Its Time for Another

Quote is from SEN not one of us. In any event the point of this OP IS Potential v Reality.

For what it's worth SEN posted this today on our A Graders and who is borderline. You could say they fit into our Potential Categories. https://www.sen.com.au/news/2017/11/09/how-many-a-graders-does-your-club-have/ A-Graders: Jack Viney, Max Gawn, Clayton Oliver, Michael Hibberd Borderline: Jake Lever, Jesse Hogan, Christian Petracca After having just one star for so many years in Nathan Jones, who narrowly misses this list, the Demons are now overflowing with talent. Viney and Oliver are midfield bulls, Gawn is one of the league’s premier ruckman, while Hibberd is the quintessential modern day defender. The trio of Lever, Hogan and Petracca are on their way, if they can maintain their best for prolonged periods.

Must be following Clarry as his mentor. He started the same way last pre season and ended up going all right. They need a congo line of Billy followed by Clarry and now followed by Harley (Wonder what his nickname will be. Any suggestions.)

I like what you've done here. It's interesting to go a step further and discuss what people think the players need to do to reach their potential. Players who are best 22 and have not reached their potential (15) Low Scope for Improvement (5) Gawn Needs to stay uninjured. Has shown form in all areas of play. Could kick more goals. Viney First of all has to get his foot right. We don't want another Trengove. Still plenty of upside development on decision making and disposal efficiency. Even for his position. Tyson Has to fix disposal. If he does that he's an A grader. If he doesn't he could be out the door in a couple of seasons as others pass him. Frost Complete drop of form is a real worry. Before that I thought he was showing good development in reading the play and playing one on one. Obviously needs to improve decision making and disposals. T Mac Showed he has the complete package to play in the forward line. Great leading patterns, very strong contested pack marking, accurate kicking. Just needs more time there. Medium Scope for Improvement (6) Oliver Obvious one is kick to handball ratio. Otherwise more of the same but natural improvement for such a young player. Lever Probably one on one contests as he builds a stronger body. Plus perhaps decision making and disposals although I'm not as critical as others on this. Hogan Running at the ball instead of trying to out muscle defenders. More time in the forward line and less roaming too far up the ground. Getting a good of games in a row to build up consistency and form. Harmes Skills and consistency. Showed improvement in both but hopefully there is more to have him cement his place in the 22. Hunt Fix the final kick into the 50. Look up and find targets to deliver low accurate passes to instead of running in and blazing away with high kicks that aren't effective. There was definitely improvement with this at different stages. I'm confident he's already shown he can do this. Neal-Bullen Skills. Cut out the turnovers. Keep using his elite endurance to get into space. Large Scope for Improvement (4) Brayshaw No injuries. Also needs to improve his final kick inside the 50 so it is low sharp passes to leads not blazing away. He also showed improvement with this. Petracca I really hope he drops at least 4kg's so he can build his tank and improve the consistency of his involvement and give himself the chance to play more onball. Salem Improve attack on the ball. Build his tank. Play more upfield so we get more of the benefit of his razor sharp kicks as last kick into 50. O Mac Build mass so can compete better one on one. Less brain fades although I think his general game improved quite a lot this season. Needs to have a natural progression of improvement in everything. No reason for that not to happen. Players who are not best 22 and have not reached their potential (12) Low Scope for Improvement (2) Bugg Agree with others that he is probably underrated however we've probably seen his best and in time is likely to be a depth player. vandenBerg I don't think he's had a chance to show his best yet. Hasn't had a full preseason and is still starting in rehab this pre season. Fully fit I think he has a higher scope for improvement as a tough defensive forward. Medium Scope for Improvement (6) Hannan Needs to lift his involvement and consistency. Has the makings of a great package with speed, contested marking and good goal scoring (although I expect this to improve with more experience) I think he could be Large Scope for Improvement. I suspect he's a big reason why Watts is gone. Kent Needs to be injury free and move beyond his previous best level. Main improvement if he gets back to that is consistency for 4 quarters and goal kicking accuracy. His forward pressure at his best has been missed and made him an integral weapon. Stretch Needs to be able to compete more strongly, improve defensive pressure and decision making. Some say he's bulked up from those first photos but if you look at the photo where they are putting their heart rate monitor straps on he doesn't look like he's bulked up that much. He still needs to. JKH Has to improve his level of involvement in games and his decision making. Doesn't seem to know where to run in AFL games but can in VFL games. Personally I think at his height he has to have speed or an ability to read the play so he doesn't need it. I don't see it. King Hasn't even played a game yet so too early to tell his upside. Has apparently bulked up over the summer which was his major issue. He's only 200cm so not going to challenge Gawn as the no. 1 ruckman but hopefully will develop into a Forward/second ruck. Johnston Haven't seen enough of him to know. Worry for me is that like JKH he is short but lacks speed so therefore needs to be an elite reader of the play. Don't know if he is or not. Apparently great forward pressure but don't know about goalkicking. Large Scope for Improvement (4) Weideman Firstly needs to continue to bulk up. Secondly seemed to have less of an idea where to run this season than last season. Not sure if that's a drop in confidence or confusion trying to learn his role in the wider forward structure. Hopefully the later and hopefully he'll fix it. Hopefully gets his confidence back in front of goals. Dropped off this season. Is very important for the future forward line structure. Especially if you know who goes back to Perth. Balic Not sure why you've put him here. I'd say medium at best. Has had 2 seasons and although had injuries and homesickness hasn't shown a great deal to show he'll be elite. Maynard Haven't seen enough to know. I have a feeling given his age there will be a lot of pressure to come in and start performing early. Showed a bit in his baptism of fire v GWS but also looked a bit lost. J Smith Showed glimpses in his first game that he could be a freak combination of height, speed, skill. Looked loss in his second stint. Hopefully he can come back and develop his confidence.

