Radar Detector

I must've been following the wrong SpyandSource on twitter. Can't recall a single thing he got right except stuff reported after the fact. If he was spot on all month, we would've seen Essendon land a big fish, a big name Eagle head to a Vic club, Jack Anthony to Sydney, Josh Hill to us etc. etc. Am I missing something?

Although I cannot stand the sight of Travis Cloke, there is no doubt he would be a valuable asset to our team and is in the right age bracket. The point is moot however. The trade period has passed and there is no way he would slip to number 12. At a minimum, Gold Coast will nab him with one of the seven picks they have before ours. The one key hole in their list is a big bodied key forward. Aside from that, I think that any of WCE, Essendon, Richmond and probably even Brisbane would also take him before us. Time to move on.

Quite the opposite. I hope the FD ignores all the crap that we're all talking and get on with the job they're paid to do. I'd be far more concerned if the FD do listen to the opinions on this forum in relation to drafting and trading as that would indicate to me they don't really have confidence in the decisions they're making. Btw I would guess that nobody, including the FD, ever want to overspend on any player. Different people just have different perceptions around what overspend means in relation to different players.

No need to repeat, but thanks. I am not disputing the fact that Cam is overseas, just that his contract negotiations have been at a stalemate for some time and he has been overeas for at most a few days. There are clearly other issues involved.

Fair obsrvation. I tend to agree with all of it. No, they gave up their Bock compensation pick (end of first round) AND a third rounder.

Sylvia - Arguably our most talented player and can tear games apart Davey - See comment for Sylvia. Toss a coin as to which is better Russian - Super important and will be a crucial to our surge up the ladder Frawley - Defence wins premierships and he is the key to our backline Green - Likely captain, reigning B&F and still our best (and most reliable) scoring option Grimes - Future leader and provides class of half back. Massively important. Apologies to: Jurrah - Could kick 50+ in a season if he gets a run and is the x-factor every team craves Scully - Expect to see him starting to win games off his own boot in 2011. Super talent Trengove - See Scully although slightly less upside IMO. Watts - Doubt there's anyone more important to our premiership aspirations

I don't know, and I agree he is not worth anything like pick 12 straight up. My only question (and it is just that, a question) is whether there is truly a large difference between picks 12 and 17 or we just perceive there to be one. After all we're all pretty excited about Blease and Tapscott who were 17 and 18 respectively.

Exactly. Hale is behind Macintosh and Goldstein in North's pecking order but both those guys would stroll straight into our best 22. Just because Hale isn't in front of those two doesn't mean he's no good or won't considerably improve our side.

Maybe, but we wouldn't be giving up the pick, just moving back a couple of spots in the order. The question I posed above is whether pick 17 is really that much worse than 12? But for a few extra points against Collingwood and the Dogs we would've had pick 17 odd anyway... Would that really have screwed us and handed GC a massive edge? I'm not sure but I doubt it.

This is all true but Hale, while rumored to prefer Melbourne, is also not averse to a move elsewhere. And Gold Coast have reportedly offered pick 26 and have plenty of salary cap room. The result is that North are in a much better bargaining position than you suggest. Incidentally, while I don't necessarily believe the credibility of the propsed trade, I ran it past an impartial and very knowledgeable Bombers supporter mate and he thought it was about right. And thinking further, the difference between picks we are talking about is (for example) from Gysberts to Tapscott... Are we sure there's enough in that to really jump up and down? My initial reaction was that this would be a crap trade for us but now I'm not certain.

I saw Cam in Melbourne last week so I doubt the hold-up has been him being overseas. Really hope the club holds firm on a one year deal - we don't want a scenario like Brad Johnson (or David Neitz for that matter). I realise he's concerned about being shipped off for being too old but if he deserves a contract after next year, I'm sure the club will offer him one (especially given his veteran status). If he doesn't then one year was a fair call anyway. No benefit to offering two IMO.

Just for a bit of context, those pondering whether Hale is worth a second or third round choice (me included) should probably bear in mind the following. In 2008 our third round pick (Jamie Bennell) was pick 35 and in 2009 Max Gawn was pick 34. This year, our second round pick is 31. If we really think Hale is worth a "third rounder", unfortunately our second pick is probably about right. Will be interesting to see if we can fill that hole with any additional player-for-pick swaps if we do go down that path.

So Fev and Pavlich don't play as traditional talls? It's a myth that you have to be 195cms plus to play key forward, you just need to be able to present well and take a grab in a contest. His height is fine for key forward, the question is whether or not he's a good enough player.

Tend to agree with this logic - especially as Hale had his best game of the year with Warnock as his direct opponent. Pretty sure Warnock only played one more game this year than Hale so the comparison is fair. Personally, I would prefer a third rounder for Hale and a second rounder for Warnock but not sure of the likelihood.

In the words of John McEnroe "You cannot be serious!" Laycock is one of the softest, most injury-prone and incompetent spuds in the AFL. I don't even know a single Essendon supporter that rates him.

Could not agree more with this post. Not saying that we shouldn't trade for experience at some stage, just not yet. Of course, if we could get a gun youngster with 8-10 years in front of them that would be different but that is a pipe dream. Not sure there's anyone who's been discussed that I think would be an appropriate use of pick 12, especially given the strength of this year's draft.

