praha

In my 30 years supporting this club we appear to struggle more than any other club in retaining players we actually *need*. We fill areas that have holes but then lose assets in other areas. I know that the balancing act isn't easy but we are losing too much depth, too often.

Utterly ludicrous we are letting him walk. A back 6 of May, Lever, Jetta, Hibberd, Hore, and Frost is solid af. Instead, we lose both Lewis and Frost in the offseason, bring in some outside wingers but now are resigned to playing a backline with little depth, and OMac or one of the Wagners automatically fitting into the side. Goodwin and co. better have some chips up their sleeve because they appear to be going all in on Tomlinson and Langdon. We're now set to lose our second key position player in two offseasons. I just don't understand it. Meanwhile the small forwards we are BEGGING for are choosing [censored] St Kilda, Bulldogs or Carlton over us. It's like we take two steps forward two steps back every year. Five years ago we couldn't buy a decent midfielder. We had key forwards in Clarke, Howe, and some potential down back. Then we stacked ourselves with midfielders at the draft but suffered down back. Now we've stacked our backline, lost our best forward through no fault of our own, let a key position backman walk out, and bring in some wingers because we need outside pace. Meanwhile, nothing on the small forward front. I don't know what's going on.

26-year-old key position player. We are letting him walk out the door. I hope we know what we're doing.

A better comparison imo would be Richmond's 2017 side with our 2019 side. Comparing us to an established side whose best players are all late 20s after they've just won their 2nd flag in 3 years and probably should have won 3 in a row, is a bit silly and unfair. Ultimately we can look at aiming at Richmond's 2017 season and side. Way too high a standard comparing us to an established finals side now. also I think a fairer comparison might be Geelong's 2017 team. imo we're quite close to them in terms of how the side is structured.

Sounds like quite the journey.

Great news. Thanks for your service Jonesy. But this is long overdue.

Will never forget sitting in a hotel bar with a colleague watching the Melbourne vs Adelaide game. We're 30 points up and looking ominous. I turned to him and said, "They will break my heart tonight." You could smell it. That loss was the end of the season for me.

literally straight under your response...

hE hAs PlAyEd EveRy GaMe

people here say "brand" and "culture" doesn't mean anything. tell that to Hardwick. Rebranded this team, new coaching team, brought everyone together.

GWS doing a Melbourne circa 2018 prelim. Awful.

zero hope in 2000. my sisters never cared for football but got on the bandwagon. they were so excited for the day but my dad and I knew what the result was going to be. tbh my most vivid memory of 2000 was how bad Grgic was, and seeing Melbourne supporters jeer and cheer as he went to the bench. was too young for 88.

when they keep drafting spuds and then replace them with spuds, no, they can't win. Tomlinson is garbage. And has been all finals. We need the complete opposite of him.

buT hE pLaYeD iN eVeRy GaMe

lol tomlinson

Maybe not in isolation but keeping the likes of ANB and Jones impacts our ability to keep Frost and land someone like Elliot, both players far more useful and key to our structure than the aforementioned midgets that have had little to zero impact in games for most of 2019.

By definition a priority pick is awarded to bad clubs. You don't finish last without an element of mismanagement. Saying GC don't deserve a priority pick because they managed their list poorly misses the point by the length of the Milky Way.

Even Prestia wasn't seen as a huge signing. Huge question marks over his kicking at the time. Now set to be B&F in a flag year. Caddy as well. Houli was on the brink. Huge question marks over Dusty resigning. A lot more changed for Richmond that preseason than a few list changes.

Sounds like wrist slashing to me!

We got them back with an overpaid Woewoden though. Take THAT, Collingwood!

Sustained success. Without it you feed a losing culture.

I'm no "Goodwindee" but it's not the A graders winning games for the Tigers. They win the small battles across the ground and play a superb team game. We have the pieces but when you have perennial losers as your team leaders, and hot heads like Oliver and Petracca leading the way elsewhere, you need to find a way to motivate players to sacrifice ego and individual prestige for the team.

All starts at the top. Peggie O'Neal and Brendan Gale are both smart, ruthless and agile leaders. Gale built a plan that started with being openly critical of the club's cultural imperfections. My concern with the current regime is that PJ and Co. were open about where the club was, but the current regime is driven by an expectation. Pert has been around for 2 seconds but Barlett and Co. won't have long unless things turn around. Tigers also had a bonafide star in Martin, brought in Prestia and Caddy, and drafted like 10 small forwards between 2016 and 2017. We may have potential stars with the likes of Oliver and Petracca but not even Richmond of 2016 were as bad as we were this year. Reasonable to expect a finals berth next year but we'd need more than Tomlinson and Elliot to turn things around.

Evidently, in Howe's case, the manager rightly upped the price to Howe's true value, which regrettably Melbourne disagreed with. Clubs will do their due diligence, Frost might get more at Hawthorn but they're also desperate to fill their cap with experience with the likes of Puopolo and Isaac set to go off the books this year. So would they rather go after experience on a 400k salary or bring in inexperienced potential, 3-4 players? Clarkson is a masterful coach but I also trust him to be a results driven man, he's topping up his retirement coffers at this stage, hitting KPIs and setting achieveable expectations. He can't lose. They'll bounce between top 4 and 10th-12th for the remainder of his coaching career and it won't put a dent in his credentials.

Maybe. Ideally we should have pushed harder for him when he was set to leave the Cats. I feel like he peaked early and was at his best in his late seasons at Geelong, early seasons at Brisbane. Could maybe play a role for us up forward and can still be dangerous though. But I doubt he'd entertain coming back to Vic.