RalphiusMaximus

Lever was in contention for a spot on the boxing team at the London Olympics as a 16 year old. He may be tallish, but he's nothing like Morton or Watts. The kid is tough as hell. From THIS article.

Looking at our draw I gave us a pretty realistic shot at 10 wins for the season. This year, GC had 10 wins o finish in 12th. Therefore I have to go with 12th place and 8-10 wins.

The thing Lever has in abundance is his relentless urge to improve. He's the guy who's going to come into the club and make the experienced players look bad with the level of his training. Given our history of drafting fast players who look good but have no work ethic to speak of, this is something that can't be rated too highly. I know there are more talented players in the draft, but we've seen so many talented players fail because they didn't have the work ethic. I'd be more than happy to take a guy with slightly less talent but massive workrate and a good football brain. Whether he is developed into a third tall defender, a rebounding HB or an oversized mid, I think we'd get value out of this kid, and a top 10 pick who can play 100+ games is something we really need. Meatloaf is associated with GFs.

1. Premiership / Port Adelaide 2. Brownlow medal / Luke Parker 3. Coleman medal / Jeremy Cameron 4. Keith bluey / Jack Watts 5. Rising star / Hogan 6. Wooden Spoon / Saints

We go into the draft with two live picks and I'm backing Brayshaw and Lever to be the one's we take. Brayshaw has been a lock for quite a long time and Lever looks like he could be a great player with his impressive work ethic and athletic attributes (plus Roos likes the kid).

Sam's in for a rude shock. HE says he wasn't suited to the defensive gameplan at Melbourne, what he means is he didn't want to do the work. Now he's off to one of the best sides in the competition and he thinks they'll let him train at his own pace and gift him games when he shows no defensive intensity? Good luck with that mate. This is another ex-demon who's going to spend the next year twiddling his thumbs in the seconds and wondering what's gone wrong.

Don't forget we've been linked to the lad from Port Adelaide as well. We could go into the draft with only two live picks left.

There have been two schools of thought on how equalisation should work in the AFL. One side is that the draw should be even, with good and bad timeslots and big drawcard games being evenly split between all clubs so that they have equal opportunity to profit from the gate takings. In general the smaller clubs have subscribed to this model. The other is that the draw should focus on making the most overall profit by enabling the bigger clubs to have more prime timeslots and marquee games to bring more money into the overall pool which can then be handed out to the smaller clubs in the form of their yearly AFL handout. This stance has been strongly championed by Eddie and is generally subscribed to by the stronger clubs with large fanbases. Guess which on Gill is a fan of?

Clisby, Georgiou and Nicholson are gone as well.

I want the full house. Toump, Salem, Barry, Hunt and Viney to all step up and show the world that we have the scariest young midfield in the competition.

Had a chat with a mate who is involved with the doggies. He says that Lever is one of their top picks for this draft and if they had our picks they would be taking Lever and Wright. They really rate them both as hard trainers who are constantly trying to improve. I think it's been said on here before that Roos really likes Lever as well, so there's a good chance we could be seeing him at three. Could be a very handy pick up for us.

Looking at that, we could easily pull nine or ten wins if a few things go our way.

This isn't the worst draw we could have had. Yes, we'll struggle to get big crowds to our home games, but from a football standpoint they've given us every chance to move up the ladder, and ultimately that is where the money will come from. We have 8 home games at the MCG, two in NT and only one at Etihad. That's a win. Only one Friday night home game and it's against GWS. That sucks commercially. We'll also be off a five day break playing at Etihad, so it's a very good chance for GWS to beat us. We've been screwed on this one. Only three games at Etihad for the season is a win. 13 games at the MCG is a win. Only three interstate road trips (not counting our home games in NT). We play GWS, Doggies, Saints, Collingwood and Freo twice. Of those, only Freo is out of reach. Win. We only have one home game against a big crowd club, that being the Queen's Birthday match. Loss. We have five Sunday home games. This has to be called unfair. A reasonable draw would have every club with 3-4 home games on each of Friday, Saturday and Sunday. 7 of our home games are against interstate clubs. This is a bit of a win from a football standpoint, but will continue to feed low crowds. So all in all we have a pretty good run from the football and ladder perspective, but again it's a shocker for getting people to come to our games. I know that a lot of these I won't be able to make it to due to their timeslots. We also once again cop a terrible run on the TV. So, from a footy perspective we are looking pretty good, but we've been screwed financially. Looks like the AFL is sticking with Eddie's version of equalisation.

