RalphiusMaximus

It's the right penalty. For perhaps the first time since it's inception the MRP has shown consistency. This is a textbook example of a dangerous tackle and they gave him 3, same as Trengove. The fact that in this case he can get it reduced to 2 is a function of the system, not the penalty imposed.

Motlop was bloody good, especially in the first half. I don't have a problem with him getting some points.

I can pretty much guarantee that we won't be beaten next week.

I'd just like to comment on one thing. How awesome was Brayshaw's massive tackle on Rivers? He damn near killed him.

One of the things I've been wanting to see from us for ages is an upset win over a much stronger opponent. This was it. This was exactly what I was hoping for. Today the team showed that when they get it right they can match any team in the league. I hope they can take away some rel confidence from this and understand that if they all do their job there's no team they can't give a fright to.

I only caught the second half, but the thing that stood out to me was his defensive pressure. That's something I never thought I'd see from him.

So it was!

On the original list winning at Skilled wasn't mentioned, but I think this really should count as knocking off two hoodoos. That was just awesome.

There need to be some really hard calls made at the end of this season. The rookie situation is going to force it. Consider our four rookies. We want to upgrade vandenBerg. He's walked straight into our starting side and will only improve with more pre-seasons and better fitness. THe issue is that he can stay on the rookie list for another year if necessary, but we want to play him. White has only had one year and is progressing really well. He'll stay on for the second year of his contract. The only reason he wasn't taken in the ND was because everyone thought his body was too fragile but so far he's held up perfectly well so I think he'll be promoted at the end of 2016 unless something drastic happens. Harmes has run out of time. He's consistently in the best at Casey, but has never been given a senior game. We have no real idea of what he'll be like at AFL level. The good news here is that he can be upgraded at any time and given a game, and if we continue to suffer injuries to the ball-winning brigade we might just see that happen. Either way, at the end of the season he is either cut or upgraded. The same is true of King. This is his second year as a rookie, so it's either upgrade him or cut him. He's always been seen as a long-term project and he's showing clear signs of improvement, so I think he could be worth keeping. What we have then is three rookies who could be in line for an upgrade. That's three players on the main list who have to go to make way for them, plus any draft picks we want to use. I would think we'd want at least our first and second picks to be live, possibly more. The question then is whether we keep Harmes and King at the expense of two main list players or cut them? As I said above, hard calls. Who do we have who might make way for them? Hunt - Blistering pace, pretty decent kick. I've never heard his defensive efforts mentioned at all. Very injury prone. Terlich - Hard at it, wins his own ball, good rebound runner, but his kicking is shocking and he often forgets about his man and gets caught out. Roos doesn't rate him. Both of these are extra HBF types. Looking at the list as it stands, you'd have Salem, Grimes, Garland, Jetta, Lamumba and probably White ahead of them in the queue. I think Terlich is a certainty to go, and Hunt likely. McKenzie - The guy the coaches have always loved because he gives everything, but he's hit his limit and his inability to impact offensively is probably going to be the end of him. Cross - He's been great as a playing coach, but the dogs got rid of him because he couldn't keep up defensively and he's only getting slower. Might get another year or be moved into development coaching. Bail - Another one the coaches love for his endless run, but his skills and decision-making often hurt us. M. Jones - Similar to Bail. Has pace and endurance, very much an outside mid but his skills don't really make the grade. Then there's Newton, Michie and Riley who are pretty similar for our purposes, very much fringe players who are in and out of the side constantly. There is a good reason none of them could get a regular slot in their previous teams. They are all reasonable top-up players, but none of them would worry you to lose either. That gives us nine players from the list who could be let go if a better prospect were available at very little cost to our effectiveness. I don't see a realistic chance of a trade for any of them. I also don't know their contract status, so some of them may well be safe for now. The big question to ask though is whether vandenBerg, Harmes and King are ahead of any of these names? Safe to say that vandenBerg is ahead of all of them, so that's one gone. I'd assume Terlich given his 0 games this season. Harmes has to be ranked ahead of Hunt right now. I don't know whether they would give Hunt a chance because of his constant injury issues, but again this is the time for hard choices, so he probably gets let go. King is a big question. He's a totally different type of player, so it's really difficult to compare him to any of these others. Personally I'd like to see him kept on, but again that means that we move on one of the above. Then we need to make room for draft picks. Assume we want to keep our first three picks live, that's three more gone. We're now down to only three of that list remaining. In all this of course, we haven't even looked at trades because none of the players above would attract one. In terms of players who could move to other clubs, we have some quite decent prospects. I would not be at all surprised if Fitzpatrick went to the Bulldogs in exchange for a quick outside mid/HF, of which they have many. Garland is a FA and may decide to leave us. Howe and Watts will attract offers. Grimes we may shop around. Looking at the mess above, I think we may be surprised by how many players we wind up turning over once this season ends. It's Roos' last chance to shape the list before he hands it over to Goodwin. He'll have had two seasons to figure out who can play in his side and who can't. If you think for a moment that he's not really looking for the team to succeed while he's coach, but rather to lay a foundation for Goodwin to take to the finals, you can make some pretty good guesses at which way he's going to lean. The core of young, hard players being built up will be scary in a few years. He's holding auditions for the first ruck spot this season, and may or may not keep one or both of Spencer or Gawn depending on what they show. I suspect, as do a few others, that King will be kept on precisely because he has the potential to be a great foil for Hogan for a decade if he keeps improving. So yeah, I think we're going to see at least six players cut on top of trades. I would like to think that the young rookies have more potential upside than the Middling mature-aged mids already on our list, but who knows which way the club will jump there? I wouldn't be surprised to see ten plus changes to the list in total. I can't see this being a conservative trade period.

