Deespicable

Topic said changes, so i'll stick to that. Structural 1) Switch Angus back to middle. Yes I know the Jonesy on a wing didn't work, but losing Angus from the wing hasn't either. And we finally have some run out there - even if both Stretch and Baker are error prone, both work their butt off. 2) Send Jonesy to half-back. We have a plethora of left foot defenders going down the left wing all the time. Is it a crime to go down the right side on occasions? Can't any of our forwards catch a ball when they lead left? By the way I thought Jonesy was exceptional in the first half against Eagles, but tired and was ineffective when it counted after half time. We have to find a spot for him to play on next year and defence is the only option left. 3) Make Preuss a late inclusion. Gawn was a superstar for three quarters and we had great run up the middle with Tim Smith leading up well and giving it off, but when Gawny tired in last quarter against Hickey and Vardy, it hurt us. Mummy will be told to work Gawny over, so it would be nice if we had back up and Preuss is a player who can work Mummy over as well. Bringing him in late will upset their balance and force a rethink. 4) Play Lewis as a forward. We can't have Jordy, Jonesy, O.Mac and Petty all in our back seven (we become way too slow), but Jordy has the smarts to at least position himself well in the forward line. He is still a dead-eye accurate kick as well. 5) Back in the attack down the spine method. With five first choice defenders still out, we are going to be exposed if we try and chip it around, but how good was the manic handball run and carry of the second term against Eagles. Until we get Lever, May, Hibberd and Jetta back, it's better to go down fighting than playing a precision brand that can be intercepted anyway. 6) Back in Stretch and Baker. Yep I did see their errors, but at what point on Friday night did anyone think we were slow and not quick to man up - could it have had anything to do with having two team oriented runners on the wing sharing the role with Angus. Even when Fritter let Ryan run into the pocket it was because he decided that with so many bigs already back there, he should zone off the lead options. It backfired, but hey we lost it because of our errant shots earlier in the night. Baker deserves another shot and Billy deserves a fairly long extended crack at it. Don't judge their games by possessions. Judge it more by their run and pressure. 7) Play Petty again. The move to having a big backline in Perth was not the disaster many of us expected, although I suspect it would have been if it was greasy conditions. The Giants have plenty of talls up forward with Cameron, Himmelberg and Finlayson, so there's a role for Petty again before Lever comes back in. Out: Obviously our concussion boys are all in doubt, but I suspect one of them at least will play. If only one of them is out, then it would be hard not to argue for Fritter to go back to VFL. He's a talent but watch the last term replay and tell me he didn't panic twice under pressure. He needs to go back to VFL and play in the middle and learn to cop contact and hold onto the ball in a tackle. IN: Lewis and Preuss. B: N.Jones Frost Hore HB: Petty O.Mac Salem (if OK) C Stretch Oliver Baker HF: Petracca T.Mac Lewis F: Garlett Hunt Preuss Ru: Gawn Harmes Brayshaw Int: Viney (hard tag on Kelly when on), Lockhart, Wagner, T.Smith (if fit), ANB (if fit) Emerg: Fritsch

The start of what could be a horror four weeks for our boys and now without Hibberd and possibly Lewis and Melky. West Coast's bigs were one of the reasons why we recruited Preuss, so if we don't play him, Goody needs an inquisition. Yes they got rid of Lycett and have lost Tom Hickey, although he may be ready for a recall, but they still have Vardy and young Allen. The Eagles also have bigs Kennedy and Darling along with Gov, so we will be killed in the air with a small side. Any chance we have must be to stretch their defence which is still missing Barrass, so Tim Smith also has to play, that's a given. He did well against the Tigers before injury and is coming off a game in the VFL that we rarely see. It could also be time to blood Oskar Baker, yes I know his disposal is not always great, but we need to know if he can step up a level in the seniors before we decide to delist him. He's an everyready battery, so maybe it's time to send either Billy or Angus back to half-back to provide some clean ball down the right-hand side from defence. Cripps has been damaging anyway, so he needs a strict player like Billy or Angus. Then there's the elephant in the room - what to do with O-Mac again. What are we up to now - 65 games and counting! Surely it's time to send him back to the VFL and see if we can turn him into the forward we recruited him as. But with Darling, Kennedy and their resting ruckman, we will need one more tall back there. If it were up to me I'd send Keilty back there and see if he can cope with that role at AFL level, but i'm just as happy if Goody decides to give Petty a chance in that role. But most likely Goody will play O.Mac again and we will all cringe. So I have four outs and four ins with Baker to miss if Lewis or Melky pass their fitness tests. In: Preuss, T.Smith, ANB, Baker Out: Hibberd, Lewis, Melky (all in), O.Mac B: Salem (Ryan/Petro) Frost (Kennedy) Keilty/Petty (resting ruck - Allen or Hickey) HB: Billy (Cripps) Fritsch (Darling) Hore (Venables) C Brayshaw Harmes (Shuey) Viney (Gaff) HF: Trac T.Mac T.Smith F: Garlett Hunt Preuss R: Gawn Oliver (Yeo will go to him) Jones (Sheed/Redden) Int: Baker, ANB, Lockhart, J.Wagner

