whatwhat say what

petty may well be a better player that o mac and smith, but he's also played 11 games in three seasons of football for all of o mac's knocks, he's able to consistently be fit enough to be regularly available

williams is being brought in by the blues to play midfield alongside cripps it's a risk as he's never really played the role other than cameos, but andrew russell is one of the best fitness head honchos in football so they're obviously backing themselves in to get williams cherry ripe for the role

well he's shown he's more than capable at afl level so he's automatically a step up on wright

raptors did pretty well this year without leonard - qualified second in the east, knocked off by boston in the second round

did blicavs play as a defender that much this year?

taylor adams plays a similar role with the pies, hence why they rate him so highly - creates blockages for pendlebury, treloar, elliott, de goey, etc in the same way that viney does for oliver, petracca, brayshaw sparrow is the obvious replacement for viney when he needs a rotation, which is why not having sparrow in the latter stages of the year did, i think, make a difference to our midfield and why i'm keen on him staying for 2021 and beyond the biggest issue with losing viney is, imo, we're automatically down a first preference midfielder; someone - be it brayshaw, harmes, sparrow or otherwise - will need to step up their workrate and increase their own contribution significantly

yeah okay, not how i interpreted it

nah, he said 'forward of centre' as the area of focus in the off-season in the last press conference

all comes down to do we think higgins will make us better, and what do we have to pay for him? for mine he would clearly be one of our best 10 players based upon his output across the last few years alone say it's one of our fourth rounders? why not - one year deal with options (he'd undoubtedly want two) and north paying a portion of his salary i'd probably prefer polec as his pace appeals more than higgins' consistency

depends what you can then parlay for a higher pick, so i'd probably say equation 2 as it gives you future trading options - i'm particularly keen on the first rounders this year for gw$ and footscray, and next year for the filth they'll want to move them to maximise points; gw$ are already in deficit and i presume they've got another dodgy academy selection in 2020? i think it's important that all trade periods are looked at in a totality in terms of what you bring in because under the afl's system you must spend beyond 95% and up to 105% of your cap last year for instance i think we traded out the 2021 first plus frost and it effectively netted us jackson, pickett, langdon, and tomlinson - i'd say four automatic selections as part of our best squad of 26 players i'd be pretty okay with the outcome this year if we could somehow work it that we were losing brayshaw, t mac, preuss, hawks' pick 22 and bringing in saad, polec, and one of sideshow bob or hogan (preferably the latter) or two of those plus being back into the first round this season or with an extra first rounder next year

it's very common for deals to not happen til the last day; afl loves to build the draaaaaaama for the big trades like stringer and shiel the only one i remember going to mediation was ryder to port did the carlisle deal? i don't recall but i thought it happened on the second last or so day of the 2015 trade period cos his snort video was covered massively while the trade period was ongoing, and everyone was saying there's no way aints would've gone thru with it if it'd come out the day before their trade, not the day after...convenient, eh he's a terrible recruiter, it's fantastic - long may the peptides remain mediocre

other than the ryder to the pear deal, what dodoro-directed deals have been hard? we've never had any issues dealing with the peptides

ooh er, that'd be an interesting trade indeed

i'm all for this too from memory his last deal with the bears was quite a big one; will we be able to afford him?

zoom tour?

if it was zerrett for gus brayshaw i personally couldn't sign the transfer papers fast enough can't see peptides doing that

err, not even close preuss + pick 62 (marty hore) = dom tyson it was frostball that we paid massive overs for as pick 23 or so, from memory, the pick that became mckenna, who was on our list for a year or two a couple of years down the track

if you were offered three times what you were being offered to do the same job at another organisation, would you knock it back?

three clubs didn't 'offload' him, per se - he left bears as they were a dumpster truck fire at the time (he was one of the 'wantaway five', and got to go home to sa) and pear couldn't come close to giving him the sort of contract that north could all the pear people i know still really rate him, both as a footballer and a person

oliver's the best midfielder i've ever seen at melbourne in my opinion, if he improves his kicking, and starts to kick goals regularly, he'll elevate to being talked being amongst the best midfielders the competition has going around however, i'll take five other team improvements over it: 1. defensive transitioning - we are slow to push back when we lose possession 2. decision making - too often our players either make the wrong choice or make basic errors by foot and hand 3. execution under pressure - so many of our players choke 4. consistency - how many times this year did we lament going to sleep for great periods of time? 5. discipline - we gave away dumb free kicks all too often

hope he stays

Tell that to Bobby Skilton

no for me

he doesn't have the fitness to be a wingman

would think he'd be in our best 22, somewhat shoddy skills or not ultimately, would his inclusion in our side make us a better side? arguably, i say yes langdon's skills were better this year than in previous years; i'd argue tomlinson's weren't as good as they have been at their best against gw$ phillips fills a role we need a player to play, so it's a yes for me...pending cost