6 hours ago, whatwhat say what said:

spargo is an unrestricted free agent - if he gets a significant offer from another club, he may elect to leave

according to those who know, this upcoming draft is supposedly the weakest in some time - i for one doubt we will be looking to trade into it

we have a host of players who have little or no trade value and those that may have value - particularly the wa boys; van rooyen, mcvee, tholstrup, rivers, even adams at a stretch - are those that i would say we can least afford to lose as they should form the basis of our best 23 side for the bulk of the next decade

i really, really hope that kalani white picks the mfc to come to as a father-son; his final quarter in his casey debut last night was utterly thrilling to see

clearly we will, if things go our way, pick toby sinnema as an nga pick, while our 2026 nga pick marcus prasad looks like an even more exciting option

so, 2026 and 2027 first round picks? sell em to flagmantle - i want dogga jackson back

likely delisting candidates:

• billings

• hore

• fullarton

• woewodin

• henderson

• culley

billings plays a role as a vfl player but should never play for the mfc again - we have better options as a mid rotation - while hore is unlucky that he's out of contract and is constantly injured, while fullarton is just completely uncompetitive

possible retirements:

• melksham

• plugger mac

• campbell

personally i would keep all three on the list; possibly shift campbell to the rookie list in lieu of verrall or let him retire IF we get dog back from out west

trade options:

• oliver

• laurie

• sparrow

• fritsch

i think laurie offers no value to being on the list as a primary inside mid; he should want and demand a trade elsewhere where he can try and get more opportunity at another club - i personally have doubts as to whether he is good enough to make it in that role in an afl team, but he definitely deserves the opportunity

i wouldn't trade oliver or fritsch, as primarily i don't think we'd get value for them (e.g. if the baggers really wanted fritsch, i would want harry mckay in a straight swap - they both offer the same scoreboard impact, but fritsch is a helluva lot less costly on the cap) while sparrow plays a role for us as that small pressure forward / mid, but he frustates me so much with his inconsistency in the role

i don't think the likes of salem, petty will realise enough 'value' in a trade sense for us to part with them

it's hard to see how we are going to get involved in the meat market that is the trade period this year unless one of fritsch, oliver, petracca demands a trade

No Petraca instead of Oliver as a trade option?

Just now, ElDiablo14 said:

No Petraca instead of Oliver as a trade option?

he seems so determined to go to the one place, and they don't have the capacity to get the deal done

i don't know how, given both player's contracts, you can trade either of them

oliver puts in more effort, petracca has greater flexibility

to-mato / tom-ato

Scary that Tim Lamb is in control of the club’s destiny at such a crucial time.

28 minutes ago, whatwhat say what said:

to-mato / tom-ato

It would be even worse if they were po-tato / pot-ato.

I don't post a lot, but gave my assessment of the MFC list in the "Tim Lamb" thread on September 16, 2024

"Two key factors when assessing players are ability and competitiveness. The last few years MFC has made mistakes in talent identification. Once you've recruited players, you also need to develop them. Unfortunately, no amount of development will help E graders (non-competitive is non-competitive). It is very rare that a new young player comes in and is an A grader (Caleb Windsor). The others generally start at D until they develop physically and mentally and adjust to the step up to AFL level (speed of the game, team defence, running patterns etc.). The MFC list needs growth from the D and C graders, and hopefully adds another A grader with its first pick in the 2024 national draft. Losing Angus Brayshaw and Alex Neal-Bullen leaves a void at the top end of the talent list. Whoever is in charge of recruitment and development, there is a hell of a lot of work to do".

I will update this assessment by comparing my end of last season view (in brackets) with my view now. I've removed players who were no longer on the MFC list at the end of 2024 (BTW, I ranked both Brayshaw and Neal-Bullen as B), and obviously included the 2025 additions.

U = untried, x = not on MFC list in 2024, N/A = can't compare with 2024.

Summary: 20 = unchanged, 8 = below previous level, 3 = above previous level.

Based on 2025 performances:

A = 4, B = 7, C = 8, D = 15, E = 4, U = 7 (total 45)

No Name Ability and competitiveness Change Notes

11 Gawn, Max (A) A 0

1 May, Steven (A) A 0

13 Oliver, Clayton (A) B -1 Well documented reasons.

5 Petracca, Christian (A) B -1 Finding way back after major injury in 2024.

36 Pickett, Kysaiah (A) A 0

6 Windsor, Caleb (A) D -3 Interrupted pre-season/season, second year blues, played out of his best position, could still be OK.

