DeeSpencer

When we did the Weideman and Pickett deals we bet on ourselves winning our way from lowly ladder positions to mid table to justify those deals. Now we’re at the top we have to win a lot just to break even. We more than did that with Bowey/Laurie. Unfortunately the groundhog is stuck in second gear but value wise that was worth it. This year we’ve now ended up sending our first pick to Sydney via Adelaide for JVR. Pick 19 in for a pick that probably ends up at 14 or 15. Not a huge deal, and easy to say it’s worth it for a much needed key forward with a year of development. 4 pick slide is a pretty good interest rate in this economy. But without the 10 game win streak to start the year we might’ve finished outside or barely in the 8. And giving away a pick around 10 for pick 19 would’ve been nasty. Most years a gem falls around the 10 mark. You don’t want to be giving up a pick on the edges of the top 10 that gets to pick right after all the bad teams pick, to then pick after all the good clubs have had a go in the late teens.

I’d love to see a Petty, JVR and T Mc forward line. Rotate all of them through the ruck as needed. But my guess is Petty is still seen as a vital defender and the future post May as well. Struggling to see Turner (has upside), Tomlinson or Joel Smith being trusted as the 2nd tall defender. Could Petty be a swing man for McDonald or JVR? I think it’s entirely reasonable. Start with a defensive game plan, as the game opens up throw Petty forward to capitalise. Maybe even a trump card that we use at unexpected moments.

The best thing that happened to Brown last year was missing a huge chunk of the start of the year. He might have more in him if he gets the same treatment next year. He really shouldn’t play more than 12 home and away games.

You’d fire 15 coaches a year. Are you on the Essendon board?

Nonsense. They’re both the best coaches their clubs have had in 50 years. Bevo gets criticised for selection lotto and a wide open skills based game plan Goodwin for conservative selection and a down the line game plan There’s a Bulldogs forum version of you wanting Bevo to do exactly what Goodwin does

I agree with that. I think our list is very good without being great, and the coaches crafted a premiership winning game plan based upon an elite defensive system and an offensive system based around powerful mids blasting it quickly to tall forwards. With a short preseason they didn’t change much, and we’ve come up only a few key moments of discipline and skill execution short of hosting a home prelim. We need to strengthen and balance out the list with midfield runners and some fresh flanker talent, plus solve the talls. Our midfield and half back depth is really poor for a good side (Bowey, JJ, daylight) and our half forward depth is super uninspiring. Are there game plan things we can try in the short term - yes. But we’ve done them in first halves v top 4 sides in Sydney and Collingwood in the last month or so and done them pretty well. We were hitting Fritsch up beautifully last week. Ask any neutrals about the standard of footy in Melb Syd or Melb Coll and they’ll both say it was high level stuff. Most of the selection talk involves taking away key players in the defensive game plan and replacing them with Casey players in the hope that produces a 4 quarter effort. That I don’t agree with.

I reckon he’s hit 40-50% in some late season games and hasn’t been a big scoreboard factor. Not that scores are the only metric of a forwards worth. If we plan to spread the ball out more and move it faster (and we aren’t winning jack if we don’t) we need more than just bomb it to Max down the line out of him as a forward. Obviously the days of Fev on the lead are over but even Mason Cox on his good days knows how to lead in to spots in the zone. Or someone like Tom Lynch is a big contested marker who gets out the back of zones. A good amount of forward time - as he’s played the last 2 years - is good for Max and the team. I just think he’s a ruck/forward and not a forward/ruck

Your sneaky little (of many) doing a lot of work there. Goodwin’s probably not a super coach, but it’s hardly a super list either. In particular, trying to solve a scoring/key forward problem without the personnel to do so is always going to take some failed experiments.

Brown’s training and moving freely so I can’t imagine we pull the pin on him now, not for a kid. We need T Mc to remove Brown. If we do JVR for Melksham it gives us the following advantages: 1. Extra height 2. The ability to move Brown to FF and play JVR at CHF, takes the workload off BBB 3. Less Gawn forward It comes with the following disadvantages 1. The kid might struggle to get a kick and he’s almost certainly going to struggle to play out 4 quarters of high intensity footy 2. Melksham has been excellent at dragging an interceptor out of the way, as a senior player he nails the set ups and patterns to occupy a defender 3. The Melk has been ok defensively, likely better than a baby tall will be It’s a lot to weigh up. And I really think Melk has done a fairly reasonable job with a tricky task. He blew all his chances last week but he still had chances. And there’s 10 other things wrong with the side apart from him.

He’s played more than 30% in recent weeks, and he’s the best contested mark as a ruck, taking on opposition rucks and dropping behind the ball. Marking as a forward - and the leading patterns required - is a completely different skill set.

Meek’s big and combative in ruck contests, and has good athleticism for a big ruck. Obviously not Jacko level but he contribute on the deck. Marking/kicking not his strong suit so far at afl level. But without a long term starting chance it’s hard to know how that will develop. If we’re convinced by Gawn forward then he’s a realistic opportunity as a cheap alternative to Grundy. If we think Gawn will ruck at least 50% then I don’t know how Meek gets convinced to come to us, apart from the obvious that he’s better off here than Freo behind Darcy and Jacko. If I’m Meek I’m taking the Eagles offer and taking over from Nic Nat. But as long as the price isn’t over the top for a back up I’m definitely interested.

Stocker’s a lovely kick of the footy. He’d be the best kick in our midfield (which isn’t hard) The issue is he can’t play midfield because he can’t run. He’s an ok defender but not quick enough for a rebounder and not a natural lockdown player. I don’t mean to be harsh but lack of fitness (especially for a midfielder) + mental health issues is a giant red flag combination. If he can’t develop his tank to midfield standards and he doesn’t have AFL level commitment to do so (which is fine, 99.9% of us don’t), then how does he suddenly get fit? The talent is there but a psych eval and a Burgo style intervention would be needed for me to be interested.

