poita

As disappointed as I am that Grimes has been booted, I will feel ten times worse if any of Newton, Dawes, Lumumba, Michie, White, and King are still on the list by the end of October. I'd like to think the club knows what it is doing, but these are the same people that gave Terlich a two year contract and then refused to play him, when most people wanted to delist him.

The way Jack Grimes has been treated over the past two years by the club he loves is an absolute disgrace. I am bitterly disappointed that he won't be at the club next year and at how his exit has been handled. Rjay's post says it far better than I can, but he has been a credit to himself and his club throughout what has largely been a dire period for all involved. For all the good things that Paul Roos has done for the MFC, there is no question in my mind that he absolutely shattered the confidence of those who weren't amongst his chosen few. Jack is clearly one of those, and his ability to front up and play well at Casey each week under those circumstances is admirable. I desperately hope he gets another chance with a coach who can give him some love and prove the knockers wrong. All the best, Jack.

Weideman can clearly play, but needs to keep his intensity up (and get bigger and stronger, which will happen in time). I can only see Hulett making it if he can be the back up ruckman, because his skills aren't good enough to be a genuine AFL forward.

Pathetic performance really, in such a big game. Even when Casey were in front at half time I felt like they were by far the inferior team. The performance suggested to me that half of the team had been told that morning that they wouldn't have contracts for next year. The rest just didn't care. Oliver was clearly our best, but once again he didn't have the endurance to play four quarters. He needs to spend the next 6 months building his tank. I have previously been confident of Spencer's ability to play a role at senior level, but he was simply appalling. We badly need an upgrade. Kennedy confirmed my opinion that he has tickets on himself and does not have the work rate to make it. Neal-Bullen again failed to match the step up in quality and won't make it. Newton and Michie were as bad as ever and will both be delisted. Grimes, Trengove and Jones were disappointing for senior players. Terlich okay in parts, and worthy of at least one senior game over the past two years, but won't be around next year. Hulett is miles off. Weideman is okay when his intensity up. Garland is finished, regardless of contract status. Dunn is okay when he can get to the contest, but is so predictable with ball in hand. Smith shows some promise but needs to get to more contests. White won't make it and should be delisted, particularly if we get Hibberd.

4 years into his AFL career he still clearly has no idea what is required to be successful at AFL level. He massively overrates his own ability with ball in hand, and tries to do too much, and conversely doesn't do nearly enough defensively. He has the talent to make it, but not the workrate. He should made be made to sit and watch tapes of Caleb Daniel for the next 2 months, and then spend the next 4 months getting himself incredibly fit so that he can match Daniel's work rate and intensity for a full game. Right at this moment his worth to the senior side is on par with Dean Terlich's, and we all know what will happen to Terlich over the next fortnight. Kenendy is just lucky he has a contract.

Good luck to the Scorps on Sunday, I'm really looking forward to this. They've been the best side all year and deserve to win, but strange things happen at Shitihad Stadium.

Expect that (a) Dangerfield hasn't had serious injury issues in recent years and (b) Geelong didn't have to get rid of the best young key position player in the competition to land Dangerfield.

Harvey still has something to offer a team in the premiership window, but I can't see what he would do for a year at a club such as us. He's not a genuine leader, he's not going to mentor a talented youngster on our list, and he's not going to be the difference between us making the finals next year and not. Pass.

Whilst we are giving regular games to guys like Bugg and Vandenberg, we should be strongly in the market for quality players such as Mitchell. Surely we can come up with a better offer than Hawthorn.

Are people blowing their load over Hibberd because they think he fills some desperate need we have, or because someone (albeit a middling player from a crap team) actually chose to come us (read: nobody else wanted him)? The last thing we need is another half back flanker, particularly one who hasn't played a game for 18 months. Offer Essendon a third round pick and move on if they won't deal. They need to free up salary space and we clearly paid overs for Melksham last year.

He's the right type of player for us (more so than Hibberd), but the price is too much for his output in recent times.

I'm a big fan and am hopeful that Jack will be a factor next year with a full pre season behind him, but he looked even slower on Sunday than he had in his AFL games this year. Hopefully we see some improvement in this respect over the next 12 months.

