rpfc

I just see this as trying to free up Hibberd as much as possible. He is such a weapon but had to be third man up a lot - let's get Lever to do that. He is also required to set up from behind with Tom McD going forward - let's get Lewis to do that. This just pushes Hibberd and Hunt that much further up the ground in my eyes. Really valuable if Lewis can find his feet.

We added a top 5 player and didn't lose one in the top 12-15, so we have become a little more strengthened against injuries... Now, you cannot replace your best players and we won't be able to replace Viney et al but every team has that problem.

Trading for a star player affected the moves we could make in the draft but with two kids and a couple of boys who have played some senior footy at a decent level at least we have provided the current team with some more options. It is definitely true that improvement comes from the players you have - Lever will make that a rule excepted. Fritsch, Balic and Baker will provide some competition for spots in the bottom 6 of the team in 2018 and that will be valuable assuming our best players are fit and healthy.

Ummm, aside from their height - those are two very different players...

I have actually passionately defended the inclusion of white guernseys in the past. @daisycutter could testify to that, I am certain. We would have, every year, a tedious argument about the clash jumpers and whether we should have one and which colour they should be. We invented the game as a way for cricketers to keep fit, and therefore played in whites and were known as the 'Invincible Whites' before the VFL was a thing... My recent 'apathy' is born out of the fact that we have chosen (or been forced to use) white, and I have no reason to argue against something I am perfectly fine with as a Demon. Reverse the yolk and that is not my club, go back to that awful light blue we had in the early eighties for the TV and that is not my club, but the non-colour white has some attachment to my club. But I am happy to not engage and enrage my fellow supporters who disagree. And do it. Every. Single. Year. Hence Morgan Freeman:

Looks calm and ready.

Nah, removed entirely from NEAFL now as Eastlake up here are the only licence. Soz.

Rawlings probably wants his own team to control and put himself up for senior gigs.

I'm now in the silent majority who doesn't really care about the fixture. We look like we can make some money on our home games and the rest is just the reality of being a small team that has done nothing.

‘Not impossible’ ’it takes work’ ’get them in to do what they can’ All of that, yet my view that one is ‘likely to remain a bad kick if you entered the AFL as one’ is ‘rubbish’? I am not going to sit here and read posters thoughts about getting a kicking coach in as if that will have a wholesale effect on the team. It won’t. A coach will help a couple of younger ones but over time and possibly to their immediate detriment as they reconstruct their action. But, yeah, rubbish...

I hate to burst your bubble - you can become a neater kick over time but there is no 'kicking coach panacea' out there. If you ain't a good kick when you enter the AFL, you are likely to remain so.

I think he can be a very capable player, but what position? A high HF with not much desire to pressure? A mid who doesn't get much footy? He has a got a decent left foot but needs to own a role. Nowhere right now.

Well, I don't remember that one incident or those other incidents, and I remember my own incidents and in the reverse. Hence, disagreement. Doesn't mean he would be a good, bad, or indifferent coach though. Moot City.

Trade week is over. Who the [censored] is Nat? Space after commas.

Never said you did. I am interested in who would be better paid than the injury prone but best ruckman in the league? Petracca, Jones, Oliver, Hogan, T Mac, Viney, ??? It's just one of those situations where we can trade him or pay him.

We agree on rucks being of lesser importance but we have the best ruck in the league. And, injury prone, or not - he is valuable and was going to get paid...

Give me ten players who should be paid more.

I used to give a sh!t about the ins and outs of every trade we were involved in but then you realise it doesn't matter. Don't sweat the small stuff. If that pick we have given up next year for Lever leads to being a good pick then that is 'big stuff' but it would mean something has gone horribly wrong...

Already been deleted.

Would love if he was entrenched in our top 15 players but he isn't. We need him though, next year, he is probably our best kick? A couple others competing for the title after Watts' exit.

Toughness gets you in the conversation both as a player and a team, and skill puts you above your peers. I know this thread was created to decry to the supposed reason for removing a player, but there is a third driver for players and teams and that is commitment. I will not make any judgement of JW here but another, more powerful, recent event - the Tigers wining the flag. The commitment that their list (their VFL did some damage too) showed to their defensive frenzy of pressure all over the ground was what won them a flag. There is no toughness or skill required - you just pressure and trust your teammates to do the same. Commitment to a game plan is too readily overlooked in my opinion and I have been impressed with our best 15-18 players commitment to what Goodwin wants them to do. Less impressed with the execution of those competing for the bottom 6 (Salem, Wagner, Hannan, et al). We are so close to that full devotion, if it clicks next year - we will be top 4.