drdrake

I think Smith goes to lukosius, tmac to Casbolt, May gets Chol

I can see one change Out Salem In Weiderman TMac as much as I hate seeing him down back to play there

English will be an Eagle next season, Jackson will sign 3 year deal with Melbourne. Freo have built a pretty good list, West Coast is stuff and will be going hard for new players

Bevo loves doing this type of stuff, creating the us V's the world type attitude for his players to feed off. The teams performance for 3 qtrs of football was terrible, Bont had no influence which adds to the stop Bont and you stop the dogs. A Journo's job is to unearth stories, report on the information they have and hopefully be the first to break it. It seems that the info Morris had was spot on and the dogs are upset it got out. That isn't the Journo's issue that is the clubs issue.

Maybe realise his defensive players are ordinary and forward line is 1 player.

Recovery today is making the side watch that game last night, one side playing pretty hard both defensively and attacking, the other going through the motions to get to round 1.

As someone already mentioned you need to have something else in with it to make it work. I've always said Reach foundation should be included in the space, you have the multi purpose usage for reach that can also be used for functions.

Do you know what the club has done under Pert, turning a culture of losing into a winning one. I have been critical on the club that we just roll over and accepted losing for to long, 2018 we all thought we are tracking great then 19 and 20 smacked us in the face. No question the Pert review and the personal changes made produced the flag in 2021, now the even harder part sustaining this success, but at least we have strong foundations to continue to build.

The club has been so bad for long periods of time we lost generations of supporters, your point one is correct sustained success will grow your supporter base. Point 2, I don't think a social/bar space will be included in the home base, as much as it sounds great it isn't a high priority for the 11-15 days a year it would get used. Point 3 AFLW, agree it has increased female participation but has it increased female supporters of the game. AFLW has a serious quality issue, the games are getting worse not better, the top 4 sides played each other on the week end for a combine total of 11 goals with Melbourne kicking 4 of these. You will see the flow on of financial benefits in this season, better draw mor prime time games, higher attendance at games, R1 should have 70-80,000 attend, a couple of years ago we get 25K at a Bulldogs V Dees match at the MCG.

Find it a bit interesting that there is a real push from Players to become full time and the season to be in the same months as the men. The issue you face with playing the same time as men you would get zero coverage, the product appeals to Channel 7 and fox as there is nothing else to broadcast out side 2 weeks of Tennis and a bit of cricket. Play it April to Sept your media exposure will be limited not just games on free to air by online and written media. I do agree playing football in the heat of summer is silly, but it is there to give the AFLW the maximum exposure.

I think the covering up of rail lines/Brunton Ave, make it bars and Restaurants so your visit to the MCG or Tennis centre can be a real day or night out. Or set it up with food Trucks, live music. The government will be looking at what is the next major project in Victoria. In 2-3 years you have finished the Westgate Tunnel and Western Ring Road extension, pretty large work force that needs major construction.

You might find they were waiting on the WA announcement today, I reckon the WA sides would have fielding reserve sides in the vfl if the birder didn't open in time

The AFL will put a spin onto this saying something like the average losing margin is the closest it has even been, yeh that's because no one is scoring. It is almost like the first year of AFLW all over again, high tackle counts low scoring. It needs to be in this slot as the game would get zero TV spots and media coverage if played same time as the men. The expansion is all about PR and government money, you need female participation to get the government money.

Agree and will only get worse. Don't know the exact percentage of females v males playing football I would say about 10% yet we will have the same size comp in 2023 18 sides each. You are going to have roughly the same about of girls draft as boys yet junior boys are about 90% of players on the community.

Yep, started early in the season, with the quarters should be shorter and went on from there. The game is ruthless these days, you can't have a coach moaning all the time because it doesn't suit his club, it is what it is cop it prepare for it and don't seek an audience to complain about it. His side wasn't going to beat us in the prelim, we took the stuffing out of them in the last round they were ordinary in the finals, they got smacked by Port, the game against GWS wasn't a good game and smack by us.

National competition, no need to have state of origin. Growing up in WA it was on mid week and they got schools to fill the stadium. Vic/SA/WA some great games, then the other states wanted a piece of the action, killed it. I will admit I grow up watching the WAFL, the only exposure to VFL footy I got was the Winners for an 1 hour a week. To see all the players that went over to the east playing in a WA jumper was fantastic.

