Its Time for Another

I was at the Swans V Port game. Jeez this kid can play. Would we take him if he came to us before the end of the season and said he wanted to play with and for the Vineys. I guess with Clarry and a fit Viney we don't really need him. Other great teams have had threesomes. Briso's great trifecta, Eagles when Judd was still there, Cats have gone that way this year. I'd take him if we could. Problem is it can't happen without some major trading of players. We don't have a first rounder this year and will have to use next year's in the draft so we couldn't nab him anyway. But if we could what a midfield it would be.

Lewis has been charged with misconduct against Mathieson and can accept a $1500 fine. I don't remember the incident so can't comment but these fines have replaced suspensions. Was it bad enough to have been suspended last year? Whatever it was that's two games so far this season and two indiscretions. Following on from being suspended early last season. WTF!! Here's a player thrown an extra two to three years purely on the basis of the on field LEADERSHIP he's going to bring to the Club. And this is how he repays the Club. Wake up mate. Hope he's been told to go away and have a big hard think about himself.

Mine would be "The Definition of Madness - the tale of a tragic Demons Supporter" - a tragedy of many parts.

From what I can see he has followed the timeline he told Saty in about November. I'm not aware of any major setbacks since then. The training reports since Jan have had him running flat out for 2 1/2 months now and he's back in the full training about when he said he would. His plantafacia injury healed normally the consequent stress fracture was the set back. It's not one of those injuries like a navicular that can be career ending. Trenners injury has spooked us all but that's not what he's got. It's true you can't trust anything players or the Club say about injuries but hearing that he's done full training in the main group for about a month now and continues to says all I need to hear.

Love your work Jaded. That pretty much covers every comment I was going to make. Will just say when you look at the Ins and Outs it is nice to see the ongoing weeding out of weak players, no losses of good players and the progressive filling in of specific holes. Bit by bit the lists being filled in very nicely. Agree with most who say outside run is our missing factor now. To me we have it but he's sitting on the HBF. Hunt has the speed to break lines and is unstoppable on the run. By all accounts he's worked on his final kick into the forward 50. Having said that I'm very surprised to see him still being played off HBF. Thought it was a no brainer to move him onto the wing especially with Bernie and Lewis playing HBF. Will be interesting to see if they try him out on a wing tonight.

One of the other things I liked about the game was the fourth quarter effort. We were against the wind but only lost the quarter by two points. In the past in Hobart we've lost the last quarter and the game even with the wind. Hope this shows that we've now got the conditioning and composure to play out four quarters.

That Podcast would go so long it'd rival the The No T$ No B$ Thread.

I could see him playing a ruck rover role like Adam Goodes but he's a better forward than Goodes. Roughead did the pinch hitting centre bounce role very effectively. Carlton's Cripps is nearly the same size and plays as a permanent midfielder. I see this as being a short burst thing to mix it up a bit and give us a big body in the clearances every now and then but he's too good a forward to be away from that role too much.

It's because of the cancelled pre season camp. We are screwed. No one would be looking LACONIC if they'd just gone to the camp. We'll finish last this year.

Saty would really appreciate an update on the Weid if you get a chance to talk to coaches or him. He missed most of his last junior year with a stress fracture in his ankle. The off season operation he had was on an ankle. Firstly do you know or can you find it if it was related to the original problem. If not what happened to cause it and did it affect him last year. Secondly how is he tracking and when will he be fully operational. The original plan was for him to be back in the main group after Maroochydore. That's come and gone so I take it its taking longer than expected to recover. From what I've read he's been doing a lot of running since November so what's the hold up. Thanks in anticipation.

Hogan along with most of the key young players on our list are at this stage all potential and not a lot of delivery. Hopefully this is the year that they all arrive on the big stage. We could do anything and everything if they all deliver what we think their potential is.

You’re my Source for everything and anything Sometimes trades come to the Club in its sleep.

OK, don't know how but you caught me. Fantasising that is. Lynch will be a free agent so no need to trade picks. Gaff is a free agent so no need to trade picks. Wines or possibly Sloane might be available and if Hogan left we could use his picks to get them. What an off season that'd be. However, let me say, I truly deeply hope Hoges stays. Mind you for various reasons we'v only seen glimpses of greatness. He hasn't arrived there yet. I think he will unless there's some overwhelming personal reason for going home. He would be kissing what's about to be a great run with as good a chance as any of a Premiership in the next say 3-5 years. He's grown up with the group who will be achieving that since he was 17yrs old. He'd be doing that to go to a team, Freo that is at the very beginning of a long rebuild that may or may not be successful many years in the future.

