DeeSpencer

Baynen Lowe one to watch for fans of #draftsillynames and the Redlegs.

The selectors clearly gambled on an underdone Salo and he didn’t deliver. They gambled that Salem’s cool head early in games was more important than his ability to run out of a full game. Lever, Salem and Petracca after breaking his leg did not fire in the finals. Neither did Gawn, and whilst they aren’t stars but we obviously got very little from tall forwards. If we got 2021 Lever, Salem, Tracc, Gawn, Ben Brown then we we’re in the grand final and no one is complaining about Spargo, ANB or any other role player.

Salem is a star player a mile below his best, the answer is getting him back to his best. Same with Lever. Same with Petracca. All impacted by injuries. Collingwood have 3 new young players in their side: Nick Daicos, McCreery, Ginnivan. We could do with a young gun like Daicos in the draft, but I’m happy with Spargo and Pickett over the pies small forwards. Collingwood have got their stars healthy - namely Moore, Howe, De Goey and Jamie Elliot. Otherwise they have a heap of role players like Mihocek, Murphy, Noble, Cox, Hoskin Elliot, Lipinski, Bianco all firing because the stars and team are firing. They aren’t suddenly good or bad players.

Idiotic. If we’re replacing 5 premiership players with unproven kids and spare parts picks up then we will absolutely be going backwards. If we got the finals performances from Lever, Salem, Petracca and a couple of half decent key forwards we’d be in the grand final with all those role players.

The other terrible thing this would do is encourage bad teams to sell the chance of improvement by bringing in mature players for more picks. That further encourages the scorched earth rebuilds that the Dees tried for a decade, Carlton, St Kilda, Gold Coast’s entire existence, North Melbourne and so on. And at the other end the best teams get better. The AFL should be doing everything they can to encourage an even spread of players from 24-30 at every club. That way you get a more even competition and more ladder variation each year. As it currently stands there’s usually 4-6 teams each year who physically just can not compete week in week out due to list profile. This kind of move is just a disaster for the ‘any given Sunday’ nature of the league that we should and could have.

The clubs who can attract talent already have a huge advantage. Look at Geelong, look at Richmond buying a new midfield, even the pies got the cap well out of shape not helped by covid, and have already bought in Lipinski and Krueger last year and are now targeting McStay, Tom Mitchell and Bobby Hill. If you effectively expand the salary cap limits by teams buying picks the big clubs will just keep shopping.

I hope he tells the club as soon as possible but I hope the club keep it under wraps as long as possible. I hate the way trade talk takes away from the finals. It’s so unnecessary and unbecoming

Sturt’s got talent but he’s had a heap of injuries and clearly can’t pressure well enough to get games ahead of Freo’s 4 smalls or Bailey Banfield. Poor man’s Fritsch. His 1 year deal tells me the Dees did the due diligence and weren’t prepared to offer 2 years. If we wanted him we’d have offered 2 years and had him as the steak knives to Jacko. Now…Liam Henry on the outer. That has me interested

During last year's Trade Period, some clubs enquired with the League about whether they could directly pay contracts of players who remain at other clubs in exchange for a draft pick. Of all the dumb ideas the afl have considered this would absolutely take the cake. So much of the system - academy, father sons, Gold Coast and GWS existence - creates deals that benefit the 2 clubs doing the deal and screws the other 16. This would be about the final straw for any integrity.

Harmes is an excellent puzzle piece with the speed and gut running to play wing, mid or half forward. Salem is a gun half back capable of moving on ball if we want to mix it up. We had the right player to let go to freshen up the midfield mix and we inexplicably gave him a 6 year deal!!

How many teams have their most skilled player predominantly on the wing? Seems like a waste the way footy is played. Wingers get more of the ball in slow defensive half back situations than half backs do! If you want to get maximum value for Salem’s kicking then he has to be on ball. Getting the ball through the corridor to forwards. There’s 3 different ways to achieve this: 1. Start him as a midfielder, he’s a big boy, about time he plays like it 2. rotate him from half back on ball, similar to Nick Daicos 3. rotate him from half forward or some wing minutes, with Petracca forward or Harmes/Gus wing.

Paddy was always a great mark and kick, had an underrated burst of speed that gets hidden by his waddle and you don’t go pick 1 if you can’t read the play. Plus they had him in their VFL program for a year, it wasn’t just one summer. Weid’s slower and hasn’t demonstrated reliable reading of the play. At this stage constantly doing the same thing with him is crazy so I’d be more than open to try it but I wouldn’t have high hopes. Weid’s best attributes might be his tackling and handballing around stoppages, which makes him a really good VFL ruck as we’ve seen the last 2 weeks. But I don’t think he’s big or strong enough to be an AFL ruck.

