Adam The God

Houston started as a mid. He was a mid until Butters and Rozee took over. He's a perfect Gus replacement due to his flexibility. This is from his profile on the Port website. You could be reading about Gus: "A true all-rounder able to play up forward, in the middle, or down back, Dan Houston has continued his rise as one of Port Adelaide's most important players." I think what his recruitment would do is enable us to wax Rivers, McVee and Houston between midfield and half back. They are all ball carrying players, and in the case of McVee and Houston, are elite kicks. It enables Salem to hold the fort at half back, and even dip in for some mid minutes if required. If we can get Houston for a future first, it's a great piece of business.

Ruckmen can play longer than bang and crash mids. As long as Max's knees hold up, he could play for another 2-3 years at an elite level. And then you replace him with a competitor, and you tweak your method to accommodate not having Max's aerial strength and stoppage strength. As for May, I think he probably has 1-2 years left at an elite level. Lake played until 33, Frawley until 33 as well. But we have good cover for May in Petty. I'm no longer worried about the key position spots in the back half. 28-29 is the peak powers of most players, so having stars in that age bracket is important for a flag push in Lever, Trac and Clarry. I think talk of our depth woes is overstated. We've shown this year that our youngsters are very capable at the AFL level, which means some of the older fringe guys will have to make way for the next generation at the end of this year and next (Tomlinson, Hunter, Schache, BB and Melksham), and replenish underneath them. Over the next 24 months we'll get at least two F/Ss to get a look at and a highly fancied NGA next year that will fill list needs (forward/ruck and key position tall). I believe we can continue to replenish on the fly. The obvious list gap is the age demographic of 25-27, but this cohort is either now in free agency or approaching free agency, which means we're a chance to shift the age profile of the list a bit further with some clever recruiting. Isaac Cumming for example is 26 and fits that profile. If we could land him and maybe one or two others in that demo, we spread the list profile a bit. Houston is 27 too. But at this stage we should be thinking about two elite ends of the list profile. Obviously, the elite talent is stacked in the 28-32 age range (May, Max, Lever, Clarry, Trac, Viney, Langdon, Salem and Fritta will be 28 in December). That's 9, plus we had Gus in that age bracket too. And TMac and ANB are also in that group, although I'd argue they're highly reliable role players with flaws, who occasionally play elite games. So that's 11 in that older group, now that Gus has retired. The other group is obviously in the 19-24 group that isn't necessarily elite yet, but has the potential to be and contains Windsor, McVee, JVR, Petty, Kozzy, Rivers, Bowey. That's 7. So I'd be targeting players in that age demographic in 2025-2026 to start to hand over more responsibility to that generation. Think adding someone like Finn Callaghan (21) and/or a player like Bailey Humphrey (19), or Zak Butters (about to turn 24, who held off signing at Port until he knew whether Ken was staying). I guess what I'm arguing is we can keep our list build going and compete at a high level IMV. But I agree that we need to look at game style and not be afraid to trade out someone from that older elite group. And if we do trade someone, instead of directly replenishing through the draft, try and flip whatever we get for a player and convert it into a player in that younger age demographic, or in that list hole demographic of 25-27.

Hang on, why do you want to trade Trac, but not Clarry?

Wouldn't mind Macrae and Brodie. Particularly, if our midfield is a little bit younger next year. You need those older bodies and heads over the course of a long season.

I'd like to give him more than one game in midfield before we rule him out as a mid, but you could be right. I just thought he rushed some of his possessions because it was like he was expecting more heat than he actually received. He is a player with time, and I reckon he could well make a great outside mid, who can also defend to a very high standard, and his upbringing in defence has solidified his defensive game. I want to give him the summer, and if it doesn't work, he returns to high half back. I have a sneaky feeling he'll slot in nicely to our midfield, along with Rivers, Houston and even Windsor.

Most of last year was a slog on here and we spent the year in the top 4. Unless it's perfection, people are whinging.

Great post.

