DeeSpencer

Possibly but I still think the hawks would rather go forward with Simpkin, Hallahan (if Sewell leaves), Woodward, Anderson. Savage still a way down the list.

Personally I think Sewell has more left in him than Cross. Probably both great leaders. Neither can hit the side of a barn with their kicking. I'd lean towards Sewell because he could make an impact at the clearances. Cross would probably just be a bit spare parts and not even see out the year like Rodan. Happy to pay Sewell any $$$ he wants but not happy to give too much in a trade for a 30 year old.

3 years and presumably giving up a decent pick and cash for Shane Savage. No way. Pick 40, 2 year deal, average money and I'll take him. He knows there's a regular spot for him in our team next year but I'm not convinced that if we've made any head way with player development if the spot will still be there in 3 years time.

Reading the tea leaves or got something more solid behind that assertion?

No one has spruiked a deal for pick 2 and Myers besides the media. St Kilda and us both have genuine interest is Myers but I doubt either club would go anywhere near pick 2. It's simply a case of every team is now looking for the next Josh Kennedy ie. a talented guy who doesn't get the minutes he can deserve in the midfield and could be a late blooming talent. I actually think Essendon do want to keep him but I would also think that Myers would be pretty happy at a club that could give him 70% midfield time instead of half back, wing, half forward etc.

Talls are low priority but good ones if you get them cheap you can always on trade them or use them as quality depth. Rookie draft or PSD if we get him over to train with us again. Both body and mind seem much better than when we first looked at him, but having him over for a preseason again would be the best move.

Because they are the 2 picks that Sydney were willing to trade for pick 3 back in the day?

Paraphrasing Josh Mahoney interview I just heard on trade radio

I should've added given our circumstances. For a normal pick 2 - no where close. But I consider this pick 2 as a pick 4 when you remember Hogan and Martin should be in this draft. To give us the young midfielder capable of stepping in straight away (Parker) and another best 22 premiership player (Smith) it might get us close. I don't love it but I don't see a lot of alternatives. If Roos (and preferably with advice from Viney and Taylor) are really committed that trading pick 2 for a ready to go player is the right call then we might not get any better than Parker and even that is massive speculation that we could get him. Looks like we can cross Shuey and Rockliff off the list and their aren't a lot of others doing the rounds.

Yeah Parkers value is probably pick 10-15, Smith value around pick 25. Together that gets somewhere near pick 2. Bird is probably more around pick 20-30 as well so I agree needs the additional first round pick as well to get up to pick. I'd love to have Smith, would really round out the backline as the stopping small defender but I doubt he'd be a priority over midfielders.

Their were rumours last year about Giles but it's weird that a guy on his second chance would want to leave. Made no sense to me. Plus you bring in Mumford and take out Giles how much have you actually improved? I'd rather go with both for at least a year. Bugg and Buntine might be but if we were you usually here about that first a bit like some of the Brisbane guys. Bruce is 197cm, not small. Might not be good enough but right now he and Phil Davis are the best talls they have. I'd keep him and keep playing him and he'll probably keep improving. Adams has a bit of a reputation off field but nothing horrible and plenty of young players get up to a bit when they are young. Toby Greene has a much worse one. And Adams is more than worth it on field. Again he and Shiel are the ones who are really producing as ball winning mids. Plenty of other of their high picks right now are miles from it - Hoskin-Elliott, O'Rourke, Sumner, Dom Tyson even Coniglio who was meant to be a star. I'd be fine if these were there moves if they were gold coast this year after winning 8 or so games that they did. But once again they've won 1 game and potentially have 4 best 22 players leaving and so far only Mumford coming in. Crazy. Reminds me of us last year where we lost Moloney, Petterd and Rivers and replaced them with Rodan, Byrnes and Pedersen.