6 Harmes - he's really got back to his end of 2018 level and was inspired in the last quarter. 5 Oliver - the other member of the gang-tackling middlemen society. Sent it forward a bit more this week. 4 Salem - our silk out of defence. 3 Frost - seemed to be reading the play better than normal. 2 Jones - kept working his butt off. His wing/midfield switch with Angus has helped, although Gussie is now not so prominent. 1 Fritsch - I was critical of him last week but he intercepted well once Hibberd went off and provided run out of defence.

Extraordinary call on ANB - his best game of season and as stated so well by Rusty Nails - coming off a game where his statistics make it all but impossible not to pick him! Clearly the skipper had to come back in and given his influence in his 3 games, I would have thought Preuss, if fit, had to play as well. When you are coming off a win, hard calls have to be made, but I just don't get the logic on this one. Viney's a midfielder and so it made sense to remove a midfielder for him and all bar one performed Ok or better on the weekend - Jones (what a great second half), Stretch (coming off his best game v Richmond) could not be left out. Fritta who started on wing and then played a fair bit up forward was the only one who under-performed. Fritta is a class act and had a huge pre-season but he has yet to have a breakout game this year. It's reached the stage this season where he needs to go back to the VFL and really dominant a game - most likely play in the middle so that he toughens up even more. He can pretty much play anywhere and do anything, hence there was also scope to retain him and send him to defence again and remove one of our defenders - at least three of whom had pretty ordinary games. But alas we pulled the pin on ANB. I'd love it if the selection committee had a compulsory explanation paragraph for each omission. ANB (out - did everything we asked of him, crumbed, tackled, kicked efficiently - normally his weakness - and ran his butt off as normal. He also plays in a different spot to our skipper, but hey we just don't like hyphens!)

As to team for this week, if Preuss is fit, then he has to come in and if that's the case then one of Keilty or O-Mac should be left out. If Viney is fit, then it may be time to send Fritter back for a refresher in dominating a game at VFL level - he was so impressive pre-season, but sometimes you just need a reminder of why you want to play AFL.

Nice to see a couple of fairly logical posts about O-Mac's good points for a change. I also share your view that his kicking skills are elite - they always have been. But I have real doubts about the physical side of his game - his intensity when he gets the ball in pressure situations is poor and he rarely shrugs a tackle or even baulks an opponent like his brother enjoys doing. His lack of strength means he has limited intimidation factor and he does not have the pace to keep up with an opponent on a lead or to make ground quickly enough for a key intercept. He has quite a good tank like his brother, but he lacks good leg speed. He is a nice safe kick (probably in our top five percent in this area) but he does not thump 65m low flat line-breaking kicks down the line that his predecessor Lynden Dunn did and certainly he does not have Dunny's booming deep voice that quickly won him plaudits as a leader at the Pies, even though our own coach didn't rate this when discarding him. I hope I am wrong and I hope Oscar is tried for a while as a forward before his contract next year runs out, but at this point in time, I feel he is as likely to make it as Jimmy Toumpas. Skills only get you so far. And my worry now is that his brother Tom, who is a harder-working McDonald clan version with incredible aerial judgment and endurance fitness, has lost the necessary speed to recapture his 2018 form. I am very happy to write Tom off for this season as well, but in his case, I suspect a really good new fitness advisor plus a turf-toe free pre-season will get him back up on his toes and running with enough alacrity to make an impact again.

