Fat Tony

Sam Wicks from the Swans should be a player of interest given ANB will be traded.

My view is that Marty Hore is not AFL standard. I think he is too slow and not a penetrating enough kick. I would bring back Bowey for Hore. If May is 100% fit, he should come in for Tomlinson, but there is no need to rush now. Oliver should be managed if he is no good. Woewodin or K Brown could come into the side and I would push Sparrow into the midfield more if Oliver goes out. I would like to see Melksham retained on our list on a one year deal, but I can see the logic in giving Woewodin, K Brown or AMW a game ahead of him this week and/or next. I think we need to go with Turner, JVR and Petty another week.

If it has not come from Petracca's management, then he should put it to bed via a statement. Otherwise, it is a fair assumption.

The players would not know Petracca was that badly injured. The doctor did not know how bad it was. Football is a ruthless game. No AFL games are won easily and there would be players with injuries who continue playing every game.

I think he needs to refute the story pretty quickly or we can fairly assume it has come via his manager.

I highly doubt that this is about Petracca trying to replace assistant coaches. Even if this is the case, a quiet internal word would be a better way to do it. If he wants us to improve our list, then coming out like this is self defeating and makes us less attractive to recruits. If he thinks we need to trade Oliver, this is not the way to go about it. If he thinks we should remove Goodwin, he must understand the implications to our 'soft cap' mean that it is not possible. If he thinks the doctor needs replacing, he is being unfair IMO. The spleen injury could not be diagnosed on the spot and the pressure to keep playing was from his teammates and coaches, not the doctor. The decision to come out to the media was selfish, putting his frustrations ahead of the interests of the club.

But coming out publicly makes us look like a club with problems and makes it more difficult to improve the list. It is self defeating. And he is has no real power to exercise. He took the security of a long-term deal.

Why can't he just have the conversations with the club at the end of the year? Putting it out that he is willing to take a trade does not make the job of recruiting players easier. It is self defeating and petulant behaviour.

I think Brodie is too slow. The game has gone past inside midfielders without the ability to accelerate our of the stoppages.

Even if he is annoyed with the club, Petracca should keep his grievances in house. He knows he is contracted for a long time and won't be traded unless we get the deal of the century. Having his manager air this through the media is petulant and pointless.

The reason we are low scoring and play a defensive style is that our best players are poor kicks. Petracca, Oliver, Viney, Gawn, ANB and Langdon are our main kickers inside 50 and none of them are skilled enough to regularly hit targets. If Longmire or Scott were coaching they would ultimately have us playing the same way, because Goodwin's game plan is the best way for us to win.

Petracca is a great player but he is turning 29 and on $1.2m+ per year. If he leaves we will get a massive haul of picks and cap space. The Cats lost Gary Ablett Junior and the Hawks lost Buddy and it didn't kill either of those clubs.

Walker should be a prime target given role and the money. Wright looks great on paper but is such a liability below his knees. I think JVR is better the way footy is played in 2024.

TMac is has been good this year, but he is replaceable and unlikely to be part of our next flag. Turner and Petty can go back. Tomlinson could stay. We have played only May and Lever at times, with Rivers the third tall.

Two years would be stupid. One year for TMac but we should try to retain him.

This is a great site https://www.wheeloratings.com/

I thought we played well and were well coached. The main positives were Pickett, Gawn, Petty and Viney. But... Oliver is a massive liability. He is struggling to find the ball and then can't retain possession because he lacks acceleration, balance and composure. We can debate if he will get back to being a positive, but if he doesn't improve we won't be a premiership threat for the course of his contract. Hore takes a nice intercept mark, but is not a good enough kick (slow and imprecise), not quick enough and falls to ground too often. Rivers had a poor night by foot. I don't see the appeal of McVee in the midfield. He is just not big or quick enough off the mark to be great inside the phone box. We could play him higher up the field in defence, but I think the backline is his spot.

Max had an AFL player rating of 30.0 on Saturday night, which was his 5th best game ever. He also had 177 Supercoach points, which was his 7th highest ever. (Surprisingly his AFL player rating for the Cats prelim game was only 24.4.)

Goodwin spoke about the expectations we have for our players when they put on a Melbourne jumper. Let's hope we see those expectations be met by the players tonight. I also hope that our supporters show up. While we need the players to show more grit, it would be good if the supporters did the same.

