Little Goffy

One thing I noticed from the limited available highlights is he does have a bit of the Melksham ability to kick the ball effectively across sharp angles. That'll be a mentorship for sure.

The end of 2026 will likely see a total of four small forwards or alleged forward-mids retiring or delisted, which would have left just Chandler and Mentha alongside an increasingly midfield-destined Kysaiah. Chandler appears to be developing towards the Nibbler role across half forward, rather than a crumber or chaos-maker.

By the end of 2026 Pickett and Tomato (I'm committing to 'Tomato' right here and now) could be our only true small forwards on the primary list.

Let's imagine a future forward line with everything going well in the new young cohort -

F: L Pickett Kentfield Jefferson

HF: Matthews Van Rooyen Chandler

Rotating: K Pickett, Tholstrup, Culley, Werridee.

I can see that working and can see that L Pickett and Tomato would be necessary cogs.

But no doubt a 'courageous' draft move, to go for two relatively unquantified players in a notoriously difficult to quantify role.

4 hours ago, Demonland said:

Latrelle with the precision moustache to match Kysaiah, Xavier looks like he just got back from the proverbial 'visit to Turkey'.

Gotta admit, them Pickett's are a good-looking family.

There's still a couple of Sams available, and this round we pick before Richmond so might even get one.

Sam Swadling is clearly a suitable hard worker and accumulator in the midfield.

Jevan Phillipou is the best non-Sam midfielder still available, and I suspect would benefit immensely from both the freedom provided by having Viney and Steel taking responsibility in midfield, and also from the mentorship towards accountability alongside his attacking power.

I'm very keen on Thredgold because you need a focal point of solid reliability in defence even if your overall game style is built on dynamism, and I've always hated seeing us lose games because an opposition tall simply dominated every available match-up.

Ludowyke is there if we decide we really want to stack up young tall forwards (Van Rooyen, Kentfield, Jefferson) and see which ones can make it.

Speaking fully rationally, I think my preference goes;

Phillipou, Thredgold, Swadling.

It's quite a jump from his early projected draft position, but then again so was the presumed alternative Nairn.

One clear factor is that with Kysaiah spending so much time in the midfield, even when he does go forward he can't be dashing around like a terrier, and that means that our forward line hasn't had a super-fast agile threat in it for a while.

Chandler isn't 'slow', but he isn't dangerously fast. Mentha, Henderson and Sharp? We clearly have a need.

Something that caught my eye in one of the profiles is that his SANFL u18s numbers included a disposal efficiency of 88%. That is extraordinary for someone who spends much of their time in and around the forward 50.

The highlight reels all feature him dashing and twisting and turning and finding space and kicking goals, but clearly he is also capable of using the ball in general.

Feels like if you can put an AFL-grade level of fitness into him, and he learns to enjoy pursuit tackling, then he could be a major weapon.

Thrilled!

I had been keen on him but assumed he was no real chance to be available for us.

And I'm setting my auto-correct to turn Xavier Taylor into 'Xtra' and everyone else just has to live with it.

Hmm, is it just me or are Harry Dean and X Taylor the only key position prospects taken so far (speaking at pick 17)

Xtra is only 192cm, so even he isn't necessarly a KPD.

Probey and Derpsma are both notably tall but not really key position types.

Now I'm just casually monitoring in case we trade up to get Lindsay or Thredgold.

1 minute ago, picket fence said:

MASSIVE MISTAKE!!

1 minute ago, Ghostwriter said:

Sooooo happy we’ve got LSP!!!!

Well, this ought to keep Demonland chatting for a few days.

Good for our sponsors. Plenty of engaging content.

Wow, Richmond just going maximum Sam.

How will I protect my poor little boy?

I'm very, very happy about us getting X Taylor.

I guess there's no chance Taylor will trade down the order to target the other Taylor?

2 minutes ago, Mickey said:

Which was the really dodgy one? EnergyWatch?

EnergyWatch was the too-good-to-be-true white knight sponsorship which then allegedly backslid on the actual payment schedule before having to be dumped as a sponsor for reputational reasons... in so far as their CEO/Founder went on a series of bizarre noxious rants.

Just now, Mickey said:

These smaller companies are also probably run or owned by Dees fans. And my understanding is they can usually use sponsorships for tax purposes.

For what it's worth, I was pretty sure MA Group are in this category, were already a sponsor and have just upgraded.

And lets not forget the great Kaspersky heist!

'Business to business' related sponsorships seems to be a growing part of the sports sponsorship market.

The top-level sponsors are mostly consumer targeted and there's a whole lot of smaller sponsorships by food and drink brands, but mixed in there's... gets google out...

Akambo 'Institutional grade managed accounts and asset consulting'

Nueva 'Business IT security'

FujiFilm, which lives on as business media services

2Construct, civil construction project management

Sleigh group: A dedicated localization company, into a technologically focused language services company

Melbourne vehicle management - manages vehicles, probably in Melbourne

McLardy McShane, specialists in tax-optimised contributions to your personal sporting obsession via business promotional expense deductibles.

MA Services Group could make their sponsorship money back just from the schmoozing opportunities in a sympathetic corporate box.

Interesting that both the players we've been associated with in the late mail have explicitly been referred to as 'high footy IQ' types. I like that.

Watching a bunch of Nairn highlights I've been struck by how much of it is just 'getting to the right place and doing the right thing' rather than a lot of spectacular moments. I also like that. Suggests that even if he doesn't prove to be exceptionally gifted he will still be making himself useful over a long career.

Meanwhile, we may soon need to start balancing our list a bit by trying to find a couple of right-footers soon, or we'll end up rowing in a circle.

