DeeSpencer

A little steadying with the hands before the knees go firmly on the numbers which pushes Bowey forward as JJ elevates fairly acutely upwards. That's a great mark. If you want that as a free kick I think you're out to ruin one of the great parts of the game. The first 2 marks in this Robbo highlights video do similar. No way would I want these paid as in the back.

Not sure why you'd be disappointed at Collingwood getting the raw end of the deal, was great umpiring! Rioli had the right to contest with his opponent though in case the ball got over the back and Maynard sold the push out a lot. Wasn't a clear cut block. It's a free kick, but where was Sheed's opponent? As for the JJ mark do you really want that to be a free kick to Bowey? Really? Some contact with his on the back has been allowed for a speccy for years, it's part of what makes the game great. He's simply used his hands for a little balance before a great leap and mark, I'd hate to take that out of the game. I think the umpires should establish the rules during the home and away season, then in finals the best teams will be more disciplined and won't give away as many free kicks to begin with. The Dogs success with the umpires has a lot to do with them being very well coached and their game style. Similarly we were great this year at not giving away dumb free kicks. Then in finals I think it's fair to expect the umpires to pay whatever they see but not to go diving deep in to the rule books for the more 'administrative' free kicks like extra 50m penalties etc. I think there's a balance between protecting players, fairly officiating the game but not having the umpires become too big a part of the contest. Apart from the non mark paid to May late in the 2nd and the Hunter cheating I thought the grand final was umpired really well and with the right balance between paying free kicks that were there and letting the players take centre stage.

I don't think there's any reason for Goody to be dishonest after the fact. Treloar had a great 2nd term, a little bit based on centre clearances and then around their ball movement - of which Daniel is their little general. Coaches rarely put time in to Macrae and I haven't seen anything that suggests we did anything special with him. Our midfield just dominated the game after the turning point and that's what took away Macrae's influence, but the priority against the Dogs midfield is Libba at stoppages and Bont around the ground.

Pretty sure Goodwin has openly talked about how much damage Daniel can do, and that he killed us in round 19 and the preseason game as well. His first quarter didn't hurt us, our pressure was right up and we we're forcing him in to up and under kicks. He absolutely hurt us in the 2nd quarter. Calling for a quick handball in the narrow pocket after a stoppage was a big error though. Overall though I think he's the Dogs 2nd most damaging player who sets up their quick angles kicking game that is how they break down backlines. I suspect after going with Oliver to Bont the next thing on the list for the coaches at half time was getting the game plan right for dealing with Daniel.

In 2019 we traded pick 8 to Freo for pick 10, pick 28 and a future 4th round pick to make sure they could get ahead of academy bids for Liam Henry. It was a very generous deal. We could trade 19 to 20 with Brisbane, in exchange for 54 for 57, not much the AFL could really argue with that. Brisbane get ahead of us to pick the best non Mac player they like, we get Mac and the highest player on our board. Everyone's happy. If Brisbane don't want to do it then we know they want Mac so we take him. Clubs do this kind of stuff all the time with academy bids. Look at Tom Green not being picked by the Crows after they did a 2 for 1 deal with GWS. Anyway, it all relies on Mac getting through to the top 18 picks and that's not going to happen according to those in the know in the recruiting industry.

He'll go top 18, but we'd either take someone else or swap picks with the club at pick 20 in a lopsided deal on the proviso that they didn't take him. Only if they refused to deal that pick 20 and we rated Mac as our highest on our board would we take him. We'd take a player at 19 and make sure we get 2 highly rated players any day of the week rather than worrying about late picks. If we had to match pick 21 for Mac, it costs us about pick 28's value of 677 points. We can do that with 37 and 49, because 37 might be about the same and 49 will be around 40 after the Daicos/Darcy picks are all used up, that's about 900 points. We'd end up matching the bid and getting back a pick in the 50's that along with our other pick in the 50's should easily be fine to match Woey. We'd end up with 2 top 20 picks and Woey which is probably the clubs aim anyway. They won't be able to get up to 20 but I'm expecting the club tries to trade up their picks as is so we end up with 2 highly rated players and Woey. 3 picks in the top 40 odd and Woey as a rookie would be even better but there seems to be enough buzz about him going in the back half of the draft. Upgrading rookies doesn't require picks these days, that's why the AFL stopped listing endless amounts of picks. Players can also spend a 4th year on the rookie list. Chandler and Jordon are fine, there's no issue of them staying on lists.

Fair play to Eddie for taking over the Glasshouse, it was unused and we couldn't get it done. The takeover of Olympic Park after their training oval was used for the AAMI park site and the booting of athletes down to Lakeside is a different story. They didn't want to keep walking to Gosch's and demanded the oval and the long history of athletics at Olympic Park was ended. But it allowed us to use the oval at Gosch's which now has 2 premierships. Maybe it should be called Gary Pert Oval?

