Little Goffy

Someone needs to get in Yze's ear that we are definitely taking Smillie with 5 and what is 23 really worth when you have half the first round already?

Just going to take a little breath to enjoy how there has not been a single media speculation about this being 'on the cusp' in the week or two leading up to it. The article about this on the AFL website literally bumped out the 'What should be the Demon's priorities this off-season' chat from apparently 'star' reporters Barrett and Edwards posted last night.

If there was a formal scale for measuring peripheral awareness and anticipation, the benchmarks would go from Jacob Koschitzke through to Scott Pendlebury. I think Jagga Smith might give Pendles some competition. Neither of Smith of Windsor will ever be big guys, but having those two driving our ball movement out of contests could be transformative.

On the assumption that Tom Morris never quite gets anything right... I'm going to suspect that Jones is coming in as a specialist stoppage coach and there will be a general midfield coach as well, tasked with overall ball movement between the arcs. We've surely got quite a bit of soft cap space at the moment, and would have to be seen as a desirable place to take a coaching career when you consider that we've had assistants take up senior coaching positions for two years in a row.

Back in 2009 they did! It was a whole draft event, I don't think there were tickets sold as such, but a pre-registration for interested members. I'd guess as many as 100 people showed up for the draft night event hosted by Chris Connolly, who gave us all a rolling update on who we were hoping would be available. Scully and Trengove were wheeled out for a quick interview within an hour of being drafted. Fun fact - we had our eye on Melksham but he was gone by our pick, so Gysberts it was. Each of Tapscott, Gawn and Spencil were exciting sliders - we would allegedly have taken Gawn at 18 except we were so keen and surprised that Tapscott was available, and would have taken Spencil at 30 except Gawn was unexpectedly there, and then Spencil was still available at pick whateverish. Allegedly. That was how they played the spin live on the night. Hmm, wondering who else here was there on that fateful and strange night?

Probability that sydneydee also complains about millenials being soft snowflakes with main character syndrome is looking high.

Brisbane and Fagan did brilliantly (and I've long loved Fagan since his time with us, increased by his underdog credentials from his time applying for senior position after senior position and getting knocked back). But I'm pretty sure every Melbourne player who ever made the all-Australian shortlist squad of 40 was either injured or just plain had a personal stinker in 2024! Koleman, McCarthy, Gardiner and McInerney is a problematic hole. Petracca, Oliver, and Brayshaw is >20% of the salary cap value of the team. That's an abyss. Having said all that, I actually agree we still have a problem with mental brittleness within games and over the season. A problem we've had for... as long as I can recall, actually.

I congratulate you on learning how to use thesaurus.com to bypass the auto-censor.

Presumably I cannot describe how noxious and vain posts like this are without getting some kind of black mark from the admins, but it gets so boring wading through this stuff and the sheer volume of it even in unrelated threads is slowly driving me off the site.

Choosing a reply from so many options; "I guess it is nice for Essendon supporters to have a team to follow where the ladder position matters." "That's fine, but still nobody cares where Essendon finishes."

Take Brayshaw out of Melbourne... #maintaintherage

I thought it was related to indigenous smoking ceremonies. As in, an autochthonous censer.

It is like walking through a shopping mall food court at 5.50pm on a wednesday. If there's one last bento box left and you want it, it is yours.

I'm sorry, but, you think that is a woke thing? Like, you're joking, right?

Pickett and Neville Jetta sealing the deal during social football over in WA the other day? "Uncle Nev, I've had an idea."

Does this mean we have to get Paul Kelly as midfield coach?

The 'soft cap' is called the 'talcum cap' down on the peninsula. What a f'ing disgrace.

Pretty sure that is Robert Harvey with heavy plastic surgery, in a final ploy to crack 400 games.

Plays a role, is positive for culture, presumably taking very minimal salary cap space and even if you think he's a list clogger he's only clogging it for one season where the alternative, draft pick 127 or so, would have a minimum two. In reality, signing him now is part of the planning process for hunting one of the still significant free agents available in 2025. Also, there's still a real chance he'll take the step to being an AFL-level regular. He's not some useless clutz.

I'm warming to the possibility of Jagga Smith making it to our first pick. I think there's a certain joy for mature mids like Petracca, Viney and Oliver to have a noticeably dynamic kid running through the chaos. "Look at the little bugger go!" I'm less worried than some about his relatively small size because he has that sinewy toughness as well as peripheral awareness that will let him ride the collisions efficiently. Plus, he seems to be having fun in there. I can picture him playing round 1 with some small forward time until Pickett returns, to get a taste, with permission to be chaotic, and see how he goes.

That estimate of 30% of the salary cap typically going to the top 6 players at each club really highlights a few things to me; The immense value to a club when a top player says 'you know what, at ten times a normal full-time professional salary, I think I'll worry a little less about money'. A 15% pay cut for a top player is the difference between the club recruiting fringe players and hoping for the best, or recruiting targeted quality to meet identified needs. In the middle of the range, I think 'good' players are a bit undervalued. You could probably have Fritsch, Rivers and Salem for the same price as one of Petracca or Oliver. There's an argument both ways, but I have this instinctive confidence that if you get a best 25 or so who are all credible AFL quality, stars will emerge. After all, Geelong went from ZERO All-Australian selections to NINE in the space of a single year. And then there's the value in having a long 'tail' of draftees. Even with late picks, the worst that happens is they spend 2 to 4 years on the list and never quite make it, all at bottom dollar freeing up cap space to target specific needs with trades, or to secure confirmed talent on the list. Meanwhile, a good draftee who can contribute effectively on field in their first few seasons is list management and salary cap gold, because at very young ages there is always a little bit of a lag before performance is fully reflected in their next contract. The most famous of those situations being Lance Franklin who signed a 'pretty good for a young tall' contract for just a few years and then promptly kicked 73 goals then 113 goals in his next two seasons. To have Franklin, Roughhead and Lewis all surge the way they did in their 3rd and 4th seasons was an enormous list management boost for the Hawks. It got them directly from 'just kids in a developing team' to 'let's take unders so we can stick together and be champions' so quickly that Hawthorn skipped the entire hardest chapter of the list management cycle. Well, that post blew out a bit, but this is a proper discussion thread so there's some proper discussion for ya!

Just to illustrate how intense the competition is for mature-bodied forwards is at the moment, Darcy Fogarty just signed a fresh contract taking him through to 2031 when he'll be 32 years old. He just had his best season, with 41 goals from 23 games, as well as 1.4 contested marks and 1.7 marks inside 50 per game. It is the only time he's cracked 40 goals in a season. Those numbers aren't exactly bringing the house down (and are only about 15% ahead of Van Rooyen despite the extra 4 seasons to build a key forward's body) but the value of even a generally competent forward target is so great it earned a six year contract into the twilight years.

I'm sure he means it in the Shakespearean sense.

There's an edge missing from the draft excitement for me. I just feel like it is going to be fine. More than fine. I'm not worried. My favourite feature in any given player in any given position is initiative. The Musashi Miyamoto state of mind where very action flows into the next action and all with clear purpose of 'cutting the enemy'. This draft is loaded with it - I'd say led by Jagga Smith but there's none which seem to be lacking in it.