John Demonic

Our forward line becomes The Farm

No trades will happen for any clubs if that is the new standard, it's obviously an anomaly born of GCS desperation to get a home town boy home.

Journos don't have time to track stats it seems. Maybe these are the unintended consequences of not nipping injuries in the bud. We don't persist two or three weeks with Hogan limited to underperforming in the goalsquare, get him into surgery early. He comes back for the last three games like Viney. Sets the world on fire and these trade under scenario's don't get proposed. Recency bias in action I think now, as it's half a season since he dominated. You can bet Freo and our club know his value. And we hold the cards. Best to avoid Freo fans in discussing trade though, they'll pretend he's just a good player.

Cryptic. Is it wingard? He's a great snapper from 30 on a sharp angle

Someone sms red nob that Jesse is tracking better than Josh Kennedy at same age ffs

Cap space would be a bit of an issue i'd assume. But i'm no accountant

Were you responding to me about WC/Hogan? The only premise is that they manage to get Gaff to us through some creative accounting, we make sure they get Hogan, (win/win) and then we use everything they can give us for Hogan in order to get Steven May and a leftover draft pick. Gaff & May is a win to me.

Why not a Jesse Hogan trade to West Coast? Why is the thread exclusive to Freo? I reckon Jesse would take 200K unders to go to a successful club and JK is not getting any younger. Just spitballing and i'll confess my complete ignorance to trade discussion, so please correct any glaring errors. West Coast gain 800K in their cap from Gaff and the salary 350-400k? from Lycett combined leaving. Could it be a situation where they agree to not match Gaff, they pay a frontloaded part of Gaff's salary to ensure he ends up in Demon colours and our cap is not compromised, say 150k per year off a 1million per year 5 year contract. They get Hogan on a backloaded contract and the compensation pick from the AFL for Gaff (if any?) and we get their 2018 1st Pick + 2nd (or player instead) and 2019 first round pick. We then give pick 17, a second round pick and Frost and potentially Tyson to Gold Coast for S. May. We get Gaff, May & 2019 WCE first round pick. Obviously not an exact trade would go down, but something complex that could make it happen. West Coast make a godfather offer (what they have) to get Hogan, GCS accept unders so long as they get players and picks. I await ridicule!

He's an immoveable nugget like mcGovern, it's more about what you have to get around than out reach. But if you're talking about the rare phenomena of 211cm forwards, you play your ruck or 2nd ruck loose deep or have a high leaping intercept like Lever and your kpb applying skillful body positioning.

The kicking coach perhaps ?

Agree with MAY acquisition. But what about offering pick 6 for dylan shiel and a late 2nd or mid range pick back and JT works his magic? Satisfies our immediate outside mid need. Do we really want to wait on the development curve of a pick 6 kid? Kelly, unless he's agreed in principle, then it's too much of a Longshot to plan around.

Lycett / Vardy effect more like it - Dividing the field into two halves for each. I think we've been enamored by Gawns defensive work the most but also realise we've been robbed of fwd Gawn at same time. I think expectations of repeat Cox performances would be unrealistic on Preuss or Gawn Goodwin might be thinking of building the most fortress like defence possible next year with potential s. may acquisition and Gawn dropping back. It would explain the reticence to play Frost until late, no real trust. Really wants to shake up and improve our D after witnessing it [censored] the bed for 2 years

Bored of Board talk. Not a footy politics person? Don't blame ya

I just hope we get Nth twice and he slaughters Majak & Goldfish. +3 on the reverse hoodoo ?

The only answer is that we've been tracking him for a long time I reckon. As have some of us fans with the S May discussion thread on here for 2 years. He was a private school boy in Melbourne, so has his roots here. Probably with some of our players and staff.

He's a mongrel ?

The Big Prussian! We've come full circle.

Massive case of correlation not equaling cause Imo.

He's too introverted. Badum tshh

"Will be available" is such a far off Longshot. If gaff nominates us, we make it happen. Simple as that. I'm a believer in seizing the moment in regards to quality. It's why our FD took Petty in the draft. We didn't need a developing kPD, but they couldn't believe Petty slid to our draft pick so we had to seize the opportunity. In this case we do actually need gaff.

I've had a sinking feeling all year that Collingwood were the best team in the comp given that they genuinely blew us off the park and we had no chance even if we were up for the fight initially, unlike other losses where we didn't cope with weather or never showed up. If you think it's all about fixturing or luck then I think that's just denial. The pies play a scintillating and fast style that makes everything fall into place for them. Ive been in denial all year and the last vestige of it is in the hands of the Eagles. Denial that our last two losses were more about our poor form than simply being not skillful or fast enough to stay with them Ive even mocked a few magpie fan comments that whinged they only lost to Richmond because of mid game injuries, even though I had that feeling that they might have been right. Somehow I think the circus atmosphere will spook the Eagles again like in 15 and they'll be overrun in the second half through sheer weight of repeated surges forward.

Preuss is an imposing figure, he can more than hold his own. Therefore we should be emboldened by Mason cox's performance in having confidence that one of our duo can be a strong marking forward for 70-80% game time. Lever and May allow Gawn to rest forward reliably instead of in defence too. Hogan, VDB, petracca given more time in middle as bulls as Weed TMAC & Preuss is enough. Then we alternate a new small forward in there with spargo, hannan and melk.

i was suprised to hear that wingards demand may have come down to 800 on AFL Tonight. He clearly has the greatest upside of all crumbing forwards, which of course comes with the greater risk at the price given inconsistency. Although 800 isn't what it used to be. Could end up a bargain if he kicks 50-60 a year. Tough to trade for him though.

I do most of my AFL social media on reddit's /r/AFL community, which is a pretty respectful place where boastful arrogance is downvoted and the highest upvoted comments from eagles fans today were genuine congratulatory messages for our year in the post match thread. "You should be proud of your team" "Bad day at the office but you had a ripper of a season", "It was a great season. Melbourne played some exciting footy this year." & "I was not expecting that performance from Melbourne but Richmond were the best team this season and I genuinely feel that Melbourne's best was equivalent to Richmond's best. As shitty as today is, it's not 186. Your boys will bounce back from this and raise the bar for themselves over the next couple of years." I guess if you're judging a club by their vitriolic fans at a match, or idiots from bigfooty or facebook pages then you'll probably end up hating every single club vehemently, but only distinguishing who you hate least by the higher ratio of civil people to idiots. I'm running out of other clubs to want to win a premiership (Freo, StK) so I guess i'll jump on the Eagles. That egotistical Fratboy Mason Cox rubs me the wrong way, and so does my arrogant Collingwood supporting cousin.

I recall him only saying that he needs to improve his positioning and not be pushed under so easily. So he was bang on. No one with half a brain said he needed to be dropped as you dont destabilize team structure in a prelim.