Adam The God

Once they knew he wanted to go, they used it as an opportunity to spread the age of their list. But make no mistake, he would have been a massive loss for most clubs and may still prove to be a massive loss for GWS. And yes, his kicking is his weakness, but it's also the weakness of a lot of A graders.

Who was he behind out of interest? Just want to brag about him to my Carlton mate, unless it was Cripps that garnered more votes.

Bingo.

I think some are certainly catching on. If Oliver turns it on again tomorrow, there'll be no hiding it.

He seems to be playing high half forward as you say and historically he's struggled there a little bit, but seems to have some intensity in this position this year. I'm hoping he gets some midfield minutes soon. He was dominant for a period against the Saints last year when playing in the guts.

I want Gus to really lift his game this year. He's fallen behind a little bit.

I'm slow to the party, but his finals series last year swayed me and he's started beautifully this year.

I just wonder whether their easy draw last year covered up a few cracks in their drafting. They're certainly well coached, but my question over them has always been their lack of midfield depth.

Agree to disagree then about Bont.

The Bont is now elite IMO.

I think what will propel us up the ladder sooner than was anticipated is if we can develop the Hannan types into B graders. As long as our Hogan's, Oliver's, Petracca's and Brayshaw's continue to improve every couple of games and begin to show consistency, the lower picks like Hunt and Hannan fill the holes we'd otherwise have in our bottom six. Most people use the bottom 6 of a best 22 to decide the fate of a football team. Our current interchangable bottom 6 would be: ANB/Kent, Hannan/Kennedy/JKH, Frost/Smith/Garland, Weideman/Pedersen, Bugg/Vandenberg and White. Now if ANB can provide Kent with decent competition for that half forward role our forwardline is immediately improved and harder to match up on. If Hannan develops into a good player and JKH can show us something to put pressure on Hannan, that's another string for our forwardline. If Frost and Smith get a good run at the third defender role without injuries, our defence will look a lot stronger. If Weideman continues to develop and starts to clunk some of those marks, Hogan, Watts and Weideman are a tall and mobile set of key forwards who could get in top of most defences. So looking at the remaining guys from above, it means our bottom 3 or 4, particularly with injuries are still a worry. But with another trade/draft season or two, those holes should be filled. If we can make our 2017 picks count and get lucky with a talented FA sometime in the next two years, we'll be superbly positioned in 2018-2019 to make an assault on the flag. As PD says, Kelly would be the perfect addition to our midfield, although I worry about his hardness. I'd like to see how Dion Johnstone develops, because he could also be the answer to our small forward problems. But looking through this bottom 6 shows me that we really have assembled an exciting list.

I'm excited by Petracca's potential and Stringer may not be elite, but as he showed last night he's a gamebreaker. If Petracca gets to his level, we've got a good player on our hands. Petracca's ceiling is marginally higher, because his skills are better than Stringer's for mine. Having said that, Oliver is comfortably ahead at this stage.

Not many of those. Tommy Mac does, but most KPDs aren't great set up players. They mostly just defend brilliantly. Rance is a decent set up player, but I take your comment to infer you want a Rance with Suckling-like disposal. Pretty damn rare. I think we'd be stoked to get a Frawley equivalent, which is around where we selected Frawley anyway. But I reckon judging by Goody's comments last year, we'd prefer the extra quality mid and would look to develop role players for our defensive zone as plug and plays (ie Frost and McDonald type athletes).

Yep, I'm with you. We're still an A grader or two down in the midfield.

I'll tell you what I am excited for. Jason Taylor getting another shot at a first rounder at the end of this year. It'd be fascinating to know what the FD rates as our biggest list weakness. I'm not saying we'd recruit on a needs basis. I think you pick the best player and that's been our motto under Taylor and co, but it's an interesting discussion. In terms of the 2017 draft, I read somewhere on Demonland the other day that there are apparently quality talls this year. I'd love us to pick up another midfield bull, but wouldn't say no to another KPB either.

I just can't see them being lazy. I just don't think SOS is a talent scout.

Right. Well, each to their own. Their midfield is good, but nowhere near as good as it was with him in it. He was worth 2 first rounders too.

IMO Greene's never been their best mid. He's played his best footy as a forward. He butchered it as a midfielder. I'll admit that Shiel v Treloar is a closer thing, but I'd lean towards Treloar. And as for Cognilio, his break out season was last year after Treloar had left. I'm not sure why people are running to defend SOS. Surely, all you need to do is look at the first three picks in the 2012 draft? He's been an unmitigated disaster as a recruiter and I only hope that the Carlton FD keep defending him like some on here do. Carlton need to get just about every pick right if they're going to get themselves off the bottom of the ladder, otherwise they're in big trouble. If GWS didn't have the unrivaled access to draft concessions that they did have, he'd have flunked out there and it would have been a lot more obvious. Can you imagine if Jason Taylor had picked Whitfield, O'Rourke and Plowman at 1, 2, 3? He would never work again, unless it was at Carlton - see Barry Prendergast as Opposition Analyst.

IMO it's a little bit of all the parts that makes the vehicle move forward.

If that's the case, how do you explain GWS losing their best mid in Treloar? Is that a sign of poor list management?

Yep, good point, mate. So basically, SOS is still an ordinary recruiter whose terrible record flies under the radar a bit.

Hang on though, 55. Gold Coast had a good list but a putrid culture. Now O'Meara, Bennell and Prestia have left, they look ordinary.

Surely this thread should be called Clearance Oliver?

I think most of us picked this up too, except the bloody commentators or any other media pundits this week. It really was one of the classiest things I've seen from a Melbourne player in a long, long time.

List cloggers, mate.