The Taciturn Demon

Because Dovaston is clearly a better prospect or because there was some talk we liked him a week or so ago - and it seems odd to suddenly shift?

I think this is a very fair point. It would be fascinating to go back and look at publicly available information before, say, that shocking 2016 draft. Was there a general sense it was awful? Was there positivity? Did 'experts' get it completely wrong: were they hinting it might have been a ripper? What I have noticed, though, is that although it's very early days, what people were saying about the 2024 (bountiful; one for the ages) and 2023 (strongish with a big cliff in the teens) drafts looks to have been pretty spot on.

This is haunting me. It's funny, I now watch Petracca and Oliver depart the men's team and shrug - maybe a sigh at worst. The idea of Zanker leaving, however, fills me with the same anxiety I had as a teenager when whispers about Jeff Farmer leaving began.

Love your work, layzie, but I've come to a different conclusion. As someone with no connection to the Under 18 comp and a generally below average understanding of the nuances of what makes a good footballer, I want to understand the the draft better. And, over the years (particularly the Jason Taylor period) one thing I've come to realise is that the quality of the draft is a hugely important variable. The difference between the 2016 and the 2019 draft is massive. The top 20 in one are now mostly B and C graders. The top 20 in the other is almost entirely champions, A-graders and some excellent B+ers. And then there are drafts that seem to have really good players all the way through. The 2013 draft had an up-and-down top 10 (including Bont and Josh Kelly) and then excellent footballers all the way into the mid 50s: Zach Merrett at 26. Alex Pearce at 37. Jake Kolodjashnij at 41. Barrass at 43. Aliir Aliir at 44. Ben Brown at 47. Byrne-Jones at 52. Sicily at 56. All of this is true. But it's also true that if you have a good hand in a bad draft - if the draft in front of you is just comparatively poor - you're at a disadvantage. It's not impossible to find gems - and the skills of your recruiting team are vital - but even the best struggle to find players at the point a draft falls off a cliff. In 2021 we might just have sneaked in before the huge drop. In 2022 I'm not sure we did.

I've loved her career, but not sure they can play Lampard.

Hanks Zanker Heath Harris Wotherspoon Mahony

Feel like we're still leaving it to too few. Great effort to finish second after last year, but I'd love to be playing more polished footy as we go into finals.

Mahony's handballing is top level. Exceptional.

We couldn't be missing Purcell and Beasley any more.

Yeah, having said what I said, we might be one of the few clubs who would consider it. Mainly because I wonder if 7 and 8 are no-man's-land picks in this draft - high enough to make everyone think you should be getting a very good player, but not high enough to gurantee that very good player from a shallow pool. Does 16 give a recruiter more freedom to have a swing at a bit of a smokey, rather than feel obligated to pick a sure thing (who becomes a C grade, 125-game plodder)? Maybe it's moot when it comes to Jason Taylor, whose selection of Pickett, Jackson, Windsor and Tholstrup suggest he couldn't give a stuff about what others think. It's also moot if Taylor is confident he can get two beauties at 7 and 8. If it's not, I don't mind the idea of banking picks for next year before Tassie really messes up the top of the draft. And it is fun to think about Adelaide going full 2023 Fremantle next year.

Interesting (if true, which is always an important caveat with the Herald Sun). Not sure they have a lot to work with to trade up. Their finals series was awful, but they didn't fluke the minor premiership, so I'm not sure if clubs will be rubbing their hands together for future picks.

This is exactly the term that came to mind when I watched highlights: project player. A player you'd be happy to work on for three or four years after using a late pick on them or taking them as a Rookie. Extraordinary that he's being talked of as a clear first rounder and the best KPP behind Dean. I reckon recruiting teams will be earning their money this year.

ChaserJ is wonderful. Was a must-read on Twitter before The Collapse.

People like Richard Goyder?

This was one of his great strengths. He should always be commended for this. But by the end he was deep inside a delusion.

Goodness. This rings painfully true to me.

Made it blatantly clear that we were not, as Goodwin said, "so close".

Could they get any more adorable?

I feel phantom drafts go from "what do clubs need?" in October to "which recruiters like which players?" in November.

I also don't think we should just assume the Suns will finish top four. They might. But progress, as we got told a lot before 2021, is rarely "linear".

Run those names by me. Obviously we've got the guy who talks about Chandler's meridian well above everyone else. Who's on the next tier down?

Ah yeah. That's why I'm so bad at understanding the game. I hold on to my six-year-old curiosity - "Dad, why are the butchers waving flags now?" - rather than who's playing where and why.

You're right. The season has gone quicker, and the injury list shrunk faster, than I realised. I reckon Denby Taylor is a bit unlucky to be out of the team at the moment.

In the women's game they've trialled making holding the ball interpretation much stricter, by giving less prior opportunity leeway. I thought it was a good idea. It just hasn't worked. The umpires are not the best of the best and they really struggle to be consistent. I have much less problem with changing the rules than most. The game changes so quickly that a governing body would be completely negligent if it said "We're not changing any rules for X years". The problem I do have is changing the rules in a way that makes umpiring harder.

You've never seen a goal umpire step forward and give the full back and full forward a little hurry up?