You missed the headlines in the press last week about the VRC agreeing to allow men to attend the Cup with no socks. Was discussed in the papers and on tv. Personally I can't stand wearing shoes with no socks. Too uncomfortable. It's a magnificent looking trio of potential. If they all reach that potential next year watch out. Personally I'm not going to feel the bloke in the middle is truly a Dees player till he makes more of a long term commitment. Have had that feeling in my guts since the day he was drafted. I understand all the players including him and T Mac had reason not to commit long term in the past years but that era should be gone now.

I stand corrected. Didn't realise number of rookies decreased between 38 to 40 on primary list. Unlikely we won't use all 4 draft picks although if there's not anything much around at 47 and there's someone like a ruck who needs to be developed as a rookie or a delisted free agent eg if Spencer doesn't get picked up, we might not use it and go the extra rookie. I get the feeling they had planned to do a deal with some of our picks for an upgrade and didn't make it happen.

We all see what we want to see. Last time I checked a month goes for 4 weeks not 2. Rd 20 first of the final month v GWS a game we desperately needed him to stand up in. Stats were 8 disposals 1 goal 2 hitouts. Ditto Rd 23 11 disposals 1 goal 2 hitouts. The last month sums him up perfectly unfortunately. He wasn't even in the team for the two rounds before it. Dropped. FD didn't regard him as best 22. Before that Rd 16 10 disposals 0 goals. Rd 17 12 disposals 0 goals. The cherry picked games you mention were the 2 great performances out of the last 8 rounds. Pedders is 30. There is no time left for him to be so inconsistent. I expect he will start round 1 next season and hope he continues on the form of your 2 games but unfortunately I'm not confident. His history shows he can't do it consistently and that's why I don't have him best 22. I truly hope he proves me wrong.

I agree. I put them in that category because they are already performing at a consistent AFL level even though there's still a lot of upside whereas the others in the second category haven't got that consistency yet. Some might argue Petracca has but he's a long way off his potential. I don't agree with you on Gawn. He had that season last year but was cruelled by injury this year. Are we worried enough about whether he can recapture his best to put him out of this category? That's a different issue.

A certain R Flower managed to go all right with one of these shoulders for most other career although it probably would have robbed him of a Grand Final appearance if we'd made it in '87. Saw his Open Mike interview again recently and he said he struggled to play a month later in some rep game. Kent is an interesting one. Year before last he was shaping up as one of our key players. His forward pressure was the best in the team and he had a few games he blew open with those fast dashes and goals but injuries and form have brought him down. Really hope he recaptures it and fulfills the glimpses he's shown.

Attitude alone won't save Pedders. His problem is consistency. He's admitted this himself. He covered himself in glory for a few weeks and then dropped off badly at the end of the season. I don't know if that's an attitude problem or something else. If he knew he'd fix it.

I'd like to agree with you and without question his best is best 22 but his problem which he has admitted and which Paul Roos mentioned is his inconsistency. He had a purple patch and I thought he'd really finally arrived but then in the last month he vanished again especially when we really needed him to stand up. That's the reason I don't have him best 22 and that's the reason he'll be gone if the Weid come through. The only hope is that he works out why he played so well for those couple of games and can make that consistent.

There's 36 on the list now including Smith. Plus 4 draft picks makes 40. Plus 4 Rookies makes 44. A list can be up to 47 with a maximum of 6 rookies which means there's still room for 2 more rookies. So stop being your namesake and check your facts before blasting away saying "Wrong" when you don't know what you're talking about.

