Will Ben Simmons follow him when he is home from the states then?

Massive signing for Chelsea, he will be better than 'Butter' Johnson last season. Mainly because he won't be injured for majority of the season.

It will be interesting what Bulleen do to replace such an important piece of their puzzle. Will mean Mike Rose will step up and give an opportunity for some juniors coming through like Will Hoole.

Anybody else heard of any movement around the league? I've heard Gerard Leonard and Jonny Lee are moving from Warrandyte.

"What the hell is he thinking???"

$$$ and 2 years

Chelsea are keeping butter. You get 2 imports at state champ level

Where is Manny Hendrix going?

We do well in D1 if he doesn't loose interest in it.

Not quite good enough for SEABL as an import.....but maybe a lower level in Europe...then again his dad is here so maybe he wants to stay.

Dont think Chelsea are keeping Johnson. Corey is a great signing and makes them a contender.

Chelsea in D1 can only have 1 import, I think only country teams can have 2 imports in D1.
Manny is back in the states looking for a new team in Australia and Leonard and Co have been dumped over a month ago.
Chelsea will be odds on favs to win D1 no matter who the other teams get with Corey and Best in the team.

Funny i thought Lenard was the fave son down at Warrandyte!

Anon, do you know Chelsea have applied or are you guessing? Yes the other 3 teams have applied.

Out of the clubs applying for SCM it is interesting to note that only Hawthorn is consistently good in their juniors.

McKinnon and Whittlesea can have age groups where they can be strong but generally aren't consistently good.

Raises the question which is can they sustain a decent team with players from their own club?

Same could be asked of Sherbrooke and Corio Bay. Are they ever going to be able to say that their men's team is predominantly made up of their own clubs juniors?

Is that an aim for clubs?

Not having a go at clubs, more so just thinking of the sustainability.

Hawthorn don't pay player so not sure how they are going to compete in the short or long term!

If you bring that many team in to SCM at one time it really makes the comp alot weaker and lessen the overall standard, which might make a few of the better SCM players look to SEABL which isn't great as we should be working to strengh the comp not weaken it.

I somewhat agree with you Tiger Watcher. I don't mind the not paying players but I just don't think the current Hawthorn roster is big enough or athletic enough to compete at SCM level.

Zac Natoli and Daniel McLellan will be up to the standard but I think even Jay Allen will struggle taking the step up

Can confirm Chelsea have applied for SCM. They have been told it will be considered but not a certainly by any stretch.
I think they may only get in if one of the other bids falls over.

Why does Chelsea's media release state Div 1 then?
McKinnon, Hawthorn and Whittlesea have made it public they are looking at Champ in their notices and media releases.

I have heard that Chelsea plan to apply for Championship next season and with Corey on board for 2 years seems like a good option.

Gonna need more than 1 player to compete in SCM.

Hope they are going to recurit!

At the moment there are two levels of SCM. The teams that have applied to move up from Div 1 will be able to compete with the bottom half and be competitive and if Chelsea went up, I would expect the same.

So what does this do to the top 4 teams?

70% of the games they play are non-competitive and they might only drop 1 or 2 when they have a lazy night?

Chelsea had two practice games against SCM teams last year and won one and lost one narrowly. One game was against Bulleen but cant remember which one.

While they were just practice games, the Gulls werent at full strength and I imagine a couple of good recruits will make them competitive though perhaps not title contenders as anon above said.

I agree with you TW. The top is very top heavy and its like that in most divisions across all comps. The challenge is for the bottom teams to either increase the skill level of their juniors or raise more money to compete.

I think of the teams from Div 1 moving up Whittlesea will have the best chance for success. Hawthorn are not very big and McKinnon rode Marcus for the majority of the season and although he did a fantastic job, not sure that will translate at the higher level.