Whispering_Jack

A little flashback to the not so distant past. This is round 23 v Geelong at GMHBA Stadium and highlights Clarrie’s two goals. The first is quite amazing, like Moses he parts the Red Sea and finds the way to the goals. It’s not as if it’s accidental - he’s done it a few times in the past couple of seasons. How does he do it?

Blake Howes would make a very competent understudy for Bayley Fritsch and could be available for our second selection at 39. Comes from the Sandringham Dragons which has been a strong club over the past decade or so.

I hope the fact that he failed to make the cut at Melbourne hasn’t soured relations between Jeff and the club. He always seemed pretty happy as a Demon.

Kevin Sheehan reveals his top NAB AFL Draft Prospects: Medium forwards

… and 26 to 52

Ed Pascoe has also had a crack at a Phantom Draft. Here’s the first 25 selections:-

@rollinson 65 - are you good for a comeback to manage?

@Ash35 is a long time and respected Demonland poster. He’s also respectful of others and is welcome to post here at any time. And given that this is “The Bobby Hill Thread” he was fully on topic. Thanks.

I’ve never been one to really get involved in the discussion about who won the trade period because it’s such a useless exercise. As we all know, the proof of the pudding etc. and it’s about who you end up drafting and how you develop the players you draft so that we’ll never really know until we’re years down the track. However, I think it’s worth pointing out that Melbourne’s trading effort yielded the player who received more Brownlow votes than any other traded. In fact, 10 more than the player considered by many as the prize of the trade period. Let that sink in.

