DeeSpencer

No, but if we’ve committed to K Brown and Marty Hore we don’t have the list spots.

I’m pretty sure JT has talked before about not getting too caught up in trends. Which I think is right. I still think contested ball is king, just that sides have spread the contest across more of the ground through pace, skills and work rate. I also don’t think speed and skill are ever going out of fashion. A question to ask with Windsor is; is positional value important in AFL drafting? The last time we had high picks JT spent them on a ruck and small forward, so I’d suggest he doesn’t see it that way so much. Powerful mids and dominant key talls are the most valuable but after that elite players are surely the aim with top 10 picks. Is Windsor a high end talent? I’m not entirely convinced, but he has high end traits.

It still matters. Being good at the contest has been a hallmark of the JT years and it’s vital in finals. Wingers have clutch contests at times too, when 50:50 balls spill in to space. Obviously Windsor has some work to on that side of his game and I hardly expect him to be Jack Viney, but he probably does meet the benchmark and he has a frame to add some muscle in time as well.

Would be a huge price to pay but do we give a future first to Geelong to get our choice of Leake, Caddy or O’Sullivan?

The blues think a kid drafted in the 20’s might be an upgrade on a delisted player? You don’t say!

I like his combination of footy smarts, size, skills and especially the way he feigns, baulks and moves in traffic. The challenge is working out how much of his output is due to him being an early developer with a mature frame and how much upside there is. Most highly rated tall guys just produce flashes of quality. Curtin can more than hold his own at WAFL level and play really strong games as a midfielder in the national champs. He's light years ahead of some of the other highly rated talls like Nate Caddy and Ollie Murphy. Whether he stays that way is the question and it's not an easy one to answer.

They're going to offer everyone their future first but the report is GWS are considering it at 7

Via what airline?

Pretty ordinary interview, way too much time focused on Harley Reid and a random Matty Jefferson question. Nice to hear about Kynan Brown but no follow up on the rookie only designation. No question about Marty Hore. The 2 big takeaways were: 1. JT does see a gap between the first bunch of names and the second, but not a huge one 2. Best available seems the motto - whether that's true or not time will tell

Yes, they do a trial run for the technology and any rule changes. Whether they actually input real players or they get set up with 70 fake names to work with I'd have no idea. Maybe they do use the real players and the recruiters use it to psych each other out.

Melbourne taking Windsor GWS (who would’ve taken Windsor) trading pick 7 to the Eagles for Curtin.

That hasn’t been a position since at least Nick Riewoldt if not before. And the only successful key back to key forward transition in recent years has been Naughton who is a physical marking beast.

Both Woey and Howes have a fair bit to offer but they are still very raw, good preseasons and they’ll have the tanks for it. Billings has played a lot of wing and is an option if we can get and keep him fit. I still think Gus should either play wing or rotate to the wing unless he’s got a specific tagging midfield role. The big challenge for the preseason is experimenting with as many realistic options without undoing the things we do well. The guys above plus Bowey, Rivers, Chandler and even really mix it up with some Fritsch time should all go through the wings. It’s unfair to blame Hore for this but he’s a kick/mark kind of ball user (when not slotting crucial running goals). I really hope there’s pressure on Chaplin to increase the pace and risk with which our backline use the ball. We have to get more run and carry and use the corridor and fat side. For the ruck the club clearly has a lot of faith in Fullarton and generally we’ve played well with undersized mobile rucks. Maybe they’re thinking preseason or mid season will see a spot created. It’s not exactly a great plan.

Both 27 and 35 will blow out by up to 6 picks come draft night. Consensus expert opinion is the draft is super shallow. Obviously there will still be some players make it but few teams seem keen on what will probably be 33 and especially 39-41 which doesn’t have much value when we have whatever 42 will be already (and won’t use it). So 33 and 17 for 13? Is it a great deal, maybe not, is it terrible, not if it gets us up a class in the draft. I see the strategy being top up with some low cost 28 year olds now whilst Gawn, May, Viney have us in our window. Next year there’s no more Brown, T Mc, Tomlinson, Melk possible Schache. The list spots and cap space open. Plenty of room for free agents and deeper draft classes. Didn’t love Grundy but there were few better options. Same for Schache. I reckon we’ve had a shocker with getting Fullarton as the Lions upgrade with Brandon Ryan, but Fullarton can still be off use. I don’t like the Hunter move at all. I’m 50:50 at best with Billings. The tall oldies need to be wound up the minute they break down. And pace has to be the focus with any future bargain buy pick ups. Give me an Oleg Markov please. That said, I still have faith in JT and I hope he can have a blinder of a draft with 2 early picks. Nailing early picks in the draft is still the most important thing in list management.