This is not really true though. Maybe in season it can be true for periods, although we've changed it up a number of times this year, for example. But it's certainly untrue from year to year. In 2017-2018, we played some of the most attacking football in the league. We scored 155 more points than minor premier Richmond in 2018 FFS! We scored comfortably 200 more points than the next closest that year. Are people being deliberately disingenuous or have they just got dementia?

At least the boards have sky-rocketing traffic, hey, @Demonland? 😜

@ middleagedemonsPA 🤣

I was where you are now last year, but I'm in the trade Clarry camp if that's what the club decides. And Clarry is my favourite MFC of all time. Have loved watching him play. But the last few weeks have not been good signs...

Back in our element as supporters again haha.

There are definitely parallels to the end of 2020. There was huge discontent at the end of that year, and a few fresh faces came into the coaching ranks and it was all resolved. We definitely need to smash this off season on a number of fronts.

I agree with @Ted Lasso that Byran is a good get if he'll come and play AFL with a view to taking over from Max. But I'd also target Peter Wright to play second ruck.

What a ridiculous reason to not attend a game, because they don't like Petty playing a certain position. It's actually laughable. Toys out of the cot ridiculous levels. But you're right, it is their right. And we have a lot of stupid supporters. The amount that I listen to in the MCC who either have no idea who the players are, or yell kick it when there is clearly no one ahead of the play or clearly marked. Anyway, good on them. As long as they don't steal my GF ticket when we eventually get another crack. At least those that were there the other night were vocal and passionate.

I agree, and if TMac hangs them up this year, so be it, but as we've seen over the last few years, good AFL KPPs are hard to find. If TMac retires, if May keeps getting injured, all of a sudden we are struggling to fill some of those key tall posts. It's why I think we should definitely go after Wright as he fills 2nd ruck need too. And I wouldn't be against Taylor Walker either if it gets the right sign offs.

Completely agree with this. We regularly went corridor, particularly in the first half, and either stuffed the kicks or our forwards failed to get the job done inside 50. These failures may have resulted in less corridor use in the second half, where we reverted to safer ball movement up the line. But the central ball movement definitely got us some scores in the first half.

It completely depends what the financial outlay is. He's a veteran who would not command big dollars, and since he is with us, we don't need to pay an inflationary wage in order to woo him over. You can't have it both ways. If he gets another offer, I'd be offering two, otherwise he'll likely accept the one year deal from us.

I'd be quite happy to offer TMac two years on a vet wage to stave off competition for his signature. Not sure we'd be freeing up a huge amount of salary by moving him on, and he knows our system and football club. Makes no sense to move on IMO.

I'd be staggered if 1) TMac wasn't offered another deal and 2) if he went elsewhere. Why? Just do your rolling one year deals, that way if you want to move on or the club does, there's no pressure. TMac has been pretty honest about being near the end and looking to a post footy life. I think he stays with us for another or two potentially or he retires.

Bye bye driver! Bye bye! BYE BYE! BYE! BYEEEE!

I don't always agree with you, but have always liked you as a poster, and most of the time you're constructive. I also think there's acknowledging factors that put together are not head in the sand, but legitimate for any analysis, but we've been there before, so I'll park it here.

Wanted to give some kudos to Petty. Thought his tackling was really good, took some great marks. Well done, Petts.

JVR was quiet in the first, was sighted slightly more in the 2nd, and then pretty much nothing after that. Subbing him or Kolt were my preferred options. I love JVR, but he had a poor night. He took two marks in the second, otherwise no marks for the night. Statistically, Turner wasn't much better after half time, but we couldn't sub both of them. Turner played second ruck. Turner had some burst about him for the night and JVR looked tired the entire game to me.

If we don't get continuity with those guys, I hope Petty goes back, because I'd be trusting him to intercept too. It's more about allowing/trusting guys with experience to intercept, that may be Houston and/or Cumming as well. That enables our running backs like Bowey, AMW and even Howes to get up the ground, and Rivers and McVee when they're not in the midfield.