DeeSpencer

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

Maybe targeted is the wrong word because clearly we would’ve reached out to a bunch of players but ‘arranged’ or ‘lined up’ or whatever word is better. I’d be absolutely shocked if there’s a hidden player just waiting for the Jackson trade.

That’s just a bad deal for the dogs though, although not too far off. Dogs right to turn it down when they need to get Lobb. The Lions then traded 15, then traded the future 2nd they got for 15 rather than just iron out the deal with the dogs. Lions need to add something nice to the future first to get it done and haven’t come up with that nice piece. We aren’t doing the public song and dance but Freo might be doing something similar and if they had other priorities on players to bring in I bet they’d be trying them. The public comments is just a bit of fun and games for the supporters and media. It always gets overrated.

Geelong’s first dynasty ended in 2011 and hung around on the way down until 2015. Their current side has been building since then with big ticket recruits in Dangerfield and Jeremy Cameron. But it’s finding elite players in Stewart and Blicavs that really put them over the top. Tim Kelly creating the picks for Cameron too. These new recruits are really about keeping this current window alive, which might fade with the over 30’s the next few years. What the cats have mastered though is staying towards the top and only needing to sign 1 gun free agent every few years and draft or develop 1 superstar to then get back right at the top.

They could sign Dunkley then trade him and a future first to get off the salary

We’ve targeted no one so far so I doubt that’s the case. If Freo hand us 13 and a bunch of other stuff that lets us end up with a top 10 pick and a solid second pick (top 25, ideally better) then Im fine with that. But the market for top 10 picks seems pretty slow right now. Since the Port pick went towards JHF there’s been no public traction

He moves a lot like a young Jarryd Roughead to me, maybe with some shades of a slightly shorter Daniher or Harry McKay when it gets a bit erratic. Good size, good athlete, knows how to get involved up the ground and in space. I'm not convinced I'd pull the trigger as high as pick 2 but I reckon if North got the 2 picks at the top they'd be very keen to shore up their spine.

The price they'll pay in terms of dollars especially for Bruhn and Ollie Henry is sickening. Not to mention it just drastically decreases the risk of getting a dud in the draft when you don't have to draft. I'm not 100% sold Bowes is a best 22 player but pick 7 will almost certainly be and they'll lock Bowes in at 600 x 4, rather than 800 x 2 and that's happy days. With hindsight we should've gone harder at Cerra I think. I can see why we wanted to work quietly in the background rather than upset the 22 but we should've been front and centre at him. Both then and now it's time to turnover the fringes of our list. I really don't care if it's the most uninspiring collection of delistings, pick 80 trades or state league players I just can't see how holding on to guys who the coach has no intention of playing (and IMO rightly so) makes us better.

Bowes gets a 4 year deal with Geelong and has had a lot of major injuries. He doesn't need cash because clearly he was guaranteed the 2 years at 800k. He needs coaching and physical development to get back to quality AFL footy. Selwood, Dahlhaus and Higgins gone, Smith, Tuohy, Dangerfield, Duncan, Menegola can't go forever. He'll take a preseason or two to learn the system and get his body cherry ripe and then play 100 games straight is my guess. Dunstan was just a depth piece. Bowes is choosing Geelong to rehabilitate his career rather than risking Essendon doing the same with more game time but inferior everything else.

Jackson has a lot of growing up to do too. He’s a big talent but a lot of its potential as well. He’s has a cruisy start playing back up to Max. Has a heap of work to become the ruck/midfielder he can be. JHF is a top flight midfielder/forward, the most valuable role in the game. Had a stinker of year in a disaster or a club but he’s still got next Danger, next Tracc type player written all over him. Port are getting a steal if it’s 8 and a moderate future first.