Dr. Gonzo

I also think Bate may not fit in all that well with our playing group. No evidence to base this on just speculation. I remember a game earlier in the year when Green had Bate open in the goalsquare and didn't handball it to him kicking the goal himself. Bate was down on confidence (in & out fo the team) and loooked pretty disappointed the captain didn't give him a freebie. Only a minor thing and maybe nothing in it but I just thought there could be some issues there.

Let him go, take pick 39 and move on. No point holding the guy to ransom he obviously wants out.

Would love it if we could snare him from under the nose of Essendon as well, would make it even sweeter. Would be great to get him but wouldn't be the end of the world if we couldn't.

Reckon we might start off with a game interstate next year, can't remember the last time this happened off the top of my head.

So Brisbane do not accept The Shockers offer Mitch Clark has stated he would prefer to go into the PSD than play for Melbourne???

Is this correct?? Do we stink that much to our opponents??

Bloody Hell maybe that Denham turd was on to something.....

He'll go to the PSD because he knows he will get to Freo that way. He wouldn't nominate if he thought GWS would pick him up.

Some still dont get it.. If not for the want to go home hed be in Red and Blue right now, and happy to be so. Its not that we CANT land a bloke. He had a very different agenda. He stuck to it. I dont see it as a rebuff at all. We just didnt get our way. ...and we move on.

Exactly. Disappointed? Sure but I'm not slashing my wrists over this. At the end of the day we did the best we could and as you say if not for the go-home factor he'd be with us now. We still have a massive stash in our salary cap and free agency comes in next year I say we start plotting who we want now and work on them throughout all of next year.

Depends how much Freo want Clark... I would be offering them pick 12 in a straight swap for Morabito

And then they'd laugh at you.

I understand the frustration that fans feel when we cannot attract players, but not long ago we were a basketcase. It's a steep climb.

Yeah not long ago at all. Only 3 months in fact.

Apparently Brisbane now asking for pick 12 + Maric?! Anyone else heard this?

Ha, would do that in a heart beat, doubt it's true though.

What people have to remember when saying we are paying "overs" is that it is all relative. Clark is what we need to plug a hole in our side that has troubled us since Neitz retired. He is also in our age bracket. Is it worth giving 12 & compo to get him considering we know we have Viney coming next year plus another compo pick to use? You can only stockpile draft picks/young kids for so long and if we lose out on an extra kid (compo pick) and land a player who can a plug a hole then I reckon we've done extremely well.

That being said I reckon Clark will still say he wants to go to Freo but you can't fault us for trying our damnedest.

Remember in all this Brisbane are trying to land Tippett from the crows. 16 & 20 are worthless to them if it won't land them Tippett but 12 should do the trick (+ compo?)

Yes we cannot do much more IMO.

I still find it hard to believe we will not end up in WA.

He seems hell bent on returning to WA.

Freo will increase their offer a little and give more to Brisbane and that will be the end of it.

But 10 out of 10 for effort.

Yes but even if he goes to Freo we have put a spanner in the works. Let's say he has his heart set on WA but Brisbane wants more than pick 16. In we step with pick 12 and say to the Dockers "what have you got?" we could end up with pick 16 or 20 plus a player, question is who do we want from Freo?

Clark isn't that good but Martin is coming into his own and more versatile? I don't think we'll get Clark and offering Martin was purely a hypothetical but Clark is easily a better and more natural player than Martin. Easily.

Can't see it happening and to be honest I'm not sure why we are wasting our time. Why would he want to come to Melbourne when he wants to go home. It makes little to no sense. I'd prefer us to put our energy into going for Lisle or some muture age players like St. Kilda did - they've got cap issues and they've still managed to do what seems to be a decent deal. What are we doing? So far, it's been a pretty ordinary trade week on our behalf.

Yeah pretty disappointed the Saints were able to snatch Saad for next to nothing when we could really use a crumbing small forward.

I just don't see him as a big bodied forward capable of splitting pack like we appear to want. He is more of a gentle footballer who has a lot of skill and balance and can gain possessions around the ground almost like a midfielder a bit in the mould of a Jeff White.

It was just a suggestion and if someone has another I'd be glad to hear it, I'm not in the recruiting department so my suggestions dont mean squat.

Taking it as a purely hypothetical I don't see a problem with the suggestion. I doubt it will happen though as Martin was only recently re-signed as pointed out by others.

It may free us up to play Martin down back though. He played there with some success in his first season and would assist Frawley, Rivers and Garland take on the monster forward lines. His kicking may be a worry though as he can butcher it so may be a liability in defense.

Ok, so Clark is now not going to happen apparently.

Lisle/Walsh?

Why do you say that? I wouldn't hold my breath on us getting him (due to him watning to head back to WA) but woudln't say its a foregone conclusion either.

If Clark is out of the picture I would like to see us make a play for Lisle though. Don't know much about him but he has size and has apparently shown something in the VFL. Could do worse than take a punt on him, remember he was only drafted 3 years ago.

Is Martin a big bodied forward?

