Inner Demon

Don't expect too prompt a reply, everyone's in China!

Very exciting development. Also erases any of the doubts about Jack coming to the Dees I'd imagine. Great to have a favourite son back in the red & blue!!

He's the type of player I wouldn't mind reaching a bit for, but as usual, we're going off a few minutes of footage which is designed to be favourable and the guys in Barry's team will have been watching him play full games. So their judgement is to be backed. Also, there's a fair bit of industrial espionage when it comes to the draft, so hopefully we can get wind of any other clubs' interest in him and plan accordingly.

I want this kid. Moves well, has the size, seems to be growing into his body. Question now is how late in the draft can we get him?? I'd like to think we could get him with one of our 3rd rounders. Not much use having him on the rookie list, he's a player type we've identified as needing for our senior team. Take the risk.

If Freo get by using 194cm Michael Johnson while Sandilands has a breather I don't see why we can't use 192cm Lynden Dunn in the same way, particularly since Dunn can play both high half-forward and inside 50. That is, of course, if none of our ruckman height players earn their way into the team as forwards.

That's not the case. Once a player is traded, his contract belongs to the club who signed him. If you wanted to be technical about it, as per Cheney's contract he's with us until the end of 2011.

Frankly, I'm surprised he ever went to China and moreso that he's staying in China. Bizarre set of circumstances.

I'd say we'll go with Jamar solo as we did on several occasions this year. Every team is going to have the same dilemma. Not having a back-up doesn't seem to bother Aaron Sandilands most weeks. If we retain Bruce we can only elevate Newton via an LTI or if we promote him permanently alongside Spencer & McKenzie. Incidentally, McKenzie has signed a 2 year deal as a senior player.

Kyle's "hardness" was the predominant feature Craig Cameron outlined at the time.

See The List Management Thread

Seems likely to me that both McNamara & Johnson will be cut. Otherwise we don't use the pick we just got in the Cheney trade. The other awful, awful possibility here is that we promote Newton to the senior list. I most certainly hope that nightmare doesn't materialise and I suppose I'll just have to make peace with him being retained on the rookie list. Failing that total disaster, we would potentially have 5 picks in the rookie draft with McKenzie & Spencer being elevated, Meesen heading into part-time coaching, time running out on Hughes and Healey being cut.

Post Trade Week breakdown OUT Miller Bell Cheney McDonald IN McKenzie Spencer Round 1 Pick Round 2 Pick UNCONTRACTED Johnson McNamara Bruce (Bruce would only open up a rookie spot however as he is on the Veteran's List and with Green moving on to take Junior's spot we have no other eligible players to move from Senior List) We now have an extra 3rd round pick as a result of trading Cheney so both Johnson & McNamara being delisted would open up 2 more 3rd round picks.

Well there you have it. A snowball in hell. Spencer promoted and signed for 2 years.

Or Jack Fitzpatrick.

Predicting who might make a good coach is pretty much guesswork for mine. Who here would've guessed that Scott Watters would turn out to be the assistant coach behind one of the best defences in the league???

I'd be reasonably confident that McNamara would be available for us to pick up again in the rookie draft.

There'd have to be wouldn't there?? I know he's desperately keen to continue coaching AFL. There are no senior roles available that he's going to get. The next stop is for him to look at being a senior assistant. We'd have to at least be sounding him out I'd imagine.

Well he's not getting a Senior Coach role, so he'll have to take whatever he can get if he wants to be an AFL coach.

Don't be so sure. The clubs have a pretty solid idea of which player/s other clubs are targetting in the first round. Every year we see a clutch of journos knocking up mock drafts that are often pretty close to the mark, I think you'll find the actual clubs are getting even more inside info than that. They put quite a deal of time into predicting how the draft board will shape as a means to planning their own strategy. A lot has been said already about the relative evenness of this draft below the Top 3 or 4. If this deal gets done, I would draw a very strong inference that the Club is unconcerned about dropping a few spots in the draft to pick up a player they are keen on.

In regards to the swap of 1st round picks, perhaps we are targetting a player in the 1st round that our research has pegged to not be targetted by the teams immediately below us in the draft order so there would be no real advantage in having pick 12 over pick 17. Just a thought.

Cheney has another year on his contract. Source: Horse's Mouth You're forgetting about promoting McKenzie & Spencer to the senior list. This effectively cancels out the delistings of Miller & Bell. As of right now, we have 1 pick in the draft courtesy of Junior's retirement. If we delist Johnson and bring in Hale then we still only have 1 pick in the draft. I highly doubt we're going to retain Tom McNamara rather than take a 2nd pick in the draft, probably in Round 3 if we trade our Rnd 2 pick for Hale. Summary: OUT Miller Bell McDonald Johnson McNamara IN Pick 1 Pick 2 Hale McKenzie Spencer

No mention of Dean Laidley?????

I'd prefer Dean Laidley.

Worth noting at this point that our only remaining uncontracted players who nothing has been announced about are: Bruce McNamara Johnson + rookies Unless we trade out any players who are currently under contract it would appear that we are going to have no more than 3 picks in the National Draft this year going on the below assumptions (provided we don't trade any picks): Out: J McDonald B Miller P Johnson D Bell T McNamara In: J McKenzie J Spencer Rnd 1 Pick Rnd 2 Pick Rnd 3 Pick Further, if Cam Bruce were to leave to GC or via the draft we would not be able to make an extra National Draft selection, we would, however, be able to make a permanent rookie upgrade from the start of the season to fill the empty spot in our Veteran's List.

Hang about. How is anybody claiming Swallow has better endurance than Scully???? Didn't Scully pretty much break the beep test at AIS when he was in year 11???? I recall reading that they turned off the tape and just told him 'that'll do mate' because he simply wouldn't stop. Calling Swallow as the best ever before he's played an AFL game just sounds like a continuation of the obsession with the new players being automatically better than the existing players because nobody's seen them make mistakes yet.