IvanBartul13

My question is, and this is the problem I have with us picking Lever - and I have no problem with him as a player and certainly not as a character - how can you justify drafting a defender when you have just re-signed Tom McDonald, when Dunn has been given a (too-long) four-year deal, when you have just effectively used a second round pick on Sam Frost? Are you purely taking best available?

It's not really a unique scenario, the mini-draft was a means by which the club chose to improve its list. It was effectively a decision to trade the rights to Ollie Wines for an elite young key forward and your commentary would suggest that you should be against that move, which is fair enough. But the problem with your concept would be that the club would never, failing being able to trade for one or fluking with a late pick, be able to ever have a quality key position player. The next question being can the club ever achieve sustained success without taking the "risk" to draft key forwards, which is an ages-long debate about the importance of midfields versus forward setups, but either way I would contend that it is complete lunacy to not draft good young key position players if you think they are clearly the best players available at a particular spot.

You would draft/rate Duggan and De Goey ahead of McCartin and Wright?

For a start you can build a midfield over a number of years. My question is which mids would you take ahead of mccartin or wright and which quality miss in the pool you think can play in the centre square in particular are better?

I don't see how you can have a philosphical problem with drafting key forwards and approve of getting Hogan. How can you justify taking Hogan over Kelly and then sustain your above key forward argument. Also if a key position player graded at 9/10 and a midfielder 7/10, would you take the midfielder. Of your key position list - Haynes is a potentially elite defender, but more of a third tall, so I'm not including him. Day, Daniher, Boyd and Patton are all very good and if not salivatingly exciting prospects. Patton obviously has been cruelled by knee injury. Hansen (always more a key back prospect as well) and Henderson (good forward when used there) are undoubtedly good players. Gumbleton's career was destroyed by injury. Watts is going to play 200 games and Butcher has been the one major bust. Your list doesn't include Tomlinson either who is a good player. There is just no reason or evidence to support your theory. And where you get your views on McCartin I'd like to know, he basically kicks 4 a game and takes 8 marks. There is nothing to suggest he can't kick goals. He has struggled to do so in teams getting defeated though.

Were you against us getting Hogan?

Fremantle at 20 and Sydney 21 were very keen and they weren't expecting him to slide beyond that point for what it is worth.

I did a spreadsheet no idea how to get it on here but basically it worked to a set of rules: Picks 1-4 - comparison 3 picks below 5-13 - 5 picks 14-20 - 7 21-30 - 10 31- 50 - 15 51-100 - 20 Much fairer assesment

That is absolute rubbish about Cook, had guaranteed wasn't going past 20 or 21

1994 Schwarz is comfotably the best player I have ever seen play in the red and blue and that piece of play at 11:25 is the most incredible thing I have seen on a football field just about.

Not necessarily, they got a good offer for an underachieving player. They have Riewoldt, Spencer White, Tom Lee, Membrey and they will probably play Longer and Hickey together. One of that group probably misses a game, most likely Lee who they gave decent picks away for.

Interesting. Dean Gore beat Petracca when they went head to head. She has also savaged Peter Bampton who she can't possibly have seen much of. One problem the SA team have is that a lot of their better players in the carnival, Daniel, Gregson, Johansen, Hone et cetera are seemingly less desirable because of height.

Find it hard to be critical of what we've done. In terms of netting a gun from another club, there's obviously been no success there but the players I presume we'd have looked at, the Dangerfields, Shueys et cetera, have had to want to come in the first place and then their clubs aren't going to want to trade them anyway unless serious overs was paid. If there was any chance of nabbing a wantaway Treloar or Shiel, that evaporated when Boyd left for the Dogs - GWS weren't going to allow a second gun kid leave. Can't imagine Sydney would have contemplated trading Kennedy with an embargo in place, with them getting Heeney and with no need to draft forwards. One of the things that concerned me was that we were going to trade highly valuable draft picks and eat up a sizeable chunk of our cap room on the one player. I think when there is a mechanism to get players for free, giving away high draft picks meant that I didn't think we could really win from a purely list management perspective out of doing it even if we did land a big fish. I am pleased we have a good strong draft position and I think it is critical that the club each year retains a draft hand that at least correlates to its finishing position on the ladder. Eventually, the cyclical effects of the draft will help us up the ladder and realistically, getting a flock of talented kids at the club at the one time is the best chance we have of being something. Garlett and Lumumba if they aren't disruptive influences are good trades, with the club making the best of the bad Mitch Clark situation. Sam Frost trade to me is ok. If you bundled 40 and 53 together I'm sure a club at 30 would be interested, so the value of 40 and 53 is under-rated by many and the value of 23 over-rated. I'm not sure the variance between pick 23 and 40 is that high so I don't really think the downgrade is of huge detriment. Practically, at 23 there would be four or five players the club would be interested in and one or two of them will still be there at 40 and I like the fact we have an extra pick in a deeper even draft. As for actually getting Frost, he's a terrific athlete and a very good shell to work with. The issue is whether he has the nous to actually shut an opponent out of the game. It's a decent gamble and we needed a developmental key position player in a year when they are thin on the ground outside the top 15 picks in the draft. The big negative for me is that Trengove, who was a likely source of improvement probably won't get on the park...

