nutbean

They do actually. They have opted so far for the safe choice of tried and tested AFL players who are close to, or past their use by date. Picking up the likes of a Vanders , is rolling the dice on a player who is a stand out in a minor competition and hoping he can make the step up to be a good AFL footballer.

I agree but Essendon are in a different position to us. If we are able to pick up one top up player - then we can take a risk with a Vanders type player - it is only one player. Essendon need 12 players to actually be able to field a side - whilst one or two may be left field I am not sure you would want to take 12 outside the box players.

absolutely.... I am still firmly in the "development is king" camp. I cannot fathom that we had that many footballers come to our club that either failed completely or plateaued at "average at best". I maintain that if you get footballers with some raw talent into a cesspool of a club both on and off field and give them no further tuition or nurture them and basically throw them to the wolves they will ultimately wither on the vine ( unless you are a rare driven specimen like Nathan Jones). I also do not think you can downplay having good role models, mature footballers in your club to help transition youth. This has been absent from our club and to an extent is still in short supply. My greatest delight with the Roos appointment is he firmly put development on the table - he constantly talks about and has backed it up by putting a lot of resources into developing our youth - McCartney to my mind, is an inspired appointment.

It will be interesting to see how we go with Oliver as he only came into contention later in the season and touted as our top pick in the last couple of weeks Darcy Parish was certainly "conventional wisdom" for most of the year.

I can't quite get a handle on Melksham - talking to some (sullen) Essendon supporters I know - the views on him range from champ to chump.

Kelly looked like he needed to retire by the end of last year - he was a yard too slow to keep up with game and a couple of seconds too slow in reacting. ( this is not meant to detract on how good he was for many years)

1 out of 3 ...

I'll meet you halfway - I was never big on previously rushing Trengove and Toumpas without a good solid foundation. I am not big on rushing Petracca, Oliver or any other young player until they are fit and considered ready. But seeing an injury as a blessing....lots of injuries heal quickly without problems - others don't . Frost had a four week toe injury which kept him out of action for the best part of the season. The blessing we want is to have every player on our list injury free.

hmmm...let's give all our players fractured toes to stop them doing ACL's before the season starts......hmmmmm

If so I better revise my standard response of " I never did a days study in my life"

too many going too soon ( Eagles never did it for me either)

Agree on both counts. I will victim blame - just dumb in this day and age to put those sort of images into someone else's hands. I will also offender blame - both the recipients of the photo's who passed them on and the publishers of the material should be held to account. I tried to take those sort of pictures of myself but they don't make a selfie stick long enough to be able to get all of the necessary scenery into the photo.

I was accessing the web way before 99 but all I was looking at was...wait a second...never mind....

I saw a tweet "Cloke only meant to send the pics to his wife who was only 20 metres away but he sprayed his shots "

Ill address the first line - yeah there is a lot of assumption And as to the bottom statement - if you are saying "it takes 2 to tango" - when it comes to violence or intimidation - I strongly disagree - you are making huge assumptions there as well.

I''ll supply the chopsticks ( too soon ?)

I thought the context was right. He compared the AFL's performance over tanking to the doping scandal. I dont think the handling of either issue has been one of the AFL's shining moments.

I have heard so many people draw the analogy that when you go to your doctor and he says take these - you usually don't question - you expect everything to be on the up and up and you trust . I agree however..... As soon as I get outside and someone asks me 30 times if my doctor gave me something I don't reply " nothing........he gave me nothing"

Actually , it poses an interesting question - do Essendon next year still have to pay 92% of the salary cap ? If they do a lot of very ordinary players are going to be paid wayyyyyy too much money. Edit - McQueen - it appears we were interested at exactly the same time......

either on the thread or on certain people in ill fitting white jackets.

get stuffed ...( sorry..wanted to join in the argy bargy)

75% of the time I am right 100% of the time.

Didn't you think Lyon looked at her incredulously ( and somewhat disbelievingly) when she was suggesting that..

Steady on - haven't the French got enough problems without being lumped with Hird.

It's like trying to figure out which is better - home and away or neighbours. I would like to clone Millers ability to lead up, Dawes for his 1% and willingness to put in and Pedo's hands when he is on.