Roost it far

Ooops, forgot McVee,

Every time I do a team there’s multiple possible/better options that I haven’t even thought of. TMac in the bench is my defensive backup.

Possibly but plenty disagree

He doesn’t require a b grade hit out in 35 degrees.

There’s plenty of skilled VFL players who don’t make it onto AFL lists. The reasons are numerous but my guess with Henderson is he’s a bit small to be a modern mid and doesn’t have any standout traits to be seen as a small forward. He does however have the work rate, the clean hands and the 50m drop punt which just might get him a game on our list. Remember he’s currently behind Pickett, Chandler and Spargo so he’s got his work cut out.

Thats a fair point

The team I want to see take us to September: B: Bowey May Lever HB: Windsor Petty Lindsay C: Sharp Viney Langdon HF: Langford Turner Fritsch F: Pickett JVR Johnson R: Gawn Petracca Oliver I: Rivers Sparrow TMac Spargo S: Melksham E: AMW Howes Jefferson Henderson

I’d pegged TMac as backup based solely on his age and my bias to playing 3 talks in defence. I can’t wait for the footy to start. Windsor still not training worries me as with McVee that’s our HB line out for the first 3-4 weeks. Not ideal

If you ever wander down by the private school boatsheds on the Yarra there's a toastie and coffee van set up on Wed - Friday mornings. My oh my I've never had a better toastie and the coffee is excellent and when it comes to food and coffee I'm very fussy. The woman who runs it is pretty rocking as well and a Demon fan, which is reason enough to get down there. I walk past every week and my toastie intake is only going one way!

TMac's form must beg the question. Does the team persist with Petty forward and allow TMac to play as the third tall in defence? I realise Petty's form last season wasn't great but he was coming off no preseason and a nasty injury. I guess if TMac is able which he certainly appears to be then who becomes the best forward option out of Petty, Johnson and Jefferson? Personally I like Petty in defence and feel he's the obvious May replacement next year but TMac's inability to age keeps the question open I think.

Personally I think if we're adapting our gameplan to me more attacking that has to start in defence. Windsor, McVee and Salem with Bowey as the seventh are my first picks alongside May, Lever, Petty/TMac. As for Howes, I think he's backup only still. I think he can develop into a best 22 but thats partly just hope. I'd love Adams to make it but from the gist of reports he's in the Jefferson camp of not quite ready/perhaps never ready. I think with the recruitment of Lindsay and if Petty stays our back 6/7 looks to have a reasonable future beyond Lever/May/Salem which shows the quality of recruiting over the last 5 years.

I'll demand training reports when I see fit to demand them punk.

Would you pick those 4 in the back half together?

How do you have a defence with May, Lever, Petty and TMac?

Bigger lists would certainly solve the problem. However you can't on one hand want to protect state leagues from AFL list grabs and then suggest increased list sizes. That's having your cake and eating it, which I'm all for. Remember I'm only talking about swapping players out who have sustained a serious injury or are medically retired.

I just don't see what the deadlines achieve. So we lose a player to an ACL on Saturday but can't replace him until mid season but if he'd done it on Friday morning we could replace him that day. These sorts of rules feel like rules for rules sake. The lists are smaller these days and as long as the injury can be verified as a 9 month + injury I don't see the need to create deadlines. A more fluid approach has multiple advantages for both the team and young players.

If Chaplin can line up the backs and the forwards we're going to be a lot better side. The trick is to maintain our defence and contest behind the ball and but add some pace when attacking. What we can't have is May caught 30m from his man when we turn it over kicking into F50. That will not only bleed goals it'll bleed confidence. I'm hoping Chaplin is just applying a few attacking tweaks (McVee is a huge loss) What I want to see is us hunting teams like Hawthorn and Collingwood so the pressure is rampant on their runners. Force the turnover and then move it quickly into attack. I hope we're fit enough.

Fluff

Port need to stand by Ken for the full season regardless of results. I think it’s smart play. They move Ken on who’s clearly had his opportunity and they get to quell the noise if Port struggle this year. “We have a succession plan in place and we’re standing by Ken until his contract is up”

The VFL is a poorly run secondary comp. If they lose a player they can grab another from the lower leagues. With 19-20 teams on the way the more kids given an opportunity the better, for them and the senior competition. As it stands there’s 2 opportunities to grab them anyway.

I think a worthwhile rule change for the AFL and clubs to look at would be the ability to add a player to the LTI (min 9 months out with verified injury) at anytime during the season. This opens up the potential for any VFL player to end up on an AFL list during the season. I'd imagine there's enough kids knocking at the door of the AFL to make this work. By the sounds of it Culley is unlucky and it gives guys like George an added incentive to keep pushing hard.

I’ll run rings around you lot.

He’s at Jeffo’s house running him through a few drills for Saturday

Not to state the obvious but how good does the kid look in that jumper