Houston we have a problem. I was one firmly in the camp that getting Lever was fantastic but IMHO given Crows wanted Gibbs etc etc we should never have given away this years first round pick and it will come back to bite us on the arse. What do we have to give to Port now if he wants to come to us? We can't give them next year's first rounder because we have to use it to meet the one first round pick in 4 years rule. He's certainly worth a first rounder especially in this year's bumper draft. If Jesse went back to Perth we'd have one. But short of that we won't. So all we'll have is players. Tyson and ANB come to mind. I wouldn't think ANB on his own even with a second round pick would be enough. Tyson wouldn't be. Do we want to give up ANB and/or Tyson anyway for what OW brings. Without this year's first rounder I don't see how we get this done for any value that would make sense.

Bl&$dy knew it. You’re my source.

That’s the point of what I wrote.

I know what you mean. On the basis of the following there is logically a growing expectation of this year being a breakout year :- - linear improvement; - the demographic of the team with a solid core of players reaching a competitive level of development; - the raw talent; and - what I believe is an excellent coaching panel with a gameplan that at stages last year showed it could beat the best teams. However there are some intangibles we've suffered in the past two years that make me understand what you are saying. They might be cultural issues or maybe they were caused by too young a list. My three keys to correct for success are :- 1. I reckon we've played 3 x 4 quarter games in the past 11 years. Dogs and Eagles last year. Hawks the year before. When we start playing 4 quarter games watch out. 2. We've had too many games where we fade out and fail to close out games. 3. The last two years we've had bad drop offs in the last month. Maybe 2 & 3 can be explained by too young a list or maybe there's a more inherent cultural issue. Lets hope its the former and the list has reached a critical mass of physical and footy development. In my experience the transition from being grateful for any improvement to an expectation of good footy brings plenty of frustration and gnashing of teeth. (I'm being very restrained here). I was fractionally too young to remember '64 so my first experience of this transition was '86/'87 and we're in that window now for only the second time since '64. The competition is more even and plenty of teams around us are improving so there's no guarantees. My gut tells me the footy injury gods are finally going to shine on us and we are in for a big improvement but the logic of our experience as Dees supporters won't let that queezy feeling go away until its proved otherwise. Go Dees

Ah Hmm !!

Bloody camps. It's outrageous. They shouldn't have them. Someone needs to ring the AFLPA. Just stick to Goschs. This would never have happened if they'd just stick to training there.

You’ve got to read the context. Elite means the top 10% in their designated position over the previous 2 seasons not 1. I don’t know how specific they get. Eg Inside Onballer v Outside onballer v midfielder (ie this could be a wing). Wonder if they divide half forwards into categories like High HF v Defensive HF. I’d say Johansen is only assessed against other attacking HB’s and had an incredible 2016 with a Norm whereas Bontempelli is competing to be top 10% of all inside onballers. I can see that result. However I’m dazed and confused by the Bont not even being above average just average I guess they are stats based and his stats were probably down this year Track would be competing against high and goal kicking HF’s whereas Clarry is competing against all in and under midfielders over the past 2 seasons. I can see that. Let me just add that having said all the above I think most of their rankings are totally stuffed. Joel Selwood isn’t elite Jeremy Howe is. You can go on and on. I’ve never rated their ranking system.

Good point. Although they still have a predominantly very young list so other than Buddy would have some room. They could back end a contract because 2019 is the last big money year for Buddy.

According to Tom Harley in his interview on SEN Tippett's injury wasn't career ending and it was his decision to retire early so his payout will not be included in the salary cap after this year. Tippett had a trigger clause in his contract for big bucks for a year or two extension but apparently he was very reasonable about it and agreed to take much less each year but extend the contract for longer to the end of 2020. As he has decided to retire early and end the contract apparently he agreed to a very fair payout. I think you'll find the salary cap space that opens up isn't as big as you think. It will still really help them though. Especially as next year is the last really big bucks year on Buddy's contract. It tapers off by about 50% from 2020 onwards. I get the feeling from what Sloane has said that if he goes it will be back home to Vic. So assuming the money is the same that's where he'll end up. Don't know where.

Someone I know watched a lot of his school footy last year. I believe he was the Captain of Melbourne Grammar. Said 4 things :- 1. Hard as nails. Runs through brick walls. 2. Highly skilled. Very good kick and exceptional goal sense. 3. Very strong contested overhead mark with an unusually high vertical leap for his height. 4. Great kid.

Five teams in the 2017 Draft disagree with you and picked 5 players in the top 29 179cm or less. That's over 17% of the first 29. I think the worm has turned a bit on this attitude. Pick 17 Jack Higgins 178cm Pick 22 Lachlan Fogarty 179cm Pick 26 Liam Ryan 179cm Pick 27 Brent Daniels 171cm Pick 29 Spargo 172 cm