The Taciturn Demon

I don't think this gets underscored enough. It's not just for theatre when you see videos where the coach is participating in list management discussions.

Barer still if Petty would still like to return to South Australia as a free agent.

I thought the same, which would explain what several others on the forum have raised concerns about: the relatively gentle approach to the list last year. On the face of it, eight out and eight in seems like a good prune, but that includes Brayshaw from a year ago, two retirements, Joel Smith and a seemingly unexpected trade request from ANB.

Without doubt. I just wonder exactly what those expectations were.

I assume clubs privately talk about serious and reasonably specific expectations for what their list is capable of in the coming season. And what they determine presumably informs all sorts of decisions - list management being at the top of the list. First, am I wrong? And if not, what do you think the honest consensus would have been inside the club in October?

Yikes.

My apologies. I thought you meant accepting we're completely buggered and basically starting again. You're talking about not standing in the way of very good players wanting to leave as Richmond did with Bolton, Baker, Rioli and Graham, so long as the price is right. Although, I would argue they did that because they realised they were completely buggered and needed to start again. I generally agree that if a player depserately doesn't want to be at your club, forcing them to stay becomes more and more unproductive as the years progress (and the resentment builds). I do think, however, that if all the cards fell a certain way, and as you've suggested we ended up trading out Petracca, Oliver, Pickett, Rivers, JVR and Fritsch, we'd then be relying on mostly kids (Langford, Windsor, Lindsay, McVee, Turner, Jefferson and some high picks from the coming draft) and players very close to the end of their careers to keep us competitive. This may be unavoidable and even preferable to dabbling with mediocrity for five or ten years, but the 2008 to 2014 period taught me that throwing kids into the deep end doesn't always work.

This news really brightened my day. Although, to be honest, I'd already been buoyed when on Sunday morning, during my kid's praccy match (during which I was sulking silently on the boundary, thinking about Saturday's debacle) I overheard another parent proclaim that the reason for Carlton's start to the season was they were "too woke". A fellow Carlton supporter, apparently able to comprehend what he meant, said "Except Patrick Cripps..." and the bloke responded. "No, he's woke as well." I quite literally had to stifle a laugh. Immediately brought to mind the "this engine is woke" meme.

Whoa. Richmond have cut to the absolute bone. The only reason Taranto and Hopper are there is because they signed them to long deals in a moment of madness, believing they were a chance to win a fourth Flag in the era. Cutting like Richmond is the definition of bottoming out.

I'm interested to see what we do here. I'd have him in the middle as much as the fitness team say is safe. We desperately need everything he has: speed, precision by foot, evasive skills, tackling ability, quick hands, ability to win clearances, etc. But it seems like he's a certainty to leave the club. Does that just become a band aid? Do you keep him forward and try others in the middle, knowing he's not a long-term fix?

I think when your champion ruck and two of your gun centre square midfielders are either mediocre or poor by foot, your wingers need to be more Zach Merrett than Taylor Adams.

We recently signed a player for a further four years who can't, and has never been able to, handball. His kicking is well below average as well. He's beloved on this site and has finished top 10 in the B&F multiple times. As a club we don't tolerate awful disposal. We embrace it.

As bad as everything feels at the moment, this situation PLUS Houston but no Langford or Lindsay would be so much worse.

You might be talking about the Lachman test. You lie on your back with your knees bent at a certain angle and a physio or doctor holds your thigh and then tugs your shin bone forward, hoping to feel what they call an "end point". That's the ACL doing its thing: keeping your knee stable. If there's no obvious feeling of the ACL 'resisting', it could suggest it's ruptured. You're right. It isn't always conclusive. I remember when I did mine, the physio on the boundary said they felt something and thought I'd be fine. Then a week later, I went and saw another physio and they thought they felt something as well. But whatever it was wasn't the intact ACL - the scan showed I'd done it. But I still think letting a player run on it is unusual unless the medical team just don't suspect it at all.

It's true that you can often quite comfortably run in a straight line after rupturing your ACL. But as GS said, it's unusual for fitness staff to let you run on it if they suspect it.