titan_uranus

Dunkley yes. Gunston is an interesting one. They're not short of goalkickers. Losing McStay barely changes that. Their major problem is defence. Dunkley helps but I don't think he elevates them from a terrible defensive side to one which can win a flag. They get Ashcroft too, but unless I'm missing something they are short of picks/points and are going to have to do some trading to get them in (and any compensation for McStay gets cancelled/watered down by bringing Gunston in). Does that mean they have to give a player or two up?

Whether or not this is good for Brisbane is irrelevant. I don't know what you think I'm "disguising" here. You are upset we aren't bringing Gunston in. Which in my argument is a silly thing to be upset about because you don't know: whether we enquired; or whether he would have been interested in moving to another Melbourne club (given he is quoted as saying he's looking for a "change of lifestyle").

Are we going to do this every time another player goes to another club? Are we upset about Dunkley, or De Goey, or McStay, or Rankine, or Lobb, or Logue, or Rioli, or Amon? And do you know we didn't "throw our hat in the ring"? And besides all of this, isn't Gunston going for a change up to his late-stage career having won three premierships and played in Victoria for 10 years, now he wants to try something new - so would he even have moved club just to say in Melbourne?

Chiefs, Eagles, Rams

Agree with this. All this talk about managing players like Geelong did. They had easier opponents and an extra 1-2 wins than us and so were able to rest players. We hadn't locked up top 4 and couldn't afford to rest players, as our games were all against finalists or sides in contention for finals. The WC-North fortnight was probably the one time this year we had the chance to give a sore player or two a break, but I don't see what we were supposed to do in the last 8 weeks when our ladder position was on the line.

I've always liked Tomlinson more than the general vibe on Demonland. But his contract is disproportionate to his potential role in 2023 and beyond. We can't be spending as much money as we are on a player who is depth, even if I rate that depth more than most. Particularly when we have Turner coming along as a key defender, and we've just re-contracted another defender in Smith. There should be a club in the league who could use Tomlinson and if we have to pay a portion of his salary to facilitate the trade, that should be a win-win-win.

I can only see this working with Grundy doing more ground coverage and more forward half ruckwork, and Gawn sitting behind the play when the ball's in our forward half and looming as an intercepter, which we know he excels at. I don't agree that a first round pick is the right price if we're paying 50% or more of Grundy's contract, but I suspect the club doesn't care and sees a plan with Grundy that wins us another flag.

I think you can mount an argument the opposite is true. Are you telling me Collingwood wouldn't have obtained a better output from Grundy over Mason Cox's 2 marks, 5 disposals, 2 tackles and 18 hit outs? Darcy Cameron played number 1 ruck most of the year, but he's got strong forward qualities. Collingwood were beaten in CPs and clearances most weeks and Grundy's historically been a ruck who can play as an additional midfielder. I'd have thought yesterday highlighted how Grundy over Cox, shifting Cameron into the forward/ruck role, would make Collingwood a better side.

@Mach5 hasn't exactly been neutral on this topic in the past. That said, I have no inside knowledge and have no way of knowing who is right/wrong.

I assume you're a doctor/physio and you can definitively confirm that the speed of TMac's rehab contributed to the re-injury?

I generally agree with this, and with Montagna last night who said this was their year and their chance. History tells us they are highly unlikely to go 11-1 (or whatever it was) in close games in next year’s H&A season. Port was that side last year, couldn’t replicate it this year, missed finals. The fixture though is an unknown. It should be harder, given their finish, but that is no guarantee. We will, though, be seeing a heck of a lot of them in prime time.

Tonight just shows how bad we were last week. Brisbane were out of place tonight. Should not have been playing a prelim, and would not have had we done our job last week.

It's all about balance. We may well have got the balance wrong in having players go back to training too soon after the GF. But if you're going to get it wrong, I'd prefer to have players doing more training rather than not enough. It's very easy to criticise now, but no one was criticising their desire and drive back in December, were they.

That argument is not convincing at all. We had 11 games against eventual finalists. Richmond had 7, Collingwood, Geelong and Sydney all had 8. Despite that, we finished 2nd. So even if our 10-0 start was just "soft kills", we had fewer of those opportunities than everyone else in the top 8 and finished above all of them except Geelong.

Chargers, Bucs, Colts

Surprised this has been up for two hours without a "talk is cheap" post.

The AFL can't control the strength of the run home schedule, as they can't know which sides are going to be good. But they can control travel and short breaks. It's ludicrous that we had six straight games at different venues, inclusive of back-to-back six day breaks. No side should have that, ever.

If you want to take that approach, Collingwood should have missed finals. All sides had close games which could have gone either way.

We also need to stop dismissing the draw as irrelevant. There’s nothing unfair about it. Under the current system, the AFL has no choice but to base it on the prior year’s results. But I don’t think it’s unreasonable to note that from Round 11 onwards our draw was brutal. It’s an important piece of the overall puzzle. Of those 12 games, 11 of them were against sides in finals contention, and that we didn’t have a proper bye, and that we had six weeks in a row at different venues, and with multiple road trips and comparatively few games in Melbourne. No let up. So that factors in to our sore/injured players, whether we could/should have rested players, the pressure we faced weekly, etc.

Maybe. But he's also the journalist who said Carey and Stevens "came to blows", then had Carey say he didn't touch Stevens, then had to say "the dictionary defines "come to blows" as including stern words". He dominates trade radio and associated media. He will be saying a hell of a lot over the next few weeks. It won't all be right.

I'm disappointed, but neither surprised nor angry. Let's just get the best possible haul for him and move on.

This is fair, although Port, Essendon and GWS were all poor in the first half of the year. The main fixture issue is that we faced almost exclusively good sides from Round 11-23. There was no break in that period where we had North or West Coast or a cooked side. Adelaide was the only side we played in that period who wasn't in finals contention at the time. Those two figures for Brisbane and Sydney are huge. Our opposition's pressure is out of our control. Yet we regularly saw opponents reach season-high ratings against us. Teams continually found ways to get themselves up when playing us. We were drained, I reckon. We copped huge pressure almost every week; Brisbane in Rounds 15 and 23 might be the only times our opponent was short of intense?

You can't just put players out and see what nibbles come back. How do you think Salem will feel when he finds out? And he will sure as [censored[ find out. It's destabilising.

Gawn, Oliver and Viney pretty harsh to be the first three discarded!

The quote of mine in the middle post is correct. There is no evidence to support your argument that we lost those mid-season games because we were loading. It is possible we were loading, and it just didn’t work. But there is no evidence to support that argument because there is no evidence we were loading. All you have is your views on industry practice and the assumption you have drawn that we must have done it as a result. You might be right. But I don’t believe there is any evidence you are actually right, and us not running out games well late in the year does not support your argument.