Macca

And Ricca wins again - that's 3 wins from the last 6 races Big call to win the whole thing this season but he might go close - he's sure got some talent

Colin We're not on the same page on this issue. We both have a different view about tanking re whether it's the right thing to do or not and ... then there's our opinion on how many times tanking has happened and by which teams. To save going back and forth needlessly, let's agree to disagree. We've both made our points.

Agree with you somewhat on the bit I've highlighted but as for the rest of it ... My bad - on Cooney ... Should have been Griffen and apart from that bit, my post stands. 3 teams tanked in 2004 and in the 2004 Draft that followed, all 3 teams got their A graders. Roughy, Buddy, Griffen and Deledio amongst them. I can't believe that most people wouldn't recognise that tanking was a widespread problem. Why did the AFL change the rules on the PP then? There seems to be an element here who mistakenly think that we're the only team that tanked. Or ... they want to vent their spleen because we supposedly did it badly. I believe there is a logical answer to why we were investigated and I've given my view on that previously in this thread What about the Pies of 2005? Sat on 5 wins for the last 8 games of the season - Thomas & Pendlebury were the prized selections in that bounty. I could give you at least another 15 examples like that in any number of years but you know what they say ... "There's no such thing as a coincidence" The pattern of tanking is there if you look hard enough. You mentioned Rhode taking over but what about Ratten taking over in '07 at the Blues. If you don't believe that the Blues tanked in 2007 then I give up. They lost their last 11 games including the infamous "Kreuzer cup" ... in my opinion, that was their 5th year out of a 6 year period that they tanked the last half the season.

Good point and I should have included that in my timeline. To me, it was a combination of a number of factors which created a perfect storm. Another thing to consider is if we were just 1 or 2 wins better off late in 2011, things might have turned out a lot differently.

They don't seem to bat an eyelid in the States ... the Spurs were fined 250k a couple of years ago for "resting" a few of their starters against Miami but that had more to do with resting up a few before the playoffs. It could be argued that the Texans and Falcons tanked last year in the NFL. The Sixers in the NBA - you betcha. As you intimated, tanking happens frequently over there and no one seems to mind. I maintain that tanking can be raised if a team doesn't benefit from tanking. It starts off as a team "wasting" their picks and just escalates from there. If you drew a timeline through our club, there was a sequence of events that led to the investigation. "Possible" tanking ... poor picks ... team didn't improve ... sackings ... loose lips and before you know it, an investigation starts (led by an ambitious Anderson)

You make some good points 'Grint' ... How on earth any blame can be apportioned to our supporters and members because our team under performs is astonishing. The truth is that we have very little influence on proceedings and that won't be changing in a hurry. All clubs might get a bit of feedback from time to time (from the members) but that's about it. So, what do we make of the Tigers? Best described as a bit of a ferrel lot and how's that working out for them? They've played a handful of finals games in 32 years. All that hollering and shouting has got their supporters and their team nowhere. They're odds on to finish 9th again this year. How sweet is that?

Just on the Hawks, Tigers and Dogs of '04 Tigers were 4/4 after 8 rounds and then proceeded to lose their last 14 games - Deledio (priority pick) The Doggies won only 1 of their last 10 games to finish on 5 wins - Cooney (priority pick) The Hawks only won 2 of their last 14 games (those wins were coincidentally against the Tigers & Dogs) Hawthorn finished on 4 wins and picked up Roughy & Buddy. It looked sus at the time and it still looks sus, 10 years later - and that's just one year. Of course, all 3 teams might have just been poor teams and it's all just a coincidence that all 3 "lucked out" and received priority picks. If that's the case, are we then allowed to say the same about our team of '09? 2004 AFL season

Again, it amounts to the same thing old dee. Tanking is tanking whether a club picks good players or not (on the back of tanking "successfully") I'm not being dismissive at all, Colin. I'll explain my stance further ... Tanking has been going on since the 90's and (partly) as a result of all that tanking, no fewer than 9 priority picks were handed out in 2003, 2004 & 2005. Then the AFL changed the rules - funny about that. Just on that "infamous" round 18 clash of 2009 ... the Tigers were also tanking that day. There was only one set of supporters who were generally unhappy that day - Richmond fans. They'd missed out themselves and we'd become the "possible" recipients. Tiger fans in particular have pointed the finger at us ever since. Like us, they wanted Scully. The whole spectre of tanking mysteriously disappears if teams prosper from tanking (i.e pick good players with the picks "generated") However, tanking can always lurk beneath the surface if a team doesn't prosper from tanking - we found that out the hard way. If we'd picked say, Sidebottom, Fyfe and Martin instead of Watts, Scully and Trengove then I'm tipping that the whole sequence of events surrounding our club would have been completely different. The investigation might not have happened because we could have prospered from tanking. I've had open dialogue with friends and acquaintances about tanking for more than 10 years. Maybe 15 years. Most, if not all, have admitted that their teams have tanked on various occasions. It's happened about 30 times since the mid to late '90's in my opinion. Of course, I can't prove that but it's hard to disprove also. Carlton tanked to get Murphy, Walker, Kennedy, Gibbs, Judd & Kreuzer. Ask any Blues fan who wants to be truthful - for verification. We shouldn't beat ourselves up over tanking. It was a widespread practice carried out by about a dozen teams on numerous occasions. We didn't prosper from tanking and then ... the perfect storm started brewing.