Darling is actually 2cm taller than Fev and only 1cm shorter than Pav so not sure height will be an issue with him... That said, he was apparently a loose cannon with a poor attitude and may now be facing some psychological issues as you suggested. On Mundy, I'm with your original call. I think he is a quality player but has only really produced the one outstanding season and, at 25, we run the risk of throwing a little bit too much at him in an over-inflated marketplace. If it was Swan or Ablett, sure, but I think we have more pressing needs and his price is likely to end up over the odds. I'd be happier to spec the first pick on a tall forward prospect and back in our emerging midfield, especially seeing as we are still one or two years away (at least) from being a genuine threat.

I'm not sure that this is necessarily true. Dane Swan was a very similar player to Jones at the same stage of his career with many of the same knocks - one-paced, average disposal, one-dimensional - but he has really come on over the past three years to be the best player in the comp this year. If Jones wants to go elsewhere to get opportunities, that's one thing, but to seek to trade him for a pick would be a strange decision IMO. We get a bit carried away on here expecting all the high draft picks we select to become champions of the game but many of them become nothing better than serviceable. Some of our higher draft picks in recent years have included Bell, Bate, Dunn, Maric, Strauss and Jones himself. And those drafts weren't compromised. Sometimes a bird in the hand...

Correct. The difference between pre-paying contracts and front-loading contracts is that front-loading contractually binds the club to pay a certain amount in a particular year (e.g. pay $400k in year one, $200k in year 2). This will be agreed at the time the contract is signed. Prepaying contracts may arise where someone has signed a contract for $300k in year 1 and 2 but because there is excess room in the salary cap in year 1, they agree with the player to pay a portion of the contract early (e.g pay $400k in year one, $200k in year 2). So the result is the same, but the contractual treatments are different. It is all about freeing up room in future. This does not encourage salary cap cheating as suggested by another poster as at no time can you pay more than 100% of the cap in TPP in a given year (unless you're Carlton). It only works for clubs like Melbourne who, despite front-loading a portion of our contracts, may still have residual room in the cap in a given year. Hope that helps!

I think that we can't really evaluate whether trading any player (not just Jones) is a good or bad idea until we know what we might be getting in return. The club would be irresponsible not to listen to offers on any player that came up in trade talks. However some of the inconsistencies in opinion on here frustrate me a little. We have two players on our list currently in our best 22 who are one paced, perceived to have average disposal and bleed for the club. Both have a 2nd placing in the B&F on their CV but one is 22 and the other 26. Can you pick which one people are advocating to trade and which one people are advocating for captain? Not saying either is necessarily right or wrong but the double standards surprise. And people are getting a bit ahead of themselves saying our flag winning midfield contains gysberts, tapscott, blease etc. They've played a collective total of three games.

I suspect I'll be in a very small minority here but I don't think we should really chase Pavlich at all. If he was two or three years younger sure, but despite the fact he is an outright star, I don't think it's the right time to be chasing a player of his age. The precedents for trades involving players of that quality suggest you need to trade seriously high picks plus a good young player. I would rather see us keep all our young potential stars (like Gysberts mentioned above) and aim to have as many players peaking at once as possible. Pavlich will be past his best by the time we're challenging for a flag and the sight of Morton, Gysberts, Tapscott or whoever tearing it up at another club would break my heart. Another couple of years sticking to the plan is important. Trading too early (for Judd) will come back to bite Carlton as they've already lost Kennedy and Judd's peaking now but they're still not serious contenders. Let's not trade for anyone that won't be at or near their peak when we're pushing for no. 13.

Jones finished equal 13th with Bartram. He was 24th on votes per game. Not sure that trading Jones is the right move just yet, especially when so much of our young midfield is unproven. Scully, Trengove and Jordie are the only ones who have really had any real exposure to the ones. Gysberts was awesome in his first two games but surely we should see a bit more of these kids before we move on a consistently good (if limited) player who is only 22! Plus every premiership team has a few grunt players like Jones. I think he'd thrive in a finals atmosphere.

McKenzie's top 10 finish shouldn't be overlooked too. Great effort for a young guy on the rookie list and really stiff not to get a rising star nom.

^ What he said I think the compensation for Bock was spot on. Port got over the odds for Krakouer. On Viney, there is plenty of time to resolve this issue if indeed Jack Viney is even worth selecting in a couple of years time - plenty can happen. Anyway, unless JV turns out to be a Scully or Trengove standout (which he might) then we will probably get a similarly talented player with a low teens pick anyway. Not too much lost given we would probably have to use our first round pick to select him. The days of selecting a G. Ablett or J. Brown with a pick in the 30s or 40s is past.

My thoughts exactly. At this stage, Jack would be unlikely to be one of the players GWS gives up whilst under contract - surely that provision is in place so they can offload the four 17yo they least want after seeing them first hand. Why waste this screening process on a kid they know they won't keep? Even if they did go down this path, another club might make a substantially better offer. To be honest, there's no sure fire recipe for Jack staying in Adelaide and if he really doesn't want to leave home, why risk being signed early by GWS? He'd be better off to just wait until the draft and hope he slides until the Crows' pick. The only certain outcomes he can hope for are F/S at the Demons or early signing by GWS. I'm not too concerned by this article. Seems like Adelaide grasping at a pretty short straw. Our main competition for Jack is (and always has been) GWS.