Adam The God

I love his no nonsense approach. I thought he answered and framed the Clarry thing well. I read on another thread from one of the perennial Eeyores that Lamb was further undermining leverage with any Clarry deal. Lamb said that "we had a really honest chat with Claz where Kingy outlined how he saw our midfield moving forward and how we wanted our midfield to operate, where he saw Clayton fitting in with that and then obviously we've seen a bit of interest in Clayton from rival clubs, so we'll see how that plays out". Then when asked whether we would contribute to any ongoing Clarry salary he said "we're not gonna talk about any details about what a deal would look like with any of our players at the moment".

The Saints haven't really underspent, you still have to pay a minimum of the cap, and now they're losing good players like Marshall, because they've overspent on players like TDK this year.

Our past experience shows we just want to get the deal done. With the Suns allegedly asking for x3 first rounders, although I've only seen that on Demonland, we may have to give up our future 1st for Humphrey. If that's what it takes to get the deal done, it's not ideal, but we're getting a young gun to build our midfield around with Kozzy, Langford and Lindsay. It's pretty exciting and the details are really minor at the end of the day if we land Humphrey.

And Flanders is the curveball here too. I think the Suns will trya and force him to Melbourne. And I hope we say it's Humphrey or Trac stays.

Nice one, Tim. Round 1 is over. Suns say Humphrey won't be traded under any circumstance. MFC say Trac is a superstar, if you want him, you need to give us the best deal. Look forward to Round 2.

Good early posturing from CC. Flanders could still well be the domino here.

6 players delisted is pretty standard I would have thought. Kozzy, Langford, Lindsay, Windsor, Turner, Rivers, Bowey, Chandler, JVR, Kolt and Howes is a good young core of 11. No doubt we need more to join them, which is why I class this as list management evolution rather than rebuild. Surely, a rebuild would denote a total clearing of the decks but we've already had 4-5 years of bringing in that talent. In Kozzy and Rivers case, 6 years and Chandler 7. Then we have a further 9 premiership players that add varying levels of value in Max, Viney, Lever, Petty, Salem, Langdon, Mihocek, Fritta and Sparrow. And some potential in AMW, Culley, Adams, Kentfield and Heath. It's been my view that we still need 1-2 elite mids to add to that young core. Humphrey would be one, and then hopefully our 2026 pick too. Then we're basically at the 2016 stage of the list build. Time to target and acquire players through trades or free agency ala Lever, May and Langdon. If it's through trading and not FA, it's likely we'll need to sacrifice first round picks like we did to acquire Lever and May. Hopefully this is during 2027-2028 when Tassie compromises those drafts. If on top of this, we can do some shrewd business with second round picks in trade (like Langdon) or draft in a best 22 from the round 2 (like Fritta, Petty etc), by 2028 we'll be in the window. So maybe I'm being pedantic, but I don't view this as a rebuild. King has too many pieces and potential pieces at his disposal already. And no doubt, this was his pitch to land the role. Clear the decks of poor cultural elements and the small margins that he talks about, become smaller with everyone on the same page, with an aggressive, attacking game style.

Problem is Hawthorn don't value ball winners enough and have over balanced on ball users. We've got to be careful we don't over balance the same way and get rid of all our contested beasts. Viney appears to be near the end and certainly shouldn't be guaranteed midfield time next year. I hope we don't go too far one way. Humphrey is definitely the right direction. We just need to get the deal done or Trac should stay.

The Gawn, Viney extensions were board decisions, @dazzledavey36 . And I think you'll find Lamb is list manager, Taylor is recruiter.

Nor are the players. You've gotta sell this to the playing group first and foremost. Some may not like Trac, but they know without him and some first rounders in this year's draft, next year we're nowhere near.

A laughable outcome. No way this happens. Bookmark it.

It's Melbourne or he stays at the Suns. We're the only ones with capital (Trac) to get a deal done. And Humphrey doesn't meet Melbourne without the Suns' blessing or without some interest in joining the MFC.

The rewriting of history post Goody's sacking is hilarious. Goody wasn't tempered. He went and shot Watts and Hogan. Both fan favourites. Did he back in the same players for too long? Probably, but the dross that has been written about him recently is fantasy land nonsense. Also, you're completely wrong about Roos too. He wasn't a put his arm around guys coach. He was a Ross Lyon, Al Clarkson, Chris Scott type. He basically let his assistants run the show during the week and he'd do match day and press conferences. If you weren't in the 22, he wouldn't speak to you. Conversely, Goody was very hands on and would be across the playing group. This is the McRae, Mitchell and Fagan approach apparently as well. It's why some of the players couldn't stand Roos and couldn't wait to play under Goody.

As Steven King said in his SEN interview the week, the modern game is about margins and as King said, we had more than a handful of losses by a kick. So yes, we were a touch away. But the team King looks like having will be quite different to the Trac and Clarry team of 2025.

Midfielders win finals. That's Humphrey's ceiling.

Ours has a much greater ceiling...

You've gotta be kidding? Their list is BOG average. Outside of NWM, King and Sinclair (and the latter struggled as NMW took his gig), they've a very ordinary list. And now they've managed to bring in a bunch more inconsistent B graders on huge coin.

Not really, because this comparison implies that our list is in the same spot as the Suns. They have entered the premiership window. We are resetting for 2027-2028ish. Trac helps Suns win next year. Humphrey has his mid and likely forward minutes reduced by Trac. They let him go because it lands them Trac and it's not like the Suns don't continually have access to elite talent through their academy.

Question is, is Clarry being shopped around because we can't get the best out of him or is it more of a cultural decision? I think we probably are gambling on him never returning to AA form, but it feels more like a clearing of the deck.

As I imply above, I think it's linked to our Trac trade and our (long) desire to land Humphrey.

You can't just view the Clarry trade is isolation, you have to view the whole picture, which could be that we're able to offer someone like Humphrey a huge contravt by freeing up 700k+ from Clarry's pa wage.

But by signalling we'll pay 700k pa, we are saying we want him out the door, but we'll pay this if we get something back. We're not getting a first rounder, but a player might be handy. GWS have a lot of handy smalls. We need small forwards. I'd start there.

And yet you've had him in 43,567 best 22s you've churned out this year...

Suns won't trade us picks 6 and 7. They need one of them for academy kids. So as has been said, it's Humphrey and 6 or 7, or Trac stays.

Looks like a superb kick, but can he win his own ball? Maybe, I've no idea, but certainly a beautiful kick. Looks like a more penetrating Salem ajd definitely has some Josh Kelly about him.