Machsy

There are no good puns in there anywhere. In fact, there are no good puns. Lift your comedy game people! Don't accept abject mediocrity!

Darling was an 800m runner who was capable of playing as a big midfielder as a junior; McCartin has shown no such capability, and is significantly larger and more lumbering.

Surely a smokey is a selection that nobody expected at that stage, a surprise, an unseen or unforeseeable selection... because of the smoke.

I remember him playing a lot out of the goalsquare as a forward, but that may have been post-drafting when he still played in the TAC Cup for a while.

7 defenders: Dunn, Jetta, Frost, McDonald, Garland, Grimes, Lumumba. 7 forwards: Howe, Hogan, Dawes, Kent, Watts, Garlett, Pedersen. 8 mids: Cross, Vince, Jones, Tyson, Jamar, Newton, Viney, JKH/Salem. Emergency: Michie, Riley, JKH/Salem.

Because picking on that basis has served us so well in the past, with Strauss and Maric...

I think the only real argument for Lever not being able to play in the midfield, is that he hasn't yet, or his height. Height hasn't held Mundy, JPK or Bontempelli back. And when his injury occurred, Lever had played just as much in the midfield as Petracca... (granted, I said early this year I couldn't see Petracca being a top 5 pick mainly because he wasn't a midfielder, only dangerous flanker)

I don't see any threads about Jayden Hunt, and how we should have picked Eli Templeton instead...

Geelong have taken a few relatively low risk (low outlay), low chance of a possible high return prospects. Balme jumped ship because he sniffed the winds of change. The cats are due for a flat spot. However Hocking is of the highest calibre and will have the cats turning it around. In time. Hopefully a lot of time.

I've come to accept that although my preference is Lever, I'll have to watch him with interest from afar as he lifts the standard at either Collingwood or GWS. Brayshaw and McCartin it shall be. And we're very fortunate to get 2 players of such ability, class and most importantly, so driven.

Couldn't find Dean Gore in that phantom... is there some limitation he has that I'm missing?

You are a weird unit.

It will be funny if he plays more than a couple of games.

It was that frontrunning redhead that defected to the doggies, Justin Sherman. Funny as hell.

Roos did pretty well at Sydney with "dime-a-dozen" mids like Amon Buchanan, Luke Ablett, Ben Matthews and Jared Crouch.

I think the Hawks essentially gave GWS Gilham for Anderson. That's what I recall.

We probably tried. Barry was always "steak knives" - shoulda been his nickname.

Really surprised Gore's name hasn't popped up more regularly. There's gotta be a reason for it, because he was quite impressive in the games I saw too.

Fact is, she's not a very good judge, but just gets good second-hand opinions from recruiters. I don't rate Wright as top 10, but Geelong won't let him slide past.

I thought the SANFL had a large (and conflicted) hand to play in signing this deal, before the AFL managed to negotiate ownership of the Port & Crows licenses, no? I think there are a few clever and devious men making a lot of money off this deal. Not unlike what goes on here in Victoria, mind you.

Frawley was turned into an opportunity. The onus is still on us to correctly use that opportunity.

I still remember Morton trying to emulate Cameron Bruce with that arm poised to handball, selling candy like black jelly beans, slow as treacle, caught every time. It was bad enough when Bruce did it.

This.

He'll be on the same money, retired or playing. Evans has ambition to be a lawyer. For a bloke with such ambition, if he has accepted his fate as not being good enough to make it at AFL, or not wanting it enough, why would you want to waste another year of your life delaying your progression in your chosen field? I know that I somewhat regret having squandered some years developing my chosen career, and often think of where I'd be if had have started earlier, and it is a strong motivator. Perhaps he's the same? Often it is talked about, players who get delisted at 23, then suddenly they have to go and work in the "real world" having gained no practical skills from the AFL world that they can use there. Maybe Evans is just a smart guy who has shifted his career focus? I hear lawyers can earn quite a bit... (I wouldn't feel too bad for Georgiou either)

I think Frawley can be a great player, just not at our club, and pick 3 gives us the ability to work on rebuilding the midfield, where we need to inject talent. Paul Roos proved that our backline can function just fine without Frawley, as good as he is.