DeeSpencer

Promising news I hope it's accurate. Sylvia leaving to take Michie's spot in the Freo best 22 should be the card we play to convince him Freo wont give him the opportunities he needs right now. As for the trade I'd say our third round pick - 40 ish. But it looks like Freo could be in the race for Elliot Yeo more than they let on but can't match West Coast second round pick, if we swap second round picks we put them in that race. Could be an opportunity for us to trade our second and fourth round picks for Freo's second and third round picks and Michie. Ie. pick 21 and 60 for Michie and pick 33 and 55 or whatever it will be. That would allow us to pick Michie up and get our 4th pick in the draft within top 60 range. Considering everyone is saying this is a shallow draft it might be worth downgrading a touch early to get the later picks in and keep our third rounder. Of course if we end up trading pick 2 we probably want to keep the second round pick as low as possible as it will be more important to get one of the best quality young guys.

Maybe timing makes sense as there are no more games to watch and much less players to interview and data to crunch. If you like a guys work rate but don't really rate his judgement then it could be the time to move him on.

According to Jay Clark on twitter He's one of 2 National recruiting officers who work under Jason Taylor. Most interesting thing is the timing so close to the draft. Not sure what kind of contract he had etc but you'd think recruiters would work calendar year and you wouldn't let one go no matter how much you agreed with his ideas until after the draft.

Ok: - Wrong board - Wrong title - Already have treads on Savage and Sewell - Pretty sure we are overpaying considering Sewell probably isn't exactly what we want and I wouldn't touch Ellis.

On Walsh - not concerned. Happy he's back at North. We've got smart operators in Roos, Viney, Jason Taylor and Misson. I think Mahoney with Peter Jackson's guidance can be a good administrator. On Tudor - Seems he missed out on the Essendon job, as well as the West Coast and Brisbane gigs. Not sure why he moved on from Sydney and I'm not sure where he was for our senior assistant job - we could've missed out on him or he might not have been the right man for us. I'm more worried about who we get for the senior assistant job. Not overly worried if we missed Burns or Tudor at this stage.

Only because we are Melbourne. If he was at Sydney or Hawthorn you wouldn't hear about him for 3 years and then he'd burst on the scene as the next big thing. I like that he's on this trip and I like that he made some ground with his football throughout the year. Positive signs. Again I hope more than expert but that's ok

Exactly. Now the buddy deal is through the Pies might make headway with Jessie White (while Sydney would've been occupied previously) but they wont want to do too much until Taylor Adams is sorted and then they can think about Karnezis and they have to get picks to get all of those deals done. And they factor in Heath Shaw Same with cats where Adams would be priority number 1 but they would also have a hand in other things. That's just some examples of why these deals take so long. Our pick 2 is our number 1 priority I'd say but for other clubs its a consideration but they have to work out a bunch of other things first. And no club wants to link players for trade and then not trade them. We saw what happened to Rischitelli and Daniel Bradshaw at Brisbane when they were mentioned in the Fev deal then ended up quitting the club. One club we've heard about is Sydney having some discussions. But they had to get Buddy all cleared and now have to trade Mumford, White and maybe Everitt to even get under the salary cap. So we sit and wait.

Couldn't agree more. Except if Longer did lob in the draft Brisbane get nothing so the clubs aren't all that powerful. The AFL have made things very much in the players favour at the moment. A few players should go look at the NFL with no guaranteed contracts and players able to be traded whenever and wherever and see how good they want it. If Longer so desperately wants to move back to Melbourne then he should be willing to play for any of the 10 clubs.

Yeah but the only place a player wants to be less is Melbourne (and GWS). Dyl Roberton left Freo and looked great at St Kilda as well, those kind of things influence team mates. Personally I think we should be able to sell Michie on a locked up spot in our best 22 and Paul Roos and some stability where as the saints could have a new coach before Michie is even signed his contract. Also I know he was an Oakleigh kid and Wesley boy so I presume his family is suburban Eastern suburbs in which case training and living close to AAMI park with the odd trip to Casey sounds better than training at Seaford regularly.

Seems we'll get a preview of Dom Barry 2014 as he's in the Indigenous Squad to take on the Irish along with Davey. No nifty Nev Jetta but good luck to Dom, hope he does us proud.

Probably way against AFL rules but Sydney would do it if it was in their best interest. Trading for coaches in an accepted practice in the NFL. The Jon Gruden trade being the biggest one, look it up on wikipedia.

Of course we stink right now. Port was the same 12 months ago. I'd be more worried about it if it's the same in 12 months time. Hopefully by then we are competitive in a heap more games and on the up. If we don't trade pick 2 it's not a bad thing. We'll still have a decent pick next year and can trade that. I'm more worried about not keeping our own guys and not developing them.

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.