Little Goffy

Good that he is an actually good prospect, because that name MUST be drafted. Behind only Yze for efficiency of scrabble hand. I would've thought his nickname would be 'Bjr'. Bjr Grlj, Cylbrty Srvyvljst.

Thanks for adding Jed Walter to the rumour mix! I needed a boost. So, the new and improved final result of the trade frenzy fantasy will now be; Spargo becomes Mihocek. McVee (to Dockers) becomes Steele (from Saints) via ontraded picks. Petracca (to Suns) and Oliver (to GWS) become Humphrey and Walter (both from Gold Coast). May becomes a late pick, although I don't even know who wants him at the moment. We probably shape our draft to sneak one pick in the mid-late first round for a player we rate higher than others do, and then lurk at the back end to collect White and Sinnema and some speculative kids. The classic high-low draft pattern that we built our list on. Go into 2026 with a major shift of leadership figures and a metric walrus of salary cap space to hunt with.

I guess the question is; how many of our players underperformed in 2025, and how much of that was a factor of issues related to Oliver, Petracca and May? Was Petty forward persisted with because of some issue with May? Was the plateauing of Sparrow and Rivers even partly due to midfield 'politics'? How about our movement inside 50? How much of that is Petracca insisting on being the main man, nevermind Oliver being our number 3 ranked for inside 50s but not even top ten for goal assists - oh look, I found the stat Stephen King brought up in 12 minutes! How much of Simon Goodwin's stagnation as a coach was a product of distractions caused by managing these three and the layers of club politics that swirled around them? I'm playing devil's advocate here a bit, but there is an upside to them going, even if we get 'unders' in trades, and setting aside the 20% or so of our salary cap it frees up.

Clearly St Kilda's salary cap squeeze is having an effect, with Marshall wanting out to Geelong, a club which does not have that problem. Not sure it makes too much difference to Heath's preferences, though. He'd just be behind De Konig instead of Marshall. Plus... it is St Kilda. At Melbourne Heath would be behind only The Gawn and competing only with Tom Campbell for opportunities, and would have a clean run at the succession given Campbell's age. I'd argue we would also love to reduce the amount of time Gawn has to spend jogging around the ground, so the role of a genuine full time forward-ruck is very much there. IF the trade actually happens and IF Heath develops into a solid ruck, then it is an optimal scenario for everyone involved.

I always hated that there was a Collingwood player I respected so much. Good job on the club for solving that problem. Upsides; Can support and guide the young forward line while not directly competing for the spot for our 'true' tall forwards. Brings character and intelligence into the culture and provides support to the new coaching group. Is one of those players who continue to work at it, support the team structure, and require opposition attention even when having a quiet day. Presumably, not a huge salary. Downsides; Might play limited total number of games [because old]. Although the only time he has missed any substantial number of games was 2024, with a ruptured pectoral tendon. No history of chronic problems or recurring hamstring twangs. Touch wood.

This is Australia, so half the league are half Irish. Which means if a quarter of the league is all Irish, and quarter of the league is not Irish then once you mush it all together the remaining stew would be half Irish. Right now a significant portion of the League is just Maeve Chaplin.

hrmmf. Got a little sloppy to let our play break down a few times under pressure and eventually paid the price. Has to be our top priority.

Good fun seeing Hore literally sit an opponent on their r's and winning the free kick for it too. Also enjoy the 'F-F-S Tayla' lip reading after the weird collision in defence. Main downside to this game is the Essendon uniform. Basically a trussed hernia.

I absolutely love that the next sub-heading on the AFL.com.au article is 'Rivals monitoring sun'. I had just thought 'Geez, I hope he used properly tested SPF'.

Jack Steele sees out his two years as a 'Daniel Cross' culture setter and midfield depth. The poor guy is basically St Kilda's Nathan Jones, except they are well out of love and in need of a new start. He's not fast and would be only a midfield grinder - certainly not the magic beans - but if the Trac and Claz show happens and the Flanny & Humpy show doesn't happen we'll need good, uh, soil, for our existing home grown beans to grow in. I wonder how he feels about Alan Richardson? Note that personally I am ambivalent about this and merely raising it as a thing lurking in the background, not actually spruiking.

Ugh. Ye of little faith. Once you embrace what the old gypsy lady told me in a dream, you can very easily see the many paths back to potency. We are already locked in as 2028 premiers, so the key is to watch events unfold with an awareness of how they can be a part of that path.

Keeping his cards close to his vest.

