Little Goffy

Ok, first things first. LUKE MOLAN WAS NOT A DUD SELECTION - LUKE MOLAN WAS HIDEOUSLY CRUELLED BY INJURIES -AFTER- BEING RECRUITED I don't normally resort to capitalisation, but this fact needs to be drilled into some people. The poor guy had the most appalling injury luck and it's really unfair on him as a person to keep on baggging him like he was a spud. Second thing. It has been widely (almost universally) acknowledged in the media and from the professionals when interviewed that you can 'throw a blanket over' draft selections from about 10 to the mid 20s. I.e. our picks. I've barely heard of a kid being rated as there around 11 who wasn't also a possible to be there at 18. If there ever was a draft it pick for need, this is it. Especially since we already have two gun mids coming in, and even more so if Ball joins the party.

And a little note on him being 'huge' - up close he doesn't look like a gorilla Fraser Gehrig style, it's more like someone took one of those beanpole 200cm kids and gave them a solid but athletic frame.

I like Griffiths, I think he will not only fill a need but also be best available if he's still there at 18. We could be getting an absolute steal here, the kid is definately good. Given that we wont be looking to rush him and can take the time to identify and manage any problems there might be as far as injury, we're well placed to take him, too.

You'd think at the very least the AFL could back the quarter of a million Australians overseas in London, plus the tens of thousands in each of Hong Kong, Singapore, Los Angeles and the North-East USA. A quietly healthy amateur presence of Australian football around the world would also be a good little boost to the tourist attention AFL gets. Frankly, this game of ours should be as high profile as Uluru and hugging Koalas. The only reason it isn't, at the moment, is because so much of Australia's tourism promotion effort is driven by companies and government agencies based in the northern, 'AFL weak' states. (True story)

On the plus side... The 'new era' squad gets to start it's season with a road trip together, have a good shot a coming away with a win, and return the next week to play a nothing-to-lose game against the reigning premiers. It'll be a lesson in recovery and travel discipline, a bonding experience, a confidence builder and an eye-opener all in one. Basically, our kids will have had a look at a couple of the major challenges of AFL (travel and Geelong) right from the start, and will then have a couple more NAB/Practice matches to think about it, work on it and be ready for round one. What else can we ask for from the preseason cup?

Considering that both of these guys have reasonable excuses for being late developers (Morton being tall, and skinny, Grimes managing lower back issues for most of his first year) I think there is a solid basis for judging them favourably at this point. I think it would be fair to say that we have two guys in the smallest top bracket of players from that draft. That's a satisfying enough feeling for me at this point.

The trouble is, what exactly are our needs, and how 'needy' are we? I've been thinking a bit about ruckmen. We're going to need one, one we can count on, in a few years as Jamar gets older and the collection of 'possible/unlikely' ruckmen that we have thins out. In the next two drafts, the best ruckman will be gone, bank on it. Each of Gold Coast and the Westies will look to first secure a ready-to-go ruckman from another club and then pick up a top future prospect and a general back up as well. Even if we come about 12th, we wont have a pick in the top ten for those two years, either. In this draft there is only one really standout ruckman, Nathan Vardy. The AFL website 'Draft Rater' has Vardy at 8-25, Fitzpatrick next is teens to 35. So, Vardy is therabouts in pure 'best available' terms, and fills a critical need that will be all but impossible to fill otherwise. I think we should be making sure that there is a quality ruckman developing alongside the midfield group that he will spend his career working with, rather than throwing one in years into the process. So I guess my question is; Is getting the best ruck that will be available for at least the next three years, worth pick 11? Maybe I'm favouring this because I'm convinced that butcher/lucas.tapscott will be gone at 11 and Griffiths will still be available at 18, and that this combination gives us the best overall value from 11 & 18.

The whole situation is somewhat unsavoury. I guess that means he belongs at Carlton. If he's nominating a 3 year deal on good money, fair enough if nobody else wants to take him. Where I worry about that sort of deal is the possibility of the player then 'renegotiating' the deal once he is at the new club, essentially making the original contract expectation a bluff to get other clubs out of the way. The stipulated contract should be enforced rigorously, or the whole thing is a farce. Also, I agree completely that it would be both a mistake in general and an insult to Wheats, Wheels and Robbo if we picked up a 30+yr old with injury concerns right after delisted those guys. It would have been like picking up Cousins when we had delisted just as many senior players last year.

