Little Goffy

Go for kayak, they have better balance, agility, and can paddle both sides.

I'm not sure Sheedy's final 6 or so years of drafting should be considered a blueprint for... well.. anything. As much as Ty Zantuck, Kyle Riemers, Mal Michael, Andrew Lee, Henry Slattery, Jay Nash, Rick Dyson and Jay Neagle were all good solid bodies. Besides which, you might have a spasm when you notice that most of their more effective draft selections over the period were comparatively lightly built types - for example Lovett-Murray, Stanton, Winderlich, Monfries, and Ryder. Meanwhile, over at GWS - Scully, Kelly, Kennedy, and Whitfield are all particularly low weight-for-height. Same height - Whitfield is skinnier than Jayden Hunt!

Viney has surgery... ... for breakfast. With a side of ebola on toast.

Also, I'm just going to leave this here... http://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/collingwood-president-eddie-mcguire-warns-melbourne-demons-against-poaching-recruiter-jason-taylor/story-e6frf3e3-1226281206623 Eat a turd taco, Eddie. We all know Taylor didn't leave because the 'Pies were short on cash!

The GWS 'wave crest' is 23-24 years now. Viney, Hogan and Petracca is a pretty handy group of 'leading youth'. But next year might get a bit sillywith the 22-and-under count. List of those still eligible for next year who have already played games and shown something - (must be aged 22 or younger for the entire AFL season, including finals) Hogan, Hunt, Salem, Petracca, Brayshaw, Harmes, Neal-Bullen, McDonald, Stretch, Weidemann, Oliver. Plus a few extras who've been injured or still recovering from nappy rash - Kennedy-Harris, King, King, Smith, White, Hulett. Exits from the existing 22<22 (def) Docherty, Williams, (mid) Laird, Congilio, (fwd) Stringer, Daniher, Membrey, (rck) Grundy, So, I wonder how many we'll see in there next year? Six would be my 'over-under' estimate!

Hrrmm, that is beginning to add up. Could just be a 'risk' thing. But sad to see the club having to consider the risk in its 2017 marketing. I'm doing a good job of looking for bright sides. Opens up a space for a forward who can also help in the ruck.

Too expensive. Too risky.

The results of the first few season of the Women's AFL are going to be set pretty much entirely by the level of training effort and coaching resources put in. Commit. Get results. Kind of the way sport ought to be? On that count, having Daisy Pearce is priceless.

I'm caught! Yep, it was a typo, my forum name is suppose to be Little Gaffy. Don't tell, ok?

Gee, didn't mean to make you cry. Maybe I'm confused. Must be a different Andrew Gaff I'm thinking of. I'm talking about the one who won the best and fairest of a grand final team last year, and was his team's best in that grand final. The one who is still only 24, and fills a line-breaking and attacking link role which we are deficient in. Which one do you have in mind?

Well, Andrew Gaff and Pick 13 and I'd probably learn to live with it. Josh Kennedy isn't getting younger. Essendon fans think they're getting Darling, using what we give them for Hibberd... (good luck to them on that price) The circle is complete, and a young Demons fan comes home. Still would love Hogan to commit to us. In the end he's priceless, really.

A little extra speed trained into each of half a dozen players would have a dramatic impact, no doubt. However... Hawthorn, Geelong and Sydney have all demonstrated that a team of mostly 'not especially fast' players can be well complemented by just a handful of fast, creative types and a game plan that means people know where to find them when they are needed. Importantly, it is still possible to seek out those types pretty late in the draft - many are 'flashy but inconsistent' at 18 and don't come into risk-averse early round thoughts.

You can reasonably say that Dal Santo would be a better player in 2017 than any one of Trengove, Kennedy, Bugg, Kent, Harmes, ANB, Wagner, Melksham, Lumumba and Stretch. And that's no disrespect to any of those players - Dal Santo is a three-time all-Australain midfielder with 137 Brownlow votes to his name. If any young player feels like they are hard done by, having to go to the trouble to crack into a team that is more than half under 23 each week, then they are welcome to go play for Brisbane. Even though I get emotionally attached to fringe players and always hope they do well, I'm quite ok with us becoming one of the clubs that has enough talent that we can trade out 'ok' players for reasonable draft pick returns. Besides, ex-Demons are some kind of freaky blessed bunch generally, so they'll be happy enough. Frankly, my only question mark is the salary.

They've crafted their list astutely to get a cycle going. A peak right now with their 4 elite veterans over 30yrs - Mumford, Shaw, Johnson and Griffen (plus Patfull, who I wouldn't argue is elite, but he has played the full season). Followed by a quick reset for sustained success with a huge group of currently 22-23 year olds, which will by then have Ward, Davis and Scully as their veterans. Right now they are in form, astonishingly injury free, and looking very dangerous. Yep, they really could sneak through this year, which would be properly annoying. I don't think I'd even watch if it was a Hawthorn/Western Sydney grand final. BUT A dynasty? I've heard this before... Port Adelaide 2014. Oops. Carlton in 2011. Well, that one seems particularly silly now. Collingwood 2010. Ha ha ha ha terrific. Ahh, so good to have an excuse to reflect on how they've gone since then. St Kilda, in 2009 and still in 2010. Nobody at the time thought that loss to Collingwood was the end of an era. Melbourne in 2006. Remember when we were the club that was going to rise and reclaim glory for Victoria? Port Adelaide 2004. "They've finally taken the next step. They've dominated four consecutive H&A seasons, and now they are ready to take over the mantle from the Lions". Essendon 2000. The 'greatest team ever' or something... which steadily faded into obscurity once the Lions bumped them around the very next year. A Buckley-grade slide. I'll believe it when I see it, is all.

