Axis of Bob

Anybody can have an opinion, but some are worth more than others. Would you listen to Madonna’s opinion on Australian monetary policy? Or my opinion on pet fashion trends? In my opinion, the Dunning-Kruger curve is excellent.

Nobody on here is as sure of their knowledge about draftees as you.

Spargo would kick 6 a game at SANFL reserves level. The Pickett stuff is hilarious.

More class off half back. Nobody is arguing against it. The argument is whether picking a half back flank distributor with a top 3 pick is the best use of our finite draft resources. The players you listed indicated that you don’t need to use such an early pick to get class across half back.

Houli: pick 42 (then preseason draft) Stewart: pick 40 (mature age) Mills: drafted as a midfielder at pick 3 Geary (really?): pick pick 58 Sicily: pick 56 Hurn: pick 13 McGrath: pick 1 Williams: pick 54 in the rookie draft. So I’m not exactly sure what point you’re making in response to concerns about drafting a half back distributor at 3.

He did say that small forwards were not something we were looking to trade for but we would likely look to bring in that type through the draft. He didn’t say when, but we only have 3, 8 and 97 at the moment.

I’m looking forward to the melts from Rusty if we don’t pick Young. He’s already penned him into our backline ahead of our best small defender!

If you think we'll draft bad players then why are you upset that we traded next year's first round pick? ?

That makes no sense. If we wanted the Geelong picks then there’s no reason to d the North trade. We would have just done the deal direct to Geelong. He said that after trading up for pick 8, so he didn’t do it for nothing! He clearly believes that top 10 picks are disproportionately valuable, otherwise he wouldn’t have tried to trade for it! We traded lesser picks or more value to get one pick in the top 10. Also, if we get a player high on our draft board at pick 6, wouldn’t it also hold true that we would get another player high on our draft board at pick 8?

Mahoney said that top 10 picks in this draft are really valuable. Much more than second rounders and much more than a top 10 pick next year. I don’t think we’ll be trading either of our high picks unless they are top picks inside the top 10 this year (ie, splitting 3 into 6 + something).

It just makes sense. Reports are that we want Weightman and GWS could argue that we wouldn’t use pick 3 to bid on Green in case we are forced to take him. So they argue that we will accept pick 6 plus something of lowish value to get it done because otherwise it may hurt us. Now we can go to GWS with complete impunity and say “pay up, because we’re definitely bidding for Green and will happily take him unless you give us something seriously valuable in return, or else you’re pick 6 disappears trying to match the bid”. It’s exactly the reason why you can’t look at trades in isolation. North may be getting overs for their trade, but it’s coming from GWS, not us. Mahoney is an excellent trader. Pragmatic and very creative.

The logic is that we now have credibility that we will take Green at 3, since we can get the player we want at 8 anyway. So we are forcing GWS to trade with us for pick 3. I think this means that we'll trade pick 3 for pick 6 plus effectively what we traded to North for pick 8. So the end result at the end will be that we’ll have traded pick 3 for picks 6 and 8.

GWS pretty much have to trade for pick 3 for their strategy to work for them, otherwise they wouldn’t have traded for pick 6. I’d be surprised if they aren’t most of the way to negotiating a deal with us already, but no deal will probably happen until some of the other pieces have fallen into place and the available pieces for trade are known.

Surely if Clarko moulds him into a potential AA superstar ..... then he would already have been a potential AA superstar before Clarko started coaching him. ?

I have completely the opposite view. Our team doesn’t play better because we ‘won’ 2 different trades, we play better because we improved our team overall over the period. The deals are not isolated, they are part of a bigger picture. For instance, everyone was filthy that we paid 25 for Melksham early, and the quickly got 29, 50 and Kennedy for Howe and Toumpas. This place was an absolute nightmare during that time because we were always pushovers etc. Then we used that pick 29 to help us go from pick 6 into pick 3 and 10, before using one of the picks we got back to turn pick 10 into pick 7. And then everyone thought we were geniuses. But we needed the extra second round pick to make those other deals happen, plus time to do the deals, so we took the hit on that trade to do it quickly and cam out as big winners overall. The point is, the trades don’t exist in a vacuum, so it’s short sighted to look at the in isolation.

