The Chazz

Sorry, just presumed that your "AA, CHF kicking 40+ goals a season" benchmark meant that they qualify as a match winner. I provided an example of one that isn't, and there are many more out there. To keep it simple, you think Cloke is a match winner, I don't think he is. You're not wrong, nor am I. It's a difference of opinion. I don't understand why my opinion is soooo laughable? Sometimes I do worry about you BH.

Don't do it RP, it's not worth it.

Yeah, probably goes against my point hey. Compare these two; * We ensure that Viney's development is "hidden" to ensure he is considered a "slider", or more to the point, others are consdiered to be ahead of him. * We crawl to other Clubs with a secret deal saying "you kep your hands off Viney, and we will give you all of this to benefit you, just so we can get 1 player" I know what I prefer, I would imagine Jimmy would want the same. You don't crawl to opposition teams. You do whatever it takes so that you don't have to. Hope that makes more sense!

BH, your arrogance is tiring, and totally unjustified. Cameron Mooney kicked 40+ a season on a number of occasions, I personally don't believe he's a match winner. Here you go again, setting bizarre benchmarks to prove your point (40+ goals a year to be a match winner, win the Rising Star award to be a star, next thing you will be doing is using super coach points to prove how crap a player is). For the price we would have to pay for Cloke, I think we would be better investing that in to our midfield (Boak), given we have Clark who is more than capable of kicking 40+ a year (which elevates him to match winning status according to your criteria), and we also have Cook/Watts/Fitzpatrick/Martin who can play the 2nd tall forward role. I've done the 2 x tall forward thing to death, but what I will say is that those teams you mentioned, as well as the other premiers of recent time that you didn't, all have one thing in common - they had/have a topline midfield. Geelong has won 3 flags in 5 years, not once would I say their forward line (in particular their 2 talls) is of high quality, and with a match winner in it (Stevie J is a match winner, not Mooney/Hawkins/Pods/Nath Ablett). Would the Lions have 3 flags in a row if you left Brown and Lynch/Bradshaw there but took out Voss, Aker, Lappin, Black and Power? Hope you can control your laughter after reading this post, as you will no doubt find it lacking understanding how football is played according to you. One thing BH, I don't understand why you pick people up on their interpretation/definition of something. My opinion of what a match winner is is obviously different to yours. If you have Cloke as a match winner, then I think you are loose with your definition. FWIW, Pendles and Swan are match winners at Collingwood, that is all. It's like what/who you call a star, compared to what someone else does. I don't give a sh!t if you see football differently - how I see the game is pretty bloody accurate if you ask me. But remember one thing, there is no book to say how you see it is "it" and we all should do the same. Your posts would be so much more interesting if you would understand that what you are giving us is your opinion and not "how it is". But, I don't expect you to change, just as I won't. Laugh away.

If you're happy to jump in to bed with the enemy, then that's fine. What do they say, keep your friends close and your enemies closer? I need to avoid these cliches like the plague... If our recruitment guys rate Viney in the top half dozen in the draft, then we take him at 3 (assuming we are "forced" to). No secret deals. Taking the F/S factor out of it, where would the Club, and every other club for that matter, rate Viney? This is my point - we have had ample opportunity to ensure the greater football community don't rate him too highly, but at this stage, we've appeared happy to let him go through the process of letting everyone see what he's like. I have to admit, I couldn't understand why McLardy was giving Wojo a packet of pilchards wrapped up in a brown paper bag a couple of months ago, if it wasn't pilchards it was definitely something that smelt a bit fishy...!!! I want our club to be hated. I want us to rort systems for the benefit of us. I want us to do it on our own - not through secret deals with other clubs who are after the same thing as us - a premiership. If we can't put enough doubt in the GC and GWS minds to ensure we get Viney with our 2nd round pick, I'll be very disappointed. I won't give up on the Club, but this is a perfect opportunity to have our cake and eat it too (sorry B59!). We want a premiership, we do whatever it takes to get one, but that DOES NOT involve working in partnership with 2 new teams who have been given the world.

Lawrence is a rookie. He has been on our rookie list for 18 months and is runing around in the Casey reserves. Some rookies make it, some turn out to be stars, most of them never play a senior game which is where Kel is at. We have given him an opportunity without him over-staying his welcome. It didn't work. Next.

GT/RP - thanks for that. Not sure what I was reading! So in theory, nothing has changed?! Seems as clear as mud to me!

