Lord Nev

Can now sell him to Gold Coast as a swingman.

Apart from the fact Watts has played more than twice as many games of course.

Absolute cracker from an attitude and work ethic point of view. Not many who transition from other sports have that real old school footy 'bull' intensity, but this bloke was as tough at the footy as it comes. Well done on what you achieved Corey.

Third hand info, so take it as you will from an anonymous guy on the internet, but have heard we won't be getting Hill. Apparently the club rates the talent we can get with our first pick this year higher than Hill, and Freo are at the moment expecting a high first round pick.

I didn't say anything about Misson. Think you're attributing me to the wrong post mate.

I love the idea of Roughy as a forwards coach, but reckon he's pretty much cooked playing wise. Guess it depends on what else happens with our list though I guess.

I still believe TMac and Weid can be our main men up forward. Both have had horror years carrying existing injuries and then copping more. Not saying they will be the best combo in the league, but with full fitness and better delivery from a tweaked game plan and more outside players will make a big difference to their effectiveness. I'm all for us adding to our key forward stocks, I just don't think we need to chase a high-priced star to make it work well enough for us to challenge.

Not sure if I'd label it a vacancy as such, but more a need for quality depth maybe? Looking at our list demographic talent-wise, my guess would be we'd need to either draft or free agent a KPF. I haven't kept a close eye on the draft this year as I didn't think I'd need to (classic Melbourne), but as far as free agent KPF options go there's: Levi Casboult. Adam Tomlinson (probably more wing, but could play KPF). Justin Westhoff. Ryan Schoenmakers. That's going by the most recent list I could find anyway. Not a lot to choose from, but one of those could be ok. I'm sure there's other FA options that I haven't seen or don't know much about though.

Ah ok. My impression was always that it was more about Watts not being enough of a contested player for Goodwin's style. As much as I've heard he loves a good time, I've never heard one negative thing about Watts' cultural impact. Even taking what you say as gospel, I wouldn't have thought their cultural issues were comparable.

May, Lever, OMac and Frost all named against a short Collingwood forward line, in the wet. Surely there'll be at least one late change? My guess is May will play forward and Hore in for OMac.

Yep, I'd definitely be ok with keeping that first pick and getting Langdon and Martin. If we could also manage to pick up a quality free agent then that's a reasonably successful offseason IMO.

Fair enough mate, I'm not against it and agree with a lot of what you're saying. Just personally, I would rather do what we need to to get Hill as I'm not sold on Martin as an outisde runner, and think he plays his best footy at half back (which might also be handy for us anyway). That's the reason I posted that stat comparison, to illustrate the massive difference particularly in uncontested possessions. FWIW Martin is out of contract and has "put off talks", so he'd definitely be very gettable.

The point is we don't need more average utility players more than we need outside runners. The point of the stats is the uncontested possessions and metres gained, they would be the most important statistical indicators for our needs, so they are not irrelevant at all. I'm not against going for Martin, but he's not a similar player to Hill IMO, so I don't see why we would go for him instead of Hill. What makes you think Hill is not a realistic possibility?

To be fair, it's being mentioned on Demonland because various news articles have stated it.

Maybe as well as, but not instead of...

Petty. May forward. OR pending the weather they may drop OMac all together and bring in Hore. It's a very tall backline for a possibly wet and windy day.

Always liked him, but would think he's the last thing we'd look at given we need speed and creativity. What would he do during the 86% of game time he's not needed?

Yeah, but with Jones and Lewis undecided about next year, Frost possibly due for a payrise should he re-sign and the minimum spend in the cap, it would be pretty tight maneuvering. The increases for TMac and Gus potentially could have made a 200-300k difference in total too.

Yeah true, but it's not a good look for the competition that covered up for Essendon to turn around a give a club with a banned player a 'reward' (perceptually speaking) just a couple of months later.

Not sure if that's what he meant, or just that he's focusing on the season still at this stage.

Would be 31 before next season starts, so it would be a no from me as much as I like him as a player. That would have changed had we made a prelim again, or possibly even just finals, but we potentially need to brace for us not rocketing straight back up next year.

"I heard last year was an aberration" "No, Good sir, that's a fugazi accusation"

The Crossley situation may hurt their chances of getting a PP now.

Could very well be because both Brayshaw and TMac signed new contracts last year when both were having (coincidentally) the best seasons of their careers. This could well have been a factor in us not being able to lure Gaff over in the end either. So May and Hogan probably just interchanged salaries, but then you add on the TMac and Brayshaw increases and voila, instant cap squeeze.

I might be needing coffee, but I don't quite get the connection binman?