Earl Hood

Who is this professor by the way. Mark Evans dressed up as Professor Ratbaggy?

Had a look at the 2009 draft, short answer is nup! A Shyte draft I am afraid. At least in the early picks. There was some talent later on.

Games that could have been won? Isn't that 22 every season for every team? I give up, can't these over paid gits just read the words of their own rules and work to them?

Yes I mentioned on another thread that it was extraordinary that for the GWS or Weagles game we had one post 2006 first round draftee playing in the starting 21 i.e. Watts. WE had only Jones, Chip and Dunn playing from pre 2006 first round draftees. The rest of the side was made up of recycled players from other clubs or late picks from 30 onward, Garland, McDonald, Jetta, Howe, etc,etc, We make a good case for Roos "moneyball" syle drafting preference. Trade for expereinced players so you know what you are getting, use latter picks on project players etc.

I used to get animated at the footy and angry but not these days. I am more like a stunned mullett, shaking my head at the skill errors and turnovers hoping for a sign of some talent and teamwork. Come to think of it I have been this way since sitting through 186 to the bitter end! It is probably some form of post traumatic stress disorder. For some reason I still go whenever I can; shock therapy perhaps?

It is just amazing how it is impossible to have a logical discussion on this issue. The Saints coach said oh how could the Dees get one while we are one below them. The other teams above us are reduced to talks about do we deserve it, its our fault we are shyte etc. The PP rule talks about poor performance over an extended period but let's not get to hung up on the wording or intent of the rule. It is really about whatever the top 10 or so AFL club presidents think is fir for them.

HB I think you have hit the nail on the head! Ferocity and intensity equals the old adage "Don't think, Just do!" If we could bring that to every game we would be so much more competitive. No we would not win a premiership, given our low level of talent but gee I reckon we would knock a lot of middling teams over. And there is no reason why we can't bring that ferocity to every game. Every time I have to watch the Hawks, that is all I see and somehow those guys don't get injured much, certainly less than our list. So how do you bring intensity to every game? I have no idea with our list. We need another clean out on top of the seven years of previous clean outs.

Junior, let's also add that the Swans pick 18 is equivalent to a top 5 pick as they have first dibs on Heeney through their academy, I believe. The system is compromised all over the place but a PP to us would be unfair to other clubs?? Where is the AFL Commission in all this? it is their job to stay above all the lobbying by clubs and self interest and endorse decisions that are fair and follow their own rules.

I found this article unbelievable. My Hypocrisy meter makes a lot of noise when it goes off and it is usually only set off by politicians like Joe Hockey but when it went into melt down this afternoon I was surprised to find the GWS CEO complaining about our early draft picks and that we did not deserve any compensation. Backed up by the Pies CEO Gary Pert. Both clubs have manipulated the draft at various times but are now concerned about draft purity while the various academies will be sending top picks to the Swans and Free Agency will deliver the proven players to fill gaps to the op teams. What else can we do for un equalisation?

Steph always suffered from getting injured at the wrong time. When Nic Nat was first compiling his highlights reel with some unbelievable cameos in 2011 was it? Anyway I can remember saying Steph to some friends could match him in height, agility and ability given a chance. That was when He strung together six or so great games while Jamar was injured. Played well but Jamar came back and then he got injured. He is a number one ruck and that is all,like Jimmy was and that reflects their early history, that is didnt play early.

Who says he is coming back to footy by the way? Just asking.

Hey Ascobar are you still hanging out in Addis Abbiba?

if worse comes to worse it is best to relocate to northern Queensland. I would be happy to spend my winters in Port Douglas when I am retired.

Heaps of both I am afraid. When we were down the drafts were Shyte but that said we had shots at other drafts that we may have got right if we had the right blueprint for the type of player we needed. For what it is worth if you go for the best of the top 20 inside mids that have a dose of mongrel and demonstrated leadership skills for your first round picks you might just get lucky. But who knows.

Rjay you are trusting our recruiters to know! Big call. I hope you are right and they do for once in the last 7 years, the jury still out on last years trades by the way.

I don't think Chris Pyne has a demographic these days. The all died with the Empire before WWII

Has anyone deciphered Caro's article in the Age where she states "worse for Melbourne is the fact that Frawley's past and future contracts could be structured in a manner that would earn the club relatively poor compensation". Frawley's past contract was front ended so that made him an unrestricted FA, again an AFL rule change to our disadvantage that came after we had signed off on his contract. But is Caro saying another club could structure his future contract to ensure our compo is minimised? Anyone know how that could be achieved? Of course in the dog eat dog AFL world if you could kick a club when they are down you would!!

Only 5 top 20 draftees plus steak knives Barry. Yeah your right not much there. I think I will go and point Percy at the porcelainDid I miss last weeks VFL Scorps player analysis?

And that we handball at too closer range. If our man about to be tackled gives off and hits the target our bloke is only a foot away and gets wrapped up by the same tackler too often!

It has occurred to me that the AFL could have alternative strategies for dealing with the MFC. It could provide draft aid with an extra pick anywhere from 1 to early second round or several second rounders. Going by Mark Evans latest thought bubble that seems now unlikely to happen. The alternative strategy, Plan B for 2015 maybe to use the FIXture to hide us away from the spotlight like some ugly, deformed child of the competition. You know the drill zero night matches, multiple Sunday twilights, play as many bottom 8 clubs as possible and shunt us interstate as often as possible. Oh hold on that was this year's draw! Maybe the AFL has already implemented plan B. If it really was an equal draw and we were playing absolute rubbish games against the top teams regularly in prime time I think the AFL might be thinking harder on how to help our on field performance.

Good one DC I still remember that presser, we were being hammered for not tanking, it was cringe worthy. But to be fair to the Gil he was thrown to the lions by AD who should have faced the press as Numero Uno and of course the real culprit was Adrian Anderson who went on an inquisition off his own bat while AD was away on arduous Olympic duties.By the way has anyone ever seen the AFL's tanking report into the MFC? Tanking is always thrown up against us in these PP discussions yet I believe if we had not been on AFL welfare and were say in the position of the Pies we would have called their bluff and said we will see you in court. The AFL would have then backed off into some face saving discussions with us. Let's face it Caro had a direct line to the AFL at the time and all she had were ashen faced officials, some odd player moves and some comments from Connelly.

But I assume the Frawley compensation formula is set down explicitly and if his contract is not big enough we dont get first rounder? On the other matter the priority pick formula is opaque and dependent on an economics professor. Is that true? And it is now also dependent on the latest thought bubble from the AFL executive about some player tragedy scenario as bizarre as that may sound. So summing up we could indeed be screwed on both fronts here, continuing the MFC curse.

Not sure offering thosebplayers up will get you picks inside 20!

You can add Jurrah to the equation as well, if we are talking tragedy scenarios. We took a big gamble to give indigenous player from a remote community a chance to show what talent is out there. It ultimately failed due to tragic split in Jurrah's community and extended family. Jurrah and Clark gone in tragic circumstances that would put a hole in most Clubs lists!