old55

Very good point. 37 from GC is the offending pick right? We could trade it to Richmond for 38 and a 2027 4th 😄

We could trump Carlton's 9 by offering 8 to Essendon for 21, 27 and 30. Then we could offer 27, 30 and 37 to Gold Coast for 15 which is a very nice points bonus for them. That would leave us with 7, 15 and 21 before bids which might be a better spread than currently.

I remain pessimistic about our chances of drafting the players we have been linked to in the top echelon, especially after the rumour that Essendon are going to trade into Carlton's pick 9 immediately after our picks. I'm making two assumptions: WC take Duursma and Duff-Tytler, and we take Nairn with one of our two top picks and therefore are looking for one other of our preferred players to come through. Going by Cal Twomey's "Where does he go?" in his November rankings: https://www.afl.com.au/news/1452082/cal-twomeys-phantom-form-guide-top-draft-prospects-november-ranking The key clubs are linked to the following players: Richmond: Robey, Taylor, Cumming, Grjl - 6 possible combinations Essendon: Robey, Taylor, Cumming, Sharp, Farrow, Schubert (weakly) Melbourne: Robey, Taylor, Cumming, Farrow (weakly) If Richmond takes two of Robey, Taylor and Cumming, then Essendon will take the remaining one. If Richmond takes one of them and Grjl, Essendon can take the other two confident that we don't want Sharp or Schubert and they can take one them after our picks at 9. It seems to me unlikely that Robey, Taylor or Cumming get through to us. Farrow, who appears to be more weakly linked to us, seems the most likely to get through. Looking at our best case scenario where Richmond take Grjl ... Richmond: Robey, Grjl - you can swap in Cumming or Taylor for Robey and it works out the same Essendon: Cumming, Taylor - they don't need to take Sharp because they can get him at 9 Melbourne: Nairn, Farrow? Essendon: Sharp (or Schubert) Essendon would have to rate both Sharp and Schubert above one of Robey, Cumming or Taylor for one of the latter to get through to us. I'm pretty sure Lamb and Taylor are far more over all the possibilities than me and I'll just have to wait and see what pans out on Wednesday.

I don't think that's good news for us ...

Great fighting win. MFC finally wins a final! The drought has broken ...

He's shown he can kick goals from stoppage in the forward line with 3 defenders trying to drag him down, he can block for Kozzie and hopefully the new small fwd we draft, and defenders like Whitfield and Jordon Clark would no doubt feel a little rushed with him lurking nearby.

I don't think it's clubs leaking their intentions. It's probably hard to hide that you've interviewed a player together with his manager, maybe multiple times and also met his family. That’s a lot of potential holes.

I get it, if you were running the show you'd trade into a pick in the 20s because that's where the phantoms say Nairn should go and then watch GWS take him at 17. That could be a strategy that's hard to justify in hindsight.

Equally GC could win the flag and then pick 18 could get pushed back 5 places, like this year with FA compensation, Academy and F/S, to pick 23.

Vlaustuin?

If that description is accurate he'd be #1 in a "weak draft" and a #1 candidate in any draft.

Please don't let this be over. The AFL should run the draft one pick a night for two months ...

Knightmare?

Throw in GC F1, not ours.

I think that's mostly true but doesn't fully explain the differences between Twomey's November Ranking and his Phantom Draft. He does inject his own assessment and opinion in the Ranking.

Yes there's talk that 2 and 13 are on the market for a compelling offer that involves a future pick. We're one of the few teams that can offer that because we hold GC's likely later F1. Essendon for example only hold their F1 and it's probably too valuable to involve in the trade. 7 would put WC in the frame for WA prospect Jacob Farrow, if they are interested. They might be able to trade 8 to say Adelaide for 16 and an F2 if Adelaide were interested in SA prospect Schubert or similar. That would still get them Duursma at 1, and give them Farrow, 16, GC F1 and Adelaide F2 for 2 and 13. A lot of "ifs" there.

My general take on our situation without having the knowledge of the draft to be player specific ... We severely lack star power. We've only got Pickett and probably Langford in that category coming through. Yes you could make a case for Windsor and Lindsay, both injury affected this year too, but it's not a strong one. I do think we've got a heap of young soldiers and potential soldiers coming through. We need more stars and we're not in a strong position to attract them via trade or FA, I do think we should continue a relentless pursuit of Humphrey since our hat is in that ring, but we're not getting Butters, Walsh, Bailey, King or the like. We need to draft stars. I think we'll finish bottom 6 next year and we should hang on tight to our F1 because that's likely to be a good ticket to a star - while there are exceptions, they usually fall at the pointy end of the draft. I'm concerned that 7 & 8 this year are outside the top echelon of players - I don't think we derive a heap of benefit from two more young soldiers. I think we should try to trade up, providing JT thinks there's star quality there. I'd be offering 7, 8 and GC F1 to WC for 2 & 13. Throw in 37 if it gets it across the line. I think it's questionable whether GC's F1 delivers us star quality next year, I expect them to finish top 6 and it will most likely be in the 20s. Hopefully pick 2 gets us into this year's "star" range. If the talk of Nairn or generally a long second echelon as @ChaserJ posted is correct then 13 isn't a significant downgrade. If successful, 2025 pick 2 and 2026 F1 doubles our star quotient. People are generally fearful of the impact on the draft of Tasmania's entry and rightfully so. They have the top end of the draft cornered for two years, and all the available established good talent will flowing to them via their FA concessions, pick trades and their sign-on bonuses. We're not attracting established players for the next 4-5 years at least. There could be some opportunities for smart clubs there. Tasmania have to trade pick 5 in 2027 and 2028. They need to build out a list and will need young soldiers, if we can protect our stars with contracts across that period from poaching by them (all OOC players are FAs to them, maximum one per club), we might be able to trade one of our better soldiers for a pick 5 to them. A small possible silver lining to a very dark list management cloud. The message is we really need to maximise our acquisition of quality in these next two drafts.

If only it was that simple ...

Sister of Dan, the potatoe farmer from up that way?

Maybe Nairn plays like Oli Dempsey?

I'd start with an ordered list but I'd have echelons within the list between which there are step drops in quality. Then pick from your list in order. The exceptions are at the echelon boundaries, if there's a player from the higher echelon available when the current pick is in the next echelon I'd consider trying to trade up. When my pick is at the start of an echelon I'd consider trying to trade up to the higher echelon or down but within the echelon range. These decisions would need to be made on the spot on a case by case basis but I'd have a reasonable idea about which clubs would be open to trade. As you say, it's not simple. The second scenario is probably easier to anticipate than the first, and from what I've read it might be where we're at with 7 and 8. The other scenario that might present later in the draft is picking by type, if I want or don't want a particular type I could tune this by picking accordingly from the current echelon. The hardest part is ranking the players and grouping the echelons.

That didn't help with Chris Judd ...

Aiden Johnson is tougher than Nick Daicos but ... Butters will get paid an enormous amount wherever he goes and yes he'll probably go to a team vying for a flag. That's not currently us. Humphrey is a longshot but we may be able to offer him better terms than anyone else and he might like us from our respectful attention this year.

Yes, there's definitely no harm and possibly some benefit in offering King a monster contract too because GC wouldn't be able to match but would have to pay up big to re-sign him and that would help in the Humphrey chase.

Butters isn't coming to MFC and we'd be dumb to get in that fight. Port will match too so it will be a trade, not FA. We should continue our good work and concentrate on wooing Humphrey, even though he's a longshot too. Crafting our draft selections this year on the basis of them being available next year, ie not taking a mid, would be crazy stuff.