Better question is who the hell conned Melbourne, Port and North recruiters into drafting this collection of spuds with such high draft picks. Did someone find a private school in the middle of Ringwood and figure they stumbled across the next Assumption. Moore's doing a nice job as a tagger but is a long way from pick 8 or whatever they spent on him. Young is a nice player but benefits greatly from being the sub, I've yet to see him really impress at the start of a game. Any player with speed to burn should be able to do ok as sub, even Blease went ok when subbed on instead of off. Gysberts might be the best thing to come out of Croydon, but that sums up Croydon. And Harper and Blease you've got to be kidding me. Why on Earth would Melbourne want 2 of these clowns. Apparently they are both quick and sublimely skilled. Well actually they are quick to run themselves into trouble and sublimely skilled and turning it over. Plus add their tanks together and you'll be lucky to get the fuel capacity of the flinstone car. If Melbourne want Harper then I suggest we trade Blease to North and let both clubs have a fresh start with the others reject.

What the hell is going on at on GWS. They win 1 game then seem willing to trade Adams, Bruce, Giles, Bugg (4 of their best 22) and Buntine. Are they serious? They need Giles to work with Mummy as none of their young kids are ideally suited as back up rucks although Boyd or Patton could do it and so could a few others but not yet at all! It astounds me how little they rate Giles when he has a crack and isn't the worst up forward. They need Bruce because Phil Davis has stunk so far and they dont have a raft of ready key defenders. And they need the young midfielders who can impact games like Adams can until they can actually win enough games to trade a couple out in search of a Franklin. Gubby Allan and Silvagni are slaughtering a gift of a playing list. Anyway back on topic. Bugg's talented and a hard worker. Could play back flank or ideally half forward and through the midfield. I'd have him for that role or defensive half forward. Plays with character as well. Would consider our second round pick and it would be a done deal for third rounder. Buntine was a promising junior but hasn't shown a lot yet. I'd take him super cheap (third round) but that wouldn't get the deal done. I'd be confident that within a season or two he'd be a ready to go upgrade on Dunn or cover for Garland to let him play in various roles within the backline.

PM me too pls nsc

Hale is already in the team as forward/ruck and without Franklin hell be a vital forward. Leaves Longer as number 1 ruck with young and inexperienced Ceglar and Lowden for back up. A veteran would make sense but Clarkson has shown he's ok with young rucks before. In some ways I think we're desperate enough that a short term body is worth an investment. Savage could make it but to me he screams 100 games of ok footy then career done. Which is fine but you want to recruit guys who can play 150 for your club not 50. crazy. You sub off a ruck for more run not less. And Bailey retired anyway!

Can't argue that we need inside more than outside, especially with a Roos game plan winning clearances are vital but remember drafting should never be done on needs. You are also still counting on first season impact from a player which is wrong. Even a midfielder at pick one shouldn't be counted for impact until year 3 at least. We'll have Jones, Viney and McKenzie as mentioned that's not enough so we'll have to trade (pick 2 or Michie or Greenwood maybe) and hope we get unexpected improvement in inside game from Trenners, M Jones, Evans maybe Kent and Taggert even. But I'm no draft expert but I do think Kelly has inside ability from what I saw. Remember not all clearances are won by pure strength but a lot are won by Pendlebury and Fyfe style movement. Even Kieran Jack wins a heap by being fast, fearless and clever. Different ways to skin a cat.

We have to keep picking best available though. If we want immediate impact we trade pick 2. Ollie Wines wouldn't have made immediate impact to anywhere near the extent he did at Port with us last year. It would have been too hard. From what I saw of Kelly in the champs I think he will develop a very good inside game and we have to have some faith in our fitness department to get guys the right body shape. Misson seemed to do it at Sydney and the saints I don't see why he can't get guys up to size at Melbourne. His elite fitness will also mean he can play early on a wing and contribute. Could use him to tag the most dangerous running wingman - Hannebery, Isaac Smith, Montagna which would make us an instantly better team.