I may be in the minority, but I say f**k any secret deals with any club. If they (ie GC or GWS) want to go down that dummy bidding to force us to pay premium, we have 2 decisions - force them to use that pick on Viney and miss getting the "true" number 1 or 2 picks, or we are the ones being forced. I think the comments coming from the MFC about there being ne certainty of us picking Viney with our first pick, shows to me that they want nothing to do with any secret deals with anyone. Planting the seed of doubt in the minds of the GCS and GWS team is as much as we can do, and as much as I want this football club to be involved in. I ask the question, if you were the Gold Coast recruiters sitting there with the number 1 pick firmly in your hands at the end of the year, would you throw in a dummy bid for Viney, woth the risk of actually getting him. More to the point, with the bigger risk of missing out on Whitfield? The MFC have had ample time to come up with ways to deter other teams picking Viney too early. We are in a position (on the ladder) where we only have a couple of teams to consider.

How is it? I must be misreading it. It is taking away the opportunity for Clubs to bid on multiple players with 1 selection. I'll try and explain it in words - apologies if it doesn't sound right! In the past, the bottom team have the Number 1 draft pick (still occurs!). They are then asked, "would you use that on Jack Viney?". If they say "Yes", then the F/S club (ie Melbourne) have the right to select him with their first pick after the one being offered by the GC. If we take Viney, then Gold Coast are asked "here's Joe Daniher, do you want to use your first pick on him?". If they say "Yes", then Essendon have the right of reply. In other words, they are getting mulitple cracks at F/S players with their number 1 pick. The proposed change will mean that GC will be asked "Ok, you have Pick 1, which F/S PLAYER are you willing to use that pick on?". If they nominate Viney, we have the right of reply. If they nominate Viney, it means Essendon won't have to worry about GC bidding on Daniher with the Number 1 pick, meaning they can't bid for him again until their 2nd round pick. That doesn't mean GWS can't pick him with the Number 2 pick. How'd I go? Hopefully that explains how I am reading it - I could be wrong with my interpretation. But I do believe it favours (slightly) the Club with the F/S pick, and so it should. It should favour them slightly, but not unfairly to other teams.

So you're saying that Howe and Magner are equal to Boak? Wow. Don't get me wrong, I rate Howe, and think Magner will be those (reliable) "run of the mill players", but Boak is streets ahead of both those examples. Boak would be in our top 2 or 3 midfielders as soon as he walked through the door. With a professional training regime from Misson and Neeld, he has a heck of a lot of upside. I do question this "Cloke wins games" comment. Franklin wins games, I don't believe Cloke does. He relies on the ball getting down to him, then he has an impact. I honestly believe that Mitch can do everything we would be asking of Cloke, and Mitch is already on our list!

I don't know if point 1 is right RP. It looks to me that it is doing the total opposite. Gold Coast get presented a group of players, are asked "do you want to use your number 1 pick on any of them?" they say "no", then it goes to GWS, who are asked "do you want to use your number 2 pick on these players?", and so on. I actually like the concept and will save a lot of dummy bids being put in.

Anyone know if Jack is playing on Friday?

B59, please take the Moneyball DVD out of the DVD player, or step away from the TV for a little while!

Yeah, as that's worked out so well in recent times. Don't forget, we will still be "taking our chances" in the draft regardless of if we get Boak or not. We have 3 first round picks, approx 3, 4 & 11. Worst case, we have to use Pick 3 on Viney, there's one "chance". That means we still have Pick 4 & 11, with the latter used in the Boak trade (I don't think we need to use Pick 4, especially if Clark was worth Pick 12). That means we still keep Pick 4 for another "chance". You get your wish - 2 great "chances" in the draft, and I get mine - Boak.

TT - the list of available Free Agents is already out, and there aint much quality on it, especially those leaving a premiership contender to come to Melbourne. There are certain rules in regards to the players that we can pick up through FA - I hope you realise that (apologies if you do!). If we can get him at a reasonable price, I think he is well worth it. It will add to the good group of 24 year olds that we have, which we are needing to rely on in the short term. I also laugh at the comments about him having a poor year - averaging 22 disposals a game would see him toward the top of our possession getters. Personally, I'd pick Boak over Beams in a heartbeat.

Rumour is that Brock had to write the word "Aids" as he was unable to spell "HIV".

This is the exact reason why Pick 4 for Boak is a reasonable consideration. We have no bloody idea what Stringer, Toumpas or anyone will be like, but we do with Boak. I admit, Pick 4 would be bloody high - I would've liked to hear it was our mid-first round pick. Some will look at it as a Stringer or Boak-type argument, I look at it as a Boak v Scully situation. I like the mentioning of the MOU in regards to JV. Now, for all those that got on here a couple of months ago saying he's contracted, blah blah, perhaps now you will understand that anything is possible in this Viney situation. Welcome to the MFC Travis Boak.

