Colm

Ok have I missed something- has then been another story in the press I haven’t hear off? Why is everybody convinced he’s off to the Pies? Should I been even more worried or are we all just jumping at shadows?

I think 8&13 would be about right for a player that will be 29 at the start of next season coming of a very serious injury. Freo have also been linked strongly to Chad Warner who is out of contact next year. If he won’t sign now and I’m the Swans I’d be asking the question. With Warner off the books they could probably afford his wages too. I don't think it will happen and I think he will stay, I’m just saying it’s possible if he really wants out.

I’m sure there’s a few teams that are in the flag window that could make it happen if all parties are willing. Freo and the Swans for starters.

One thing I don’t think has been brought up and could be a reason why Houston has changed his mind- Normally in these situations Houston would have had a meeting with a group of our players over the last weekend when they were in town. This seems to be standard practise these days. Who would have been the ones selling it to him? Doesn’t sound like Trac would have been there, no point Nibbler going, last year Gus would have been there. I’m sure Max would have been there but he’s 33 and not going to be around for the journey. Probably Rick Lever and a few others but certainly not our A team. Just a thought and one that I think shows how hard Gus and Nibbler are going to be to replace.

The flip side of the coin is if we go hard at the draft we are building for the future and not the next year or two which I think is smart for the club but it’s not great for our older players who will rightly want us to improve to have a proper crack again next year before they miss their own window.

Clearly there needs to be a balance but after our recent trades I have very little confidence in our recruitment team. I do however have great confidence in JT and this year draft seem to be full of midfielders and goes very deep so I hope we give JT as many quality picks as possible to and real talent to our already pretty good list of younger players.

We really have two list to improve. We are going to have to bring in a number of kids over the next two trade/draft windows. If we want them to develop well at Casey then we need to improve the standard of footy there. Dunstan wasn’t up to AFL standard but he was a bloody good VFL player and helped keep Casey up around top of the ladder. Given his numbers in WAFL at worst Brodie would improve Casey or he could take Sparrows spot in the first team and Sparrow improves Casey. For a low pick it’s a yes from me.

I maybe had a different take than others on Goody’s presser yesterday. He didn’t convince me that there isn’t a problem with Trac at the min- side stepped it a bit and contradicted himself as did Max. But I did like how he reported on Clarry. Seemed very genuine with his response. Seems the club are very happy and proud of where Clarry is currently from a personal point of view and had no doubts that he will be playing for us next year. His injuries go a long way to explaining his form this year a hopefully now that his season is finished early he will have more than enough time to fully heal before a massive preseason.

Really hope this isn’t true or our dramas are far from over.

He's not going anywhere. Would be disaster for the club to let him go and he has 5 years to go on his contract But I will play the speculation game. He’s 29 next year coming off a bad injury. Dusty was 30 when he came back of a lesser injury h was never same player. Even if he does get back to his best how long does he have at his peak- 2 maybe 3 years. Two good first round picks with at least one inside top 10 would be about right. I think there would be a few clubs that could come up with that.

Yeah I agree. I’d rather we take pick 6 to the draft. Nothing against Houston but don’t think it make sense for us to give up such a good pick for a 28 year old flanker when we have other needs.

Geelong did exactly that with the Kelly trade a few years ago. Hasn’t hurt their ability to trade in players one little bit.

I think the deal has already been done and he will be involved in the Houston trade. Doesn’t make sense for us to be so public that he won’t be playing for us next year otherwise.

People suggesting we might only get a third rounder remember we gave a good second rounder for McAdam last year, who had a terrible injury history and has barely played this season. If our recruitment team thinks Nibbler- a premiership player, leader, great role player and ultimate professional is worth less then its time they are shown the door as they are clearly not up to the job .

Think we can offical say this is now a full rebuild we aren’t having a quick reset for a flag tilt next year. Might be better in the long run. I’m sure he has genuine family reason and wish him all the best, but really really hard at this stage to think something doesn’t stink bad within the club for at least 2 of our leaders to be unhappy or want out.

Ah Ffs. What the bloody hell is going on?! Everyday another of our players is reported to want out. Nibbler is one of our leaders and can cover the ground like very few others can. Invaluable type of player in the modern game.

It’s not acting with that fella. Proper tool.

IF it starts to get reported from other sources then I think it goes from 0-100% real quick given the father/son aspect. Not like there’s going to be player managers leaking rubbish.

It’s Tom Morris folks. Let’s wait and see if anybody else reports it before reading too much into it.

This is the glass half full attitude that has us still in win now mode. Trade in players try and win another one next year before our stars are too old. A glass half empty could be that Viney could be added to May and Max as those who’s best years are behind them. Trac is one year older than Dusty was when he had his kidney injury. He was never the same player afterwards. I think from all reports Tracs injury is worse than Dusty’s. We all know the issues with Clarry- hopefully he’s back to his best next year but it’s by no means a certainty. Salem is in a similar boat. I probably sit in the middle at the minute. Given the amount of experience we are about to lose off the list we can’t just draft kids but we certainly can’t afford to pay overs for aging players or have anymore trading misses like we have had over the past few years. In short I’m happy if we get Houston but not at a cost that will stop us bringing in high end talent from this years draft.

Kalani White also named in the Queensland team👍🏻

https://central.rookieme.com/afl/2024/08/07/scouting-notes-2024-coates-talent-league-round-17/ Scouting notes from the weekend. @dazzledavey36 I’m sure you seen lots of Joe Berry games. What’s your thoughts on him?! We all want midfielders but with Kossie spending time in middle and Spargo both injured and on the outer when fit I wonder if we would be interested. Seems to have a. Skill set we could certainly do with.

I’d rather we hold our picks and if anything improve our draft hand by trading our F2nd. Get 3 quality young players including two mids. Very often young mids will play half back for first few years like Rivers and many others. Pick one mid that has the potential to play there next year and cover the Rivers or/and McVee. However Cal Twomey’s mail is normally very good and he seems fairly confident that Houston will be with us next year. He’s just speculating on what we would have to give up though. I seem to remember the he along with the rest of the media thought we would be given up a first rounder for Grundy and that never happened. If Port have Perryman coming in then he will probably be on same money as Houston and Port will probably need to make some cap space. I could see a deal where we give up pick 7 and a F2nd and get Houston and a later first in this years draft back, but I’d rather we hold onto pick 7.

Great news. 4 years seems about right to me. Say we play on average 25 games a season that’s 100 games and 1600km for the running machine.

Going to be interesting selection this week. We now know playing finals is out of the question. It would be nice to rest some of our older players that are banged up and needing surgery but if we do that we could get completely slaughtered. I’d give games to both Jeffo and Pup. put Petty back. Id put Pup tagging Rozee. Be a good learning experience for him and Rozee isn’t the biggest so he should be able to stick a tackle on him.