Gooner

I think if we do a swap with GWS, it'll come late in the trade period. At the moment, even if we did a swap, GWS wouldn't have enough points to recruit Green and whoever they picked with pick 3. They're well short and probably need a pick in the late teens or a pick in the 20s and a pick in the 40s to have enough points to recruit Green. They'll get something for Patton but they'll likely have to give up something else before they're even in a position to trade for our pick 3.

Although this season was a disaster, I'm optimistic about the coming years, probably more than any time in the last 30 years. We've got a good group of players but due to a combination of injuries, lack of pre-season and lack of motivation after our poor start, we had a shocker of a season. I'm sure that the fitness staff will be working on getting everyone ready for pre-season. We've recruited well over the past few years. Yes, not every pick is perfect, but we're not making recruiting mistakes like we did previously. The biggest question for me is Goodwin's ability. He hasn't shown his ability to turn a game around, but remember that both a few years ago it was questioned whether Hardwick would remain at Richmond and a few years before that there were questions whether Thompson was the right coach for Geelong.

I'm looking forward to next year but having an off season this year may be a blessing in disguise. Since the week break was between the regular season and finals was introduced, at least one of the final fours teams has missed finals the following year (including 2 of the three grand finalists) and one of the grand finalists have missed finals the year before. The difference that four or five weeks makes now, means that missing finals can be a real positive for teams that are looking to build towards the next season. It means clubs can start their pre-seasons earlier and get their players in for surgery a lot earlier that they otherwise would. A full pre-season for us, getting any surgeries in early, an easier draw and a high drafts picks (that may be traded) will be a huge positive for us as we have a serious crack at the flag next year. This year has been a real disappointment, but I'm very optimistic about next year!

I think the more accurate comparison is what is the difference between 40 & 53 compared with 23 & PSD1. Do the club expect a better player to be available at 53 than via the PSD?

Re-branding is one of many steps that need to be taken to get us back to the position of a force in football, whilst I agree that winning will make most things better, we can't look at our on-field performance as the solution to everything. I believe that one reason why Collingwood have been able to develop so much talent over the last decade despite having few high draft picks is because of their facilities and coaches which are only possible because of their financial strength. Get that right, and sooner rather than later, the on-field performance will improve. Like most posters, I agree that the logo needs to be changed and I'd like to see the club go back to something similar such as the 95-07 logo that Colin alluded to. However, I'd like us to start looking towards world's best practice across sporting competitions throughout the world. Moves such as making players wear suits when travelling with the team might instil a little more discipline and respect. Generally, clubs that have done well have been more creative, we need lots of good ideas, no idea should be held back because it is too crazy. Based on where we are at the moment, we don't have much to lose, why not try for something a bit different.

I don't think it'll happen, but I'd love to see Schwarz as President. Whilst it's not essential, high profile Presidents such as notable media personalities and ex-players seem to do quite a good job. It also seems that the role of President is to inspire the supporters and to be the face of the administration side of the club, and that's something that I believe Ox could do quite well.

I don't mind the idea of Anderson taking on the role despite his involvement in the tanking investigation. He'll have a better knowledge of the club than many of the other possible candidates, and has probably looked at it in a much more critical way given his past duties.

A bit more discussion on the issue of whether the AFL should take over: http://media.theage.com.au/national/selections/the-bigger-issues-at-the-demons-4173992.html Most of the points have been made already, but it's worth having a look at nonetheless.

I'd be interested to know what sort of support AD was proposing. It's worth a phone call at the very least.

To our members and supporters The letter appears to be more about saving people's jobs, rather than offering any solutions to our problems. The club needs a complete overhaul, not more PR. We will be using every internal and external resource available to us in the short term to make improvements as rapidly as possible. However, we highly value internal stability the lack of which has been a downfall of our club in the past - and we will not bow to the external elements that try to destabilise our club at times such as these. At this difficult time, we continue to seek support from all our supporters and members for the long term good of the Melbourne Football Club. We understand that some of you will be angry and disillusioned, that some will say we have heard all this before, and that some will lose heart and temporarily give up.

Thought it might be interesting to readdress this thread after last night's performance.

It sounds like there's not a clear pecking order beyond Whitfield and each club may pick based on needs rather than there being a clear best available. Pick 4 would be preferred, but if Hogan is sufficiently highly rated, he could be worth pick 3. Interesting the value of the MD picks considering the reported strength of this year's draft. Gold Coast have traded pick two for a player who may or may not still be pick one in a year's time. Seems like a bit of a gamble to me unless there isn't a lot of difference between the top few players.

Looks like Hogan could be a Demon next year. The talk is pick 3 for MD pick 2 which we'll use on Hogan.

