Lord Travis

Wanted to highlight this bit. I don't agree it's an easy spot to fill. A good lockdown small defender is crucial these days given how much of am impact small forwards have with ball movement being quicker in the modern game. Small lockdowns defenders are possibly the hardest position to find. They need to have pace and agility and be selfless in focusing purely on stopping their opponent. A good distributor like a Bowey or Salem or Rivers would play as a rebounding halfback and would struggle to lockdown on quality small forwards such as Kozzie, Stenglein, Higgins, Watson, Curtis etc. They'd be wasted playing lockdown small. Howes is too big, lacks the pace and agility to play on those types. Brown could potentially play that role. Taj and Sestan don't have the right attributes. It's actually a challenge to find a quality one. It's why Nev Jetta was such a great player for us. We also had Hunt and Hibberd capable of that role. I personally feel it's a clear gap in our list, especially if Mcvee leaves.

Second round pick. West Coast are a bottom team, so the pick would be early in second round if he went there. That's best case scenario unless he is part of a package to get Jackson or a star somehow. If you take the emotion out of it, turning a rookie lister into a second round pick is good business. Would prefer he stayed, but if he did want to leave and the above early second round pick trade eventuated, you'd say we've done well.

From the genius who brought you no free to air footy on Saturdays, "Round 0", the stand rule, the pre-finals bye, and "interpretations" of RULES, comes... a second tournament for rubbish teams mid season! The AFL is a pathetic basket case. Is there a worse sports governing body in the world? Andrew Dillon is completely unfit to lead the game and may go down as the worst leader of all time. His administration makes FIFA look smart and just. I am close to giving up on the sport I have religiously followed since the 1980s. We've moved beyond a sport and into sports entertainment at this stage. The game has never been worse.

If we're having a go at players based on nothing footage like that then we may as well pack up shop. He's a 19 year old who's just been benched and his team is losing after fighting hard all day. I've seen far far worse from senior players, including Gawn, every week. Kolt's not setting the world on fire, but let's not attack his character as a person over nothing. Really poor behavior on this forum recently!

Great chase down from Langford on Nibbler there!

He's not on over two million a year you pelican. Pull your head in! He's been one of our best so far today. If he'd slotted the set shot he'd be having a big day.

Has had a few injuries, been mostly been pushed out of his position on the midfield and wing the last 12-18 months and struggled to find a new role. Swans mate reckons they're getting run from guys like Blakey now, so he's struggled to find his place and lost confidence as a result. Would be a great target for us if we could get him for a second rounder in a trade IMO.

It is frustrating that we couldn't capitalise on being a top team like other clubs have. We were a premiership team in 2021, and yet failed to land any quality players as a result. Other clubs like Collingwood, Geelong, Hawthorn, Brisbane etc all managed to sustain their successful periods and be destination clubs. It sucks seeing all the decent players linked to other clubs, while we get the dregs or overpay to keep the decent ones we have. It's actually damning how poor our list management has been since the premiership. Since end of 2021 as reigning premiers, we traded in: Grundy Schache Hunter Fullarton McAdam Billings Sharp Instead of becoming a destination club where players wanted to come and experience success, we got the above list. Embarrassing. We're now in the position we were in the mid 2010s where we need to build around top draftees again, but our overused strategy of trading up each year has diminished the quality of the top enders we've drafted. We built a premiership around gun midfielders taken high in the draft with Petracca, Oliver, Brayshaw. We're now robbing ourselves of being able to repeat that, and we don't have the trade currency to bring it in without trading Petracca or Oliver and paying some of their salary.

We're now in rebuild mode and need new leaders to guide our kids like Langford, Windsor, Lindsey, Mcvee etc for a few years. Similar to bringing in Vince and Lewis, we need leaders who are solid players and won't cost much in a trade. We can't afford to trade away 2nd and 3rd round picks to upgrade into the first round and shoot ourselves in the foot again. Those are the picks where you build depth and leadership, which we sadly failed with the past few off-seasons.

Settle down with the emotional delusions. Fritsch is about to enter the top 10 all time goal kickers for the club. He's a 5 time leading goal kicking. Have a bit of respect and take off the brown coloured glasses. We could sure use some "lucky" goal kickers to kick us 50+ goals a season again.

Tricky one, as Lever and Gus were the obvious ones to take over as official leaders. I expected them to take over sooner. Gus is medically retired. He left a serious hole at the club from a leadership and cultural perspective, probably more than most realise. Lever is now 30 and battling form and injury. Other option is Trac, who is also 30 and perhaps not the right fit culturally after last year. May has one season left on contract and is declining rapidly. We have a serious list gap through mid 20s, as it's a key reason we're now struggling on field. That next week of players after our star senior core never came on. Guys like Sparrow, Spargo, Petty are all 25 years old, should be at their peak and the core of the team now.

We need to pump games into him. We traded picks 14, 27 and 35 for pick 11 and took him. That's a big commitment. I dare say we were trying to package up 6+11 for pick 1 (Harley Reid) and it didn't work out, but nonetheless when you draft a player at pick 11 you expect a star or a good 200+ gamer who's a core member of your team long term. Kolt needs time to build his body. He's 1.5 seasons in and hasn't had a proper pre-season yet due to injuries. He's playing in a woeful forward line. That said, he's shown little ability to find the ball and use it well either. He's struggled for form at both VFL and AFL level. It's one of those cases where we need get his body right and pump games into him due to his draft position, then you hope it clicks. He was drafted as a powerful forward-mid. Those sorts of players are game changers, and we've been chasing one for a while (tried trading up for Bailey Humphry and Harley Reid). We need him to become that player. If he doesn't make it as a forward-mid, then backup plan is develop him in the back pocket as a lock down defender and rebounder in a McVee/Hibberd type role.