Are you serious. A discard is not worth anything. So don't go for 2 second rounders to pick 20 and a discard. Also if we got Shuey that would make Gaff harder to get for us and harder for the Eagles to lose so his price would go up. Adam Simpson isn't going to sell 2 highly valued young midfielders. He wont want to lose 1 and certainly not 2. Gaff and Shuey are both worth top 10 picks I believe. Both were drafted high, have shown a knack for racking up touches, and are at the age where they will contribute regular football in their prime. They are at a stage where their value is at it's highest because you get instant return and them for the peak of their careers. The fact that pick 2 is slightly overs for Shuey alone does not help any deal with Gaff. I would be incredibly happy with Shuey for pick 2 and would ask for something more but not expect it and that's only because his injury history suggests some risk on our part. Otherwise he fits in talent wise for a pick 2 player and satisfies the immediate impact return which is the entire reason we are trading this pick. If we want to get the absolute best available we keep the pick and hit the draft. But Roos and co have admitted that trading the pick for instant improvement to aid the entire list is of more value.

He won 2 out of 3 games at the highest level available for him to play at and had 30, 28 and 24 touches in each of the games and was named in the best. Seems he didn't back it up at TAC level but he did produce when needed. Again if we look at dominant Under 18 championships we need to look no further than Morton and Watts but it's not bad production http://www.afl.com.au/news/2013-06-15/top-prospect-boyd-injured http://www.afl.com.au/news/2013-06-28/metro-duo-shine-but-sa-wins http://www.afl.com.au/news/2013-07-03/metro-take-top-billings Personally I just wish Lewis Taylor came with a few more cm's because he has amazing talent, it's just hard to pick a 175cm guy with pick 2.

Thanks for the insight. Although I disagree a bit about the phantom drafts, they start off very rough but by the time the draft happens they are usually pretty accurate. Look at EQ's from last year, pretty much spot on - http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/the-pick-of-the-crop-20121117-29jct.html

Only for a guy like Shuey or Rockliff who would fit in that list. You also have to consider there's no Jack Martin or Jesse Hogan in this draft so our pick 2 is really equivalent to a pick 4. If this was an untouched draft we'd be looking at one of Hogan, Martin or Boyd and probably not trading the pick. The names in pick 4 aren't nearly as consistent as pick 2's.

24 touches and a goal without a clearance is pretty good work. Shows he knows how to win the ball outside and get involved in play. And you don't want him mixing it inside too much with bigger bodies. Another preseason and a little more bulk without pushing him too hard and he'll add to that side of his game at league level and I'm sure will do very well against his own age. I wonder if their are any plans to maybe get him down to AAMI park in the preseason... or even more controversially send him to boarding school in Melbourne and let him have a Jesse Hogan/Jack Viney type year in Melbourne. If Hoges and Toumpy move out he could actually move in with the Vineys at our football factory.

This is a positive sign. He'd be wise to keep that same policy for his entire career. My thinking on Garlett is the guy has talent but regardless of off field stuff I only see him as a forward, if a guy struggles with fitness at 19 the chance they become a full time midfielder is pretty rare. I agree with the theory of recruiting mids who can play forward much higher than forwards who can play mid. From some footage he looks much more a running player than a guy who can also do well overhead like the best small forwards ie. Michael Walters. Seems to me based on talent alone he'd be a more polished version of Dean Kent but maybe the midfield potential and hardness lean towards Kent. He'd also be a project on the field and off. All up I'd be keen to have him but I feel like we'd find on field talents who are just as good up to the third round of the draft and maybe he's a chance for a late pick. The kids becoming a victim of his own hype I feel. The clubs are using the off field stuff to try and dampen the hype around him on field because they aren't sure he's up to it that's my read on things.

You know those two sentences contradict each other. The saints will trade Hayes, Riewoldt, Dal Santo, Montagna and the rest of their team before they trade Jack Steven. He's untouchable. Involving pick 2 if necessary??? It would take 3 pick 2's to get the saints even interested. It would be like us trading Nathan Jones.

That's why he's gone there. Free for any extra curricular behaviour without people following him around. And if he misses the girls he probably only has to get the word out he's on 10 mil over the next 9 years. They'll come running for cash if not celebrity. The story of Buddy deciding Sydney might be right for him after media started camping outside his house after he crashed his car is horribly ironic. If he wasn't doing 90 in a 50 zone and about to lose his licence then the car accident wouldn't have been a story and then the media wouldn't have been outside his house.