Rogue

As if we would have got much in a trade for Bruce. He is a 30+ flanker who isn't a massive priority for any other Club, after all. Furthermore, Bruce is uncontracted, and as everyone on here would like Melbourne to do, the Club who was keen could always use the threat of PSD/ND.

Indeed.

I'm not a betting man, but if I were I'd wager that McDonald's termination was in Bruce's thoughts.

I think Essendon are just giving Neagle a kick in the pants, and will look to pick him up as a rookie.

Why would he get a mention as someone to cover the loss of Bruce or Junior? He's already a regular in the team (and in a different position to Bruce and Junior). I don't think the fact he hasn't been mentioned is a sleight.

If he thought we were going to move him on after 2010 regardless, it wouldn't have mattered how well he played. If he had this view, it would have only been reinforced by the fact McDonald played some pretty good footy and was still moved on. Bruce has a chance to move Clubs now, but I think it'd be too late to make a move after 2010.

I don't get why we're naming our Test side closer to the match. I agree regarding Smith.

The list demographic is actually fantastic, if you fast forward 3-5 years. One of the problems you normally find as you head towards a flag tilt is that you've got to nab one fast because otherwise you're going to start losing important players - look at the WB (ie. Johnson, Eagleton, Aker, etc). Melbourne isn't going to have this problem - the only guy we're going to lose due to old age any time soon is Green (and I think he's the kind of player who could play well past 30). Our 'window' should be bigger than most, which dramatically increases our chances of winning a flag. This is something that's made me very optimistic about our future.

Hah. A Holland-type in the forward line would be handy, providing he could ruck a bit.

Good endurance. Tall, seems to be a good competitor. I'm honestly not sure he's the guy you'd be wanting to have setting up your plays though.

Hah.

^ I think it's Bail's best chance of getting a spot in our best side.

Fwiw, my post wasn't really directed at you - it was aimed at what I find to be a weird idea that one or both parties have some moral duty to the other.

The impact of young guys developing together probably outweighs any loss of competitiveness. Having the two might have helped us perform a little better but these two would retire/get retired shortly anyway, so we were going to have to learn how to win games without them at some point soon, regardless. (The scales might have tipped the other way if Bruce and/or McDonald were top-tier players able to exert significant influence on matches, particularly if one was a KPF).

The Club didn't offer Bruce a contract because of loyalty - they offered him a contract because they thought he would be useful. However, that's okay because the Club doesn't owe Bruce, just like he doesn't owe the Club.

rpfc is right in that if we knew Bruce was going and would have kept McDonald we should now keep McDonald. That does have some issues regarding whether we've essentially burned the bridge and whether McDonald has moved on, etc. However, I'd rather give McKenzie the role McDonald had. We also have guys like Gysberts and Tapscott that I can't fit into the 22, and they're even less likely to get a game if we retain McDonald. I think I'd rather get games into our young mids than have McDonald.

I'm far from sold on ability, and from the comments in here it sounds like his attitude/personality is far worse.

We recently upgraded McKenzie - he can take McDonald's rule. We recently recruited MacDonald - he can take Bruce's role.

Jetta says hi. I doubt it'll be hard - you only need to get rid of three. How long is Strauss contracted for? He's another, but he may have just got two years. Newton is a rookie, so he's irrelevant. Some would say that Bruce is part of the reason our on-field leadership has been poor over the years...

I doubt it will have any impact. Since the Club was only giving Bruce a one year deal they would have been prepared for him to only stick around one more year. Going one year early would have had very little to no impact. A draft pick is for 10 years, and planning would have had Bruce around for, at best, the next couple of years, when you wouldn't expect the draftee to necessarily have much impact anyway.

Green. I'd also ditch Jones for Frawley. I'm open to switching Watts out for Grimes. PS. Make a couple. Each refresh (well, maybe it'd take a couple depending on your luck) a different one could be shown.

There's already a thread about Bruce's departure, so if this thread is to serve any real purpose keep the discussion focussed on the question at hand - whether this is good or bad for the Club.

Petterd? That's out of the box.

Why is there this weird idea that a guy like Bruce owes the Club? The Club didn't give Bruce a chance on the supp list because it is a charity, the Club did it because it felt it might be able to find a player they could use. Bruce gave the Club what it was owed - 11(?) years of service rendered for wages received. I believe he also did this with some pretty severe injuries at times, as players are expected to do. From what I know he was 'professional' in his approach and certainly didn't play up in a manner damaging to the Club (unlike a Fev or Aker). IMHO you'd be pretty silly to stick around at a Club that likely wanted to boot you out pretty soon if you loved playing footy (or just wanted to keep doing your job a bit longer) and thought you could do so elsehwere.

I'm surprised, but if I were Bruce I'd have considered it, given the Club's view on older guys. Purely for nostalgic reasons it'll be a bit disappointing to see Bruce go, but Joel MacDonald will take on a similar role in defence and I doubt we'll be much worse off. It does mean it's easier to squeeze into our 22 some younger guys that we want to get games into. In addition, is it right that we can now have a nominated rookie elevation from round 1, regardless of LTI? If we were super keen on Bruce we would have offered him two years. We didn't, so clearly we're not. (Recently we've managed to retain guys like Jamar and Davey, so I think you're drawing a long bow with the idea we can't keep players anyway - not that it applies in this case either way).