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I can't fathom why the FD would have perceived the need to trade picks 14, 27 & 35 just to grab DeMattia at 11.

First time I saw him play development level absolutely loved him, not for the skill level just the brutality he attacked every contest with and the way he looked like he wanted to hurt the opponent. Very much ball or body in every contest

Read what Cal has written. If you nominate them as a national draft father son they automatically get drafted to your main list as your last pick if they aren’t bid on. Nominate them as a rookie father son and you can’t match a national draft bid but they automatically go on your rookie list. That’s the choice that we’ve made. So whether it’s coulda/woulda/shoulda that’s now what’s done. It’s a silly system, you should be able to match late bids in the national draft without automatically committing them to your main list. But as it currently stands you can’t. If you don’t commit to the main list you don’t get the chance to match bids.

Think about what you’re saying. The club clearly only rate him as rookie worthy, otherwise they’d have made it work. I love the romance of father/sons and have a connection to the Brown family through my local footy club. I’d love nothing more than for him to make it. But the reality, as I’ve tried to hint at a few times from watching him play personally a number of times, is that he’s unlikely to have enough AFL level attributes to make it at that level. There’s a reason not a single expert has him in their top 50 rated prospects. Would love nothing more than to be proved wrong but some people need to temper their expectations.

It’s so disappointing that all our fans seem to do is complain about the fixture on here. when we were getting Saturday and Sunday games in the arvo or twighligjt all people would do is cry for more Friday night exposure. Now that we get Thursday/Fridays/opening games/ multiple public holidays, all people seem to do is complain. We should be happy our team has success and is put in prime time slots. We should not be finding excuses to not watch the team we’ve all waited for decades to become good. Bring on March 7.

Melbourne is circling key tall Daniel Curtin and made the 8000km round trip to interview his Western Australian livewire teammate Koltyn Tholstrup. The Demons are in a strong position to land Curtin as a flexible key position player who could emerge as the long-term replacement for 31-year-old Steven May. The Hawks will have the first call on the 195cm Curtin at pick four but could instead pick up exciting small forward Nick Watson, while the Bulldogs like midfielder Ryley Sanders at five. It means the Demons could land Curtin at six and then take exciting forward-midfielder Koltyn Tholstrup at 11 after visiting him in Esperance in regional WA last week. Gun recruiter Jason Taylor is believed to have flown to Perth and then taken a light plane to the southern tip of WA to meet the 188cm goal kicker and his parents. It is understood the Demons are the only club to have made the mega trip down to Tholstrup’s hometown to interview the popular and physical game winner. The Demons also have Windsor in the mix to help bolster their transition game, but would be ecstatic to secure Tholstrup if Windsor is already gone. As the Herald Sun revealed last month, West Coast remains interested in swapping its future first-round draft pick with either Hawthorn or Melbourne to land Curtin. But the Demons and Hawks are expected to knock back that offer in the chance West Coast bounces up the ladder next year with an improved injury list.

My initial thoughts: No trip to Geelong is always a win. Even better, Richmond and Hawthorn are (completely fairly) going down there instead. We have an average slate of MCG home games - we get Collingwood, Essendon and Geelong but don't get Carlton, Richmond or Hawthorn. West Coast at the G breaks a 10 year duck. But of course means we get the overwhelmingly likely better WA team as a road trip. 8 interstate games is the same as this year, as is the one Marvel game. The difference is we trade the Geelong trip for an additional MCG game. That's a win. Zero Friday nights for us so far. Four Thursday nights means we don't miss out on prime time football but I detest Thursday night games when we are playing so that is, to me, a major loss. Our double-up games look very hard on 2023 form - Collingwood, Brisbane and Port Adelaide are the entire top 4 outside of us, which is ridiculous. But it's always folly to rate the double ups on this year's form, when every year we see a strong club flop and a weak club rise. It does not surprise me at all to see us get the equal-worst allocation of five-day breaks. You'd hope that means we don't get any in the last 9 rounds. You'd also hope that the sides to currently not have any five-day breaks all get at least one to make it somewhat even. I reckon back-to-back games in Adelaide is a good thing. One less set of flights, ability to adjust/acclimatise. Hopefully we can make that work. Indeed, the Adelaide fortnight is the only time during the year we spend more than one week away from the G. That is a major upgrade on, say, 2022, in which we had a 5-week period of playing away from the G. Our travel feels well spread, and we have four of our last five games in Melbourne, which is good. The Wednesday ANZAC Eve game looks to have been spaced out really well for us - 7-day break from Gather Round, 13 days to ANZAC Eve, 10 days to the next game - the bye works perfectly for us there Proper bye after KB is also welcome

Richmond and Hawthorn going down to the Cattery

the giants media team are outstanding, brilliantly done

We avoid Geelong in Geelong and have a proper bye for once!

