All that list tells me is that a lot of clubs don’t have a lot of A-Grade talent in the midfield. Sure GC, Bears etc have outstanding talent in the engine room but most other lists consist of players that are B-Grade at best in 2025.

I don’t see our midfield as the problem for 2026. It will all depends on what we do in transition and with ball in hand to kick a winning score. That involves players on every line.

20 hours ago, GS_1905 said:

I didnt know where else to put this, but boy i absolutely love this:

I mean, it's cheeky. But it's dumb. Daicos is a gun.

37 minutes ago, praha said:

I mean, it's cheeky. But it's dumb. Daicos is a gun.

If I had a pick of all mids, I wouldn’t choose him. Doesn’t like hardball, loves kick ins to boost disposals, and relatively soft when tagged.

Swap him with Neale or Rowell, they’ll still get 30+ and hard ball gets.

Personally as much as I hate the Magpies I would love to have Nick or Josh running around in the Red and Blue and let’s face it if you were soft you wouldn’t be playing AFL.

14 hours ago, whatwhat say what said:

in my mind we're a bit like the milwaukee bucks, who also won their drought-breaking championship in 2021, who were there or thereabouts for the next couple of seasons before injury, poor recruitment, and a general inability to adapt to a changing style of basketball that rendered their approach second rate

giannis is now agitating to leave that ailing franchise, just as trac did for us, and it seems a matter of time until he forces a trade away from them, just as trac did for us

Dees/Bucks fan here - it’s been rough

Glad my Packers are getting it together though - it’s what’s keeping me going at the moment 🧀

15 hours ago, whatwhat say what said:

in my mind we're a bit like the milwaukee bucks, who also won their drought-breaking championship in 2021, who were there or thereabouts for the next couple of seasons before injury, poor recruitment, and a general inability to adapt to a changing style of basketball that rendered their approach second rate

giannis is now agitating to leave that ailing franchise, just as trac did for us, and it seems a matter of time until he forces a trade away from them, just as trac did for us

There's a bunch of bizarre parallels between us and the Bucks - they've both gone through big coaching changes largely pushed by their stars (Giannis/Petracca).

They also blew up their championship team and cut loose some players for well unders (Dame Lillard/Clayton Oliver)

Lastly they also went out in straight sets in '22 and '23 as well

1 hour ago, DeeZone said:

Personally as much as I hate the Magpies I would love to have Nick or Josh running around in the Red and Blue and let’s face it if you were soft you wouldn’t be playing AFL.

It’s not long ago that Ben Brown was one of the most disliked and irritating player for Melbourne supporters before he started playing for us. Now a revered premiership player.

Edited yesterday at 02:271 day by John Crow Batty

3 hours ago, praha said:

I mean, it's cheeky. But it's dumb. Daicos is a gun.

An overated front running soft water pistol is my take!

12 hours ago, adonski said:

Pickett attended 70% of centre bounces in season 2025

Centre bounces is but one part of being a mid.

Kozzie has been a (great) centre bounce specialist but has not had substantial on-ball/midfield time, he's been primarily a forward.

5 hours ago, picket fence said:

An overated front running soft water pistol is my take!

Who not one club or fan would not grab for their AFL team in a micro second.

We are a star mid short, going into next year... BH would have been perfect, asking the kids to play consistent high level footy for a whole season is a stretch, but blood them the right way, with leaders such as steel,maxy , Viney as opposed to C.O and me,me,me Petracca. We won't play finals unless we seek into 10th place, but that's ok as long as by the end of next season, Langford, X, Windsor, kolt, are ready to explode and we have a star on the hook at trade time.

6 hours ago, John Crow Batty said:

It’s not long ago that Ben Brown was one of the most disliked and irritating player for Melbourne supporters before he started playing for us. Now a revered premiership player.

He did have a different vibe about him - the Sideshow Bob hair and being vegan (?) and new-agey. But while a little irritating I don't think he was ever hated that much, apart from if he kicked bags against us. Also I suspect even without playing for us stories kept coming through about his kindness and generosity . It really was pleasing he got a flag.

Edited 18 hours ago18 hr by Go Ds

We lose a mass of possessions and first hands at stoppage without Oliver and Petracca and you lose a high score involvement volume with Petracca but not much else based on 24/25. You don’t lose anything defensively at stoppage or on transition and we lose little in quality clearances. A recharged Steele and a mix of Rivers, Culley, Windsor, Chandler…. looking to make it as mids to complement Kozzie may not look as pretty on paper but statistically will end up more balanced and dynamic than 2025 and certainly less predictable.

There might be a want to push Langford and Lindsay in there but I would look to keep them on flanks and wings to continue to build their game and protect their bodies in 2026.

