Little Goffy

The Carlton players must be a bit worried that their major injury concerns could be missed if someone else needs their strapping redone first. De Koning and Weitering both free agents next year. Just saying.

No doubt on that. I'm just watching the puzzle pieces fall. We are in control of our destiny as far as top 8 goes, but a home final would be nice and top 4 still conceivable, but only if other results play out nicely. Plus, at the simplest realistic level, we're clearly still getting our act together and even if we're hitting form by September and have a reasonable shot at finals, we'd want those puzzle pieces to fall our way. Also, It's Goffy. I may be somewhat odd, but not a little goofy!

Main things I learned. Jefferson continues to develop but as he grows in some crucial facets that people were very worried about like the contested work and leading patterns, an early favourable aspects in his set shots has suffered a bit. I feel comfortable with the progress in as much as it is the 'hardest to learn' stuff which he seems to be making progress in. Yze appears to be a legit prospect, which is nice. And if you drop an Yze sandwich on the floor you get a Gruzewski. And Casey needs go recruit and reorganise in a major way. And the VFL is being relentlessly disrespected by The Corporation.

Bittery disappointed Carlton couldn't get the job done against an opponent which had only a tiny margin of % ahead of us. Blues still a club relying too much on a handful of stars, but at least their fans will be able to say 'but but but we were missing the greatest players ever' and still believe. Port are still chasable not only because we play them, but their other opponents are Sydney, Adelaide, and Freo in Perth. Feels strange to be keeping at least a half eye on all of today's other games. We could do some kind of motorcyle stunt jump over both Scott twins in one day if Geelong and Essendon squelch it against their low-ranked opponents. Plus, no harm in St Kilda coming home strong and making Magpie fans nervous. An Adelaide win over Hawthorn tomorrow would also clean up the chase while bringing a Collingwood bottom-4 finish into the range of possibilities. come to think of it, Adelaide are our absolute best friends for the rest of the season, with four games being against our close positional rivals. Brisbane either fail and bring themselves back into the peloton, or they do the job and remove Gold Coast from the race. Either result is acceptable but I wouldn't think Brisbane could stumble completely from here, so it'll be better to have on less chaser to worry about.

Amazing. I'd love to hear your evidence for this. Actually, no, just go away. Does Demonland do bans for sheer wrongness?

Garlett, Frost, Baker, Bedford and Hunt. Pick any five players on our current list and make the switch, would we really be anything more than incrementally improved? Overall our team is faster than it was four years ago and in particular we've added considerable speed in recent drafts in every position. The anti-club Gish Gallop coming from some directions is getting more than annoying.

Yeah, we need to accept that Trac isn't going to be playing again this season. Even non-contact athletics would be pushing it for making a sufficient recovery to be both effective and safe. Entering a collision sport again within just a few months would be incuring a risk that is simply out of scale with anything we could hope to gain this season vs his football future, and anything football offers in general as far as Trac & family at a human level.

'Frustrated supporters' need to grow the f' up and get a grip on their emotions if they want to be taken seriously by their community. Finding emotional stability can be tough but that's just how it is so they need to learn to deal with it or find something else to do. One of my pet hates is when people act like jerks and then insist that it is normal so everyone else isn't allowed to complain. It sits right next to 'If I didn't do it, someone else would' in my list of people to drop in the ocean. Also Guillermo del Toro for describing the early Avengers movies as 'cultural genocide' just because Pacific Rim flopped when competing against them. Yeah, it's a long list, but also a big ocean.

"Get 'em while they're concussed", that's what my mum always said. But seriously, it takes effort not to get ahead of myself on this kid. We've got a deadly weapon in our hands here. Will be a major part of our 2028 premiership.

Trade cost and salary cost far too high, and he is a player to solve a 'now' problem with key defenders, while we have a 'soonish' problem with key defenders which he won't help with much. This draft is loaded with key talls at both ends of the ground from about pick 15 to 35. It would be madness to essentially remove ourselves from that harvest for the sake of a 29yr old.