A bit surprised to see that O.Mac played as a defender in VFL, so have to assume that either Preuss (if fit) or Keilty will replace Weid. Sparrow will also come in, whether he replaces Viney or ANB (both injured) I am not sure. If both are available it's either Jeffy or Lockhart who both struggled after half time. I hope they give Hibberd another tagging role - this time on the Worpedo, but the key match-up will most likely be stopping the Hawks small forwards Breust, Wingard and PouPou on the break. I'd go Salem, Fritter and Jones respectively and I'd send Lewis forward to provide the smarts/leadership up there against his old side.

The big difference now is that we do have a strong group of middle-aged leaders to replace Jonesy, unlike in Junior's day. To me, the key is whether Jonesy can show he needs to be kept on and by that it means becoming a best 22 player again. The wing is a graveyard for him because he likes a contest and is too slow to match up on the pacey types, but as we saw against Richmond, there's a spot down back now with Jetta out. I am not sure he did enough on Baker and Rioli to warrant major excitement but hopefully he gets a couple more weeks at it because he is a strong tackler and he can turn out of trouble.

And which player that you know runs fast not in straight lines!

Apart from Tim Smith, not one of our forwards - Weid, Jeffy, Trac, Lockhart, ANB and in the last term Fritter could get a sniff of the ball last night, although they were often cramped by the Tigers zone and there professional screening. But to me the big issue up there is that none - except Trac - plays with attitude and arrogance - and you need that when you are getting blocked out. So Goody has to go back to the drawing board again and figure out his forward line restructure. If Preuss is fit, he will play up there and you'd imagine if he isn't then Keilty will make his debut. I'd be happy for Jordy Lewis to be sent forward because whilst we know he is slow, he does have attitude and could direct things a little. It was nice to see Goody experimenting a bit against the Tigers and I think he'll need to do it again a bit which means Olly, Melky and Trac may have to rotate out of the goalsquare. I'd also play Oscar as a forward at VFL level this week - that's why he was recruited, although his lack of aggression will still be a worry.

Agree with his comment from you Wiseblood. Given our draw we are staring down the barrel of being 2-10 at the bye and even with what I hope will be a late flurry, we seem to be heading for a 6-8 win season. Finishing bottom six will help our draw next season, but you can't just rest on that and take it for granted that we will bounce back. We have four huge areas to fix. 1) With Misson retiring and our second half failures this season, it's clear that the appointment of our new fitness guru is major. 2) Tubby may need terminating and definitely needs more help in recruiting. He will probably have up to 10 picks and only one of them (our top pick at 4-6) will be easy to decide in terms of placement overall. He needs to be across all the interstate leagues and our own NAB League. And he will need clear direction on where our list needs improving. 3) Goody's loyalty and game style. When a side fails dismally to reach expectation, the pressure mounts on the coach. I am sure Goody will respond by tweaking the game plan and toughening up his role players. He has already made a few hard calls on players whom he rated highly (O.Mac and Spargo) and sadly he will have to do the same at the end of the season with a couple of greats (Lewis and Jones) and several fringe players. You would not want to be out of contract at the Dees right now. If I was Weid's manager, I'd just ask for a one-year deal on a base wage! Our game style is not as out of whack as some think at the moment, our big issue is finding someone to lead into space and mark up forward and our two most likely medium-sized marking forwards (Hannan and Joel Smith) along with VDB's grunt have been majorly missed. 4) Weightroom guru. Watching Weid, Fritsch and O-Mac (previous weeks) being pushed aside so easily just makes you wonder why they haven't bulked up. It's not like it's their first season anymore. Are they skipping sessions? But I agree that provided we make good off-season plans, we should bounce back hard and unlike a few years ago, we now have genuine stars - Gawn, Olly (when not going backwards), Angus and Salem as a base along with the courage of Viney and Harmes to take us into the 20s. If that group is backed by a handful of exciting youngsters, then it will be happy Dees again.

