Skuit

Height or something here feels a bit fudged.

Also, I make no apologies. This is me.

Just quoting this so that anyone intending to respond to mo64's post hopefully reads it properly before doing so. Also, welcome to the club Taj. Drafted higher than your old man!

Definitely pokes at it. Outcomes don't seem too bad, but it's a flick of the lower leg rather than kicking through it. I also think we should be looking into his running mechanics. Seems to take twice as many steps than necessary.

Go on . . . Actually, on second thoughts, don't. What was intended as a jokey lend of the concept of a bunch of footy-heads sitting around listening to musicals has somehow morphed into me smashing a scared cow with a baseball bat. Please everyone stop quoting me. I'm sorry I deeply upset some of you with my post. This place use to be way funnier when the MFC was a hot mess at risk of folding. But as penance I will now adopt the song as my personal affirmation. I've highlighted the lyrics below which have particular resonance in my journey to be a better version of me. I am not a stranger to the dark Hide away, they say 'Cause we don't want your broken parts I've learned to be ashamed of all my scars Run away, they say No one'll love you as you are But I won't let them break me down to dust I know that there's a place for us For we are glorious When the sharpest words wanna cut me down I'm gonna send a flood, gonna drown 'em out I am brave, I am bruised I am who I'm meant to be, this is me Look out 'cause here I come And I'm marching on to the beat I drum I'm not scared to be seen I make no apologies, this is me Oh-oh-oh-oh Oh-oh-oh-oh Oh-oh-oh-oh Oh-oh-oh-oh Oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh, oh Another round of bullets hits my skin Well, fire away 'cause today, I won't let the shame sink in We are bursting through the barricades and Reaching for the sun (we are warriors) Yeah, that's what we've become (yeah, that's what we've become) I won't let them break me down to dust I know that there's a place for us For we are glorious When the sharpest words wanna cut me down I'm gonna send a flood, gonna drown 'em out I am brave, I am bruised I am who I'm meant to be, this is me Look out 'cause here I come And I'm marching on to the beat I drum I'm not scared to be seen I make no apologies, this is me Oh-oh-oh-oh Oh-oh-oh-oh Oh-oh-oh-oh Oh-oh-oh-oh Oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh, oh This is me And I know that I deserve your love (Oh-oh-oh-oh) There's nothing I'm not worthy of (Oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh, oh) When the sharpest words wanna cut me down I'm gonna send a flood, gonna drown 'em out This is brave, this is bruised This is who I'm meant to be, this is me Look out 'cause here I come (look out 'cause here I come) And I'm marching on to the beat I drum (marching on, marching, marching on) I'm not scared to be seen I make no apologies, this is me When the sharpest words wanna cut me down I'm gonna send a flood, gonna drown 'em out I'm gonna send a flood Gonna drown 'em out Oh This is me

There's a small clue in Jason Taylor's post-draft wrap: "We were really thrilled to get him through at that point of the draft. We didn’t expect it. It was a nice – surprise probably isn’t the right word – but it was a really good result for us." A bit of mixed messaging in the didn't expect it/surprise isn't the right word elements, but I get the sense they didn't expect the overall result going in - but had put in a heap of work in assessing other clubs' strategies and gaining intel to feel that there were decent enough odds in Blake slipping to around our second pick. I would assume this includes direct discussions with other clubs.

Today is everyone's last chance to ensure that @picket fence doesn't take home the mock drafting recruiter's prize. If you ever hope to see or hear the last of this thread then best get voting. Sheeeit.

Jeepers. You're taking it back to the 17th century? My surname doesn't reflect my ancestry and nor does my birthplace. He has evidently spoken of his Zimbabwean background. That's all anyone has to go on. Anyways, welcome to the club Jacob.

So van Rooyen according to the AFL website comes from a Zimbabwean background. Can we quit with the Dutch thing now? It's a different continent. Also as such I have no idea how to pronounce his name.

And wasn't AVB Belgian?

Honestly didn't see any point 3 when I quoted you. At the very least I didn't intentionally delete it.

Not just Freo's 19. The limited history of live trading has seen a lot of movement in behind that first pick of the second round in the early-to-mid 20s, and some pretty decent rewards offered up. Good players are undoubtedly going to slip in this draft, and that's why I think we should slide with them. We've been drafting a year ahead, have a mostly healthy list balance with an abundance of young talent, and have JT sitting at the desk. Oh, and we're the premiership front-runners. These factors, plus the extra uncertainty of recruiting during a pandemic, offer a unique opportunity and I believe we should attempt to cash in. Dangle 17 in front of Hawthorn for example to move back to the early second round at 21, and then dangle that again overnight to a mid-20's team such as Richmond if there are still players on the board we think are good value. Then maybe even go again. We could come out of it with a trio of mid second-round players or possibly even more across two drafts for the price of a 17. That's a potential return of Bowey, Sparrow and Fritsch or whatever else JT manages to uncover. Or we could pool our gains to take a stab at some genuine top-end talent next year during a period we're unlikely to have much in the way of natural draft cookies.

