We had to go with mids really, given how low our stocks were after trading away Harmes and Jordan, then losing Brayshaw.

Not to mention the potential exits of both Oliver & Petracca. 

Edited March 17, 2025Mar 17 by JTR

14 minutes ago, WERRIDEE said:

He, Davies-Uniacke or Allen? We have to land one of them and we have the money with Brayshaw retiring.

ldu over allen over butters for mine, solely as the first two are free agents and the latter will require a trade to be executed to bring them in

i think you'll find that a lot of the gus $$ have been passed around to other contracts, as well as part of his payout, with portions of his contract paid out in each year of his deal

we have to pay a lot of his contract in the final few years in full

it's annoying

Loved the old comment about the potential angst if we finished a season near the bottom but had no draft pick to show for it after trading the future pick to Port.

I'm death riding Collingwood on my mighty horse Schadenfreude.

It would be a reach to say that we wiffed on this pick.

Butters or Bailey, I read that a lot of folks are very keen on the Gold Coast kid, personally I love Butters berserker nature, who do we go hard for ? I think we have done well with high end draft talent, I think we could do with another Lever / May type recruiting effort for some ready to go talent and bridge the rebuilding time. I also want insurance for Viney.

24 minutes ago, DEE fence said:

Butters or Bailey, I read that a lot of folks are very keen on the Gold Coast kid, personally I love Butters berserker nature, who do we go hard for ? I think we have done well with high end draft talent, I think we could do with another Lever / May type recruiting effort for some ready to go talent and bridge the rebuilding time. I also want insurance for Viney.

I mean... Butters is a free agent. We could use the cash saved by trading Petracca to get him and the pick-equivalent gained by trading Petracca (and cash saved by trading Oliver) to grab Mr Bumphrey.

That'd be a result for the ages.

19 minutes ago, Little Goffy said:

I mean... Butters is a free agent. We could use the cash saved by trading Petracca to get him and the pick-equivalent gained by trading Petracca (and cash saved by trading Oliver) to grab Mr Bumphrey.

That'd be a result for the ages.

I can guarantee that Port will match any offer presented.

12 minutes ago, Ethan Tremblay said:

I can guarantee that Port will match any offer presented.

And risk getting on Kane Cornes' naughty list? 😵

Would love Butters but think Humphrey is more likely to come to us.

Would be happy with Humphrey but Butters is a star of the competition and we need a villain in the team. I want a player that we love but opposition players hate and gets under your skin. We are a very nice inoffensive club. Aside from maybe Steven May we don’t have a real villain.

8 hours ago, Little Goffy said:

And risk getting on Kane Cornes' naughty list? 😵

you know full well he'll praise it as an astute decision, just like he did the mega-contract for the horny one

58 minutes ago, Dee Viney Intervention said:

Would love Butters but think Humphrey is more likely to come to us.

Would be happy with Humphrey but Butters is a star of the competition and we need a villain in the team. I want a player that we love but opposition players hate and gets under your skin. We are a very nice inoffensive club. Aside from maybe Steven May we don’t have a real villain.

Kozzie was borderline for a moment with his aggression, other teams calling him a sniper etc. But oozes to much class to be fully hated

On 25/02/2026 at 08:13, Dee Viney Intervention said:

Would love Butters but think Humphrey is more likely to come to us.

Would be happy with Humphrey but Butters is a star of the competition and we need a villain in the team. I want a player that we love but opposition players hate and gets under your skin. We are a very nice inoffensive club. Aside from maybe Steven May we don’t have a real villain.

Yeah I wouldn't mind a Toby Greene type who rattles other teams and their fans. You could make an argument for Kozzie when he's physical maybe?

We need to be hard to play against.

23 hours ago, roy11 said:

Kozzie was borderline for a moment with his aggression, other teams calling him a sniper etc. But oozes to much class to be fully hated

General impression I get from non Dees fans is still this

They still see him as a ‘dirty’ player and would love to have him

On 25/02/2026 at 08:13, Dee Viney Intervention said:

Would love Butters but think Humphrey is more likely to come to us.

Would be happy with Humphrey but Butters is a star of the competition and we need a villain in the team. I want a player that we love but opposition players hate and gets under your skin. We are a very nice inoffensive club. Aside from maybe Steven May we don’t have a real villain.