Seems like there are two unusual phases in the draft. The sheer volume and variety of gun mids at the very start of the draft is impressive, but what has caught my eye is the swarm of key position players starting from late in the first round and continuing into the 30s. My overall thinking at the moment is to hold onto our first pick to monitor for a slider of interest, but if no specific player we want makes it then we should be seriously looking at the early second round instead. It'll be a live trading festival for us again, made more complicated by wanting to ensure we can burn our later picks to pay for Yze. Speaking of whom, he got a respectable write-up on RookieMeCentral the other day but it doesn't help any of us figure out his draft position. Still looks like he will go pretty late. #15 Noah Yze Defender/Midfielder | 190cm | 12/04/2006 Stats: 23 disposals, 4 tackles, 6 inside 50s A prospect of intrigue to Melbourne fans as a father-son this year, Yze produced arguably his best game to date. The versatile 190cm prospect started in defence and was then thrown into midfield as a good size matchup for the likes of Josh Smillie and Oliver Greeves. His strength was evident when tackling, while also absorbing contact well and looking quite comfortable in the clinches. Overall, he performed solidly in both roles and held his own against handy opposition.

So, I was under embargo from sharing this but I have a source at the club who informed me that at the monday training session Gawn was asked by his teammates about his injury and replied, "Look to my coming at first light on the fifth day. At dawn, look to the east."

According to the obviously AI generated promo video, Katy Perry is the "Telstra pre-game entertainment."

'Being told by Dan'. FFS keep it in your pants.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say the AFL HQ executives are old enough that their kids were teens ten years ago. Cultural cringe has already been used in this thread. It is interesting to see how it has evolved from 'nothing we do could ever compare to the sophistication of Europe' to 'nothing we do could ever compare to the tacky over-the-top flashiness of America'. Honestly sometimes they give the impression of not knowing Australia exists.

Fair points but I think the argument still holds. Brown was expected to be the player he was, injury and all. He only played half the season in his first (and premiership) year with us and when he did play with us his role was managed. I guess I'd describe it as the club being willing to take on some risk, rather than thinking 'We hope this will all change for the better'. Garlett at Melbourne delivered exactly what he delivered at Carlton. We got him ridonkulusly cheap because he was on the outer in his final season at Carlton for a variety of reasons. Melksham has always been underrated. I was still friends with Essendon supporters back when he was a Bomber and it really was amusing the way he became the whipping boy for everything that was actually wrong with the whole team. I'd say he and Hibberd were both recruited for what they already were, so that our team actually had something resembling an AFL-level best 22, without any fantasies. In contrast, I feel like we were imagining that Fullarton (and Shache) would be able to provide a contested target / ruck back up for no more reason than they were tall, that Billings would find form that he simply hadn't for about four seasons and only ever did find in occasional bursts at the best of times, and that McAdam would not only overcome his injury struggles (fair enough - see Brown) but also fill a new role as a marking target just because he has been able to take some good contested marks when the circumstances fit - he wasn't lining up on Weitering or Andrews each week, that's for sure. Anyway, I feel like I should finish up by saying that my opinion here isn't as harsh as it might sound. There's a lot of screaming and hyperbole and 'anti-fan' energy around here lately which I don't want to be a part of. Crucially, back in the 'pre-premiership' time, our list had so many flaws that just about any competent AFL-level player could find a role in the team. Now it is much more difficult and any player we bring in has to fit into the precise gaps, otherwise they'll get jammed up Grundy style. Finding a capable forward-who-can-ruck, or a ruck who is ready to cover at AFL level but also doesn't mind churning at VFL level, is probably the hardest task in football recruiting, especially when we don't have vast buckets of cash to throw around.

