Adam The God

Does anyone have any information on ticketing for this week? I assume Level 4 will be open, but there's often a chance to get tickets on Level 1 too. Hoping that's the case as I hate level 4. Any deets, much appreciated. 🙏

Nice haircut, Binners.

I want Bolton if we can manage it. :P

In other words, I'd be trading out of the first round in those drafts because the first round will be mauled by Tassie access. And again, we have a F/S and an NGA next year that directly go to both weaknesses on our list. KPD and ruck respectively. Kalani White isn't going to GCS. That's nonsense. The more I think about it, the more validity hitting the 2024 first round really hard has. Use your future firsts to do strengthen your hand.

Yep, that's the essence of what I've tried to articulate a few times and people get triggered.

That's not giving enough credit to recruiters. Plenty of misses in the top 5.

Here's the thing. For argument's sake... Would you say it's overs if Houston helped us win a flag in 2025 and/or 2026? Many said it was overs for Lever, some weren't sure on May either. Myself included on the May front. I'm all for trading future picks, because we have F/S and NGAs, and we usually work out a way of getting back into the first round anyway. Alternatively, if JT rates the top 20 this year and thinks we can get two genuine midfield guns, I'd be trading future 1sts to strength our 2024 hand.

Kozzy was pick 12, basically pick 10, but Freo had a NGA pick in Henry at 9 and GCS had a priority pick at 2 and picked Anderson. The last time we had a top 5 pick we got LJ in that same draft, the 2019 draft. And the time before that we got Clarry. JT loves the top 5.

Given we have a F/S and an NGA pick in 2025, it seems like the perfect year to dangle our 2025 first rounder again and seeing if we can't land decent player trade or land another 2024 first rounder. I'm sure we're thinking that. I just hope we can pull it off. If we could land two of these young mid kids, it could set us up for a decade. We'd then just need to find a ruck to replace Max in 2-3 years and target FA for a May replacement or another KPF. I think Noah Balta is a good age to target in 2 years time to fill a potential KPP role. It's unlikely he'll play finals again at Richmond.

Agree, good post.

Disagree, he's a beautiful kick IMO, and has great vision. We must be watching different players. Rivers is already playing mid. If we had Trac available now, Trac would play mostly forward with Rivers taking more CBAs than Trac. It's McVee into the midfield hence our interest in Cumming and Houston we hoped, would add to our midfield. Who the hell knows what's happening with Houston anymore. He's either a good poker player or that's no longer a chance. I'm not sure he'd work in midfield either, but that's how to sell him on us. The old Jeremy Howe deal. Give him the promise of midfield minutes and if it doesn't work, back to half back. Welcome back. Binmans PA doesn't always disagree with you. In fact, you come up with good usernames for me. Keep them coming.

What don't I think is relevant? I think life is complex and football isn't everyone's priority. But if you're the sort of supporter that goes in the good times and then jumps off when the going gets a bit tough, I don't have a lot of sympathy and I don't really care if I hurt your feelings.

I agree with some of this, but you have some blind spots. You talk about not understanding our interest in Houston and then talk about our midfield lacking a speedy distributor. Houston is being targeted precisely for his ball use and to play midfield, not half back. That is how we lure him, with the promise of midfield minutes, which Port clearly aren't prepared to offer. As for the Gawn/Grundy experiment, I definitely found it bizarre we never tried Max behind the ball and Grundy in the ruck. That could have been an absolute weapon, particularly with a transition slingshot game. But had Grundy come to us this year, I suspect it's probably a different story in terms of releasing him early from his contract. It's the fact we played finals and left Grundy out, this made him staying untenable. I'd prefer JVR not playing second ruck either, but he's pretty good at it and as he showed the other night, he's a chance at kicking goals from the ruck. Also, is that you, Steve? You have a similar posting style if not.

Don't worry. I shared the video of the Essendon supporters slagging off their team to the Essendon ones and the Carlton ones were told they got 30k to the same game, but have 40k more members.

Did you actually read my post?

Life is more complicated than this. Sometimes you can't make it for all sorts of reasons or you don't live in the country or the state. The problem I have is probably with the 5-10k or so that would normally attend that game in the past 3-4 years. They are the bandwagon supporters that give most of us a bad name. I was embarrassed by the crowd the other night and have copped it this week from mates that support Carlton and Essendon. We have a really good conversion of supporters to attendees and members, but like all clubs, we have some softies.

