Davos

That'd be some kind of result. Don't know if Curnow gets to 6. Weideman might be more of a chance. Still a competitor.

It'll be interesting to see if we do take the plunge on a key forward (Weideman) after everything Roos has said about drafting them early.

I would have thought the first 4 games of this season were excellent before he was injured. He finished off 2014 as well, particularly in the final game with some classy goals and goal assists.

He's not overrated, his body just hasn't allowed him to string consistent games together.

I love his work. Will be fantastic for us if he can keep fit.

A fellow Cubs fan, ripper!

I've been thinking about the similarities between the Cubs and Dees lately, because there are plenty.

Go Cubs go!

Alternatively, there was another phantom draft done at the time on bigfooty, and they were less than glowing about Toumpas at a time when a lot of "experts" were.

You win some and you lose some, but if you're using Knightmare as a draft resource, you're gonna have a bad time.

The last ten pages on this thread feature some of the worst demonland posts i have ever read.

The trade period isn't a race - the club that gets the most trades earliest doesn't win. Because rushing out and committing early may just ruin your chances of capitalising on opportunities that appear later on.

To the guy posting the endless praises of Geelong for having an a+ grader fall in their lap and for trading in two b- graders in I would say this: the past does not automatically result in future chances being successful. Geelong traded in Mitch Clark and Sam Blease last year and jury out on one, fail on the other. When you have so many quality players leaving do you draft in replacements and hope you get it right or top up on b-graders and assume your unproven youngsters will automatically be as good as your departures? Sounds a lot like MFC post 2006 to me. Plenty can go wrong.

To the I want an a grader criers I'd say Judd went to Carlton and they were still a poor side. Dayne Beams is at Brisbane and fighting off the spoon.

We need to back in and develop our core of youngsters rather than rely on a saviour.

As for Toumpas. I like him and his heart but I have watched him carefully and I'd be staggered if he makes it at AFL level. Staggered.

10/10

I taught Matt Rosa as a young student teacher many years ago. He was a lovely kid.

We need to be careful. We did need to get some 28 plus players at the start of 2014 because the cupboard was bare on that front. We don't want to overcorrect however.

You taught at St Pats?

When Garland had his navicular issues a few years ago, he asked to be involved in the scouting of the next draft class and attended junior games and the nat champs.

That's above and beyond in my eyes, that's an example of his character and desire to help the club.

I hope that is a SCINTILLA, C&B, but I will let you decide...

Anyone else have any anecdotes?

Make C&B feel better...

Or when he was drafted by us, he got together every book on the club that he could find and read them all. Your average player doesn't do that.

Could be trading their way out of both this year's and next year's draft.

Relative amount of risk associated and flies in the face of how they built their success. Then again, no little Ablett's or Scarlett's on the immediate horizon, so a change of tact probably required.

Just smacks a bit of short term gain...

I get the feeling Geelong are trying to keep their head above water. Proof will be in the pudding, but it could lead to disaster.

it's all well and good to say you love the club and blahblahblah but it could be a case of nobody came a-knocking

Pls.

Seems like he'd be my sort of bloke, Col.

Stoked a great clubman will be a one club player.

It's a competition for a reason you [censored], harden the [censored] up.

Oh yeah, been waiting for this one!

Love his work.

Our Ben McGlynn?

One of those players you can't dislike, even when he's tearing your side apart. Just sat there in awe when we played Freo this year.

The highlight - his instagram.

My thoughts too. Maybe a co-captaincy dream team?

How about we don't go anointing future captains. We all know how well that has gone for us in the past.

I just watched Daisy Pearce's acceptance speech at the B&F awards. She was so articulate and knowledgeable and put together a fantastic, well-researched piece which demonstrated how important the MFC's support of women's football is. She was very aware of the historical significance of the women's games and it is easy to see why she is captain. As much as I loved seeing Bernie, Jack and TMac's speeches, and their 'knockabout' style, Daisy's was by contrast, outstanding.

I'm surprised I haven't read much about this on here. Outstanding, uplifting speech.

I will be genuinely baffled if Hogan doesn't win it. Maybe it's bias, but as Roosy said last night, no one has ever done what he did this year. Couple this with our inside 50 count for the year, and the delivery he was receiving as a whole and I don't really think there's a legitimate argument for Cripps over Hogan.

I understand how good Cripps has been this year and I do not deny he'd deserve the award in any other season, but give me a spell, it's Hogan every day of the week.

Everybody loves Harmesy.

Easy for me. The Cats game.

I had downgraded to a 3 game membership this year as the chances of me living overseas were pretty high (and that has turned out to be the case). Therefore, I was delighted that my brother was able to get me a seat in a corporate box at Skilled (or so I thought). It turned out his boss misunderstood and got me general admission. Therefore I thought I was in for a dog of a day. I even had to put my scarf back in the car as I was told in no uncertain terms that it was a Geelong corporate box so I had to modify my behavior thusly.

Sitting on my own, no free beers and thinking we were going to get pantsed in freezing Geelong weather. How's that for a trifecta?

It turned out to be the second best Melbourne victory I have witnessed live (the best was when we embarrassed Adelaide in the 1998 Qualifying Final). Shame I was the designated driver for the trip back to Ballarat as we stopped at the pub in Meredith for a few frothies.

Ah, my hometown. Solid country pub.

Spearmint Rhino

On a serious note, one of the most pleasing things I've taken out of this year is how tight-knit our young core seems to be.

There will be people on here who'd probably know more about it than I would, but by going off Instagram/Twitter the camaraderie, or sense of belonging, seems to be building nicely.

It should be interesting. We know who 1 and 2 are. The next group would be Parish, Balic, Francis with Curnow probably coming into the mix late as well. Not sure who else. We'd be pretty happy with any of that group I think. They're all solid players with good skills.

I think at this stage he's probably 4th on that list, pushing third.

So, pick 6. Pretty much no chance that Parish will still be there. Curnow is looking more and more unlikely.

Fixed. He needs to cool his jets if he's to fall to us.

One of the main reasons we still struggle is our list depth, or lack thereof.

Its every bit as important as having some star players.

When we lose a starting 18 player to injury such as Tyson, Vandenberg, Salem etc etc or they are replaced by VFL level players. The list is deeper than it was last year but is still very thin by AFL standards, but after this trade period it will be even deeper. And that will lead to more wins.

This this is the fundamental issue tbh. If we had every one of our best players fit, we'd be competitive with most sides in the comp. But, unfortunately at this stage we have just about zero quality of depth in the list, meaning when someone goes down they're replaced with a Bail, Michie, Newton, Matt Jones etc.

Yeah, he's a big body, but I'm not sure how "raw" he is. From what I've seen, he is an outstanding contested mark and a very good, long kick of the ball. I haven't seen his field kicking too much to be fair, as most of his touches have been close to goal, however I honestly haven't seen him miss a target in open play. His hands at ground level are also outstanding, gets his arms free and is very clean.

I don't think the query on him is his fundamental football skill. He is sound in that area. The question that hangs over his head going into the draft is whether or not he will be an accumulator at AFL level, because he hasn't played a heap of midfield over the past year, and I don't think he has the height to be a number 1 key forward in the big time.