Fat Tony

Is there a club out there looking for a forward/second ruck?

Great post. I would also add that I expect our salary cap must already be tight. And secondly, Geelong and Melbourne have shown that you don’t need high picks to find talent in the draft. Pick 7 might get us the player ranked 5 on our draft board, while pick 32 might net us the player ranked 15. Lastly, the value of picks is not as important as salary cap space. We picked the best player in the 2019 draft and are about to lose him well before his prime for less than we paid for him.

I think the player he is most like is Jacob Weitering.

Bowey should do a preseason as a forward to learn the running patterns of Spargo and ANB. He’s clever enough to go back to half back if required.

Our small forwards are ordinary apart from Kossie. We definitely could improve that part of our list. Another winger would also be desirable.

We should be also willing to accept a number of lower picks rather than just a top 7 pick and a top 10 pick so long as the aggregate value is the same.

Tomlinson has only one year left I think. And I would guess GCS will be looking to get a future first as part of a deal unless Bowes is on absolutely ridiculous money.

The Grundy deal is not a salary dump from our perspective, because we will not be overpaying him. The Pies options are to take McStay and a first round pick or just hold Grundy. Both are $1m hit to the cap. From their perspective, they are saying Grundy is better than McStay by pick x.

Grundy on $700k is a reasonable deal for the club. He was a top 10 player in the game. So I don't think a late first round pick is the issue. (Cap space is a much more important asset than picks in the age of free agency. We just don't get to see this because salaries are not public.) But I agree that he is not the best way for Melbourne to spend the $700k in our cap. We should be targeting a forward.

That’s for taking the full whack of Bowes salary. The first round pick in the Grundy deal is is because of the dollars they will be paying. We would be the club getting better picks if we were taking the full Grundy salary.

You can say that again!

Our whole game plan has been developed because 1) we had only one true winger; and 2) we wanted the opposition to kick it long to Max. I think you are bang on that we should be looking to get another skilful, running player on the other wing. But I am not sure Bowes is that player (there is a reason he could not get a game at GCS) and I doubt we will want to pay him as much money as he is on. Jordon, Harmes or Brayshaw would be better IMO. Hopefully Woewodin, Bowey or Howes can also develop and fill the gap.

Is Bowes a winger though? Plus he's on a good contract and the Suns are willing to let him go for cap relief. I don't see us being in a position to add too much from a salary perspective. Menegola from the Cats is someone I would look at if we are chasing a winger. He is also contracted, but it would be hard for the Cats to keep him if he seeks a trade, particularly if he misses out on Saturday.

I am keen for this to be trialled early in the year. Petty showed a lot of potential as a forward in 2019 and he has improved a lot as an AFL footballer since then. While we might be impacting our backline, Smith and Turner have both shown enough to indicate that we could adequately manage, particularly given we have May and Lever already there. I also think Petty plays the easiest position on the ground at the moment. Petty could go back if we decided it wasn't working (or there were better options in the forward line) and he would find it easy to adjust. I just think this is an experiment we should try next year before the last 5 minutes of the season.

The Bombers have realised the problem and that's why they targeted Dunkley last year. That said, you are correct that they look at each deal/draft pick in isolation rather than looking to find better balance. We certainly benefited from early picks and the initial decision to target bulls at the top end of the draft. (Thank you Paul Roos.) It is easy to go for the icing once you have the cake (Petracca, Oliver, Brayshaw and Viney).

Playing all the games in one place makes no sense unless the AFL has a large number of shares in Qantas.

Chandler played well all season and will be an AFL player if he can get strong enough. Turner looks like he could take the next step, which could give us the option to play Petty forward. I though Smith was average yesterday but he has such great athleticism that I want to see him given the chance to take Hibberd's spot. Van Rooyen will be a very good AFL player. Howes had a very quiet grand final but I have seen a lot of the VFL this year and I reckon he is very classy. I would like to see him become stronger and it would be nice to see a bit more desperation at times. Woewodin looks classy but will need to be very strong to play AFL given his pace is average. Laurie does not show enough AFL traits for mine. He is a very clever and skilled player but lacks pace and size. I think Spargo will be better. Bedford was good, but I like Chandler more.

Anyone else dirty they WON seats in the ballot this year?

Yes agreed, but we don’t need to chew up $3.5m of future salary cap space.

Could it work? Sure. We would be a contender with Grundy and we would obviously be better placed with him on our list than without him. Does is it the best move to maximise our chances of winning flags? I doubt it. We certainly improve our ruck position for 25% of the game but our forward line becomes clunky for 60% of the game. I think we would be better off setting up defensively at stoppages when Gawn is resting and picking up a player like Gunston or Henry to boost our forward line.

It must be relatively tight though given our list and the Petracca and Oliver contracts.

Stuart McGill was one of the top 5 spinners Australia has ever produced but it rarely made sense to pick him in the test team alongside Warnie. We would be better off allocating our salary cap space elsewhere to improve our forward line.

North will get a swag of Priority Picks.

To be fair, RL, the Lions kids are Father Sons and not due to the academy system. And the lions did miss out on Marc Murphy. It is just the luck of the draw and at least they will pay 80 cents in the dollar unlike the Cats for Ablett, Hawkins and Scarlett.

It’s more about the salary cap space and the fit when both are on the field IMO than the draft picks. There’s no way Gawn or Grundy play in a 7 man defence. That would mean completely giving up on a forward half game.