DeeSpencer

Be a big surprise if we’re suddenly uncovering a top trade target. Taranto was a die hard demon as kid (which usually means nothing), if we had the cap space he makes the most sense of any of of the top players out there if we’re stealing someone else’s target. The most likely situation to me has always been that Jacko was our highest draft pick in years, we should replace him with another high pick (plus another nice piece as we are almost no chance of getting a pick 3 back). Whilst best available is always the way to go I think we’ll be keen on either a tall forward or a midfielder with some forward craft or attacking qualities too.

Obviously he isn’t great at the contest but I’m shocked by how little playing time he got at the crows this year (unless I missed something). Given their stage of development as a side I’d give every possible game to Sholl to see if he makes it. I’m not sure we have the same luxury, but if he was available free of charge he’d be someone worth a look at. He’s a beautiful looking kick.

Chiefs, Ravens, Bengals

You’ve missed the other key starting element to his value which is what would we pay if he was out of contract (going to exclude free agent). If Grundy was out of contract I’d still only want him for 600k for 3-4 years. I’d give pick 25 for that (if I really wanted him). The 5th year of the contract devalues him down a few picks. Any amount more than 600k that the pies don’t want to pay him devalues him more. I doubt the Pies are going to pay him any more than they have to for the deal to be done. They’ve got other things to spend on. So I can’t see them pay so much that his value increases.

Yes. I meant the reason we drafted him to begin with. Not sure if we can find them but Goody will be asking JT to find 187-190ish outside runners every year id imagine. Get them right and they’re worth gold

I agree, I’d love to see Harmes get as much midfield time as the big 3 as he balances them well with speed and defensive work. The problem with that is finding someone else who can play his wing and forward minutes. We’ll see what happens with the list over the next month or so but I’d like to see a complete blank canvas for the midfield rotations.

When it comes to defensive system I have a laugh at Scott being heralded as a genius for dropping Stanley back. Like the world has forgotten Gawn’s done that for years. Im devastated to be losing Jacko when you see the impact Blicavs has a midfielder/ruck hybrid. That allows them do double down on the Stanley back even more without losing the ruck and they can play one less at the stoppages because after the hit out Blicavs is a mid again. Maybe the Gawn/Grundy combo can do something similar but I don’t think they’ll have the mobility at ground level and neither of them will be lining up as midfielders. Because the cats are so confident in always having the extra defender back and/or the first wave of help to appear they can play a jumbo backline that doesn’t have a heap of skills. Stewart’s a great kick and they have one of Tuohy or Duncan back as a distributor. Otherwise they play De Koning, Henry, Kolo, Zuthrie, Bews. 5 stoppers all above 186cm plus Stewart. Can we go with May, Petty, Turner, Rivers, Hibbo/Hunt/Smith and Lever with Salem or Bowey providing the kicking? I’m not sure we can or should, but it does create the ability to zone and switch as well as easy intercepts. Midfield defending is the Cats big edge I think. They have 3 on ballers who have played as taggers and defenders at some stage. Blicavs, Atkins and Guthrie. The Swans went 50/50 on clearances but the Cats won all but one of the Swans clearances back by forcing errors. Selwood and Danger did their thing, a bit like how Clarry and Tracc do their thing, but the Cats use their other mids to wreck to the opposition. It was a reminder of how important Viney, Harmes, Sparrow and if he’s in there Brayshaw can and should be in disrupting the opposition as much as winning their own ball. If we hire a new midfield coach this year I hope they can do a refresh they way Yze did in 2021

Watching the Cats, they really do use Stengle, Miers and Close pretty similarly to how we use Pickett, Spargo and ANB. They probably get Stengle a bit closer to goal but the 3 smalls are very set to defend. Rohan as a very good pressure player for a medium helps too, even if he’s mostly invisible otherwise. Where the Cats are very different is they’ll use Tuohy, Holmes/O’Connor, Duncan and Isaac Smith very interchangeably through the wings and back or high half forward. They’re all 6’2 rangy athletes who can seriously run and are the big drivers of the Cats ball movement. We probably can’t recreate the exact same thing with Langdon, Harmes/JJ (right size but lack skills), Bowey/Salem and whomever we have as the attacking high half forward. We’ll always be looking for more crash and bash with Oliver, Petracca and Viney through the middle to base our ball movement on. But it’s pretty clear why we wanted Holmes and have drafted Rosman and Howes

And half backs! Even Geelong who love to drop 15 players behind the ball most of the time will have Bews, Zuthrie or even Kolo try to seal off a half forward to prevent a defensive exit. We need to keep our slow play defensive grid but add more bite on transition

It's 3rd tall v 3rd tall, we did (at least in 2021) have 2 key forwards to match against Hawkins and Cameron. A reason for a drop off from our smalls in the drop off from the talls. But I'm happy to exclude Frtisch from the conversation, either way, it's not like the Cats have 3 elite goal kicking smalls. Much fairer to match ANB up against guys like Close and Miers who do a heap of up the ground running than it is for Stengle who spends a lot of the game camping at the forwards feet.

