DeeSpencer

Do you think they’ll accept a Jetstar voucher so Treloar can go visit his partner Josh and the mother of his child in QLD? Or does it have to be Virgin?

Sorry, I would’ve included a sarcasm warning if anyone actually thought this was a serious thread. But I’ve up my offer to Tomlinson, a future 2nd, Baker, we’ll take Bruce, Hunter and Stef Martin from them and we’ll donate 10k more followers to Bailey Smith’s Instagram account. I’m open to agreeing not to sing Free From Desire if they’ll chuck in a future 3rd back.

Did you miss the part where I said he was a steal for 1 season? I never said I wouldn’t have done the Lever deal, he was a key player in a flag, of course I’d do it. But it’s just a fact that he’s had 3 injury impacted seasons as well as 2020 where he was far closer to just good than great. My post was comparing Jackson and Lever as somewhat volatile players and as super highly rated talls traded after 3 years - an unusual time for talls who have established themselves to move clubs. Lever’s the best interceptor in the game at his best, but fairly mediocre if he’s off his game. Jackson’s a game changer if he’s on and a bit underwhelming otherwise.

Ok I’ll throw in Oskar Baker.

He has very uneven shoulder heights. Makes me nervous about future injury. I think he’d slot in at CHB and allow Petty to go forward. Tomlinson and a future 2nd probably gets it done?

So far we’ve had 1 season where it was a steal and 4 seasons where we have been ripped off! I’d put Jackson in the same boat as Lever where there’s no doubt he can be an incredible player with some special traits. But there’s also some valid questions too and there’s safer ways to spend some very good picks.

The Mark Waugh special ‘I haven’t seen much of him’. Even better when he was a National selector

Franky Evans kicked 30 goals in the VFL for the cats this year. Won’t be replacing Stengle, Miers or Close any time soon and Ollie Henry potentially coming in as a mid sized forward too. If we want to replace one of Spargo or ANB with a small forward with a touch more size who in theory can be more of a marking target/crumber and kick more goals he fits the bill. I think he’d be a nice option rather than another year or two of Bedford still not quite being up to it or giving us anything different to our first choice options. Kicked 5 against Casey which is more than some entire teams did! https://www.afl.com.au/video/795574/vfl-showreel-r16-francis-evans-highlights?videoId=795574&modal=true&type=video&publishFrom=1657286723001

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