Poor Goodwin, like being dumped by your partner and moving to a new home for a fresh start, only to find your teenage brat already has a key. Whoa, Petracca is a great player and his 2021-2023 rivals Martin, but Martin 'does it himself' in ways that Petracca lacks the mobility and skills to do. Trac is a powerful component of a unit, while Martin actively changes the scenario and allows multiple other players to be 'good ordinary' role players. Martin is more like a 200% Melksham. That said, at his best 2021-2023, Trac's contribution was as effective for the team as Martin's was for Richmond, and plugging even post-spleen Petracca into a midifeld with Anderson, Rowell and Touk Miller is an awful prospect for all opponents. It is just as well Gold Coast will have their depth thinned a little since both Flanders and Humphrey are obviously coming to us. (wink wink oink oink)

Just going to add a bit of a pre-season and rookie draft supplement because a few solid names have been left out. 2010 Bachaer Houli, Michael Hibberd, Luke Dalhouse, Jasson Johhannnissen, Jeremy McGovern 2011 Sam Frost, Rory Laird, Jack Crisp, Mark Blicavs, Harry Cunningham, Jaeger O'meara (mini) 2012 Dane Rampe, Jack Martin (mini), Jesse Hogan (mini) 2013 James Harmes, Charlie Cameron, 2014 Jack Sinclair, Jayden Short, Adam Saad, Jason Castagna, Nic Newman, 2015 Tom Papley, Dan Houston

Yeah, but how important can they really be if you can't even spell three of them?

Adding all the mooted trades to the existing delistings, we would actually be going into 2026 as an exceptionally young team. May 33, Trac 29, Oliver 28, Billings 30, Spargo 25, Fullerton 26, Hore 29, and then fragments from the younger delistings. Realistically that's an entire year taken off our average age, even if a few we bring in are a bit over-age.

I'm fascinated by what our new midfield and wings might look like. Viney and Sparrow the only full-time insiders with the traditional body type to grind in the pack. Salem is a mature body and has always been chunkier than he seems. He's not fast enough to be in the open all day, so maybe the role move is finally on. Picket and Rivers have both spent time in the middle, sometimes with great effect. Both could spend significant time there in '26 and bring nice diversity of match ups. Of the youngsters; Culley might be a big enough body and able to contribute as a taller inside mid more often in 26. Langford you'd imagine will spend incrementally more time in the thick of it but you wouldn't want to rob him of his creative role too quickly. Lindsay and Windsor have also shown they aren't going to shirk it when it is their turn, but you wouldn't want them bashing around for too much of the day. Tholstrup might enjoy time in the chaos of it, but that can only be called a loose maybe as far as becoming a regular in the inside mix. Unless we have some special secret weapon coming in under the radar, it looks like our midfield will be defined by two heavily defensive insiders, then Pickett, Salem, Rivers, and a five talented kids given permission to take turns in there to be bold and have fun. Oh. I'm okay with that, actually. Especially if it is going to free up around 2mil in salary cap each year even after we subsidise some of it for new clubs. What the... when did I become an expert at talking myself into optimism? My own mother wouldn't recognise me.

The club has suffered heavily for trying to be extra nice to high maintenance players. Break ups are always hard but the extra time and attention available for everyone else with May, Trac and Oliver out the door will be priceless. Controversial statement; in the end, losing Gus and Nibbler will have hurt the club more than losing these three.

Awesome, I'm still in the game. Just need to switch from my anthropologist host to my ecologist hat. At this point his environmental management plan resembles a widespread controlled burn! Is this 'veil of negativity' clean out version 2?

Feels genuinely odd being thanked by someone (or more accurately an entity) to whom/to which I feel genuinely grateful to. One day I'll be rich and will slip you a fifty. For now, just bask in the glory of knowing Demonland is one of few online activities which survived the birth of my son. Does that make you family?

An alternative for these times, hmm... "Biologically cancelled." Wait.. I had an actual reason to be on this thread! The removal of the sub rule and introduction of a 23rd player; How will this affect Max Heath and in particular Tom Campbell. Do we expect to see Campbell adding his mighty jawline to our forward mix for long periods to ease our total rotations, covering some rucking in the forward line to minimise the risks of Gawn taking a shot on goal? And in all seriousness, would the list managers have known this fundamental change in the value of a variety of players was coming?

If Trac went to Freo maybe we could get Andrew Brayshaw in and finally be able to put some players back into the 'Brayshaw's Mum' development program. How we kept her off the soft cap books is a mystery almost as troubling as the Bellarine farms.

I'll take Butters, Walsh, Zac Bailey and Ben King. Not one of - all of. Enough run to overwhelm anyone anywhere, and a lump of a forward waiting for the ball to arrive. Probably about $6m/season between them, but hey who is counting?

There's something really iffy about a spouse whose actual job is full-time social media marketer of their partner. "Honey, I need your nonna to come up with some trendier classic family recipes".

To do what his instinct wants to do he needs to be that little bit stronger and that little bit fitter. 'Needs a good preseason' is a cliche but Tholstrup is emblematic of just how much more we should hope for and demand from our 2nd to 4th year players going into 2026. If they catch that energy as a group, we go big and player movement is all just blah blah blah blah.