15 Langdon, Ed (B) B 0

8 Lever, Jake (B) C -1 Injury interrupted season.

35 Petty, Harrison (B) C -1 Out of form, but could still be OK.

24 Rivers, Trent (B) C -1 Out of form, but could still be OK.

3 Salem, Christian (B) B 0

2 van Rooyen, Jacob (B) D -2 Out of form, but could still be OK.

7 Viney, Jack (B) B 0

17 Bowey, Jake (C) A 2 Should be in top 3 in B&F at this stage.

37 Chandler, Kade  (C) B 1 Should be in top 5 in B&F at this stage.

31 Fritsch, Bayley (C) C 0

25 McDonald, Tom (C) C 0

4 McVee, Judd (C) C 0

18 Melksham, Jake (C) C 0

9 Spargo, Charlie (C) D -1 Coming back from long term injury.

32 Sparrow, Tom (C) C 0

10 Turner, Daniel (C) B 1 Developing into a valuable key position swingman.

41 Brown, Kynan (D) D 0

27 Hore, Marty (D) D 0

22 Howes, Blake (D) D 0

16 Laurie, Bailey (D) D 0

45 Moniz-Wakefield, Andy (D) D 0

12 Tholstrup, Koltyn (D) D 0

40 Woewodin, Taj (D) D 0

14 Billings, Jack (E) E 0

23 McAdam, Shane (E) E 0

26 Adams, Jed (U) U N/A

44 Kentfield, Luker (U) U N/A

33 Fullarton, Tom (U) E N/A Non-competitive.

21 Jefferson, Matthew (U) D N/A Talented, but a lot of work to do. Could get to B.

38 Sestan, Oliver (U) U N/A

28 Verrall, Will (U) U N/A

29 Campbell, Tom (x) U N/A

30 Sharp, Harry (x) D N/A Has a go, but a lot of work to do.

19 Langford, Harvey (x) D N/A Talented, but a lot of work to do. Could get to A.

20 Lindsay, Xavier (x) D N/A Talented, but a lot of work to do. Could get to C (Zak Fisher vibes).

42 Johnson, Aidan (x) D N/A Gives effort and aggression. A battler.

39 Mentha, Ricky (x) U N/A

43 Henderson, Jack (x) E N/A Non-competitive.

46 Culley, Jai (x) U N/A

Ladder: Finished 14th at end of 2024, currently 15th at the end of round 14 2025. We are a bottom 5 team.

Give all the untried players a go in the remainder of 2025 to see if they bring anything to the table.

Delist: Billings, McAdam, Fullarton, Henderson, Hore.

Retire/trade: around another 5 more players.

I reckon you need to turn over 20 players in the next 2 seasons to have a chance to turn it around.

Stop bringing in non-competitive players, and bring in players who are good decision makers/ball users and who can compete (win one on one contests, bring the ball to ground when not in a position to mark the ball etc.).

It is also time for a new development coach (at a minimum). To move up the ladder it is essential to get growth from the D and C graders.

Time for Tim Lamb to earn his way.

JHF and Reid for Laurie and Billings

Get it done

On 13/06/2025 at 17:47, rpfc said:

These are tough to do because we may need to move on salary ($$$) as opposed to list spots.

Underperforming players on a bit with trade currency will be looked at.

Does Oliver still have currency?

29 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Does Oliver still have currency?

zero in my view

Long contracts are development killers

13 hours ago, whatwhat say what said:

the issue remains that he is, seemingly, only willing to go somewhere, and that's to the filth

i doubt they have anything to offer us, and will make us pay for the privilege of him playing for them

Why would the filthy try and replace Sidebottom or Pendles who are elite kicks and decision makers for someone who isn't?

Our only hope is they can't resist the brand

4 minutes ago, Wrecker45 said:

Why would the filthy try and replace Sidebottom or Pendles who are elite kicks and decision makers for someone who isn't?

Our only hope is they can't resist the brand

Why not play them all?

Imagine Collingwood with De Goey and Petracca rotating with each other from forward to midfield. Nightmare stuff.

19 minutes ago, jackaub said:

zero in my view

Long contracts are development killers

Salary dump then.

We're in for a world of hurt either way. I would cut bait with guys like Oliver, Petty, Fritsch and take what we can get for them and clear out the deadwood/list cloggers (about a quarter of our list guys like Laurie, Woey, McAdam, Fullarton, Sharp, Verrall, Billings etc) and go for a massive revamp with a new coach.

16 minutes ago, seventyfour said:

Why not play them all?

Imagine Collingwood with De Goey and Petracca rotating with each other from forward to midfield. Nightmare stuff.

De Goey can kick too like Pendles and Sidebottom.

20 hours ago, Adam The God said:

We create more than enough shots to win.

