RalphiusMaximus

Not every draft is the same, and this one most of the reviews have the top two as substantially better than anyone else up for grabs. I do agree with you that they won't be the best in the league, but only because they are being sent to a joke of a club that will cripple their development.

Interesting to see the difference between looking to hit targets and blind bombs. So nice of the team to demonstrate both styles in the same game for comparison.

North seem to have reinterpreted "the shinboner spirit" to mean they drop like their shinbones have been removed the moment someone looks at them.

Who the hell was that who jumped out of the way instead of shepherding for Harmes? They just cost us that goal. Inexcusable.

There's far more room for improvement than there is for getting worse.

We could turn him into a forward.

The Hot Air Balloons on Footy Classified were all in agreement that this deal is all but done. They said he isn't playing at any level right now so as to avoid injury before his move to Hawthorn.

I don't think it would come as a surprise to anyone that the first change I would make is Goodwin. I understand that it would cost a fortune given he's just been given four more years, but his gameplan is shot and he can't seem to grasp the concept that key indicators are only worth pursuing if you do them RIGHT. Ideally I would like to replace Goodwin with someone with experience. Brisbane have shown us how much that counts. I'd love to see Brett Ratten given another shot. He had Carlton performing way above their level when he coached them and never should have been sacked. If not someone with senior experience then my preference would be Rawlings. He's never put a foot wrong and his department always seems to perform better then their teammates. We've already seen some movement in the assistants. The two things we need most in that area is a really good skills coach and someone who can teach our forwards how to function as a unit instead of getting in each other's way at every contest. As for players: Retire: Lewis Garlett Delist/Trade: Stretch JKH OMac J. Wagner C. Wagner T. Smith Maynard (already gone) Walker Keilty Willing to listen to offers for: Hunt ANB Spargo Hannan AVB I know that's conservative for some, but it makes room for six senior additions and five rookies. It may free up more room on our senior list for all I know. They've made the rules far too complicated. I'm also torn on Nev Jetta. I love the guy, but he's struggled this year. It may be time for him to bow out. Jones we keep as the old stager/experience. He can hang out in the forward pocket and improve our team set shot stats. Gawn gets the captaincy. With the space on our senior list, we need to go hard for a serious A-grade mid. My preference remains Coniglio. He's not Dangerfield, but he ticks all the boxes for us. It would be worth our while to throw the bank at him. Other than that I agree that we need outside run and skill. Hill, Langdon and Martin are all viable targets. Go for all of them and see which ones bite. We need at least one of them. We fight like hell to prevent GC getting pick two as a bonus. Anderson is a gun. Pick two is not on the table. Draft Anderson. Later picks, I agree with whoever it was earlier who mentioned guys like Stack, Kelly and that dude at WC. We need to take the risk on one of the insanely talented freaks with worrying attitude. It's not like the safe players we keep picking are blowing anyone away.

Do we expect anything more from the AFL? They're the most unprofessional sporting body in the world.

Anyone have a suggestion on how to watch from USA?

The issue is that the top two players are so far ahead of the next best. There's one and two then daylight. Giving them both to GCS is therefore a much bigger advantage to them and a correspondingly greater loss to the team coming second last.

I would be very upset with the club if we weren't bidding on all of Hill, Martin, Coniglio and Langdon. They can't all be going to Carlton.

I haven't read the rest of this thread. Too long. I'll just answer the OP. As far as I'm concerned, Gus is untouchable. The kid came third in the Brownlow on 2/3 of a season last year. The quality is clearly there. He is also the best set shot of our young mids by a mile. I think his lack of form is related to both changed roles and the rule changes. As much as I hate our under 10's-style play, he thrived on the extra numbers last year. He is also clearly best utilised in the guts. Trying to push him to the wings or flanks has been a dismal failure. As for the need to make a move, I think we have a very good list right now being coached very badly. Most of the issues are fixable but would require new direction from the fd. I do agree that we should continue to regine our list and chase skilled outside runners, but you don't give up a player like Gus if you can avoid it.

I hadn't heard anything like that. My issue with him is that his gameplan is horrible and he doesn't appear to understand what is going wrong, let alone how to fix it.

We'll crack in at the bounce to create a contest, win our share of the ball, butcher the forward movement and get scored on easily from the intercepts. Not that hard to predict.

One point that the stats don't quite cover is the scores that happen because he's in the contest. Many are not direct assists, but balls falling loose after he crashes through a pack or forces the ball to ground. Simply put, we score when he's around.

Recent history shows clearly that priority picks are not the way to help a struggling club. Both Carlton and Melbourne went down that path and got nowhere. The way to help GC is to overhaul their administration and FD so that they are able to function as a professional outfit. Throwing picks at a failing club is not only unfair to other clubs, it's unfair to the kids having their careers ruined by getting sent there.

I support Melbourne... Let's leave it at that shall we?

While there is very little information provided from a single game, from what he showed there I'd say no to this kid. He positioned himself well and has good hands, but to me his pace looks average and his size is a huge disadvantage. I'm a fan of drafting footballers before athletes, but there are limits.

Our continued reliance on directionless bombs into the 50 make it difficult.

Pretty sure he wouldn't be up for a drastic change like that. Source.

What's your beef with Kobe?

I think he's worth the punt. If the club takes an ultra-conservative approach to his management and takes a couple of years to rebuild his body and make sure he's absolutely right for AFL that will still give us half a dozen years of service from a really good quality ball-user. There's no point worrying about his lack of output this year given where he's coming from. It's going to take time to get him sorted out and playing the way we need him to. If he makes it then it's a huge win for the club. If he doesn't then it's not a massive loss given he was steak knives in the May deal.

Walters gets off.