Little Goffy

Well, I haven't commented on this thread since the day it was opened, so with any luck today we can close it. Since Allen Jakovich made the 'calling it now' declaration that Matt Jones had played his last game, Jones has played 5 of the maximum 8 games remaining in the season. So the call has been unequivocally wrong and should be a reminder to anyone feeling like starting a whole thread for no reason except to burn off post-game steam. In those 5 games he was mostly pretty ordinary, with highly visible clangers, but not generally our worst in any given game. The Footy Dept has now made the call that he is not a required player, understandably given that he is not a standout in a role for which we have multiple better and younger options. Just shy of 29 years old, his AFL career is presumably over, though he is likely to earn a few more years at VFL level if he chooses to. Let's not taint his service to the club by letting any discussion about him be shaped by some numbnuts chest-beating from July.

If GWS can still get academy value out of late draft picks, then we could appropriately commemorate his hyphen by trading pick 44 and 62. At best, he could turn into the next Travis Johnstone. At worst, he could be the next Travis Johnstone. If y'know what I mean. Anyway, here's his inside football comments, which is at least a different angle to stats. Seems he had a good 2014 Inside Football Will Hoskin-Elliot profile Funnily enough, went one pick after Tyson. Wonder if we could get Buntine in a bundle and get three-in-a-row from the 2011 draft. Hrmmm..

Great news. I think perspective's on Tyson's ability have been damped a bit by MFCSS. He had two terrific surges of form during 2014 (rnd 7-11 and rnd 18-23) when he was involved in everything, winning clearances, taking marks, kicking goals, driving the ball inside 50. But in amongst that were some patches of poor form, and of course his 2015 wasn't stellar. That feeling of 'promise not delivered' gets into the bones of Demon supporters. Interestingly, despite not having so many really astonishing individual games, his consistency has greatly improved to the point where his bad games are one-offs. Valuable player, glad to have him signed on, and hopefully he's ours for another ten years after that.

Are we still having a debate about whether it was valid to give a long-term injured player a one-year contract on presumably low money in order to give them a chance to return to fitness, at a time we don't even have a first-round draft pick and already have a pretty good sized list turnover coming? The mind boggles. Some people will just fix on something and bang away at it in an effort to sound like they know better. Trengove's one-year contract is surely neither a big deal nor controversial.

You're either watching a replay from a few weeks ago, or a ----head. If this the link you followed for the game? http://www.afl.com.au/video/2016-09-03/womens-highlights-wb-v-melb If not, grow up.

Y'know Nasher, I think he might have missed the detail that all the kids have been in the firsts and Casey is mostly our older players.

I wonder, maybe it's time for an individual player salary cap? 9% of a club's salary cap, maybe? That's approximately 4x the average over 44 players, which would make it about ten times a starting player salary, and close to a million a year. So hardly a tight rein. It's just seems a bit ridiculous that a club might hesitate to hold onto their top players because it screws up their entire team structure.

I even find it annoying when it gets played at our game. I'm all for the natural murmur and tension before the bounce.

Tall! Strong!! Fast!!! Would've thought that by now Picket Fence would be insisting that we'll never win a premiership unless we recruit him. Anyway... Hasn't done a whole lot yet, but could be of interest if the trade cost is low in the event that Adelaide see it as an 'amicable parting'. It is after all cheaper for the footy department to take someone who has already been through those first couple of preseasons of teaching kids how to not drop a weight on their forehead and pick out a good diet.

The whole thing stinks. Not because Brisbane don't need a priority pick or that we did, but because the whole way the AFL administration goes about it's business is just crap. Every issue, always caught on the hop, always improvising, always trying to find the work-around of their own rules. Wouldn't it be amazing to see an AFL decision made based on a consistent set of transparent rules that everyone knew in advance, could plan for, and had previously accepted as a fair balance? Pipe dreams, eh?

Yeah, I'll start by saying I am not emotionally blinkred about Harvey at all. I think he deserves to play on and North deserve to be made to feel the shame of seeing a perfectly capable, first-rate footballer and symbol of the club running around in another team's colours. Ideally a team they hate. But I don't think he's a fit for us. We're in a good position when it comes to small forward/midfielders, with several options, all very young. Kent, Kennedy, Kennedy-Harris, Harmes, Bugg and Nibbler will all be hoping their chance at a game is helped by being able to spend time forward as well as around the ground. You don't bring in a short term 'consultant' to add just a little bit to an area you are already not only solid in, but have real depth in. 2017 we need to find out which and how many of those 6 to keep for the premiership run and which to let go. Not leave it to them, with our list being shaped by which of them is the most annoyed about playing for Casey because the Demons impulse-recruited the oldest player in the game.

So, current coaching changes stand at - Roos out, Goodwin goes from 'senior assistant coach' to 'senior coach'. Allison out from the 'Head of Development' position. Leaving Brendan McCartney as the presumptive master of all things development. Greg Stinear has come in as the coach of the Women's team and as a development coach. We actually have quite a large group of development coaches, including Shannon Byrnes and Daniel Cross as new entries to coaching. I'm not too worried about that area, given McCartney's credentials and record. t may even be that as the players learn to tie their won shoelaces and catch the bus on their own, we're scaling back the development side a little, to focus more on line coaches.