I've heard the name before, why? Didn't he stand opposed to Jack Watts in a schoolboy game a year ago, when we were all debating Watts/NikNat/Rich? Big age difference but I think I remember someone saying 'this kid Keath kid matched Watts very well'. Suggestion that being held by such a young player was a bad sign and a question mark on Watts?

I hear his nickname around the club is fatty-boom-bah. Ever since he passed 65 kilos he's been writing letters to The Biggest Loser, hoping to get onto the next season. He and Cale Morton are also trying to get onto a 'couples' season as well.

Can't we get one that goes faster?

I think that's the plan for Valenti. We have selection number 1 in the rookie draft after all, so if he doesn't get picked up somewhere else then I'm sure we'd be delighted to have him around another year. If he still doesn't quite break through to permanent AFL level, he'll be a great captain for Casey in a few years.

Nice to see the little things like the night being sold out, passing 10,000 members, and our best player also being our best clubman while the second best is borderline manic about the jumper. This direction is a good direction.

Hmm... I'm not expecting that Bruce will wind the clock back to that brief flare of BOG performances back in 05, but I do think he will be a solid contributor for years yet, particularly as his role changes and as our recently recruited phalanx of midfielders with skills and speed play a bigger role. The fact that he'll be essentially taking up no space on the list until such time as the next generation (the current 26 year olds) is eligible for veteran status makes it a striaght win for us. It's nice to know that we wont have to be letting go of any more enduring servants of the club for at least a couple of years. Even when we've known it's time, it still sucked.

Bruce and Green have both been reasonably durable players, despite a few nasty hits they've copped. They have also both learnt a variety of roles over their careers. Green is a more potent player all round, and I'm sure will still nail a Best & Fairest at some point. Bruce is less damaging and at some times this year and last year looked a little less than 100% committed to chasing and unrewarded play, BUT to his credit he clearly set out to address that and improvement has been there. Both could be around, as credible AFL players, for some years yet. We could be in a lot worse position than we are, as far as veteran's list goes. Davey is on a four year contract, his next contract will be veteran all the way, which will suit us and him I reckon.

While it's true that we don't exactly have the upper hand on many teams in the last few years (except Freo), it is also true that the Demons have struggled against North for quite some time. The key things I remember being a problem were - 1. Their tall marking forwards being able to take contested grabs from very long kicks into 50. 2. That little Harvey bastard. My read of that is that Warnock is our only defender (right now) capable of contesting in body strength with a truly BIG forward. There's no denying the prospects from a few of the other young defenders, but it may take a year or two more to get them developed to the point we don;t have this weakness. As for Brent Harvey... it's not often you hear about 'champion' taggers/back pockets, but we must all be hoping someone like Bennell, Bail or Jetta steps up to become a speedier Whelan capable of controlling players like Harvey.

The thing is, the kid has had plenty of time to think about the move to Melbourne and to talk about it all with his parents. Nobody's parents (well, some people's parents do but that's not the point) are going to put a bad spin on what their kid is going to be doing for the next two years minimum (by contract). So they'll be sitting around the dinner table having a chat about what a great team Melbourne is going to be, googling the club, looking at Jack Grimes' profile, having a little chuckle about how he'll get to meet Ron Barassi at club functions, which will lead them into thinking about Melbourne's history and how they were the ultimate football superpower back in the day, and how they are on a clear mission to bring that back and will be the top 'traditional' team in place to fight off the Gold Coast and West Sydney upstarts. By the time it even gets to the draft, Jack Trengove and his family will be sending thank you cards to Jordan McMahon

I think he's one of the few people who actually live up to a saying they like to use, I can't remember the exact words but it was along the lines of 'What we're doing isn't unique, but it is special'. Sums up his whole attitude to managing the club - not looking for magic bullets and messiahs, just picking out all the things that need to be set right or done well, and doing them. Would anyone else understand what I meant if I said that for the first time I can recall, it feels like we really have a CEO as a CEO, a president for a president, and a footy manager as footy manager? As a club, we've never been better run. Ever.

