Bang Bang Bang

Based on my memories and some of the early comments in this thread, Lukosius has gotten nowhere near living up to the early hype that was placed on him. Very similar to Jack Watts as others have alluded to. Was JW really that bad though? Played nearly 200 games and there were plenty of good ones among them. My gut feeling is that Goody wouldn't rate him but if he came with a 2nd round pick going back the other way, I'd be all for it. Not every single player out there has to be insane like Jack Viney, as long as they bring other skills to the table. IMO Lukosius is the best field kick in the league.

Burgess was the single most influential figure to our flag IMO (I know this is highly debatale). However it would appear Selwyn has done a very good job with how seamless the transition has been. We were a bit flat in the back half of 2022 but otherwise we are still pretty healthy, avoid soft tissues injuries as good as any club can, and we are still last quarter beasts most weeks.

Not one for a 'Name a Game' VHS but great to win ugly off a 5 day break and three extra players for the Crows. Blake Howes being a gun defender was not on my 2024 bingo card but I'm all for it. Would have taken 3-3 before opening round and most certainly after it, to be 4-2 or 5-1 at the bye is a HUGE result for this team. Our best is yet to come.

The Ginnivan stuff is being overplayed. Umpires aren't paying the Selwood arm-raise to anyone these days. Kosi gets nothing for it too. Ginnivan just gets all the attention because he's a high profile ducker. I'm glad umpires aren't falling for it but it's a bit annoying that they waited until the year AFTER Selwood retired to actually wake up to it. Selwood got away with it for 15 years and has even admitted he made a career out of it. The one that still really pisses me off is the Rozee one from last week. The free kick manipulators have already moved on to this and umpires are falling for it. Beats me how Rivers copped a fine.

Conor Rozee is a [censored] disgrace and ANB is a [censored] boss. One of my favourite H&A wins in the Goody era. Superb.

Jack has well and truly lived up to the early hype placed on him. Unlucky not to have an AA blazer and has all the other accolades. Hopefully he can get to 300!

Seems like a strange one to do so early in the season. Hopefully we see more of him as I remember a couple of games late last year where he really showed promise.

1. Geelong: It's starting to wane a bit now that Ducking Sookwood has retired and Dangerfield is slowing up, but the sheer smugness that comes out of that club, led by their coach C.Scott and the aforementioned leaders, is too much for me to handle. Them being good every year and never going away adds to it too. Can't stand them. 2. Port Adelaide: They are just so cringe and they have had a never ending cycle of hateable players, from the Tredrea and Cornes brothers era through to today. Achieved nothing of note but have that arrogance and smugness about them. 3. Essendon: They've been irrelevant for so long but the early 2000s and peptides saga hasn't been forgotten. 4. Richmond/Collingwood/Carlton: All sort of the same to me. Insufferable fans and not teams I want to see do well, but their actual teams don't bother me.

He actually only missed one game from that incident, and he would have had to miss it anyway due to concussion protocols. Also famously played the GF with a 12-week hamstring tear, if he misses just one with his latest injury then the guy is just made differently. Good result for us though!

Finally able to get to a computer, but what a great win that was. We tend to overreact either way to the result of one game, but for mine the difference between starting a season 0-2 vs 1-1 is enormous. Huge. The Swans game was a mulligan but it put the pressure on us. If we came out and lost to the Dogs.... 2019 alarm bells would be ringing in my head. So, I was [censored] bricks when the Dogs got the jump on us early, and then again when JUH was starting to light up in the last quarter. I'm glad we made light work of them in the end. Looks like May and Gawn are still as good as they were three years ago, Trac is still at his peak and Clarry's performance was one for the ages. The influence Kosi has on the outcome of matches can't be underestimated. Those five hold the key to us being in the hunt deep in September IMO. I actually like Tomlinson but that's the best looking defensive set up I've seen from us in quite a while. Hore and TMac were terrific, random as [censored] that they're both back there after years in the wildeness, but I like it. Howes is competent and McVee looks even better this year than last. Negatives: As touched on here already Sparrow continues to do just enough to scrape by but nothing more than that. I thought Lever was quite poor at times giving away needless free kicks. Salem is not actually a parituclarly good kick IMO and is not flourishing in his new role. He was OK though.

Perfect hit out. Looks like our old warriors still have it, some younger role players are ready to step up, and our teenagers (namely Windsor) have serious talent. Not convinced by Schache's role, even in the short term, but even he kicked 2 and did his bit. Clarry looks like he's going to be cherry ripe just in time for Round 0 too.

Gawn has turned 32 over summer but looks like maybe he's getting better if anything? Truly a freak of nature. Hope he can do a Tomahawk over the next few years. WIndsor looks like a good draft pick and will play in Sydney. I'd expect Hunter to regain his place eventually but hopefully CW can make it hard for him because he offers a point of difference. Terrific goal! The butchering of set shots is interesting. Fritsch, JVR and Kosi to a lesser extent are all pretty good kicks for goal so what's happening there? It's February so the pressure excuse can't be used. Maybe it's purely luck-driven. Scary thought for September.

