Good Times Grimes

What a joke. I don't think it'll impact our fortunes this year, but they way this has been conducted is an absolute farce. Port Adelaide and the Bulldogs are especially stiff with Monfries and Crameri. I can understand them arguing that it was a case of "buyer beware" for Ryder, Carlisle and Melksham, but Port Adelaide and the Bulldogs had no way of knowing any better.

I think he earned the day off after his mark on Wednesday. Thanks to all for the great reports. Hope none of the injuries are serious and that the members of the rehab group can join the main group quickly. It sounds like there's a lot to be excited about this season, with lots of names that didn't feature much in previous seasons' training reports featuring heavily this year.

Thanks for all of the updates DHD! Is he using both feet or just his right?

Cool. Can we get this thread back to being about Trengove's progress rather than about why he's still on the list, then?

WYL, what are you even trying to argue at the moment? You seem to be going in circles without actually making a point that we don't already know. Yes, we had a trade on the table that would've seen us get Pick 14 for Trengove. Yes, it fell through. Yes, we re-signed him after the trade fell through. Now he's on his way to recovery and still contracted to us despite once being on the trading block. Anything else?

Fremantle will be able to get McCarthy at a very low price due to his current issues. No other club would want to touch him, bar maybe the Eagles. I think signing him will reduce the urgency for them to sign another forward, but I don't think it would deter them from making a play for Hogan. If they think they're a chance to get him, they'll do everything they can to do so. That being said, we've still got Hogan for this year and next year. That means that even if we have a season that's below expectations in 2016, we'll still have a chance to right the ship in 2017 before he makes his final decision. He's said that he loves Melbourne, and it's obvious that he has great relationships with a lot of his teammates. He plays with passion and looks like he's committed to the cause. While it would be an awesome boost to the club to sign him before round one 2016, I'm not overly concerned if he wants to wait until mid-season or even after the season to negotiate his contract. I'd feel uneasy if he went into 2017 unsigned, but even then, that's not the end of the world.

See McQueen's post above re-Viney. He's already broken out twice, surely he can't have another breakout year!

This website states that: From Melbourne, Weideman, Salem, Petracca, Watts, Gawn and Lumumba are classified as coming from a multicultural background. I don't know if this is the definition the AFL plans to continue using for these Multicultural Academies, but it seems a bit of a stretch to use this definition for most of these players. Weideman's family has been playing in the AFL for generations FFS!

We won't be paying Melksham this year, so the money that he was on can go towards paying a rookie's wages, which will only be a small fraction of what Melksham would have received. We might have had our eye on someone in the 2015 rookie draft that we wanted to take but we didn't have the picks for. We might also have our eye on a mature aged recruit for the 2016 rookie draft and this would give us the opportunity to see how they adapt to being a full-time footballer. There's plenty of reasons why we want this rookie pick. While any player that we end up signing will be behind in terms of fitness and game-plan comprehension, it's impossible to definitively say that they won't play in 2016. Take vandenBerg for example. He came to the club after having shoulder surgery and took a few months to join in the main group. He still managed a round one debut despite being on the rookie list and his setbacks. If we select a player now, it's possible that they will be able to play mid-season, if needed.

Connor McDavid's back!

"I'd like to think I'm a loyal person and I'm not interested in speaking to other clubs at this stage."

They've got access to Jack Bowes, who by all reports is meant to be a gun.

Schwarz on SEN said differently this morning about O'Meara, while Chris Pelchen thinks we're the type of club that he'd want to come to.

WYL, you have to weigh up risk vs. reward. I'll do a highly simplified example. Risk 1: Keeping Trengove on the list Possible MFC outcomes: (1) Trengove comes back and stars. (2) Trengove never plays again. (3) Trengove does play again, but never gets better than his first couple of seasons. Risk 2: De-list Trengove and gain a late draft pick. Possible MFC outcomes: (1) Late draft pick ends up being a regular member of the 22. (2) Late draft pick has an okay career where he's in and out of the side a fair bit (3) Late draft pick plays a couple of games before being delisted himself. You'd have to think that Risk 1 is the obvious risk to take, given that outcomes 1 and 3 are superior to any of the outcomes of Risk 2. Further, the benefits of Risk 2 aren't tantalizing enough to make it a worthwhile risk to take.

A key re-signing or two (Hogan, McDonald, Tyson ...) plus a few early wins could see us hit 40k.

Why wouldn't we want one if given the option? We're asking for a rookie, so it would give us a chance to get a year of AFL training into a guy like Jake Lovett, or someone else from a state league before deciding whether or not to draft them in November. It will give Casey an extra AFL listed player (a point that I had overlooked before RedLeg pointed it out to me yesterday) We'll be promoting someone from our rookie list, and this player would be taking their place.

In 2011 there were three occasions where we put sides away. When we were "on", we were an awesome team to watch. Just a shame that we weren't on all that often... R4 defeated GCS by 90 R7 defeated Adelaide by 96 R13 defeated Fremantle by 89 Year 1 of "the good stuff" was the year of this game: Essendon were 8-1, we were 0-9, and we started their fall which eventually saw them miss out on playing finals. You know your drugs are bad when you lose to the 2012 Demons.

I remember this game so clearly. Brent Grgic was running around with no sponsor logo on his guernsey because he wasn't legal drinking age so couldn't support Tooheys.

I can't believe that buffoon gets paid to share what he thinks with the world.

You're right, I wasn't considering Casey. I can't wait for the footy to actually start so that we can move past this whole mess.

What a way to finish your career...

"bluey likes this".

I've already made my opinion on Dawes/Pedo well known, so there's no purpose in me furthering this discussion, however I absolutely agree with your last sentence.

The more time goes by without us hearing about the club lobbying for a top-up player for 2016, the more certain I become that we were prepared for this outcome when we began to court Melksham. We've got more than enough solid options down back to cover his loss this season.

CAS disagrees with this.