My brother makes an appearance or two in this video lol

Jokes on you I made it all up

It’s all part of our ploy to keep Dogga happy at Melbourne 😁

I’m waiting for the AFL to come out and say ”whoa, we made a mistake, the Richmond and Hawthorn games at Taxpayer park are actually meant to be a Melbourne home game and a Melbourne away game.” Sorry for any inconvenience caused.

I imagine we'll stay over.

I'm not sure why we're interested in Curtin. He doesn't seem to suit our game style. - Curtin takes the game on from the backline, rather than stop and kick it long down the line. - Curtin seems to hit a target when under pressure. I'm sure we'll knock these traits out of him if we draft him.

I'm not sure on Curtin for a few reasons: 1) Speed / Agility appear a little lacking if he is indeed to turn into a bid bodied mid; in that context I'd like to see more of his contest work in the midfield to assess 2) At the same time, as a key back he's a little undersized and doesn't have huge athleticism to match the likes of Curnow, Walter etc. 3) Appears a different kind of character to the other boys at the top end (can go one of two ways) Looks a well skilled and balanced footballer but I just don't see the dynamism for the top level. Almost the polar opposite of Caddy in that regard who has all the dynamics but question marks over a lot of the other stuff. The Steven May comparisons look well off to me - people see a left footed full back and go there immediately. I honestly think Sanders or O'Sullivan are probably our best bet at 6, though I'm not overly enamoured with either of them either. 11 can take either the slider out of the bunch and/or get into the Windsor/Leake/Wilson range. Watson - I would be keen but we have so many smalls on the list. I won't hate it if we take him, as he's a potential game-winner/cult favourite and could release Koz for more midfield time, but it seems a waste to have so much of the list focused on small forwards. *EDIT* just saw the highlights package in the Watson thread. I'd be ok with him... It's just such a shame we won't get McKercher. Assuming Oliver gets back to being himself, Colby would totally complete our midfield and make our forward line issues look way better too. Such a shame.

A home game against Geelong Whale Oil Beef Hooked Said with an Irish accent.

Financially devastating. Our opening home game is at 1pm on a Sunday. Our next home game is almost a month later, against Brisbane on a Thursday night. Solid 33k in attendance. Anzac Eve is an away game. Geelong at the MCG might pull in 50k but depends on how both teams are going. vs Carlton is an away game. St Kilda on a Sunday at 3:20 might pull a decent crowd. Maybe 50k. King's Bday is away. vs North on a Saturday night. 25k. vs WC, finally a home game against them. 25k. vs Essendon, finally a home game at the MCG against them. 60k. vs GWS. 25K. vs Port. 30k. vs Pies. 70k. Only two of our home games will require reserve seat upgrades for GA members: Essendon and Collingwood. For the general fan attending games it's great because we have 8 of our 10 MCG home games are against non-MCG tenants. Financially, the club would surely be livid with this draw. It's a disaster.

Its a good fixture.

Has nothing to do with points deficit. We have pick 42 to use which would cover the points for any bid outside the top 25. This is from Cal a couple of weeks ago. Pretty much we’ve decided he’s a rookie and not worth a main list spot. Clubs can nominate in that period whether they plan to take a father-son in the national draft – meaning if the player doesn't receive a bid they will automatically be added to a list with the club's final pick in the draft – or if they want to list them as a father-son rookie. A father-son rookie leaves the door open for other clubs to pick them as a national selection but allows the holding club to automatically list the player as a rookie if they get through the national draft without being chosen.

