Bonkers

Ben Brown, Tholstrup, Windsor, McAdam and Fullarton will all be vying for best 22 spots based on current info. I'd say that is where there will be more dramatic improvement in our game rather than Jefferson, Laurie and Turner. Turner and Laurie really need to start pushing to become best 22, but the club aren't reliant on them at this stage to become best 22 for their to be improvement in our game, it's more of a bonus if it happens I'd say.

Great Interview, certainly gives us members and supporters more insight into our trade and list building strategy than the traditional media currently provides.

Sir Alex Ferguson (Manchester United) used it as continuous motivation and mind game for his players throughout the 90's and early 2000's. In England particularly, you either love or hate Man Utd, a bit like Colonwood in Australia I guess. The media scrutiny is immense and it's something that some players don't particularly deal with well, so Ferguson would take the heat of the media off the players by playing mind games with the media and other managers, and then privately build an us against them environment in the dressing room. At times it boiled over on the pitch with players like Roy Keane who was fearless and confrontational with opposition and also referees. Overall I think his management style produced results as they were successful over a long period and his leadership methods are the stuff of legend really.

Who will want to trade down though? If the quality players in the draft are only available at picks 1-15, and rumoured to be the reason we exchanged 14,27 and 35 for 11, it makes it difficult to see why any club would like to trade pick 5 or 7 for example in exchange for a raft of late first rounders. Unless they wanted points, but it seems like most of the teams that needed points have them now.

He is contracted to the end of 2025. I assume he's also going to be a RFA, so we could match any offer if we wanted to.

It wasn’t just Judd. They had Cousins, Kerr, Embley and Cox to name a few. I’m not saying they won’t take Reid, but they will need a lot more than just him over a few drafts to have any chance of a successful rebuild.

Darling should just be steak knives to any deal, so not sure how WCE think it will help bring in a raft of early picks as the headline suggests. I’d give a late 2nd rounder for him at the most. Or it could be pick 1, Darling and future 3rd rounder as an example, for pick 6, 11 and future first rounder.

I don't think we need to do much with our tall defenders. We have Petty ,Tomlinson as well as Turner. If we are able to bring in another Tall Forward and Ruck / General Forward we would be ok for Key Position Spots. We also have Smith as insurance for both ends of the ground. They could look for insurance for May and his eventual replacement in the draft this year I suppose, however I think there are more pressing issues to help us contend again next year. I also watched the GWS game and it was evident that their midfield was generally more athletic than ours and on the outside clearly better ball users. I don't know enough about the draft talent in this years draft but I think the profile of midfielder, wing or half forward flank we should be going for is someone like Duursma who can cover the ground easily and use the available space on the dangerous side of the ground to transition the ball and create opportunities. We are great at contested footy and defence, however we aren't really damaging on the switch or by running the ball. This is where teams are scoring more freely by using space at the back or sides of the defence. If we could add to that side of our game I think it would be a 2 goal a game better scoring side whilst not really having to change too much defensively. We already have the midfield bulls and should be able to compliment them by building the list around them. The area for improvement in the forward line is probably Chandler and Spargo. Spargo was good with creative play against Carlton and did some good things resulting in goals as others mentioned he can go missing in games, I don't think we got enough out of Chandler in the finals either. JVR, Petty, ANB, Kozzie and Fritsch are all locks. But there are 2 spots up for grabs IMO in terms of a KPF and another forward to come in for Chandler.

I'd argue either one or both of our wingers need to be challenged. Both finals I think that Langdon was not overly effective, Sidebottom easily won the battle in the QF and Langdon also missed an absolute sitter from an advantage free kick which was a momentum killer. For the match winning goal in the SF Acres was left alone, I presume he was Langdon's direct opponent as he was playing right side of the ground? Langdon was a key part of us winning in 21 but I am seeing that maybe his time could be coming. Hunter is an accumulator but doesn't do much damage with the ball either. I think we could look at being more dynamic in both of those positions.

