demoncat

Welcome to the Dees, Max Heath, Wade Derksen and, I guess, no one else?

100% agree Redleg Don’t get me wrong I don’t think we should be overpaying for players, but blind Freddy can see the deficiencies in our list and Flanders would go some way addressing one of them (lack of a skilled midfielder) Sometimes you need to offer a bit more to bring in the right players, and I’d be annoyed if Lamb and co weren’t prioritising Flanders

The difference in this case is we expressed interest in Flanders and from all reports have/will meet with him We weren’t linked to any of the others, except for a tenuous link to Worpel earlier in the year The fact is when we’ve wanted a player over the last few years, we’ve seldom got them

Of course what another club is offering isn’t Lamb’s fault, but at the same time he and the FD have been offering too expensive/long contracts for years now For example, extending May by a year on $800,000 a year is potentially limiting what we can offer Flanders, and the irony is we don’t even want him at the club next year The Oliver and Petracca contracts are also going to be a millstone around our necks for years if they’re not traded - again, money we won’t have to bring in players like Flanders And maybe it’s petty and maybe it’s irrational, but it’s pisses me off that he and the FD can’t seem to put together a compelling argument to join the MFC over a cellar dweller club like St Kilda It’s embarrassing - and his lack of post 2021 moves may have been the reason we didn’t win another Premiership with our core players

It’s Lamb’s job to make players seeking a trade want to nominate us If we can’t judge him by players we’re linked to not choosing us, what can we judge him by?

Lots of Saints fans seem to think he’s a lock to come to them Really hoping he nominates us - if not it’ll be another in a long line of Lamb failures since 2021

Reckon we’d have to offer a future first to bring him in (unless Trac requests a move to the Gold Coast) I think that would be more valuable to Gold Coast than pick 7 in this years draft anyway - they’ve already banked most of their points to match academy bids so pick 7 would just be another one swallowed up

Cal Twomey reporting that Trac is open to a move to Gold Coast

Any idea of Rucci’s track record Donsk? Only know that Ross the Boss flamed him for being a Port Adelaide nuffy 🤣

King is going to have to get busy

For all those also on Flanders watch

Would do this in a heartbeat

lol you know what I mean 🤣

Really don’t understand why people are against bringing in Mihocek He’s been playing through a foot injury the last third of the season If Pies weren’t in finals he likely wouldn’t have been playing at all Get that right over preseason and at minimum he’ll be a serviceable tall forward for us next year And if that’s a low bar - it’s because we haven’t had anything close to a serviceable tall forward since Ben Brown We’re crying out for someone to lead and provide structure to our forward line, while also helping the development of JVR, Jefferson etc He’ll cost us nothing and will give us cover for a few years

More than happy for King to finish of the season with the Cats It’s good business from both us and them Besides, if he can do for us what he’s doing for the Cats I don’t think too many people will be unhappy

Danger reminding everyone why you need a Trac-like player come finals And Geelong showing that you can still carry poor kicks like Danger if you have the right players around them Hopefully King can bring some of that IP with him and we allow Trac to play to his strengths in a better system

If nothing else at least we’ll be able to say King was involved in two premierships as assistant coach 🤷

Reckon the ‘cultural’ question marks over Rachelle are way overblown To me he’s in the same ballpark as Watson, Ginnivan, Papley etc As long as they’re working hard and kicking goals I don’t mind if you’re having fun on the field And from all reports he’s very close with a lot of his teammates, so can’t be that bad for team culture

I actually don’t mind Simpkin as a player and he could definitely play a role for us But no way would you want to give up a decent pick and that much coin for him

5th!? What a joke Put him in a finals team and he’d be 1 or 2

It’s about time we had a coach who was proactive in this space (and not just sending a half hearted text to Joe Daniher 🙄) Hawthorn is reaping the rewards of Mitchell doing this - no reason we shouldn’t do the same

Buckley’s chance of going ahead? 👀

100% At the end of the day, being a well run club will give you the best chance at premiership success, and no amount of player movement will ever change that

I watch a lot of American sports and would argue the NFL and NBA have had a wider range of teams genuinely competing for championships over the last few years than in the AFL, and I think part of this is that there are less barriers to teams improving their rosters via trade For example, teams have significantly more cap space in these leagues, meaning smaller teams/teams with less highly paid players have significantly more money to offer prospective players Compare that to the AFL where, other than TDK recently, the monetary difference between joining a smaller/less successful club and a big/successful club isn’t enough to sway most players - i.e. there is really no incentive for a good player to go to a North compared to a Collingwood when their earning ability is largely the same Granted that is more to do with player payments - which I think should be far higher - but it’s one example Another is teams having more rights to trade players/contracts without consent of players. This is obviously a far more contentious issue, but in my opinion the AFL needs to give more control to clubs to trade their players. The relative lack of player movement combined with players only wanting to move to successful clubs, doesn’t give smaller/less successful clubs many levers to improve their list. Again, I’m not arguing for players not having consent, but it’s an area I think the league needs to push the balance back towards the clubs. Then there are a range of other smaller measures like being able to trade players a team has drafted on draft night, further future trading of draft picks, more malleable contracts that give players and clubs more opportunities to trade throughout the life of the deal etc. Don’t get me wrong, the AFL does a lot of things much better than international sporting codes, and I know our clubs not being private will limit a lot of the contract issues I raised, but I don’t think the league is pulling all the levers it can to give all clubs a genuine shot at success

Ditto this point @BLWNBA and I personally think it’s a big reason why equalisation in the AFL is failing I think the AFL and AFL fans need to be far less parochial when it comes to player movement, and we need to move to a more modern trade and free agency system in keeping with international sports And ironically I think this would actually feed more engagement with the AFL (which AFL HQ wants) and allow clubs to more easily improve via trade and free agency (which all fans want for their own club) We don’t need to become the NBA where players are shipped across the country at will, but we’re certainly behind the times when it comes a range of player movement issues, both as an industry and as fans