RalphiusMaximus

I listened to this and was very impressed. Mahoney gave us all of the answers we've been looking for clearly and unambiguously. It's not about onfield performance. It's they way he conducts himself off-field. His training habits. Sum up his entire interview in one of the last things he said. "It's bad for the kids." They don't want to have our young talented kids seeing a nine year veteran getting away with 70% effort. Now I remain hopeful that Jack stays with the club and thrives, but at least now I know exactly what it is that has the coaches offside. I won't like it, but I can understand if he gets the chop.

But his ability to hit teammates remains abysmal.

TMac would be a disaster as a high HF. His disposal isn't up to the job. It would make our biggest weakness even worse.

Easy. You sign a mid-length contract which is heavily front-ended, take the cash in the first year or two then ditch the club before you have to play for less at the end.

I'm not surprised. Hardwick stumbled on to an effective forward structure by accident. Chaplin is waiting for a similar stroke of luck because he has no idea what he's doing with ours. It all makes sense.

I have said for years that the club uses him badly. Jack has played out of position, willingly pinch-hit in the ruck and put up with the worst delivery in the league for years. He's gone above and beyond trying to plug the holes in this team. No matter what they ask of him, he gives it his best. Send him to a side with decent foot skills and he will thrive.

Not really.

We need to look at how the best sides have worked trades. They don't just trade for the sake of being involved. They target specific players who meet their needs and then throw everything they have at them to get the trade done. Hawthorn and Geelong very rarely miss out when they set their sights on a target. I agree we need to be aggressive and ruthless, but with a purpose.

How many years until young Farmer is available as a FS pick?

Technically true, but a bit deceptive. They have a player who went ahead of the no. 1 pick in Crouch (taken outside the draft as a 17 year old through the GWS startup concessions) and Tex Walker who was a zone pick and again taken outside the draft. Tom Lynch was a first round pick, as were Lever and Talia. They also have a number of developing first round players who were not played today.

While Watts' tackling is suspect, he is regularly in our top players for pressure acts. Guess he passes that test. Why is this a bad thing? He is an outside player. Nobody has ever said he's anything else. As it happens he's one of our best outside players, with size, pace and exceptional footskills. He also has a rare knack for finding space even in the middle of a pack. This is the crux of the matter. Do we trust the coach and FD? They've shown absolutely no tactical nous this year. As a team, we are the slowest ball-movers in the league, we are among the worst for conceding scores from turnovers, scoring from forward 50 entries and scoring from stoppages and our defence has worsened under these coaches. A case could be made that the improvement in our ladder position has come through the natural improvement in our kids rather than anything the coaches have done. The simple truth is that we are desperate for good ball-users and they seem to be set on offloading the best one we have. Also, he may have been drafted as a KPF, but it's clear to anyone with half an eye that Jack is not one. Play him on the wing where he belongs and see if you still want to offload him.

I just can't accept that we're going to trade out our best kick when week after week we drop games through terrible disposal. The one guy in our side who can hit a forward target and they want to get rid of him. I guess we'll just have to be happy with high bombs to the hot spot and watching the ball rebound the length of the ground for an opposition goal every time.

Where there's smoke there's some idiot smoking. And we're not talking tobacco.

Chaplin has already shown a great ability to set things up for a quick defensive rebound. If he can do it as effectively for us as he has for the opposition this past year or two he'll be an awesome backline coach.

That's kind of my thinking. It's a bit of a win-win for them. One needs to show he can manage a team, the other needs top-level experience.

I'll really miss Jack.

Suns would probably need a pick from Port as well. Hartlett is the odd man out in this deal by a mile. We might also need to throw in a later pick. Maybe both us and Port throwing second round picks to the Suns?

I'd be very [censored] if we traded Watts. I'd be even more [censored] if we traded him to a team with decent kicking skills and we had to watch him kicking multiple bags next year.

Why on Earth would we trade Watts for a minor pick upgrade? I'd give them a fringe player for that sort of deal, but not our best ball-user. They can have JKH or Stretch for a four pick upgrade. Who the hell if Griffin Logue?

The Demons have been given the South-Eastern corridor covering Dandenong and Casey as their Multicultural Academy zone. Does anyone know if they're doing anything to develop kids in the area? There's a huge migrant population in Dandenong that could be tapped into for some big athletic lads.

I really want to see Hogan, Weed and Pedo as the tall forwards and Watts roaming on the wing. I think we'd get the best out of him in that sort of role. He'd have the freedom to drift down into defence or create attacking opportunities through HF. It's also a role that doesn't rely as much on him taking contested marks, which is a clear weakness in his game.

HOges looks like he's halfway out the door and on his way back to the West. You can see it in the way he avoids his teammates.

It was a great game. I'm thrilled Richmond didn't win, and given that Port were on the verge of folding at the start of the year it's an amazing effort by them. Can someone tell me again why Ayers isn't coaching an AFL side?

Why would we want Rory Thompson? Watts gave him a football lesson not all that long ago. The guy's just not very good.