For what it is worth, a deal has been made with my Carlton supporting brother (of otherwise good character) that if we both make it into the grand final I'll make the trip down to Melbourne for the granny.

Hmm, should it be the grandpa? If the men's game as a granny?

But really, if we make the grand final I'll be trying to get down anyway, of course.

What we need here is one of those fire-fighting helicopters, and approximately 10,000 litres of milk.

Oh! Useful public service announcement! I found the rule on father-son selections for the rookie draft.

Medium story short - if a F/S eligible player isn't bid on in the draft, then they can be automatically selected as a rookie before the rookie draft even takes place.

FATHER-SON – ROOKIE PRE-SELECTION

The Father-Son Rule previously applied to players selected at the National Draft. Under the rule, other AFL clubs can bid for eligible players who have been nominated under the Father-Son Rule by an eligible club. The nominating club can select the eligible player by forfeiting its next available pick in the draft if a bid has been made by another club. If there is no bid from another club, the nominating club forfeits its last pick in the National Draft.

A club can pre-select an eligible player as a Category A rookie between the Pre-Season and Rookie Drafts (with the player’s consent) provided the player had nominated for but was not selected by another club at either the National or Pre-Season Drafts. In that case, the relevant club would forfeit its last available selection in the Rookie Draft to take the player.

Not a zero chance that we do a slight split of our picks, trading up and down, and Taylor selects Taylor and Taylor.

I'm also still hopeful on a full Sam deck.

I think my most preferred players are Xavier Taylor, Sam Cumming if either or both are still available at our picks, but if only one (or neither) of them is available I'd be very happy to trade a little bit down the order a bit and hope to collect Latrelle Pickett and Blake Thredgold. It would be a bonus if Josh Lindsay or Cameron Nairn slipped that far. I wouldn't even mind Schubert if we could get him later in the first round. There's actually a wealth of tall prospects at end end of the first round / early second round.

Then our boy Kalani, and it really seems like Sinnema is headed for us via the rookie draft.

The spot-betting opportunities would be massive.

Laying on a multi for 'Jeremy Cameron, as a bumblebee, kicking a goal on the 2/7th time siren.'

23 hours ago, Timothy Reddan-A'Blew said:

A new rule for Puzzledom after this one and @Little Goffy's 'Too-easy' one:

No puzzler may belittle their extremely intelligent followers with claims of simplicity

You'll be pleased to know this has even been systematically studied.

Simple scenario. Groups of observers were brought in to watch a set up quiz show. Afterwards they were asked to rate in order who were the most intelligent people on stage, and almost invariably they chose the quiz master. This applied even though for each new observer group there was a change of who the quiz master and contestents were and even the arrangements of which contestants were getting the right answers.

Conclusion; after 47 quizzes, we all probably think @Demonstone is much, much smarter than he really is.

If we can put ourselves ahead of North even a bit and then hammer in with the pressure and make everything difficult, there's a real chance they crack.

"There is no moment of peril greater than when apparent triumph is turned to sudden terror."

2 hours ago, Timothy Reddan-A'Blew said:

A new rule for Puzzledom after this one and @Little Goffy's 'Too-easy' one:

No puzzler may belittle their extremely intelligent followers with claims of simplicity for their puzzles.

Edit: And I believe you have filled the podium, so maybe...

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3D9jykIqQxEOw&ved=2ahUKEwiLs_yqmfWQAxWwTmwGHflyAZEQo7QBegQIDhAG&usg=AOvVaw1o5r7rS0KJxO-5Ltzdx_bW

Ahh, it's time to start working on the team of players all delisted with a year left to run on their contract.

Maintain the rage!

10 hours ago, Demonstone said:

Well, it's half-time in the football and the umpires have a handy two goal lead.

In better news, the persistence of @Little Goffy has paid off and he is the first to solve the teaser.

For his efforts, LG has the honour of composing the wording on the MFC Cheer Squad banner vs any team of his choice. (Keep it nice, mate)

I'm thinking, alright? I used up all my brainjuice on the dozen guesses at the quiz.

Might go for the basic taunt, something like just the counter of 'Days since Essendon won a final', or a list of our players who weren't yet born at the time Essendon won a final.

Or maybe my personal football catchphrase, "Collingwood is a liability to Australian Football."

Or something intellectual but menacing sounding, harking back to the burst of latin earlier, and also a famous catchphrase, "Hawthorn delenda est".

But none of that is especially creative. My only really creative effort with football taunts is a totally unusable rework of the Western Bulldogs song; "Sons of incest". Fortunately only fragments remain in memory.

We've done it. We've finally reached a moment of women's football triumph so intense Ghosty is too absorbed in the moment to post on here.

I've got it!

Their photos all produce wild AI hallucinations which completely misidentify them!

18 minutes ago, Previously known as LITD. said:

We better be paying him Didley because he's 30 before next season starts and a quick perusal of his stats, show a nice clear and concise linear decline in all fields.

I think especially for a mid ...25 is the prime so there's that.

It's got a fair bit of the Billings about it but I really, really hope I'm wrong.

Stats though, don't usually lie.

Acknowledging the point that Steele has for a few seasons been well down on his terrific 2020-24 peak, I'd point to the brighter side that his clearance and tackle count have stayed stable. He also has surprisingly good disposal efficiency and low turnover count consider the often contested space he works in.

If he is played realistically to the role he is best for and which we most need him for - the hard working, defense oriented inside mid - then we will get great service from him and it'll be of disproportionate value for our younger and mostly lighter-bodied mids.

Steele was truly great a few years ago and can be very good for a few more years yet.

That's well ahead of both Didley and Billings!