34 minutes ago, DeeZone said:

Big Question where is Ghostwriter?

Bali, I believe. They are spewing, missing training three times in a row.

4 minutes ago, thirty-one said:

Bali, I believe. They are spewing, missing training three times in a row.

Ghosty in Bali??? Watch requests of people seeking to relocate in Oz to escalate!!

6 hours ago, Deespicable said:

Based on what I saw, here's my stab at our team as it stands, minus all the injured players - I included Mihocek in the injured, but he did do most of the match sim today.

This is my fourth pre-season session this year I've attended and my standouts have been - Kossie, Culley, Roo, Windsor and Salem (missing today of course) - but remember these 14 or 15-man style games suit running players who like space.

Defenders (7) - We have lost quite a few of our small brigade and contrary to articles, Moniz-Wakefield would be a long shot to make it in time for Rd 1 as he is still in a graduated rehab phase.

Smalls/Mids - Lindsay (may even do kick-ins if Salem is out for a while), CJ, Taylor and Howes

Talls - Lever, Adams (based on desire to blood him and he does bring closing speed, but T-Mac has looked better and May is clearly better but out of favour), Turner

Midfielders (9 includes ruck) - Based on today Heath gets in, but obviously Gawny is expected to be raring to go well before then.

1st rotation - Pickett (licence), Rivers, Steele; 2nd rotation - Windsor (licence), Sparrow, Langford* (also some wing duties). Wings: Culley, Langdon, Ruck: Heath (Gawn when fit)

Forwards (7) - Roo, Fritsch and Chandler would be first picked and from then it's a bit of a lottery, but I'd expect the excitement of Latrelle will see him named for Rd 1. Personally I'd play May up forward, but that seems unlikely based on the training I've seen. Mihocek would play Rd 1 if fit as well.

Smalls: Chandler, Latrelle. Mids: Fritsch, Tholstrup (just, although Mentha was busy today, but mega fumbly). Talls: JVR (playing lead-up high), Johnson (back up ruck), Jefferson (certainly not my choice, but it seems likely he will be trialled again more from the goalsquare).

Left out based on today, but you'd think will be ready by Rd 1: Gawn, Mihocek, Salem, Petty

Left out but unlikely to be ready by Rd 1: Viney, Melksham, Bowey, AMW.

It's still a very decent side, even with our injuries, and the difference from recent years is that it is a very quick unit. Our issue will be our toughness in the contest, but we will play at breakneck speed.

PS: Bet you I forgot someone!

6 hours ago, Salems Lot said:

Still waiting to see what caused us to pick up Kolt. He is so keen but lacks a bit of class IMHO

This. I was happy to give him time due to injuries and not getting a good run at it.

But I just don’t see any outstanding attributes..

I hope I’m wrong

1 hour ago, DeeZone said:

A big thanks to thirty-one, Demonland, Greg Schneider, Harvey Wallbanger, enter Sandman-2021, Salems Lot, George_on_the_outer, Deespicable, all posters and special comments. Another great read today, seemed like a lot going on and boys working very hard in ideal conditions. Big Question where is Ghostwriter?

Ghostwriter said on previous post that she was unavailable to attend training today, and next week.

10 hours ago, GawnOfTheDead said:

I really hope we have a year better than what everyone’s expecting from the media.

Today on SEN Dwayne Russell essentially said we will be a steaming pile of poo, for at least a couple years. Sad to hear.

I hope they’re all dead wrong and Kingy blows them away. Fingers crossed 🤞

Yeah Liam Pickering on SEN last night was also extremely down on the Dees for 2026.

He rattled off an exercise where he would list every club’s A and B graders and tally the total up.

I think he had Brisbane up top with 14 or 15 A and B graders. Then right at the bottom he had Melbourne, North and West Coast at a stinking low 6 A and B Graders combined. Even Richmond had more.

I can’t remember exactly who the 6 were but Gawn and Kozzie were A graders and Viney, Melksham were B. Mihocek may have been another?

Maybe these media blokes are correct. Maybe we’ll be bottom two with 3 or 4 wins.

11 hours ago, GawnOfTheDead said:

I really hope we have a year better than what everyone’s expecting from the media.

Today on SEN Dwayne Russell essentially said we will be a steaming pile of poo, for at least a couple years. Sad to hear.