It all amounts to the same thing They tanked and their fans went along with it

Also had Hawk and Magpie mates not wanting to win any more games in '04 & '05 (to get the PP's) Flags resulted

At the Kruezer Judd cup the Blues fans were singing "It's a Grand Old Flag" (before, during and after the game) Most fans of other teams drop off in a way more disproportionate way when their team struggles than our team does. We have a remarkable amount of members, all things considered. North fans are the worst for dropping off but they're so anonymous and irrelevant that no one even notices or cares. I've rarely met one of the creatures and the ones that I have met have fairly low intelligence levels. If North drop to the bottom part of the ladder again that will be it for them. They should have gone to the Gold Coast when they had a chance - next time around they'll get swallowed up. And no one will care.

That's awful luck

I'm tempted to feel that way about Brady but he's the best I've seen in modern times. Technically, Brady is just immense - he always looks in command and I'm glad he and the Pats are in the other conference. US sports are like no other with the way the divisions work - you've just gotta win enough games and have a match-up advantage to win your division. I reckon the NFL has the best structure in world sport. Interest is maintained for a whole bunch of reasons. Some divisions are tougher than others but once the playoffs start, it's a whole new ball game (unless a team has to play in Seattle in January!) The NFC West was scary good last year (42-22) That type of overall record could happen again this year in that division. Bridgewater had limited time today but threw 2 x TD's from 4/7. A reasonable strike rate

I've checked a few scores and not much else apart from catching up with the topical stories. Did notice that Harris did most our running and caught a few in our game against Oakland yesterday. Seems we're trying to have 2 strong strings to our bow and with Lacy and Starks ready to go, we might achieve that. Our weakness remains our defense against a really good offense. Mind you, we won a Super Bowl with a defense that had it's issues As usual, a lot will centre around Rodgers. I do believe our division will tighten up though - any major injury to any of the major players could be the difference though. Cassel doing ok today from the stats. Is he going to start game 1? * Bradford's ACL ok - according to sources

If Jack has a good game tonight, opinion will sway again. If he has a poor game, more people will rule a line through him. People change their view on Watts like no other player. The "swinging vote" is probably sitting at about 40% plus (not on this poll, but on how he is viewed generally) Many of us are torn between his potential and his actual output. He gets a lot more leeway because he was the no.1 pick and because Roos has tried to take the pressure off him (previously) Also, he's one of the best "kick to position" players on the list amongst a sea of poor disposers of the ball. The other important aspect is what we would get for him in a trade. We're almost compelled to keep him.

He may leave for a "late" reason. James may have decided previously that he might stay but ... if our club doesn't offer him a good enough deal at the end of the season, he might then decide to go because he can get a better deal elsewhere. That decision would indeed be a late decision rather than a preordained one. Then again, he may have made up his mind to go quite some time ago. We'll find out soon enough.

Putting aside those players picked outside the top 5, (where "expectations" for an A grade player is much lower) does anyone genuinely believe that any of Sylvia, McLean, Morton, Watts, Scully, Trengove or Toumpas would have become A grade footballers if they had have been developed elsewhere? (there's still time for Jimmy and 1 or 2 others to become very good players but not sure about A grade) In my opinion you could put these players in the best system in the world and they might not have gotten a great deal better. That's not to say that our level of development has been "par excellence" - it hasn't. A top player is self driven and has the natural ability to back it up. We've simply been dreadfully unlucky with our drafting of top 5 prospects. It's easy to play the blame game but sometimes there's no easy answer to a complex set of circumstances. These kids that are drafted at 17 years old are too young to evaluate with any sort of level of accuracy. The results speak for themselves and it's not just our club that picks the "wrong" candidates.