Jayden Hunt. We are starting to look ok on the inside mids, but we really do need some good pace and disposal in the outside. I know he hasn't been on the list long enough to need a career-renewing season like Nev, but he's a player we need to step up and get some games in. If he makes it we're going to be much better off.

My Bulldog-supporting mates tell me that McCartney did amazing things with their young kids and that the junior brigade at the club loved him. iven how well their young midfield is working these days I think he's an amazing pick up for us and with a bit of luck in a few years we'll see the results in our own young mids.

The big issue with raising the draft age is that there isn't a viable pathway for the players to follow. In the USA the college system is a strong and viable pathway leading to professional sport, but the standard of college leagues in Australia is far lower, so we couldn't follow that model. The state leagues aren't a development path. They are looking to win for their own sake. If you want to put 18 year olds in there, you might as well put them into the AFL where they have access to better coaching and facilities.

AFL recruiters seem to have lost sight of the fact that the kids need to be able to play. With all the tests of pace, endurance and agility, a great football brain and instincts seem to have taken a secondary place. They are looking for people who fit the athletic profile in the belief that they can be turned into footballers. There is no way a player like Tom Rockliff should have slipped to the PSD, but he was a pure footballer who didn't fit in the athletic profile clubs thought they needed so despite his excellent year he was overlooked. Likewise, Melbourne repeatedly drafted kids with specific athletic attributes without looking at the whole package and wound up with Morton, Bennell, Blease, Nicholson etc. All runners with question marks on their ability to play, but it was assumed that they could be taught to play. I think it's clearly time to re-think the priorities. If we can get a kid who fits the athletic profile and can play, great. If not, get a kid who can play the game first and foremost.

It's a little early, but I would like to see us take Oscar McDonald. If he has the run and coetitive nature of his brother he's worth having.

I am a little bothered that Roos doesn't seem to rate Petracca. He looks to be everything Roos wants in a young mid. More than that, he has a bit of the Raging Bull about him in the way he wins the ball. What is the issue Roos has that so many other clubs don't seem to?

He's been out all season with an injury. When fit he has no problem finding a plave in the senior side.

And again I feel I need to point out that this is not something instigated by us. Richmond came to us with this offer. As such, any speculation that this is part of an ambitious plan to grab an extra first round pick and trade for [insert name here] is completely groundless.

I think people are giving this article more weight than it really deserves. What is it actually saying? The Tigers approached Melbourne with an offer for Trengove which is a little light, but similar to what the Hawks paid for O'Rourke. The club has confirmed that this is the case and have asked Trengove if he would like them to pursue it. Melbourne are not the instigators, and I suspect that if Trenhove says no it will vanish pretty quickly.

Isn't the trade period two weeks? In all i'm pretty happy so far. I still tjink Frost could come as part of a package with one of their mids, which could be nice. Pretty sure we'll still have a pick around the 20 mark. I also wonder if Blease will go in the Clark deal as dressing. The cats showed a bit of interest in him.

I'm probably repeating what others have said, but I am thrilled that The Kid is finally a Demon. I can see him getting a decent run next year with his outside run and nice delivery. The fact that being strong on the outside does not in this case coincide with poor work ethic (Blease) or inability to contest and defend (Strauss) makes this a great value pick up for us. Really looking forward to him passing hisdad's tally with us.

As with a number of others, I don't really feel for the Swans who have been abusinig the system for years (see Mr Heeney). I do however think that this is yet another idiotic, ill-conceived declaration from an institution which has a long and glorious history of making idiotic ill-conceived decisions which rarely achieve what they want and often create more problems than they solve. Once again they are showing the world just how ameteur an organisation the AFL really is.