Hypothetical Poll Time. Who would you take if you had the choice between Jake Lever and Josh Kelly? Take into account our current team and our needs.

Kelly every day

If only taking into account current team and our needs, Kelly. No question.

Leaving aside the obvious that every club would die for a player of his obvious ability, outside midfield run and precision disposal are our two biggest deficit areas. And Kelly, whilst also providing outside run, has the Goody standard inside grunt and intensity.

Also in reality premiership sides need at least 2 or 3 AA standard mids complementing 6-8 really good ones. We have the 6-8 really good ones. And in Oliver one definite AA mid. Outside of Oliver, Viney and Jones are close and Brayshaw might get there. So really we are one AA mid short. Kelly would fix that.

But as i said in the kelly thread the money is a factor in so far as how much would have to pay to get him. Not so much in terms of salary cap but more in terms of the potential damage to the 'brotherhood', team first culture roos and goody have built and are building. Is paying him $1.5 million going to damage that culture. What about $1.2 million? 

Against the predictions of many it hasn't seemed to have hurt the swans buddy coming in and being paid a fortune but if i recall there were rumored problems early days when Buddy moved there. An the 'bloods' culture was well established where our is in its infancy. 

Oscar.

Kelly fills a greater need and is an a grade midfielder we have lacked for decades. He would however cost us too much if the $1.5 million being touted in the media is correct. If we paid him that, we would likely lose Petracca or Oliver or Hogan or one of our other young stars in the future as Kelly would be sucking up too much cap space.

Lever is going to be half the cost and also fills a need.  He will sure up our backline and become the general down there for the next decade. He will be a multiple time All Australian backman. He'll be great for us.

We need a classy outside midfielder to compliment the plethora of inside mids we have, but we can't afford Kelly unfortunately. We should chase another one either this year or next depending on who is available and what currency we have to give. 

Porche non las dos ???

take em both

30 minutes in to our unscientific Facebook poll is 34 votes and 17 votes each.

22 minutes ago, Demonland said:

30 minutes in to our unscientific Facebook poll is 34 votes and 17 votes each.

might want to look again

Any chance we can Lever both?

It's hard to ignore the realities of their situations.  Both fill a need, and Kelly is clearly the better player.  However it's too difficult to ignore the fact that Kelly would be immensely more expensive in both trade and salary.  

With that in mind - Lever offers more bang for buck.

1 hour ago, beelzebub said:

might want to look again

Now it's 33 Lever, 26 Kelly.

Very different results to the Demonland poll.

2 minutes ago, Demonland said:

Now it's 33 Lever, 26 Kelly.

Very different results to the Demonland poll.

we're probably more wizened than the broader facebook world

34 minutes ago, TeamPlayedFine39 said:

It's hard to ignore the realities of their situations.  Both fill a need, and Kelly is clearly the better player.  However it's too difficult to ignore the fact that Kelly would be immensely more expensive in both trade and salary.  

With that in mind - Lever offers more bang for buck.

Yes, but bang for buck was not one of the parameters. 

The parameters were:

Who would you take if you had the choice between Jake Lever and Josh Kelly? Take into account our current team and our needs.

Therein lies the problem with many polls. What are the parameters? What is actually being asked? Confusion about these things make results in many polls large and small difficult to trust.

Creating confusion about what is being asked is a common strategy with many polls by people seeking to influence the outcome (to be clear i do not mean this poll - there is a much bigger one happening in our country soon). 

^ I was just having a little fun.

If Kelly wants to play in an immediately successful Vic based team, then he would need to moderate his asking price wherever he goes I would think.  I he's just interested in being a mercenary, then I'm sure there are several presently struggling Vic based teams with room in their cap to fit him in.  I don't want him if he has that mercenary mentality anyway (we've already disposed of $cully on that basis).

The real question would be what it would require to facilitate the trade.  This year's first round and a future years one based on the Trelor trade might be enough.

Yea Facebook... haha ha. Flooded with dumb [censored] and trolls 

Imo midfielders are a dime a dozen, a good key position player is rare. Kelly would be the cherry on top of what can potentially be a very good midfield if it isn't already. Lever straightens us up even more. 

I like to look at Essendon of 2000 as a gauge of a great team. They were amazing starting from defense. They were so tough to score against and their goals came from across the field.

I voted Kelly but meant to vote for Lever. Imo if you don't have a sound defense, your midfield can be amazing, 99/100 you won't go all the way. 

Lever would be the finishing touch next to the McDonald's, Hibberd, Hunt, Salem.

Our primary concern this year has been opposition transition out of attack, and our backline has held up extremely well. Hibberd has been the difference. Throw in Lever...as someone in the media said this week, we become flag favourites.

You can't pass up a good key defender or forward. We'd be crazy to pick Kelly over Lever if we had the chance. If we get Lever, we're a top 4 side. 100%. It's less certain with Kelly imo.

Wow, this is actually a really hard call.

In a way, both players bring the same thing - adding a truly outstanding level of quality currently lacking from the relevant areas of our team.

I'd argue our defense is in more need of a star, with it mostly being honest toilers who warrant more respect than they are usually given, but aren't top-notch players. Lever wins because of his ability to read the play and intercept mark or to get to the right spot and really END a contest, instead of just having the ball come to ground or get flicked around dangerously close to goal.

On the other hand, our midfield also works hard and is an overall high standard, but as I've been moaning about for seems like a couple of years now, it lacks the element of 'danger'. We don't have much in there that can suddenly change a situation into dynamic attack. It is all very grinding 1+1+1+1+1... until we handball once to often and it is back to zero again. A player like Kelly can just go +5 and get us out of the tangle.

Hmm... I'm still leaning towards Lever. You don't need to have an all-round star midfielder like Kelly in order to add some more dynamism to your midfield mix. Just a couple more quality players of different types. Motlop, for instance, would do it. The best of Kent could do it! (but the worst sure couldn't)

Ok, Lever wins because he can do things that just can't be 'developed' into a player. Our midfield can become colelctively more potent, but the ability to completely ruin opposition inside-50s and make their whole midfield hesitate and overthink when going inside 50, that is priceless.

Lever at 1/2 the price and less trade cost.  Frost and swap of picks gets it done. 

Ignoring the cost in terms of trade and salary, Kelly has to win.  He's got pace, skill and hardness.  He's exactly the sort of player we are desperate to get our hands on. 

Lever, while a bloody good player, is an upgrade rather than filling a hole.  We don't need him the way we need a really skillful mid.  

I realise we need a key defender but seriously. This is not a hard decision. Kelly every day of the week.

If it's between the two of course you go for Kelly but I don't think there's any chance of us going for him seriously. Lever on the other hand I think we've got a very good chance of getting. 

Hypothetical Kelly would cost too much and would upset the apple cart. Lever may cost us a Tyson or Frost (none of this may eventuate) in a trade agreement. What happens if GWS want Oliver or Petracca as part of the trade.