I like this signing by Liverpool ... they had to give themselves a real chance to win the title and there's no doubting Mario's talent. This article from Gabriele Marcotti sums up the signing quite well ... Balotelli good business for Liverpool

The majority view from the supporters was different to your view

In the National drafts from 2000 - 2009, there were "roughly" 14 A or B+ players chosen from the top 5 picks in all of those drafts. A total of 36 players can be graded below that level to varying degrees. Many of those top 5 picks were complete busts or near busts (especially when considering expectations) At Melbourne, we've had 7 picks in the top 5 in the drafts from 2003 until 2012. So far, not one of our picks has turned out to be an 'A' grader and it's not looking good that any of those 7 will ever be an A grader. We traded our pick 2 last year and we also traded our pick 3 in 2012 in the Hogan deal. In essence, Hogan could be counted as the 8th top 5 pick in that 10 year period. Bad luck or bad recruiting? People may say that it's impossible to get so many picks so wrong but it's not impossible. The odds aren't great that any given club will unearth an A or B+ player with a top 5 pick unless they have at least 3 chances at it. Or, looked at in percentage terms, a top 5 pick only has a 25% chance of becoming at least a B+ player if we use the 10 year sample size as a guide. For what it's worth, here are my 14 A or B+ players from those 10 drafts ... that means of course that 36 top 5 picks have not or did not get to at least B+ level (the bad news) Roughead, Hodge, Franklin, Judd, Ball, Cotchin, Boak, Murphy, Pendlebury, Deledio, Griffen, Cooney, Goddard, Nick Riewoldt Anyway, see for yourself ... 2000 draft 2001 draft 2002 draft 2003 draft 2004 draft 2005 draft 2006 draft 2007 draft 2008 draft 2009 draft Our 'luck' might have swung around in more recent times ... Tyson (a former top 3 pick), Brayshaw, Petracca & Oliver all look to have bright futures ... also, it could be argued that Hogan & Viney fall into the top 5 pick category. And Watts is much improved as well. So, the same argument still applies ... Bad luck or bad recruiting?

My main reason for wanting to keep Watts is I believe that Roos may be able to turn him into a footballer. Also, I'm not sure he has a great deal of currency and if we could only get (at best) an early 2nd round draft pick for him, that pick could be a complete bust (unless we traded that pick for a Vince type but again, there's still a fair bit of luck involved with that sort of deal) The end result could be that Jack might play 100+ games for another club whilst we could end up with another player we might have to delist after 2 years. I don't place a lot of faith in the draft and let's face it, in previous years, we would have probably had more success if we'd drawn a number out of a hat. I'm being entirely serious. I can fully understand the angst with Jack but there's plenty who I'd let go before him. Those with currency who aren't getting much better would be better options to trade (that's apart from any straight delistments) Jack has more upside than most but whether we'll ever see that upside is debatable. I'd persevere for now but he'd want to be playing a lot better by the time he's 25 years old. I still reckon he's best suited across the half back line (with an instruction to kick the ball to position when he gets it)

We should be judging Watts as if he was just another recruit. The no.1 pick next to his name can and does cloud people's thinking. So ... imagine there was no draft and he came from a zone or an academy and he was tied to the club. Would you persevere with him or trade him? Would other clubs see any value in him right now? I'd give Jack 1 more year to prove himself. Maybe 2 years. He has some "nice" skills but playing footy requires a lot more than that. Roos might try and make him into a player or he might trade him. Our problems run much deeper than Jack Watts though. Up to half our list have question marks against their name. Just on the draft ... When assessing a 17 year old, how can one measure drive and ambition? Leadership skills? Raw courage? Ability under real AFL like pressure? A winning mentality? A never say die attitude? Beep tests and other "athletic" type tests will only tell you so much. Selwood should have been a lock at no.1 if the above qualities were taken into account. He went at no.7.

Welcome aboard JV7 - your whole division plays the NFC North this season and there's quite a few here who follow the Bears, Packers & Vikings. You're at Lambeau to play my team (Green Bay) in early December ... that could be a vital game if Atlanta can turn things around. Tough division you're in but there's quite a few tough divisions ... it'll be interesting to see how the Panthers go this year and the Saints with Brees will be tough to displace. Yeah, we come here for a bit of serenity ... best summed up here

More 80's ... 'Yes' with "Owner of a Lonely Heart" & 'The Romantics' with "Talking in your Sleep"

The EPL kicks off next weekend and up until daylight savings kicks in, most weeks we'll get a Saturday 9.45pm game and a Sunday 10.30pm game on cable. Ideal late night TV ... Next weekend's games For what it's worth, here are my top 6 tips ... reckon the top 3 will fight out the title race with Liverpool & Arsenal fighting it out for 4th spot. (Liverpool will miss Suarez) Everton & Newcastle should finish in the top 10 and maybe even my Hammers could get a top 12 position if big Sam can get 'em going ... 1) Man City 2) Man Utd 3) Chelsea 4) Liverpool 5) Arsenal 6) Tottenham