poita

There are at least 20 players I would delist before I contemplated moving Trengove on. And what will the replacement be - pick 243 in the draft? No thanks.

Alex was solid enough one-on-one, but he was a liability with ball in hand and other clubs had well and truly worked that out by round 7. I have no issue with us turning over the bottom end of our list on a regular basis.

Absolutely correct. It is one thing to make bad decisions on draft day, it is entirely another to prolong the pain by letting poor footballers clog up the list for years on end. Neither of the blokes you mention, and another 5 or 6 of their mates, will ever be a decent player and we should make the call now. I would rather take a punt with a late pick than keep the likes of Evans on the list.

Surely the problem that Nathan Stark faced was that he was so far off being an AFL player that it was clear from very early in the season that he wouldn't be at the club long term. I would expect that a player like James Harmes who showed plenty of promise would be looked after as well as any of his listed teammates.

Agree. With a record showing one decent year out of six, it is hard to say that Nev has made it yet. Hopefully he doesn't lapse back into old habits when he finds his way back on to the senior list.

The result is not so important as the performance. I can handle a loss against a side that will play finals next year, but if we put in repeat of the 2012 round 1 schemozzle, it will be a long, long year.

I was sad to see him go at the time, and I think we would have been a better team if he had stayed. Even at 29 with a decrepit body, he is clearly a better player than half of our current list. So what if he went to Carlton - the guy is a professional footballer, and they offered him a good deal and we got a good pick for him. He is not responsible for things that happened at that club before he arrived.

Honestly, if we can't find $2m + a year to spend on player acquisitions, there is something terribly wrong. I wouldn't value our squad at even 80% of Hawthorn's even on a good day, and that doesn't take into account forward loading of contracts..

I can't imagine how the VFL could be worse off by being televised on commercial TV. The ABC coverage is totally amateurish and does nothing for the image of the competition. As others have said, it would be nice to see some more interesting games, rather than Frankston v Bendigo in front of 2 people. The only thing that you do appreciate is that the commentators are passionate about the games and have a decent knowledge of the players - channel 7 will have to be careful with their commentator choices, as ex-AFL players are unlikely to be appropriate.

The big problem is not how many supporters we have, but the demographics of those supporters. I would expect that we have the highest average supporter age (and by a decent margin), so what happens when the 1940s & 50s kids die out? Go to any school or Auskick clinic, even in traditional MFC strongholds, and you would be lucky to find 2% of the kids in a Melbourne jumper. We have very few supporters under the age of 20 due to years of miserable performance. Not only have we lost that generation, but we will struggle to pick up that generation's kids as well. It took Hawthorn 25-30 years to turn their dominance in the 1980s into decent membership numbers, as the kids of 1980s are now taking their children along. So, even if we can challenge for a premiership by the end of this decade, it will take much longer to build a strong supporter base.

The only thing we are not lacking is mediocrity. That forward line is threadbare and the midfield is lacking in versatility. There are at least ten on that list that I could happily see never play for us again.

Well surely we were always going to have one assistant move on to make room for Goodwin. The last thing we need is for a million assistant coaches to be standing around scratching their balls. My only question is why we bothered getting a bloke in who wasn't there for the long haul.

Where did we address our midfield depth in the trade period? The only midfielder we picked up was Stretch, and it would be unfair and unrealistic to expect anything from him until 2017.

From memory, we had less scoring shots than our opposition in every one of our wins this year. So for all the talk about unlucky losses, we also had some lucky wins. This is a very ordinary group and we are a genuine wooden spoon chance for next year. Probably only St Kilda will match our mediocrity.

Yep, we've had far better opportunities in previous years to take a PSD pick and haven't done so. I fully expect us to sit tight and tolerate the likes of Evans for another year.

Except they don't fill our one true need.

We got screwed ..... again. I wish this club would collectively grow some testicles. What do we think we will get for pick 53?

Amazing how certain clubs hold up the entire process just so they can feel wanted. The Ryder and Beams deals could have been done on day 1, and everything else could have been done on day 2.

When you see the other deals being done this week, I find it amazing that the club can't get this piddly little one done. Not getting at least one pick back for in the Clark/Lumumba and Garlett deals was a mistake.

I think we're reading this wrong. Clearly Roos & co think we've got such a strong list that we couldn't possibly improve it, not matter what we try. Hence it might seem that we're missing out on Giles, Greenwood, Hallihan and a dozen other decent players, but actually McKenzie, Evans, Riley and twenty others are going to magically turn into superstars overnight and we'll miss out on this improvement if we bring other players in.

Talk that the Dogs are interested in Shane Biggs. I would have thought that he was the sort of player we should be looking at if we can't land a big fish.

How on earth is a public holiday afternoon game not appealing to families? Do you really think a Thursday night game at the end of a school day is more acceptable to families with young children? There is absolutely no guarantee that we would receive another blockbuster game of equal standing - teams are queueing up for a chance to host Collingwood.

What's the point of hanging on to pick 3 to take a player that most people rate lower? We may as well have traded down the order, picked up a player or a later pick, and still ended up with the same bloke.

Pretty much. We should see if Geelong will give us a second round pick for Fitzpatrick as well.

F+ for me. Our record with high draft picks inspires zero confidence, so you could hardly claim that picks 2 and 3 will replace Frawley's contribution in the short term. Stretch is miles off being ready for senior football. None of Lumumba, Garlett and Frost help the midfield, which is where 99% of games are won. Given the deals involving picks 19, 21 and 25 this year, I'm bitterly disappointed we haven't been able to utilise pick 23. We were never going to land a big fish, but not using 23 for something more significant than a mid range draftee is a real shame.