Adam The God

And for the record, I used to think Nik Nat was overhyped and he was, but now I've adjusted my views because I've used my eyes and seen his influence on games this year. To be clear, I think his impact was marginal last year. This year, he's become an instrumental part of West Coast's dominant midfield.

This is exactly why using such a small sample size is flawed. I'm certainly not saying Max won't continue to improve, just that it's laughable to say right now he's as good as or better than Nik Nat, after playing only two dominant games against unrecognised/no named ruckmen and a one very good game against Brisbane.

Gawn's played 6 games. Those stats are heavily skewed.

Gawn is not better than Nik Nat. Ridiculous. Nik Nat is however a flawed player, but his tap work this year has been excellent. Far more consistent than Gawn too.

Unfortunately, with your 8 posts, Mr Cardwell, you won't be taken particularly seriously on this one.

This, I believe, is all related to the confidence he has in his back and hamstrings. It's all linked. I have no concerns about Jesse's ability to lengthen his set shot kicking once his body is right. Until then, he's a beautiful set shot from 40-45m, on most angles. ANB. I was surprised he missed it. He's been shown to be a lovely set shot.

So Prestia's gone from a B grader to an A+ grader in a week, in your calculations, mate?

Let's revisit this in six months time, mate. Reckon we'll get our man this time. Well, whether there is a clause or not, the claim would be that with the drug culture up there, the club has been in breach of providing a safe work environment. It's thin I admit, but we shall see.

MFCSS, WB. Well, both actually. He's telling us that the MFC is targeting players in the FA pool, yet in fact the MFC'll be looking somewhere else.

I hear that Dion will indeed use the 'safe workplace environment' clause to get to us. If it happens, that'll be one back for Clark last year.

We're a contested ball team. It's perfect. We just need a bit of outside run and then we're building a similar type of team to Roos' 2005 premiership team. I hold high hopes for Gus Brayshaw too. In two years, he could be an absolute star. Just needs to get more of it. If he starts to get 25-30 possessions a game, he is going to be one of the most damaging players in the comp. Such a good decision maker, with great skills. And we haven't even seen Petracca in a Melbourne jumper yet. How exciting! Isn't the cap growing for the next couple of years? Or was that just this year? rpfc tends to know these details. Do you know, mate, or does anyone else? I think you'll find this is a clever bit of misdirection from Roosy.

I was thinking about this yesterday. We have to get our stoppage set ups working properly to take advantage of Dion's talents, but I'd be confident that he'd be our leading clearance player anyway.

Absolute gun. He's underrated because he plays up in Queensland. If he was at a Melbourne-based team, he'd be being talked about as one of the next generation of superstars. Let's hope his knee doesn't impact his game and let's also hope he comes home.

Would love to know what he has to do to become an A grader, mate. I'd love another KPF too. But we might have to wait a year or two on that one. Peders can play the second KPF position and Dawes can be used as trade currency. I'll trust the FD on this one, mate. Reckon they're lining up one or two good prospects.

I think we can do better.

Lol, Dion is the clearance gun. Better than any of those blokes you mention. And I thought he was a B grader, HH?

Couldn't see it, being that Jack is a famous NSW name and boy. Then again, Kennedy was a famous Hawthorn name.

And there's no point in leaving if you're winning games. Now that the Suns aren't, why not move back to Melbourne. We can't offer him wins, but we can offer him Melbourne.

His dad is a coterie member. Supplies food to the club, I believe. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong. I remember reading that on Demonland at some point. EDIT. Derps.

Haha, I love you, olisik. Zac Smith anyone?

Not sure you did, mate. Last week, perhaps.

Don't involve Jeremy Howe in the Prestia deal. If GCS get pick 4 for Dion, they'd be happy enough with that. Ultimately, they wouldn't get that much the following year. As for Howe, I'd be looking at getting another club involved in a three-way trade or target Treloar, but that's not gonna happen. The only reason I'd include Howe in a deal with Prestia is if we got another Suns player. Say, Charlie Dixon.

Exactly. I'd use the Hawthorn example from the early to mid 2000s. Players like Ben Dixon, John Barker and Jon Hay were in the Hawthorn team. They were okay players, but they were never going to win them a flag. They failed to do this in 2001. So they began to move them on and they looked to improve all areas of the ground. They arguably built their midfield first with Mitchell, Hodge, Lewis and Sewell, but then added Roughy and Franklin to their forwardline and Rioli came in too. Clarkson's various defensive set ups helped cover their modest backline, but this was offset by great team defence and class in the midfield, forwardline and off half back. We have Tommy Mac, Dunn, Frost and potentially Fitzpatrick as KPBs. That's enough at the moment. We need class coming out of defence. When he's not playing in the midfield, Salem will probably be one of those guys. I'd target someone like McKenzie at GCS too to give us elite disposal off half back. We need some elite kickers for our slingshot game anyway. Brayshaw is terrific at this from the midfield. Exhibit A - the Geelong game. For the forward half, I'd look to bring in a younger KPF to support Jesse and another speedy x-factor forward to partner with Garlett. Kent will also help out here. Then we turn to the midfield and we need to seriously inject some pace into it. We're far too one-paced, which means a lot of our forward fifty entries are rushed, usually inefficient entries. Add Prestia at the end of this year (fingers crossed) and in the next year or so look for another speedy mid and we'll be starting to look pretty good. What all this means though is that we need to carefully select those blokes who are not going to take us further or we have in surplus or players that can cover their positions, and we move them on, whilst filling the aforementioned holes on our list at the same time. Garland and Dawes (even Toumpas) are expendable if we can improve our list.

Not quite related, but it sounds like Shiel's season could be over. I don't wish injuries on anyone, but it'd be handy if he didn't play against in the final round. Imagine if someone had offered him big bucks, had him sewn up and then he did his knee like he did. Wowza.

Could your reluctance to let Garland go, but trade Toumpas, be linked to sentimentality, mate? If Garland can't improve under Roos and harness the ability to attack off half back, then he never will, IMO. I'm leaning towards trading Col more so every week. I agree though, if the price was right with Toumpas. The thing to ask regarding Toumpas is what type of player we've got and what are we happy with. I actually think the argument you've made for Col turning things around when the team rises, could be made for Jimmy too. Toumpas is a gut-running mid with nice disposal that currently shits himself occasionally, which results in a poor decision making. Toumpas will grow into an important role player. Not necessarily who you want at pick 4, but if there aren't any better offers, I'm happy enough with Jimmy. He also shows a passion to improve. I like it.