Lol. I was so distracted by where the conversation was going that I completely forgot the original context and so was confused at your comments. 
But I don’t think what you’ve written is correct - we could have matched his offer and kept him. We obviously did not rate him as highly as Melbourne. Whereas say Jenkins, we did want to keep him, but being behind Hille, Ryder and Belly he had no interest in staying.
Yep.Jenkins left with the club's best wishes without us making an offer. This Jenkins kid, who was picked up by the Bombers in the 2010 rookie draft, spent two years toiling away in the now defunct Bendigo Bombers VFL team and hadn’t managed to crack it for a senior game in that time.So when the Bombers eventually shipped him and pick 41 off to Adelaide in exchange for pick 31 in the 2011 national draft, it looked like a good bit of business for Essendon.
We made an offer of 2 years to Melksham & he got a better offer elsewhere & Dodoro was upset he left
“Jake is a gifted immature midfielder with some-more than a hundred games knowledge and we’re intensely unhappy in his decision to seek a trade,” Dodoro said.Nothing like each others trade
Jenkins was with us for 1 year, not 2.
Although to be fair, I don’t know if we would have matched Adelaide’s offer if he’d have accepted it, but my understanding was that we would have. That Adelaide didn’t offer him huge bucks, they offered him opportunity. And that was what we couldn’t match.
Not that this was a mistake at the time, because we didn’t know Ryder would go Judas and that all our potential tall forwards would disappear to either early retirement, the defence, or the Dogs. But with hindsight, damn wish we’d cleared the guys in front of him to keep him. 
Deleted
All Australian?
Going well. I’m happy for him. He sent my son a Christmas card a few years back so I’ll always have a soft spot for the Melkman.
The prescience of Clone Hirdy. A believer !
As to Melk, maybe its what the responsibility of a family can do to a young mans attitude.
nowhere near it. had a couple of good games. rest has been so-so
He played his best footy with us in 2013, when Goodwin was an assistant coach.
Is it really any surprise that he is now playing good footy with Goodwin as his Senior Coach, obviously responds very well to Goodwin’s style of coaching.
I always thought he was pretty ordinary when he played for us (aside from the occasional standout game, goal or mark). The main excuse seemed to be that he was played out of position because guys like Stanton, Jobe, Zaka, Heppel, Hocking, etc) were ahead of him. He was a decent link up player and decent in most areas without being a standout in any - he certainly wasn’t a gun-forward or mid. Looking at the stats he played 14 games with us in his first year (2010) and then 23, 22, 21, 16, 18, so it’s not as if he didn’t get any opportunities or that we didn’t develop him - he played 114 games for us.
He is certainly playing good footy now but we’ve got our money on Lang & Lav to come good and you could argue Raz an upgrade that’s shown more much earlier in his career.
Good on him for fitting in well at Melbourne, looks like all parties should be happy with the move.
Teams move on, players move on. I guess he is a late bloomer playing his best footy at 26-27
Yep, I wish we could tell when a player was ready to bloom…
Usually we tend to hold on to players for too long (or give them Snr games regardless), especially if they are a high pick - was Melk around pick #8?
And supporters need to move on too. Houli, Hibberd, Crameri, Melksham, Monfries, Ryder, all good players but we have evolved since they were in the side and shouldn’t have any regrets.
Melkshkam
I am not fussed losing him as we have Fanta, Green, Tippa, Begley, Stewart, JoeDan, etc.
Hibberd was more of a loss imo.
He was allways going to be a good player.
The problem was we expected him to be our number 3 mid after Watson and stants.
He gets to play his proper role and down the pecking order at Melbourne and he flourishes.
It was BSD!
We were fighting a losing battle, remember all the ‘we made off like thieves with the Dee’s 2nd round pick?’
Got nothing to do with him aging and therefore ‘blooming’. He played his best footy when Goodwin was with us. I put this down to our inability to develop players. We are ■■■■ at it. This is one example.
We tried playing him at centre clearances, when wing & flanks was where he belonged.
Nothing to do with being shitt developing players. He did famously get dropped once but only played one game in the ressies, & came back because of injuries. He benefited greatly by not getting injured much in his career, while we had soft tissue injuries mounting up left, right & centre.
He has matured into a consistent player & it was predictable
He’ll cop the raw end of the stick when Melbourne have a down patch, and his game of lingering around the 50 and getting the easy lead up kick stops being damaging.
Not slagging him off, he is doing a role and killing it, but supporters have short memories and he hardly plays a role that will win them a game off his own boot.
Gotta say, after watching him a bit this season, he has taken his game to a new level. His kicking is probably his biggest improvement; has removed most of the turnovers and slow decision making which makes his kicking elite.
He also seems to have found his niche in the forwardline, where he can apply pressure and do the team things which made him a Hird favourite but where his habit of drifting in and out of games is more acceptable. His clutch kicking and set shots have always been pretty good too.
Hats off to him, glad he (and pig) is doing well and enjoying success. Now let’s hope that Redman and Begley can make the trades a win-win, I think they might.