So what’s our plan for the 5 day break in Adelaide? Surely we have to stay over and make it a camp situation. Anyone care to announce themselves as South Australians and make a suggestion of where we will stay, train and what we will do?

Sounds like he should be favourite for pick 11 and are we sure he isn’t even in the mix for 6?

Any kind of May comparison is crazy and I’m not even sold Curtin is a great interceptor like Lever. But what if he takes over the Salem role in a few years and as a bonus is 197cm? Or if he has the tank plays wing and you get a bonus interceptor and marking forward as he moves up and back. Or even better what if he is a midfielder even if he isn’t the speediest or strongest he takes on the role Pendles plays right now as more of a centreman who drops back and skirts the contest and provides high level skills. I think there’s ways to use him that maximise his skills without his deficiencies getting exploited.

6 of the first 14 are monster TV games. 0 - the first game of the year! 4 - gather round kick off 5 - Thurs v Bris 7 - ANZAC eve 9 - Thurs v Carl 13 - Kings BDAY Plus the Cats, Saints and maybe Port game on free to air. Im not sure there will be a team more watched on tv than us in the first 15 weeks. That has to be of huge value to our sponsors. To only get Dogs, Cats and Saints in the first half of the year is light on for attendances, but the years where we have away games for our blockbusters will probably look like that more often than not. Maybe we revenue share the Pies game when we have 2? And/or have some kind of split with Richmond. It certainly would make more sense to split the 2 blockbusters to one home, one away.

Potential tiebreakers: 1. Go home factor, if in doubt take the local 2. Height Starting to think it might be Curtin because I’m just not sure many recruiters have the guts to pick a jockey in the top 5.

Read what Cal has written. If you nominate them as a national draft father son they automatically get drafted to your main list as your last pick if they aren’t bid on. Nominate them as a rookie father son and you can’t match a national draft bid but they automatically go on your rookie list. That’s the choice that we’ve made. So whether it’s coulda/woulda/shoulda that’s now what’s done. It’s a silly system, you should be able to match late bids in the national draft without automatically committing them to your main list. But as it currently stands you can’t. If you don’t commit to the main list you don’t get the chance to match bids.

Has nothing to do with points deficit. We have pick 42 to use which would cover the points for any bid outside the top 25. This is from Cal a couple of weeks ago. Pretty much we’ve decided he’s a rookie and not worth a main list spot. Clubs can nominate in that period whether they plan to take a father-son in the national draft – meaning if the player doesn't receive a bid they will automatically be added to a list with the club's final pick in the draft – or if they want to list them as a father-son rookie. A father-son rookie leaves the door open for other clubs to pick them as a national selection but allows the holding club to automatically list the player as a rookie if they get through the national draft without being chosen.

I’m theory we have 4 main list spots, but in practice we have 2 certain main list spots and 2 spots that are best used as rookie spots, because rookie spots come with a chunk of salary outside the cap. So if we draft a 3rd or 4th national draft player we don’t get the cap relief of using a rookie spot. In the case of Brown who isn’t in the top 50 on any projections we are clearly happy to roll the dice with him getting to the rookie list. I’d imagine it’s fairly likely he does. When it comes to using pick 42 I’d imagine it would have to be a top 20 player on JT’s board falling through to make that investment. It’s far more likely we trade that for a future 3rd.

Because we've chosen not to as we clearly only rate him as a rookie.

Correct. If a team bids on him during the ND we can't match. Once the ND is over he goes straight on our rookie list.

Confirmation from Cal that's it's the rookie list only for Kynan Brown.