Deecisive

They are footballers, they made the mistake of taking the easy way out by not having to think about what they were given. They mistakenly trusted/believed their Coaches and doctors, etc would do the right thing the legal thing. I doubt even Herd knew or even cared what Dank's did to the degree needed to assure himself everything was ok with his program. Who even knows if Danks told them the truth to the players anyway on what they were given, if that was the case how far does a player have to go to validate what goes into his body if the guy leading the program tells him its one thing but gives him another. Jake will serve his time and then be eligible to play again. I want him in our team rather than having him playing against us for some other side that has not chosen to climb to the lofty high ground you aspire to. Given your logic Trengrove should be dismissed, if someone slipped something into Hogans drink and he tested positive would you discard him permanently/as quickly. There are levels of culpability I believe these guys are innocent of willingly taking illegal drugs, but they most likely did take them so they serve the time.

If we are only allowed to elevate a rookie then that leaves us at a disadvantage to other clubs in the competition should long term injuries occur, etc...

Interesting how does all of this work with the salary cap? As for us missing Jake I see this as a future pick that would have been nice if he could play this year, I don't think too many people are upset NOW with us trading a pick for a Jesse Hogan who could not play with us in that draft year. Sadly Jesse also spent the next year out but he will hopefully still be worth the price paid. I trust Jake maybe a similar type player. Yes we gave up an early pick for a kid that probably would not have played much this year anyway and who could have any sort of future. We at least have some knowledge of Jake's capabilities. A year off from all of this crap will have him champing at the bit to play for us. Disappointing but it just gives another player a chance to step up and claim a regular spot in our side.

Little has done a great job at hosing this down, by delaying he has been able to swap out some of the players to reduce the final impact that any penalty will have on the club. They have effectively diminished the punishment significantly. Now if they get banned for 6-12 months there is a good chance they will finish down low or possibly even bottom of the ladder giving them valuable draft picks in this years draft. So next year with new draftees and new picks and their full list returned they should be in a very good position for next year. All in all I think a lot of essendon supports will be happy with that outcome considering how bad it could have been.

So it looks like essendon is allowed to use top up players, can we then do likewise should melksham have to sit out part of the season?

give the kid a break, its is not serious and it may make him think about this sort of thing in the future so that he does not risk getting a worse injury. He will still be a beast in his first playing year....

Jack will get a bit of interest being out of contract, sides have seen how well he can play in a junk team. So if they are prepared to take Howe and others they will be falling over themselves to see what they can do with a jack watts once he is in a quality team. We need to be that quality team that gets the best out of jack.

A great compilation that shows the skill he has, he has been a major contributor in many of our few wins over the last few years, he is not a player I would like to loose. I think some fans are expecting too much from Jack which often turns to harsh criticism when he does not tackle as well as they believe he could. He will have his off days, weeks and maybe years, but then what players have not. As our team gets better I would hope that will a. take pressure of jack. and b. allow him to get better delivery from players up field.

love the idea, the players can play we know that, their mental attitude and confidence is the areas that they really need to work on. This type of camp sounds like it will assist in these areas.

a couple of injuries can cruel any side and usually does to at least one or two a year. We should be able to beat Saints, Bombers, Bears and Carlton Suns, Adelaide, GWS, are certainly beatable Ablett is still critical to the suns and all three sides have lost talented players. Tigers, Collingwood and dogs we have played and had some close games and a couple of wins, so again we are a chance. Those that we will still test us will be the hawks, dockers, eagles, port and probably Geelong. North and Sydney could go any way. We will certainly be more competitive next year and are in my opinion a real chance to win quite a lot more games next year.

For us to be successful we need to whole team playing well, oliver and weideman will give us much better depth than those they have replaced on our list. oliver could initially be an update for cross and weideman in time will be a replacement for howe who for all his talent never really became that gun forward we expected of him. These two guys will add some bite and skill to the team where we need it, on the ball and in the forward line helping Hogan.

Oliver was earlier this year recovering from OP and if you look at the early video footage he was playing well while still carrying a lot of extra weight. He has since the lost a lot of that weight which has improved his performance to the point he won the morrish medal. That is an exceptional effort of an emerging talent which our recruiting team recognised and took. While parish is good he has been a top players for a couple of years and has not had weight or injury problems, so has not had to overcome the adversity that oliver has to succeed. Parish will be a good player, Oliver looks to be an exceptional player.

Has smith been handling the ball yet, if so how has his skills looked?

the recruiting team has done a pretty good job. There is always going to be arguments over did we pay overs for melksham, I feel that we paid what we believed he was worth. As for Howe we got what we could for a guy whole most fans felt a little betrayed by. All of the trading and recruiting has given us players that we need and hopefully a couple of smokies. Just goes to show that these guys and gals have been following some of these players for years and have not just based their decisions on the last 6 months of football alone. Bring on the new footy year...

nice work 6

Jack usually does well enough to justify his spot in the team. unfortunately everyone is measuring Jack against what they think he should be showing. I hope competition for spots in the team will give him the motivation to do more as he is a quality player when on song.

Ross certainly has a lot of skill, only downside with his exciting video highlights was he only dished off one pass to a team mate. He obviously has confidence in himself but he also needs to show confidence in his team mates if he comes down and plays AFL.

yes we did trade out next years 1st rounder to get the benefit of a better picks now. I think it was certainly the right decision to make. Next year clubs bidding for academy players will continue to trade and swap their early picks for multiple later picks again. If its a deep draft then some clubs may also want to swap early picks for multiple later picks especially if they are turning over a few on their list. So this certainly gives us a way of getting back a 1st round pick. I would also hope that we have now completed most of our list culling so will only be trying to turn over a few players next year. This years list upgrades should certainly should make us a much more attractive destination next year for any top gun midfields wanting to migrate south for the winters.

if this guys can take a mark and kick straight then their is no reason we cannot play him either forward or back until he gets up more bulk and experience to ruck. We are all hoping that we can snaffle a bargain and maybe our two late picks are just that, players who have slipped under the radar.

l love the look of this kid and his attitude, he looks and sounds like he wants to play for the Dees and even has the support of some of his collingwood family. I want players who want to play for Melbourne, this guy looks to be a very very good upgrade on Howe.

In many of the video highlights oliver was looking pretty chunky, look at him now you can see he has already gotten rid of a lot of it. This kid will be something special once he gets integrated into a proper training regime.

so was mitch the ruckman tapping it down to oliver in quite a few of those highlights

oliver does not look to have the big body shown in some of those earlier clips...these two look to be great pickups.

himmelburg looks to have gone earlier than thought.

live afl draft picks as it happens didn't even acknowledge Melbourne taking oliver, what a bunch of duds