Rogue

Our 'window' could be longer than that - most of our talent is going to last longer than six years. We haven't got a huge number of players in the 26+ age group.

Jaques averages just under 50 in Tests (just over 50 in first-class cricket), Rogers has a similar first-class average and Hughes averages a touch over 50 from five Tests (with an even more impressive first-class average). So, who are our openers? Katich (averaging 52 in Tests as an opener, which spans 2008-09*) and Watson Both could certainly hold down a middle-order spot instead IMO. Bored? Rate the aforementioned from 1-5 as your choice for opener! *I imagine his average would be similar since 2008 regardless of where he was batting

It'd be a fairly boring site if no one commented on things until they were black and white. By then you don't need to discuss things.

What are #1 picks?

Why do you have the stipulation 'outer areas of eastern Melbourne close to Gippsland'? Why don't you challenge bb's assertion by asking WHERE ELSE in Casey Fields we could hold this type of event?

AFL accounting is a dark art.

It's hard to have any useful debate without having criteria for selection. If you make the argument that a season or two isn't enough to be picked, you can get an odd scenario whereby a fringe player who plays every year of the decade could get picked above a very good player who only played a couple of years in the decade. Perhaps there should be a minimum games criteria, but surely you simply pick the best players who played within the decade, rather than selecting players who had the most influence over the entire decade? Anyway, I might have a stab at this later. PS. Warnock doesn't need to have been a 'standout' to nab the FB spot. That Nicho's a reasonable pick and Carroll's probably not terribly far away does say something. On the backline, I'm glad to see Ingerson represented.

How about 12 weeks?

That's definitely outside the square! McDonald's a flanker, Martin is a KP/second ruck prospect.

Not if we want someone else in the PSD but are keen on taking Thorp and the 'someone else'.

^ Disappointing.

Very nice.

If we feel we need another KPF and we agree on a few premises then it's clear we should try and get KPF this year if we can. Premise one is that the later in the draft the less chance you have of getting a decent KPF. Premise two is that our picks in the near future are going to be quite late, given the heavily compromised nature of the drafts and expected improvement from us. Premise three is that talls take a long time from drafting to impact (drafting one a year or two before you're a contender probably won't assist you terribly much). Premise four is that it's difficult to get a tall forward via trade unless they have very serious issues (how many have been traded in recent times apart from Hall and Fev?). Pretty interesting from someone with two posts

Hi greeny, We have a separate sub-forum for draft talk here: http://forums.demonland.com/index.php?showforum=18

It's not just Collingwood - Archer said part of the reason he quit was the tyranny of meetings. I only skimmed the article but I thought I saw Maxwell give that timeline.

Thanks.

You need to make the cake before you add the icing and we haven't even put it in the oven yet. The only 'pragmatic' choice is to recognise our list isn't good enough, and won't be good enough, unless we unearth more young talent. We also need to be 'pragmatic' and recognise that our opportunities to draft young talent in future years will be severely impacted by GC/WS, with our third pick likely to be in the vicinity of a pick most teams haven't even bothered to use in the past. I'd prefer not to have a repeat of the post-2006 list management approach, whereby we embraced short-term gains even though they were never going to be good enough, and thus harmed our long-term prospects. Particularly given the nature of future drafts, the only 'pragmatic' approach is to continue the course we've adopted in recent times. The guy behind Hancook - iirc he's actually the local distributor of their tyres - said that in 2009 it was better to be sponsoring Melbourne than a team that was better but still not particularly good, such as North. He didn't seem concerned about Melbourne's on-field struggles being 'detrimental' - instead, he felt it was excellent exposure.

I'm not sure Club A made that declaration. I certainly hope they didn't.

Just watch one of those Commonwealth Bank ads.

I agree. However, I do expect we'll take at least one of them.

I take it you wouldn't 'write him off' at that stage either ? I don't want to bignote myself, so I'll just point out that plenty of people have made the two points 'Curry & Beer' did.

Ahahaha.

I'm pretty sure they know they're missing out and were looking at getting something happening in this space. I think I already mentioned this, but at the Youth Summit there was a rep from Globe there - in an unofficial capacity, not acting on behalf of Globe - who raised this and also ended up talking to a few supporters about it for a while after the Summit concluded. Anyway, props again for the effort. Even if it goes nowhere it's nice it is being recognised by the Club Some might say it's an appropriate brand for Melbourne supporters

Good move from the Club. If there's not much interest in these players it makes sense to move them to the rookie list, given the compromised nature of future drafts. From what I've read, people didn't agree with the idea of paying out contracted players. We still have a contract with both players - they are just being moved to the rookie list (unless someone takes them in the ND).

I like it :D