BLWNBA

I've posted on his brother before, the below is from November 2025: "[A]t this stage he’s a bit of a unicorn. He’ll be in Year 11 next year and he’s already measuring in at 200cm, he’s grown around 4 - 5 cms this season and he’s been playing as a winger and mid. He’s a raw talent, but exceptionally athletically gifted, though he’ll need to work on his craft over the next couple of seasons. That being said, I’ve heard him first-handedly described as “elite for his age” and that “he’ll play AFL” (verbatim) by a couple of people who work in the Haileybury footy department."

Yes, it is. Overly sensitive fanboys who want to put their head in the sand.

That's very fair and I agree, I'm not trying to dismiss that either. Appreciate that is likely not clear from my post.

Agree, it was and still is a pretty perplexing move at the time, IMO. I'm a pretty big believer in Taylor but I still don't understand the need to reach for Tholstrup like we did. From memory we moved Pick 18 (I stand to be corrected on that - memory could be off on that one) into Pick 13 for a player that was widely tipped to still be there at our original pick. On top of that, Tholstrup's output and lack of development is a concern. I don't think he exhibits anything of note and he's lacking in many areas. His kicking is relatively poor and he really struggles to insert himself to games. I also find it staggering that we extended his contract out to the end of 2028; personally I don't see him being on any AFL list post expiration of his current contract with us. There's many people on here who don't agree with this assessment, I definitely expect to receive some contrary replies to this but I just don't see anything in him - even with a player such as Jefferson, I've seen a few things to suggest that there's something to work with, but sadly I've essentially written Kolt off.

I agree to a point and I'll openly say I'm not as negative as some about the potential role that Steele will play for us. But I would say I think we're in big trouble if Viney is still in our weekly best 23 at the end of this season.

@picket fence this is the content I come to DL for.

Inboxed.

If we're looking to show incremental improvement and use next season as a building block for success, Viney shouldn't be a walk up start by the end of next year. It would be somewhat disappointing if some of the younger brigade haven't pushed him out of the side.

The Club was never going to come out initially and say that Petracca and Oliver wouldn't be at the club, but common sense long pointed to both players being moved on. Contextually, no reasonable person would take this types of claim seriously. Sure it may be a form of puffery, a 'smokescreen' if you will, but to the common punter this is hardly deceptive or overpromising; it's potentially an exaggerated opinion in the face of impending trades but that's merely a convention in the AFL landscape. I'm not adverse to criticising the board and I think there have been severe and ongoing failures, but this specific line of reasoning is just childish.

It doesn’t take much to see that resigning for what it was; a puerile attempt from a desperate club trying to the move the needle.

When Freo Recruit Made the Call to Leave the Dees (SEN) “Then, in my final year in 2025 I got halfway through the year and decided to pack up and come home. … Freo presented very well to me, I saw the opportunity and thought I’d definitely take it.”

I was being facetious, you know he hasn’t been brought in as a key position defender though, yeah? That’s not the role he’ll be playing.

Multitude of reasoning can go into it, but there are list management benefits including being able to be placed on a one year contract and the payments being significantly lower for a rookie listed player. We're in a pretty precarious position regarding financials, so that may have been a partial consideration given Kalani was tipped by most to be a rookie selection and he's probably more of a 'project' at the moment, or at least a selection based on potential rather than a hard baseline of performance (i.e., think the majority of first and second round selections). I would definitely temper expectations; I think a few on here may have gotten ahead of themselves and some of it is due to the romance of the White name that's synonymous with Jeff.

From footage I've seen it's pretty spectacular, but I'd contextualise this against the backdrop of it occurring against other schoolboys, so it can be hard to get a good read. From memory he was a state combine attendee, I'd be interested to see his results against others (may have a quick Google later).