DeeSpencer

That’s a good idea. GWS have too many early picks this year and would surely be better off backing some out until next year. Could even get Geelong’s 2nd thrown in with 18 for Bedford and a future first.

They didn't have to join. We really should go back to the VFL and just poach the best WA talent when they're in their physical primes.

I've always grossly disliked him. Managed 1 season where he gave up the booze and looked half decent and he managed to unfortunately end that year with a ruptured ACL. But if it comes down to Bruce or Tomlinson then I have more faith in our key defenders than I do our key forwards.

For pick 25 I'd be asking Ollie if he wants to sign back up for Collingwood or try his luck at North.

Yes that’s my point. We didn’t prioritise the super draft. If we get a chance to draft a top player this year I doubt JT and co will be worrying about who’s coming next year.

2018 super draft: Incredible top 10 (that we traded out of). Butters (we tried), Quaynor 12, 13. Not sure there’s a definitively better player than Tom Sparrow outside the top 14. Rowbottom and maybe Clark I guess, then daylight. Whats my point: don’t be surprised if we trade up in to this year and go the bird in hand rather than 2 in next year. With no guarantee they’ll be right at the top or that anyone would trade back it doesn’t really help us. I believe recruiters when they say there’s special talent at the top of a future draft. I’m not convinced they can accurately project depth a year out. The talent it takes to get on a recruiters radar vs what it takes to get drafted are very different things. A lot of quality bottom agers don’t step up

What I’d accept: 13 Future first Future second (Freo) Future 3rd (North) Jackson Future 3rd (Melb) Not ideal but then we trade 13 OR our future first AND Freo’s future 2nd + North future 3rd round pick for something 7-10. End up with what we want.

Exceptional reporting from Tom. Freo are going to offer something different to exactly what we want but he doesn’t know what it is. Great stuff. If Freo give us 13, a future 1st and a nice swap of a good second for a future 3rd or similar we’ll probably do that and then go to market for our top 10 pick. Ideally we get it all done in one go hit but it seems on brand that we’d accept a decent deal and go do our own work.

It hasn’t, but they’d be mad no to. If they’re bringing in 4 or 5 new players you’d surely prioritise getting rid of the pay outs to former players. Either way Grundy will be getting paid by 2 different clubs so you’d expect some front loading, or at least more than the original deal that was signed by cash strapped Collingwood. More cash up front = an incentive for Brodie to have a small wage deduction. There’s no way his manager would agree to it otherwise.

Pretty sure the pay cut is a furphy. The pies will try to pay as much of the 1.5M or whatever it is they are contributing as fast as they can, the bulk of it in the first 2 years. And if our cap management has been good we’ll do the same so he’s not on 650 aged 32. The net result is Grundy gets front loaded by a significant amount. He might get as much as an extra million (pre tax) over the first 2 years of the deal than in the last 3. Enough to buy another investment property ahead of time and easily collect the amount he’s given up.

He’d probably have to go to Essendon for that, where he’d get poor coaching and fitness advice and be out of the league in 2 years. This way he gets the Geelong special home cooking that sees all of their players add 5kg of bulk instantly and he’ll probably get a deal with Cotton On to sell undies. Plus he’ll play until he’s 33 rather than 26.

Needs to do preseason with Lance Armstrong, Stephen Dank, Ben Johnson and the Chinese swim team to be any chance

Do we have anyone to who fits that category? Harmes and Gus are best 22 and I’m sure we investigated both going. Bedford and Hunt, by choice or otherwise are doing exactly that. Tomlinson is the obvious one and we’re clearly trying. T Mc and Ben Brown I doubt we could move without significant dumping. Probably take 2nd round picks and/or paying significant amounts of their wages to find them new homes. Both still arguably best 22.

Watch Jason Taylor’s face when he says Holmes and tell me he’s not flat as a tack. By the time they were talking up our jockeys they easily could’ve been resigned to losing Holmes at pick 20, just been unsure of who was taking him. Anyway, some will agree with me, some won’t. But I also see Ollie Henry and Finn Macrae sitting right above our pick and they’d both be handy additions (even if Henry was leaving now). Laurie ain’t helping at all.

Unless this is our idea and we get to keep pick 27 we need to show some backbone here. Grundy is a second rounder. They asked for a second rounder. Diluting a premium asset to buy something non premium is terrible business. We thought we’d be clever in 2020 by moving picks around and getting our man Max Holmes as well as Bowey. Geelong sniffed it out (in fairness you could smell it wafting from AAMI park to Geelong) and they poached him and left us with the Groundhog. Plus we compounded the mistake by drafting Rosman too. Wasted 2 picks.

The trade period should be any time between a week after the grand final and the first preseason game (with a December deadline before Xmas/New Years). Create a system to contract young players for years 3 and 4 and that incentivises extensions beyond that. Only the truly homesick will ask for trades in the first 4 years and clubs will trade them, no one wants a player who really isn’t happy or won’t sign for longer. Otherwise out of contract players should be free agents. You can’t trade a player who isn’t contracted, it’s nonsense. Free agency should open October 10ish and most of the deals would be done within 48 hours.

Spot on. No one requested a trade home 2 years after the 1965 draft. Because there was no draft, no trades and no national comp! Plenty of country kids went home after 15 minutes in the big smoke. Probably no better example than Gary Ablett Snr. Big name and big money recruits in their mid to late 20’s came across from WA and SA, had a year and went straight home too.

Geelong, but if you give them the North pick and increase our 44 out to a pair of second rounders it’s close. All depends on Geelong’s willingness to trade back though. This is their highest pick since Selwood and I figure they want a gun midfielder. As much as they’ve been able to patch together a midfield with Guthrie, Atkins, Blicavs etc, life is a lot easier with a 12-15 player in the middle.

Gawn was our only fully fledged elite player in 17/18, so it was easy to afford Lever as a young side on the rise and then May for Hogan made sense. We now have a stack of expensive players and don’t want to give any of them up when we’re losing Jackson. I would’ve let Gus go and targeted a key forward or outside run, but where’s the a available key forward? I doubt any money could’ve bought one this year. We also don’t seem to value outside runners and it’s hard to argue with Goody when we’ve got the flag with our guys. Not a huge stack of quality outside runners lining up either. I’d have done what was needed to get McStay and Amon and then probably would look stupid in 3 years time when they don’t deliver. Langdon’s been great but it was the draft that gave us a lot more post 2019 that led to success in 2021. As well as sticking with our players.

Every club allowing their main sponsors to change the background colour of their logo is a far worse step than the 3rd logo changing from apparel to any other company.

More than happy to tip in a future 2nd, just give us a proper first round pick

Might want to read up on trades, free agency and contracts

I reckon you can find a replacement for 200k, so I’d pay anything up to 300k and still save money

He was a good wingman/utility at GWS, especially in that mid 10’s period when every team was attempting a kick/mark game plan like Hawthorn. Run was more important than pace. Richmond put a lot more speed on the ball and Tomlinson became less desirable. He was shown up big time in the ‘19 finals and it was a poor decision for us to think we could keep his wing career alive. He did a good job as a key defender, but it was a small sample size in a winning side. He actually got beaten badly in the preseason game against the dogs which was our only loss he played in. He should be better this year with more recovery time, but only as more acceptable depth. I hope they’re doing a lot of gymnastics and other agility training with him.

Maybe if he runs from Southport to Melbourne