I have nothing against Stef Martin I only suggested the trade, which in my opinion would be an upgrade for us, because you have to give a bit to get a bit.

We can talk all day about trades but if all we come up with is "Warnock for last year's Brownlow Winner" than we might as well keep out of it.

Exactly. Martin showed definite improvement this year but still needs to improve further if he is to become a pivotal player. Will his improvement continue? It's hard to say. We may end up holding onto him another few years and he doesn't get any better than he showed this year. He is an athlete trying to play football whereas I see Clark as a pure footballer. Sometimes you have to take a punt and I would take the risk that Martin played at his top level this year and won't improve much beyond that therefore its best to trade him now while his currency is at its peak rather than try to offload him in a couple of years when we wouldn't get much for him.

Also I think Martin can only really play in the ruck. I don't see him as a forward as he doesn't have the natural kjicking technique or read of the game. He may be able to go down back to take on the gorillas like Cloke and the resting ruckman as this is one position I still think we need to fill. However if not I would be more than happy to trade him if it meant getting in Clark considering we still have Jamar and Gawn as rucks with Spencer as a back-up.

Would you include Steph Martin in the trade? Our first round plus Steph for their second round ?

Yes.

More oddness.

Adelaide List Manager David Noble on Gunston Trade "Overall result won't pan out until the end of the week".

Given no one has said how Adeliade have secured Pick 2/Crouch in MD methinks something dodgy is going on again and that if allowed to proceed by AFL MD1/O'Meara will be back to GWS.

Yeah thats what I'm thinking.

I thought he was seen as more of a midfielder than a defender but I'm only going on memory of reports from 1-2 years ago. Can't remember seeing him play either.

Warnock for Toy won't happen wasn't Toy a top 5 pick only last year? Or was he one of the GC early 17yo picks? Either way we'd have to offer a lot more than just Warnock and a 2nd-3rd round pick.

Exactly - there would have been an easy way to make this particular rule air tight. All you would have to state is that these mini draft picks must be bid for. Once the bidding has concluded these picks must be used by the club that won them and cannot be used as part of a subsequent trade (or on-traded). Fairly simple and still allows GWS to be able to trade them for picks if that's what they would prefer rather than players. The AFL deliberately writes their rules as loose as possible so that they can manipulate the interpretation to their advantage as circumstances require.

Risky tactic though as the likes of Port & GCS are eligible for a PP which would come before GWS 1st pick (assuming they finish bottom, of course), not to mention the fact they will have to auction all four mini draft picks next year which may result in inferior offers to the ones they are receiving now...

Don't think they HAVE to trade these mini-draft picks. It is just another option for them to help build their list. If they don't want to or don't get enough for them they can choose to use all 4, 1 or none.

At risk of incurring old55's wrath for failing Mini Draft 101, how does this make any sense? If they're worthless to GWS then not trading them doesn't help them attain O'Meara, it just stops them from picking up players/more draft picks for free. More likely that they're hanging out for the best offers - I wouldn't be in that great a hurry to do the trades either in this case, just make the other clubs sweat for a few days first.

I just wrote a post which was deleted in response so this is a truncated version.

If GWS don't trade any MD picks they leave O'Meara & Crouch available for next year. Now even if GWS don't get pick 1 next year they will still benefit as the player that would've gone pick 1 (Whitfield?) will then be available for them at pick 2 or 3 if the team with pick 1 (Port or GC?) chooses O'Meara or Crouch. They may be willing to forego pick 4 this year in a weak draft (and one in which they have a monopoly any way) to all but ensure they get one of O'Meara, Crouch or Whitfield (or whoever the number 1 player is come next draft) next year.

A bit Machiavellian but that is what these guys (Sheedy, Allen, Williams) are renowned for.

As you said Scully makes one - Warnock wants out and we're happy to oblige, that's two.

I could easily see Wonna being delisted and then picked up as a rookie. Bate wants to go and it looks like we'll be happy to accommodate if an offer can be made. That's 4 spots and probably enough for this year. We can upgrade Nicholson to the senior list leaving 3 more spots being pick 12, 36 (or whatever our second pick is) and maybe get a player in for Bate or Warnock (Lisle?). That's probably all I'd do for now given the shallow draft pool and given there's no other rookies I'd be too keen to upgrade (possibly Evans?) unless there's another player they have in mind for a trade.

Question - does anyone know if we happen to land Crouch (or O'Meara however unlikely) do they take a spot on our senior list next year? Or do they come on for the 2013 season?

It must be remembered that the 'first roud pick immediately after normal first round pick' will be worth comparatively more to clubs likely to finish bottom four, compared to the at least mid-table you'd hope for from Melbourne next year. We may yet be able to snag O'Meara ahead of Gold Coast - that pick is probably pick 2 for GWS despite only being worth about pick 10 for us.

Think you've got this wrong - no matter who we trade the pick to it still comes after OUR pick in whichever draft it is used in - so for instance we trade the comp pick after our first round pick to GWS and we have pick 12 next year they get pick 13.