Not a chance. Way too much.

Over in WA right now, so I have no chance of watching, but it's awesome to hear King is doing so well. It would be amazing if he made it in the seniors. How did White go in the end?

So we're playing three first year players plus Hogan who missed his first year with injury? Better be careful, we might be accused of tanking.

I'm not sure soft is the right word. Possibly more lazy. He was always reluctant to work when he didn't have the ball. I watched him play at Casey a few times. His opponents would be sinking short punches into his kidneys and ribs right by the goals, pinching and anything else they could think of to get to him. He just completely ignored them and played the game. Not soft.

I've no doubt they had a great day, but as others have said it's a sad day for a Demon's fan as well. We see here what might have been for the club. Aaron Davey had a great career and more than repayed the faith the club showed in taking him as a rookie. Wona maybe wasn't the most talented small forward we've ever seen, but he was explosive and on his day devastating. Injuries and in the end inability to look after himself as a professional athlete cost him. Then there's LJ, who as has been said, was just an amazing talent. It's great that he's playing again, but realistically he's thrown away any chance of an AFL career and that is a loss to every fan of the game. To think that we could still have two of them playing for us if things had gone a little differently is just painful.

All very true, plus we have Petracca to come back who has a bit of burst pace to him. If White, Stretch and Hunt were to all turn into players we'd be ok for run, but I don't see all of them lasting. That would be too much to hope for.

I have it on reasonable authority that the Doggies will make an offer for Fitzpatrick. The fact that he's been playing in the backline will only add to his value to them. I've also kind of been wondering about Kreuzer. Spencer and Gawn are both being given the chance to show that they have what it takes, but if they fail we're going to be hunting for a ruck in that sort of age bracket. He's had massive issues with injuries, but when he's fit and in form he's pretty decent. I just have a feeling we might be able to get him for a reasonable price. It's obviously a gamble given how fragile he is, but it could be an answer to our ruck succession problems and I don't know how many others could be on the market who would be better options.

He was the leader of the SA midfield and one of their best players in the u18s. He's not really quick, but from memory he takes the ball cleanly at a run and dishes quickly. Had a high ratio of kicks to handballs which is impressive for such an inside player and speaks well of his evasiveness. Averaged 19 disposals, 1 goal, 4 tackles and 5 clearances a game through the championships. On the downside his disposal efficiency wasn't great, so he'll need to work on that. I think 40 was about as low as anyone could see him dropping in the draft, so we did quite well getting him. Knightmare had him at 21. Basically, we got the best mid from the championship-winning side, so we have to be happy with that. The only concern I have is that we're starting to look like a very one-paced team, especially through the middle. If you add Tyson and ANB to N. Jones, Vince, Cross and Viney, we're going to get badly shown up by the quicker midfields.

I just don't know what to make of Richmond. At least we get thrashed by the top sides and do ok against the average ones. They have it backwards somehow.

I have a suspicion that Roos is giving both Gawn and Spencer a chance to show they can hold the no. 1 ruck spot down before the end of the year. If they show him they have what is needed it's all good, otherwise they may find themselves on the outer while we trade for another option from somewhere else. Spencer has been ok but not amazing in his games so far, now it's Gawn's chance to show that he can go one better.

Sadly, this is about right. I'd love him to sign up with us again. He's a great bloke and on his day he's a really good defender. If he could find his best form more often I'd rate him a priority, but as it stands he's one who is very keepable, is an asset to the side, but wouldn't hurt us too badly if we were to trade him for a quality player.

His defensive efforts are fine, but he's struggling to impact in attack. He's being asked to carry more of the burden of ball-winning and creating than he's used to and I think it's weighing on his mind a bit.

Official interpretations are just a way to change the rules without due process. So many of the interpretations they have given us over the years have run directly counter to the written rules it's just silly. The best thing they can do is do away with the interpretations and umpires' DVD and just adjudicate the game by the rules as they are written.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure about two years ago they said that if you ran your head into a stationary tackler then it wasn't high contact. I think calling it prior opportunity is new, possibly a response to umpires not being willing or able to pay it right with what they had.

The play leading up to Spencer's goal was interesting. Toump takes a mark just outside 50 and is called to play on while going back to take his kick for no apparent reason. If you watch carefully, you'll see that the reason is that Ollie Wines had run right across the mark and stuck with him and if they didn't declare an arbitrary play on they would have had to admit it was a 50m penalty and given Toump a shot on goal from about 5m. It didn't actually cost us because Toump has great skills and Spencer held on to a good mark and nailed the goal, gut it's worth mentioning.

Our midfielders tend to get 20 or so disposals a game while every other team does 30-40. That's the simple difference between us. When we get ourselves a few ball-magnets who get the thing more than 30 times a game we'll be more competitive.