And perhaps the biggest one was the year before when Tubby Taylor was very proud of how we got Harrison Petty (No.37) as a steal, yet we all now know how much we need quick forwards like Jack Petruccelle (Pick 38), Gryan Meiers (57), not to mention James Worpel (45). The whole recruiting thing will now take on greater emphasis as it does when your side underperforms. Four years ago Tubby hit paydirt with Oliver ahead of Parish and rookies such as VDB and Harmes, although his credits have now dried up. We've done quite well with our VFL selections in the past three years - Hannan, Fritsch, Hore and our Casey loyalty to T.Smith, Keilty and Lockhart and C.Wagner is admirable but in recent times Tubby has shown no knowledge of what lower order longshots to take - Johnstone, Filipovic are examples but there's been no Tom Stewart among our Casey boys either.

Interesting comments by many on Goody and I'm sure he will now be rethinking his game philosophy as will Longmire, Brad Scott, Bevo and others. What few have made a point of is that so far this season we have had a predominantly warm and dry start to the season, so our emphasis on stoppage work has been less integral to the outcome of most games. What we have all seen is how our high press has been exposed on the counter and we haven't had enough pace to stop this flow on effect. This is not a new problem, go back to when we were 2-3 last year after our loss to the Tigers and you will find the comments about being exposed over the back the same. All sides now are getting better at playing soccer-style triangles in defence which means it's harder to get intercepts and you have to wonder if our press is working - maybe that's one of the big adjustments required, although wet weather and night games sees the ball spill and the high press become more beneficial. Certainly we are not getting any benefit out of superior forward entries - partly because of a lack of quality talls (Mac and Weids failure) and lack of quality smalls (Spargo and ANB and Sparrow before him), which forced Hunt to be sent into that role and will most likely mean Jeffy gets another shot at it on Wednesday. The other point I'd make is that we need more out of Oliver. He still wins clearances but he has to take the game on and risk getting caught. He is our most damaging mid and he's playing safe with dinky gives that help his stats but do nothing for the team. We need him to take ownership of going forward and it's not happening and my worry is that he won't have time to make the adjustment to his game for this season. But please, even if we fail again dismally throughout this season, don't call for Goody's exit. As with other coaches, he needs time to re-strategise and come up with a more long-lasting style, just as Hardwick did in 2017, Simmo and Bucks did in 2018 and Chris Scott, Hinkley and Richo have done this year.

So far he's kicked 17 goals in 21 games and his ruck work, as we saw last week, needs a lot of work. The Pies wouldn't offer more than 300K a season for him on those figures, but if they are really keen then I'd suggest we offer a direct swap for Mason Cox!

I didn't hear Lyon, but if he rated Oliver the best he's seen at Deeland, then he's pretty much on the money in my opinion. Garry would never have seen Ronald Dale or Brian Dixon and I doubt he saw Stan Alves or Greg Wells in demon colours, so there's really only one player ahead of him and it's already been pointed out that 'Tulip' Robbie Flower was very much an outside mid. Gerard Healy's final year at our club in 1985 was Oliver-esque but much of his early years were spent as a forward, so i've left him out of my list below, but he's the only other player who can be mentioned in the same breath as these guys. Also left out on a positional basis were Adam Yze, Steven Febey (best work as half back), Brett Lovett (same) and Glenn Lovett (half forward). I also remember more of Willow as our gifted umpy-appealing forward, even though he was a pure mid for his Brownlow year with us and flipped spots a bit. My 10 best Dee mids I've seen (which dates back to 1971) are: 1) Robbie Flower - Kept our club alive with hope in the 70s and early 80s. Could do anything, just watch any state game highlights. 2) Clayton Oliver - only a small sample, but his past two years have been huge and he's getting more confident in taking the game on. 3) Todd Viney - a bit wonky with his kicking at times, but grunt work was exceptional. Made everyone walk taller when he played. 4) Greg Wells - an unbelievable mark for his size and he didn't even have a leap - just great at positioning his body. 5) Stan Alves - one of the first to realise the importance of fitness and out on his wing, he found space. 6) Jack Viney - if he can keep injury free then he'll climb up the order. He's our Joel Selwood. 7) Stephen Tingay - when he was hot during the early 90s, so were we. Had courage and a damaging kick on the run. 8) Nathan Jones - we all know he's a hard worker, but he's also very elusive for a bloke who's not exceptionally quick. 9) Shane Woewodin -OK, the haters are going to hate, but his 2000 year was inspiring and we did make the GF largely because of him. 10) Andrew Obst - a tremendous work ethic over a number of years and better in traffic than Sugar Healy IMO. Likely to be on this list in a couple more years: Gus and Harmes

