RalphiusMaximus

A little on the small side. He'd need to drop a few kilos as well. I did like his ability to find teammates rather than always taking the shot.

Rumour has it that the AFL have been getting stuck into their administration over the fact that they used all of their startup goodies on kids and are now a terrible side. They have been told to get in some decent mature-aged players and start winning games ASAP. To do that they need to farm out some of their kids and/or picks. Surprised they haven't raided the bombers for a couple of players in return for a round 1 pick.

Roos hasn't been a huge user of specialist small forwards in the past. He generally goes for midfielders who can kick goals and rotates them through.

Am I the only one who would be perfectly happy if we shut up shop and enjoyed what we've already gained? This has been a great trade period for us so far. I think any deal that comes up now will have to be pretty special to improve what we've already done.

Fortunately we do have a bit of room in the cap if we need to pay someone out for more than this year. Not an ideal option, but one I'd like to think they may consider.

Roos is a big fan of mobile talls. He tends to play more of them than most in his sides. I expect he will find room for Fitz in our team somewhere even if it is a bit of a tight squeeze in the forward line.

Knightmare on Bugg: So they're offering us an undersized utility in Buntine who could possibly make it as a mid and a lightly built tagger in Bugg. I'm not seeing anything we need there. Possibly the club sees two first round picks in these two plus pick 9 and like the math, but I'm not even remotely sold on this.

As above, Lucas said he's very happy in Adelaide and he has a decision to make. He didn't really swing one way or the other on whether he thought Lyons would go. It really is a matter of staying with people he likes or getting more gametime for him I think. I don't think there's much doubt that he will see more senior matches with us than Adelaide.

The thing with small forwards is you need to look at the coach and the style they play. Roos isn't a big small forward man. He tends to rotate his midfield through the forward line, with many players able to fill the crumbing role and kick goals as needed. He's more likely to go for another midfielder with good goal sense rather than a genuine small forward like Nahas.

Interesting viewing. He's not the best overhead, but can do both inside and outside mid work, tackles well and has a nice burst in traffic to buy himself a few seconds. Also kicked a couple of really good balls in to the forwards which is nice to see and something Clark and Dawes will be happy to see. Very happy with this deal and we certainly paid a good price for him. Hopefully we can continue in this vein.

I'm really not happy with the notion of a bundle for pick 2. As someone else said, it should be used for quality, not quantity. There are a few really good prospects in the draft we could nab with this pick, and unless we are getting someone of that stature in trade, we should hold on to it and focus on second round picks to get a trade done. People have huge wraps on Aish, Kelly and Freeman, why should we go for someone who doesn't have that level of ability?

I think a lot of us are desperate to see anything done by our club, just to get the ball rolling. The only action we've seen so far is being turned down by a fairly green assistant coach. I don't think most of us are overrating this guy. Realistically he doesn't have much value in trade for Freo, although the fact that he is contracted could allow them to hold out for better than he's worth. He's a third round pick who has played 1 game for them in a fairly stacked midfield. We should be able to get him for our fourth round pick, but might have to spend our third rounder instead. If Freo decide to be accommodating we might even get to spend a pick in the eighties on him, much like the deal for Morton last year with WC.

Why on Earth would they rate him better than pick 20? Consensus from most sources is that pick 22 for Crameri is about right. Myers shouldn't be worth more than him. Crameri was their leading goalkicker for this year while Myers struggles to get a start in their side. Hasn't it been said before that nobody wants to get into trades with the Bombers? They seem to be constitutionally unable to grasp what is reasonable for their outgoing players. They are always massively unreasonable and have a history of putting a huge pricetag on their players and sticking to it in the face of all logic and failing to get the deal done. They basically waste everyone's time every year trying to get extra for their players and not getting anything in the end.

I'd be more inclined to swap him for a good quality mid of the right age since it's more about filling immediate needs rather than future list building, but for a really good pick like that you;d have to go for it.

Am I the only person here who is relieved that Dew decided to stay a swan? Not only is he pretty inexperienced for the role Roos wanted him to play, but he always struck me as being not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Obviously I'm on the Bassett bandwagon, but that thought aside, I'd really like to see us casting the net a little wider than the guys Roos knows from Sydney.

I love what Howe brings to the table. His awareness in the air is something special, but to be honest I wouldn't be devastated if we traded him for something good. He has currency, and as we've often been told, you need to give up something to get something. It's absolutely nothing against him but I don't think his loss would really hurt us that much. As a forward we can cover it and he's just not that great in the middle. Offload him for a quality mid and we'd be ahead of the game.

I am hoping that we'll be told soon that he's been hired. If I were to make a checklist of everything we need in a coach he'd tick every box. I am absolutely amazed that the club hasn't been chasing him, if not for the senior assistant role then for one of the line coaching spots. To me it just says that despite all the talk we are still not being run properly at the top level. A coach of his abilities should have been right in them mix from the word go.

I'd be thrilled if more people posted actual rumours instead of sniping at each other and debating irrelevant crap.

+ Jarryd Lyons has been made an offer, three years apparently.

Fair point. I was looking at this as possibly a win for all parties. Michie won't get much midfield time at Freo with the players they've brought in and if anyone can teach Blease to defend it's Ross Lyon, so both players would benefit.

I've heard it does happen. Never understood how myself, but I know people who swear they've seen it happen.

We're chatting on a message board about a game. We're all wasting our time.

Well, this appears to be the place to put random thoughts on possible drafts. What would people say to these possibilities? Get Vince and Lyons from Adelaide in exchange for our 2nd round pick and Tapscott with an upgrade of later picks in our favour to even things up. Send Blease to Fremantle for Michie and a pick (no idea what would be a fair pick to balance this one up, maybe a few upgrades?). Keep pick 2. This way we would be gaining ready-made experience in Vince, two young fringe players with potential and keeping our first pick for Aish/Kelly/Freeman. We could also be well positioned to pick up Zac Jones and Cain (for example) in the draft, take a punt on a late pick and still have room for PSD and a delisted free agent. I know there would be some work to make these things even out, but there could be some utility in there and it would give us a decent mix of young talent and ready-made mids. Could be affected by what level of compensation we got for Sylvia as well.

That's why we mention him. Just because there's no way in hell he's ever going to appear in our colours doesn't mean we can't dream.

Just mentioned this in the Lyons thread. Maybe if they upgraded our 4th round pick for their third? I don't know how they would rate those lower picks, but it could almost work. We'd be paying overs to give them Tappy and 2nd round for these two without a sweetener of some sort though.