old55

There'll be a relevance spike if Collingwood loses tragically.

We're not going to change our game style approach under Simon Goodwin, although at times during the year we did use the ball more creatively going inside 50 - e.g. the Carlton SF was better than the Collingwood QF. But it's still within the same approach of a contest/territory game and weight of numbers of i50s. And we're not going to trade Max, Clarrie, Christian or Jack for "better users". Given all that, I'm in the "we need better finishers forward" camp, and as @rpfc predicts - if we have them then delivery will also improve as a result - I think that was borne out when Petty was operating at his peak. It's the least disruptive change and we weren't far off. McAdam sounds like a good acquisition. Petty, JVR, Fritsch McAdam, Kossie, and we all know ANB will be in there. Another elite finishing small would be good but they're hard to acquire, maybe adding McAdam and getting full seasons out of Petty and Fritsch is enough. We can get some organic improvement too. I think Chandler is a good player who ran out of steam as the season progressed, maybe with another pre-season he can improve further. Laurie has some very nice skills and vision, and if he can get really fit over summer, like McVee did, then he could be a contributor. AMW shows some promise at Casey. I think Woey is a bit vanilla for the forward role and fits in the midfield depth roster in place of JJ and Harmes. If I was Spargo I'd be looking at my options elsewhere.

Who do you want to get rid of, and who should replace them? "Jimmy wants to trade Petracca, Oliver and Gawn" is on a par with the ridiculous "3 of the worst 10 kicks" line.

Wow maybe something to do with the quality of forwards in receipt of the kicks and the ones missing injured?

I'm on record not wanting to draft McKercher and the better he is, the stronger my conviction. If he lives up to expectations he'll be off to captain the inaugural Tasmanian team just when we need him to take the reins from an aging midfield. Yes we'll get good draft compensation but we won't be in the phase needing an 18yo mid. Bookmark it.

How about some explanation instead of the over the top gif. And how about a realistic alternative and the reasons they are better.

Yes, maybe the Swans will get confused and not realise they get JJ for free as UFA.

How about you wait until the dealings done this year before shooting your load.

You arrived here 5 minutes ago and I haven't seen too much "lauding". Tim Lamb and the MFC list management team have done a superb job over many years and there are always going to be some outliers. Just take a look at our list of out of contract players over the next two years - only Sparrow and Bowey really warrant a major pay increase next year and Petty and Van Rooyen's new contract will be offset by May and Gawn moving to short term contracts or retiring. We'll be freeing at least $2M of salary cap to target a gun FA or trade. And our list management teams' record suggest they'll successfully pull it off.

Good luck to Adem. Wonder when he starts there? He'd have inside IP on our trade and draft strategies unless we excluded him from the process because he was a candidate for this job, I'm not completely comfortable with that unless he trades Tom Lynch to us for a future 4th.

I think that was borne out when Petty was in there and playing at his optimum. We need to add at least one more great finisher to the mix.

No, the reason it failed was not to do with Grundy. It was because the FD and Max thought that Max could play an effective role forward, which he couldn’t do. Grundy was there to fill the ruck hole effectively. That's it.

I'm going for a different solution - acquire more elite forward talent. We have the draft hand and salary cap space to do it. It's a simpler fix IMHO.

Yes I'm a slow learner, but I think it's finally dawned on me. I thought "Defence and contest" - that must mean we need the best defenders and mids available. But no, they do have to be very good, but it actually means we need the best forwards available because it's so hard to score goals with 30 players in your F50. They'll get an absolute heap of nearly opportunities.

The compensation is based on size AND length of the contract, and also based on age of the player - more for younger players so this works in our favour with Jordon.

Great analysis. But the point is that pressure goes up in finals and our accuracy goes down. The Melbourne/Goodwin mantra is that we play a contested, territory winning, defensive style because that's what wins finals and I think that's reasonable, but when we get in inside crowded 50 as a result, we need a gun forward line to convert hard opportunities. Teams that play a more rebounding open style get more defensive one-on-ones and actually don't need absolute maximum class forward, but our game style results in congestion inside 50 and we're playing against the best defences - we need better converters under maximum pressure.

Essendon and Hawthorn in an auction for him. They still hate each other and there aren't any other KPBs left in the market.

Yeah, he guesses the first dozen draft picks in order each yeah, very good guesser old Cal.

JJ and Harmes will be gone for a start. McVee doesn't have to be promoted this year. McAdam coming in. That's 2 vacancies on the primary list.

Do you really want to risk him calling our bluff with Harmes and Dunstan leaving and taking 3 or 4 more years with us?

Chol appears to be the only realistic ruck/fwd available - what do you think?

True, but do you think he could have laid a tackle on Newman say? Maybe he was on Saad, there wasn't too much "woof" and Saad was kicking out after behinds so that inflated his stats. I'm not watching the replay to find out.

With the likely midfield exodus of JJ, Harmes and Dunstan we need to invest there. I think it would be a good idea and wouldn't be surprised if we were after Xavier Duursma at Port. He's been injured, hasn't been playing well and is behind Rozee, Butters, JHF, Wines and Drew, they also have Sinn who has hardly played. I believe we rated him in his draft year and he showed early on that he can play. He's stalled. Port have to acquire Ratugolea, Zerk-Thatcher and Sweet and are reported to be chasing Soldo - all with limited draft assets. They need some list turnover with their disappointing result yet again. Duursma is 23y2mo and is out of contract at the end of next year. Might be a classic buy-low play I think.

Their under 22yos are pretty ordinary or untried except for Ryan.