I hope they’re all dead wrong and Kingy blows them away. Fingers crossed 🤞

It's a fairly common opinion tbf on Dwayne. I don't think we'll do much better than 14yh but we are rebuolding

That being said, his reasoning was that we lost Petracca, Oliver and premiership winning coach Simon Goodwin

Tracc I'll concede is a loss. Although, I still think he's a bad kick, and you can have a midfields mad eup of Petracca, Viney and Oliver and at least one of them had to be removed.

The Oliver one is bizarre to me - a lot of saying we've lost on of our best players. Oliver hasn't been elite and hasn't been one of our best players for years now. And we've effectively replaced him with Jack Steele who's a much better leader and will get the same output - something these media heads have completely forgotten

Simon Goodwin going needed to happen too, I still think he's a decent coach but he was s far past it with the Dees

1 hour ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

Yeah Liam Pickering on SEN last night was also extremely down on the Dees for 2026.

He rattled off an exercise where he would list every club’s A and B graders and tally the total up.

I think he had Brisbane up top with 14 or 15 A and B graders. Then right at the bottom he had Melbourne, North and West Coast at a stinking low 6 A and B Graders combined. Even Richmond had more.

I can’t remember exactly who the 6 were but Gawn and Kozzie were A graders and Viney, Melksham were B. Mihocek may have been another?

Maybe these media blokes are correct. Maybe we’ll be bottom two with 3 or 4 wins.

I have tipped us to finish bottom 3.

In fact i see us significantly dropping similar to how West Coast did whdn they had those aging stars still flopping around. Though i dont think we will be at the point of being barely VFL standard snd completely uncompetitive like they were.

We have had too many of our main senior players sitting in the sidelines all pre season which if anyone on here have played footy previously at a fairly strong standard, will know that not having a good base under your belt will completely hinder your preparation all year. You cannot simply make up for lost time. Sports science will say the same thing.

Development year with some pain along the way this year. All about getting as much games into the kids as we can.

Edited 2 hours ago2 hr by dazzledavey36

1 hour ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

Yeah Liam Pickering on SEN last night was also extremely down on the Dees for 2026.

That makes me feel a lot better.

Pickering would have to be the worst judge in football.

No idea.

3 minutes ago, dazzledavey36 said:

I have tipped us to finish bottom 3.

You could be right.

I just think there are too many unknowns at the moment to get a descent handle on where we are.

We are certainly rebuilding & our coach is a novice (in senior terms).

I think along with the Saints we're the most interesting watch in 2026.

2 hours ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

Yeah Liam Pickering on SEN last night was also extremely down on the Dees for 2026.

He rattled off an exercise where he would list every club’s A and B graders and tally the total up.

I think he had Brisbane up top with 14 or 15 A and B graders. Then right at the bottom he had Melbourne, North and West Coast at a stinking low 6 A and B Graders combined. Even Richmond had more.

I can’t remember exactly who the 6 were but Gawn and Kozzie were A graders and Viney, Melksham were B. Mihocek may have been another?

Maybe these media blokes are correct. Maybe we’ll be bottom two with 3 or 4 wins.

Without knowing how they decide who’s an A or B, I would’ve thought this would be our list in no particular order:

Gawn, K Pickett, Lever (when fit), Bowey, Salem, Fritsch, Steele, Viney and Rivers. You could also make a case for Melksham, McDonald, Chandler, May and Mihocek but I’ve left them out for now.

So that gives us 9 players in that category, but I’d only give Gawn and Pickett an A.

The other thing this doesn’t take into account players who could be an A or B by the end of the season such as JVR, Turner, Langford, Lindsay, L Pickett and Windsor.

I think it’s really hard to get a read on how we will go this year. We could surprise a few or we could struggle with the new game plan. I’ll enjoy the ride though.

12 hours ago, fr_ap said:

Don't agree on Lever.

Might look good in certain constrained match Sim situations, but his lack of athleticism, lateral movement and offensive ability is no longer at the level the game demands from an intercepting 2nd/3rd tall.

Also if we do intend to move the ball faster, the backline will look very open. He's doesn't have the speed to close large gaps of space. Yes he can read the game, but with the speed teams move the ball he'll often be helpless. Add to that his limited 1v1 defensive ability and it's all trending in the wrong direction for him.

In my opinion of course.