Something that makes list decisions a bit difficult is that we really have developed a lot of versatility across our small/medium players. It's hard to get a fix on pecking orders when they can be continually changing what they are there to peck! Obvious example being Neal-Bullen, Stretch, Bugg, Salem and Melksham. It's not quite clear exactly where they'll be positioned. If the midfield core group develops smoothly next year, with these five all be fighting (as well as Hunt, Wagner and Lamumba) to compete for the half-back roles? Same thing applies at the other end - Kennedy, Kent, VandenBerg, Petracca could all end up commanding a full-time midfield spot or all be primarily working across half-forward. Add to this versatility the fact that so many of the young players are 'promising but not guaranteed', and the fickleness of youthful form, we could find that over 2017 we have four too many or four too few. The key position deal seems a little more set. Mac, Mac, Frost down back, and Hogan, Weidemann, Watts up forward. Pederson as a swingman 'big utility' who won't be first in line for any one position, but could end up playing most games as the cover for any one of six talls! Dawes, sadly, looks thoroughly surplus to needs now, while down back where covering the risk of missing key position players is more important, both Dunn and Garland have more time left on their contracts, so the situation kind of offers its own answers. It's almost as if the taller the players get, the clearer the situation. Max Gawn must continue to be Max Gawn. Spencer is the absolutely essential backup.

Looking at the Richmond Best and Fairest results, you have to wonder what Brandon Ellis did to annoy everyone in 2015. He's the only player in Richmond's top 10 this year who wasn't in their top ten last year. He replaced the injured Houli. Over the last 6 seasons, 12 players, comprising this years top-10 plus the injured pair Houli and Morris, have shared 50 out of a possible 60 placings in the top-10. 8 of the players from Richmond's 2011 top-10 are still at the club, including 6 who are also in this season's top-10, with Houli and Vickery the others. In comparison, there are only 9 players total from our entire 2011 list who are still at Melbourne now. Richmond have had absolute continuity of their best dozen players for 6 seasons, almost all of Hardwick's tenure. Presumably that was the basis of the original '5 year plan' (the Hardwick one, not the Wallace one). But they absolutely failed to develop a second tier or any depth at all. Or a coherent plan. Now they are going after Prestia in a big way... do they really think that going from 12 to 13 on the B&F merry-go-round will change their problems? Broken club. Remember when Melbourne was going to recruit Jonathon Brown to 'change everything'?

I'm interested in the talk about a progression to assistant coach, Daniel Cross style. In fact, he may even be seen as a direct future replacement for Cross, who could begin looking for the next step in his coaching career by the end of next year. On his merits, he's was one of the best players in one of the strongest teams for most of his career. The fact that he's played close to every possible game for just about his whole career suggests good professionalism and preparation. If he is able to guide our young players in developing their kicking, vision and reading of the play, he would be priceless. He also has lived the experience that a lot of our young players will now be going through, coming into what was a crapulent team and now pushing up the ladder as a group. But here's the real excitement; Nick dal Santo would become only the second player on our list to have played in a final that Melbourne won!

Yeah, it's an interesting side note that is West Coats hadn't tanked against us just a few rounds earlier, then the Melbourne-Richmond game of such ill repute would never have been an issue.

What a hurtful thing to say to someone.

No doubt the AFL has once again gone down the road of 'rushing the product to market' without the development that is needed to make it work best. The entire women's team next year, in total, will be paid about half as much as Colin Garland. The insurance thing is just ridiculous. Surely now the club will just jump onto the iSelect website and sort that out. It will be interesting to see how things like training resources, coaching staff and salaries develop over the next three years. From such a low resources base even a small 'actual' increase will result in a massive 'proportional' increase - the club that commits most will almost certainly be the most dominant club. Would love to see an arms race as the participating AFL clubs realise that an extra $100k into the women's team will bring the kind of reward that ten times that much marketing money couldn't get.

Maybe after the resounding success of the 'team defence' style of football, soon we will see 'team rucking'. Everyone over 195cm takes a couple of ruck contests a game, confusing the hell out of the opposition.

Melbourne mostly playing well, but stuffing it up with shots on goal. Moana Hope at full forward for the Dogs is ripping it apart, we're down 5 goals.

Foley! Nice goal!

Technique, technique, technique.

Geez, we're losing both Harris and Frederick-Straub from our forward line, to the marquee players rule. Annoying, because it looks like good marks are the main premium type.