INDICATIVE DRAFT ORDER (at the end of the AFL Trade Period) Points in red ROUND ONE 1. North Melbourne 3,000 2. GWS Giants (received from Collingwood in 2020) 2,517 3. Gold Coast 2234 4. Adelaide 2,034 5. Hawthorn 1,878 6. Fremantle (received from Carlton as part of Adam Cerra trade) 1,751 7. Richmond 1,644 8. Fremantle 1,551 9. St Kilda 1,469 10. West Coast 1,395 11. Essendon 1,329 12. Port Adelaide (received from Sydney as part of Peter Ladhams trade) 1,268 13. GWS Giants 1,212 14. Brisbane Lions 1,161 15. Richmond (received from Geelong in 2020) 1,112 16. Sydney (received from Port Adelaide as part of Peter Ladhams trade) 1,067 17. Melbourne (received from Western Bulldogs as part of a pick swap) 1,025 18. Brisbane Lions (received from Melbourne in 2020) 985 ROUND TWO 19. Fremantle (received from Gold Coast as part of Will Brodie trade; originally part of assistance package in 2019) 948 20. North Melbourne 912 21. Hawthorn (received from Collingwood in 2020) 878 22. Geelong (received from Fremantle as part of Jordan Clark trade; originally received from Collingwood in a pick swap; originally received from Gold Coast in a pick swap) 845 23. Western Bulldogs (received from Adelaide as part of a pick swap) 815 24. Hawthorn 785 25. Carlton 756 26. Richmond 729 27. Collingwood (received from Fremantle in a pick swap) 703 28. Richmond (received from St Kilda in 2020) 677 29. West Coast 653 30. Geelong (received from Essendon in 2020) 629 31. Sydney 606 32. Geelong (received from GWS Giants in 2020) 584 33. Adelaide (received from Melbourne as part of a pick swap; originally received from Brisbane in 2020) 563 34. Geelong 542 35. West Coast (received from Port Adelaide in 2020) 522 36. Collingwood (received from Western Bulldogs in 2020) 502 37. Melbourne (received from Adelaide as part of a pick swap; originally received from Melbourne in 2020) 483 ROUND THREE 38. Richmond (received as compensation for losing unrestricted free agent Mabior Chol to Gold Coast) 465 39. Sydney (received as compensation for losing restricted free agent George Hewett to Carlton) 446 40. Richmond (received from North Melbourne as part of Robbie Tarrant-Callum Coleman-Jones trade) 429 41. Brisbane Lions (received from Geelong as part of Darcy Fort trade; originally received from Collingwood as part of Nathan Kreuger trade) 412 42. North Melbourne (received from Richmond as part of Robbie Tarrant-Callum Coleman-Jones trade; originally received from Gold Coast in 2020) 395 43. Western Bulldogs (received from Collingwood for Pat Lipinski; originally received from Adelaide in 2020) 378 44. Western Bulldogs (received from Adelaide as part of a pick swap; originally received as compensation for losing unrestricted free agent Jake Kelly to Essendon) 362 45. Western Bulldogs (received from Melbourne as part of a pick swap; originally received from Hawthorn in 2020) 347 46. Collingwood (received from Gold Coast in a pick swap; originally received from Carlton in 2020) 331 47. North Melbourne (received from Richmond as part of Robbie Tarrant-Callum Coleman-Jones trade) 316 48. Collingwood (received from Fremantle in 2020) 302 49. Melbourne (received from St Kilda as part of a pick swap) 287 50. Geelong (received from Brisbane as part of Darcy Fort trade; originally received from West Coast in 2020) 273 51. Essendon 259 52. Western Bulldogs (received from West Coast as part of Lewis Young trade; originally received from Sydney in 2020) 246 53. GWS Giants 233 54. Brisbane Lions 220 55. Collingwood (received from Geelong as part of Nathan Kreuger trade) 207 56. Essendon (received from Port Adelaide in 2020) 194 57. Melbourne (received from Western Bulldogs in 2020) 182 58. Collingwood (received from Gold Coast in a pick swap; originally received from Melbourne in 2020) 170 ROUND FOUR 59. Hawthorn (received from North Melbourne in 2020) 158 60. Brisbane Lions (received from Collingwood in 2020) 146 61. Fremantle (received from Gold Coast as part of Will Brodie trade) 135 62. St Kilda (received from Adelaide as part of a pick swap) 123 63. Port Adelaide (received from Hawthorn in 2020) 112 64. Carlton 101 65. Hawthorn (received from Richmond in 2020) 90 66. St Kilda (received from Adelaide as part of a pick swap; originally received from Fremantle in 2020) 80 67. St Kilda 69 68. West Coast 59 69. Fremantle (received from Gold Coast as part of Will Brodie trade; originally received from Essendon in 2020) 49 70. Sydney 39 71. GWS Giants 29 72. North Melbourne (received from Brisbane Lions in 2020) 19 73. Port Adelaide (received from Geelong in 2020) 9 74. Port Adelaide 75. Adelaide (received from Western Bulldogs as part of a pick swap) 76. Brisbane Lions (received from Melbourne in 2020) ROUND FIVE 77. North Melbourne 78. Collingwood 79. Collingwood (received from Gold Coast in a pick swap) 80. Adelaide 81. Hawthorn 82. Carlton 83. Richmond 84. Fremantle 85. St Kilda 86. West Coast 87. Essendon 88. Sydney 89. GWS Giants 90. Brisbane Lions 91. Geelong 92. Port Adelaide 93. Western Bulldogs 94. Melbourne

Final siren sounds.

Looking like no trades for Bobby Hill or Tristan Xerri.

* "I believe the Lynch deal is done - it will see the Hawks trade the Brisbane future third round pick and their own future third pick in exchange for Lynch, Freo’s future third and a Gold Coast future fourth. " — Cal Twomey That’s Collingwood’s Lynch to Hawthorn. No effect on the Cats’ average age.

* DONE DEAL | Peter Ladhams has been traded from Port Adelaide to Sydney. Port will get pick 12 and a future 3rd. Swans will get pick 16 and Ladhams.

Former skipper Jack Hutchins has retired from the VFL. Well played Jack!

* DONE DEAL | The Dockers get their man! Jordan Clark has been traded to Fremantle for pick 22 and a future 3rd. Freo gets back a future 4th. The average age of the Cats’ list goes up again!

* "Jonathon Ceglar and a future fourth-round selection, in exchange for a future round three selection tied to Brisbane next year." — Cal Twomey Yes, they mentioned who the future selection was tied to. Ceglar will be 31 in February and joins Geelong. I haven’t done the maths yet but is it possible the average age of their list just dropped? Surely not?