There's an important factor to this - attendence figures at games overall boomed in the 90s. This was largely due to the reshuffle of AFL/VFL, the introduction of interstate clubs, the closing of small venues and the killing of small clubs. The comparison - in the mid to late 80s overall average attendance was in the low twenty thousands, even slipping to 21,000 in 1987. Ten years later the overall average was up to over 34,000. Unfortunately, despite a preiod of success of sorts, or at least a return to competitiveness on the field, the Club failed to press itself in the new 'marketplace' and simply didn't ride that wave. I'd suggest that not having any recent history and glory to point to was part of the problem - it's all well and good winning games in a given season or even having a run of good seasons, but clubs like Essendon, Cartlon, Collingwood and Richmond, the 'Big 4', all had recent glory to carry their image. Throw that together with a pretty amateur club management style, and there you go. Over time, some of the other clubs which didn't quite ride that wave for whatever reason have put it together to varying degrees of success, like Hawthorn and St Kilda. It is very clearly our turn to push up now. But the key thing to remember is that there is no question on loyalty - the trouble has been lack of growth.

Holy Crap, he did too. I even remember watching and musing on him at the time, really early in the season. Came in when basically every other ruckman, was injured. He did ok, or at least, he did well enough to not write him off just yet. Hell, at one stage he was the 'winningest' player on our list, with one win out of two games! That's really odd that I forgot. I've watched guys like MacNamara, McKenzie, Spencer and even Newton pretty closely all year, keeping an eye out for anywhere that significant improvement might come from. I hope it's not an omen. However, embarrassing at it is to have forgotted that cameo, I think the points I made are still sound.

I have to respond to the 'we have four designated ruckmen' comment. Being designated a ruckman type doesn't make someone an AFL Ruckman. Paul Johnson is entering what may well be the last year of his career if he doesn't take another step, particularly in consistency and disposal. I say this as someone who has long respected him. Jake Spencer... I listened to the hype, I watched closely, I don't think it's there I'm afraid. John Meesen is essentially 'unknown with an edge of unlikely'. He hasn't played a senior game for us, we can't bank anything on him yet. Stefan Martin is being groomed as a 'key utility' and even if he fulfils the clear promise he has shown, he won't be a major ruckman. Leaving Mark Jamar as our only established ruckman right now, let alone in three years or more as any ruckmen recruited now come into their own. We've got to pick up a likely ruckman this draft. There's a reasonable chance that one of Vardy or Fitzpatrick will be there at 18. They are the best two going this year and in our circumstances pick 18 is a bargain for even a moderately good ruckman, if that is all they eventually develop into. EDIT: As pointed out by others, Meesen has actually played four senior games for us early this year. I'm appropriately embarassed to have forgotten them. He did ok. We still 'can't bank on him yet' though.

The number of places which open up on lists is larger than the number of players who have been delisted and re-nominate. Take the total delistings and subtract all the genuine retirements (about a third) and all the guys who simply aren't gonna make it (let's call it another third). The credible re-nominations are actually a pretty small group. For guys like Tenace or Buckley who have a shot at being picked up, a few extra chances make a big difference. If it goes from just four picks used on recycled players to eight picks , that's double the chances for them. But for the general mass of nominees in a draft of perhaps sixty picks, those four are only about 6.5% of the opportunities.

We'd better be careful we don't give those insoles to Cale Morton (unless it's to eat), because that would bump him up to 192 and then we'd have wasted a top draft pick. Hopefully all those foot/ankle issues Garland has had will keep him from growing the fatal 1cm, too. Come to think of it, I'll bet the reason the club passed on Tom Swift was not so much a worry about his shoulder as a concern that he would grow that cm and end up a spud. And knowing our luck, even if we hadn't lost pick 4 in 1999, and had grabbed Pavlich that draft, he probably would have had a different diet and we wouldn't be talking about a 191cm superstar at all. Nick Riewolt's sometimes fluffly, sometimes spiky but never 'down' hair? The extra 1cm he needs for glory. David Neitz went bald specifically to keep the lid down. Make no mistake, that centimeter is one of the most critical factors in a player's potential. The only time those guys look good is when they are matched up on eachother directly, like Lloyd and Scarlett.

'Dawn of the Demons' Poster with a deep red dawn rising with dark blue storm clouds either side, and a vaguely threatening partial Demon face watermarked into the sun. It's our decade, kids, lap it up.

If there was ever a draft to have the top two picks in, this is it. Last year it was an small incremental decline as you went down the pecking order, right from number 1. This year there really seems to be these two absolute standouts. Everyone else has either slid down the order (e.g. Butcher) or is considered very good but not at that 'super' level. 2009 also looks like a very good draft to have first round picks rather than second round, again there is a 'dip' it seems. And might just be a very good draft to have PSD Pick 1. Best since the last time Collingwood were told to F off at the trade table.