And your argument is our kicking inside 50 is bad, so get rid of our best kick inside 50?

Spargo is statistically our best kick inside 50.

Spargo gets 2 kicks a game and neither travel further than 30m and never kicks goals himself.

He is not the answer.

The outcome of the club’s off season review was that we have a list capable of playing finals and that all their efforts would be towards realising this outcome

Well this will now be back to back years not playing finals, so by our own assessment we’ve failed to realise the potential of our list

I don’t blame the club for thinking this way - it’s clear our best footy matches it with the best in the comp

But we continually seem to make the same mistakes week after week and I just don’t know how that changes without significant change to either our coaching or playing list

I don’t want to be the new St Kilda - stuck in no man’s land year after year - so the club needs to use this opportunity to reevaluate where this list is at and make changes accordingly

I’m not going to name names, but will point out that at the end of 2020, Collingwood traded Treloar and Stephens

Then at the end of 2022 they traded Grundy

They were torched for it at the time - two of those players were A grade fan favourites - but look what it enabled them to do in subsequent years

If the club genuinely believes that we can get back to finals with the improvement of this current list, well, good luck to them, but if not someone needs to start making the kind of tough decisions we’ve been avoiding for years now

And after the past few weeks, I know which way I’d be leaning…

Edited June 15Jun 15 by demoncat

1 minute ago, Gorgoroth said:

Spargo gets 2 kicks a game and neither travel further than 30m and never kicks goals himself.

He is not the answer.

Not only that, he doesn't punish sides on the scoreboard. Hes a small forward who opposition teams barely put any attention into because they know he isn't going to cause any damage or chaos.

For the 9 games he's played this year he has only kicked just the one goal.

I thought we would delist at a minimum but after the Port debacle. Things have to change.

Out : Billings, Melksham, McDonlad, Fullerton, Hore, Kentfield, Sestan, Woewodin, Brown, Culley, Henderson and Spargo.

At a minimum we must go for Lord. We desperately need a key forward it's the missing piece.

We've taken something like ten draft picks in the past four years, of which only six have been in the top 35. I'm guessing both of those numbers compare unfavourably to every other side in the competition, but particularly in the context of facing consecutive bottom four finishes.

That is simply a disgraceful failure to turn over a rapidly ageing and increasingly shallow list. Jason Taylor has shown himself to be a good judge of talent when he is given the opportunity to find it, but Tim Lamb has denied him this.

We've [censored] away countless draft picks trying to be clever, eg trading away multiple picks to move up slightly for the Tholstrup selection in 2023. I'm okay with bringing our 2025 pick forward to take Lindsay last year, but overall we gave up far too much to do so.

Now we have reached crisis point with no first round pick and only one selection in the top 50 at present.

In an ideal world we would delist 8-10 players this year and the same next year, but realistically we'll be unlikely to move on more than 4-5 in each.

Therefore we should look forward to contract extensions for the likes of Salem, Spargo, Hore McAdam and Melksham so that they can continue to flaunt their mediocrity for further seasons.

27 minutes ago, demoncat said:

The outcome of the club’s off season review was that we have a list capable of playing finals and that all their efforts would be towards realising this outcome

Well this will now be back to back years not playing finals, so by our own assessment we’ve failed to realise the potential of our list

I find this fascinating. Clearly Petracca had the same opinion when he blew up at the end of last year: we're far too good to be finishing 14th.

But are we?

For one, lots of players peaked between 2021 and 2023. That's nothing to be ashamed of, but it's something to take seriously. We seem to be in strict denial about it.

For another, the list is extremely thin. We traded away several handy depth players after the flag. I think there were good reasons for most of them. But what we replaced them with old C- and D-graders and then persisted with them in the 22 as if we might be able to magically wring out some kind of 2015 form from each of them. Grundy wasn't a D-grader, but his was definitely the worst and most wasteful acquisition of them all.

41 minutes ago, demoncat said:

I don’t want to be the new St Kilda - stuck in no man’s land year after year - so the club needs to use this opportunity to reevaluate where this list is at and make changes accordingly

I’m not going to name names, but will point out that at the end of 2020, Collingwood traded Treloar and Stephens

Then at the end of 2022 they traded Grundy

I totally agree. St Kilda is the absolute worst place you want your list to be. We're at risk of that for sure, although I think very good drafting of players in the top 20 makes it less likely.

Collingwood in 2020 is such a fascinating case. I thought they were insane at the time for trading Treloar. They weren't well compensated (they received a middle pick in the first round of the COVID draft and used it on Ollie Henry) but obviously cleared a lot of cap space and knew that even if he was good at the Dogs, which he has been, they could comfortably replace him.

