Jaded No More

Give me a break, I've been up since 5.30am editing a thesis... If only Cale Morton was expandable

Thank you for the insight. I don't believe that the club would deliberately not trade him. If a good deal was brought to the table, we would have snatched it, especially if as you say, he doesn't seem to be part of our long-term future. Understandably though, we weren't going to trade him for pick 100 if his future with us was still unknown. Better Bartram than pick 100 we would have said, and we would have been right. I do wish Clint all the best, whether he stays at Melbourne or elsewhere, because he is without a doubt a very brave young man who has given his absolute all since coming to the club. But he isn't a very good player and he won't be part of our next premiership team, and hence he is expandable. If he goes to make room for the elevation of Spencer or for Luke Ball, it would be good list management on behalf of the club. And if he wants out, he should walk and try his luck in the ND. With such a shallow draft, he's likely to get picked up by someone else.

x2 If you take garbage and dress it in a Melbourne jumper, guess what, it's still rubbish only it's wearing a Melbourne jumper.

I look forward to our supporters arguing for the next 10 years who is the better player Knock yourselves out people.

I've signed up, and am disgusted with how ugly that membership counter is! Am waiting to see what my work situation is like over the next few months, then I'll buy both my cousins their first ever Melbourne membership. Exciting stuff (poor kids).

Meh

I have to ask this, but do you drink heavily before visiting Demonland?

I did a beep test once... made it to about 6 and spewed... probably shouldn't have done it with a killer hangover. Ah school, so much time wasted on meaningless crap :D

Consistently is less of an issue, because they still have Brown and Bradshaw up there, so the entire game plan will not revolve around Fev, as it did at the Blues. The issue would be if those three, or at the very least Fev and Brown, are able to gel and work together in that same forward 50 arc. If they can, and the Lions can maintain a healthy list, they might just snatch one. Their midfield is still top quality and they've just gone from having a very good forwardline, to having probably the strongest, scariest forwardline in the competition. How the hell do you cover Brown, Fev and Bradshaw? I can see them kicking over 100 points on a very consistent basis. Voss has done the right thing. He is trying to milk every last ounce of talent out of his aging stars, and so he should. He has one or two years at the most to try and win one, before going into a long rebuilding process to replace Brown, Power, Black, Bradshaw and so forth. They are in as good a shape as Collingwood, the Dogs and even the aging Geelong going into 2010, and they still have one of the best home ground advantages in the competition.

Really enjoyed reading that as I drank my coffee this morning. Just goes to show everyone who doubted the tanking tactic, how important it was for us to get no more than 4 wins. This draft is already thin, not to mention the last uncompromised one for as many years, and we're getting two of the best in a shallow spread of quality. Compare our position to that of Richmond come November... it's so good it's laughable

The only difference between pick 1 and 2, is that I believe the number one pick gets an automatic payment bonus (about $20,000?) on their first contract. It's possible that given he needs to relocate interstate, we've decided to pick Trengove at number one, with the bonus payment going towards easing the relocation process (remembering that all first year players are paid the same based on which round they were drafted). Of course it all could all be [censored] :D

From Ball's perspective it's not ideal, but it might be a better option for him than taking a gamble in the ND and possibly ending up interstate. Does his chance for a flag increase at Port or Sydney? Not really. If he wants to win a flag soon, he has to go to either St Kilda (nope), Bulldogs (can't afford him), Geelong (can't afford him), Collingwood (unlikely to last till pick 30), Brisbane (does he want to move interstate?) or Adelaide (who the hell wants to live in SA?). If he ends up at Essendon it's 50-50 at best, and if he lands at Carlton (unlikely, as they won't use first round pick on him) will he be able to get regular game time in such a good midfield? From our perspective, if we get 2/3/4 good years out of him, what have we lost? It's not as if we have to give up quality draft picks or players to get him, and we're not risking salary cap room by having him on the list either. It's a huge win for us if we convince him to come.

People also need to realise that the above is only true when your 28 year olds are the likes of Brown, Black, Power and Bradshaw, and not Robertson, White, Yze and Bizzell. Voss still has 4 elite players that he can try and steal another premiership with. It's a really long shot, but whether or not he chose to bring in more youth this year is irrelevant, as either way the Lions will need to rebuild once their stars have left. For as long as he has a big chunk of his premiership midfield and Jonathan Brown, Voss owes it to the team to try and win as many games as he can. The sort of mature quality he has to work with is seriously rare. Add Fevola to the mix and well... stranger things have happened. On paper, their team is better than Collingwood's, Essendon's and Carlton's. A top 4 position is definitely not out of the question for them in 2010. Dogs, Saints and Magpies would be very worried.

Did he explain to you what the deal is with Miller's 1 year contract?

That's the suggestions, but that's only to make the 92.5% cutoff. The AFL wants us to pay no more than that, however given what is happening with Ball at the moment, I am certain they'll be happy for us to go over if it means we get to secure a big name player like Ball. It'll be very good for our club, which is good for the AFL.

You do realise that of all clubs, Melbourne is probably the only one struggling to MAKE the salary cap at 92.5%! Money, in this situation, is the least of our worries. We can pay him as much as any other club can. Whether we believe he is worth his asking price (which is not going to be $1mil FFS! ) is another story. Collingwood has a lot less breathing space than Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Essendon.

Bastards stole my Bradbury reference! :angry:

Bell is contracted. End of story.

Thanks. Fingers crossed. It's about time we scored ourselves some freebies!

The question is, does he HAVE to nominate for the ND in order to be considered for the PSD? That is, if we talk to him and he says he wants to come to Melbourne, can he bypass the ND and go straight to the PSD?

Apparently we're talking to Luke Ball now http://twitter.com/emmasq

He's only 25 (younger than Davey who just got a 4 year deal)! I know his body is not in great shape, but he may still be around when we're challenging for a flag, and if he brings leadership and experience, why not? We lost his exact type in McLean, whether by choice or not is unclear, but if we got pick 11 for McLean and can get Ball for nothing as a short to medium term replacement, it'll be a huge win.

I said difficult, not impossible. The story with O'Keefe is different. At Sydney he still gets game time and they would have been able to match most financial offers. If we can afford to pay the price Ball places on himself, we're a very good chance. Paul Connors is his manager, is he not? That could be a good thing for us!

The lure of a premiership is a strong one, but if he can't see himself getting a game there, and can get more money elsewhere, why would he stay? It's very difficult for a player to publicly say they want out, then backtrack when deals fall over. He may still do it, but it seems unlikely, especially when St Kilda is choking on their own salary cap.

We've got money to spend, he'll cost us nothing in the way of picks, and is a good leader to have around the club. Why the hell wouldn't be want him? Time to pull out one of our famous Power Point presentations :D