You have to factor in that Ross Lyon was on a hiding to nothing if he took another player with off-field issues and if it backfired as it did for him with Lovett, Sylvia and Bennell, it was bye-bye Ross. I was hoping that we would nail a deal for Andrew Brayshaw and pick 11 (onpassed for May) and have given them our future second rounder in return which I felt was pretty fair, but alas it ain't happening. The only good thing is that Jesse clearly knows (as Dusty found out a few years ago), that the interest in damaged off-field goods is not high. Maybe as Dusty did to devastating effect, he will knuckle down and try to show he really is deserving of another top-end contract with us. He has the talent. It's just the application. If he doesn't figure life out, then he might as well be Jack Potts next season, just waiting to be released for a second rounder at season's end. Hopefully though we can still do a second round deal with the Suns for KK as he was a ripper and it's worth a shot to see if we can right him and maybe if they decide they really don't care too much about May, they will accept our No.1 pick next season for him.

Go back and have a look at Geelong EF game and you might work it out. Or if you are going to take that sort of attitude, have a look at the GC v Melbourne game this year - at what point as Jesse and Tom Mac shared eight goals between them, did you think, gee, Steven May is a must have that we will give up heaps for. That's not to say that Steven May isn't any good, all I'm saying is that if you are going to treat footballers like a meat market (as clubs and fans are forced to do each October) then you have to decide what is the valuable commodity that we need. I would have thought a qualify mid (outside/inside) or a quality running forward/defender was our main priority at the moment. Effectively in taking May we are saying that with Lever and May in the key defensive spots, let's use up $1.6million plus of our salary cap each year and send O-Mac and Frost to the magoos.

Way more excited about us getting KK than May. I can actually see KK fitting into our side without impacting on key players and he provides pace that we need. May is also quick for a big bloke, but I don't quite get why we need him - we have Frost, O.Mac, Lever when he returns and Joel Smith and we also have two VFL standard back-ups already - Petty and Kielty. Is May going to play CHF and be part of the T-Mac, Weid mix? Is O-Mac going to finally to be tried in that role. Either way I don't get why you'd give a up a first rounder and $800K for May when we are already over-catered for in that area. But I do get why we would give KK another chance at reigniting a career for $300K and a second or third round pick.

I think he was shattered at first when he got wind of the deal to offload him by the Crows five seasons ago, but he quickly got over his disappointment at moving states (hanging out with a social livewire in Wattsy helped) and turned the move into a positive that has extended to his new real estate career. He also has been humble enough to still cop demotion to the backline and then demotion from the team and kept smiling through it all. Rapt that he got to play 100 games for us and also won a best-and-fairest. Let's hope we make it to the prelim so that he can go out with a flag for Casey. Good with media, good with fans and a good bloke.

Yes it's a great topic and one that I hope the Dees are discussing with both Jesse and his management. Clearly if Jesse wants to stay, then we should make every effort to keep him, but if there's a doubt and he has real interest in heading home, then it's worth considering and taking a rational path and plan. Jesse is a huge talent (arguably our most natural talent since Allen Jakovich), yet he is also our biggest off-field problem and whilst footy clubs cover up indiscretions of stars, they can prove costly to team harmony because having one rule for one player and a different set of rules for others can create divisions - just look at Gary Ablett's impact at Geelong this year. The other factor to consider is that Freo, as Kingy mentions, has a pick that would go some way to meet our requirements - pick 6 or 7. personally I reckon we would want their 2019 second round pick as well of we went down that path. With their pick 6 or 7 we would most likely have the potential to draft whichever King brother remains available or if we wanted to make a play for Jack Billings, it would give us the ammunition to get that deal done - I'd want the Saints second rounder for 2019 in return for Billings and our acquired pick 6 or 7 though. Ultimately the club has to weigh it up and insiders would have the biggest idea of Jesse's wish to stay in Melbourne. If I was on the Dees admin I'd be having a serious off-the-record chat with Harmsey about it.

