Devo

This thread also needs to reach 100 pages before Danger makes a decision.

Thurlow was drafted as the long term replacement for Corey Enright. I can't see him being put up for trade. That shouldn't stop Melbourne from inquiring about him, but chances of success would have to be slim.

Sounds like a great idea to me.

Very good player but last year was the time to get him. Will cost a lot more now.

Agree. Doing a deal now is attractive to Adelaide if Danger is set on leaving via FA next year, and it's also attractive to Melbourne for obvious reasons. It just makes no sense for Danger himself from a career standpoint, if indeed he is all about premierships and winning (rather than cash). I'd love him to turn up at Melbourne though, it puts the club back on the map as a credible destination for talent.

Why is there a Liam Jones thread?

FA is compromised in the AFL because of the compensation element. I didn't mind it as a transition measure while it was being introduced, but the league really needs to wean clubs off the idea that they will be compensated for losing free agents. Free agents don't belong to anybody. Why should any club get compensated for losing something that it no longer owns? Compensation distorts the market. I don't particularly want Melbourne to lose Frawley, just like everyone else around here, but if he is a free agent and he wants to leave, then off he goes and that should be that. Equalisation should come primarily through the draft and the hard salary cap. FA is about giving players more choices with regard to their place of employment, it isn't an equalisation measure.

Cachia is a like-for-like replacement for Carrazzo and should still give Jones a hard time.

How about getting practical for a minute. That was virtually a full-strength side last night. Which players would you actually bring in to improve that side? Dunn and Dawes were the only best 22 players not playing. You can't send them all back to Casey to find some form. The players have to take some pride in their performance and some responsibility for a 148 point loss. For people wanting to sack Neeld, which coach would you bring in? No big name proven coach (e.g Rodney Eade, Paul Roos) would have any interest in coming to coach this side in the state it is in. Proven coaches let other people do the dirty work first and then take over when the list is ready to contend. And how are you going to find the money to pay out Neeld's contract? How is the club going afford a big name coach, they don't work pro bono! And for those who want to clear away the line coaches, who are you going to find to do those jobs 2 games into the season? Anyone who is decent was hired during the offseason. To the people who want Schwab gone, how are you going to find the cash to pay out his contract? Tell me who you are going to replace him with? Do you think that the AFL is going to help out and cough up one of their best administrators when they've just lost a bunch of their best executive talent in the offseason? To the people who want a board spill, where is the ticket that is ready to mount a challenge? The board stays until successfully challenged or people resign. If you're that worked up about the performance of the board, get a ticket together by all means. You will have to work with what you have for the meantime. This situation is absolutely terrible and I wish it were different, but the people are who are currently in this mess are the people who need to get the club out of this mess. If there are internal divisions that are causing strife, then the divided parties needs to be locked in the boardroom and they need to thrash it out, like normal people would do. I love the club as much as everyone else around here, but demanding that we put all of these heads on spears outside the palace gates right now is going to solve nothing. It would probably create more instability and worse on-field performances.

Colin Garland had a crack. He was under siege the whole time but he still took the game on, particularly in the last quarter when it was all academic. Nathan Jones clearly had a go. He had the Hocking tag (the latter is a good tagger now) but Jones still had 25 touches and a goal. Howe was good playing behind the ball. His disposal is not the cleanest but he was doing everything he could to stem the tide. Grimes put in, he always does. Frawley and Jones had a crack, Davey was in it early too.

How weak

This is the best thing Brock has ever done and is likely to ever do. Good on him.

This. In all of this, I don't think enough attention has been paid to how spot on the OP was. Kudos to deegirl and we'd be all ears if she has more info to share.

I hope someone is paying FNQ for these training reports. Far and away the best training reports I've ever seen.

I was thinking about what the best 22 might look like and I came up with pretty much what you delivered, BH. It's still pretty early in the piece though and competition for spots will be much more fierce than it has been in some years. Half-back flank will be where the competition is stiffest. It will be fascinating to see who comes out on top.

I'd like to get him on the basis of talent alone, but MFC isn't in a position at the moment to take a punt on him. If he is rookie listed by a strong club with a solid culture and good role models like Sydney (Goodesy), Essendon (Nathan Lovett Murray) or Geelong (take your pick), I think he'll succeed. He'll have to demonstrate to all and sundry the required level of discipline and commitment before he gets near a senior list.

Quigley is a jet. Highly rate this guy's opinions on the kids coming through.

There's no need to pursue CW in the courts, if the club emerges without punishment after the investigation is done. It would be a terrible look for the club and the prospect of success probably wouldn't be that high. She could easily put a case forward that she was just doing her job and there are enough weasel words in her articles to cover herself. Once the matter is settled, the club should just draw a line under the whole sordid affair, consign it to the dustbin of history and get on with preparing for 2013 and beyond.

Anyone heard where Clint Bartram is at with his knee? The HS was reporting that he was right to go, which doesn't seem right to me based on what we'd previously heard.

A lot of circumstantial smoke and not much hard evidential fire so far. Once we see some incontrovertible proof that a Melbourne Football Club employee contravened AFL rule 19(a)(5) at some stage in 2009 and the AFL hands down a sanction, we can all start getting hot under the collar. The rule reads as follows and I think it is the crux of the matter: "A person, being a player, coach or assistant coach, must at all times perform on their merits and must not induce, or encourage, any player, coach or assistant coach not to perform on their merits in any match - or in relation to any aspect of the match, for any reason whatsoever." Until we get some conclusive proof of this rule being broken, all of this stuff in the papers is hearsay. The hearsay is damaging to the club's reputation, no doubt, but it is still hearsay and the club should be strong enough to survive it. If it's all proven and the hearsay changes to fact, then the club rightfully cops a serious whack and we all move on as best we can. I also worry about how Caro is getting the source material for her stories. Either club people (past or present) or the investigation is leaking like a sieve, and that's not a good look for either.

Let's talk about sanctions once there is proof that MFC people have engaged in activities that require punishment. Until then, this is all hearsay and speculation.

Re-read Ben Hur's post. 19 poss from 13 at vfl level this year and thus I stand by my comment. Gys played 1 at afl level this year.

Takes one to know one, by the looks of it. What a strange post.

To be fair, he probably spent a few of those games gaining match fitness. But for a supposed ball magnet at AFL level, averaging 19 possessions at VFL level is a bit of a concern. If he is as good as advertised, then he should be dominating at VFL level and getting 30+ in most games. I wish him well at north and hopefully he can prove himself as a bona fide AFL player. I'd just say that the jury is out at this stage.

This is the club's fault. All the blame should rest with them. They should be above this sort of behaviour and be able to stand up to the Tippett camp. The Tippett camp probably had a fair bit of leverage around the time of the deal, but that's beside the point. The cap is the cap and it can't be circumvented by any means. The league won't cop this Carlton-esque buffoonery and they should crack down hard on adelaide.