impact at the Suns for whatever reason. Might be worth trying to get him as the "steak knives" if we have to give up a player as well as pick 13.

Out of those I think we have to sign Blease & Jurrah and would like to see Green get a one-year contract. The rest are either trade-bait, delist potential or lucky to get a minimum wage contract.

I'm warming to Cloke - will be a good lead up/high half forward playing from 40-80 metres from goal with Clark (and hopefully Jurrah) playing 0-40 metres from goal. His main deficiency is his goal-kicking but playing a high half forward role will give us a strong target coming out of defence and he has a booming kick to get it down to Clark/Jurrah/Howe quickly. Would definitely give up 13 & Sylvia or Moloney for Caddy (preferably Moloney). Did he mean pick 4 for a GWS 17YO Draft Pick? Not sure we can afford to draft a player who can't play for a year, we need to inject players into our team from R1, 2013. Adding 2 midifielders with picks 3 & 4, Caddy, Viney & Cloke would be a massive win and boost to our team for next year - if we were able to snag Cloke we wouldn't need Hogan (17yo KPF).

Stoked about this - he hasn't dominated yet but has shown glimpses in an average side and is only 20. He has a hard body and can find the goals, something sorely lacking from our midfield group. Hope we can get a deal done. Should be up on aussierul.es.com in the next day or so - will download and have a look. The thing is will be close to impossible for Essendon to work a deal for him. They won't want to give up a player GC would want and won't have a draft pick until the late 30's to trade (considering Daniher will be a first round pick). On topic - the only two draft picks I'm really filthy on the club on was taking Cook instead of Darling and taking Gysberts instead of Talia because I thought that we should have taken Darling and Talia at the time. Can't say I was paying close enough attention before 2009 or knew as much about the players available so can't really say I'm disappointed in the picks. But before the respective drafts I wanted Darling & Talia and was disappointed we let them slip. I still think Strauss & Blease can be proven to be decent pick ups especially if they can have a couple of injury free seasons. Gysberts & Tapscott have also missed a fair chunk of their careers through injury as have Bennell, Jetta & Gawn (though Gawn we obviously knew about beforehand and took a punt). The main issue we've had is keeping our draft picks injury free in order to develop them, it's hard to do that when they can't even get out on the track.

Did you see Freo yesterday? No way in hell we'll beat them in Perth,

MCC looking very bare today - may be lucky to crack 10K.

The suns gone behind the clouds - good omen :D

Has been happening for as long as I've been watching, this was also a hallmark of the Northey years.

And Sydney's NAB Cup games during Roos' tenure. These weren't games for 4 points but there was still gambling involved and what he did in at least one situation was far worse than "experimenting" as he actively told his players towards the end of a game to deliberately lose (can't remember what year it was but a player had the ball close to the interchange and he was telling them to either slow down so the siren could go before the Swans could score and hit the lead or to kick sideways/backwards).