Love the way that Wiseblood and others have defended Jesse and as to it being a bulls..t thread as was suggested by one, the fact that we are all reading it and so many of us are replying shows that it is now the most interesting discussion for fans. It's a bit like Jack Watts of 2013-17 - after so many underacheiving games, it all starts turning on the big name, big pay players - as it rightly should. Please don't make the mistake that I am suggesting Jesse is not capable of being physical - he clearly is unlike Wattsy - but Jesse has been granted the most pivotal spot in the side and finds himself being surpassed by a meat and potatoes hard worker in T-Mac, who has shown that if you fight for every contest, things can happen. For me, in Jesse's case it has nothing to do with his ability - we all know he has a leap, we all know he can run, we all know he can baulk and pivot as well as any big guy in the league. What we don't know (and even the club may not know) is what he gets up to at night - is he partying too hard, is he drinking too much, is he professional - because nowadays only the players that work their butt off both on and off the field are successful in the long-term. I've heard rumours of poor antics and I've heard reports from daughters at nightclubs, so I know he enjoys that scene perhaps more than he should - he's 23 now, he's not a kid. Will he mature like Dusty? Is he capable of maturing like Dusty and walking the fine line between loveable rogue and meathead? Jesse is the most natural footballer we've had since Allen Jakovich - yet interestingly Jakovich made a beeline for Clayton Oliver this weekend and rates him his favourite player of today. Jesse has one of the best natural running tanks I've seen - those of you who watch training reps will know how easy he does it. Yet he also does it as a part-time (maybe fulltime I don't know) smoker. As others have stated Jesse has flaws in his kicking - why haven't these been corrected yet. Why is he one of the few bigname forwards that rarely has a shot from 45-60m out. Why does he hold it like a left-footer. Why does he still stutter and we saw with his shot from 35m yesterday that he was stuttering even more than normal under the pressure of it all. If you peel back the layers of Jesse, I suspect you will find he's struggling with life in the fastlane of AFL football and is a bit of a Nick Kyrgios - happy to act cool and disinterested when beaten rather than show that he's working his butt off to fix things. Now he has an excuse, a foot injury, and his omission may actually help us, not hinder us. Part of that is because Weid has been getting better and better at VFL level and looks almost like a midfielder at training, such is his confidence dishing it off. Whilst I am not totally confident that he will be able to turn it on just yet, I am confident he will be able to match or possibly even surpass what Jesse has done for us in the big games this season. And if he does show signs, then maybe the title of this thread is bang on the money after all - trade Hogan!

Thanks older Demon but we actually do have A-listers now - Gawn, Oliver, Viney and Brayshaw and Salem heading that way. We also already have replacements for those three players. Lewis - Salem has already taken on the role and made him expendable. Vince - Take your pick out of several defenders who play tight and uncomprising footy like Bernie used to until he started losing a bit of pace - Smith is my favourite of the new breed though. Jones - he's already been moved out of our midfield core. I'd like to see him play the Jarrad McVeigh role next year. Agree with you though that it is a big call to move out Hoges, but sometimes as we saw with Wattsy last year, it needs to be done and in Hoges' case it's not just because of what he displays on the field.

Thanks Febel - I thought as much. It's probably too late in season and nowadays they train in the three specific groups, but I would have loved to have seen Hoges and OMac swap possies a few times this season mid games. And with Joel Smith out, Jesse is probably our only player (when in form) that is quick enough and good enough in the air to provide an intercept game-saving mark. I saw him way back when he played U18s for WA and I thought what a talent back there.

For some reason it didn't like my word documents, but when I copied it into pages and tried again it worked. It did keep the attempted downloads on bottom though of topic though and I couldn't remove it - see actual topic called Deespicable's 2018 player rankings

I am trying to start a new topic. When I try to load my 2018 rankings it only allows the first page and I have 11 pages of the stuff. It brings them in as a file, rather than just allowing me to place words - albeit lengthy- on the topic. Any suggestions as to way around it so that I can just copy and paste the one lot of 6000 words?