Rumoured back issues + Rumoured family illness + Second year blues / kicking troubles + Massive salary cap burden = Contract where he is given additional leave grace to visit home, as well as improve his back and work with a kicking specialist while over there. On considerably reduced dollars in the short term, but with a commitment to the club longer term. So, who's the best physio and the best goalkicking specialist in Perth? And can we later convince them to move across to Melbourne?

Yep, as PetraccaAttack said, Kennedy is 29, plus Darling is under-performing. But John Ralph knows best. Or, possibly, John Ralph read a few pages of this thread. I do wonder that he's broken the polite (and appropriate) media silence respecting Hogan's family, just to try to make it sound like he has new info. It's either that, or there actually isn't a family illness, it has only ever been a Demonalnd and bigfooty rumour, and John Ralph now looks exactly like the prize **** that he is.

Only if we can name him Bert. Oscar Bert'n'Ernie But seriously, seems exactly the kind of player we'd be prioritising with anything outside the pointy end of the draft.

If you're feeling sad, just think "Trent Croad". The single most important player in Hawthorn's success. In his own way. Or two ways, really. The magic scenario; Hogan goes back to WA to spend more time with family. We get the equivalent of two top picks in the draft plus change, and a nice open space in our salary cap. Then: Hogan gets a bit older, gets a bit wiser and more independent, and when his massive four-year contract is up and he's stagnated as only a 'very good' player at Freo, he decides to come back to Victoria - Melbourne are only too happy to oblige, offering Fremantle about half what they 'paid' us. His return is also on a more modest and manageable salary. At which time Hogan rediscovers his form and promptly kicks 80 in a season to give Melbourne the final push they needed to secure the premiership, after four years of finals but not quite reaching the pinnacle. Satisfied, and now aged 32, Nathan Jones makes his retirement speech on field with the Premiership Cup in his hand. I'm not sure I've even made the most convoluted or fantastical post in this thread. But it is the happiest, that much I'm sure of.

Watched a couple of old highlight reels and the 'arrivials lounge' interview with him, and I must say there's more to him than my memory was telling me. He's actually capable of doing a whole lot of good things. He can kick it a long way with an excellent fast low arc. He can snap goals instinctively. He can chase opponents down. He has that energetic attitude of fast thinking and action in chaos, and trying things that aren't regulation. Now, I've sat with Essendon supporters many a time and seen them beat their hands on tables in frustration at Melksham because of the turnovers and the blunders, but I think a lot of that comes down to him actually trying to do something useful. A lot of those same Essendon supporters (back at the time) would spend the rest of the game groaning about handballing in circles at half-back, or tedious switches of play that come to nothing. So, anyone losing the plot now about how there's been a post about Jake Melksham in the Jake Melskham thread?

I think the next thing he said was "I am Groot".

Can I just go on record saying I DO NOT WANT Darling?

Sweet liberation.

May I suggest that what we need is a new system of semi-banning where people get restricted to 'x' posts per day. They'll all have to set a higher bar on what bait and snark they can be bothered engaging with, toss most of it out, and we'll be left only with the actual useful stuff that more than two people (the mutual antagonists) actually would be interested in. It would make this thread about 800 posts shorter.

Well, I can confirm one win for the women's team already. She had come to a few games (her first game of AFL was Demons v Tigers on Anzac Eve, that went well) and was positive about it all but was a long way from making it a personal interest of her own, rather than just a thing of mine that she'd come to when she felt like it. I'd been telling her about the new women's league with great pride for months, and she was happy and all, but still, not personal. Then during the 'all-stars' Demons-Dogs game a few weeks ago, I turned the laptop to her to share, thinking it would just be a few minutes of 'hey, that's cool, ok'. She was really into it, she was barracking for the jumper and emotionally attached. There was a sparkle in her eyes, a kind of 'it really is real' moment. I think over coming years we'll actually see a few supporters who are first and foremost women's team, and who 'also barrack for the men, since they are also Demons and I'm Red & Blue'.

It's a funny coincidence, just the other day I was walking down the street and there was some rubbish by the footpath, probably from a house move. Some of the newspaper there must have been used as packing material a long time ago, because...

Don't forget Waite retiring, finally accepting his body isn't designed for more than 12 games a season. As rebuilds go... it will be intense. Even after you clear all those guys out, they've still got Gibson, Thompson, Swallow, Higgins and Goldstein in their best 22 and over 28 years old. Total of 138 games for players 22 and under on their list. 441 at Melbourne. Anyway, back to Majak Daw. His best would be a very good addition on it's day, but on a week-by-week basis he wouldn't be in our best 22. I doubt we'd be interested and I doubt he'd consider us - if he leaves North it'll be for another club in serious need of talls. Other than North. Who will be in serious need of talls. Hmm.

Given that Gold Coast are likely to have more 1st and 2nd round draft picks than they could possibly know what to do with, they might actually be interested in another 'ours next year for yours this year' swap. Would depend on how their trading plays out, of course. But it's the simple solution.