Matsuo Basho

Yeah ... we could get a guaranteed Jimmy Toumpas, Jarrad Grant or Jono O’Rourke! Or one of those King Bros who I’ve heard are the Next Big Things! Saberfang - we are entering a five year premiership window. We need a quality fullback. A proven fullback. They don’t grow on trees. You can’t keep building from the bottom with 18yos forever. The time has come to load up with seasoned talent for a proper crack at silverware.

Better chuck those tea leaves into the compost, Amigo! #rpfcstrikesout

No shortage of irony in a few prominent posters claiming to now by ‘reading the tea leaves’ either having no clue that this was going to happen a few weeks ago, or adamant that it would never happen while they remained above ground. Talk about run with the foxes and hunt with the hounds! All fun though. Human nature to want to come out crowing.

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Don’t think that’s quite accurate, B’bub. There’s circus and theatre but a very real negotiation underway. Still an outside possibility Hogan stays. Mahoney isn’t bluffing. The foot issue thing is clearly bogus.

200!

“Guy doesn’t walk on the lot unless he wants to buy”

Great analogy MazerRack. Spot on. In fact I sold my Xtrail not long ago through Carsales and had to go through EXACTLY that rigamaroll. In the real estate game it’s called ‘undermining vendor confidence’.

If the next Silvagni son is on a par with the current one he’d be worth roughly pick 88 in the rookie draft. Absolute spud Jack Silvagni.

Yes, and “as it sits now we expect Jesse to be playing for Melbourne next season”. Freo would’ve bristled at that. Mahoney copped criticism from some last year for appearing too accommodating to Adelaide over Lever. Well, we are seeing his hard arse bonafides here in no uncertain terms. Great stuff.

Add Walsh and Shiel and natural progression of Dow, maybe a couple of big bodied mature journeymen to support Cripps and their midfield looks dramatically different inside 24 months. I agree on their spine. Looking good.

C’mon ProDee you’re smarter than that. Brinkmanship 101. Laughably obvious in truth.

No they haven’t. They were always going to throw his ‘dicky foot’ up as a tactic to push price down. Someone at Freo is feeding Tom Browne bulltish the way Old McDonald spreads feed for chooks. ‘Touring the facilities’, saying Lobb is more of a priority ... all ploys to get Melbourne to cave on a the two first rounders demand. All these tactics are in fact a measure of their keenness. It’s off the charts. Sit tight Dees we will extract our price. Patience, patience catches the prey.

Forget the West Coast prelim. We were emotionally out of petrol tickets before the ball had been bounced. Look more at the Grand Final, where you’ve got two quality midfields on their game going at full click. The difference at the end of the day was Kennedy was too big and too good on a few critical occasions for the Pie defenders. Darling too won a few brute strength one on ones that we’re telling. Result? The Eagles return home with a fourth Cup for their trophy cabinet. 5 point victors. Lever will be a welcome return to the side (let’s hope his knee stands up after a SECOND reco) but he is not a gorilla minder in the manner Steve May is. Sorry but I’m not willing to trust Oscar and Frost as a pairing on the off hunch that both are going to become AA quality key defenders over the preseason. I don’t just want to make the Big Dance like we’ve done in the past ... I want to win the damned thing. Thankfully it appears our FD are thinking the same thing. The fact that Collingwood and Hawthorn are also chasing May should tell you something. At the top end winning and losing a flag is a game of slender margins. Go into a Grand Final with a shaky back six at your peril.

How can you be optimistic about a defence that finished bottom 4-6 in key defensive statistical categories? Because you’re ‘confident’ Oscar and Frost will magically morph into Barrass and McGovern over the off-season? Seems all you’ve got is a pretty flimsy gut feel and that’s about it.

True, got me there. However I’m quite bullish about Carlton’s list build. I expect them to go past at least half a dozen sides over the next 24 months. You can rise up pretty quickly with astute drafting/trading. Case in point - us!

Good on them. If you’re not first you’re last in this business.

Agree that media opinions are irrelevant but in truth everything’s negotiable. This is business!

Bluff. Bluff. Bluff. How do you play hardball when you just finished 14th on the ladder and are trying to poach a contracted key forward from the club that finished 4th? That math don’t work!

Let’s hope Freo aren’t engaging in hy-pathetic-als.

Hardball. ?

It doesn’t. That’s why we’re pursuing May with vigor. Our back six as it currently stands is not good enough to win a premiership. Frost is back up quality only, Oscar still developing, Lever a star but has now had two knee recos. We got picked apart by Kennedy and Darling (and a number of other key forward set ups in 2018) and will again if we don’t strengthen the defence.

Thanks. What these analyses fail to acknowledge is the intangible of the level of desperation on the part of the buyer. It’s a bull market as far as we’re concerned for Hogan.

Thanks DC. Which journo wrote it?

The bottleneck as someone said earlier is the Neale trade to Brisbane. There will be no movement on Hogan until that trade is clarified.