I’m theory we have 4 main list spots, but in practice we have 2 certain main list spots and 2 spots that are best used as rookie spots, because rookie spots come with a chunk of salary outside the cap. So if we draft a 3rd or 4th national draft player we don’t get the cap relief of using a rookie spot. In the case of Brown who isn’t in the top 50 on any projections we are clearly happy to roll the dice with him getting to the rookie list. I’d imagine it’s fairly likely he does. When it comes to using pick 42 I’d imagine it would have to be a top 20 player on JT’s board falling through to make that investment. It’s far more likely we trade that for a future 3rd.

Strange? The club rates him purely as a rookie prospect.. not only that, he barely got enough nominations from opposition clubs to qualify for the state combine. That in itself would explain why he's rated as a rookie prospect. It's just Melbourne, bit other clubs also. I'll happily back our gun recruiting team on this one.

Bout F'n time!

needs a few weeks at casey

Can she push really hard for Collingwood to play down there next year?

The kick to the 2v 1 20 sec in is also too Van Rooyen. For those watching the highlights when he’s wearing #7 he’s playing Colts when wearing #16 he’s playing seniors

No trip to the Cattery. Thank you Santa for my early Xmas present. 😃😃

I'm already sick of hearing the fluff about Carlton's chances. They need a 2019 Melb season now.

We will get the chance to knock the Pies out of the finals, and Maynard out of the park!

No trip to Geelong is unbelievable. I’m in shock.

I suppose you just don't know. Freo, Port and Lions could all dip. Nobody expected Freo to be so poor in 2023 or Port to be so strong either. But on paper this looks a hard draw. At least we get a proper mid year bye and our travel is more evenly spread out, and the two weeks in Adelaide are pretty much going to be one intestate trip from a conditioning perspective as I doubt we will fly back in between games.

Yeah what a bizarre scheduling Why make us have such a short break? I suppose we will stay over in between games, but it's still a big ask to back up against two good sides in such a short time. ON THE PLUS SIDE, NO GEELONG IN GEELONG!!!!

Back to backs at Adelaide Oval but no trip to Geelong

God it would be amazing if they flop again

why not 7:20

Confirmation from Cal that's it's the rookie list only for Kynan Brown.

Bluey has spoken.

From my understanding, Cal is wrong. We can match a bid, but we have made a decision that we don't want to match a bid, because we would likely go into points deficit and would use a primary list spot if we matched, and we're seemingly not prepared to do that.

So we can, but we won't. I like the other explanation better but I'm unsure about list spots. It seems a bit strange to me that there isn't more love for him.

Agree but perhaps plan A for the acquisition of 11 was more about an attempt to bundle something up for pick 1. Plan B is a bundle for pick 3. Plan C is a good quality young player with 11. Plan Q is reeling in Demattia

I would be happy with either Leake, Tholstrup or Windsor at pick 11. They all have loads of talent. One or 2 will be available at our pick. Obviously depends on internal rankings which in part will consider needs.

Because we've chosen not to as we clearly only rate him as a rookie.

Correct. If a team bids on him during the ND we can't match. Once the ND is over he goes straight on our rookie list.

Hang on. They can talk about any subject under the sun. "The cricket world cup is on. How many AFL players have played cricket? Give us a call, the lines are open." "How about those Matildas? We'll talk about the AFL draft right after this short break." "Coaching drama at Melbourne City. What are some of the biggest coaching dramas in the AFL? Give us a call, the lines are open." "Spring carnival comes to a close. We'll discuss Carlton's chances next season right after this short break."

Yes we have earned our status rise and the right to enjoy it also.

I like buzz and x factor Tholstrup brings. I also think he has far greater upside with enormous potential to transition into midfield role ala Petracca. Wilson is an absolute workhorse who is incredibly driven and is the ultimate professional on and off the field. He is another that will play round 1 purely because coaches will be blown away but his high work rate. He's very similar to Ollie Hollands and I think there's an element there that says there is zero depth after Hunter and Lamgdon which makes sense if we select him. I'm bias and will say Wilson, but my god I would be stoked with Tholstrup

When you think about it, isn't everything technically made up.

He was a dominant goal kicker through development, futures and colts. Hardness, strength and intensity plus being a country boy had him well ahead of others around the same age. There’s no issue with Tholstrup not chasing or providing pressure at ground level