The idea of playing that Greatest Showman 'This is Me' song for a bunch of young male footballers as a seasonal-theme, by what is essentially a young male coach - including on grand final day - and it having any impact on their motivation to perform is so far-fetched and ridiculous to me that I can only imagine this is some sort of grand post-flag [censored]-take cooked up by Goodwin and the players and delivered with admirable Academy-worthy straight-faces. Like, seriously? On each side of that scenario, my estimation of Goody either plummets or sky-rockets. It's not about the subject, just the notion that such cheesy lyrics and music could possibly inspire and be promoted by the demographic. Let's not forget the five years of preparation to get to this current point and the off-season buy-in from the players. I doubt the song is related at all, and I'm sure would have been met with mega eye-rolls from a millennial generation.

I've living between Cairns and Darwin right now, so happy to be Northern Australia AFL rep.

My side counters that by having no personal integrity. How are you going to stop that?

The confusing thing I think in assessing our future prospects is that while we were mostly unbeatable throughout the year (built on a defensive bedrock) despite never really looking dominant and being shaky at times, our last three and a half games were of another calibre. Was that the next gear up in the MFC revolution, which could fuel us to the next flag? Fifteen minutes after May limped of with a hammy I was okay with whatever might come to pass. He and Lever are undoubtedly key, but I think the boys learned a lesson about their own capabilities in the final few games of the year, which will hopefully set us apart from other genuine hangovers. Effectively, we have a shiny new toy to play with and I expect the team is eager to test it out. The keyest fact is that we have three of the top five or ten players in the league, and they're all crammed into our midfield. There are stars on every line for sure, but I think due to the disbenefit of proximity we can't fully realise how monumental the pairing of Trac and Clarry will turn out to be, and I get no sense of a lack of hunger from either of those guys or Goodwin and Gawn. TLDR: We were pretty good last year but not dominant - until the last few matches. That newfound level I believe will push us past any conception of a premiership hangover. We've always had the list, but now they know they can flex their muscle.

Such a fantastic podcast. In disappointment terms, Burgo's departure ranks a close second to Jurrah and ahead of Jako for me. I'm not sure that everyone really appreciates what we've lost - one of those blokes bagged us a flag. And sports science isn't going to go away anytime soon. To stay ahead, our club needs to recruit the best in the business from the worldwide pool.

I'll leave the start-up I work for the very second it's sold (i.e. achieves its goal). Bank the success, move on to a new challenge and relieve the professional boredom. Byrnes has been at the club for an eternity in AFL terms.

There's a lone gumtree in the middle of Napoli which triggered a very strange psychogeographic response in me (can't remember the story of how it got there, but it's from well over a century ago). Meanwhile, the prevalence of eucalypt in Portugal and Greece is the cause of the devastating recent bushfires in both countries. It keeps burning and they keep replanting it to hide the ugly charred landscape because of the speed that it regrows. Humans are quite stupid for all their technological brilliance. I also once visited the outdoor CLA studios in the desert of Ouarzazate in Morocco, where off the top of my head they filmed scenes for Gladiator, Game of Thrones, and Stone's Alexander the Great among many older flicks such as Lawrence of Arabia and some early Star Wars stuff. Another strange psychological experience. And Black Hawk Down, including recording portions of in my opinion probably the greatest ever soundtrack, Zimmer's, with contributions from Baaba Maal and Rachid Taha among others. Meanwhile, my football team features the following players, some of the absolute greats of the modern era: Buddy Franklin, Dustin Martin, Nat Fyfe, and Patrick Dangerfield, together with emerging superstars such as Christian Petracca, Charlie Cameron, and Bailey Smith, and if I may indulge, our own Kysaiah Pickett. Million-dollar players of the calibre of Zach Merrett, and Josh Kelly seem like mere adornments next to that lot, but they are also in my team, as well as Toby Greene and Jake Stringer among other ****wits. Vote Skuit, while listening to the epic Black Hawk Down soundtrack and staring at your closest gumtree and imagining who you would really actually want on your side during a metaphorical fire-fight in Mogadishu that is the Australian AFL football field, (with advance apologies for my insensitivities, of course football is nothing like the brutality of real warfare, despite our ANZAC day game promotions to this effect). That said, would you prefer Orazio Fantasia and Tom Papley on your half-forward flanks, or Dusty and Greene?

I agree.

The concept of building a competitive multi-year team is a great one, like as in a number of online competitors mock drafting, delisting and trading players in perpetuity, but with the list fixed in-season and maybe adjudged each year by some statistical ratings measure to determine each year's premiers... But no one is coming back in three years from now to assess our pointless exercise: these are teams for the here and now of this thread, and my players would clearly currently crap all over yours on any given day of the week.

And that approach landed you with ANB and Charlie Spargo in your starting forward-line, with a combined career goal tally of well less than half of that of Dusty (291), Charlie Cameron (247) and Toby Greene (238) alone. Oh, and I almost forgot Buddy, with, umm, another 995 career goals to his name. Heck, even my interchange bench has wracked up 900 gaols between them.

Vote and you can make it end FD (also, vote me, or I will send Dusty, Greene and de Goey 'round your house . . . and how embarrassing would that be, having three Aussie bogans in your small village chalet in the delicate French provinces elocuting like a murder of crows: faaark, faaark mate, yeah-nah but faaark hey)?

Tapei Demon voted for adonski. A whiff of off-shore match-fixing if you ask me. Also, who is this Draper fellow you have sitting on the bench?

Your idle bench behaviour of ‘Maynard butters Seedsman’ is super-disturbing, in a Deliverance kind of way. Hopefully the Marshal will step in and sort it out, but who would trust an American cop nowadays? I fear for Gray, as a PoC by designation.