I like many on here and in the press are expecting the Dees to substantially improve and at least make finals next year. The improvement other than Lever's inclusion is expected to come from assumptions that many of our players who haven't reached their potential yet will do so next year. For instance Jon Ralph wrote this week the Dees will win the flag if Petracca kicks 40 goals. So I thought I'd go through the list and break it down into players who have reached their potential and those who haven't reached their potential yet but we hope are going to next season. I've also loosely broken them down into positions but that is very fluid. It's also a useful exercise in working out list weaknesses for drafting. Will be interested to read people's opinions. I have included Oliver in players who have reached their potential because he's already playing at an outstanding level even though he clearly has a lot more improvement to go. So arguably he could go in either. Whereas I have put Tyson in the not reached potential yet because I think there's such a knock on his disposal that if he doesn't improve it he could well be moved on in the next couple of seasons. So arguably hasn't reached his full potential. We are all hoping and expecting future stars like Hogan, Petracca, Brayshaw, Hunt & Salem go to the next level next year and be consistent high level performers to push us deep into finals. But the fact is "hoping" is the big question. None of them are there yet and whether some or all of them do or don't will decide the future success of the team. Players who are top 22 and have reached their potential

Why not? We have 4 Rookies and can have up to 6. We have the list room for 6if we choose to.

Nice one Ignition. Hats off to you.

DS you're right on Lumumba & Trengove. Shame on me for forgetting them. But I think you'll find our primary list last year was 39. I just rechecked again. Not sure where I've got that wrong if I did. So far we have 6 out 2 in. So primary list of 35 plus Smith upgraded in the draft. If there's no more trades that would leave a min of 2 or max of 4 draft picks. If that smokey player Siren has mentioned is traded in it would be 1 less. This all still leaves the potential for up to another 2 Rookie A's and 1 Rookie B or 1 Rookie A 2 Rookie B's. Or no more Rookies. Clear as mud.

Thanks MAH. Can't take the credit for the graph. It's actually from the AFL's official rules book.

That's correct. Both our current ones are going off that list so it will be empty and therefore can take up to 2.

Here's an explanation of how many players permitted on a list from the minimum on a Primary list of 38 to max of 40 and the consequent number of Rookies you can have making a max total on the list of 47. Primary List Size Category A Rookies Category BRookies Total Rookies (Maximum) Total 38 (Minimum) 6 3 9 47 39 5 3 8 47 40 (Maximum) 4 3 7 47 We had a Primary list of 39 this season. If Watts goes we have 4 out and likely 2 in. So our list will be 37. Departures so far should be Watts, Hulett, Spencer, Kennedy and ins should be Lever and Balic. A team has to have 3 draft picks in a draft which would increase our primary list to 40. So we can't use more than 2 decent picks anyway. We can use pick 100 or whatever for a Rookie upgrade for Smith. We had 4 A's & 2 B's this year. Mitch White is the only A lister delisted so far. Maynard has been elevated onto that list and Smith we assume will be elevated onto the primary list. So we can potentially take on 2 more Rookie A players and 1 Rookie B or 1 Rookie A and 2 Rookie B's.

I'll be very annoyed if Hogan decides in the next two years he's going to go home and we had the chance to get Schache for next to nothing now. Same with Tom Lynch by the middle of next year if he decides he wants to go back to Vic and Hogan then tells us the following year he wants to go home. I really hope that by the middle of next year he signs up for 5 years and puts end to the endless speculation. Same with T Mac. Hope he doesn't carry on as a leader of the Club and hold off till the end of the year again. It's a downer for everyone else.

He's in there as one of the U23's. He's barely out of draft age.

Fair point. But we have plenty of time to start bringing in younger players in a few years time.

For those worried about us losing out on youth by trading out the two years of first rounders. Have a look at this demographic breakdown of the list. We don't need to worry about getting youth into the list. 22 players, half the list is 23 or under. 6 20 or under. Melbourne players who are 20 years and under: Oliver, Weideman, McKenna, King, Johnstone, Filipovic 23-21years : Viney, Petracca, Hogan, Hunt, Brayshaw, Salem, Harmes, McDonald, Stretch, ANB, JKH, Kent, Hannan, Wagner, Joel Smith and now Lever. 24 years: Tyson Frost Bugg are 24.

Plus Tom Lynch for nothing as an FA

Last year was no first rounder because we brought it forward to the year before and got Weideman. This year & next is to get Lever who is 21. We have the 3rd youngest list. We don't want to be going to the draft for top end talent anymore. We'd have to wait 4 years for them to be ready. We don't have that time anymore. We can bring in kids in a few years.