Adam The God

Aside from Kelly, who would you be targeting, Steve? There aren't exactly an abundance of silky mids on offer in FA.

Little Jeffy Garlett outbodied Steven May today. May went to ground and Jeffy sauntered off and goaled. A clutch moment too. Rocket went berserk. If I was a Gold Coast supporter (are there any?) I would have been absolutely ropable. It was a pathetic effort, but of course you only see good in the opposition and only bad in a Melbourne jumper.

If all it took was our first rounder this year and next to get May or Lever to the club at the end of this year and Peter Wright the following year, I'd happily give up those picks. Besides, Taylor has shown an ability to pick deep into the draft. As long as we have some 2nd, 3rd and 4th round picks to keep turning over areas of our list, I'd be happy with this as our list strategy for the next two draft periods. That said, can you trade two first rounders in consecutive years? Either way, the obvious holes in the list are a ready-to-go KPD, a forward/ruck and a skilful (preferably) pacey outside mid. I think we need to keep adding ball winning ability in our midfield too. Viney, Tyson, Oliver, Petracca, Salem and maybe Brayshaw are great, but when Lewis, Jones and Vince go (two of those will hang up the boots within three years), we'll need midfield reinforcements. We might back ourselves to be an attractive FA destination by the end of those three years, and hope to land a few mids to compliment the guys we already have and take over from the guys who will retire. Then it's about getting more games into our core elite group of Oliver, Petracca, Salem, Brayshaw, Hogan, Weideman, Hunt and even Frost.

Does Zak provide outside class though? Yeah, he's quick and breaks lines, but we already have Hunt and Frost who are both line breakers, but neither can kick. Is it worth going after another? If the price isn't too high I'd have a flutter, otherwise I'd look for someone who ticks all the boxes.

I'd try trading our 2018 first rounder for him. And @goodwindees, no, we don't need to trade one of our 5 young mids (you need 8-10 decent mids to compete for a flag) to attract May. You convince May to come over and then you have the leverage. Picks will do the trick, but you don't touch our mids or our spine.

It's a boneheaded idea to trade Tyson. We get the May done with draft picks or players like Kent. Don't touch the midfield we're building. We still need another A grade or two in there. No point taking out the very good depth we have. Otherwise, we go a lot harder at Lever, who is much younger.

Yep, I'd be concerned too, but I'd also understand that bigger blokes take time. Agreed that if it's linked to his diabetes it is a problem though. But much of the criticism isn't linked to this it seems.

The people down on McCartin shows what a stupid industry this is. How many times have we seen the same thing? A young KPP struggling in his first 5 or so years. It's driven by a media machine that is looking for a short term story and an ignorant football supporting audience that doesn't understand development in the modern game. And before anyone mentions Jesse, he is a very special talent. That is not to say McCartin won't be, but as others have already done, I'd point to Weideman. He will take time. Love that we have Trac though. Will be a superstar.

Corey Perry again. Oooh baby!

Come on, Ducks. You robbed yourselves on Wednesday. Make sure you get the win tomorrow. It's been a fascinating Stanley Cup playoff series so far. Loving it.

It's not relevant that we were VFL standard during a lot of those attempts? Rubbish. You've had a bad week LT. Just settle down.

None of those years were decent years. In fact, they were all shockers.

So there's a difference between the club having interest and the player...

We usually do, Steve. He is one of the elements we're missing. But I'd suggest someone like Lever would be much higher on the shopping list and cheaper...

Fair enough. My point was we've moved on from that though. Melksham was signed in a time when we couldn't attract anyone and we saw him as a role player. Garland was signed simply because we needed defensive depth. I gather he was being targeted by other clubs and so we put a 3 year deal to him, instead of two. Last season we attracted a four time premiership player who is still an A grader. I hope we can attract a player of Lever's quality. But Kelly isn't the right fit for $800k+, IMO.