It could do with a name change but it functions well as a list for players who don’t get longer contracts and who then go through a redrafting or training process to get back on a list. Whether they’re 19 or 35 doesn’t bother me. The players are all eligible to play every week and anyone delisted then becomes a life time free agent so that works well for them too.

He's a good small forward at Casey level but I think they've missed a trick playing him forward too much rather than giving him the chance to be a midfielder at VFL level and get 30 touches to improve him disposal and be involved in a lot more contests. There's a limit to how good you can look and it's harder to improve playing forward at Casey. He'll do the job for the ream but what's he getting out of it development wise?

Doubt he’ll be responsible for a lot of decision making early at his time at the club. Good to have someone experienced to do the day to day admin stuff whilst Richo is very involved with the coaches. Hopefully he speaks up if we start to massively front load contracts or if a couple of injured players want to raid the mobile phone lock box!

If the price of 27 is any guide we'd have to give up 37, 57 and a future 2nd (which we aren't even allowed to trade having traded our future first). 23 is too expensive I think. Our philosophy has been to trade up aggressively early to try to get decent value before the offers get more and more expensive closer to and then at the draft.

I think they’ll be even more aggressive and look to upgrade any/all of their first three picks up a notch too. Doubt we would be keen but 17 for 27/28 could be an option for us. They’ve shown they are really good at finding handy players in the rookie list and mid season drafts. Much more so than we are. So now they’re trading depth in the aim of finding some elite kids to jar their window back open.

Bradtke was Cat B, so never really counted to the 42 main and rookie A list. The mid season draft players were added to the 42 to replace inactive injured players. So we ended up with 44. 7 of those (5 delistings, 2 retirements) have now gone, with 1 addition. Gets us to the current 38 players with 4 spots.

Rams, Packers, Chiefs

He has a good long kick and is usually very reliable and accurate by hand - we he came from the Crows it was noticeable how clean he was on both hands. One thing I'm hoping for more next year is that the backline trust themselves to put the ball through the hands and run it out more, we have the talent to do it. The mids and forwards are so good at providing bail out options that the defenders often slam it on the boot, which is great to have as the back up especially against fierce pressure, but there's no reason we can't (to borrow a soccer term) play the ball out a bit more.

Still think he's probably weighing up his decision and the club aren't in any rush. But out of all our fringe one year deal players it would make a fair amount of sense to drop Hibbo back to the rookie list rather than a young player who then becomes a free agent for life. Ie. James Jordon last year. That's not something they've done with guys like Jetta and Jones, but it might be a factor.

Is pick 17 too early for Leek Alleer? He just broke Nic Nat's jumping record at the combine and has held his own in the SANFL at 19/20 years old. Intercept defender is far from our biggest need but just like Jackson was doubling up on a strength imagine if we could train this guy up under May and Lever and have an absolute wall down back. And no other team gets him! His game needs rounding out but he's clearly tough going back with the flight and he can just jump clear above his SANFL senior opponents. I'm not worried that he's a year or two older given he's doing this against men.

Not sure about that, I think every club would've taken Walsh and Rowell, where as Daicos is absolutely right there with JHF. If they were both available it would be a really tricky choice. JHF probably gets the edge due to exposed senior form and more x factor. Still, North better man up and bid pick 1 on Daicos.

Pereira is a very common Sri Lankan surname of Portuguese origins. Whispy might know the answer for sure but if he's from the South East of Melbourne that would be my guess.

Doesn't always win a lot of the ball or kick a lot of goals but I reckon Spargo has to be right up there as a player who's always in the right spot. You need someone for an outlet kick from the backline - he'll be there, you need a crumber at the drop of a contest, he'll be there. His pressure is good but he's not the amazing chase down player like Pickett or a crunching tackler, but he'll always be organising a zone and covering off the switch. Has a really good ability to be sagging back in a zone then rush up at a kicker at exactly the right time too.

I would've tried to mirror the Pies set up by switching the oval and rugby field around but after they widen the oval it will be no more than about 120m from car park f. Building on a patch of land surrounded by punt road, the freeway and a freeway off ramp was never viable. There's no way to make that a safe and healthy work environment.

