SaberFang

I find all this talk about St Kilda's number one pick being better than potentially 2&3 or 3&4 a bit mystifying. Would've thought GWS would rather the latter option by far. If they get those high picks it gives them 2, 3 and 4 and they could trade those away to another established team in exchange for just about any gun player they want. Even the Hawks would probably jump at the chance to offload one of their midfielders if it meant injecting a top 3 pick, and GWS end up big winners. Why just deal with package deals that only include Saints players, all for the illustrious pick 1? I reckon StK would be mad to keep ditching their senior players anyway. We've all seen how disastrous that can be for youth development.

When is the Casey team named? Please please please let Hogan be in.

Would be good to see Michie in this week. He's got to be a shoe-in after last week's deplorable effort by the ones.

If anything they'll demote Grimes to leadership group for a year then trade if necessary, but they aren't going to trade a captain right off the bat.

Even more farcical is the extra $1m in their salary cap is on top of the COLA allowance. This is a good article surmising the way GWS manipulated the system of AFL gifted concessions to amass so much young talent over the last 5 years: http://www.news.com.au/sport/afl/rivals-tip-juggernaut-as-greater-western-sydney-amasses-top-draft-picks/story-fnelctok-1226492372863 2014 - 44-50 senior list, nine rookies with $640,000 - $1m TPP extra allowance; 2015 - 44-48 senior list, nine rookies with $640k - $880k TPP extra allowance; 2016 - 42-46 senior list, nine rookies with $520k - $760k TPP extra allowance; 2017 - 40-44 senior list, nine rookies with $400k - $640k TPP extra allowance; 2018 - 38-42 senior list, nine rookies with $200k - $520k TPP extra allowance; 2019 - 38 senior list, nine rookies in line with other AFL clubs.

Touche, didn't realise that. But as above, extra $1m in their salary cap and larger list so they can hoard talent without having to give it up to other clubs.

This year they get a bonus pick at the end of the first round, so #19. So that makes their first 3 picks #3, #19 and #22.

GWS are still getting concessions despite having the best crop of young talent in the competition. It's a friggen joke and everyone in the AFL knows it. Meanwhile we look like schmucks even raising the topic. Why on earth do GWS deserve to still be receiving bonus picks in the draft when they already have so much talent held hostage?

2 midfielders or 1 Cameron?

Not disagreeing but given GWS have $1m more in their salary cap than anyone else, they can afford to pay 150% what any given player deserves. It's a joke but that's the AFL for ya. Will take until 2019 for GWS to have a normal salary cap like every other team, and even then the AFL will change the rules if it means protecting their precious expansion clubs.

With so few inside 50's, do people honestly think Hogan will make much difference when he comes in? Key forwards are useless if the backline can't get the ball to the midfield, and the midfield doesn't get it to the forwards. If they continue fumbling around with 500 possessions every attempted passage from one end to the other, we'll continue to be a static, scoreless football club.

Jordie's was a high pressure kick?? No, a high pressure kick was Salem's set shot goal that won us the Essendon match with 19 seconds on the clock. There's a kid who can put his mind in the right headspace to win games... just treat it as a standard training kick. It's all mental.

In fairness to Kent, Dawes can't mark anything right now and nobody else in the damn team was scoring goals. It was selfish, yes, but at least he was trying to take the game on and drag us forward. Would be pretty uninspiring watching your teammates aimlessly handball backwards and forth all day to no avail.

Roos will be trading away our early picks, absolutely certain of it. He will inject the club with immediate and proven talent. What's the point of injecting more youth into a basket case when it's plain to see what happens when you bring in successful and established players like Daniel Cross? I don't even care if ROK is "past it", he's a vast improvement on at least 25 other players on our list and probably 6 that played on the weekend.

There seem to be real cultural problems still plaguing the team on field, as if they actually have very little mateship with each other. The pathetic response to the Pedo hit yesterday, and only one player coming over to congratulate JKH on his first career goal, are only two examples that greatly concern me. Fortunately PR clearly made a point of the latter, as every player on the field made sure to come congratulate Salem on his first goal. Here's hoping he brought up the incident with Pedo with the playing group as well.

GWS are going to have to tank a lot harder if they want to leap frog us down the ladder.

What's the minimum amount of players we actually need to draft, 3? It'll be Billy and two others, max. Roos isn't going to bother with drafting kids, he'll inject every available talent from other clubs that he can, as fast as he can.

Tappy just had his papers stamped.

What would everyone honestly prefer? Finishing the year with 6 wins and ~14th on the ladder, or finishing second last with only 4 wins and picks 2 & 3? The only thing appealing about the latter is what Roosy could do with those picks, as it gives us incredible leverage to get almost any player he wants to the MFC. On the flip side, we're all sick to death of waiting for the next "great white hope" from early draft picks.

From reports they are highly keen on Petracca. Obviously unhappy about any situation where we finish beneath them on the ladder, as our two picks before them will probably ensure Petracca is long gone before their first pick. Solution? Tank! Also gives us very little bargaining power to trade picks and nab Cameron/Shiel, so it's quite logical for them to stay beneath us.

Jones isn't leaving, that's never ever going to happen. Bigger chance of Viney leaving for goodness sake.

Yep, total no-brainer and very similar to Cross last year. Even if he only plays a few games, the training standards he and Crossy lead off-field will have a halo effect on the rest of the players, continuing to set the standard for AFL fitness.

Surely McKenzie and Crossy to tag Rockliff and Hanley? It would be very Roos-like to want to make a statement the week after both players got 45+ disposals each. He'll want to negate any trace of impact they have purely as a talking point.

Strategically, debuting Hogan vs West Coast in Perth is so logically sensible, I'd be stunned if it didn't reach fruition. Debuting in front of his friends and family. Tick. Being a key player in our revenge for round 2. Tick. Getting to celebrate his first win at the MFC in his first game in his home town... hopefully tick. Club would be wise to let him stay the weekend and fly back the day after. WCE have gone so far off the boil, it reaffirms their flat track bully status in my mind. Given the way they annihalated us earlier in the year, they'll be coming into the match expecting an easy kill and we'll teach them a lesson or two. And they're also experts at late season tanking when their season is done and dusted.

ROK to MFC is as good as done if Sydney delist him. Can't see any other team that needs his leadership the way we do, maybe barring St Kilda. Similar to Crossy. No other team was even interested due to their needs, and he was an absolute steal for us. Rest assured our fitness team will do their due diligence before signing him, as we did before we signed up Crossy. If he's "finished" like some claim, we won't sign him. But even 15 games would make him a worthy acquisition.