demoncat

Thanks @whatwhat say what - do you know whether the money is the primary reason for his interest in moving to the Crows? Putting aside the go home factor, surely if he has a productive season up forward - and the likes of Brown, McDonald and/or Tomlinson retire or aren’t offered new contracts - we would have a big sum we could offer him?

Shh… you’re making too much sense for the media and the negative nancies on Demonland In all seriousness we have had mitigating circumstances the past two seasons - particularly 2023 - that have meant we haven’t been able to perform at anywhere near our best, particularly come finals time Clearly there are some coaching, gameplan and personnel weaknesses that have exacerbated this, but more than anything it has been bad luck with injuries that has crueled us And I reckon new recruits, fire in the belly and a bit of good luck will take us a long way in 2024

Laurie - from all reports he’s taken a significant step forward with his fitness (coming 3rd in the 2km time trial), which is what Judd credited for his breakthrough into the senior side last year We’ve been crying out for classier ball users and if Laurie can hold down a spot averaging 15-20 possessions a game (which an increased fitness base should allow him to do) it will go a long way to addressing one of our biggest areas of weakness

Thanks for the info @Pennant St Dee and others It all suggests to me that Adelaide did a really poor job meeting his needs and communicating with him He even said in his interview with us how good of a job Stafford does communicating exactly what he wants him to do and how much the club has done to make him feel at home I know not everything a player does is the club’s fault, but the above certainly aligns with a lot of the reports that have come out about Adelaide’s culture over the last few years, particularly in regard to their indigenous players…

I’ve been really disappointed with our club’s media program for a long time now - I don’t know if it’s under resourced or we just don’t have the right people in our media team, but our content really lags behind some of the other clubs and is frankly pretty boring at times GWS is currently setting the standard for what clubs socials can look like - they have in-depth coverage of their draft night, heaps of interaction with their players and content that’s entertaining and with the times I reckon we could learn a lot from them

Also assumes that we didn’t see him as best available - which, from everything JT has said, we did

What’s most clear to me is that we got two players we rated really highly - and that’s the most important thing I’ll take JT’s rankings over Fox Footy’s any day of the week

I’ll almost be disappointed if we don’t take him at this point!

Demonland posters - sook all year that we have slow contest players who butcher the ball Also Demonland posters when we have a chance to recruit a fast outside player with strong kicking skills - nup nup his contested to uncontested possesion ratio is too damn low!

Woops - mistype Edited now

It does seem like GWS’ willingness to trade pick 7 could shape a lot of the draft Could mean West Coast get the Reid-Curtin double if they trade their future first, or could see them miss out if GWS trade back with Adelaide I’d still love for them to trade pick 1 to us and pick Curtin themselves at 6 if they think he’ll slide to then (and it seems like he will) but from all reports they’re set on taking Reid - Curtin or no Curtin

Word is that Adelaide have been particularly keen to move to 7 to grab Curtin I reckon we’d be trying to move up but might be difficult to match Adelaide’s assets (10, 14 and 20)

Alright you’ve convinced me - trade 6, 11, 42 and a F1 to the Eagles for pick 1 Then take Windsor at 1

Would personally rather him over Curtin or Windsor with pick 6 - has 200+ gamer written all over him Would love Windsor to slide to 11 in that scenario but doesn’t seem likely unfortunately

Would 4, 11 and 42 really be better than 6, 11, 42 and a F1? Especially if Curtin would be available at 6 anyway? I suppose they could get 4 - pick another player like Watson - and still offer their future first if Curtin slipped, but not sure if that would tempt them at this stage

Interesting - following JT meeting him and his family? And who are we hot on then? 👀

It’s three year contracts from next year onwards - so it does give the Eagles a bit more insurance

I reckon Hawks will pass on Curtin and we’ll take him with 6 I reckon we’ll take Tholstrup at 11 even if Windsor is still on the board 42 will be traded for a future pick unless a top 25 prospect in JT’s eyes slips that far down the ladder

He screams ‘JT pick’ in the best way possible

We tried to get pick 1 and were knocked back, don’t have any more assets to increase our offer We’ll seriously consider Curtin if he falls to pick 6 We’ve also been linked to Leake and to a lesser extent Caddy, and will take Windsor with our second pick if he’s still there Honestly just sounds like more speculation and parroting what other sites have said 🤷‍♂️

Do you know how that works @DeeSpencer? Have we essentially only agreed to match if he doesn’t get bid on in the ND?

Honestly would rather play one of the two SA teams than another Victorian side there At least we can just treat it like another away game instead of the debacle that was the West Coast into Essendon game last year where we went Melb-Perth-Melb-Adelaide within a week

They can still trade picks on draft night

I’ve heard the comparisons and would obviously love if we picked him and he became our version of Charlie But tall forwards are just about the hardest position to pick when drafting - there are so many variables when bringing these guys into AFL environments, not least of which is whether their relative size and strength at the junior level will hold up against bigger bodies I like his competitiveness and ability to mark at the highest point - but I just think there are others around him who have more bankable traits that, personally speaking, would compliment our current list better both now and into the future More than happy to be wrong though!

On the topic of trading pick 6 - I’m coming around to the idea more and more Generally I still think it’s better to take whoever is best available at the top end of the draft and get a year of development into them - but if for some reason JT and Tim Lamb think there is a significant drop off between the top picks of this draft and pick 6, I’d certainly consider offering it to West Coast for their future first, which is almost guaranteed to be a top three or four pick (if not pick 1) The other consideration is that next year’s draft is supposedly going to be much more midfield heavy, and I think that is the area we need to focus our drafting on going forward if/when we have picks at the top end (life after Viney/Trac/Clarry etc) It’s would be a gamble, but if nothing else at least we’d have another death ride for next year 🤷‍♂️🏇