Deecisive

gratz to Jack, his a nice guy wish him luck.

the only concern i have with going after lever is that we will be paying him big $'s, then in the next few years we will have others throwing big $'s at Hogan and Trac, Hunt, etc. which means we have to offer them big $'s to keep them.

i thought one of the articles said that lever had been on $300k and the crows had offered him more but he still saw this as a low ball price.

i want players who want to try every time they run out onto the field, kent does not strike me as that and even hannan goes missing too often. These guys are paid a heck of a lot of money to play football, they dont realise how fragile that future is, if they dont put in they will lose their career and possibly millions of $'s for a half decent footballer with a 10 year career.

if we got the right offer he would be traded, it would be irresponsible not to consider any trade that benefits the club.

The free kick count in favour of the eagles got them into the finals. I wonder if the would even have won if the umpiring had been a little more consistent for both sides.

Tom needs to stay forward, he is a good marking target and seems to have far greater accuracy kicking at goals than away from goals. Leave him forward. Bring frost back to cover in defense.

we start paying big $'s to get or even try to lure kelly then we will start to see our better young player holding out for more $'s too eventually which will see them poached by other teams. We need to have a team we can afford, and we need a team that can play together, just having individuals that can play well is not as good as having a solid team.

maybe essendon are worried we will have a great year next year if we finish say 4th the our first pick without any compo being given to any team would be 14, our second pick would be at around 32. with compo, father and son etc that could be anything. if essendon dont believe we are going to go any good next year i.e. finish 8, then our 2nd round pick could be 26th without compo, etc... so maybe essendon have faith that we are going to have a good year next year

i wonder if we looked at the various areas that each club now controls and go back over say the last 5 years at what each area produced I wonder how balanced or evenly spread the talent would be, and who would have gone where..

Dunny does a lot of body work pushing players out of contests that goes unnoticed. His kicking out is good and his occasional long shot for goal is a bonus.

What I find interesting is that Roos knew we to win the ball out of the centre at the start of the last quarter and start scoring, he had enough confidence to put oliver into that pressure situation, and that he came through for the team. He is something special.

slot petraca in the midfield with oliver and boy what potential.

I wish he could pick up from where he was a year or so before his injury.

Olie looks to be a gun. Tomorrows practice match may give us a first real look at him. While the coaches may not be looking at him for round one, I am sure Olie will still be doing everything he can to get picked for our first real game. Looking forward to hearing how he goes tomorrow and seeing him in the nab cup matches. I personally think he has what it takes to play round 1.

Looks to be a modest kid. A real competitor, he will be trying to get into the seniors as fast as he can, for as long as he can.

Looks like the AFL is holding off making a call on the other clubs being allowed a topup player until Essendon has had their pick of the pack. We may then get to choose from what is left. While we may be looking for a rookie, I would assume that we would be constrained by the same rules as Essendon, i.e. only pick an ex player who has left the game in the last 2 years.

I would assume that any payments by Essendon, Melbourne, Port, Dogs or Saints to disqualified players would be not be permitted under the CAS ruling. The players will need to sue to get paid compensation for the loss of past, present and future earnings. This could get very messy as Essendon tries to battle their own players.

I cannot wait to see him play, he seems to have poise that even when facing someone tackling him, he has time to side step, or the strength to still get the ball away. He seems to like to move the ball on quickly and not afraid to tackle and appears hungry for the ball. All excellent attributed that we have lacked in some of our previous mid fielders.

interesting that it is suggested that we should not take him because he is a drug cheat, where as the mighty Melbourne football club was just a tanking cheat. Football is game is full of cheating, people staging for frees, people suggesting the touched balls that they didn't. that their fist did not actually make high intentional contact with another players face... When people or teams get caught they serve the time, when they get away with it as other tankers and probably drug cheats have then they just keep quiet.

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.

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.

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.

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.