pantaloons

I haven't been up with footy news in the past couple of months, but when did our compensation change? Wasn't it supposed to be: 1. A pick immediately following our first round selection, and; 2. A first round pick immediately following the selection of the team that finished 9th. Given that we should continue to improve over the next few years, and that 2012 is expected to be a great draft crop, I assumed we would be using both those compensation picks this year plus our own first rounder, giving us three picks between 10-16ish.

Very interesting to see we've got a bunch of people here (myself included) who started attending early in the Northey era. Children of those who saw the glory days! My first game would have been in 1986, but the first I can remember is the 1987 game against North when Clarkson beat us on the siren.

Great post on all fronts (except the "hate the country" bit). I've made similar arguments on "tanking" on Demonland a few times. I completely agree with you. There is a massive lack of understanding on the issue in a big, vocal section of the footy-supporting community, who treat the issue as a black and white one, which it can never be.

Things have really gone a bit quiet since the conclusion of trade week. All he's really said in this article is that hopefully he gets to play for GWS for a long time. It's not really newsworthy and he's hardly going to come out and say "I'll be here playing with these stooges until someone offers me and my old man more money". Not many people will be digging up his quotes six years later when he signs with another club. I look forward to not reading about him on Demonland in the near future, and only having to think about him when I boo him at the G once a year.

As is the case with a lot of my friends, I'm seeing a fair bit of interest in NFL here, and no NASCAR threads. Can someone please then explain to me why OneHD is playing live NASCAR on Monday mornings and replaying NFL in the graveyard slot almost 24 hours later?

Big Vic winners according to the Hun: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/gimme-galore-in-dees-dream-draw/story-fn7si05c-1226179985607 We can't worry about a tough stretch of around 6 rounds when we only play those teams once.

I hate team penalties for individual stuff-ups. I understand that they are supposed to: 1. hold the player accountable to his teammates as the penalty hurts them as well; and 2. costs them a chance to do what they love most and play the game; but as a few others have noted the bigger losers here are the team and the supporters. I think this is more of a message to the rest of the team than any lesson for Sylvia. Colin's not likely to change any time soon. Only Green, Rivers and Jamar have been at the club longer - he's not a child any more and if he makes a dramatic life change it's going to take a lot more than natural maturation.

I'm happy to play Essendon away every year if we get to play Collingwood at home every year on Queen's Birthday.

For the second year running no less!

My thoughts: Home games: 13 games at the G, 9 of which are home games (away games against Richmond, Carlton, Essendon and St. Kilda). Score: 8/10. Loses points for the Etihad game against Freo and having fewer games at our ground than Collingwood, but overall a very good result. Play GWS at the G which is huge. Interstate games: 6. Score: 4/10. We sell one of these to Darwin against Port so we can't complain about that, but we make two trips to Perth to play likely the two best interstate sides. Play GWS at Manuka instead of Sydney. No trips to Adelaide is a bonus. Timeslots: The times are all over the shop with 9 games a week, but we play 8 Saturday arvo games, 1 Friday night home game against the Hawks, and only 6 Sunday games, of which one is at 1.10 and another at 1.45. Great result with the Saturdays. Score: 9/10 Ease of draw: We play St. Kilda, Richmond, Freo, GWS and Brisbane twice. St. Kilda would be the shakiest finals team from last year and they're the only finalist we play twice, and both times at the G! We only play at Etihad twice, but once again travel to Kardinia Park, and we play in Perth in the final round. Score: 8.5/10. I think we've done very well here. I thought after receiving such a cream puff draw last year we'd be given a much tougher one this year, but we've done well again. Let's start performing on the field and then the business side of the draw will take care of itself. It's a very good draw for the team, hopefully we can make the most of it and make the 8.

Me too. I don't get to see the Chiefs on TV very often and this is essentially an early elimination game for us. Good times.

Hopefully as a penalty they're forced to play the big unit at full-forward next year.

Nice one. Despite a few US trips and numerous NBA and NHL games I've managed to get to, I've only managed to get to one NFL game, and it was at Candlestick for a Niners-Saints game back in 2000. Great atmosphere, great game.

And we've got Gawn waiting in the wings when Jamar in particular is injured. Now if we could just get some little folk for them to tap the ball to...

I still hold out a great deal of hope for Morton. Pick 4 in his draft, a fantastic first 2 years, then some injuries and some of the worst early-career regression I have ever seen. Not to stick the boots into Bailey any further, but the club (along with Cale obviously) has to take a fair bit of responsibility for the implosion of Morton's career to date. He hasn't come along anywhere near where he should have, physically and playing-wise, given the trend of his junior career and then first two seasons of his AFL career. Hopefully Neeld can get the best out of him and pick up where Morton left off at the end of 2009.

I feel nothing. A Hawthorn player who played a handful of nondescript games this year is likely to be delisted. That is all.

I have 21 of the same players in there, but with Gysberts in the 22. Howe and Petterd can fight it out for the last spot. Hopefully T. McDonald can push for a spot. My emergencies would be Howe/Petterd, Bennell and Gawn.

Good one. That explains it all nicely. Again, I really like the compensation idea. I love US sport, but the words 'free agency' rang alarm bells for me when mentioned by the AFL. Sensible stuff.

Before you come at me with a Kathy Bates-in-Misery-style rampage, this is not the ruthless thinking that a successful club needs. This is more like the malarkey that led to the Cockatoo-Collins twins ending up on the list. We aren't a charity, and we couldn't have been more supportive of Wonna over the past year. Putting him on the rookie list is not the end of the world. Maric would also be a certainty to get the chop, so with those two done we can settle on picks 36, 52 and 54. No need to promote any other rookies.

It would have been good to package Warnock and 54 for a higher pick than 52, but with a swag of draft picks, GC were already trading multiple draft picks for one draft pick in order to lessen their quantity of picks but improve the quality. This move for Warnock and a later pick would have been the reverse for them. In the end, I think we've done ok for Warnock, especially since seemingly no other clubs came to the party. At least we got something, and our third (and likely/hopefully our final) pick in the draft is 54 instead of 72.

On The Run Home this evening they had Hawthorn's list manager on, and they were discussing that there will be compensation for clubs who lose players to free agency in the form of draft picks, not dissimilar to the compo we've seen with GC and GWS, though I'm not sure they'd be staggered in different years. I think compensation for lost free agents is a terrific initiative and one that should help protect weaker clubs.

Now that Brisbane has signed him, I think we can let this thread die a natural death. Lisle was always a bit of a last resort. Clark gives us the forward line size we need. We're fine for tall backs, and no longer desperate for NQR tall forwards via trade. Brisbane can have him.

I'm not a fan of the concrete 1-year offers to over 30s, but given we seem to have that in place it'd be laughable to offer 2 years to Simon Black. He'd still slot easily into our midfield though. Hopefully he can work it out with Brisbane and remain a one-club player. Both parties deserve that.

Now that the Clark deal is done, we have more time to focus on some of the lesser trades. We've got a little over a day to potentially clear 3 list spots and better our draft position. Or there could be some other surprises in the works!

There are many positives in the Clark trade. I also love that it gives us plenty of time to get some more deals done. The Bate trade must at least be given consideration now. I posted elsewhere that if the same deal is still available, we'll have 36, 39 and 54 instead of 36, 54 and 72. Otherwise, what would Brisbane offer for Spencer? They've got a plethora of early picks it seems - would it be unreasonable to get something between 45 and 60 if they have anything in that range? I'm bemused by the tweets coming out of the Hun journos. They seem incredulous/miffed that Clark is getting paid so much at Melbourne. What did they think we'd be able to lure him with?