In a hypothetical scenario if we were to trade for Lynch I would be disappointed if the club deemed it wise to give up a top 10 draft pick and more for someone who is over 30 and has injury issues. I could get on board for Naughton, but Lynch I would expect to give up less just based on the fact he might not have much footy left and he is on a rumoured $1M plus a year, it seems like too much risk to me. We would be better off taking those picks to the draft building for the long term and going for someone less high profile who can play a steady role as a KPF than going for Lynch if that was the price.

Sad to see him go, if we didn't have midfielders of similar ilk he'd probably get a regular game in his preferred position. It's a sign of the strength of the inside mids that he is leaving and not that the club doesn't value him. He will do well at another club and will become an important cog I'd imagine. We probably need to look at obtaining some insurance to replace him and Dunstan, but also to look at different type of midfielders with a bit more pace and penetration with their kicking IMO so that we have a range of midfield types rather than what we have at the moment.

Are you saying Goodwin could stop Jackson yearning for his home? That you’d rather not have May and a flag?

I'm not much of a follower of the U18's but to me it looks like Watson and Duursma are two players who could have an immediate impact on the way we move the ball and convert our chances forward of centre. Of course that is speculation as they may not turn out to be the players that their potential is showing. We could look at the free agency market for some top up talent, I'm not sure who is available there that will fill a list need. We obviously need another marking tall forward, but like others have mentioned so do many other teams and whether there is any player available I don't know.

I don't know about being too nice. I've listed the shortcomings of how Goodwin and co went about building our list with Grundy and Schache. I don't see the point of having Schache on the list and don't understand giving him a contract if they won't play him. I've pointed out we were short with the amount of marking forwards on our list / available. Recruiting Grundy isn't just Goodwin's decision, this would have been a whole club strategy and something list management gave the ok. It's too simple to just blame Goodwin. If you want to hang Goodwin out to dry that's your call to make but I can see he has also done some good things with this list and we have done everything but make a prelim, there are reasons for that which I have outlined. I think the fact is there are failings not just on Goodwin but within our footy department and in any professional organisation key staff need to be held accountable. Whilst I understand you may feel like the sky is falling we are still in a good position, we have dominated two preliminary finalists for large parts of the game but have not been successful in going for the kill and finishing them off. That is where the shortcomings in our list and game plan lay, but part of that is due to injury and bad luck, the other part bad execution by the players available. I am accepting of the fact we ran out of key tall forwards and the club did what they could with the cattle they had available. They'd lost faith in the Grundy experiment and also Schache. I don't see the point of either of them on the list and we need to make improvements in being more clinical, that's not being forgiving, I'm being a realist. The Grundy timing is probably a year or two out as Max isn't ready to give up the number 1 ruck mantle and fair enough, he is the superior player to Grundy. It's not the reason we lost last night.

Like everyone I’m disappointed with the loss. We did everything to win, but like last week let ourselves down with execution. Umpiring didn’t help either, and JVR + Gus missing was very costly. I find it baffling that Schache has been given a contract, if they don’t trust him to play a role in an emergency he’s just a list clogger. Last year I was furious they didn’t try Petty forward. This year I’m more accepting that we ran out of options. Funnily enough we had one more option but they didn’t roll the dice. We have some contested ball beasts and that’s taken us so far, but we are crying out for elite decision makers and ball users especially forward of centre. I’d be tempted to draft Duursma as a point of difference. If there is a key forward available then we should target one as well via trade, I guess we all know that though and there is probably not much available. I’m still proud of the club despite the result, we just weren’t good enough and ran out of soldiers in the end. Grundy could have been an option but they had tried that and it didn’t work so I’m accepting that boat had sailed. I’m sure if they had their time again they’d go a different trade to Grundy. We didn’t create our own luck, and had some terrible run of injuries. Just not our year, if we are wise in the off season we have the chance to balance the list and contend again. I realise most here are [censored] off after tonight but we are in a good position still if we are wise with our list management.