AFC East - bills North - ravens South - Colts West - Chiefs WC - Bengals, Chargers, Raiders NFC East - cowboys North - packers South - Bucs West - 49ers WC - Eagles, Vikings, Rams Wow there’s a huge discrepancy between the afc and nfc. I considered Denver, Miami, Patriots, Steelers, Browns, Titans all for playoff chances. That’s 13 of 16 teams! In the NFC it’s probably 9 teams that feel they’re playoff quality and 7 more who’d probably take an 8-9 season as a win. Bills over Packers in the SB.

Niners, ravens, chiefs

Midfield rotations and more run and skill through the mids and half backs have to be big addition. And of course key forwards. FB: Petty May Xxxxx HB: Rivers Lever Bowey C; xxxx Salem Langdon HF: xxxxx McDonald Viney FF: Fritsch JVR Pickett Foll: Gawn Petracca Oliver Int: Harmes, Sparrow xxxxx, xxxxx Back pocket: Hibbo, Hunt, J Smith Back flank/mid: ???, Brayshaw, Hunt Wing: Brayshaw, JJ, Howes Half forward: Spargo, ANB, Chandler Ruck/forward: ????, Petty (Turner back), Ben Brown If we take a page from the pies playbook and rotate a mid through half back then Salem is an option. That gives us some badly needed skill on ball too. Of course that then means we need another quick skilful defender. Similarly we can then rotate a mid through half forward more often which takes the load off the big 3. I don’t mean to be a downer because they might improve quickly but I think we need to be realistic about our young players outside the best 22 apart from JVR. They struggle to regularly impact at Casey so are unlikely to leap in to the side in 1 summer. Every mature player we lose in this trade period might need a mature replacement even if it’s a dice role on delisted or state league types.

Fairly confident Smith was only used forward because of lack of medium/tall options with McDonald out. He’s just as scary down back but we do need that ready made mid sized defensive depth especially if Hibbo retires and Hunt leaves. ANB’s a tricky one because his effort is undeniable but his ball use, particularly in traffic can be horrific. But I’d also say when we moved the ball really well in 2021 ANB used the ball more than well enough. So maybe if we fix the upfield stuff and get the ball to Nibbler hard running in space he’ll find targets. Especially if the key forwards are much improved. Is ANB, Harmes, Sparrow, Spargo too defensive a midfield rotation/half forward group? Potentially. But who else is available? We haven’t been linked to any upgrades. Bedford probably leaves. Chandler might get a look but I’m underwhelmed and then it’s the other kids on the list.

Rivers still has a lot of value to me because he’s a very good 7th defender who can do a bit of everything. Turner’s in contention for a tall spot, Bowey should be a starter as a flanker, but a defender who can lock, rebound and intercept like Rivers is very useful. Rosman got concussed because he took short steps and fumbled then dived in after the ball. I haven’t seen why growth in his smarts or skills.

Great to see push in the back has made it back in to the rule book. Not sure where it was last night

Found a good patch of form in the back third of the regular season but didn’t have great finals. Fairly decent knee injury that really can hinder a young player without the base of preseasons. I’m still excited by what he has to offer, just a little question on what role they have for him.

I think we start with T Mc and JVR as our key forwards next year. Both can easily be 50% improvements on Brown and Melksham. But the swing man has to be an option, especially as both McDonald and JVR have defensive capabilities. And Turner’s an option I just don’t think he’ll be the first choice. I’m starting to think we can actually solve the key forwards to a respectable level. The trickier fix might be finding a half decent ruck/forward

A lot of learnings. Club surely made a big profit Hope for some Sunday 1:10’s on the fixture

He’s had a number of little injury set backs but every week he’s good for a few special things. His marking for his size and his ability to make a quick decision with the ball are both valuable traits.

You could pluck someone from the crowd and they’d make an impact with the way the dogs were defending in the second half against Freo. Brown, Melk and Jackson did the job in the first half when the team played to the game plan. JVR would’ve been stuffed at half time and needing a miracle to impact in the second half. Big preseason and he’ll be right to go.

He’s bounced back on to the ground. I’d say ideally McDonald and JVR could be good for 22 between them if not both of them. Definitely would love a Brown/Jackson replacement in addition to the 2 bigs.

Hunt’s never been fit or smart enough for a wing. Gus is too slow and unaccountable for half back if Lever’s in the same back 6. Given Lever can’t play anywhere else it has to be Lever