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The Clayton Oliver Thread

Demonland
in Trade & Draft

Featured Replies

Look, I love Clarry, I wish we would keep him on and he would get back to his best. However, I think it’s clear there were some learnings from 2025:

  1. Harvey Langford is a jet and will be one of the leagues best mids in no time, he plays midfield/wing and will do it more and more next year.

  2. Kozzie needs to be in the middle as much as possible.

  3. Windsor is a mid/wing maybe a mid/hf he’s NOT a HBF as he tried to play the first half of the year. He must play more minutes in the guts next year.

  4. Lindsay is a gun, can play HBF (needs to improve his defensive stuff but has time), wing and increasingly mid in time.

  5. Rivers offers a lot as a mid and can be tried in there with Lindsay/Howes coming into the team at HB

  6. Jai Culley makes us better, plays HF/wing/mid, he plays AFL all year next year.

  7. Viney, Langdon and Sparrow are good role players and will do whatever it takes to make the team better.

  8. Jake Bowey is our best HBF and must be the running/kicking HBF into mid role.

Add to those learnings some wild cards like Salem, Tholstrup and maybe even Laurie and all of a sudden our midfield mix is pretty competitive. What King was clearly telling Clayton is he doesn’t see him clearly playing his role in a midfield of Trac/Humphrey, Kozzie, Rivers, Langford, Windsor, Langdon, Lindsay, Viney, Sparrow, Culley potentially Tholstrup and Salem. I don’t know if I agree but I can see his thinking and if that’s the case perhaps we are better freeing up some cap room bringing in a draft pick and giving a club champion a chance to play his role at an AFL club rather than fighting for a spot with younger stars.

  • Quote
    • Like 1
     
    15 minutes ago, deejammin' said:

    Look, I love Clarry, I wish we would keep him on and he would get back to his best. However, I think it’s clear there were some learnings from 2025:

    1. Harvey Langford is a jet and will be one of the leagues best mids in no time, he plays midfield/wing and will do it more and more next year.

    2. Kozzie needs to be in the middle as much as possible.

    3. Windsor is a mid/wing maybe a mid/hf he’s NOT a HBF as he tried to play the first half of the year. He must play more minutes in the guts next year.

    4. Lindsay is a gun, can play HBF (needs to improve his defensive stuff but has time), wing and increasingly mid in time.

    5. Rivers offers a lot as a mid and can be tried in there with Lindsay/Howes coming into the team at HB

    6. Jai Culley makes us better, plays HF/wing/mid, he plays AFL all year next year.

    7. Viney, Langdon and Sparrow are good role players and will do whatever it takes to make the team better.

    8. Jake Bowey is our best HBF and must be the running/kicking HBF into mid role.

    Add to those learnings some wild cards like Salem, Tholstrup and maybe even Laurie and all of a sudden our midfield mix is pretty competitive. What King was clearly telling Clayton is he doesn’t see him clearly playing his role in a midfield of Trac/Humphrey, Kozzie, Rivers, Langford, Windsor, Langdon, Lindsay, Viney, Sparrow, Culley potentially Tholstrup and Salem. I don’t know if I agree but I can see his thinking and if that’s the case perhaps we are better freeing up some cap room bringing in a draft pick and giving a club champion a chance to play his role at an AFL club rather than fighting for a spot with younger stars.

    I love Clarry. I hope that we keep him and he gets back to his best.

  • Quote

    I reckon the fine-print with the $3.5Million giveaway to another club (for Oliver's services) is that we require draft picks in return

    i. e. Cash for picks (there's always a catch)

    Oddly enough, Oliver's best game all season came in the final game of the year ... 30 possessions against a top 4 team and he hardly wasted a possession (DE of 87% which is very high for an under pressure mid)

    But it all came too late

  • Quote
    •  

    Let me say this,

    It’s a coaches entitlement to move his chess pieces around the field, like Napoleon.

  • Quote
    1 hour ago, deejammin' said:

    Look, I love Clarry, I wish we would keep him on and he would get back to his best. However, I think it’s clear there were some learnings from 2025:

    1. Harvey Langford is a jet and will be one of the leagues best mids in no time, he plays midfield/wing and will do it more and more next year.

    2. Kozzie needs to be in the middle as much as possible.

    3. Windsor is a mid/wing maybe a mid/hf he’s NOT a HBF as he tried to play the first half of the year. He must play more minutes in the guts next year.

    4. Lindsay is a gun, can play HBF (needs to improve his defensive stuff but has time), wing and increasingly mid in time.

    5. Rivers offers a lot as a mid and can be tried in there with Lindsay/Howes coming into the team at HB

    6. Jai Culley makes us better, plays HF/wing/mid, he plays AFL all year next year.

    7. Viney, Langdon and Sparrow are good role players and will do whatever it takes to make the team better.

    8. Jake Bowey is our best HBF and must be the running/kicking HBF into mid role.

    Add to those learnings some wild cards like Salem, Tholstrup and maybe even Laurie and all of a sudden our midfield mix is pretty competitive. What King was clearly telling Clayton is he doesn’t see him clearly playing his role in a midfield of Trac/Humphrey, Kozzie, Rivers, Langford, Windsor, Langdon, Lindsay, Viney, Sparrow, Culley potentially Tholstrup and Salem. I don’t know if I agree but I can see his thinking and if that’s the case perhaps we are better freeing up some cap room bringing in a draft pick and giving a club champion a chance to play his role at an AFL club rather than fighting for a spot with younger stars.

    Kossie does more damage as a forward than as a midfielder until he is taught the craft, and I'm not sure that even then, if Oliver goes to another club and they develop him with more skill and running patterns, he will just stay at the same level. Goodwin has a lot to answer for there. This is going to be an interesting year.

  • Quote
    • Like 1

    18 hours ago, Neil Crompton said:

    Who from the club has said that we will pay $700K to take Clarry?

    I hope nobody.

  • Quote
    30 minutes ago, demon3165 said:

    Kossie does more damage as a forward than as a midfielder until he is taught the craft, and I'm not sure that even then, if Oliver goes to another club and they develop him with more skill and running patterns, he will just stay at the same level. Goodwin has a lot to answer for there. This is going to be an interesting year.

    A year of learnings waits ahead

  • Quote
    56 minutes ago, bluey said:

    Let me say this,

    It’s a coaches entitlement to move his chess pieces around the field, like Napoleon.

    Does that include voluntarily removing your 2 bishops before your first move?

  • Quote
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