Kelly is not a blue chip. I'm not really concerned about the Melksham comparison. We're not Melbourne of 2 years ago anymore and we've built a list of young talent that will need to be paid. The fact that some would blow $800k on a soft outsider with great skills is mindboggling. Thankfully, I know our list management wouldn't be silly enough to entertain the idea.

They won't keep their list together GWS if they're offering a player like Kelly $750k. He's not a blue chip A grade mid. He's a silky outside mid who needs to play in a good team. He won't win you games. He'll help you win games. Prestia has started poorly at Richmond, but is the best player IMO.

I'd certainly have a word with his management. We can offer a lot more than North in terms of top 8 potential and we're equally based in Melbourne, so if it's about a money increase and moving to Victoria, we can tick a couple of boxes. $600k is a lot more than he'll get at GWS.

I'd be offering Kelly no more than $600k. Good player, could play an important role at Melbourne, but he's not worth paying anymore than that. $800k is absurd. That's a sure fire way to demolish all the good list management over the past 3 years.

Yep, I agree, mate. The Stringer model. Oliver, Viney, Tyson, Brayshaw and Salem gives us plenty of elite talent to vie for starting mid positions once Jones, Lewis and Vince hang up the boots. Petracca, Hogan and Watts for bursts as well.

I'm surprised very little has been made of Oliver's stats in comparison to any other midfielder in the modern era. He has better stats than Greg Williams at this point...

Aliir Aliir, as has been mentioned, would suit our system to a tee. I reckon we could play Aliir Aliir, Tom McDonald and Sam Frost in the same backline, as long as a wise head like Lewis, backed by Jetta and Hibberd. A good mixture of experience, pace, height, good ball use and offensive-mindedness. Jones has improved, but would much prefer Aliir and he suits our needs a lot better.

I think when you really know your brand and every player understands what is expected of them and what they have to do to complete their role for the team, weaknesses are a lot easier to counter and work on. If a player like Harmes can improved his DE (a statistic that I'm not fond of, but I think says something in the case of Harmes and Tyson), he becomes an invaluable contributor and another Jason Taylor genius pluck from nowhere. If we can get our 'system' up and running, I'll back Taylor's ability to give us 4 or 5 plug and plays almost every year. With the coaching team we currently have, I'm confident our guys are receiving the right advice to continually improve on their game. Just back on Harmes too. I suspect his ability to know his body is what's holding him back just at the minute. When he turned it over at one stage against Freo, that was after he'd covered a lot of ground running hard to get involved. Get his fitness right and an ability to know when to steady and ensure he hits his target (ie. experience), will make him a much, much better player. We will see and it's one of the reasons I'm finding the 2017 season so exciting. We're seeing incremental development across our entire list. So much so that when a player seems to be struggling, they stick out like a sore thumb (Tyson's DE% and Brayshaw's inability to find the footy).

I think we judge young players incredibly harshly these days. Especially, when you think of some of the greats of the game. Blokes like Judd and Ablett weren't tearing it up in their first seasons. It took them 5 and 6 years respectively before they reached even a good, consistent player status. KPPs take even longer, as we've seen on countless occasions and yet people get frustrated that these young guys aren't immediately delivering. Jesse Hogan is not the norm. Clayton Oliver is not the norm. I understand it's frustrating when you see Sam running around and struggling to impact on the game and I share your sentiments, but it doesn't necessarily mean he's due time down at Casey or that he'll never make it. He needs time at AFL level and a base level for Weed should be his Round 1 performance. As PD has said a few times, he averaged acceptable numbers alongside Hogan in the first two weeks. This is the base level that Sam must achieve each week, but we've seen how much a talent like Darcy Moore has struggled without the foil of Cloke beside him. The same could be said of Weideman minus Hogan over the past fortnight. Let's keep things in perspective here. And that goes for the knocks on Brayshaw as well.

Far be it for me to be an apologist, but the corkie was clearly hampering him, Red.