Stephenson looked like a strange one at the time, but was a sensible trade in hindsight. They knew he had peaked in his first year. It looked tough, but it was just clear-eyed list management.

Grundy was very good trading. As with Treloar, they could comfortably replace him and use the cap space to improve their list elsewhere. It's sad that he was pushed out of a club he wanted to be at, but that's what happens when you get paid a fortune and don't live up to it.

The whole thing looked like a disaster when they finished 17th the next year, but the decisions (if not the treatment of Treloar) were vindicated in 2022 and 2023.

I'm all for making tough decisions about player we know are not as good as everyone thinks. I'm even open to making a Treloar call. The question I'd have is are we confident we can replace them with anything like the success of Collingwood.

2 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Does Oliver still have currency?

I honestly don’t know, he has to perform against his salary so it makes it harder for us to move him, let alone get the majority of his salary of our books or even remotely get any pick of value.

When I think currency with him it’s if he can repair his reputation enough so that we can shift 75% of his salary. Pretty sad place to be in.

I have been thinking about the management of our list lately and the laser focus of Viney, Roos, and Mahoney on tough ball winners and defensive stalwarts set us up well for the 2021 flag but the over commitment to that is what we are straining over now. We don’t seem capable of picking the right kid or pro with forward instincts or with requisite skills and decision making behind the ball (McVee was a rookie pick). Perhaps XL and Windsor belay the last point but our forward line really struggles beyond Pickett, Melksham, and Chandler for consistent and empathetic forward movement and nous.

51 minutes ago, rpfc said:

I have been thinking about the management of our list lately and the laser focus of Viney, Roos, and Mahoney on tough ball winners and defensive stalwarts set us up well for the 2021 flag but the over commitment to that is what we are straining over now. We don’t seem capable of picking the right kid or pro with forward instincts or with requisite skills and decision making behind the ball (McVee was a rookie pick). Perhaps XL and Windsor belay the last point but our forward line really struggles beyond Pickett, Melksham, and Chandler for consistent and empathetic forward movement and nous.

I do wonder how much our poor ball use from the midfield prevents our forwards from leading up at the ball carrier.

If I were a forward, I'd be leading up at Kozzy, Bowey, Salem, Langford and Lindsay. That's about it.

The rest of them wildly kick to the disadvantage of the forwards. Viney was back to his worst again yesterday. Like Rounds 2-5.

Compare Langford's kick on top of the head of a Port defender, which allowed Turner(?] to have the sit was brilliant.

I think we can turn things round, but I agree with you, @Howard_Grimes , we need to make some bold and aggressive trades.

4 hours ago, Gorgoroth said:

Spargo gets 2 kicks a game and neither travel further than 30m and never kicks goals himself.

He is not the answer.

Same from me, Spargo is not the answer and don't know if we can still use him effectively. Realistically he can only play at HF.

I would expect a bold move to be made this year at trade. I don't necessarily want to but as many have said, the list is in danger of ending up in St Kilda no mans land.

A tough call needs to be made and I'm not sure exactly who that should be, it all depends on currency but the real talk to fans is whether you're more concerned about success or having one club players. Successful clubs are constantly looking through the windshield and not the rear view mirror.

On 16/06/2025 at 08:55, demoncat said:

The outcome of the club’s off season review was that we have a list capable of playing finals and that all their efforts would be towards realising this outcome

Well this will now be back to back years not playing finals, so by our own assessment we’ve failed to realise the potential of our list

I don’t blame the club for thinking this way - it’s clear our best footy matches it with the best in the comp

But we continually seem to make the same mistakes week after week and I just don’t know how that changes without significant change to either our coaching or playing list

I don’t want to be the new St Kilda - stuck in no man’s land year after year - so the club needs to use this opportunity to reevaluate where this list is at and make changes accordingly

I’m not going to name names, but will point out that at the end of 2020, Collingwood traded Treloar and Stephens

Then at the end of 2022 they traded Grundy

They were torched for it at the time - two of those players were A grade fan favourites - but look what it enabled them to do in subsequent years

If the club genuinely believes that we can get back to finals with the improvement of this current list, well, good luck to them, but if not someone needs to start making the kind of tough decisions we’ve been avoiding for years now

And after the past few weeks, I know which way I’d be leaning…

This is it. The club admitted we underperformed last year. Reaffirmed finals as the expectation and argued that the changes we made would take us there. We are now more than half way through the year and sit at 5-9. The chances of us catching fire on the run home seem miniscule right now.

So does the club say they missed the mark with their expectations? Or do they admit that we have failed to get the most out of ourselves?