Little Goffy

It is conceivable I'm having actual Bryce Gibbs hallucinations when watching Sam Walsh and that is taking a tiny slice off how highly I rate him. 🤪 I think it is a very fine margin between the two, but I feel like Rozee just has that little bit more influence on games.

Fair call to say each of them would be in 'arguably the best' range. Personally I'd say Rozee (pick 5) has edged past Walsh now, though Walsh was an amazing early gun and remains elite. Weitering has to compete with Oliver (4) and C Curnow (12), which might never be splittable given the totally different positions. Hodge v Judd is an enduring debate, of course. But that 2001 draft produced multiple club champions, Brownlow and Norm Smith medallists - including the talent surge that turned Geelong from mediocre to decade-long dynasty. The trades being talked about for Reid are greater than Geelong's entire 2001 draft hand! Edit: Gary Ablett Jr was also in 2001, so the Hodge v Judd debate is slightly moot.

The talk of burning multiple first round and even top-5 picks to get Pick 1 deeply scares me. For all the hype, you have to go back to Nick Riewoldt to find a no.1 pick who was the best player in their draft. Maybe Brendan Goddard in that season's overall pretty weak draft. Less than 1 in 20 isn't a good enough strike rate to give up multiple picks which have almost as good (or in the case of picks 4 and 5, better) strike rates! Please could everyone spare a thought for my nerves and stop chasing only the shiniest stone?

No worries. You can't mozz a goat. Miyamoto Mushashi < Demons AFLW 2023.

I do wonder - the last four drafts have been 60 or so kids. Before that it was around 75-85 for most of the last 20 years except for a couple of blowouts with more than 100 picks used. That's essentially every club taking one fewer new player in each draft. Lists overall have been getting older, with mature players more likely to be retained as depth. Even in weaker clubs now you're less likely to see mobs of kids dumped onto the field to see how they go. Except North, who will burn forever as a result. Part of me wonders if the competition as a whole experienced a cultural shift in reaction to the Gold Coast, GWS and, yes, Melbourne failures after each of those clubs went too hard on the turnover and rebuild or simply thought that pumping through the high draft picks would equal success. It's a more mature competition overall, as well as more mature lists in simple age terms.

Lol. That last highlight of Hibberd with the chase down - I swear he was doing the Naruto run for extra speed.

He clearly knows hot to get involved in moving the ball constructively. With every passing day I'm thinking that the real draft jackpot this season could be a bundle of late first/early second round role players who have done fine at under-18s without catching a lot of attention.

I think it says a lot that you can name three major British comedy series and there's more diversity in that set of three than just about the entire range of US comedies. Also far more memorable scenes of building a joke up to a crescendo, and far more quotable one-liners. It's rapid turnaround consumables versus generation-defining art. And if you want an epic reach of a metaphor - the extreme variety of British comedy versus the persistent sameness of US comedy is a tangible example of what happens when you manage your audience based on repeatedly hitting the 'largest aggregate target' (US model currently employed by the AFL) versus the 'nurture each niche in the market and enjoy the wondrous variety' (UK model / all-clubs-engaged football). Everything is about football in the end

Pick 39 is respectable in the circumstances. Valuable enough to lubricate other deals, or maybe hang onto it for that last targeted player that all the other clubs miss in the second round. Maybe just gets cashed for points for the Kynan Brown bid. Who knows? Not me! Jordon should do fine at Sydney and I wish him all the second-best. :D

It isn't a trade rumour but does fit the broad topic of 'pre-draft shenanigans' Looks like Riak Andrew will be falling outside the pick 40 range and eligible as an NGA selection for us. Skinny, 192cm. I've seen him listed as both forward and defender. Does anyone have more info? Does this mean we'll want to keep a pick 80 in reserve to grab him? Speaking of NGA, is there any possibility that Gold Coast will decide they've done enough with Walter and Rogers, and might not match a bit for Ethan Read, this drafts designated 'ruck who competes at ground level' type?

Interesting times when a player can be 200cm and not in the tallest half-dozen at their club! Certainly the exact right 'type' that we need and won't got a lot to acquire. We'll see how he develops, I guess. Potential range of expectations; Works his way into the team to be a regular filling the role of genuinely tall tall target. to Is sub for a semi-final and actually gets subbed on.