It in frame at all for Butters whereas Humphrey appears almost odds-on fav if he does leave atm — I’d put a spec price of if he does leave we wld be $2.40 total odds of it happening overall RN (ie w/o KNOWING he’s leaving) I’d have him coming to Dees at $5.50

Edited 18 hours ago18 hr by Tolstoys Nudge
Typo

On 25/02/2026 at 00:07, Ethan Tremblay said:

I can guarantee that Port will match any offer presented.

I didn't realise he was a restricted free agent, but agree they will almost certainly match it unless we can find a way like Carlton did with Jack Martin a while back to ensure a counter offer was impossible. Not sure what elements we would need to match, but i think Port could just about manoeuvre what ever way they want. This might mean we have to trade with them as well i suppose.

15 minutes ago, GS_1905 said:

I didn't realise he was a restricted free agent, but agree they will almost certainly match it unless we can find a way like Carlton did with Jack Martin a while back to ensure a counter offer was impossible. Not sure what elements we would need to match, but i think Port could just about manoeuvre what ever way they want. This might mean we have to trade with them as well i suppose.

Doesn’t even bare thinking about to be honest he’s not coming to us it’s bulldogs or Geelong

9 minutes ago, Greg Schneider said:

Doesn’t even bare thinking about to be honest he’s not coming to us it’s bulldogs or Geelong

I dont see how he gets to either of them to be honest unless he takes a massive pay cut to have a shot at success.

With Geelong, they are petering on the edge of collapse.

Doggies is a much more enticing opportunity, but do they have the premiership in them. Their backline is horrendous and still has not been addressed. They will also be limited in cap space as they went all out on English, Bont and Naughton. Will have to prepare an offer for Darcy, Richards and a few others over the coming years. Not sure how much JUH freed up, but the reality is that, that coin will goto Darcy, who can easily command 1.5M right now.

Butters only real options are to stay and hope that Port can turn things around (i think they are going to bottom out a bit more) or look to a Vic club that is on the up and has cap space. There are not many of those (NO CAP: Saints, Hawks, Pies, Doggies, Geelong. CAP: North, Dees, Blues, Tigers, Bombers). Question is do we have enough 'potential' to attract him over... I think we do, but its unfortunately a bit raw and premature. i think 2028-29 is when we are likely to be where Hawks are now and that would be a hard sell if im Butters.

10 minutes ago, GS_1905 said:

I dont see how he gets to either of them to be honest unless he takes a massive pay cut to have a shot at success.

With Geelong, they are petering on the edge of collapse.

Doggies is a much more enticing opportunity, but do they have the premiership in them. Their backline is horrendous and still has not been addressed. They will also be limited in cap space as they went all out on English, Bont and Naughton. Will have to prepare an offer for Darcy, Richards and a few others over the coming years. Not sure how much JUH freed up, but the reality is that, that coin will goto Darcy, who can easily command 1.5M right now.

Butters only real options are to stay and hope that Port can turn things around (i think they are going to bottom out a bit more) or look to a Vic club that is on the up and has cap space. There are not many of those (NO CAP: Saints, Hawks, Pies, Doggies, Geelong. CAP: North, Dees, Blues, Tigers, Bombers). Question is do we have enough 'potential' to attract him over... I think we do, but its unfortunately a bit raw and premature. i think 2028-29 is when we are likely to be where Hawks are now and that would be a hard sell if im Butters.

Geelong and WB would have been preparing for this for over 12 months. They’re not going to miss this opportunity by not having room in the cap for him. This sort of stuff is meticulously planned, they both can do it. He’s not leaving Port to come train at Casey or Dingley, all the talk is he wants to be close to Bacchus Marsh, where he’s from.

16 minutes ago, GS_1905 said:

With Geelong, they are petering on the edge of collapse.

How long has everyone been saying this though? It never happens. They were in a grand final five months ago. They’ll have an ordinary year this year then bounce back again.

15 minutes ago, Greg Schneider said:

How long has everyone been saying this though? It never happens. They were in a grand final five months ago. They’ll have an ordinary year this year then bounce back again.

I suspect when Danger retires, they'll be void of leadership and unable to keep Smith from blowing the place up. Cameron and Stewart are on the wrong side of 30 and will start to slow down in impact. I dont think they have all the cattle to back it up without pulling some big trades over the coming years, which is totally possible. But its hard to replace A-grade AFL future hall of famers and possibly legends in Dangerfield.