Undeeterred

So what? I'd be boasting too, if I had the first 2 picks. That doesn't mean anything - unless the official said to the sponsor, 'We got that second one by deliberately losing games.' Everybody settle down!

Jeremy Howe. Superstar in the making. And Sylvia. Ready for his career best year (I know, I know).

Good on TMac and Nicho. Saw them having coffee at my local cafe a couple of weeks ago, with Jade Rawlings. Obviously these two boys are feeling good about things!

Boring. If that's the best she can do, good luck to her.

Why, why, why is nobody talking about Adelaide?? I am becoming more and more convinced that the AFL is leaking to Wilson, and that they are doing it because they want this to be the focus. They aren't going to hit us with anything major, and they want the Adelaide investigation to be going on in the background, not in the media.

It looks like a few of them are actually a bit smaller. Jones doesn't look as huge. And look at Grimes' and McKenzie's legs... Twigs!

No, the article says the club might come before an AFL commission meeting next month. That's entirely different. That could be as simple as an agenda item on a board paper. And in any event, choosing to establish a 'commission', even if it is to hear our 'defence', is different to being obliged to do so by some law or principle of natural justice.

Sorry, but I disagree. Natural justice is required in adminstrative (ie government) and criminal law. The AFL is a public company limited by guarantee, and the same rules apply to it as any other corporation. On what basis is the AFL bound to give anybody what is being called 'natural justice'? I'm happy to stand corrected if, for example, the licences granted to the clubs actually state this, but I don't think it is legally correct.

The club or the thread?

Actually, one more comment. It is RIDICULOUS that this story is the focus of the football news this week, being the same week in which Adelaide actually admitted blatant, flagrant cheating of very clear, certain rules. Conspiracy, anyone?

My final comment - why in 33 pages is there so much acceptance of the purported facts here? Just because it is reported, doesn't make it true. We are all raving about like mad chickens, on the assumption that was is being put around is in fact correct. Hold your horses, people.

Ie, we are not 'the accused'. They can investigate, make a finding, hand down a punishment and move on.

The AFL isn't bound by the rules of natural justice, sorry. They can't do whatever they like.

Totally guessing, but if you bust it down to clangers per possession, you might get a different picture. Also, that doesn't measure the scale of some of the abolsute howlers JMac puts in.

Seriously?? http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/a-timeline-on-tanking-in-the-afl-20121030-28h8n.html How ridiculous. The tanking 'timeline' goes back a hell of a lot further than August 2009, let me tell you...

Hang on, I've lost track. Is that 6 vacanies, to be filled including those out of contract, or excluding? Ie, those last 4 have to go, if we are going to use say 3 ND picks and 1 PSD pick? Or do we have 6 extras to include, even if we recontract all 4 of them?

No big deal - that will upgrade our pick 49 to 48.

Haha, glad we are in furious agreement.

This, however, is not good: http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/tanking-affair-afl-to-lift-the-lid-on-melbournes-vault-20121030-28h3c.html

I wasn't suggesting we would make the finals with those 3 in the team. The discussion was whether or not, if you were Neeld, you would prefer to bank on Dawes, Byrnes and Rodan moving you up the ladder, rather than Morton, Gysberts and Martin. What I said was, I'd prefer to have my career (which will be judged on improvement of the team) in the hands of the new, rather than departing, players.

To be fair, I'd rather put my career in the hands of Dawes and Byrnes than Morton, Gysberts, Cook, Bate, Bennell etc.

Yes, quite. Was taking a bigger picture approach than that, but sure. Take your point.

How different things might have been if we managed to get up in that game!!

This is about the only thing we could have done differently, but we'd have had to use 3 on Viney. So we would be in essentially the same position as we are, but using 13 and 26 on speculative mids, rather than having Hogan, Dawes and Barry. I rate our strategy a winner.

Can someone explain the intracies of this? Why is it draft tampering to specify which round pick you must be traded for? Or is the bigger problem the extra $200k? I've always found it interesting that the AFL has to approve each trade, on the basis that each party is receiving commercial value. I think if the club wants to trade for uncommercial reasons, why should the AFL stop it? And who is to say, for example, that Tippett for White and 23 is not commercial value, but Cale for 88 is? At risk of sounding ignorant, this whole situation confuses me.