Reading between the lines my thoughts were: 1. Langdon - repeat sprints, ANB gets a mention too, Petracca - explosive power and Jackson were probably his favourite athletes, not a surprise there 2. Goodwin might be a bit of a mad genius with just how much his trains and stresses contact. Personally I think we should keep the baseline of finals footy but see if we can work in a little more skills so we don't have to crash and bash forever. 3. I do wonder if training at this level is sustainable for older players. Jones had a few issues. Hibbo some niggles. May had his hammy late in the season. I think a huge part of our success is not having many old guys. Geelong just couldn't train at this level, I'm sure of that. The trade off is you get years of conditioning at a high level for older guys, plus they get smarter with game running and all sorts of things. Burgo does stress there's a lot of individual programs, so I doubt he flogs the old guys to the same extent as the 23 year old, but might be something to monitor as our best players get older. The other factor is lets not let our list end up like Geelong's so we keep a core of 22-28 year olds who can sustain extreme training. 4. Replacing Burgo will be as much about finding someone who can manage training loads and programs and all those technical aspects as finding someone who can provide belief to the playing group and unity to the high performance staff. The good news is everyone at the club just got a huge injection of belief by showing they can win a flag, but keeping that team work going is really vital too. 5. Burgo noted he had 4 performance analysts under him as well as all the sports scientists, medical, strength coaches etc. Just a hunch but I reckon he played a role in the Jackson selection and also in getting guys like Pickett and Bowey. Not to say Jason Taylor needs a lot of help but recruiting is always a team effort. I might be overly influenced by watching the Recruit back in the day but having Burgo as someone who the recruiters can lean on can't hurt. Jackson's clearly a freak. Pickett's forward pressure and blistering runs where he's involved at half back then bobbing up inside 50 or pressuring 3 guys at once and incredible too and having someone to quantify that athleticism has to be valuable.

Fantastic stuff. Some main takeaways for those who don't get to listen: 1. Raved about the club staff at all levels of the footy department really. Took the job for 3 reasons: Greg Stafford is a close mate, he had an instant bond with Goody, he got someone to rate the lists of potential clubs and Melbourne rated highly. He was effusive in his praise of Goody and clearly less so with his thoughts on Arsenal! 2. His training philosophy is to overload by training hard through summer, don't go soft based on niggles or player wellness scores, push hard through that period and then back off once games start. Players will be far more resilient through training hard than easing through summer. 3. He wasn't at all critical of the state the players were in and went out of his way to say Misson had set up a professional system. Surgeries in 2019 clearly impacted how much training the group had done in to that year. Training philosophy and the Saturday hill sessions sound like the biggest change ups more than having to completely set up a program. Job openings for 2020 let him interview then hire some great people including his 2IC Phil Merriman who got poached by Freo. Covid forced a couple of redundancies and big pay cuts. It also allowed them to fill vacancies in 2021 with people who were on board with the heavy training model. Sidenote: Brukner down plays his involvement here but his role as a consulting doctor has no doubt being very helpful. I don't think they were always utilising the best doctors and surgeons. To be training at AAMI park and not using someone from Olympic Park Sports med - the founding fathers of sports med in this country - didn't make any sense. A fully qualified sports physician with the access to the institutional knowledge working there and the contacts Brukner has makes a lot more sense. Brukner coming back on board and whether the was with Burgo or for Burgo, is a huge win. 4. Injuries: no doubt very lucky, but they had some over summer and they had a number of contact injuries during the season from training hard - hand, wrist, broken eye sockets etc. Plus a few hamstrings over summer gave them concern but they stuck by their method. 5. 2020 they expected to have a fitness advantage that they lost due to the break (and no doubt shorter quarters). Was mostly thinking they were going in the right direction. Tracc met with him in London before he started and had a great 2020, then other players lifted this year. Gawny did 100%, as did Fritsch. 6. The 3rd quarter blitz he explains by a fresh ruckman rotating on with midfielders who were also reasonably fresh, then a bit of momentum building confidence then fantastic execution. Notes the Dogs were a dominant first half side often overwhelming opposition early. And that the Dogs had traveled. They had the better structure of games playing 3 tight games before a week off, but as mentioned above the Dees trained hard through the breaks and made sure the match simulation main game replacement training sessions were as close as possible to game loads.

1. Overload in summer. The players did sessions longer than game loads. 2. Relax in season, how much isn't specified, clearly they trained hard in season but naturally not as hard as summer 3. Full contact training that resembles game day stuff, including the main session in grand final week 4. Full main sessions in bye weeks that equaled match day loads to the best practical possibilities. Wasn't any mention that I caught of how much they did or didn't taper training loads through the season. I'm inclined to think they probably adjusted training based on how long the break was, how heavy the games were and things like that more than some special taper. When you play week in week out and train hard I think the notion of a huge taper doesn't make as much sense in modern AFL footy as it might for an Olympic swimmer or back in the Blight Crows days of the 90's.

I think the Hawks are on to a winner if they manage to get it all inclusive and can make money from the function centre, medical centre, host their own aflw games, sublet the community facilities and so on. Being full time in a community helps with members and supporters too. Nothing compares to the right staff and players, but if you’re making money and it’s got a community feel you’re far more likely to succeed than the big white elephant type projects.