Thanks for that. My sister and I were there. The most embarrassing and disappointing football day ever. But don't worry, we followed it up with another in Round 2 of 2013.

Good post mate. Couple of things. In answer to "1" - if we have JVR as the ruck/forward, Turner and hopefully Jefferson to support, I like the idea of a Waterman, but salary cap and trade capital make that difficult if we prioritise other needs higher, which IMO we should. Like midfield and ball use behind the ball. So I'd be playing JVR, Turner and Petty forward until TMac and May retire, then shift Petty back then. In answer to "2" - Agree with the need for more class behind the ball, particularly with the transition game and the ability to hit kicks not many can. We have such great structure behind the ball, that if we had some real kickers, we'd be able to really go for it regularly and would still maintain some structure behind the ball. I don't however think Gus was a classy ball user off half back in our premiership year, he was our defensive winger. Even when he moved to half back, he was elite by hand or foot. Gus' main strengths were his versatility, contested ability, his reading of the play and leadership. Bringing in a Houston might give us some traits that go some way to filling the void left by Gus' retirement. In answer to "3" - As above, Waterman would be nice, but I'm not sure our salary cap and trade capital is best spent here, when we have larger priorities. I think we can make a mobile tall and mid-sized forwardline work as we did for most of 2021. In answer to "4" - I agree with this, but not immediately. If TMac plays on, which I hope he does for one more year, he won't play on if he knows he has the Jones role. He's already hinted that this year would be his last. There is no point in going around again if it's to play in the VFL. So I think we want TMac to go around one more year. Then Petty can replace TMac in 2026 while Kalani develops, then Petty shifts to May's spot when he retires and Kalani shifts to Petty's. Then there's Jed Adams. Does he make it? It's really hard to tell. Not many would have thought either McVee or AMW would make it based on some of their VFL football, but they're both locks for mine now. In answer to "5" - I think this is why we can't do everything we'd like vis a vis "3", because we need more midfield support. I don't like the "midfield depth" line, because I think it's probably more we need a greater spread of elite talent that can play through there. If Clarry and Trac are back to somewhere near their best next year, another pre season for Kozzy, McVee, Rivers, we then have Viney, plus Sparrow and ANB that can run through their too. What happens to Laurie? Can he solidify a spot? But we need elite talent. Is it the top 10 pick this year? There are so many permutations to list management this off season. Do we manage to hold onto our top 10 pick by trading a future 1st for someone like Houston? Then hit the free agency market for Cumming from GWS. So we fill two needs, half back ball use with Cumming and Houston, more elite midfield support with Houston and a top 10 youngster, and it allows us to slide McVee into midfield, I'd be trying AMW as a small lockdown defender (reminds me a lot of a quicker Nev Jetta), and maybe there's some cheap cover in free agency or trades for another defender to enable Rivers and McVee to play genuine midfield minutes. And where does Blake Howes, who I rate, fit into all of this? At the back or on one of the wings, where he played most of his junior footy? So I think my ideal off season would be having TMac sign a one year deal, landing Houston, Cumming, a top 10 youngster and maybe a cheap free agent/or trade to provide lockdown defender cover, and back ourselves to trade back into the 2025 first round of the draft, knowing we will have Kalani as a F/S anyway. I don't think that ideal is that outlandish. I'd love to add Waterman, but I think that's probably pushing the bounds of our salary cap and reality.

Bit of a step down, huh?

Chaplin is our defensive coach...

I wouldn't be going for David Teague. What's Josh Mahoney up to? Would he swallow/sparrow his ego and come back and work alongside Lamb and co in the FD?

Those votes seem fair to me. I'd have Clarry with a few more there, but none of our other guys deserved votes IMO.

Why is Tom Morris reporting what skin condition Goody has? WTF right do we have to know what condition he has? Such an unethical little runt.

I agree. I'd err towards us missing and re-setting, but I don't want the club to put the cue in the rack. The only guy I'd consider playing from here is Jefferson. We've played enough kids. Sestan would be a liability at AFL level. He doesn't currently have the tank for 2 quarters let alone 4.

This is a different point to what the club should do though. The FD should keep fighting.