DeeSpencer

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

AFLW team playing at Frankston for the rest of the season, that’s exactly what they’ll be doing

Essendon have so little faith in themselves they have to hire a career 50% coach who fell in to some prelims and left a giant mess behind him? Yze dodged a bullet if this is what they prefer.

Google maps right now, Main St Mornington via Penn Link and Mordi Fwy to the Hawks facility at Dingley is 33 mins, to Casey is 40. Swap directions is 37 a piece. Dingley is ideally placed that players are within an easy commute of the peninsula and the inner bayside suburbs. It’s a genius move from Hawthorn.

Shorter in time with direct freeways outside of peak hour rather than clogged arterial roads

Watch Hawthorn attempt to own the peninsula and set up a Geelong east set up out of Dingley with players encouraged to move down the coast. Not impossible from Casey but it’s actually further from Mornington than Dingley is. The roads are a mess. Public transport is non existent. The community has little to no interest in afl footy. Little interest in anything but kfc, long commutes in mid sized SUV’s and roundabouts. In fact I’ll even go ahead and say all the suburbs out there shouldn’t exist. They are future slums way way too far from Melbourne and not at all connected with a satellite city. The Casey fields precinct is lipstick on a pig. One big collection of sporting facilities because they can’t get developers to actually spread them throughout these awful excuses for suburbs. And the community doesn’t use them enough to justify them so they’re all rented out to elite sporting clubs. The entire area is a shrine to abysmal urban planning and development, corruption and greed.

That’s an aggressive contract that suggests we see Tobes as more than depth. Not sure I really see it, and if I was his manager I’d probably suggest he go with the team that provides him easier game time. Tricky decision for him.

1.midfield Sautner 2. Mid Sautner 3. Mid Sautner 4. Chandler 5. wing Sautner 6. back Sautner 7. JVR 8. Punxsutwaney Phil 9. half back Sautner Great to see so many young demons pushing their case to play afl.

Salem, Bowey, May, Rivers and even Petty can all run and kick the ball, the biggest issue is coaching and fitness refusing to let them put the ball through the hands to the fat side then kick to space. A defender will win the ball back and either kick or handball back in to the dead pocket, to someone who then bombs it down the line. Smarter, more cohesive footballers will chain handballs across the backline that allow for kicks or corridor run. Without getting those disposals that bring you to the fat side to begin with you’ll never get effective run and carry. We’ll miss Hunt defensively and we’ll miss his rebound from early 2021 when he took off and would combine with Langdon by hand on the wing. We won’t miss him kicking it. 2021 and this year was his best footy in years because he stopped kicking it!

Corbett’s never looked remotely like a winger to me, that could last about as long as Tomlinson’s mfc wing career. But the point probably stands - you’re then adding a career VFL player to a new position, that’s even less exciting. I’m not expecting miracles, I’m ok with Grundy, a back up forward like Corbett and then a couple of possible pieces to the puzzle. Use the draft to add top 15 players, find a few more guys to fill out the 22-30 spots on the list, rely on our current role players to do the job of 15-22 as they did when winning a flag. That’s better than paying overs for the 16th best player who now costs money we don’t have.

A tall footballer who exists, often through the midfield, more than a midfielder.

I don’t mind him. He’s not great - always lacked a little speed or skills, but we could get him fitter and doing a job. He was one of the covid nightclub guys which would’ve put him off side at the eagles. If they sign Hunt looking for speed we could get Nelson for free, give up some speed but get back a little more skill. He might be the best half back I’ve seen available so far.

He’s either 90% of Spargo at half forward or a less upside version of Bowey as a half back

I wish salaries were public so I could confirm but I hope Smith, Melk and Hibbo are all in the 200k range, where Hunt as a free agent is probably getting 400k and a longer deal. It’s worth wondering if keeping any of the 3 we are supposedly keeping is worthwhile anyway but they might be in a different salary category to Hunt. Hopefully we see some action for at least one player in the tall forwards or outside run category so we can see the trade off in losing Hunt.

Whilst he’s not on the Jetta or Hibbo level you can see Hunt actually reads the play and makes decisive defensive actions. Smith is tentative and you can see him pause to think before acting. Add in his 4 month injury every year and he can’t be relied on. Losing Hunt will lose depth from the one part of the ground we actually had more than the bare minimum to fill a 22. Now it’s either a player not on the list, a big downgrade to Smith if available, moving Brayshaw again or relying on Judd McVee making a leap??? A JT special who’s ready to go would be nice, but maybe we actually do have a functioning pro scout department ready to find a delisted or state league option?

They’re some priorities but Brown and McDonald will only have 1 year left and might even be open to retiring if things don’t come good for them. Can get someone on a slightly backloaded deal knowing those 2 will both be either gone or on nothing in 2025

Would’ve liked Gunston. I think the combination of Gawn, Gunston, Fritsch and one pack smashing key forward (JVR/Brown/McDonald) could’ve worked pretty well. But we’d be looking at 3 over 30’s forwards on the list plus Gawn. As well as opening some space for JVR we save a nice wad of cash to go after a proper long term solution to the other key forward role. Just sounds like it won’t be next year.

And Gunston is way more consistent at the contest and with defensive work rate. Fritsch has a lot of work to do to catch Gunston’s career

yeah but they’ll start with a 6 goal handicap if they pick Daniher

They might be able to get the McStay compo then work out a trade with Hawthorn. After the Hawks attempted fire sale last year they probably can’t stand in the way of Gunston going and at nearly 31 his own compo shouldn’t rate highly

We’re losing the only player in the league who has the athletic ability and footy craft to become a Blicavs type player and I’m not a huge fan of it to be honest

Atkins and Blicavs as defensive on ballers were so valuable. That allowed them to rest rotate Dangerfield and Selwood. Those 2 have been good for 55 disposals a week whilst their opponents got 60+. With a proper defensive mix in the middle they stopped leaking easy possessions to the oppositions best players. The extra midfield depth and Stengle meant they stopped playing Higgins or Dalhouse or any of the other over the hill half forwards they had been rolling out too.

Gus doesn’t really drive much ball movement though. Most of the time if he’s kicking on the run the ball lands in the crowd

Rightly or wrongly Stengle was seen as a young man from a difficult upbringing who deserved a second chance after being booted from the afl system. De Goey comes from a privileged background, is older and hasn’t hit rock bottom. Combine that with the much greater risk in terms of dollars and it’s just not worth it I’m not convinced his recent behaviour has been as bad as the media makes out, but the fact he hasn’t stopped putting himself in dramatic situations is a concern.

Bummer, I really wanted to sign him