Not even Wayne Carey’s pick 1 for Frost, Bugg and Tyson was that crazy. Closer to pick 1 in the rookie draft than the main draft.

Bedford has improved but he’s still tracking as depth. Chandler very much depth, lacks an stand out traits. Laurie is very much a midfielder/high half forward. Definitely time for another swing in the draft. Probably be wise to move one of Bedford or Chandler to open a list spot too rather than keep too many one dimensional smalls.

Jackson will be the best ruck of the next decade. Shame he’s going, but he won us a flag. Young would’ve been a massive investment in to a backline that already had May, Salem and Lever. Rivers with a second rounder was much better value to add to the backline. Young has a nice boot and is a good size but he’s not that special.

The only 3rd tall forward who excites me is Gunston because of his class. Henry or Georgiades, no thanks. We have Fritsch. And hopefully we have T Mc to then hand over to JVR over the next 2 years. To fill 1 or 2 spots as mobile running talls. It’s second ruck and a genuine marking tall that we need. I suggest we shop at the bargain basement bin for at least one useful tall forward but history says you need a lot of luck for a big gun to come to you. Magically summoning one of the 8 or so elite talls in this league is wishful thinking (unless you’re Geelong, Richmond or Sydney).

McKay will likely either stay at Carlton for 1m a season or go to a club with a huge stack of cap space like North/Ess for 1.5m per. Players rarely make lateral moves from clubs on the verge of success just for the sake of it. Especially not big clubs. We’d need Carlton to crumple next year and none of the other top sides to have cap space. And I’d bet Sydney, Coll, Geel would all find 7 figures behind the couch. He’d probably do what most gun key forwards fleeing the spotlight have done in the last 30 years and go to Sydney. There’s 3 types of player we should target 1. Go home factor 2. Opportunity to play more senior games 3. Success - consistently losing sides or veterans pushed out of rebuilds Langdon, Lever, May, Ben Brown, almost all our recruits have ticked at least one of those boxes. The only ones who made somewhat sideways moves were Melk and Hibbo due to the coaches relationship with them and the saga.

We also ran and used the ball very well against Brisbane, where as we played on a 5 day break at the Geelong half ground with no space and not much dare. I’d be reluctant to pick him in a final but our midfield really doesn’t need more Dunstan and they’re the only likely options to replace Tracc, which without knowing the full details I still think will be required.

He isn’t, if we’re struggling and they make him try to win and use the ball under pressure. He’s still shaky doing that at Casey But defensively he’s very good and we could use Pickett or Spargo deeper and put Toby in the unrewarded running spot. As poor as he was against Geelong, he was pretty good v Brisbane I think.

I don’t like it for the future but for this year I really think it’s the best we’ve got without Tom McDonald. Jackson gives us much needed energy at the first bounce and we’ve had some high quality centre clearances with him in there. BBB then starts on the bench which immediately cuts down his game plan. Remember that all 3 of Brown, Jackson and Gawn are carrying injuries to some extent and the only alternative or help available is a kid. Gawn and BBB alternating at CHF has allowed us to halve contests and not get intercepted easily at half back. Whilst Melk deep has dragged another tall defender away. Melk and Fritsch have both had plenty of chances to kick winning scores every week since we’ve gone to this change up. Max in the ruck and mobile key forwards certainly the way to go in the future though.

Jackson’s the type of dynamic flair player we need, he’s just super young and carrying an injury. He could be coached to do a lot more as a forward or mid, not to mention how incredible he will be when given a permanent ruck spot. He’s been a dynamic driving force in our wins v Bris and Freo late this year, and in a grand final! If we replace him with Grundy that’s a big step back in getting skill and athleticism in to the list. 2 firsts is an opportunity. But our so called great trading success was going hard for Oliver and moving a pick forward a year for Pickett. Weid was a fail. Jury is still out on the Bowey, Laurie move and on moving up for JVR. In all those deals teams were betting we wouldn’t succeed and we bet on ourselves, which was a lot easier when we had plenty of improvement left. That’s harder now teams won’t bet against us when trading picks. Agree on the need to rejig the list and game plan. Wish we could do it without losing Jacko and/or by bringing in an athletic forward/ruck rather than Grundy.

Key forwards aren’t good, that’s clear as day, but it’s the lack of uncontested kick/mark game and spread that’s our biggest weakness. You can’t just play down one wing at a time. When the time comes to switch and open up the ground you have to use it. Even more so when you lack key forwards. We need the backline fitter and encouraged to run and use the ball. And we need the midfield fitter, faster and more skilled.

Strong argument. Thanks for the contribution

May’s great. When Salem and Lever are playing as elite players it’s an elite backline. This year they’ve both been either absent or ok at best. Petty’s very good but he offers so little in attack despite having the skills and smarts to do so, and whilst he’s good he stills gives us goals most weeks (ie he’s not May). Hibberd, Hunt, Rivers all good contributors but again, they’re ok defensively and not great on the rebound. Defensively as a group it’s been mostly A grade. Offensively C+ at best with no run, no rebound, no corridor attack, no initiative. For most of this year it’s been a very good (but not great) backline protected by a Ross Lyon style game plan. And despite that we still cough up 91 points from 50 inside 50’s last night.

Dunstan or Bedford for Petracca. Not sure which but you can’t take injured players in to finals. We also have to be good enough to win regardless then regain him for the prelim. If we throw him in underdone he’ll be stuffed for the prelim.