I have a theory that picks in the early 20s are going to be very useful this draft given the number of 'type' selections available from about 20 to 30, so personally I'd be pretty happy with a pick swap moving our current 33 to Sydney's current 23. Maybe throw in one of their picks in the 40s. If you compare this draft to an imaginary draft that is perfectly incremental in what is available as you go down the order, I'd say the sweet spots for value are the 4-8 range and the 18-25 range. (counting before concessions go in).

Wut? I genuinely don't understand what the 'this' could possibly be that makes it something that doesn't happen at any other club. A player having a slip in professional standards due to unhappy changes in their personal life and/or their first major injury recovery process? A club mobilising their support resources and leadership to get them back in line? Speculation that a player & club in such a situation might be open to a trade on the principle of a fresh start?

"Struggled in finals" and "Bombers showning interest" right there next to each other. I believe the kids these days call it 'found object art'.

So, the obvious speculation is, do we try for both? Would Yasmin be willing to move back to Melbourne for our AFLW team, so we can get the full XYZ Duursma?

Whoever it is who has been leaking gossip from Melbourne needs to be shown the door. I suspect it is a relatively junior person given how vague and second-hand sounding the leaks are, but still entirely unacceptable. Either that or it is a certain ex-pres with an axe to grind. Or Bec Judd. Just because she's awful.

That was the same meeting where the no bananas rule was repealed and the no live music rule was abandoned. I'm riding hard on the 'undefeated record-breaking season' wagon, so for me every game is absolutely crucial! I'm hugely invested in it. Once I got a taste of the possibility, I've wanted it more and more every time I think about it.

Tell you what, if this is another instance which turns out to be pure media smoke there comes a point where an AFL player can seek legal redress for harassment.

Well, Richmond certainly knew how to maximise a potent forward-mid, and they also made a lot of good hay out of numerous small running types. Won't pretend I know a whole lot about the man himself, but I am very pleased that we settled this quickly and with a candidate that is clearly seen as top-shelf by the 'community of coaches'. Now, Leppitsch to replace Stafford and we are all set!

Abridged version Oliver signed a massive seven-year contract It is unclear if Oliver would be open to any move there has been no indication Melbourne would be willing – Riley Beveridge, Cal Twomey

He was, but no umpires noticed.

Someone good to have around the club and potentially very good to have around the forward line. This has given me a nice dose of the warm and fuzzy.

At this point he is well short of what his draft position would suggest and if he doesn't take a noticeable step next season then the lingering shine will be off and his trade value will plummet. A lot depends on how much confidence Adelaide have that they can make that step happen. If it is low and the need for a fresh start dominates thinking, then we could get him relatively cheaply. I like the idea, and considering how good Thilthorpe was as a junior, and that he bagged five goals in his first AFL game, maybe Adelaide is the problem. It usually is! :D

Rivers and McVee each resemble different stages in the career of Hibberd and with experience both could realistically match his achievements. It is our least concerning area of succession planning.

A relatively even year which saw 15 teams still in contention for finals until very late in the season has papered over some serious issues. None of which are particularly new but all of which are just adding to the running-down of the asset. The unholy alliance with Channel 7 and the Herald Sun to package everything that happens to suit the easiest marketing targets is incrementally grinding everyone else down. Similarly, the dysfunction boys club in commentary and governance is both a continuous loss and a real risk. The token efforts in the salary cap, performance enhancement and gambling areas are like a slow-growing mushroom waiting for someone to step on it and puff out a burst of choking spores. The overuse of rules interventions and ad hoc politically influenced interpretations has combined with the under-resourcing of the actual officiating professionals to slowly grind that part of the game down. The less reliable it is, the more it becomes what people talk about in a surly way, rather than just a disappointed-on-the-day way. The fixture is tilted every year for commercial advantages to the 'aggregate' rather than competitive integrity or fair commercial opportunity for each club. We all know this, to the point we openly say 'we'll get better fixtures when we play better'. Two senior coaches - the two most successful coaches in the game - had mental breakdowns this season. Gold Coast is being kept at AFL level by nonsense levels of academy concessions, and Sydney not only is only relevant due to its own previous huge concessions, but it only made finals on an obvious yet uncorrected goal umpiring error which would not have happened in any other professional-level sport in the developed world. Second-tier competitions continue to slip just a little every year. Simplest to say they are not keeping up with inflation. Right now the AFL resembles the Mayan empire at its peak, destroying the soils on which it relies, to attend to the infinite greed of the priest-lords.