DeeSpencer

I'd just show him Gus' set shot and skip all the other hacked kicks.

I suspect he's got a fair bit of work to do on a lot of his game. Probably has to work on his pressure, contested ground balls, tackling etc and it looks like his kicking is hit or miss. But I like the way he makes quick decisions from the mark, drawing opponents to hand off to runners or backing his kicking. And his marking seems very natural. The wing has been a bit of a blindspot for JT, but Howes marking and athleticism both really suit the way the position is played these days. Show him Brayshaw's game in the grand final and train him up to play like that.

The Eagles love loading up on talls. I remember similar disappointment when they took big Bailey Williams. He’s handy, but not big enough to really ruck at AFL level and I’m not sure the athleticism is there to make a quality forward.

Our 5th rounder, it’s back from the dead after we traded our 3rd and 4th

The draft is saying Williams might be more a Pederson or Sellar than a Hawkins. I think we’ll add Woey to the main list, AMW to the cat b and still take another rookie. Be it at the draft or after a summer training session

No idea, but my guess is 36 and the Crows future 3rd For 39 and 43 Then we ended up just doing the second half of that. We swapped 36 and 39 with the Crows during trade week so that was banned. We only planned 3 picks so unless we loved Soligo or the guys who went 37, 38 I can’t imagine we would’ve taken 2 picks there

JT might have to do a Sos/Dodoro and get one of his colleagues to bid for Woey just before our pick so we get the match factor going for him. Otherwise we’ll grab him

Wasn’t for that. it was for swapping picks we’ve already swapped with the crows. Attempt to stop academy bidding nonsense

Did they ban us for being too good? Then we get Howes anyway. Lovely

I expect we'll try trading 38 and 42 for Richmond's pick 30 or something around that mark. Otherwise I'd imagine 42 might be on the market for a future 3rd next year. Many of the picks between 11-20 were spent on guys with speed, endurance and skill. It appears there's still a few left who fit that category.

I genuinely dislike Josh Bruce but he had a great year this year. I actually like that fox picked a semi reasonable comparison for once! If he gives us 2021 Josh Bruce we’d be delighted

Feels strange to draft a tall in the first round who seems low ceiling but high floor. Obviously nothing is guaranteed but with a few years development he could then pitch in for 150 or so games at either end and help maximise our premiership window through the early stage of that. Ticks a lot of the boxes and should settle in well.

Interesting. I thought his next move was more likely to be a college basketball scholarship

MCG is 160 and Docklands is 159.5!

Richmond released the details of Punt Road redevelopment. 30M government funding MCG Sized oval. Womens facilities. Crowd of 8k Value adds - both financial and cultural - with the KGI centre and Houli Foundation. We are a million to one to be allowed crowds unfortunately, at it seems we've settled for a Docklands sized oval. But we have to be fighting for the value adds similar to Richmond. I guess we've got to come up with them first! And we need that sweet sweet government cash.

I don’t really see it with him. Not overly tall. Good but not great athlete. Ok skills but no real stand out attribute. I think he’s more in the Petty, T Mc even young Turner model of player. I’d rather use cheaper options on depth talls and be patient until a May or Ben Brown replacement becomes available.

Didn’t say much. They asked him about the flag. Asked about Taj and he said nothing new. Asked about AMW and got a lukewarm response. On pick 19 he gave little away. But also didn’t deny the group of players Twomey has linked - Howes, Wilmot, Brown and Chesser were likely the ones. My takeaway from it was we can either sit at 19 and wait for probably one of those 4 to come through or we’ll try to trade up to get one of the highest rated ones.

We need taller flanker depth ideally with speed. Our forward depth is either talls, smalls or Melksham. Someone with some height would be handy. Even in the grand final side we had Sparrow and Harmes mostly play half forward and JJ as sub. They’re our first line of midfield cover and a more pure forward flanker to compete or fill in for them would be ideal. Same for the wing and even down back to a lesser extent where the depth is skinny.

Howes seems a great fit for need as well as talent. So if he’s available and JT was honest on the website today about considering needs it makes a lot of sense he’s right in their plans. The half back flankers might be less of a need although we could do with a bit more depth. If Hunt replaces Hibbo after next year the depth is thin. It’s a lot to invest in the backline yet again but I’m still very open to Rivers, Bowey and Salem all being flexible. No reason they can’t play wing, half forward or on ball.

Good point. I still think 17 and then turning 39 in to a future 2nd could work for them. Getting the young tall they need before the Fahey bid and banking a pick. A future first certainly has more upside though.

GWS recruiting manager was fairly cagey, talked up the 4 players they liked and didn’t confirm or deny any bids. My guess is they bid on Darcy, don’t bid on Daicos due to a deal with the Pies and end up taking Callaghan rather than rolling the dice on Mac or Gibcus. I definitely think they’ll put 13 on the table for a future first if the top line talls are gone. Would they consider 13 for 17 and 39 to slide down and take someone in that second group of talls like JVR - maybe.

Ethically tricky but should we gather our 40+ fully vaccinated players and give them all covid so they are super immune and less likely to test positive in season? Losing multiple players a week to positive tests seem entirely possible. Not sure what the AFL’s policy on surveillance testing and contacts will be but I assume it will be aggressive due to the travel required.

I’m still skeptical on Pert and I enjoy a contrarian view so I’m with you. But I must admit promoting Richo seemed to work well. As did hiring their old Collingwood mate in Choco. No idea if Yze was a Richo/Goody/Pert driven move but that’s been a success too. My main worry with Pert has been he’s talked of massive growth of the club, where PJ seemed keen on Melbourne being a highly successful mid sized but well run and efficient club. Jaguar actually plays more to the latter. Especially when the Pies sign up KFC! Keen to see who we have joining us for the future and if the focus can be more on providing members a quality club than attempting Eddie style franchise inflation.

11-20 v 6-10 is an interesting debate but a good question is whether 11-20 go better because they get drafted to good teams. They’d be a way to sort that based on ladder position over a span of years to see if it holds true. There’s been an adjustment on key forwards recently I think. Teams aren’t as smitten with them and don’t feel as desperate to get them. The standouts like the King brothers still go early, maybe not as early as they should, but others have fallen. There’s less blind faith in getting big guys, but their scarcity will still make them super valuable. Positional value is certainly worth considering. One dimensional inside mids (even big body ones) seem to have dropped a lot recently too. Teams have never been all that keen on lock down defenders. And rucks stopped being early picks apart from Jacko a fair while ago. It pays to zag against the trends though. Jackson is proof of that. I think North have found a couple of nice options in Curtis Taylor and Eddie Ford drafting the mid sized half forwards who often fall because teams doubt their usage at AFL level, where half forwards must be defensive workers more than flashy. Then again, North haven’t won many games with those 2 yet! Small forwards have really risen in value and Jason Taylor admitted as such when we took Kozzie. Not only did he think Koz and Weightman were special prospects but he talked about just how valuable pressure smalls are to the modern game.

Callaghan seems close to a lock to the Giants and rightly so. He’s got attributes to play wing or a flank but the Giants have so much talent it’s possible he struggles for early opportunities. So drafting Howes would be an investment in keeping him around. I also think Howes has genuine claims as a first rounder and would be right in the mix for our pick.