Adam The God

Good post mate. As much as I hate them and it was clearly out of necessity, Collingwood were very bold and brave with the Treloar and Grundy deals, and given their speedy success afterwards, I think it's encouraged others to be aggressive with these sorts of deals.

I think you'll find that May is committed to Melbourne and we're committed to him (at least for 2026), and he will play a role next year. Not only leadership wise, but on field.

We're very lucky to have your insights and expertise on this site, son. 👏

I'd argue 2019 was a super draft. 2025 is not. Good luck.

We got 3 best 22 players and Max's successor, and freed up significant cap space (pa) as @Ted Lasso said. The media were initially going on about how great St Kilda were doing. That softened when they [censored] up the Aleer deal. Meanwhile, we brought in as many players as them and none for the ridiculous prices they paid. I reckon our guys could have just as much impact next year as their incoming guys. But unlike St Kilda, we managed to get two first round draft picks this year and next. I love how aggressive we are at this time of year. I think our window could reopen as soon as 2027. I don't subscribe to the idea that we're rebuilding, we've got rid of two guys, not an entire team. A rebuild also says to me you're building from the ground up (we're not) and it's a multi-year process. We still have a significant number of premiership players on the list to guide the next generation (the 6 first rounders we've brought in since 2021), and by the end of 2026, we'll have likely have had 10 first round picks in 5 years. All being well on the field, we can then get aggressive in free agency and trading to target specific holes/needs (ala Lever, May and Langdon from 2017-2019).

We love to see it. 👏

But is it a B+ or B-? Try doing that one...

I agree, but DS doesn't rate AMW, so hasn't included him.

Agreed. This is very much the danger. It's how we go ourselves into trouble with Jefferson and arguably JVR. Best available.

Steele is also a better kick than Viney, Trac and Clarry, and can defend to a high level, so it's definitely net win from and around stoppage, and in transition.

I don't entirely agree with what you've got here, but Josh Lindsay could shift to CJ's half back and CJ moves to the back pocket to play deeper. And Dovaston takes the forward pocket role next to JVR.

Not happy with things, but still managed to bust out another two best 22s. Thanks for that.

Do you think Lamb put Clarry on the trade table? He was dealt a [censored] hand. The memo was to get Clarry to any club that would take him. It wasn't about "winning" the Clarry trade. It was about following orders.

And "Missed out on their No.1 target in Zach Merrett, but they couldn’t have fired a better shot to make it happen." WTF. Why didn't they add to Melbourne, "Missed out on their No.1 target in Bailey Humphrey, but they couldn't have fired a better shot to make it happen, and unlike Hawthorn, didn't make a guy jump that they couldn't get a deal done for." FWIW, I rate our trade period B+. A- if we'd landed Humphrey. We needed the clean slate though, maximised value for Trac and replaced Clarry with another club's captain.

The Eeyores are insufferable. What makes it even worse is it seems they have no idea what his actual job is half the time. Nor how a list management committee works. It isn't Tim Lamb sitting in a room by himself talking to himself and making up contracts.

Well, we have two first rounders next year as it stands to woo old mate and the Suns.

I think we'll trade both of these picks to get up the order. Will be fascinating to see. King is aggressive and so is Lamb. 👏

You know we can spread his deal out over 3 years... And he's a solid citizen.

Apparently Melbourne's interest in Steele is reciprocated, @Demonland .

Welcome Epipen!

A little question, Picket. You said you'd give up your Melbourne membership if we traded Clarry. I just wondered. Will that also mean you won't grace Demonland with your presence next season?

How's 26 first rounders? Take it or leave it.

I think we're in a win-win situation. Land Humphrey and we become better quicker. Don't land Humphrey and we get two picks that we can trade aggressively to try and get an earlier pick or we take two kids in the top 12. As it stands, we have a handy pick at the start of the second round that we either use on Pickett Jnr or trying to flip it into a future first for next year's crop. Can we get Robey? Is Josh Lindsay within our grasp? Do we land a Dovaston? These kids won't necessarily make us better straight away, but in time they will. In JT we trust. We clean the cultural slate with Trac and Clarry. Does May go today too? Probably not. Do we get a solid cultural citizen and leader like Jack Steele? Hopefully. We are very skinny for midfield depth in more ways than one. On ball movement, @Axis of Bob has convinced me CJ is the Epipen to opening up our ball movement and encouraging more risk from the back half. Add to that, we definitely have more pace now. Windsor, Kozzy, Chandler and CJ. Who do we go for in the draft? Next year will see some more growing pains, but if all goes well, we can really attack free agency and trades at the end of 2026. We need a top 8 finish or close to do this. Natural improvement from our youngsters, better ball movement and less predictable forward play will close the gap of losing Clarry and Trac IMV, but the x factor is in the game style and new talent emerging that will tell us whether we can get near enough to the 8.

It's pretty clear if you take your blinkers off.

Thanks for that, Sandra.