Suns by 41. Think we start dropping away over the second half of the season and see more kids getting games pumped into them. That's probably where we need to be at now. We rightly or wrongly paid a premium for guys like Jeffo and Kolt, so need to give them a run and see if they'll become what we hope and need. Suns are pushing for finals and are usually strong at home, so expecting a strong win by them today.

Derksen is playing as an intercepting defender, so while he is playing well, he's in the easiest marking role there is. He's played 12 VFL games to Jeffersons 6 VFL games also. Jeffo is playing key forward in a poor team bombing it on his head. He's also missed a few VFL games through injury, but mostly because he was playing AFL too. He's also banged through lots of goals over the last two seasons to be one of the highest scoring players in the VFL since his debut. Derksen is a 24 year old mature ager who can't crack an AFL game despite injuries. He might become a decent role player, but let's not kid ourselves - he's unlikely to make a difference to our team at AFL level. Jeffo might with time to continue building strength. Those comparing him or preferring him to someone like McKay, who has won a Coleman medal, is insulting and laughable.

We tried to get McKay a few years back. We offered him 6 figures in 2023 and he rejected it and stayed with the Blues. We are now a worse club with less money to offer him - unless Petracca or Oliver leaves. I'd be all for landing him if we can, though agree we'll probably be overpaying. Can constantly clunk a mark and kick a goal, which is more than can be said for any forward on our list sadly. We can't expect to land Jeremy Cameron, so let's be realistic. A Coleman medalist who can hit the scoreboard is a better option than battlers and NQR suggestions like Lord and Derksen who can't even crack a game.

Fixed that for you. Most supporters don't even get to that level, they just want to watch their team win and have a good time. Goodwin's fate seems sealed at this point, it's just a matter of if we can afford to pay him out end of 2025 or have to wait for contract end of 2026. Let's hope there's some good senior coaching options out there. We're not big or rich enough to poach a proven one, so we'll have to go for either a sacked one like Longmire, or an up and coming assistant coach we think will make a good senior coach. None of our senior players like Gawn, May, Viney, Petracca etc will be part of our next flag tilt, so hire someone who will be best suited to the kids we are building around now. Two bottom 4-5 finishes in a row is a clear indication that Goodwin's time, and this current groups time, is done. Will be forever thankful to Goodwin and those players who delivered us a flag, but it's now time to look to the future.

Interrupted pre-season. Injuries during the season. He's been limited due to those factors as a kid. However, the coaches have done him no favours playing him off halfback this season. He's not great defensively, and others such as Bowey, Salem, Rivers have been used as the rebounders out of defence. It means he's played more lock down defence, and for a player of his talent and skillset, that's a waste and a mistake. You shouldn't need to waste years or your career playing in another position just to learn basic football skills like defensive spoiling or tackling. His strengths are his pace, evasion, and kicking (usually...). He's not being played to any of his strengths, and as a result has had a poor year, and gone significantly backwards from his debut season. He should never be near the defensive 50. We want him centre-forward where he can have impact by breaking zones and hitting the scoreboard. He's a victim of our old plodding inside midfield. We've got the likes of Viney, Oliver, Petracca, Sparrow all in the centre, and so our young kids are not getting time in this area of the ground to develop. Our future centre bounce midfield should include Langford and Windsor, and we should be prioritising this now and moving on players like Oliver to develop the next generation and clear salary cap. Windsor will be a star midfielder IMO. He showed flashes last year that he's the closest thing to a young Chris Judd that the league has seen in decades. Zero concerns with taking him at pick 7.

Kalani will be a demon unless a bid comes far earlier than expected and we can't acquire enough points to match. On another note, I thought the rules meant Gold Coast and GWS can now only take a certain number of academy picks? They're no longer able to stockpile late picks to use for them, but I thought they were now limited with how many they could draft at all. Considering they have a top 5 prospect and another 2 top 20 prospects likely, I thought Kalani would basically be off the cards for them...

ChatGPT can't answer this, so would take someone a lot of manual work to answer. I quickly looked over this season thus far. We have won the inside 50 count in every match except the Gold Coast and Hawthorn matches. We lost both those matches. We only lost the inside 50 count by 1 in the Hawks match, so essentially even. We have won the inside 50 count in 12 out of 14 matches this year. At a glance, this tells us we generate enough opportunities to win every week, and our conversion is the issue. You could argue the quality of the entries and shots etc, but the reality is we are the most inaccurate shooting team in the league. We give ourselves enough chance every week and if we had kicked at even middle of the table accuracy we'd currently sit top 4. We should have won far more matches this year than we have.

He's played key defender for the majority of the last two years. Showed potential up forward tonight and given our poor quality tall forward stocks, you'd try him there. He will be a demon by the way. Bookmark it.

[censored] yeah!

Nearly a game winning lead to Saints here. What a disappointing effort today.

Game should be over already, but we've kept them in. That inaccuracy and some of the decisions with the set shots have been downright pathetic. Sadly feel they'll get a roll on and we'll curse that wasted dominance and effort. Prove me wrong boys!

Swans have a big injury list but are underrated I feel. Think this will be a close game and hoping we can control contest and get up!

I'll always love and respect Trac, whether he finishes his career with us or not. It sounds like he's keen to stay put thankfully. Forever a Melbourne superstar, premiership player, and Norm Smith medalist.