Little Goffy

Before y'all go shoot'n me down, gotta get yo teach on about where I been at all day. I gots all them words all up in my face and it ain't pretty. By which I mean to say - good pick-up. I've been reading and taking notes on a pile of writing today that is all in 'American' so it must have infected me. It's important that we all monitor these things and purge them with bursts of hideous stereotype before the letter 'u' becomes critically endangered.

This is a genuine request for other people's opinions and insight. Hopefully it doesn't crash the internet! It seems to me that most areas of our list are now quite well stocked for now and for succession. We have many tall forwards, many small forwards, a variety of the running half-back types, many inside mids, a gun mature ruck and a young ruck, one outstanding winger and an list of options to experiment with for another winger or winger/forward. The part I'm not convinced is settled is in defense. Specifically, in the near future or in the event of any injury - one tall defender and one small defender. I can see that there are options including Tomlinson, Smith, Hore, and Petty for the tall, but I'm unclear which can fit as a genuine key defender rather than as a looser (not loser) role. Petty certainly has fans on here and I'd be keen to hear from them. Nobody can walk up and replace the deep character of Neville Jetta but someone sooner or later will need to take over his more material role on field. The list of options seems even shorter (figuratively and literally) for this one, despite the gap appearing more imminent. Like Petty, Lockhart has a few people solidly in his corner. After that it seems we have to talk about either attempting to develop some of our younger midfielders to be disciplined, or making the role a top priority of the 2021 draft. So, what are people's thoughts on the need for and best means of filling the future gorilla-keeper and ferret-herder roles?

Went from 'good' to 'art'. The entire arc of Davey's long kicks became so perfect that sometimes I just watched the ball fly and lost track of the game for a moment. Of course, Fraser Rosman has almost nothing in common with Aaron Davey except his species, y chromosome and red-and-blue jumper. But that's enough for me to be sure he'll come along nicely.

I'm not writing St Kilda off - I guess my point is that when we talk about St Kilda's 'youth' we're talking about players from 21 to 25. Many are guys who have been around as long as Petracca or Salem. In the last three years of drafts they have just one AFL-level young player to show for it, the excellent Max King. If they are going to make any major improvements next year it will have to come from mature players rediscovering their best form. That's entirely possible and a Crouch & Hanneberry revival could lift their midfield to outstanding. St Kilda are a mature team. Not overly old, but loaded with established players and with a pretty thin tail when it comes to new blood coming through. For two teams that finished one win apart, and counting the trade-ins as a balance, I'd much much rather be in our position.

Football is a funny thing. One win in the weirdest season ever is the difference. I rate Ratten highly and am impressed by St Kilda's bold recruiting in the last couple of years that has kept them out of what could have been a very deep hole. But... they have a bit of an issue in their lack of young talent which actually provides a really important contrast to illustrate how the Demons are placed. We've assembled an outstanding group of young players and promising kids who we can really expect to see improvement from. It would have been better to do that with one more win in 2020 as well, and one more straight kick in total for the season in 2017, so that we had three seasons of finals instead of one under our belt, but we are actually very well placed for the near future in ways that St Kilda very much are not.

They weren't kidding when they said Rosman had 'athletic attributes'. He looks three pre-seasons ahead of time. Looking back over some of the other recent galleries I'm going to abandon my skepticism about Jackson's body transformation. Also, less decisively, but I'm got a hint of optimism now about McDonald getting back to his mobile self. Looks a bit lighter and leaner when he appears in some photos and ina couple of training videos. I hesitated for a moment on that call in one photo but then I realised he was next to Jake Lever.

No doubt premiership window is an annoying buzzword that has been given silly amounts of imagined meaning, but at least the actual summaries in the article are reasonable. A 'bell curve' analogy might be more useful given that the concept is very much about whether you've got the maturity and will be able to train that over coming years. If I recall, the use of 'premiership window' was originally all about needing to get a premiership before the stars you have get too old. My differences of opinions would be - Collingwood are just barely clinging on to relevance. They had eight years of continuous incremental decline after their premiership and then managed to suddenly throw themselves right back into contention, but now that pattern of decline is back. They have 13 kids under 21 and another fun Daicos on the way so I wouldn't be crying about the future is I were a Magpie, but at both ends of the ground their tall stocks are very limited and what they do have is at or around 30 years old. Fremantle I just don't believe in. The articles notes their defence, but the Demons only gave away 60 more points than them for the season even as our dysfunctional forward line score 200 more. That the article so specifically points to Fyfe and Walters actually points to a key problem - they have very little mature, quality leadership to look to. Their mid-age mid-sized core won't make anyone think of premiership threat, though they are all perfectly reasonably players and appropriate trade-ins; Conca, Wilson, Aish, Acres. It's okay, the top-pick kids are coming along nicely, but it is hard to see how Freo can get everything together in the short term. Geelong. I'm in the 'too many old bodies' school of 2020 grand final fade-out explanations. Now they are a year older and then some, with Cameron, Higgins and Smith coming in. Jeremy Cameron, at 27 and 8 months, if the seventeenth oldest player on their list. Sixteen of those seventeen are in the best 22, as well. Maybe they've got one more shot at it, but at some point they are going to absolutely implode, and I already think the sheer volume of old thighs has been decisive. Other than that, I'd just slightly downgrade the Saints and slightly upgrade the Demons.

