DeeSpencer

You’d be mad to make draft decisions due to the presence of Stringer. Perkins and Sheezel both end up as mids as much as forwards, and they move Davey around too. I wouldn’t be worried about that combination

Sydney were apparently keen on Joel Smith who now is in line to be Hunt’s replacement. And is a downgrade. Next after him is Judd McVee and if you reckon Hunt doesn’t get much of the ball pray that McVee doesn’t play at half back next year. And yeah we get a 3rd round pick, a round that JT hasn’t found a good player in since Hunt! We might draft another Rosman, that will help. I don’t think we’ve turned the list over enough and I don’t think losing Hunt is a disaster, but it’s highly unlikely to be some great move for us. The reasons we were rubbish for 50 years were far more related to poor culture and poor top end talent than keeping depth players. By the way, Hunt debuted in 2016, a year in which we won 10 games. The only year we were really bad was in 2019. Don’t act like he played 100 games between 07-14.

Wouldn’t mind a hobby farm out in Devon Meadow’s with the Harmes’. Grow some trees, plant some veggies, happy days. Might even entertain the suburbs out there if they built a proper rail network connecting the area to Frankston. A Frankston to Cranbourne to Berwick train is such a no brainer of course that will never happen. Build out some housing density and mixed use business areas around the train stations. A couple of apartment blocks at either end of the Casey main oval would provide some much needed relief of the wind and some signs of life out there. I’d move in and watch VFL from my balcony!

I agree, but it does give them a bit of an out that the motivation wasn’t racial even if the result was. The alleged behaviour is at a minimum culturally insensitive, which from there can easily be called systemic racism. Career wise you can still survive that (if some of the allegations don’t stack up). Overt racism not so much.

It’s not a matter of hardball it’s a matter of what’s fair considering the circumstances. It wasn’t hardball with Ben Brown, we didn’t try to talk up his busted knees and offer a 3rd, we gave up a reasonable 2nd. If there’s huffing and puffing it should be from Collingwood trying to appease their members, some of whom are still thinking they’re giving up prime Polly Farmer. A fair expectation on what Grundy will give us is 3-4 years of solid ruck play. Not game changing stuff like he did in ‘19. And not 8 years of it like you’d get from a 24 year old. How’s that worth a first round pick?

Rohan’s a far better player than Henry right now because Rohan’s a defensive tackling force and Henry stands and watches like Fritsch. The Pies we’re trying to educate him at VFL level rather than entrench poor behaviour. But the scary thing is Henry will swap in for Rohan after some Geelong education and provide goal kicking when they finally replace Hawkins with a young full forward. Although they’ll probably replace Hawkins with Harry McKay and not miss a beat!

They’re using Grundy’s money to get McStay for free. We really should just get Grundy for free. Pretty simple formula. They’re paying his wage down to his true worth, and even then it’s a year too long on the deal. They don’t get extra credit for that, they aren’t subsidising him below his market rate. No one would give Grundy 5 years by choice right now. North fans and the media expected Ben Brown to be a first round pick and he wasn’t. This is the same situation. Injured, club wants him out, there’s really no leverage for the Pies. They can have a million dollar ruckman in the reserves or they can cop a second round pick.

I agree there's probably not a lot of new info here. Clarko's been known to be controlling for a long time. Once a school teacher, always a school teacher. But the behaviour towards families and pregnant women does seem beyond the scope of normal psycho footy stuff. In some ways this might help him because he wasn't just picking on Indigenous players, he was willing to give similar treatment to his former captain!

Both can be true. He played VFL after being omitted from the afl side, that’s dropped. But it was injury related. I think his form started to tail off a fraction before injury anyway. He’s our fittest mid, I believe he even beats Langdon on training gps, but it’s a long season for still a young player.

Hunt’s our 23rd best player. Even at West Coast he’s not getting near their top 15. And top 10 players all make 700k+, the next 5 get paid well too, bottom 10 players all make at least 100k plus match payments. 16-30 on the list therefore have to get sandwiched. My guess is the raise in average player wages isn’t matched by the median player wage. We’d have to pay Hunt the median, given he is our median, I doubt that’s anywhere close to 375. West Coast would only have to beat that by enough to justify his move.

I hope we sign him so the cheersquad can go with this outstanding material: Little Red Corbett Baby, you're much too fast Little Red Corbett Need to find a marker that's gonna last

At Freo he could potentially play with Amiss and Taberner or back them up. At Melbourne he might have to get ahead of at least one if not 2 of JVR, Brown or McDonald. Essendon have Wright, Jones and who knows what else. I doubt any club is straight up walking him in the best 22 or paying him like that, so there's not a clear answer.

I agree, and I'll say Ben Brown was probably our only win now player we added. Maybe Tomlinson too - of the players who didn't feature in the flag. The rest were all added to be long time players.