On 12/12/2025 at 11:53, Redleg said:

On paper we are a fair way off, but of course we don’t play on paper and of course it is just someone’s opinion or guess.

I think we now have more unexpected options for midfield rotation.

Geelong’s midfield in the pre-season ahead of their 2022 flag looked bottom 6.

Collingwood’s midfield in the pre-season ahead of their 2023 flag arguably not much better to the eye.

Depth of rotation options through the midfield much more important than the ‘big 4’ which used to dominate stoppage-based footy.

Edited 4 hours ago4 hr by The Jackson FIX

21 hours ago, MrFreeze said:

There's a bunch of bizarre parallels between us and the Bucks - they've both gone through big coaching changes largely pushed by their stars (Giannis/Petracca).

They also blew up their championship team and cut loose some players for well unders (Dame Lillard/Clayton Oliver)

Lastly they also went out in straight sets in '22 and '23 as well

Lucky we didn't make that 'popular' coaching decision. That really would have been the icing on the cake!

On 13/12/2025 at 08:23, picket fence said:

Massive mistake letting Oliver go and will bite us on the Aaaarrze

nothing to me suggests that. he had a full preseason, played a full season and was ordinary. lucky to get top 10 in the B and F.

🐂💩

🐒💩🙊

It’s the unknown isn’t it. We have no idea if the current AFL top midfielders will perform as they have ..we have no idea who will break out at each club & who will drop off. We are firmly in the “unknown”. With a lot of new high end talent & new “established older “ talent … Kingy’s job is to blend them in with our existing team & really who knows. This is what I am most excited for ..none of us will know how it comes together till the season proper. Right now we are one of 18 teams aspiring to make finals & we can be assured that will be the mindset of coaches & players & hopefully supporters .

On 13/12/2025 at 10:00, GawnOfTheDead said:

I think he will do great, same with Trac.

Yeah gut feel is that trac will blitz it. Like pre injury trac.

All between the ears with him. Wonder what his mental state’s like post dees? Gets that right & he’ll get back in brownlow conversations.

Best possible way to further enhance “brand trac” (as they say) would be to get back to playing at superstar levels, right?

Cristian Petracca is a very talented, determined, driven young man. Mix that with genuine premiership hope & you've got yourself one hell of a Combo!

23 hours ago, John Crow Batty said:

It’s not long ago that Ben Brown was one of the most disliked and irritating player for Melbourne supporters before he started playing for us. Now a revered premiership player.

I'll agree that I disliked BBB when he played against us, but certainly had a respect for his football skills and nouse to put himself in good positions as a forward and kick goals (alot of them against us over the years). He almost had an uncanny knack of being in the right place at the right time and in alot of ways didn’t fit the mold of what an AFL footballer should be. That made him irritating, but not utterly dislikable.

While I'd admit that Dacos is good, being both athletically gifted and skilful, however, he also has qualities that as an opposition supporter make me utterly dispise him. Would easily be the biggest primadonna in the AFL. The way he overreacts to being tagged, constantly putting on his little performances for the umpires and having a sook when he doesn't get a free kick makes me puke. His absolute sense of entitlement was on full display whenever he didn't get votes in the Brownlow. Give me a humble solid workhorse and warrior like Matt Rowell any day of the week.

16 minutes ago, RedLegs23 said:

Yeah gut feel is that trac will blitz it. Like pre injury trac.

All between the ears with him. Wonder what his mental state’s like post dees? Gets that right & he’ll get back in brownlow conversations.

Best possible way to further enhance “brand trac” (as they say) would be to get back to playing at superstar levels, right?

Cristian Petracca is a very talented, determined, driven young man. Mix that with genuine premiership hope & you've got yourself one hell of a Combo!

Throw him into that midfield with Rowell, Anderson, Miller and it's like how the heck do you stop any one of them, let alone all three/four. Trac will benefit massively from feeding off the likes of Rowell, whole likely feed it out to a Trac on the burst like a machine. I imagine it could be somewhat like the old Clarry/Trac combo, before it fell apart and lost the plot. Maybe they had slightly different traits and techniques in feeding out the ball, but Rowell is just an unstoppable bulldozer when he gets going and I imagine that the Suns midfield will grind teams into the ground next season.

12 minutes ago, Rodney (Balls) Grinter said:

Throw him into that midfield with Rowell, Anderson, Miller and it's like how the heck do you stop any one of them, let alone all three/four. Trac will benefit massively from feeding off the likes of Rowell, whole likely feed it out to a Trac on the burst like a machine. I imagine it could be somewhat like the old Clarry/Trac combo, before it fell apart and lost the plot. Maybe they had slightly different traits and techniques in feeding out the ball, but Rowell is just an unstoppable bulldozer when he gets going and I imagine that the Suns midfield will grind teams into the ground next season.

Good call.

Yeah they're my early tip for the flag