Machsy

there are some good puns in there somewhere

something about an angus beef meat paddy

ill let someone else do it

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.

Not wrong. Predominantly played off half-back.

Story goes that Rendell wanted to see what he was like in midfield and asked the coach to give him a spell in midfield to see how he went.

After Dangerfield dominated, he quickly asked him to get him back to the flank!

The other the thing to consider when reviewing the Dangerfield pick is that the draft rules at the time allowed 17 year olds (turning 18 the following year) to be included in the pool. Dangerfield was a bottom ager in his draft year, and a lot of clubs were inclined to go with older age prospects as safer bets (due to greater exposed form of the older draftees I suppose). Rule changes came in when the new franchises came in (and subsequently given priority access to the best 17 year olds).

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.

I'm hoping Harrison Wigg slides - best kick of this draft class I reckon.

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 choose to liken the Toump to Nick Malceski. similar run, carry, distributor type players, albeit Malceski is a bigger body.

Malceski was a slow developer also, was drafted in 2002 and didn't consolidate his senior spot at Sydney until 2007. Nobody batted an eyelid because he was taken at 64 in the draft and, like Toumpas, was recovering from some injury troubles.

Has gone on to become an All Australian and one of the more damaging half backs in the game.

If Toumpas wasn't an early draft pick, we'd probably be taking the pragmatic view that he is young, developing, managing a developing body and an outside player, who will also struggle in a side that has great difficulty winning and keeping the footy.

Malceski struggled in the Swans 2's that was playing in the Canberra league and winning by 100 plus points every week. Toumpas was running around in a Casey side that was getting smashed, in often heavy conditions and had lost their best inside ball winner from the previous year in Magner. I'm still amazed at how he was able to play his best senior game for us in 2013 in horrendous conditions in Geelong.

We're all a bit jumpy because it is vitally important to us that he develops into the player he was drafted to be.

Give him time, he'll be fine.

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?

for some reason im more excited about pick 40 than pick 3

Have a feeling we will get another steal like JKH

You are a weird unit.

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

ah Paul pj Johnson

Did one memorable thing in the red and blue jumper.....the chase in front of the mcc, I think against Brisbane

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

Funny as hell.

Newton is in exactly the same position as Michie and Riley last year in that he's a youngish mid who couldn't crack it for a game with his club. Most expected too much from Michie and Riley and I'm just expecting Newton to be a possible mid at this stage.

The reality is that if we are to progress we need a couple of the young mids to step up but at this stage I don't think Michie or Riley showed they'd be anything more than dime a dozen mids. I hope but don't expect more of Newton. My hopes lie with Salem, JKH and Toumpas along with any mids from pick 2 and 3 this year. But those guys are young so they will be useful class in a few years.

Those trying to find a spot for Grimes need to do two things. The first is to recognized at he is clearly best 22 despite DL groupthink and the other is to remember that Lumumba played midfield/wing for Collingwood and Roos is on record as saying he's pleased to have a big bodied mid added to the squad for next year. IMO Lumumba will play in the midfield.

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

Ah, okay then.

My memory is that we had first choice of the zoned gws players, selected Barry as part of the Hogan / extra pick / Toumpas / Viney deal.

I think the Hawks essentially gave GWS Gilham for Anderson.

That's what I recall.

barry's chosen sport at the private school he went to in ballarat was tennis, wasn't it? that's why he had a scholarship there?

shame we didn't go anderson.

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.

She rates 2m Peter at 2.

must have seen the same talents as I do.

Very good judge she is 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.

Morton got a lot of touches in his early days but they weren't really damaging. His biggest problem was he was so slow to get ball to foot, under pressure he was terrible.

It's sad but he just wasn't able to translate his footy to the highest level

Oh, almost forgot, you're absolutely right

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.

I understand Evans already has a Commerce degree and has been studying Law part time. I could see that he might believe his future is best served concentrating on a non-football profession rather than spending countless hours in the gym and on the paddock for no guarantee of a successful football career. And good luck to him, whatever he chooses to do.

This.

The alarming thing is that we have a player not wanting to stay on our rookie list (bearing in mind he's long odds to get picked by another club).

That's really not a good sign that a guy would rather give up his shot at AFL than have another year as a rookie on very good money.

The ball is in Evans' court. Maybe he'll take the offer. Maybe the best thing for both parties is if he doesn't even if that means we pay out his full deal.

But at the end of the day I am glad we've brought in McCartney, Byrnes and Plapp because we can't have guys hating the Casey/MFC dynamic so much that they'd rather not even be on an AFL list.

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)

Demonland groupthink.

Frawley can't play.

It just strikes me as strange that for a player not many here rate the brains trust of the two best clubs over the last 10 years or so fought for his services.

Heavens are they dumb or what.

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.