I'm reminded of a regular lament of Carlton-supporting family members. Their perspective on why the club continued to stall for perhaps five years after it should have been solidly competitive was that the club at every level was 'hoping' for the right result. 'We hope McKay will kick straight today, because then we win', 'We hope all our stars will get a clean preseason together, because then we'll dominate, and of particular relevance here; 'We hope that the mass of second-hand players we've recruited will give us quality depth'. In our recent trade recruiting I'm seeing a lot of 'We hope this player will suddenly turn their career around'. We hope Schache can provide a physical presence for the first time in his career. We hope Billings will return to the form he briefly showed for two seasons five years ago. We hope Grundy and/or Gawn will be able to transform their game style to accommodate a second top-end ruck. We hope McAdam will go injury free, regain fitness and hopefully provide an undersized marking target which will hopefully mitigate our shortage of key forwards. We Hope Fullarton will discover a delayed-onset maturity and instinct to compete and use his 200cm effectively. It is very different from the known quantity expectations of May, Lever, Hibberd, Langdon, Melksham, Brown and even the less dramatic cases of Hunter, Tomlinson and Garlett. All of these players were traded for with the expectations of 'they will be who they are, and we will fit them into our system and that will get the result we want.' It doesn't mean they all worked, but every trade was a realistic fit for a need.

Petty was less expected is all that turns the dial for me. Tell you what, it's an interesting under-the-radar way for the club to affirm the coach has the support of the players.

Everyone is harsh on Mitch Brown because he could never live up to the Pederson-level expectations. It is a travesty of the game that Langdon doesn't have All-Australian status, and we may soon enough see all three of our 2019 draft picks score All-Australian selections. Pickett and Rivers are maturing steadily from a high start point, while Jackson is clearly the game's best combination... um... ruck/half-forward-flanker? Sam Frost is an OK tall defender but if Tomlinson were at Hawthorn he'd also be an AFL regular. Swings and roundabouts.

Feels odd seeing people recruiting aggressively to fill our half-back line! I think we're going okay for the lighter built types of players. Can't see anything stopping Brown being a regular at AFL next season. A little more strength and fitness and te time learning the roles will let him unleash that relentless terrier attitude very effectively. Then we just have to monitor the progress of Bowey, AMW, Howes and Woewodin. That's four potential and likely young smalls running around, with Howes as a mobile 191cm. I've absolutely got Tholstrup in our best 22 as I think every pre-season will add some real potency to him. I forget who mentioned he had a bit of Paul Chapman about him but gee it fits in every way except the hair. Sparrow does a job. I've said before that I expect more of him but he isn't 'failing' so much as not growing. The big uncertainty is what we do with the key positions - this time next season we could have all four of our remaining presidential draft picks (ex Jackson; Jefferson, Adams, Harrison, Van Buren) holding key positions, or just the two already out there. The ruck problem isn't an uncertainty - it is a 'requires action' item. I have long-term faith in Verral but the immediate problem has its own thread so I'll let it go. Without a single player traded out or de-listed ahead of their contract, and while keeping Melksham and McDonald, we're looking at six or seven list spots opening up. It's going to be a big draft and so will 2025.

I was super keen on Hayden McLean even as far back as pre-Grundy (and had then hoped we would get him back in the Grundy trade with Sydney) and while he clearly would have been ideal for our situation (goal a game, steady flow of contested marks, competes in ruck effectively) if they don't want to move, they don't want to move. I'm obsessed with the prospect of getting both De Konings in 2025 - Tom a free agent, Sam out of contract - and that would absolutely re-open our premiership window in one big swing. Unfortunately there aren't that many Hayden McLeans out there. Darcy Cameron can play forward but primarily rucks, and would be a mature presence to support Gawn both game by game and with management over a season. At 29 he would hopefully be around long enough for the next generation lead ruck to come through. Jake Riccardi is a respectable forward who chips in for the ruck, but only about as much as Van Rooyen and not as good a forward. If we're looking at the draft, we could take the Whitlock twins (allegedly ranked a mid first and late first round) which would at least give us another 4m on our list though neither are full-time rucks.

Interesting that he would sign a new deal when not in great form and has a clear exit option. One might almost think he has faith in the club and coach to support him and develop him to his full potential. Or at the very least he feels the club and coach have faith in him.

Yikes. You're telling me he's 198cm and has Petracca thighs? Clearly some kind of defective mutant who should be avoided until late in the draft by all other clubs.

Also unlikely to try to wipe out the populations of Sparrows.