DeeSpencer

We’ve made an exchange of Jackson for Grundy that might give us marginal to moderate short term improvement. We’ve added Hunter for Hunt and Bedford. Not a bad move but we now have to replace some half back and small forward depth. Significant bounce backs: Lever, Salem, Late season Gawn and Langdon, McDonald, ?Tomlinson ?BBB Can they find another gear: Brayshaw, Harmes, Sparrow, JJ, Chandler, Spargo, ANB Natural improvement: Bowey, Pickett, Rivers, JVR, Turner (JJ, Sparrow, Chandler) Surprise improvement candidates: Petty as a fwd, pick 13, Schache, J Smith, Howes, Laurie, Woey, Nizard Areas for concern: lockdown back, tall back/tall forward (if Petty goes forward), mid/fwd class, mid/fwd depth.

Nothing. VFL results are largely determined by injuries, VFL listed players and age of your AFL list. We had very few injuries, we had the strongest core of VFL players for an afl side and whilst our list isn’t old a good bulk of guys who played in the VFL players were veterans.

Essendon said they’d consider moving it but don’t want to go too far down the order. Which is pretty much what every club says every year. We’d have to make them a crazy offer to go down to 13. I’d be shocked if they moved below 7 and likely not at all

I’m sure you’re joking but we aren’t changing our draft plans based on Le Shach! I have no issues drafting skinny talls, but if you’re skinny you need to be a special athlete and I’m not sure Jefferson has the speed, height or leap to make up for a thin frame.

It’s a shortening to make it rhyme. Not a misspelling. Schache Attack doesn’t make any sense. Schache Attacky seems too gimmicky. But you might want to hold off just in case we go with Schache down backy or unless it’s a Casey banner

FB: Hibberd May Lever HB: Salem Turner Bowey C: Brayshaw Petracca Langdon HF: Hunter JVR ANB FF: Pickett Petty Fritsch Foll: Grundy Oliver Viney Int: Gawn, Rivers, Harmes, Sparrow 5/Sub: Spargo or JJ Wait and see what they do with Gus. I’d like to see a lot more rotations between the wings, on ballers and half forwards. Keep it unpredictable. Use Harmes where we need speed, Brayshaw where we need contested ball and Hunter where we need skill. Against certain teams they will be very different combinations. Gus back and Bowey wing can also be a consideration in games.

Oskar Baker? Chandler who’s just a guy and not a wing 4 touches in the grand final Howes 8 touch Laurie The honest but young and limited Woey Who are these talented players we have at Casey who can provide what Hunter can?

Freo only had the one future first. So no need to clarify. They had a pair of 2nd rounders. They had their own and they had North Melbourne’s special pick from the Logue trade. So in the interest of some clarity they specify the second round pick is the one tied to Freo’s ladder position

WHO IS TRAINING AT YOUR CLUB? Melbourne: Max King, Hudson Garoni 👀👀👀👀🤣

From 7 you can have Mitch and Tom on 7 plus I believe

Tim Lamb’s general vibe to me was, well I guess Schache is an ok replacement for Weid. Not a lot of enthusiasm

Hunter and Langdon would actually be too small and outside for a wing rotation for my likings. I’d use at least one of JJ, Harmes and Gus on the wing and have Hunter play half forward and 3rd winger if he was super fit and defensively switched on. Would even consider some on ball time, possibly post centre clearance with Tracc. We need skilled kickers on the inside not just the outside. But it does let us shuffle players forward, back and on ball

That’s our man

Future 3rd would do it for Hunter.

37 makes Weid expendable and whilst there’s still some chance he goes on and makes himself a career it was very unlikely at Melbourne. Part of good list management is knowing when to let a player go for their own sake and to keep the managers happy. If Weid goes on to have success and is a fair minded person he’ll probably regret not doing it sooner but he’ll also be thankful we gave him the chance to do so in 2023.

I’m not saying it will happen but softness is one thing you can fix. Schache was a baby at Brisbane and traded to the Dogs before he really failed. He’s now failed at the dogs and genuinely on his last chance. Clarry’s one of his best mates Choco is choco Troy Chaplin just won assistant coach of the year and if I was Goody and Co I’m giving Chappy a special summer project.

2nd round pick for Weid 4th for Schache I know what I’d prefer

37 will go out 3 for Ashcroft, Davey and Fletcher but then come in 3 for 34, 35 and 36 used on Ashcroft. In other words it will just end up where it is at this stage

Out; Jackson, Weid, Hunt, Bedford, Rosman , Daw (r), Brown (r) In: Grundy, Schache Chandler promoted Pick 13, a late pick and 3 rookies at this stage. But plenty of water to go under the bridge.

Petty forward, Schach attack locked in a 3 way battle with Turner and Tomlinson for CHB. Let the best man win

On one hand it will be nice to have a player who’s actually bitter at Collingwood On the other our most talented player already thinks he plays for Collingwood so at least Grundy won’t be alone

Can we score with 5 on 6 in our forward line? Geelong do this but Blicavs can play as a genuine mid which allows them 6 forwards. Plus they expertly navigate around spare defenders to kick to Hawkins deep. Maybe we have 2 rucks in the midfield at the same time with Petracca swapping forward with Grundy after clearances. But Harmes, Sparrow, ANB and Spargo aren’t going anywhere in that situation because we are going to need every bit of mid and half forward run and pressure as possible. I don’t think we’ll get too clever with 2 rucks on ball or behind the ball unless it’s inside 60. We’ll be happy to have Gawn forward to increase our speed of ball movement rather than waiting for him to make position. Late in games if we’re trying to ice contests then Gawn will drop back but otherwise we’ll start one of the rucks forward.

Both. McStay will help their forward line a lot. A player who stands under high balls and is a very good pressure player for his size is super valuable. Grundy has upside when he’s rolling but if he’s not at his best he’s a frustrating player to coach. Likes chasing kicks rather than sticking to his role. A midfielder in the ruck is all well and good until he’s not doing the long down the line contest because he wants a chest mark His best football is better than Darcy Cameron’s but his from since 2020 is more on par. Ideally you’d keep both for the next couple of years but not when he could easily be dead weight at 900+ for the last 3 and McStay’s available instead.

They did and they didn’t. Given they had picks 3, 12, 15, 18, 19 and simply can’t keep drafting midfielders, back flankers or probably even key defenders they had to do what was required to get a key forward. No one’s trading them or letting one go as a free agent. They would’ve put the same interest/offer to Harry McKay as we did I bet. They’ve sacrificed a pick 12 to hopefully solve a huge list need. Cadman’s good enough for us to put 2 late firsts on the table. But probably not 3 firsts. And GWS really should bid on Ashcroft with pick 1 and take the pressure off the poor kid but it looks like they won’t do that given they did a trade with Brisbane.

It’s a disaster if you get it wrong. It’s the blueprint for premiership success if you get it right. Every flag from the Swans 05 until Geelong 22 was won on the back of elite talent drafted with top picks. They’ll be cutting it thin on field but clearly there’s some faith in Newcombe, Worpel, Ward and Amon to carry the midfield. Mitchell’s already shown a belief in the likes of Moore, Nash, Impey, Day to run through the midfield too, he’s not burdened by a belief you need to dominate clearances to play good football with a rebuilding side. Off field is the bigger danger but the soft cap is coming back up, Box Hill is always solid and they must have faith Sam and the few senior players they’ll have left can handle the load.