bing181

Nothing - but this is the MFC, and there'll always be someone to take an unremittingly negative view of every post regarding every player.

About a thousand according to Burgan. Stynes is there if that's who you mean. Also Lyon.

4:05 Martin crashes in Bartram - good courage by Clint. Marking contest.

Yes, be good to avoid this situation: "Get the feeling the Eagles aren't too fussed about the NAB Cup. Daniel Kerr, Nic Naitanui, Beau Waters, Matt Rosa, Mitch Brown and Andrew Embley are sitting out the opener with various injuries." Add LeCras to that as well.

It will be a match - but a training match. I don't know that they're going to be stopping mid-play to do handball circles or 100m sprints.

We had insert-what-you-want-here at the club over the last 5 years and look at the results .... For me, the problem hasn't been the leadership group, it's been the lack of leaders to put into it. Now, hopefully, we're starting to get a few, on field and off.

Tell that to Colin Sylvia and Brett Moloney.

I know Morton gets a bad rap here and there, but surely he's at least in our best 36.

Bah boom ...

If I may: We are not burning him at the stake - we are asking for more consistency from arguably our best player.

Snuck that one under the radar, I wondered what Sellar's tweet had been about. "Loved the first hit-out of 2012... Great fun... Many more good times ahead #godees" Also, a bit of a write-up in the Age: Buckley, Neeld hoping practice makes perfect They also singled out one Cale Morton for (independent) praise. Perhaps our Giant Leap Forward will come from unexpected sources.

New coach(es), new players, new structures, new game plans etc. etc. It could take a while for things to settle into place after The Big Shakeup.

But perhaps just as much as the last coach and FD would have? Recruiting doesn't happen in a vacuum. Interesting info, and goes to show just where we are when players over 21 are seen as "experienced" in comparison to the current list. Watts, Cook etc. (still) have quite a way to go.

How do you know it was a realistic report, you weren't even there.

Not sure about "later that day", but certainly the Adelaide boards went into meltdown when we announced Neeld.

Absolutely. Misson (amongst others) was signed up in that period. Neeld said at the Bluey that he hadn't even been home since being appointed on that Friday afternoon. It's easy to forget just how complete the overhaul of our FD has been, and underestimate the amount of work involved in doing so. Look at the likes of Bulldogs, Adelaide, St Kilda ... all with new coaches, but none with anything like the changes we've made. And all well and truly underway before the Grand Final.

How many sleeps was it till the footy starts?

The recruitment manager doesn't work in isolation. List management and the FD/coach would have a big, I would imagine bigger, say in when we use those picks.

It is. BTW, been surprised to see from training reports how actively Craig is involved in day-to-day training. I thought he was going to be behind the scenes/a desk most of the time, but he's certainly not afraid to get his hands dirty. Great to see.

Yes - but it would hold more value for higher-placed clubs. Though I suspect that that's not where we'd be looking to draft from. Agree with the rest of your post. I haven't seen any convincing arguments for hanging on to the picks. Or to put it another way, we have to participate in the draft, so I'd rather we were taking first-round picks than picks in the thirties and fifties.

If players got the call-up, it's because they earned it - endorsed by the players, the coaching staff, the FD and the board. The idea, for example, that Bartram might be in the group because he's from Ocean Grove beggars belief. As for Clark, Rawlings would know him well from the Lions, so it's not as if he's an unknown. So what if he hasn't played for the club, if he's earned it, good on him. In any case, it's not without precedent that transferred players step into leadership positions. Finally, the selections only confirm for me how little we actually know of the players and the inner workings of the club. We see them from the other side of a fence, for a couple of hours each week. Enough perhaps to form an opinion on their playing capabilities - but not much more than that IMHO.

I'm just not clear on what people were expecting or wanting? A grilling at the AGM would have served what exactly? Maybe people could have got some things off their chests, but even if there had been a robust question/answer session, the most it would have shown was how good McLardy and co. were at dealing with a robust question/answer session. If there'd been much sitting-on-hands since 186, maybe, but given the momentous and comprehensive changes that have taken place over the last months, you would have to say that the Board and club well and truly got the message. As the CEO put it, 2011 was a wake-up call. BTW, the people criticising Neeld ... I wasn't there, but watched it on Video. There's a problem? He continues to impress me off-field.

.... er, which is what I said, no?

Other way round. The mid-round pick is fixed (as above), while our 1st round compo picks floats with our position (one under). If we finish in the 8, the mid-round pick would become our first, which could be handy. And just re the mid-round pick, it's after the 10 clubs who finished outside the 8 have had their picks. If that includes the Crows or Dogs, they also have additional first round compo picks after theirs. This could push our mid-round pick lower if they decide to activate them, and is probably going to push the mid-round pick down to around 13 - the highest it could be would be 11. I can't remember if any other clubs are holding first round compo picks (Geelong?), which could push it even lower. If any of these are traded - as clubs have the right to do - they remain in those positions, irrespective of the position of the club they're traded to. Our first round compo pick will always be one after our first pick, even if we trade it to GWS (for example). Interesting to note perhaps that if we trade that first round compo pick to a team that finishes above us on the ladder, they effectively get an additional and higher pick (and vice versa). Scott Pendlebury anyone? Well, that's how I read it - willing to be corrected!

... there would still be people saying we should have built a giant wombat.