Little Goffy

If you'd told me separately that Oliver and Steele would be traded for such junk draft picks I'd have been surprised at the fact and offended on each of their behalf. If you told me that Oliver (2025 variety) was effectively traded for Steele, I'd be ambivalent but accepting. I like Jack Steele. I think he's underrated, perhaps on account of having to try to fill the shoes of St Kilda's tragic generation of stars. Aaaand now he gets to work in the shadow of the bitter disappointment left by two of - at their best - the best players of their period.

Petracca and Oliver out means that we won't e doing any clearance dominance in 2026. Steele in, alongside Viney, would at least mean we won't be giving away easy clearance dominance to opponents. They are both a bit slow and neither are they attacking weapons, bit they would take and give a he'll of a lot of the battering in the clinches while letting our youngsters and long list of rotating 'point of difference' players be effective without being drained by the wrestle efforts. He is also a reliable AFL grade player to add to a team which will have a lot of young players with inconsistent output. And by every account, an exceptional character.

That's been my enduring impression from the games I've seen him in. One of those players who appear suddenly and squanch an opponent, ending what looked like a clear attacking run. If I were his coach I'd have him playing a fair distance away from defensive goals, ready to disrupt any running approaches towards/across the 50m line. He's also okay at closing fast and getting up for a spoil, though you wouldn't want him matched up on a genuine tall forward. Being a bit further out also means more space to run and less risk from the impulsive kicking. So, not quite as a defender but kind of like a defender's best friend.

At post 3000 Bailey Humphrey personally hands out sausage sangas to everyone who participated, and that's even if he doesn't come to the Demons. I dare anyone to ask for the sauce.

I condemn your anti Sam bias. And I expect silent credit for not making the obvious but not really impressive joke.

If we get picks 6 and 7 I'd be right up for this pair, nevermind the early call, as my little one is named Sam. I guess there's a place for another runner too, so Sam Swadling from a pick in the 20s range. Not an entirely nonsense set of picks, actually. I think we could do quite well with an exclusively Sam-oriented drafting and trading strategy for years to come. Definitely should have gone harder after Flanders, Draper and De Konig. Sam Walsh is a free agent next season and maybe Sam Lalor will want to pull a Horne-Francis if Richmond don't make progress. Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam. Lovely Sam! Lovely Sam! Sam Sam Sam Sam.

It is pretty clear the club views Clayton Oliver's impact on the performance of other players, the time and energy the takes up from coaches, board, and media, and likely also on the reputation of the club as a destination for recruits, as outweighing his 'good ordinary' on-field contribution in the last 24 months. I do have a vague recollection of people complaining that we hadn't been able to attract any A-grade players for a while... hmmm...

Pretty sure this is Bailey Humphrey's cooking channel. Very pointed post re: the trade hold-up

Nah, think positive. He'll kick seven in a half and the headline will be 'Absolute Dovastation'

Is it time that Melbourne (Club, and City) set up a regular commuter helicopter service across Port Phillip bay? Remember when we talk about AFL players and coaches we are talking about people whose time is worth anywhere up to $500 an hour.

Well, that settles it, we're trading Trac for picks 6 and 7 and drafting Hank and John Green.

Quickly addressing the Jefferson sidebar; Jack Gunston just had his best season, kicking 77 goals at more than 3 per game, and operating at 7.7 score involvements per game, off just 0.6 contested marks and 4.4 contested possessions per game. We need a contested target but not every tall forward has to be a 'power' target. But... oh boy do we need at least one contested target to get their act together, and fast! Would a Walter - Van Rooyen - Jefferson - Heath mix be viable? Which brings it back to the Petracca thread, how valuable is Walter to us compared to Gold Coast?

Well, now we need an 'oooooooh' reaction, or at least a popcorn reaction. Plus, Jordan McMahon doing us a solid. He clearly appreciated that we named an entire draft and trading year after him.

So... is the Suns giving up Bailey Humphrey for a 30 year old on double the salary included in that? Any moment now you're going to be demanding Humphrey for Oliver.

