Adam The God

I reckon you're taking Mahoney at face value far too much. We need to shed players on the list first, so we can accumulate something resembling trade currency.

Come on mate. As if Mahoney is going to come out and lay his cards on the table on the eve of trade week. It just doesn't happen that way, nor should it. He's postulating.

He does have a record of playing a very straight bat. And almost always, we have something on the go in the background.

Good post. The bolded bit feels pretty close to the mark. The attraction of Smith was probably threefold: i) cheap ii) from a good culture iii) elite wingman. Now that he's slipped through the other options are not quite as good. Polec is arguably as good as Smith, but is expensive. Phillips is cheaper, but his kicking isn't as good as Polec or Smith. Adding Phillips would still improve us, but the trade off has to be between holding our future first rounder and landing both Brown and Phillips with a second rounder, which seems fair for both. We might be able to get Phillips for a third rounder given the salary cap squeeze, but it depends whether a player goes back the other way. I reckon they'll also have an eye on the long term as well, which means trying to get back into the first round this year if we like one or two players. Bringing in another young kid that is ready to go, but will grow with Jackson, Rivers and Pickett must be apart of our thinking. Certainly, it would be tempting to give Taylor another hit at a first rounder, otherwise our picks are speculative and will likely go on upgrades as @Lucifer's Hero points out. The other spectre is, as you say, the COVID-affected draft year.

I'm more inclined to think we've landed our main target in Brown, we expected Smith, but he pulled the rug out from under us, so now we have to wait on other deals. We have to rely on Preuss, the McDonalds, Vandenberg, ANB and maybe Nev finding new homes, and depending on what comes from those trades, we'll then have plan b, c and d in mind to move from there. I think we'd like Phillips, I think we'd like a small forward and anything else that falls out from other teams this trade period we'll be open to at the right price. It could be a really interesting trade period for us or a really uneventful one outside of Brown. It's the McDonalds and Preuss will go too at a minimum.

Something that still enables us to sign up the Oliver's and Petracca's to new deals when they come around.

You'd have to entertain it for Gus. Harmes can play forward as well as mid. Gus can only play mid and at a pinch half back. The talk of Treloar's kicking and his two way running is ridiculous. We add him to our midfield and it's a Rolls Royce. I reckon we massively overthink things in these parts at times. Oliver, Petracca and at a stretch Viney are better players, otherwise Treloar walks in to our best 22. If the price is right, 2021 is the year. We need to be aggressive this off season.

Would be very surprised if he wasn't pushed.

What's the bet the pivot involves Treloar? Polec would have required a bit of money from our end, so will Treloar. Phillips less so. Would love to raid Collingwood for those two. There's absolutely no way Collingwood can be asking for a top 10 pick when they're actively pushing him out in a very obvious cap squeeze.

I'm uneasy too, but I think Pert is hitching his carriage to the Goodwin train. If Goodwin fails, Pert fails and his position, IMV, will be close to untenable.

If you set your deep forward line up with Brown, Petracca and Kozzie. That's dangerous. That's really dangerous. Weideman out at CHF and roaming higher and dropping deeper where necessary, then the rest of the forwardline should be made up of Viney, Harmes, Fritsch, Jackson and another small. Maybe Spargo, but I think we need a bit more leg speed in there. Fritsch probably needs to play up the ground a bit, as does Jackson. We'll be well placed if Spargo and Hunt are both depth and are being held out of the side by a legitimate small pressure forward who kicks his goals every week. We need a winger or two and two more small forwards. When are they announcing list sizes?

I actually think this is the perfect result between the two GMs of Football. It works to Richo's strengths in player development and coaching. And Mahoney's strengths in list management and commercial administration. Really like that Josh has been given a massive job of being part of the new home base development team. He smashes this out of the park and it will be a great feather in his cap. I think the way the message is delivered is both relatively clear, respectful and classy. My only hesitation is over Stafford as the forward coach. And will Richo take development? This was unclear to me. Perhaps, this will fall under the domain of the Casey coach? We also have to remember that all the clubs will be similarly downsized. There'll certainly be more responsibility across all lines though, whether it be GM, backline coach or forward coach. Given the playing field should be relatively levelled by league wide austerity measures, I think this added responsibility could suit us nicely.

The area that it leaves us vulnerable in is ground ball rebounds, so we really need to compliment Brown's signature by bringing in a competent small forward to partner with Kozzie.

Matera is 28 and doesn't get it enough. He's not what we need at the feet of Brown and Weideman IMO. We definitely need to bring in 2 more genuine small guys that will be able to help down a place or at least compete strongly for a spit in our forwardline.

Sure, but he needs less dog in him now that he'll have the second defender. Having Brown on the ground is going to be a massive win for Weideman.

It's a bit of a mare this one. Are you a bit angry we brought him in, mate? We clearly targeted Brown to play alongside Weideman. This gives us tremendous flexibility with Jackson and straightens us up massively. The cherry on top is he'll cost us a second rounder at most. Win, win, win.

Brown and Weideman as the key talls with Jackson as the utility...

Yeah, totally. Hamstrings and mental stuff aside, he's precisely the sort our midfield lacks. An accumulating, goal kicking mid with pace. If the aforementioned stuff lines up and Collingwood pay a bit of the contract, it's a bit of a no brainer IMV.

Well done mate. Nev may also go too. Be interesting to see. It might allow us to do the Phillips deal.

All the overly anxious can settle themselves now. Welcome to Melbourne, Ben Brown.

Each to their own, but I find it staggering that there are any detractors whatsoever.

None of those states had large community transmission, so it's a completely different case.

Sure, but it'd be great to be able to offer that money to Oliver and Petracca over the next two years. The boost this would give the club is enormous.

Yep, I reckon this'll hold up trades for us.

By your logic, he's not going anywhere because he hasn't announced it yet.