JJJ

I think we need our A-Graders to play like A-Graders. But we also need some new blood in that category. JVR, McVee, Windsor, Rivers and maybe Tholstrup have shown that they are capable. It would be nice to see at least 2 of them become A-Grade. It would also be nice to think that the player occupying positions 16-23 every week will improve. Players like Woewodin, Chin, Sparrow, Bowey and Howes need to become more consistent and damaging to the opposition. Whilst I am optimistic about 2025, I am realistic as to the amount of improvement and work that needs to be done.

It’s a bit early to say that about AMW I’d reckon. I think he’s shown enough that he has the next 2 seasons to make it.

I’ll admit to not having watched any of the kids this year so the following is based on YouTube highlights only. When we drafted Rivers, the thing that stuck out to me as one of his strengths was his willingness to hit the contest with speed. I see similarities with Lindsay. It’s not always successful but when it is it breaks the contest wide open. Combined with his skills and evasiveness, he seems like a very very good prospect. The rest is up to him and his application which I also believe to be top notch.

We were told that the amount of trade offers for teams to either get back into the 1st round this year or move up was unprecedented. All the way from the end of trade period to the draft. They were happy to take players up until picks in the mid 50’s as the pool of talent is deep. They were hoping that Hotton was still on the board when they picked. Richmond went way early at 12 compared to where they had him. There were a couple of players that weren’t in their top 30 which was interesting. Reid and Armstrong were the most easily identified. The other thing they talked about was the poor performance of WA in developing players recently. Reflected in the downturn in indigenous players. Somebody asked about the testing of players and they basically said the speed and jumping measurements weren’t much use when compared to agility and endurance. It was pretty good. Ive been to a lot of post draft MFC events and thought that this event was better.

It was a club picking late on the first night of the draft. Hence they were pretty happy to talk about 8-10 players in detail.

I was lucky enough to attend a function last week re the draft and the scouting report on the kid was exceptional. The club that was hosting the function had: O’Sullivan & Ashcroft grouped. Langford & Smith the next 2. Draper, Lalor & Lombard. Travaglia, Tauru, Lindsay & Kako They said Langford is the meanest player in the draft. Super competitive, good skills, great hands, very clean with the ball but by far the best quote was when they said he’d rip the arms off his opponent to get the footy back. Bit like Megatron ripping Jazz to pieces (awful film). They would’ve picked him at 2. Didn’t have a lot to say about Lindsay other than he was very evasive, highly skilled, deceptively tough and took ground when in possession.

What’s his 1-Wood? Speed? Kicking? Versatility? Can he tackle well? Can he defend against other mids? Is he quick enough to burst from a pack? Can he buy time to size up his options? Can he mark overhead? He may need to start as a fwd/def. My knowledge of this years draft is very poor. The above are genuine questions.

In his exit interview he raised that he’d like to one day captain the club.

A lot of enterprise businesses see CFO’s and COO’s as logical candidates for future CEO’s. Running a $50-70m dollar business on an interim basis should pose no problems.

This is a positive step. We need to clear the air and get the club pulling in the same direction. Whether you were hounding for him to go or staunchly defending him, we can all now agree that the club and Pert have decided to part ways in a move that is best for the club.

Coaches rate him. He is very vanilla. Would love to see him add a couple of strings to his bow in the form of better running power, a bit more size and hitting contests at speed. His kicking technique is pretty sound. Natural improvement in his DE% should come naturally.

Gloating? On Demonland? Why? We all support the same side and want the same outcomes. There is a lot of work to do to get to the end of round 10 with 8 wins. If you genuinely think we haven’t got fences to mend internally and credibility to restore within the competition, well I don’t know what to tell you.

He is training hard.

The AIS used to use interval training and some other methods to measure recovery time. I always thought that would be a better measurement for AFL. Sure you can run flat out for 2km but can you sprint full length of the field and back, recover for 20 seconds and do it all again. That’s effectively what Lingers does.

I don’t think playing a meaningless round 24 game would dilute their hunger and appetite for putting in the hard yards. If it did we’d have other problems.

It’s really hard to understand why he was targeted. My mate in Adelaide told me he is a medium lead up forward. Given we have Fritsch in that role I was confused. When I saw him play for Casey I was shocked at his fitness levels and intensity. Then when he was selected to play with the big boys, I interpreted that as a desperate, ‘throw [censored] against the wall and see what sticks’ exercise. One of the many unusual decisions by Goodwin and the match committee to play a guy who had shown little in the VFL and looked undercooked.

It’s not a non story though. Oliver has mucked up. So have we. He legitimately wanted out. The journos were correct in that sense. What Morris may’ve finally figured out is that it’s almost impossible to trade him. Especially now that we’ve decided to not have a fire sale.

I like it. We are the pin cushion of the league, clubs and oppo supporters at the moment. Don’t mind a bit of push back!

I’ve mentored youth for free. I’ll chuck Clazza into the stable. If it keeps him happy and gets him back to 2021-2022 levels I’d pay to do it. I’ve met him a few times and I think he is a really good bloke. Very affable.

We want to take 3 picks inside the top 30 to the draft is what I was told. Which makes the Freo 1st round pick rumour more interesting. I am not sure TBH but I know senior leaders from the playing group think we will bounce back hard. It would be difficult to think that after the last month or so, we’d be confident that Trac will be 100% and that Oliver is back to his normal levels. Which we need to be Premiers.

In addition to that, remember when Richardson said the last thing we wanted to do was get younger? We were primed to add a 2x AA to what we thought was a list on the verge of a Premiership.

That’s not the case. We were prepared to make the trade. It didn’t have to be our 1st rounder, we were prepared to trade out players to get additional draft capital if required. We were still confident he was coming to us in the midst of our end of season slump.

We’ve done this before and managed to get back into the first round 12 months later. It’s safe to say, the club thinks this is a good draft to sink their teeth into.

I think Tim Lamb might have the worst job fronting up to the media. That was hard to watch when he paused on some questions.

If the Pies get Houston…. Phark!