Yeah delisted free agency has destroyed it really and it should be scrapped. We'd be 100/1 to particapate.

Are you meaning can we get a young talent to not nominate for the National Draft so as to take him in the PSD? Jurrah was a special circumstance because for whatever reason his nomination paperwork wasn't submitted and the AFL allowed him into the PSD pool. As far as I'm aware, unless there has been a rule change, the PSD draft pool will comprise players that remain uncontracted to that stage and players that went undrafted in the National Draft. In other words, unless there is a desirable uncontracted player, PSD pick 2 essentially equates to pick 80.

Had his reco last December. Will be right to go for pre-season.

That Essendon game is a poor game to give as an example. Essendon were absolutely putrid that day - Gysberts ran amok and Jordie McKenzie got 3 Brownlow votes. The problem for Trengove in my opinion is that he is a solid player but he doesn't have a role. He isn't proven as an inside mid and as an outside mid he doesn't cause headaches for the opposition by breaking the game open, running the lines et cetera. He does seem to go both ways which is to his credit but it seems the end result is that he mostly plays 5 out of 10 games as if he hasn't played - doesn't do anything wrong but doesn't achieve much. Probably why he was dropped this year. As a forward he's probably going to take the odd mark, neutralise a half back and have 15 possession, 1 goal games. His character is terrific but is he going to get a game and what role will play, remembering Salem, Garlett, Kent, JKH are going to be in the mix as forwards and our midfield will be bolstered one way or another. Of your captain examples, Vandenberg maybe the closest to the mark and he like Trengove was a good ordinary footballer. The other examples are not the same - Glass, champion full-back, O'Donnell, excellent small back, and Maxwell had a few terrific seasons as a third back - they were very good footballers. Maxwell not all the time. So the question what role does Trengove play and if he isn't getting a game, what then? I don't want him to go either to be honest but there is nothing to suggest that he is going to be a quality footballer that will be missed on the park if he goes.

I think the widespread response is bordering on the hysterical. I'm sure most that are up in the arms are same people clamouring for us to draft Petracca and Brayshaw, a circumstance which would put Trengove's status in the Best 22 (if he is in it at the moment) under serious jeapardy, not to mention his dicey injury history, his lack of pace and the fact that he has done nothing to show he can be a difference maker for multiple seasons.

They wouldn't have promoted Jetta if it was.

He wants to leave or at least has previously, but GWS - point blank - refuse to trade their upper echelon youngsters.

Well we didnt last year with 2 and we won't again in all likelihood with 2 or 3 this year for either he or Treloar. I don't understand why GWS would feel obliged to give back an extra pick for a player who'd be drafted in the first three if he was in the draft pool.

What has Judd got to do with it?

Not sure the relevance in regard to Dangerfield. To get him we'd need to give both pick 2 and 3. Shiel would have been a top 3 pick for certain, maybe number 1, had he not been pre-selected before his draft year and is just starting to hit his straps. He represents a ready-to- go 8-10 year player with speed, aggression, contested ball-winning ability and penetration by foot. Fairly certain we would give up the opportunity to take Brayshaw in order to get him and I'm certain we would need to at least give that to get him off GWS if they put him on the table. If he was in the draft pool, I dare say St Kilda would take him one and we definitely take him at two or three. Remember we gave up effectively Pick 6 or 7 after you weigh the value of the draft picks exchanged in order to get Dom Tyson, a less highly rated and less proven commodity at the time. Tomlinson is a hugely talented key position player who can play both ends and would be drafted in the top 10 in the draft for absolute certain. Why would GWS give up a 50-game CHF/CHB who can kick it a mile and is extremely mobile, strong and versatile for anything less than a top 10 pick in a draft with a dearth of key forwards.

Pick 3 on its own would be very unlikely to get us Shiel if he was on the table. Pick 23 on its own would definitely not get us Tomlinson - he is close to worth a top 5 pick.

Not really true. Waite has been brought in to support/take pressure off Petrie, following a year in which they clearly lacked an extra attacking dimension. Higgins they pursued because their rebounding defenders don't use the football particularly well - Atley can't kick, Mullett became incredibly error prone as the game against us showed - so he fills a need. Obviously, losing Greenwood who I agree is a good player and in my opinion their best player this year, is a poor result, but I dont think Waite and Higgins are scattergun acquisions, they both tidy up a weakness, albeit in the short-term.