Adam The God

My read on Harmes is he's always had a good tank. You need a good tank to be able to play tagger. And yes, I like the drifting forward idea, but just generally, Harmes playing on a wing frees him up to be able to defend and attack in a more expansive way than playing off half back in some strangely rigid role.

No, but we're celebrating another team losing 3 best 22 players when we could lose 2 best 22 players and the two best Melbourne players in my 33 years of following the club.

Look, we might be okay. I agree with @Pollyanna that Harmes could fit nicely on a wing. And Tomlinson is a reasonable back up winger. I'm less concerned with the Blues TBH, I think they've got a good spine, but an ordinary midfield and I think they'll fall short of the top 8 next year. St Kilda are difficult to predict and they could well drop out IMO. People know what they're going to bring now and I don't think it should scare too many. We should be right up there with the Dogs. I think we've got a slightly better 22, but their midfield is more balanced than ours and better coached. If we can add a plug and play young star like McCrae this year, as well as Brown, I think we should be top 6. Top 8 will include Richmond, Geelong, Port, Brisbane, Melbourne, Bulldogs, St Kilda and West Coast. The bottom 10 will come from North, Adelaide, Essendon, Hawthorn, Fremantle, Sydney, GWS, Collingwood, Carlton and Gold Coast.

Love the starting team, mate. I'd have Melksham and Lockhart in there, but question Baker and Jetta. I really like Harmes on a wing there.

I'd have Melksham in place of Smith and whilst I like Spargo, I worry about that forwardline without another tackler in there, but I guess there's always going to be a Harmes and/or a Petracca rotating through there too.

Welcome back DA. Where have you been? And I'm very happy with BBBB, but there's not enough exposed evidenced on Baker for me to trust that he'd be a walk up start come Round 1 next year.

I really think this is a furphy. When we wanted to trade him we were saying things like we'd bulked him up and if he lost that weight he'd be magically back to 2018 McDonald. In other words, he'll be great, take a punt on him, please. No one did and IMO it's telling.

We do this most years now though. We'll worry about trading back into the first round next year if we need to. FA next year will also be an option.

I wouldn't have Spargo, Bedford or Chandler in my best 22. I'm happy Spargo has a new contract though.

Haha, indeed. I hope if I write it enough, it'll filter up to Goodwin. ;) Given we haven't really been seeking small forwards this off season (with the exception of having a chat with Hind) and we've traded out Hannan, and been open to letting ANB go as well, it seems like we think we have the players on our list to apply enough pressure. Or that we're changing our forward system altogether.

Viney has to play pressure forward. @Pollyanna and I have said it million times, but he and probably Harmes need to play forward. Sure, they'll get some midfield rotation too, but that could be the answer to the pressure forward problem. Fritsch - Weideman - Pickett Viney/Harmes - Brown - Jackson/Petracca It's not a million miles from the West Coast forwardline in 2018. I think we can find the balance here. I may have just overreacted before out of concern, thinking we needed more smalls, but if we keep everyone fit, I reckon we can structure that forward to add enough tackle pressure, but importantly be dangerousness enough to kick a winning score.

Sure. I'm not a particularly superstitious person, except when it comes to Melbourne.

That's an A+ grade midfield that has speed, ball winning and tackling. It's got everything really. Luke will need that side to finish top 6 and win a final next year, minimum.

I'd be very careful about laughing at Collingwood. This could well be us with Clarry and Petracca next off season.

I reckon you're spot on here. I'm worried about Tom fitting in anywhere frankly, but let's see. Problem with this idea is that we don't have any natural crumbers except for Kozzie and at a pinch, Spargo.

Yep, if I was the MFC, I'd be re-signing Oscar. A 1-2 year deal on small money. He becomes depth (hopefully).

Me too, but perhaps that'll come more from the strategy side of things, rather than personnel.

I don't think we would have given up a future first rounder in a supposedly better draft, if we didn't have our eye on someone in the top 10. We'll either trade them prior to draft night or during draft night IMO.

Rock and a hard place. Had he said it was salary cap pressure, he's admitting he's stuffed up. He had to say it wasn't a fire sale and that they're trying to renew their list, which is patently laughable when they've given up 3 best 22 players to use 2 late first rounders. I actually felt sorry for him. They really went him. Blood in the water type stuff.

It's interesting, because if you look at the Hawthorn premiership sides and now the Richmond premiership sides, they both had an abundance of small forwards. This suited their game styles. Are we going to try something different? A bit more like West Coast 2018? Solidness from the back, ball winners in the midfield and potent talls with a small or two at their feet? If we're looking to model our forward system on Richmond and Hawthorn, there's just no way we're going to do that with our current list. We needed to get 2 or 3 competent and consistent smalls if we were going to do that. Pert signposted that Goodwin's job was to get the best out of the current list and I took that to mean we'd play our own system, rather than aping the aforementioned sides. What does Yze bring here? What has he said about our list so far? Gawn, Oliver, Petracca, May, Viney and Langdon plus Lever at a stretch, are all top 150 players in the comp. It's Richmond-like prior to their breakthrough, so can Goodwin and the coaches devise a system that is built around this core that enables role players around them to take advantage of our elite midfield? This is the question.

Just on contracts, now that we haven't broken the bank with a Treloar or a Phillips, I'd hope we can offer sizeable contract extensions to Oliver and Petracca during this coming off season.

I have no concerns with this bit, but each to their own. I'm wrapt with Brown. Will make us a considerably better football side IMO.

Adding another player over 100 games is handy to our list profile. 68+ games: Oscar McDonald (?), ANB, Gawn, Jetta (?), Jones, Kolodjashnij (?), Hibberd, Oliver, Salem, Brayshaw, Lever, Hunt, Tom McDonald, Melksham, Petracca, May, Tomlinson, Langdon, Harmes, Brown and Viney. That's 21 players in the zone now. Along with this core that is old enough now to challenge, we also have less experienced talent that can hold their own week to week: Lockhart, Jackson, Vandenberg, Weideman, Fritsch, Petty, Spargo, Sparrow, Pickett and Rivers. That's another 10 players we can rely on IMO. 31 players that are ready to take the next step with yet another pre season under an elite fitness boss. Plus, we'll either get two young first rounders or one. Isaac Smith would have been brilliant and I think the club agreed with that and were surprised when he had a change of heart. Had we landed him, I would have been very happy with our haul. Still, I think we're in the hunt next year with some better coaching and more consistency from more of our players.

I'm worried about our other wing and our lack of small forwards. I hope we can sort this during the draft.

I think this means Tomlinson will play wing next year and Tom McDonald (despite what I think should happen) will play back. I reckon we must be close to the cap once we offer Oliver and Petracca new deals, otherwise I would have thought Treloar for $600k a year would have been a no brainer for our midfield. If we go Merrett next year, there's no way we'd get him cheaper than $600k a year. I suspect we've got our eye on a player in the top 10 and will trade up on the night.