Fat Tony

Weideman is really a number 1 or nothing in my view. He needs to clunk marks and kick straight and be the main man. He doesn’t offer enough outside of his aerial ability to be a second stringer. Ben Brown might be a better player, but I think Mihocek would be a better fit with Weideman and Jackson.

I am happy to trade him, because he is surplus to our needs. But I don't want us to do what the market sees as being a fair trade. I want to extract the maximum return. My view is that Preuss will become a very good player. Ruckmen of that size have been shown to have a big advantage and I think he has shown enough to suggest that he will be at least a good AFL ruckman. The trade will be seen as a loss down the track IMO, but he is not going to get a game ahead of Max.

Brown is out of contract so whoever gets him will pay his full salary.

The Hawks have had a similar model and won 3. They have really only fallen off the perch since they started cutting their veterans.

My view on veterans is that they offer are better value return than draft picks. Geelong's model is the one to follow. The Cats have managed to beat the system by attracting veterans to help them stay in the finals race. This success means that their stars take less money. And in an era of free agency, being successful also helps attract quality free agents. The Cat's short-term strategy also has shown to have long term rewards. This is not to say Lewis Jetta is the player to target, as he might be finished, but he has pace and skill, which we are lacking.

Lewis Jetta has fallen out of favour at WCE. I haven’t followed his form closely but he could be a player worth looking at.

If we go for Polec, I would be willing to overpay in terms of draft picks this year to get NM to pay more of his salary. i.e. I would be happy to trade #23 for Polec if NM pay all his wages or #47 if they only pay half. My thinking is that this draft will be a crapshoot.

We traded Jesse Hogan for May at the end of 2018. So we made list changes.

Recruiting is a lottery.

We have taken about 10 players from Casey over the years and missed two of the best. ?

Pleased to see he didn’t miss the dotted line.

I totally agree on Jackson. He could be something special if he gets his marking together. It was really interesting how the Cats played last night, with Blicavs effectively playing as an around the ground ruckman after the bounce and Stanley moving forward. I don't think we would do this as Gawn is such a roadblock when we don't have the ball, but it gave a bit of a blueprint as to how we could use Jackson. I think the key is to have very few forwards who can't tackle and chase and compete when the ball hits the ground. It is not really about the number of talls and smalls. A forward line of six of Buddy Franklin would be amazing even though it would be ginormous because he is so fast. A forward line of six of Charlie Cameron would also probably work because he is pretty good in the air. The big issue for us is that Weideman is fairly ordinary when the ball hits the deck. (In addition, Fritsch is a bit of a pressure valve.) We have already invested a lot in Weideman and Jackson so we really need to build around them. Ben Brown is similar to Weideman in that he is a very good aerial target but not a great pressure player. This is not to say a trio of talls could not work, but I am a bit sceptical if it would work with Brown and Weideman being two of them.

A 2018 version of TMac could actually fit nicely into our forward line with Weideman and Jackson.

Article also says TMac will stay.

Ratugolea‘s long arms reaching up like giant testicles!

Smith is built like Michael Tuck. He could play another 100 games IMO. I would love to get him.

I would look to trade ANB for Seedsman.

Smith is a free agent.

I prefer Smith to Polec. While he is older, I think he’s better and think he’s likely to be able to have a very long career.

Think we can trade our picks. The rule is designed to stop clubs blowing their future in one offseason.

This plus the draft is a crapshoot given no junior football and the academy selections.

Better outside players would help. Sure. But we can’t jump from middle rung to contenders unless our inside midfielders tidy things up. This is a fundamental issue holding us back and it’s wishful thinking that just improving the bit pieces will be the fix.

Oliver definitely has an issue with his disposal. How does a player lead the league in contested possessions, pressure acts and clearances and finish so far off winning the best and fairest? The reason is he turns it over too often.

I know there is always a lot of talk about trades and improving the list at this time of year. But I believe that the path to our next premiership can be from internal improvement by a small number of our key players. The coaching, the list construction and our depth is not the major issue. While I think a better winger and forwards will improve our side at the margin, really what we need is our best young players to take the next step. The 5 key improvements we need to have are: 1. Oliver’s disposal Clarry is obviously one of our best players, but I don’t think we will never win a flag unless he improves his disposal. He so prolific at winning the ball (top 5 for total possessions in the AFL but top for Clangers), and turnovers are what kill you in modern football. When Oliver gets possession all the other Melbourne players are working hard into space, so we are out of position defensively if he turns it over. Clarry is the source of our greatest strength and our greatest weakness, so our destiny is heavily tied to his disposal. 2. Petracca improves his consistency Trac was great this year and he has now learnt how to win the ball consistently. The next step for him is to improve the consistency of his kicking. We will be almost impossible to beat if Oliver and Petracca have high disposal efficiency. 3. Jackson needs to transition from talented kid to star player Jacko moves like a gazelle and is well skilled. At the moment I describe his game as being similar to Bontempelli, Blicavs and Mitch Clark, but he currently also possesses all of the flaws of those players and just glimpses of the best bits. If he can improve his marking, to be able to catch the ball at the highest point, it won’t take long before he is a top 5 player in the competition. 4. Weideman takes another step Sam took a major step forward with his marking this year. He also improved in bringing the ball to ground when he was out of position. But he needs to do this every week. And he needs to improve his goal kicking because his set shot technique is good. 5. Fritsch transforms from dead fish to deadeye Has there ever been a player who has been talked up more as a great kick to miss so often? Fritsch will always be just an ordinary forward pressure player, so he needs to capitalise better when he gets his chances in front of goal.

He would fit our needs, particularly with longer quarters on the MCG.