whatwhat say what

he seems a total space cadet but boy oh boy can he play footy

10 months would have him returning to playing by july that's achievable and anything earlier would be a bonus

no, but from all reports he is significantly ahead of schedule

milkshake will be back mid-year, not 2025

gotta use the pic of him with the cigar holding the premiership medal aloft "always an mfc champion"

jon ralph, who tends to just re-write media releases, says that the afl - unsurprisingly - doesn't have a protocol to deal with a player medically retired with a significant amount of time left upon their deal BRAYSHAW UNCERTAINTY The AFL is expected to have discussions with Melbourne about the salary cap implications of Angus Brayshaw’s retirement given he has five more seasons left on his contract. The league medically retired Brayshaw and while the Demons spent Thursday farewelling their premiership star, his position will clearly set a precedent for all clubs. Brayshaw could agree to accept a smaller figure on a contract of between $700,000-$800,000 as part of an agreement with the club or the AFL could grant the Demons some cap relief. Rival list bosses agreed there was no set protocol for medical retirements given most players to retire recently including Marcus Adams, Paul Seedsman and Paddy McCartin did not have long-term deals. The AFL’s intervention into Brayshaw’s career will give the Demons the best chance of reducing the cap implications of his deal until 2028. reads to me like we're going to be carrying the hefty salary in our cap for the extent of the remainder of the deal - that would be very, very annoying indeed

he had a heap of opportunity and was shown to be good but not good enough to be an a-list midfielder good depth, which is what he'll provide at the swans too

this is all so sad

throw the chequebook at these free agents in order of preference: hugh mcluggage (bears) ollie florent (swans) tim english (footscray) andy mcgrath (peptides) will haywood (swans) cam zuhaar (north) ben ainsworth (gc17)

I am now the same too many key players down to start

Fudge

There seems to be a significant misunderstanding between ‘forward connection’ and ‘goal kicking accuracy’ The latter is the biggest issue, for mine

it's not like we're claiming a moral victory after the 8th worst test loss of all time

mebbe if we'd been beaten by 100s of points that'd be true

5-13 for mine, but voted 5-8 to show some relative optimism too many injuries in the pre-season

caruso's defensive work on robinson first rate tho

prior to this last three years, no one born before 1962 has seen the dees finish top 4 at the end of the home and away season in three consecutive like everyone, i want to 'bank' this successful era with another flag (or four) but to at least see us being consistently competitive is a far cry of anything we've witnessed over the last 60 or so years

there's a clear difference between a player performing strongly at under 18 level as a tall forward and doing the same at afl level

i think kornes says a lot without thinking jvr + petty = the ideal tall forward structure the fact that petty is signed up until the end of 2025 gives us the whip hand; if the crom offer of ~7m for 7 years is still there at the end of 2024, then we can re-assess our trade options accordingly

why? so he can win the clearance, run around in a circle, then bomb long to no one in particular? he's brilliant at the first part, the second part is fine if he can work himself into space, but his disposal execution post-clearance leaves a lot to be desired

turps werk

nothing would surprise me about the baggers in 2024 like us in 2018, they were overdue to make the finals in 2023, and similarly got through to the prelim final they might drop back again but from all reports they had nothing like the injury concerns we had in 2019 preseason they are a lot more experienced than i think is credited and, like us in 2018, should have already been in finals before then

if salem is going to become a permanent part of the midfield rotation, does this allow for the inclusion of a new player in the back 7 (e.g. howes) to accompany the standard core of may - lever - tomlinson - mcvee - rivers - bowey?

seems to me the plan is for salem to play in the guts in 2024 i expect, given this is the last run before season start, they'll go with a similar line-up to that which they intend to take on sydney with, which might mean pickett doesn't play in this practice game