I'm pretty sure we can get rid of everyone ranked 23 - 35 on our list, and not cause any problems. Right? Oh wait, what if we have a few injuries and need to call on some experienced players? Hmm, maybe we should hang on to guys like Dunn and Grimes so our fall back is not playing guys out of position or playing kids who aren't ready. Seriously, I don't begrudge Dunn and Grimes leaving for greater opportunities, but as a club we need some depth in key positions. If Tommy Mac goes down in round 1, it would be nice to have Dunn in the wings. I don't think we should be pushing these blokes out the door just because they are not "the future".

The Dogs were in the market for Hurley until he resigned. How do you figure they don't have salary cap room? There is a big difference between choosing to use your full cap, or choosing to use a nominal cap and leaving room for a "big fish". I don't really rate Suckling, but he cost them nothing. Compare that to the opportunity cost of us going after Lumumba, Hibberd and Melksham, who I similarly don't rate.

Unless you are prepared to give up one of our high draft picks (Oliver, Petracca, Brayshaw, Hogan, etc), there is zero chance of us getting even close to the first round. Just to select a few names who have been mentioned in this thread, none of Wagner, Vandenberg, Dunn or Garland have any value in a trade, let alone something approaching a top 20 pick.

As long as the club is sensible and doesn't overpay in terms of picks or or contract $ or length, I can't really see the downside here. We carried Trengove in 2015 and Melksham in 2016 who were never going to play, so I'm pretty sure we can afford to take a risk on one player in 2017, especially given that he potentially fills a pressing need.

He has had 12 months to think about things, and get himself in the absolute best shape possible. I am not convinced about Melksham as a footballer, but I would be bitterly disappointed if he is not the hardest worker at the club between now and round 1. He should be absolutely desperate to prove himself to the club and to his teammates.

Clearly a lot of people have no idea what the word "realistic" means.

How is Pedersen not the player we want for this role, at least in the short term? He can ruck, he can play forward or back, and he has a big body that can take a fair amount of punishment. Next in line should be Spencer if he can develop his forward play to the point where he can make a contribution each week, even if he is not necessarily kicking a heap of goals. Watts is too valuable to play ruck, and doesn't have the body strength to ruck around the ground against bigger opponents. I really don't see Weideman as an option long term either, for much the same reasons. There is no doubt that Gawn needs support, but I don't see that we need to over complicate things.

I'm sure if Lumumba does play on, he'll break a finger nail in round one and miss the next three months. I wonder if he genuinely wants to be here, or is just finding it hard to say no to the million dollars he is due for the next two years. If our football department had any balls they would negotiate a settlement and quietly usher him out the door during the finals series.

The AFL saw the Gold Coast make an absolute mess of their concessions (Fraser, Brown and other duds), and clearly determined that they weren't going to allow GWS do the same thing. Unfortunately they went so far the other way that they have created a monster that will take many, many years for other clubs to overcome. That said, GWS have a done great job in attracting senior players in the prime of the careers (much like Hawthorn in some respects) who complement the elite young talent they have coming through. Between the ridiculous academy rules, salary cap concessions and the willingness of other clubs (such as our good selves) to overpay for fringe GWS players, the GWS juggernaut could conceivably roll on for more than a decade. If the core playing group are prepared to sacrifice their earnings in the short term to keep the list together, there is really nothing that can hurt them. Perhaps in time their better players might head back to Victoria once they have won five premierships in a row, but until then we just wait.

Can someone please confirm this for me. If we have four selectors each rating players out of ten across 22 games, that would give a maximum score of 880. How is it then that winner only has 407? I can imagine nobody would have got many votes in our worst performances, but surely across the year our better players would average more than 5 out of 10? As an aside, Gawn not winning shows the limitation of the voting system. Congratulations to both Viney and Jones, but I would say both had good - very good years, rather than great years.

Hang on, aren't Dawes and Lumumba the experienced leaders we have been craving? No? Well lets add a few more broken down old hacks into the mix. Dal Santo was done two years ago. I wouldn't touch him with a million foot pole.

Or you could do the reverse like we did, and give up a pick in the current year's draft in exchange for a player of dubious quality, who had to sit out a whole year.

I keep reading this, but am yet to see any evidence of how and why this is the case. Yes, we have managed to get a few deals across the line with them, but they've played hard ball on all of them. GWS will do whatever is best for GWS, as I would hope Melbourne will do whatever is best for Melbourne.