Oli, I think their point is that if they (especially BH) could trade Watts for Cameron, then they would do that. They're not saying that would be Cameron's asking price. On the other hand, if we were required to offer a Trengove & Frawley-type package, I would want to spend it on someone better than Cameron. Cameron's played a handful of good games and showed a fair bit of upside, but there's still risk invovled. Thankfully, the people that matter (our FD/List Managers) wouldn't be so silly.

You base being a star on how they perform within their first season, on their ability to impact a game as a key forward, and if they win a Rising Star nomionation, or the actual award itself. Then not only that, you try and back it up with something that a past player has said. Don't get me wrong, Mooney has been there and done it winning multiple premierships. David King has won multiple premierships too, that doesn't mean that what he said about Neeld is correct. Don't get me wrong, Cameron may turn out to be a star. He may turn out to be a flash in the pan, and there is probably a greater chance than anything that he will end up somewhere in between the two. At this stage, his form guide is looking very positive for his future stocks, so I don't think you're sticking your neck out by jumping on the bandwagon. But if you want to use the Rising Star winner as your benchmark, while their are some handy players on that list, including brownlows, multiple brownlows and premiership and Norm Smith winners, there are also just as many players that are far from the star category, who obviously at some stage (in order to get a nomination in the first place) looked like the next best thing. We have a past winner on our list that I wouldn't call a star. I would argue that 8 of the first 16 winners are stars, the other 8 are not. It's too early to judge Rich, although I don't think he'll be a star midfielder, Hannebery and Heppell would have star qualities. Considering Ablett and Swan weren't nominated, and players like Pendlebury and Bartel were but didn't win the award, I don't use the RS as any indication of star-potential. It's like the Golden Slipper, worlds richest 2 year old race, one of the best races on the Australian calendar, how many have gone on and made it as champion racehorses? My issue is how you, or anyone else, are going the early crow about how Cameron will end up so much better than Watts, and how you claim that you are "one of the very few that can dispassionately evaluate footballers" - I'm stuffed if I know how you think you are so much better than the majority with that, considering you have no idea what everyone thinks of the 750-odd players on an AFL list. In response to your accusation of me lying, I just figured that with the amount of flaws in Watts' game, that it wouldn't be hard for most players to be better than him. I didn't lie, I just jumped to the wrong conclusion. I apologise. Would be interested to know, however, what your response is to Watts' comments about playing in the back line. I'm sure you've finished sorting your sock drawer, can't be many other mundane jobs that would give you more satisfaction than responding to Jack's comments.

So for a player to be a star, they need to show something in their first season, otherwise it's goodnight nurse? C'mon BH, we all get that you rate Cameron over Watts. There probably isn't too many players running around that you don't rate ahead of Watts. But this comment about "anyone that thinks Watts will be a better player than Cameron is simply a poor judge of football" is just plain ignorant. What are the parameters of which this comparison can be made? You comment that Cameron will be able to impact a game as a key forward - are key forwards the only ones that can impact a game? I'm not sure what you think it would take for a defender to impact a game, but if my definition is close to the mark, Watts has shown over the past month that he has every bit the potential to have a strong impact on games. Perhaps I'm putting some of this blind faith in Watts' ability and potential, but for you to come out and be so strong in your belief that Watts will never be the player Cameron will be is a very early call from your perspective, given that 1 has played 50 games, and the other 10. No doubt I'll hear the typical "what Cameron has shown in 10 is far more than what Watts has shown in 50", but I'll prefer to wait til the end of their career to see which one turns out to be the better player. Until then, it has nothing to do with the level of knowledge you, me or anyone has about the game, it's about believing both players can reach their full potential, which I think Watts can, but you don't. While I think of it BH, here's a little snippet from Jack's interview from the weekend... "...Funnily enough, he's taking the steps forward down back, learning to play his role for the team. "I have certainly learnt how hard it is down there and now it's just training, training, training so it becomes habit," Watts said." http://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/newsarticle/tabid/7415/newsid/139410/default.aspx Poor Jack, what hope have we got if he finds the easiest position on the ground hard?

I know Sam Blease has been goal umpiring a bit too. Will try and find a pic...

Congratualtions Tom, and well picked/sought Barry. Credit where it's due - Tommy was a 50-something selection.

Hopefully not Wayne.

Is that Dean Chiron in the background?

It annoys me that players are playing for their futures. The Geelong players play to win a premiership, as do all the better teams. Playing for your personal future leads to selfishness and bitterness - it's the quickest thing (behind sleeping with your teammates Mrs) to create divisions within a Club. This will be Neeld's biggest challenge, as our team has had a history of players playing well in their "out of contract year", getting re-signed, then playing poor to average the next 2 years.