There is a difference between good drafting and having good draft picks. The advantages of trading picks for good established AFL players are several. Firstly, it takes away the risk of blowing up your draft capital. Secondly, it helps to finish higher up the ladder, which in turn enables you to retain talent without overpaying for players and it helps to recruit free agents and players from other clubs when they come out of contract in future years. The draft is highly compromised now with the academies/father sons and it is still very inefficient because the gap between under 18 football and the AFL is enormous. This means that players like Turner, McVee and Chandler (and Houston ironically) completely slip through the net. Managing the salary cap is much more important given the compromised and inefficient draft and because player movement is almost entirely dictated by the players.

I thought the decision was announced that future picks two years out were not tradable this year (but will be next year).

I think the changes to the system will be beneficial to the Victorian/WA/SA clubs.

Summary: Geelong and Melbourne interested in contracted West Coast forward Jake Waterman. Waterman, 26, is seeking to renegotiate the contract he signed last year. Waterman re-signed until the end of 2025 at the end of last season in a deal that is believed to be worth around $400,000 to $450,000 a season, taking him to free agency. Waterman has kicked 44 goals in 16 games this year. Waterman has missed three games this year due to a concussion, shoulder and knee injury and has kicked multiple goals in 12 games including six against Richmond in round five. It is believed both Melbourne and Geelong are likely to put forward long-term contracts to Waterman. West Coast are also in negotiations with Waterman, who is believed to be wanting a four to five year deal. The Cats are also targeting Western Bulldogs midfielder Bailey Smith. Waterman had interest last year from Fremantle, Adelaide, Essendon and Hawthorn last year before he re-signed with the Eagles. Waterman played his 100th game at the weekend against Fremantle, kicking three goals from 12 touches. Oscar Allen is also out of contract at the end of next season. West Coast have 12 players without contracts for next year as they look to rebuild their list under a new coach.

If Houston is not in our demographic, when are we building to win the flag then? Oliver is 27. Petracca and Lever are 28. Gawn and May will be 33 next year. I think the idea of taking Cumming and keeping our picks makes sense if we can pull it off, but I don't agree that Houston is necessarily a poor demographic fit. The direction we go over the off-season will reflect our confidence in Oliver being able to get back to being an A-grade player. If we don't have that confidence, we might need to make some other moves with older players to refresh the list and alleviate pressure on the salary cap.

Selection is very tricky this week. Tholstrup should come back into the side if fit and Sparrow should come back in after a strong VFL performance. The problem is that they both play similar roles and we are more deficient in other parts of the ground. I also want to see Howes come back in to the side at some point and think he has a brighter future than both Woewodin and AMW. Howes is just a bit more classy and has more length. Woewodin needs to go harder at the ball and use both hands. AMW is not there with his kicking and he lacks a left side (or he has no confidence using it). AMW also seems to run out of gas at the end of games. I don't like playing the same sub twice in a row, so Turner needs to start IMO. Turner needs to play AFL, as he is good enough. I would put Melksham as the sub this week, otherwise the forward line balance is out. It is a six-day break and Melksham is coming back from injury, so less minutes would also make sense for him this week. I am also not sure how he would go playing on Rory Lobb anyway. Windsor is out injured. So I would play Billings on the left wing in his place. (Hunter needs to play a full VFL game to be really considered.) I like having a left sided winger, particularly given we are playing a down the line game. I know Billings is far from perfect, but he is the best option for the wing this week. Bowey was poor against GWS but I think we need what he can offer (pace and kicking) and would like to see him retained. We are already carrying other below average small backs in defence (AMW and Woewodin). Laurie had a better statistical game that I thought watching live on Saturday night, with an AFL player rating of 11.7. Usually I am calling for Laurie to go out, but that was his most productive game by a mile on all metrics. I still think he panics too much when he gets the ball and has poor disposal with no penetration. It would be tough to drop him, as Sparrow has had only 2/18 better games than 11.7 this year and Tholstrup 1/6 games. If we retain Laurie and want to bring in Tholstrup and Sparrow, we could shift Rivers back into defence in order to fit Sparrow and Tholstup in. This also not ideal given Bontempelli is the best player in the competition and so we need some midfielders with size. We also need to consider Treloar, who is playing extremely well. As I said, selection is very tricky this week. But I definitely want to see Billings retained as the left winger and Melksham and Turner swap as sub. And this all assumes that Gawn gets up to play.