RalphiusMaximus

I'm kind of thrilled with this record. It's the fans telling the AFL in no uncertain terms what they think of being given such a rubbish time against a rubbish team at the wrong stadium. If they want us to turn up they can let us play our home games at our home ground at a decent time. Playing the Spice Girls less would help as well.

50% as it turns out.

Does that help?

That's another one knocked off. Awesome work Dees.

I hope we get Motlop and absolutely shaft the cats in doing so. They've treated us like a spare development side, it's time we hit back.

I thought it was pretty well understood that NikNat was going back to Perth once his first contract was done regardless. He was never a realistic option for the first pick unless you think the club would have been able to persuade him to stay because we were so successful and attractive as a workplace?

I'm still backing the Bulldogs to go for Fitz. They have a hoard of smallish quick outside mids, most of whom can kick goals. They're looking to trade some off rather than delist. Probably offer a straight-up trade for one of them.

Nor do I, but he'd be easily in the best handful at Melbourne.

I'd love to get our hands on Motlop. He was clearly Geelongs best against us, one of their few players who was a winner on the day. He's an outside player who can do inside things if he has to and hits the scoreboard. Exactly what we need to compliment our battery of inside beasts.

http://www.afl.com.au/news/2015-07-15/whos-on-the-outer

Already have.

Just watching NT Thunder vs Brisbane reserves. Dom Barry has improved a bit. He's a bit wasteful sometimes with the ball, but he's getting plenty and still has great clean hands.

BigFooty have a contracts thread, but a lot of it is supposition. Riley signed a new contract last year but I can't find how long it was. Michie came in in 2014 and I think is still on his initial contract but again, I can't find a reference for how long.

I think Hunt might be playing himself into a new contract the way he's playing right now. Five goals the last two rounds playing as a small forward/mid with one of those games played in shocking conditions. I'm not sure if Cross will be offered another contract or if they'll try to turn him into a development coach. Pedersen I think we keep. He's better value than Dawes and given our lack of depth in tall forwards we probably need them both. With the rookies, vandenBerg has signed a new deal which pretty much makes it a certainty that he'll be upgraded. White has another year to go, so he'll be kept on. Someone said King was a NSW rookie and as such can get a third year? Not sure on that but if so he's a keeper. That leaves Harems as the big question. He's out of time as a rookie. Needs to get a string of AFL games together to show what he's able to do once he adjusts to the pace. I agree with the trades of Howe and Fitz. Not sure on the Toump. I think Riley is probably gone.

Why would Moloney know anything about the Melbourne salary cap? That being said I seem to recall Roos saying something about spending more of the cap this season to free up funds later. I question this as it is exactly the tactic that allowed Frawley to walk, but I guess the plan is to make Melbourne more attractive so players won't want to walk anymore, so that's ok.

Like the Hawks? Burgoyne, Lake, Gibson, Frawley, Hale, McEvoy, O'Rourke, Spangher.

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.

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.

Either last year or the year before.

He'd be well worth a look. I'm sure the recruiting department are keeping an eye on him to see how he adapts to the game. How awesome would it be to have Lovett extract the ball, pass off to Stretch on the wing who nails the inside 50 pass to Lyon?

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).

Petracca or Brayshaw look to the be the options, but Roos tends to surprise so I guess we'll see who he likes the look of.