Stengle - 53 (25) Pickett - 41 (23) Close - 26 (25) Spargo - 10 (24) Miers - 13 (22) ANB - 9 (23) Rohan - 14 (12) Fritsch - 55 (24) ANB and Spargo both have work to do, that's for sure, but they are also pretty pure half forwards given how often we use Fritsch as both a marking target but also the out the back player and a crumber. If ANB kicked 17 goals 9 rather than 9 goals 17 then his goal total would actually be fine.

Had we beat Sydney - and plenty of things didn’t go our way that night - we could’ve rested guys up to go again the prelim. I’m only upset about the management of players in the first half of the season. Particularly the Gawn and Lever Eagles trip and North game and bringing Max back really quickly. Going for it in the last 2 months of the season doesn’t bother me. If they can have a crack and get through the game you take your chances with your best players.

Hawkins kicked 2 goals grabbing it from the ruck and I didn’t really know if Cameron was playing in the first half. Blicavs is the Cats most important structural player and it’s tragic that the closest player to doing what he does is leaving us this year. The Cats ability to create a spare defender by dropping a ruckman or mid to half back whilst not losing clearances is their brilliance. They do this by 2 ways. One, keeping shape around the contest which means if they win the ball they can work it through the hands. At the same time they don’t overcommit numbers at the contest and pressure incredibly well to force disposals that lead to turnovers. We need to find the right balance forward but we need to recommit to pressure with our mids and work on our clean ball use on the outside. Nothing special with kicking skills, far more about run, spread, overlap to create easy ball use. Key forwards will be important but not as important as the above stuff.

There’s a Goldie to Paxy to Sherrif to Banno out the back goal on offer after half time

Want to see the Duff woman get a genuine one on one inside 50. Feels like snags

Strong effort there at a ground ball. Come on Dees, couple of quick ones here to put this out of range

Kate Hore’s a little soft, got to sort that out

The female commentator is not a fan of us. Some of our fringe mids seem to be getting a run on the ball and probably need the experience. Good coaching, but making for a messy game so far

I can’t argue that he’s not tall but I’ll argue the rest. Runs in straight lines, can’t play wing, can’t play forward, don’t think he’s any stronger than Brown, McDonald and JVR.

Reckon we got lucky there. Mac might be the better player in a few years time but for now I’d rather JVR

The next step down from a token pick is us having to give one, and I think that's genuinely in play if Tomlinson has signficant money attached to him. I don't want Bruce either. But I do want a key forward. And as we search the entire country looking for one I'm not sure we'd do any better than Bruce. Yes he looked absolutely cooked, but he was good in 2021.

I still don’t see how Tomlinson has any positive trade value. He was that bad this year and even his Casey play looked so limited (output was good but it didn’t look good) that I think it will cost a pick to move him. Just thinking out loud here but does a Tomlinson for Josh Bruce straight swap make sense? We don’t need Tomlinson. Dogs don’t need Bruce. Neither of them recovered well from ACL’s last year. Both might turn it around with a fresh start.

There’s no elite tap work with Grundy. He’s as predictable as Max. Although with fresher legs for centre bounces. Just an example but the ‘19 semi final they lost to GWS was the most mind numbing display of tap work I’ve ever seen, as Mumford continually bodied Grundy in to the same hit outs over and over again. Getting Gawn out of centre bounces will be a positive, if he doesn’t pluck it from the ruck or slot it down a midfielders throat Max becomes a liability in there. Otherwise there’s not much from the ruck contests I’m actually excited about. The ruck is the ruck, unless you’re Nic Nat or terrible it doesn’t matter.

I agree. Eddie Langdon’s bounce totals took a massive dive this year, he clearly wasn’t running it nearly as much either. Theres 2 big factors: 1. No bounce off half back. The winger should get the ball via hands or in so much space they have to take it on. 2. No Tom McDonald at chf hitting up. Not to say that JJ doesn’t have to improve. You can’t be as risk adverse as he was this year. But he was a product of a slow system. JJ’s run and link by hand was very strong in 2021. He’d often be involved multiple times in the same chain.

He got dropped because he didn’t touch it for a half and hasn’t looked any good apart from when he played on Tomlinson and Lever. The Swans are developing him slowly and he’ll be ok, but he’s not really the answer. Reckon he might come in to the 22 still as well. Not sure Reid’s across the line either