Thinking on that, I'd speculate that the austerity situation plus the soft cap on football department spending might actually see some veteran players retained as additional off-field support and de facto mini-coaches as well as providing some depth coverage. For example, it's easy to see how that could have influenced the decision to retain Jones for the extra year. New kids are cheap on the salary cap but expensive in footy dept spending.

Good. Will give our millstone midfield a proper chance to grind others into dust, and the necessary rotations will mean that our glut of midfielders will get proper minutes in their best positions.

I can see the good sense in getting a closer look at players by inviting them to train with us prior to the supplementary selection, but it is quite a surprise to see Kaine Baldwin still available when he was talked about as being well inside the first round before the injuries. Can anyone clarify how pss selections are made? It's not a draft order thing but a direct agreement with the player, yes?

I'm really surprised by Willingham, McCallum and Hampton being unique surnames. Adem and Reece I would have expected to see more of, too. Aliir and Daw won't be unique for long, they are the cultural equivalents of Smith and Jones and the community is taking to AFL like Islanders to Rugby or Irish to sunburn.

Four cups, not one, not two, not three, FOUR cups.

Eccles, Mermaid, Cletus, Badoinkadoink,

Righto, I'll have a go since there are prizes on offer - Caleb Poulter, Jack Carroll, Kaine Baldwin, pass

Further reflection; two things that make me confident that Williams is an ideal choice. 1. At Port he was able to keep the team united and motivated and playing league-best football for consecutive seasons despite heartbreaking finals experiences. That stability of effort is priceless and something crucially missing from our culture. 2. At about the time Richmond recruited him I was looking over their B&F lists to confirm a hunch that they had barely had any movement or new arrivals in the better half of their list for some five years or more. Shortly after his arrival there was a surge of contribution from previously minor young players who stepped up to consistent quality AFL standard and made appearances in the club's top ten. Lifting that 'pawns' group is another crucial part that we are missing from our list and culture. Somewhere along the way the MFC leaders have set about rationally assessing what we need and then determining how to get it. People decry the Lever trade but if nothing else it marks a turning point where the club began to pursue greatness instead of minimizing risk.

Just my opinion, but he deserves more respect than he gets. Been through some five senior coaches and multiple boards/executives and none of them moved to fire him or appeared to openly clash with him. That's as much evidence as can be gathered from the outside. Interesting that he's gone to a club which is basically in about the same mood and condition as Melbourne was when he started with us. Good luck!

We have a former premiership coach coming in as an assistant coach specialised the area where he has perhaps even better reputation than as a head coach? Well, I'll be darned. Burgess, Yze, Williams... we are not messing around when it comes to securing footy department people to fill specific identified needs.

Looks like 2021 will see a set of mid-priced veterans retire as well as a few mid-low priced players who are in that 'can play but not reliably in best 22' range who will likely be moved on one way or another. Gawn and Oliver are scary contracts to get sorted out in this time of unpredictability. Salem also, and we may even see a problem with the Weid if having BB there changes the dynamic. Back-ending will have to be our friend, I guess, because over the next couple of years we will have a truck-load of expensive contracts ready to be savagely cut when their turn comes around, and as soon as 2021 we will be bringing in something like seven new kids on minimum money.

Very handy to have a player who is effective at half back but has the body and attitude to get into the thick of it when needed. I daresay he would have been used a lot more up the ground in 2020 if the quarters hadn't been shortened so much. King isn't exactly breaking new ground with this suggestion; it has been discussed pretty thoroughly on here by wiser heads than his!

Yeah, as I heard it, the only real benefit of ice baths was in reducing inflammation and immediate soreness. If it had any lasting benefits that was just a matter of people changing behavior as a result of that reduced inflammation - it could even be counterproductive if someone then overdoes the exertion again before they are ready. Stretch immediately prior has definitely been debunked - stretching should be all about building up that base flexibility, range of movement and suppleness, not a pre-game activity. Warm-ups there is still a bit of a debate but it leans towards being a bit warm and 'engaged' before really kicking into high intensity, but not some 20-minute jump around session. Also, playing (suitable) music while repetitive training makes a big difference to 'experienced' fatigue and capacity to keep going. It also greatly helps skills retention. As does saying what you're doing out loud! Crazy self-narrating backyard kids know what they're doing.

Captains at Melbourne are constantly undermined by a culture (emanating from the supporters most of all) that is constantly looking for magic beans rather than commitment and hard work.

Oh! And the Sandringham champion Phil Read gets the crown for post-2000 West Coast.

Bizzell from Geelong; despite being cut down by injury I still like him better than Moloney who I'm convinced got in the way of other's development for the sake of his stats and status.

I find this notion some people have that AFL players are some kind of property or in a state of vassalage to the emotions of the collective 'punters' really unpleasant. It smells of the kind of pressure people put on their spouses to never leave or complain, or on their children to be obedient to the point of choosing the career their parents approve of. Just really unwholesome.

I like Baldwin as the third selection because I'm generally in favour of taking the risks to get talent that wouldn't normally be available. We're also in a position where we have a couple of 28 year-old tall forwards (Brown and McDonald) as well as existing younger prospects that means our tall forward group might be a bit stacked for a couple of years, but after that we will see the group evolve significantly. Right now, a new young key tall would struggle to crack our 22, but in a couple of years we will need to renew that part of our list a bit. It makes list management sense to have a potentially really good tall developing cautiously (on comparatively low money, too, which is also important with the cap shenanigans going on everywhere) ready to step up when the opportunities will naturally emerge. On the other hand, if he doesn't work out, we will have had a couple of years to find that out before within our own system, and can draft accordingly in future.