Nick's Collingwood Bulletin Board

I'm with you Johnson in that almost always draft picks should be give 3 years as a minimum before deciding whether to retain or cut them.

If Billy is still playing for Williamstown Reserves most of next season then perhaps we have a problem on our hands but I remain confident after a full eason under his belt he will play well for Williamstown Seniors next year taking marks and kicking goals. I definitely would be more than happy with that outcome as it would prime him for a 2005 debut.

We have 38 players on the list. This means teams can have around 8 development type players who you plan to give 3 seasons to judge. At this stage I'm hopeful ours would be Hall, Morrison, Mullins, Leonard, B.Shaw, H.Shaw, Shackleton, Nixon.

We really only need to clear out 4-5 places on the list and you can do that by trying some 2 for 1 trades. I would be rapt if we could trade our pick 7 + one of our fringe players for a top 4 pick in the draft.

Let's wait until Billy's 37th birthday and make a post season assessment of him then. Okay!

The good thing is we've got a bit of time with Rocca and Cam Cloke and either Richards/Fraser floating around CHF, we don't need him to be a superstar tomorrow. I'd like to see how he next year after a full preseason and hopefully 100% fit, but I must agree so far he's looked pretty lost out there, but IMHO Cam Cloke took a while to look comfortable too, so it may just be a matter of time.

- Ben

Im sick of this thread - it is quite obvious we are not going to get rid of Billy this year and he'll have at least next year to prove he has the talent at the top level.

As a first round draft pick at his size these kids are always given at least 3 years.

He is a secret weapon. Clubs will forget about him, and he will explode out of nowhere to be a gun in about 2007/8.

How can he be a secret weapon when we have spend 3 Bloody pages talking about him! J26, a secret is something no one else knows about. So please don't tell anyone else, okay!