old55

Great interview, Goodie looks very relaxed which is pleasing. I'm very happy he's our coach!

WC had very good KPs in 2018. Richmond brought in Lynch and he played in the 2019 and 20 flags. We went big at the other end and brought in Lever and May. Geelong had Hawkins and brought in Cameron. Even Collingwood brought in McStay. All the recent flags have been won by teams who have seen the value of KPs. They're expensive to trade or contract in FA but they're indispensible. It's worth trying to draft some prospects.

One flag and they had Jack Riewoldt as well and then immediately went out and got Tom Lynch.

Maybe like North? I think they've got a challenge ahead of them, they have mids out the ying-yang and now have to trade or FA KPs, which is historically very difficult for small clubs with their profile.

I think you're actually making an argument in favour of drafting KPs because they are more scarce and have a lower hit rate. Yeah we could just draft mids until the cows come home and rebrand as the Lilliputians.

I think Luker Kentfield makes good sense from a list management pov. We are currently going with 2 tall forwards (one a ruck/fwd) plus Fritsch and three tall backs. BBB is done, TMac is close to the end despite his great season, Tomlinson has not been starting 22 and would find better opportunities elsewhere, and May is getting on. Schache is not up to it. J.Smith is assumed done. To maintain our current set up through the decade I think we can assume that JVR, Fritsch and Lever are there and that hopefully we can retain Petty who could play at either end. That means we need two of Turner, Jefferson, Adams, Verrall and now Kentfield to make it as KP. Hore is useful intercepting depth and Fullarton may be depth only too. Kalani White is coming through but any effective impact can't be expected until towards the end of the decade. I think we've increased our chances of success in this area and we needed to. We can concentrate of drafting midfielders which is the easiest target to hit and look for a serviceable ruck through trade or FA.

Yes there's not a great deal of ready made midfield impact in my list of players but they could come in and enable Salem, Rivers or even McVee to run through there in addition to ANB and Pickett who are already adding something. But as you agree it's about available talent in the MSD. Maybe doom merchant @poita would have been happier with match winners like Trent Bianco or giving Kyle Dunkley another chance? We can draft some midfield talent and maybe pick up some useful FA depth at the end of the year.

Maybe as @DeeSpencerobserves there was no-one available who could come straight into the 22 and make more impact in the 2nd half of the H&A and finals than Laurie, Spargo, Woewodin, Howes, Billings, Tholstrup and K.Brown. Perhaps Luke Dunstan or Moose are interested in resurrection?

I think you need to re-read my post.

Grabbing a player by the arm or wrist should be a free against, that's responsible for a lot of dangerous tackles including Andrew on Curnow. The idea of this move is to prevent a handball disposal so it only leaves the ball player with a kick disposal option which is a dangerous situation. Traditional tackling around the arms to pin them to the body is almost as effective and is safer as long as a sling or drive forward (which should be in the back anyway) is avoided.

Are you specifically talking about scores per i50 or overall scores for, or both? In that period we had much greater scores against in both categories. Subsequently we spent big on KPDs not KPFs, and we modified our style to become the best defensive team in the league and that has had a negative flow on effect to our scoring metrics, but as @rjay observes, our ladder position has improved overall. Chaplin looks like a genius and Stafford has suffered for the cause. As has been widely noted, this year we're trying to rebalance the ledger to score more but without sacrificing fundamental defence-first and it's a work in progress.

It was a very memorable experience, but I lived our trip to the NT following that.

Tell me the tales of our forward line domination before he took the role ...

I agree we're missing Dunstan and Moose there but I don't think we want to burn list spaces on that. We need Casey to list them.

I'm not sure about a "lack of midfield depth", we've been successfully running ANB, Pickett and Salem through there this year. Sparrow hasn’t spent as much time as usual in there as a result. A VFL player is not going to push ahead of those 4 and Laurie, especially when it gets down to our pick in the order. We'd be better off going for a high reward, high risk speculative pick. We don't need more foot soldiers.

There wasn’t anything much wrong with the first quarter 4.7 to 1.0. Yes the second quarter and half the third were a Lyon-induced bus-parking scrap, but the flood gates eventually opened and we dominated.

According to the pre-game thread, this was apparently great value and I should have got on ...

Owens, Wilson and Windhager are very good young players. I'd take all of them.

Paging @Gator

I'm surprised no-one has highlighted TMac's precision kicking. It's been sensational this year. Low, fast and creative.

That was a very good 160% win on a nice day. We kicked 100pts which has only happened one other time against them this year and we held them to well below their average score. They've got zero injuries. I'm really not sure what people expect.

The fact that Port have won an extra game would have made that difficult Einstein.

Maybe in horse racing with multiple starters but there’s no way this is a correct stat for head-to-head competitions. Anyway, I'm out before the inevitable gameday thread wrist-slashing and self-flaggelation begins ...

Sunny day. Football at the MCG. Demons have a good chance of a win. Perfect recipe for Demonland despair!

McAdam has only played one game. I'm for giving him a chance to make a difference to our forward set-up.