We won't get anything much for him at all with the court case looming. It's unlikely that Adelaide or Port will be willing to pay market value for a player who may not be able to play next year or even for several years.

You missed Sylvia (pick 3, 2003) Hawthorn also got Rioli right and have traded away a number of their top picks over the past few years in order to recruit more mature players. Hawthorn haven't been great in recent years but it shows the importance of a few top quality recruits. Let's wait and see how good Watts, Trengove et al are in a few years before making a call on how successful we were.

Sorry to spoil all the fun, but the clubs that finish below us have to elect whether or not they will take Viney before trade week, therefore all the arguments about trading away our first round pick for a 17 y.o. in order to get Viney with our second round pick are superfluous. I wonder whether it would be worth offering GWS picks 4 and 12 (assuming we end up with those picks) in exchange for both of the 17 year olds. It's a big risk given the strength of the draft, but if we've already got Viney with our second round pick (which we will know about at the time) we could gain two great 17 year olds and still have the third best junior in the country. It may be the equivalent of upgrading pick 12 to a player of around the quality of pick 4 in exchange for a bit of risk. I know that this draft is expected to be very strong, but I think that's a fair trade and could give us a little more time to free up space on our risk without having to clear out 5-6 players from our list. Realistically, we're likely to go down to at least our 4th round pick in this draft (around pick 55-60) which will be the 6th player that we draft this year! If we use our 5th round pick, it will be 7 players who will have to move elsewhere! Where as if we draft the two 17 y.os we may have to free up space for 4-5 players each year.

It's an interesting sponsor for the club to get given that they don't produce a car here yet and a number of their popular cars in Europe (eg. the Astra) are already sold under the Holden badge. Nonetheless, it's money for the club and some more good press which doesn't hurt!

It's not a bad idea to have a bit of a clean out at the end of this season. I think the strength of this year's draft and the weakness of last year's draft kept a lot of players on the books who may not be there next season. Jamar going to GWS is an interesting one. We would likely receive an end of first rounder or second round pick which will likely get us around pick 20 if he goes. Alternatively, we could trade him to another club for something around the same value. I'm not sure about trading Moloney or Rivers. I think they've both got age plus ability on their side and we don't seem to have a reasonable replacement for either of them. If we do that and finish 16th which could be the case if we continue to play like we've been playing, we could be looking at something like picks 3, 4, 12, 22, 25, 40 and 58 although the exact order of the picks will depend on where we finish and how many compensation picks are used by teams above/below us. If Gold Coast and GWS are nice enough to let Viney fall through to our second round, we could be set for a lot of talent and whilst it's no guarantee of success, it will help build on those talented players that we've already got.

You're comparing a player who was a ready made AFL player as a junior with a young developing player. I'm not saying that our recruiting is perfect by any means, but there were plenty of other clubs who could have picked Darling if they were looking for the best available and chose not to. Anyway, two years ago, we needed a full forward, which is what Cook will hopefully turn out to be. Darling was thought to be more of a second tall than a full forward and didn't fit into our structure. Perhaps the problem was chasing a full forward when we should have been going for the best available, but I don't think we were the only team that overlooked Darling.

How can you say that anyone who knew football would have selected Darling? Every recruiter in the country overlooked him with their first pick? There's a very good chance that Darling would have been selected with our second pick had he dropped that low, but twelve different recruiters overlooked him between our first pick and pick 26! We've made recruiting errors I'm sure, as every club has, but let's be realistic about the extent of our errors.

Out: Green, Bennell In: Morton, Moloney

166 - 58 = 108 by my calculations. Good to see Magner get plenty of the ball and Clarke kick five. It may be an indication of light at the end of the tunnel if our recruiting is improving.

I think it's a bit of both. I can't understand how we've gone backwards over the last two years. Off field problems may have a part to play but there are players out there who are better than the players that we've picked over the last few years. In a lot of cases, we've picked the sort of players that were expected to go around the same time that we picked them, on other occassions (eg. Cook, Howe, Gysberts etc) we've picked players that were expected to go much later in the draft than we picked them. We've also picked a lot of players that take time to develop, compared to the WCE who have picked a lot more ready made players (eg. Nic Nat, Darling) so we need another couple of years to work out how successful we've been.

107 points. I'm very glad that we've activated our draft picks for this year. We're going to need them!

If that's the way that people believe that we should go, I think those who are interested in setting up the trust should meet up after a game and work out the logistics of how it would work. I'd suggest at a minimum we'd need to set up a bank account, a website and the actual trust deed. We'd also need to appoint people to manage the trust and work out the terms of the trust. It's a lot of work to set up the organisation, but if we've got a number of people who are willing to share the load, it's definitely doable and could generate some great publicity for the club and help get Melbourne fans more engaged and involved in the club.