I think there’s more certainty in the Hawks one. They are likely to be a mid table team again, as they have been for a while now.

From the looks of it, we aren’t expecting much. We just don’t want him and are happy for another club to take him. It’ll get done whenever the clubs want.

Pick 6 and future first (St Kilda’s, let’s say pick 8 next year) vs pick 10 and a future pick 19 (with pick 35 coming back) ...... The first round is a long round and covers everything from pick 1 to a pick in the low 20s.

Steven Armstrong won a flag. So did Jonathan Simpkin.

Can’t kick. But if I think about this, is there a chance that we pick him up for peanuts to play as a pressure forward? Is genuinely quick and may benefit from a less complicated role.

Yes. But not for long!

This is a tired cliche that your are using just because you want to take this particular punt. But your argument is plainly wrong. We took a punt on Luke Molan. We took a punt on Aaron Davey. We took a punt on Liam Jurrah. We took a punt on Michael Newton. We took a punt on James Frawley. We took a punt on James Strauss. We took a punt on Neville Jetta. We took a punt on Jordan Gysberts. We took a punt on Jack Fitzpatrick. We took a punt on Lucas Cook. We took a punt on Jeremy Howe. We took a punt on the 16 year old from WA, Jesse Hogan. We took a punt on Jayden Hunt. We took a punt on Neville Jetta, again. We took a punt on Aaron Vandenberg. We took a punt on Clayton Oliver. We took a punt on Sam Wiedeman. We took a punt on Bayley Fritsch. We took a punt on Oskar Baker. We took a punt on Toby Bedford. There are varying levels of risk taken from with those players (both in terms of the player and the cost of the risk), as there are varying levels of potential reward from taking them. It’s an interesting list that has a lot of wins and a lot of losses. Every club will have a similar list. All clubs take punts. But they need to be calculated punts where the risk is worth the reward, and the rewards will be different for different clubs as will the risks. The Bennell punt is astronomically high risk for a previously injury prone player who then became even more injury prone with a recurring injury, combined with his poor preparation reducing his likelihood of ever getting over injuries .... and also has played 2 games in 3 years. For those risks he’d need to be Haydn Bunton to justify it.

This is hilarious (and sad). It’s like reading a horoscope .... it doesn’t say anything but people will use it to justify the opinions/fears that they already have.

I think we use Max too much as a defensive saver than as an exit kick from defence. We have had real issues trying to get link ups forward of the ball because of injuries to our key forwards and the lack of speed outside the contest. In addition we’ve had injuries to May and Lever all year, plus other issues in defence, so Gawn has played a lot as a kick behind play. I believe the idea behind getting May would have been to release Gawn to be a bit more unpredictable forward of the ball, and we can see him trying to do that a little more later in the season. His poor kicking is not an issue here, as the idea is to win the ball and move it quickly. A mark coming out of defence would result in a number of players moving past and the ball being run forward, rather than having to pinpoint a kick like you do in a slow play. I think ruck dominance is important in stoppages. It’s not so much the hit outs to advantage, but it’s about being able to control the areas where you fight for the clearance. Sure, teams will try to defend it, but there’s a real advantage to getting the ball into an area where your team has an advantage. It’s not a specific advantage, but it’s an advantage that you have in the long run of a game.

If you didn't try so hard to shoehorn this in every time then it would be a little bit less sad. You've jumped on a losing side really early and you're trying desperately to make it an issue. But it's only an issue to you. And it's only an issue to you because you took the wrong side too hard too early as part of some 'hot take' you were making. Now you're just holding on like a gambler who's down a bundle but swears the next spin will be a green. Stop embarrassing yourself. It's very difficult for some of us to watch.