Lord Travis

May not making the squad is a bit silly. Didn't expect him to make the final 22, but to not make the squad is wrong. I can pick out 5-10 players in that squad he's had a better season than. I expect Petracca be our only player in the final AA 22. Oliver not good enough. Gawn borderline but missed a few games with injury.

Cameron is the most proven, but would come with a massive price tag. Brown is the next most proven. He and the club have had a falling out that is unrelated to football. His ability is still there. He struggled this year after tragically losing one of his unborn twins. That combined with a new baby and the COVID situation meant he was not mentally present. He is not happy with how North treated him, pressuring him to join a hub and potentially leave his wife to deal with losing a baby and raising a new one at the same time. He scored 60+ goals for the three years running before this season. IMO with time to heal mentally and pre-season to be in shape physically again, he's capable of 50-60 goals again for years to come. If we could get him cheap due to Norths mismanagement of him, we could get a bargain and solve our short-medium term tall forward issues. Daniher is cooked. Physically and mentally he's cooked. If we got him for nothing then sure take the punt, but I wouldn't invest heavily into him as he's unlikely to consistently deliver again. Mckay from Carlton isn't going anywhere and would cost a first rounder. Mihocek isn't the type we need. He's a decent player, but not a tall marking target to build around. Ben Brown is clearly the best realistic option.

Have heard Viney is likely to stay, but other players such as TMac may be on the move. TMac unhappy with the way the club has handled his body the past few years, both from injury management and changing body shape to add bulk which caused further issues.

To be fair, you'd be trading for an All Australian full back, an All Australian midfielder, and a borderline All Australian half back flanker. It'd be the equivalent of us losing May, Oliver and Salem. They'd have every right to demand the world. I can't even imagine losing multiple players of that calibre in one hit!

Haven't heard anything about this, but Merrett is the exact type of midfielder we're looking for. He's balanced both inside and outside with good kicking skills. We'd need to give up a 1st round pick minimum or a good player plus something else. Brayshaw or TMac plus a pick would work for us...

Or our problem as a club. We've struggled with development for decades now and still appear mentally weak from a culture perspective. Kossi Pickett is just as talented as Ryan, so let's hope we can develop him into a player of similar output.!

In 2020 Jack Martin was on slightly over $1m and was the 6th highest paid player in the league ahead of stars like Bontempelli, Dangerfield, Gawn etc. In future years his salary will be much lower as it was a front-loaded deal. Even front-loaded, it's still a poor deal IMO. He wouldn't be in the top 100 players in the league and is worth nowhere near what the Blues pay him now or in future. As for Williams, he'd be a good get if the price was right. He had a good 2019 when he got more midfield time, but otherwise his career output has been hit and miss. He's likely not worth what he's going to get paid either. He's a 500-600k type player.

Happy to put my hand up and say I got this one wrong. Seeing him play in the WAFL I was convinced he'd never make it as he was such a lazy footballer. Shows what a strong AFL club environment can do for natural talent!

Posted on here over a month ago that source at the club told me he was unlikely to have another contract for next year. This sort of news will just tip the scales now.

Dogs by 30. Cant see how Freo will kick a big enough score to win, especially with Walters out. So frustrating we put ourselves in this position. We still remain a mentally soft club.

Walters out nearly seals our fate. Unless Hogan fires up, Freo have no firepower to kick a winning score. Guess we look to 2021. Ugh.

I can hear the fat lady warming up...

Didn’t know he suffered this type of injury and am worried now. I expect him to have another down season in 2021 and fear we have seen his best already.

He was great in 2019, probably the Suns most consistent midfielder. Would gladly take him and add him to our midfield rotation. He’s a different type of player to the one paced inside brigade we have. He’s not pure outside, wins his own ball and used it well be foot. What would he cost us in a trade?

No point blaming the umpires. If we didn’t lose to bottom four teams, we’d already have a finals place locked away! Saints have beat GWS tonight. We’re now entirely reliant on Freo beating the Dogs to allow us to make it. Presuming we best Essendon. God this club is infuriating.

Pittard is better defensive depth than Joel Smith and the Wagners etc. Williams would also bolster our small defender stocks, which are quite limited. We need tall forward depth full stop, so Wood on zero coin adds to depth with Mitch Brown and possibly TMac probably gone end of year. Ahern was a top ten draft pick for the Giants, then came back to VIC. He struggled to get his body right, but has talent and was a goal kicking midfielder at underage level. He also had a 37 disposal, 12 clearance game against Premiers West Coast in 2018, so capable when fit. We could do worse for midfield depth. Jacobs was a good player before injury in 2018. Haven't seen him since and is probably cooked. Wouldn't bother with any of the others.

Champion Data is just statistics. It's not always going to represent the reality of what happens, as there are variables they can't account for. However, they rate our list 9th and we're currently 9th on the ladder... so it's fairly accurate! ?

This may be because we have poor onfield leaders who aren’t capable of directing players during the game. Perhaps him being able to direct the players from the bench lessens the negative impacts of our poor onfield leadership?

Foot injury ruined him. Be interesting to see if we trade him to Essendon for Saad as touted in media recently.

Probably my favourite non-Melbourne FC player...

He's a fat useless spud of a footballer who should be thankful he ever got an AFL contract to begin with. I'm sure he'll enjoy retirement snorting cocaine acting like he's a fictional Tony Montana style gangster. In reality he's a pathetic waste of skin.

Think his point was more that if we didn’t [censored] up repeatedly losing to bottom teams then none of these results would be relevant. We’ve done this to ourselves.

So that’s nearly it then. Most realistic way to make it now is for us to beat Essendon and Dogs to lose to Freo.

Hogan kicked 4 today. Wish we had someone capable of doing that for us!

West Coasts on-field leadership got them over the line last night. Half their team out injured, down with 7 minutes to go, top 4 on the line. Naitanui, Gaff, Hurn, Sheperd, Darling, Kennedy all stood up in key moments and dragged them to victory. Good clubs have leadership all across the ground, and you look at those names it's leaders on each line. It's exactly what we're missing - leadership across the club. Board, coaches, players. We brought Lever and May across for their leadership as much as their playing ability, but on-field leadership outside the backline is seriously lacking. The forward line lacks decent players, let alone leaders capable of standing up, inspiring, and directing others. Until we fix our leadership issues, it's irrelevant if we make finals or not.