Not sure about VFL clubs soft cap, they certainly don't have the access to staff that the AFL listed players have. When you look at the caps, the stand alone VFL clubs do an amazing job to be competitive, basically they have equative of 2-3(entry Level) AFL list players wage for their entire list. I'm all for the push into Female sport, however this shouldn't be done at the detriment of your core participants. The AFL can't do both, they can't afford to continue to grow female football and have AFL Reserves.

Local footy Div 1 and Premier comps have a higher salary cap than the VFL standalone clubs. The format of this comp is terrible, get rid of the northern state teams. A stand alone club has a cap of $220,000, big local footy clubs would spend more. AFL should spend more time investing in this comp or bring in AFL Reserves, I reckon if you polled AFL members they would rather see AFL Reserves than AFLW.

I was at a luncheon prior to Christmas, a medical person that was involved at high level sport spoke and one point he made was the unknown effect covid may have on Athlete's lungs and how each will recover differently. As you say they might not clog up hospitals but if it helps players avoid any long term effects, more so wiping out your entire clubs list for weeks, the mandate has a bit of merit.

I respect the right for people not to be vaccinated everyone has that choice, however you have a clear mandate from the League that has been in place for a while, if his position is not to be vaccinated then should have informed the club sooner so they can replace him on the list. It is like he hedged his bets hoping that the mandate will change, now it hasn't he will decide either get the jab or quit AFL. Liam Jones was coming to the end of his AFL career, Darling still has 5+ years to go, big call again hedge bets sit out of AFL for a year and hope policy changes, get the Jab keep playing or walk away from the game at the top level.

At some stage the residents of WA will start to crack it, you basically have lost your summer National/international sport and events. Now unless he back flips again your really are ruling out 6 months more of this. The Ashes WA fans can cop but losing home Football for a season going to be massive backlash. You would think that a Queensland relocation for the two WA clubs might be on the cards, it will really depend which state chips in some money to soften the blow for the AFL. Going to be some very upset players and fans in WA this morning. There is no question that the WA hospital system in no where ready for a large covid out break, he knows if this gets into his state he will go from hero to zero very quickly.

Great to be having this discussion for this position. It was seen as a key area of need after the 2020 season. Salem is a lock in, fit his name goes on the board first Rivers is the second player that if maintains form stays in, added a real defensive side to his game in 2021 Bowey will continue his upward trend and will improve, his foot skills have him ahead of Hunt With those three taking the small defender roles we really need some one who can lock down small forwards as these three best value for the team is ball in hand especially Salem and Bowey. I don't see Hunt as a lock down defender, they tried Smith and Cameron got hold of him in the finals and the Hibberd got the nod when Smith was injured. Add in D Smith with another pre-season. Tell you one thing, Casey is going to be a very strong side.

Competition for spots is what makes you a strong list. You will have injuries and players out of form, he needs to make the most of any opportunities he does get.

You would pay $15 for a test if it meant not lining up for a couple of hours. Just need government to change the rules for casual contacts to use Antigen tests. The bottom line is we have made the decision to live with the virus, we have done everything we can to protect ourselves(well 92% of the population has) we just need to get our yearly boosters like the flu shot and try to minimise the deaths and hospitalisation. The only number we need to watch it people in Hospital and ICU, as long as that can be manged we live life as normal. The QLD and WA premiers have never been more popular, they will keep saying stupid stuff as they believe this is what their population wants to here. You watch the WA bloke change his tune if he doesn't open up in Feb, all of the sudden WCE and Freo will be forced to relocate to the east coast no footy is WA, he is already copping it losing the ashes not sure if Basketball and Soccer teams have relocated, I know the Scorchers have.

Nearly ever kid that gets drafted are good at any sport they play and usually need to make a call between sports around 15 years old. Kids heights are off the charts, I was at a U15 netball event a couple of weeks back, Association level, I'm 180cms and the girls in the shooter, keeper roles all stood over me most would have been around 185-190cms at 14/15 years old. Be interesting to see how this guy develops playing in QLD the junior leagues are a lot weaker than Vic/SA/WA comps.