February is a bit early for Goody melts IMO but I do appreciate the passion of some on here. Only caught the last passage and it was all Richmond TBH, but Windsor was busy. I don't think Hunter and even Langdon will be walk up starts this year. Shame Fox pulled the plug early. Clarry already playing footy in red and blue is a huge WIN relative to a month or two ago. EDIT: It's back and I got it going just in time to see Clarry snag a left-footed goal from the boundary. Glorious.

I feel like Clarry is at that age and experience level whereby a full pre season isn't quite as important for success as it is for someone like Jefferson or one who's had lots of injury troubles like Salem. I'm confident Clarry will be back getting 35 touches a game by March. Thanks for the reports all! I thought the double straight sets exits might dampen the spirits around here a bit but here we all are again, thirsty for more!

The death ride was great, although it ran out of steam later on. 4 premiership points either way in our favour in Round 24 and we probably could have snared Duursma. Shame the AFL devalued all our deathriding in the blink of an eye with the rubbish McKay compo. Hopefully Windsor turns out OK.

Will be an amazing feat if Tholstrup, Fritsch and Melksham can get on the field together for at least one game. Three games of the most punchable heads you’re ever likely to see in one 50m radius. Glorious. If KT can turn out somewhere near Melksham’s level over the course of his career then I’ll be pleased. Not every first rounder will be a superstar but I think Tholstrup has got regular AFL player and impact player vibes.

[censored] me the draft is painful viewing these days. Do we really need Ben Dixon acting awkward and the kids saying "Yeah nah looking forward to meeting all the boys" and "I model my game on [insert A+ grade player the vast majority will never get near] after every single pick. Can understand it maybe for Harley Reid and leave it at that. The academy bids and pick swaps just elongate it even further. Geelong's pick wasted a good 15 minutes of my life. All that just for us to get the two kids Cal Twomey and everyone else knew we were getting anyway. I remember the good old days of 2003 where you could tune in to the audio on afl.com.au and the first round was done in two minutes. TWENTY YEARS AGO and it was light years ahead of what we get these days.

Yeah I'm not sold on Laurie. Just more making the point that all the future trading hasn't really bitten us yet. Most have worked in our favour. My main concern would be F1 actually being a good pick next year. We have been up for a while and should be up for longer, but the competition is so even that some teams are going to drop next year. It might be us. For me those late round firsties (15-18) aren't very valuable with the way the draft works these days but there are no guarantees F1 becomes one of those. I absolutely love the idea of Watson being a Papley-style antagonist at the Punt Road End and hope we can get him in one way or another. Seems like Windsor is our man though.

Not sure what you mean here. The Weideman draft and Cerra leaving Fremantle were six years apart. We missed out on pick #9 Will Brodie in 2016 (instead of Weideman pick #9 2015) and traded picks that got us Jake Bowey and Bailey Laurie in 2020 for pick 25 in 2020 and pick 20 in 2021. We MIGHT have been able to land Cerra by offering picks 19 and 20 in 2021, but that most likely wouldn't have been accepted and we'd also have no JVR in this alternative scenario.

A lot of the reputable journos start getting it pretty close to the mark around this time and we just keep getting linked to Windsor at 6. Is he our man? Seems like a bit of a reach based on what I’ve read but he fills a need. I’m quietly hoping the Hawks take Curtin and Watson falls to us. Love me a good antagonist. Edit for those wondering: The HS phantom draft has us taking Windsor and Tholstrop.

I saw a comment online that Adelaide tried to get JHF in 2021 by offering three first rounders and were rejected. The three picks ending up being used on Rachele, Rankine and Dawson. Adelaide were MUCH better off in the end not trading. JHF had similar hype to Reid. Ignoring his personality for a minute, JHF looks like an incredible player at times but he only performs in bursts and there’s no guarantees he’ll even make it as an elite midfielder. I still want us to trade for Reid because it’s worth the risk IMO but hopefully it works out either way for us.

It's a very expensive price to pay for pick 1, but I'm still on board with the whole Harley Reid thing. Pick 6 is a very good pick. Pick 11 and F1 are good picks. 42 is worthless to us but a useful pick for a rebuilding club. I think WCE will end up accepting it. People will talk about points and all that stuff, but I find that irrelevant. The same stuff was said in 2019 when we traded with North and nobody has said boo since it landed us Pickett. My main concern would be if Reid ends up being the next Raynor or is injury prone, but if he is good enough and in the Petracca / Dusty class then it won't matter what we pay.

American sports do that but it’s not allowed in AFL trading. Not yet anyway. Cal Twomey has had about 90-100% strike rates with his top 10 phantom drafts in recent years, so if he knows what clubs are doing then I’m fairly certain West Coast will know in advance with 99.9% confidence if Curtin is available at 6 or not.

Those crazy enough to have read 2013 pre season training reports would remember that Billings trained with us prior to being drafted. We would have taken him at 2 (glad we didn't) and there's the Alan Richardson connection. I'm not surprised we were the mystery club. Interestingly all three of our new players didn't have much noise in the weeks prior. I personally don't rate Billings all that highly, but we need depth and he offers a point of difference. Low risk and we are likely to get games out of him.

I stand corrected. Sounds like Hawks aren’t super keen on getting Gunston back despite a trade request.