* "Brisbane has traded in Darcy Fort and pick 41 in exchange for a future third round pick and pick 50 this year going to Geelong." — Cal Twomey

Next year.

I have no idea why the media is doing it but every time there’s reference made to the future first round pick Melbourne traded to get selection 17 in this year’s draft is always referred to as “Melbourne’s” whereas other traded future are almost never discussed with reference to the club the pick in question came from. Is this an indication that supporters of other clubs are in awe of us? * DONE DEAL | The deal to make Jordan Dawson a Crow has been lodged, with the Swans receiving Melbourne's future 1st round pick. — Daniel Cherny

There’s more to come but can you pick the ODD SPOT? * "You've got the best coach in Australian being paid $900,000 to have a holiday in America before he comes home and coaches another team. I can't get my head around how Hawthorn have fallen apart like this" — Kane Cornes re Alastair Clarkson * DONE DEAL | The deal to make Jordan Dawson a Crow has been lodged, with the Swans receiving Melbourne's future 1st round pick. — Daniel Cherny * "Just like their interest in Chad Wingard, Greater Western Sydney has explored interest in Luke Breust over the last day. Would similarly have been willing to use pick 13 in a deal, but like Wingard, Breust has been reluctant to move from Hawks." — Cal Twomey * "I can't see it happening at the moment, I think there's too much difference in the valuation from North Melbourne and St Kilda." — Riley Beveridge on the Tristan Xerri

There’s an article in today’s Herald Sun about the excitement generated by the arrival at Melbourne of boom recruit Tayla Harris (sorry pay wall and no link but it’s at p87). Melbourne’s AFLW coach Mick Stinear says Harris had fit right into her new AFLW home. “Tayla’s been quite honest that when Covid hit last year, she found that quite challenging, and she didn’t have an ideal preparation leading into last season. “And we’ve experienced it as well with our players that a change of environment for some players is exactly what they need, and it helps get the best out of them. “We certainly hope that’s the case, and the way she’s training and competing at the moment, things are looking really promising. “She’s a pretty special athlete with a lot of talent and she’s really bought into our program and her role within the team. I think her physicality and athleticism up forward and her finishing ability around goal, combined with her selfless nature, she’s going to bring something we haven’t had in our forward line before.” Pre-season training officially starts for the Demons on Thursday. It could be the last for Daisy Pearce, 33, the mother of two, who has made a big commitment to sign up for another season. The new AFLW season starts in early January.

Some interesting points here. There was certainly a lot of early interest last year in McInnes and much of it was generated on the draft boards by the likes of people like Knightmare who knows people within the trade and had him as high as #5 in his power ratings and in his top 10 for most of the year. In the final analysis however, the club recruiters are the professionals who decide their clubs’ picks and their livelihoods and reputations often depend on making good decisions. The example Dee Spencer gave above of the deal done between GWS and Collingwood turned out a brilliant one for the Giants because they ended up with pick 2 in this year’s draft. It wasn’t too bad for Collingwood either because they received two round one selections and reduced the number of options for other clubs to pick their NGA player. Still, there were other clubs that could have jumped in to get McInness but it didn’t happen. It would be ironic if GWS used that pick to take Melbourne’s NGA this year. I don’t think it will pan out that way despite what “experts” like Matt Rendell is hearing.

The first deal of decision day has been done with Sydney’s Jordan Dawson going to Adelaide for the Crows' future first-round pick, which is the one that Melbourne for this year’s pick 17. It looks as though today’s going to be a busy day.

Agree with most of that but would question your use of the word “better” in connection with players like Sparrow and JJ. As with much of the discussion surrounding players at this time of year there’s a lot of subjectivity when assessing their worth. Those younger guys are only just starting and have a much higher ceiling of potential worth. If they’re not “better” than Dunstan today, they most likely will be in 12 month’s or two year’s time, all of which is great from the club’s point of view looking into the future in terms of midfield depth.