old55

I think when you're rebuilding and need everything then drafting "best available" makes perfect sense. But when you're contending and have got most areas covered then drafting for need has its place.

Well he'll be gone at the end of 2025 as a FA for less. He'll be traded at the end of 2024 as a pre-Agent. Bookmark it.

I'm feeling generally warmer by the day about Keays' "point".

Or take him with 6

Mackie would be holding out for picks 99, 117 and 135 to seal the deal.

Yes, there could be all sorts of garnish involving some of North's 17, 18, WC 23 and our F1st. As @Redleg implies, we'd have to love Duursma for the initial suggestion to happen.

The top end trade I could foresee is: WC give 1 get 2 + 11 North give 2 + 3 get 1 + 6 MFC give 6 + 11 get 3 But I'd prefer to keep 6 + 11

Nope you can't trade players on draft night

If we're going to the draft to replace May it needs to be now so there's enough development time. With Petty almost certainly leaving soon we need KPs. I hope we take Curtin or O'Sullivan.

With Petty sounding gone at the end of next year, I really hope we take the best one available to us of Curtin, O'Sullivan and Murphy. 42 is placed in a handy position if someone we really rate slides out of the top 25 or so. And as you say, if there's no one there we really like, try to trade it into 2024 on draft night. Hopefully it's too early for K.Brown and we can take him with a later pick. I think we will take him, a la Taj, with our last pick. We need to make sure we have enough live list spots.

Thanks, pity I was wrong, we do have an extra F3 via Harmes. Won't be the first or last time ... Maybe we use that for Billings?

O'Brien, Fogarty and Thilthorpe are all out of contract in 2025 like Petty. We can heavily target one of them now.

Salary cap is probably roughly break even too Grundy $650k = McAdam ~$400k + Fullarton ~$250k

Or they can be refreshing assets like Kossie, Bowey, Rivers, McVee and JVR

Today, I prefer Curtin, pick 11 (Lamb said we traded up specifically for players in that range) and F1st to Reid - but ask me again tomorrow ....

We have the earliest pick in the draft of this year's finalists and apart from GWS, we have two before the rest. None of the other finalists have added anyone of major significance, outside ironically of Sydney with Grundy. Henry, Schultz, Ratugolea, Doedee, Adams - there's a reasonable chance that McAdam makes an equal impact, apart from Grundy. We haven't lost any best 23, only depth. As @Slartibartfast says, a third of the best 23 is young and has the scope for significant improvements and we don't have anyone on the brink of their career. It's reasonable to expect that we get an AFL contribution from a couple of Fullarton, Laurie, Howes, Sestan, Woewodin, D.Turner and AMW and depending who we select, from picks 6 and 11. The biggest risks we have are Clarrie and Gus, but we just have to ride the turbulence there. We weren't far off this year and with some modest luck would have won it. I'm optimistic.

They can both get involved and hold up yet another trade ...

Petty, JVR, Fritsch, McAdam, ANB, Pickett, Chandler/Spargo/AMW - that's 7.

There's two spots available for that group to make up 7 forwards. McAdam's tackle and i50 tackles are superior to both Chandler and Spargo.

Source: https://www.wheeloratings.com/afl_stats.html?year=2023 Kossie: Average tackles: 4.0, Average Tackles inside 50: 2.0 McAdam: 3.3, 1.4 Fritsch: 1.6, 0.6 McAdam is more than twice a good as Fritsch in this area and closer to Kossie figures.

Fwd locks: Petty, JVR, Fritsch, ANB, Kossie McAdam is probably competing with Smith, Chandler, Spargo and Laurie for the last two slots - I'd fancy him ahead of that group. Maybe AMW or even Sestan will surprise and jump up the order.

Yes you're right, sorry. I was thinking Fullarton cam for a F3rd.

We used the F2nd because we have 2 of them and only one F3rd. It means we can still trade our F1st.

Interesting to hear Tim Lamb confirm that we see pick 11 considerably more valuable than pick 14 and that's why we traded up. There must be a quality cliff somewhere after 11 and before 14 non northern-Academy and F/S players. He said we were confident of getting very good players at 6 and 11. Cal Twomey's September rankings: To 6: Reid, (Walter), Duursma, McKercher, Watson, Curtin, Sanders To 11: Caddy, (Read), O'Sullivan, (Croft), (Rogers), Murphy, Windsor, Wilson Following those sets through to 14 are (Leake), Hardeman, (McCabe), Tholstrup, De Mattia - that's 20 players altogether. Of course we may rate someone else in that top 11.

We can just take him in the PSD for free. Adelaide currently have 36 primary list players and 4 rookies. The maximum number of primary list players they can have is 38, so they currently only have 2 primary list vacancies. They currently have picks 10, 14 and 20. They actually need to lose a player to be able to use them all. There's no way they keep a list spot open for McAdam in the PSD so they can re-draft him. I hope they continue to be stupid and run the clock down on it and we get to keep the F2nd.