Never saw a problem with Levers speed, its an asset he has to intercept and close down entries. not sure who you are watching. He's not express but hes certainly not slow. post injury he certainly struggled late last year but that was understandable.

11 minutes ago, Bay Riffin said:

Never saw a problem with Levers speed, its an asset he has to intercept and close down entries. not sure who you are watching. He's not express but hes certainly not slow. post injury he certainly struggled late last year but that was understandable.

Jake's biggest weakness is his ability to compete when the ball is in dispute on the ground and hitting targets by foot quickly (not dinky loopy kicks) just IMO.

These limitations restrict his ability to add much value from an offensive perspective - I suspect it's a big factor in us being attracted to someone like X Taylor

10 hours ago, CatFishPig said:

This. I was happy to give him time due to injuries and not getting a good run at it.

But I just don’t see any outstanding attributes..

I hope I’m wrong

Agree, it was and still is a pretty perplexing move at the time, IMO. I'm a pretty big believer in Taylor but I still don't understand the need to reach for Tholstrup like we did. From memory we moved Pick 18 (I stand to be corrected on that - memory could be off on that one) into Pick 13 for a player that was widely tipped to still be there at our original pick. On top of that, Tholstrup's output and lack of development is a concern.

I don't think he exhibits anything of note and he's lacking in many areas. His kicking is relatively poor and he really struggles to insert himself to games. I also find it staggering that we extended his contract out to the end of 2028; personally I don't see him being on any AFL list post expiration of his current contract with us.

There's many people on here who don't agree with this assessment, I definitely expect to receive some contrary replies to this but I just don't see anything in him - even with a player such as Jefferson, I've seen a few things to suggest that there's something to work with, but sadly I've essentially written Kolt off.

35 minutes ago, DistrACTION Jackson said:

Without knowing how they decide who’s an A or B, I would’ve thought this would be our list in no particular order:

Gawn, K Pickett, Lever (when fit), Bowey, Salem, Fritsch, Steele, Viney and Rivers. You could also make a case for Melksham, McDonald, Chandler, May and Mihocek but I’ve left them out for now.

I don’t think Pickering had Bowey listed as a B grader and he certainly didn’t have Steele as a B grader.

Bowey was a high end B grader at times last year and was even talked about as an AA Smokey. Sadly we don’t have him for a bunch of the year.

On the flip side Pickering had washed up Richmond has beens such as Lynch as Prestia as B graders (therefore having more A’s and B’s than Melbourne) so he’s possibly got no idea.

17 minutes ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

On the flip side Pickering had washed up Richmond has beens such as Lynch as Prestia as B graders (therefore having more A’s and B’s than Melbourne) so he’s possibly got no idea.

Not possibly...

13 minutes ago, BLWNBA said:

Agree, it was and still is a pretty perplexing move at the time, IMO. I'm a pretty big believer in Taylor but I still don't understand the need to reach for Tholstrup like we did. From memory we moved Pick 18 (I stand to be corrected on that - memory could be off on that one) into Pick 13 for a player that was widely tipped to still be there at our original pick. On top of that, Tholstrup's output and lack of development is a concern.

I don't think he exhibits anything of note and he's lacking in many areas. His kicking is relatively poor and he really struggles to insert himself to games. I also find it staggering that we extended his contract out to the end of 2028; personally I don't see him being on any AFL list post expiration of his current contract with us.

There's many people on here who don't agree with this assessment, I definitely expect to receive some contrary replies to this but I just don't see anything in him - even with a player such as Jefferson, I've seen a few things to suggest that there's something to work with, but sadly I've essentially written Kolt off.

If you take a look at the 2023 draft, there’s literally four players I’d take after Tholstrup’s pick, not including academy or father sons, it’s an incredibly weak looking year so far.

Just now, Greg Schneider said:

If you take a look at the 2023 draft, there’s literally four players I’d take after Tholstrup’s pick, not including academy or father sons, it’s an incredibly weak looking year so far.

That's very fair and I agree, I'm not trying to dismiss that either. Appreciate that is likely not clear from my post.

Edited 23 minutes ago23 min by BLWNBA

2 minutes ago, BLWNBA said:

That's very fair and I agree, I'm not trying to dismiss that either. Appreciate that is likely not clear from my post.

Feels like the trade up itself was the biggest mistake. I always felt like we were either hoping to get Windsor with that pick 13 or we were trying to package it up in part of a deal with WCE Harley Reid.