PaulRB

I reckon our run up to the bye is sensational, with only Swans top 6, and the rest within the realm of possibility... Really need to used the first half of the season to build some confidence and momentum. Interesting.

1 - St Kilda (Etihad) 2 - West Coast (MCG) 3 - GWS (Giant Stadium) 4 - Carlton (MCG) 5 - Gold Coast (MCG) 6 - Swans (MCG) 7 - Crows (Adelaide) 8 - Doggies (MCG) 9 - Tiggers (MCG) 10 - BYE 11 - Port (TIO Traeger Park, Alice Springs) 12 - Pies (MCG) 13 - Dons (MCG) 14 - North (MCG) 15 - Dogs (Etihad) 16 - Freo (TIO Darwin) 17 - Cats (MCG) 18 - Port (Adelaide) 19 - Lions (Etihad) 20 - Hawks (MCG) 21 - GWS (MCG) 22 - West Coast (Patterson) 23 - North (Etihad)

Under review by Malcolm I think. Long shot, irrespective.

Rotate him and Hogan through the middle and HFF (assuming we have all three tall forwards playing).

If the Feds let them in, mark down Huawei as in play as sponsor...

While not directly related, I reckon the mids will enjoy looking forward and seeing Hogan and Clark leading toward them, or knowing if they have to bang it forward those boys (and Howe) are a good chance of marking it... A more solid midfield will generate benefits at both ends as well.

Is Viv nailed down as actually coming to the MFC? Or is it just speculation...

Given the Buddy steal the Swans would get zero sympathy if we went hard for Dew...

G Ablett Although the $$$ helped

Hannebery to MFC would explain Colless's outburst a couple of weeks ago... One thing the MFC offers a young ambitious player who has already won a flag, is a challenge. A challenge is a valuable offer to an ambitious player.

After his time at Melbourne, Clarkson is finding all the success at Hawthorn hard to handle. Or so I've heard.

Which of the Hawks kids played well in the middle for their recent VFL premiership?

I like that Roos is inadvertently stirring up the Swans. We need some good "Friday night" rivalries to emerge over the next couple of years as we start playing better, hope the AFL have us playing the Swans twice for the next couple of years...

For some reason I'd see Jacks (196 cm, 91 kg) midfield evolution in the direction of a player like Pendlebury (191 cm, 91 kg, with a basketball background). Fingers crossed.

Which makes Jack the 88th best player in the competition..! Whoop Whoop! Edit: If you ignore the 24 players rendered ineligible... i.e. he's actually 112th best player in league.

MFC has one more vote than Dusty. But lets not go there...

round 16 brown low and Western Bulldogs 38 votes (across 10 players) - MFC 14 votes (across 5 players)...

Yup! round 16 brown low and Gold coast 42 votes (across 10 players) - MFC 14 votes (across 5 players)... We rock, loads of talent, nothing to worry about... Bring on 2014..

The swans get to pay an extra million in there salary cap. A huge bonus in retaining and attracting players, while we can't afford to even pay 100% of our smaller salary cap...

we need to capture a player of Dusty's skill for nothing, in order to start making ground on the league leaders. So a deal with Dusty that sees him come to us via the PSD seems a risk we need to take. Sick of trying to climb the ladder against so make better positioned (resourced, supported, strategically important) clubs. We need to break something and take risks to move up.

This decision essentially slows the pace of any Melbourne revival, and given our "group of talented kids" are looking to be competing with the AFL's "Frankenteams" in the next 3-6 yr period we are fckd and only at best likely to be almost rans... Tired of the systemic inequities of the AFL competition combined with the AFL's own agendas working to only increase the distance between the MFC and any real success. The reason that the Dogs Saints and us have avoided success for so long is because we are surplus to the strategic interests of the AFL. Unless we unearth a genuine champion in the next couple of years we will be mid table for a decade. Yawn and apologies for the rant. Fckrs

Really! That's sad.

Mid first round is my guess... When do we hear their decision?

As we nail down the coaching appointments under Roos, it would be interesting to explore the players these new coaches have been exposed to as they are likely to feature in our draft/trade focus over the next month if the past is anything to go by. For example Neeld/Brown - Dawes, Craig - Sellar, Rawlings - Clarke, etc... So who was Roos developing at his Sydney academy who'd be of interest? Who was Allisons working with at North who'd be of interest? Who was Mathews working with at Gold Coast who'd be of interest?