Fat Tony

The original deal was to 2025. He is now signed for 3 more years.

Viney still had a year to run at the end of last season.

Can't believe anyone would be advocating for TMac to be dropped. He has had a Wheelo player rating of 13.1 this season, which is 3rd in the side. He should play on Cameron this week. Petty or May need to be reassigned or dropped. Pickett, Windsor, Lever and Turner must all come into the side. Lindsay obviously out. I would drop Johnson, Fritsch and Howes. Petty to be sub or play forward.

There have just been a handful of seven-year contracts that have been good for the signing club. I didn't argue that they were the wrong call at the time. I just said that the Petracca and Oliver contracts only made sense to give us a chance from 2022-2024 and we are now paying the price.

Our list is hamstrung by bad, long-term contracts to Oliver, Petracca and Viney. Oliver and Viney can only play midfield and these players are now too slow and poorly skilled to take us to the top of the mountain again. The Petracca and Oliver contracts were the price of doing business to compete from 2022-2024. The Viney extension was just dumb. None of these players are tradable without eating significantly into our salary cap. We also have limited draft capital so we are going to have to nail the back end of the draft to give ourselves a chance to bounce back.

Geelong don’t play like that at all. They play a fast ball movement game in straight lines. We don’t have the list to play a possession game. Bowey and McVee and the only defenders with the kicking skills required to play that way. All our key unskilled players are on big money, long contracts and are in decline. This is a problem without a clear solution.

We don’t have foot skills to execute such a plan.

You don’t start a rebuild after 3 games. All our best young players are already playing AFL and we’ve locked in all our veterans on long term deals. We fight to try to win every week.

We clearly don’t have the foot skills to chip the ball around in the backline. May, Rivers, Lever, Petty, Oliver, Viney and Langdon can’t maintain possession and will turn it over. I know kicking down the line to Max isn’t a modern way forward but we don’t have the list profile to play any other method.

I hate to say this, the decision to extend Viney was a shocker. 3 games into the season and it’s hard to see any of our 3 gun midfielders giving value from their contracts.

I agree we are limited with options. I would have added Laurie, K Brown or retained Woewodin for better balance, but I fully understand the selection decisions given the outs. Our emergencies are Turner, Howes and Mentha.

Fritch and Melksham really play as small key position players. I don't think this line up puts enough emphasis on applying pressure.

We look too top heavy again.

I think the key reason for our form since mid-2024 is that Max has been in decline. In the first 11 games last season, Max polled coaches votes in 8 games and had a median player rating of 20.6. In his last 12 games, this he has polled coaches votes in just 3 games and had a median player rating of 14.5. He has still played fairly well, but he is no longer a top 3 player in the competition. The dip might be due to age or injury last year; or it could be a change in the game, reducing the impact of stoppages and promoting faster ball movement. Interestingly, Max’s worst rated game in the last 12 months was against the Sun’s last year, when we flogged them by 54 points!

We desperately miss Kossie and Windsor (and McVee) today. Our lack of speed was the main issue. Melksham and May will also make us much better. Petracca had a stinker. (Only Frisch, Pink and Jefferson had lower Wheelo player ratings.) Spargo is finished as a player. I know he is a good kick inside 50 but he is way too slow for a small forward at AFL level and cannot compete in the air. The high half forward role Fritsch is currently playing is taking away our best deep target and giving us nothing up the field. Play him at full forward or drop him. Petty had a very poor game and lacks pace. TMac had one horrible moment but is a much better bet when May returns. I don't have Petty in our best 23 at the moment. Obviously Max getting thrashed in the ruck was critical. Hopefully Goodwin gives up on playing Rivers in the midfield. We have taken away one of our best rebounders and coverage defenders and inserted another midfielder with poor skills and not enough pace. He is not complimentary to Petracca, Oliver and Viney in the midfield. Petty, TMac, Bowey and Woewodin had critical errors. Chandler was fantastic. Salem had a very good game. Oliver was involved but is still a liability with ball in hand. Lindsay had another solid game. Expected score was 111 to 82, so we left too many points on the table again with poor goal kicking.