An interesting side to the discussion about how much the proposed picks are worth - even though Taylor & Co. haven't always hit every pick (the curse of Nick 426 Smith lives on, or is that the curse of Nick Sauntner?), they've had an exemplary run of estimating where the drop-away points in each draft has been. You can go all the way back to 2020 when we got Bowey at 21 and had been desperate in live trading on the night to move up that tiny fragment to get Max Holmes at 20, instead of holding 21 and 22. But what is interesting is you could have moved ten picks further up and done no better. So I'd trust the club if we decided 7 and 8 got the job done. For all that, Humprey was pick 6 and has probably advanced higher than that in reckonings after his first three seasons. The complex problem he creates for opponents is illustrated by his unusual statistical combo - a contested mark per game combined with a goal assist per game. Which Hulk movie was it, where Jake Melksham says "If you could take what I know now and put it in the body I had ten years ago..."? Absolutely worth more than picks 7 and 8, and we should be thrilled if it comes to a straight swap for Petracca.

For the record, Windsor, Tholstrup, and Lindsay are all types of cheese. Harvey Cheese is also a cheese-maker in WA. Few realise that our drafting is based on themes; all talls are based on US Presidents, mid-sized players are all cheese varieties. EDIT: Realised the opportunity to add another irrelevant gif.

Trade value will fall somewhere between Sam Flanders and Max Heath. You heard it here first.

A 2027 fourth round pick? For real?

Anyway, here's a quick link dump for anyone wanting to form an impression; TLDR; Assistant at Collingwood for 5 years, development and then VFL senior coach, North Melbourne for 1 season before Covid cuts, then a VAFA head coach with great success, returned to AFL level at St Kilda as backline coach for 2025, is now a Demon again. Other fun details - he starting coaching just two months after finishing playing, and pushed out Craig McRae as Collingwood's development coach. Collegians was the best offensive AND defensive side in their premiership year under Rivers. "Considering when Jared was appointed in 2021, Collegians were languishing in the relegation zone, for Rivers to then win the premiership is nothing short of a masterclass." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Rivers - includes a lot about his VAFA time. https://www.sen.com.au/news/2024/12/13/the-young-boys-have-been-fantastic-new-saints-assistant-jared-rivers-excited - likes young boys. https://www.saints.com.au/news/1678585/saints-welcome-bolton-and-rivers - another article from joining Saints https://www.thefootycoach.com.au/podcast/24-jared-rivers-afl-coaching-and-playing-insights-applied-to-community-football - podcast interview about his career, including coaching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNkW7kjuOaw Interview when appointed at North, in November 2019 - kind of eerie in that he never really got to fill the role due to covid cuts. https://www.collingwoodfc.com.au/video/409955/vfl-bf-coach-jared-rivers-and-marty-hores-speech?videoId=409955&modal=true&type=video&publishFrom=1539039600001 - its a small world, Jared Rivers VFL coach hands over to his best and fairest, Marty Hore!

My heart is already warming for Alex Neal-Bullen's return in 2037. I wonder if Rivers and Hawkins will have the occasional one-on-one session? After all, they did play together at Geelong for a few seasons. I still (approximately) remember the glorious Riv quote from back in the day; "Dealing with the attention and now social media can be difficult sometimes, especially if you're an [censored]."

Does Aleer get his own thread? Should St Kilda be getting absolutely pilloried for making an offer to a player and then withdrawing it after the player has told their current club, requested the trade, and it has all gone public? Or is that just a 'Meh, St Kilda being St Kilda' thing?

My favourite stat people use for that is 'clangers'. A stat dominated by the likes of Patrick Dangerfield, Dustin Martin, Errol Gulden, Patrick Cripps and, yep, Petracca. For as long as I've known football it has been the marker of the gun player given responsibility to make things happen in difficult situations.

What, do we only recruit coaches who have proven they can belt our players? That said, Tom Hawkins was a smart footballer with exemplary team-first attitude and a ton of insight into every aspect of key forward craft.

No doubt, but this is just to highlight how fickle the Brownlow can be and how fine the lines are. Petracca has the 'hot girl low self esteem problem' where he was so close to perfect that everyone began commenting on the remaining flaws. As far as missing a Brownlow, three straight kicks (or two straight kicks and one correctly adjudicated straight kick) and it was his in 2023.

I'm starting to think I have a chance of a rookie list spot.