Skuit

We paid pick 20 plus other stuff for Chris Dawes, after a 15-goal season. 23 is a bargain despite the club wanting Brown out the door.

I would expect four years. Is 27. As another poster pointed out all of the leading goal-kickers this year in Hawkins, Kennedy, and Dixon are all 30 or above.

I've attempted a few utopian-minded forum threads over the years and they've all instantly collapsed. Silly Skuit. Learn the internet already. There was that one time I was pushing for two game-day threads: one for shouting into the web-aether about TMac and the umpires and another to discuss actual game-day tactics and what was going on on-field. Yeah, good luck with that. Curious to hear your psych opinion on why posters find others with 'inside word' so threatening to their own self-esteem. ?

It has been raised a couple of times in terms of our players - but those rejecting Ben Brown based on some perception of flawed attributes need a psychologist. A leading goal-kicker wants to come to us for probably a second-round pick, but no he can't play below his legs. What? We have been struggling to kick goals, but Brown is the wrong fit. What? It feels like a special sub-branch of MFCSS. Anyway, good luck to any opposition team 0trying to work out to do with this lot in and rotating through the forward-line. Brown Jackson Weid Fritsch Pickett Petracca Gawn Another small pressure forward would be nice. Would love Brown and Smith as inclusions and then throw a bit of bank at McDonald-Tipungwuti. KPF, left wing and extra small forward sorted. Another running half-back and we have no holes left in our best 22, with decent depth.

I maintain that he's still our best lead-up player. Was a victim of us not lowering our eyes in the early rounds (also played soft against either Richmond or Geelong from memory) - but when we addressed that he was already out of the team. Don't know how a potentially-incoming Brown might change up the mix. If I were in charge I'd send him back to half-back. But keep.

It's crazy to think Brown has only been in the league one year longer than Weid.

@YokozunaAny news?

Endorsement from my favourite #tradebreaker makes me swoon.

I love when Demonland gets back to the eternal nature vs. nurture debate. I lean toward the genes side of the ledger, but that may well be a product of my upbringing.

Was it Mitch Clark's girlfriend who we were picking up her tab for university? I can't remember now.

Would be great to have a single thread where those who feel they have an inside word on trade gossip have a place to share it free of argument or discussion etc. Sauces are great but not necessary. I get tired of constantly opening the individual player threads every day hoping for some news and it's just people bitching about Simon Goodwin and the credibility of other posters. Put it here and we can all just accept it or dismiss it and move on, even if it's in riddle-form. For the record I have zero links to the club whatsoever, but appreciate other posters who take the time to pass on what they've heard, whether it's credible or not.

I'm of the view that our depth wasn't the major problem this year but our most senior players being shot (or not firing a shot) - Jones, TMac, Jetta and Melksham (leading to a lack of cohesion with three of the four in and out of team). Obviously these blokes have played a lot of games together as well now and in tandem with our younger guns - so age profile obviously also plays an important role when considering cohesion. Darwin points out that in his opinion the correlation is strong enough to conclude causation. But I guess it's a matter of working backwards - looking at the attributes of the most successful teams, with a 40% figure assigned by way of some in-house formula to cohesion and player familiarity. It may not be the major single predictor of success though.

I've been frozen cold and gobsmacked by any suggestion of Hogan returning to the Dees. At this particular hour of this particular day in time however I'm now just frosty and gob-slapped. So so many provisos, and it would require a heap of contract stipulations, but if the club believed he could be re-integrated (i.e. no bad blood with any current players or members of staff) and his body was close to right then I would thaw a little more and overlook recent behavioural and mental health issues if it meant a future third-rounder and the chance to humiliate Bell. I never considered Jesse truly elite in his attributes, even at his very best, but he's certainly a very capable forward and we need some more of that.

We've been described as the front-runner LH - I think that's more than 2+2. And it would make sense if North's list management team are keeping a low profile at present, and thus not feeding the media. On the flip-side, I feel that our link to Phillips may be more of a case of 2+2. Can't recall where that one originated and the language involved. ?

Patrick Dangerfield?

Ex-Wallaby Ben Darwin is back in the media chatting about cohesion and player familiarity accounting for around 40 percent of sporting success - according to the number crunching of his data analytics company Game Line (for the record, he attributes just 2% to coaching, but I think it's probably a little more complex than that as to game-plans/tactics etc.). There's not much here to dig into but there are other sources if you search around: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2020/oct/19/ben-darwins-theory-of-sport-evolution-familiarity-breeds-success. I recently noted that Clarry, Harmes and Trac were all in the top ten for current consecutive games played (Langdon is also up the top of the list). Harmes has since dropped out, but it's interesting to note that Darwin highlights player positional moves (i.e. cohesion) as having another serious but detrimental impact on performance (something we're all aware of, but not something I'll ride the coach for just yet). Throw in Salem and Brayshaw (bar the end of this season), and our core midfield talent are starting to string a lot of games together alongside one other. While the article focuses on rugby and soccer, I do believe the AFL was part of the sizeable data-set (I admittedly have no idea how it's been quantified and interpreted though). How well do you think such a notion translates to the intricacies of the AFL? Are there many counter-examples? Off the top of my head, the recent AFL dynasties do seem to have been built off a core group of players coming through the draft together (some through concessions, but that's not entirely relevant here). We look at other chips falling in place, but are these partially incidental?

I forgot to add the main point of my post lol. I think how most of our trades will be judged this year on these boards will be highly dependent on each poster's perspective of where we sit on the 'premiership clock'. If you were of the mind that we had no hope of contending in the next two years then luring Smith would come across as completely idiotic.

Count me in too. I've outlined why I think we're on the verge of contention a few times before so I won't go over it all again, but the basic premise is a couple of disrupted seasons and ongoing immaturity have led us to perform below capabilities and now we face a changing of the guard from old leadership to new. How quickly we transition from Jones, TMac, Jetta and Melksham e.g. to a Petracca and Oliver-driven team will determine how quickly we get there, and having another able-bodied senior best-22 is an important factor as well as plugging a wing for a year or two. Throw in a KPF of Brown's quality and some improved coaching ranks and the recipe is right.

I can't work out how to turn on my TV lol (can't remember the last time I watched terrestrial TV). All the live blogs are rubbish - especially the AFL's. Any recommendations? I just want updates with who polled what in each round. Seems simple enough.

I recall that some of Storm Boy was shot in West Lakes . . .

Obligatory pet-project post now that Port's season is dead. Let's poach Nathan Bassett.

Mosman Park just north of Fremantle has the highest ratio of women to men: https://www.domain.com.au/news/areas-women-outnumber-men-revealed-abs-data-769673/#:~:text=While there are slightly more,the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Jesse will stay put.

It does help if you note the general nature of the source - not that I would expect you to divulge the second part. But the response (admittedly grumpy - pre-trade time does my head in) was in respect to constantly having to determine if statements in these threads are mere speculation or derive from gleaned information. I acknowledge that you provided some further detailed info which would help to deduce the latter, but I don't know if this is being repeated from the radio or somewhere else or whatnot. Anyway, thanks for sharing what you've been told. It is appreciated.

Again, it would be great if this was prefaced with 'In my opinion', or 'I've heard', or 'I've been reliably told by a solid source', or 'I read on Bigfooty that' etc.

Nice one.