The Cats had 7 of 22 in their flag side. And Id break it down as: 2 big fish (Danger, Cameron) 2 bargain pick ups (Stengle, Rohan) 1 veteran (Smith) 2 targeted moves (Tuohy, Stanley) We had 5. May and Lever were big fish Hibbo and Langdon players we targeted Ben Brown somewhat all of the above Whilst I think the draft and keeping home grown players will always be vital I see no reason why we should be afraid of bringing players in. If we could land a gun key forward I think we would sign them in a flash. Grundy’s not my cup of tea but I can somewhat understand it. And I think we should be absolutely on the look out for bargain buys. Hawthorn did an amazing job in 2009-2011 knowing their star young players needed fresh help. They used the draft and trades for guys like Lake, Frawley, Gibson, McEvoy, Hill, Smith, Shiels. That’s the blueprint

Yze should now take on a coaching challenge tougher than coaching Essendon: We should make him our forwards coach!

I think with Fritsch and JVR our priorities will be for a genuine 195cm+ tall with the reach for contested marks/deterring 200cm super athletic defenders rather than Georgiades. Or a forward/ruck to take over from Gawn. Fritsch hadn't proven himself as one of the games better goal kickers and JVR was years away when we wanted Georgiades in the draft.

Clearly there’s a difference between a 3 goal a game forward who wins a Coleman and a 1 goal a game player. Similarly if a player kicks 5 goals in a game they can probably do stuff all else. But in the context of two key forwards who both averaged 1 to 1.5 goals a game there’s a big reason why Brown was selected. And if Weid had somehow snuck out a few more goals and averaged up to 2 goals a game he still wouldn’t be making a good contribution with how consistently and easily he was beat in contests. Whilst neither were good enough, Brown was at least contributing to the side and we saw the value of that in a lot of our first half leads or wins. Weid (as a forward) contributed next to nothing in a lot of games.

Yes, I do. Clean one on one goal kicking chances are so rare against good defenders/backlines. Even the very best key forwards barely average 3 goals a game, and those averages are jacked up by performances against bad sides. Brown ran out of puff in games, often he could barely run in last quarters. And I think we need at least 1 tall alongside Fritsch who can have a least a little scoreboard impact. But it can be as little as 1.5 goals a game if you’re bringing it to ground. Every AFL coach talks about the importance of that. They aren’t all lying or idiots.

It reminds me a lot of our pick 2 for Salem, Tyson trade. When we did that we believed pick 2 was fairly equivalent to pick 9 and apart from missing Bontempelli that’s shown to be correct. I just can’t see North going all the way back to pick 13, and I can’t really see us wanting to go up to pick 1 either. The sweet spot in this draft feels more like picks 6-9. And to be fair most years there’s probably a few special guys who generally go top 5, then some highly rated guys who mostly go within the top 12. Getting outside that range gets dicey.

We don’t get the stats but I think they’d show Brown halved something like 60% of contests (at least in the first 2.5 quarters of games) where Weid was probably about 30%. That number matters as much if not more than goals. I don’t think we’ll go in to 2023 with either of them in the first choice 22 though. Weid’s our 3rd ruck. Brown’s a back up key forward.

Fair, and for the record I think he’ll have a lot better career than Billings. (Billings would’ve had a lot better career anywhere but St Kilda too). Sam Flanders is not nearly as classy but was a gun junior forward/mid with competitiveness, kicked 19 goals as a bottom ager, hasn’t got going at afl level at all yet. It’s just really hard to beat afl defenders purely on smarts. It’s easier if you have genuine speed or the ability to really jump at the ball. Not to mention how important that athleticism is defensively. And unless footy changed drastically half forwards are going to be the first line of defending. I might be wrong and he might be the next Robbie Gray, but I think Gray had more burst in his earlier years. I’d absolutely love to have him using it inside 50, just not convinced to the extent that I’d be packaging all the LJ compo and then some to get in to the top 5 to get him.

A stack of class, but doesn't seem a very dynamic athlete. Is he going to be a consistent goal kicker without speed, a leap or size? Probably has to be a midfielder to get maximum value. A little big Jack Billings ish for mine. If he falls to us I'd be very happy to have him but I'm not sure we'd be desperately trading up to get him.

The article mentions human rights commission or a state inquiry, but I would’ve thought the AFL could pick 1 or 2 members, the AFLPA 2 members and the AFLCA 1 member and they hold it under afl rules. Maybe give veto power to each body to rule out anyone deemed untrustworthy or biased. The hearing is to determine if afl rules were breached, it has to be at least held in relation to the afl even if they stay away from it. At the end of the day legal actions and settlements are likely to come no matter which way it breaks, but as tricky as it is the players have to step forward I think.

I believe Hunt enjoyed his time in WA after the grand final last year. Maybe his desire to leave is as much about a change of scenery as cash or footy reasons. The travel wouldn’t be great but that means a number of games in Victoria a year. And the payoff is new golf courses, great beaches, good weather. He’s hardly going to be under huge pressure to perform or stalked in the streets.

Grundy might be a whale but he could equally be one of those big sun fish that just blob along and do nothing. He could also be very good yet render Gawn to a very marginal role, giving the team only a minor gain. If we only need a minor gain to get over the line then happy days, but I can’t blame fans for being disappointed. A key forward or skilled mid would be far more exciting