DeeSpencer

The media (with plenty of help from people I won’t name) have just spent 5 years tearing Goodwin to shreds. Doesn’t matter that he’s a good coach. Meanwhile Buckley is a superstar name and strong media performer who can market Tassie (including staying on Fox for at least another year), that trumps his mostly mediocre coaching record

Spot on! Hoping like hell someone on our panel has the sense to go for the best candidate rather than fall for Buckley’s media campaign. Jobe Watson save us please.

Doesn’t sound like it was a special announcement from the people who were there.

Morris’ latest tweet makes it sound like Jack requested a mutual separation so possibly the club respected that wish and didn’t put him in the tweet. Included him in the B+F speech and graphic by mistake and then now have to work out phrase it. Honestly every delisted player should do the same ‘you can’t break up with me, I broke up with you first’!

Amiss has as much presence as Fritsch tho, he’s a lead mark player in a cumbersome big body. He might get it together, but it wouldn’t shock me if he ends up just a meh player on a lot of cash. Pies are apparently chasing Jack Buller. I reckon he offers about as much as Amiss for a far cheaper price. If we cheap playable upgrade I’d get him, but it kind of depends how much we want to turn the forward line over to the young guys.

Monday at their exit meetings? Obviously a couple still in limbo waiting on the coach and trade period.

I can tell you 2 people who wouldn’t be open to that, the Hawks and Dogs list managers. Even in this terrible draft I doubt we get anything inside 30 for Lever. Meanwhile a top 10 pick for Tracc seems generous yet alone throwing in Lewis

That would be a great result, we’d get one of 4 quality assistants

I do get the feeling the Hawks are all over Merrett and might only turn an eye to Tracc as a consolation prize. I'm struggling to see who else in the top 10 teams would really bother making an aggressive move for Tracc. And then Clarry has even less value. Even if we massively discount their contracts and have them available it won't be for great picks.

Or we can take our time and hire the best coach. Buckley isn’t bringing us any big fish this trade period. How about our list management team do the list management and we hire a potentially great coach not a mediocre one.

He’s a free agent. We should offer a contract that sees us get at least 3rd round compo if another team offers him the same deal.

Probably won the award for best Casey player and so they avoided a delisting announcement before the award announcement. The players are told at exit interviews. Not like they’re chopped via tweet.

We had one game after the first 5 rounds that we weren’t at least a decent winning chance at some stage. The penultimate round against Hawthorn. The idea that we’re flat out effortless isn’t true. There’s a couple of players who were unpredictable and the skills were poor, but there’s a lot to work with if we get our list management and coaching right.

It seems based on the trade period. Making sure we’ve got time for a new coach to make decisions on who to trade out and confidence to sell potential recruits. Which is entirely reasonable, we’ve got some huge decisions, but if the best person for the job is coaching in prelims and the grand final we need to give them space to do that.

Perhaps Kelly fits that bill. The others are experienced assistants who are highly rated. King, Lade, Skipworth, Gia risk getting the bridesmaid tag if they apply and don’t get the gig. Hence Skipworth bailing The only thing I dislike is why the public prelim deadline? If we do go with King or Kelly they get put in a terrible place if it’s fully confirmed days before they have to coach a prelim and then a GF. The logical thing to do in that scenario is to soft appoint one of them but hold the offical announcement and press conferences until the Monday after the grand final.

Heath’s 22, very few rucks are ready for full time action until 24, by which time Campbell will be gone and Max might be on his last legs, it’s the perfect time to get someone over who’s not quite ready to be a number 1. They’ll have to manage the VFL minutes better than they have with Verrall. But Verrall wasn’t good enough to demand them.

Sestan had afl skills but clearly they made a determination he wasn’t going to get to the athletic level required. Woey, Billings, Henderson potentially waiting on the coach and other list decisions?

I don’t think that’s true of 2025 vs 2021 ANB, and it wasn’t true early in the game against Coll when he turned it over 3 times in a row. But largely it’s undoubtedly true of ANB this year compared with 22-24 and it’s clear to me that Adelaide’s confidence in their forwards and also quality spacing of hard running mids and flankers makes decision making easier. And that’s 2 things we’ve missed since 2021. Decision making and disposal get seen as individual attributes but we need a coach who (without sacrificing flair) can drill a team so they become a team responsibility. They don’t have many poor kicks but Miers might be the only special kick at the Cats, they excel at moving the ball because they get in great spots to receive it.

The only thing we can really control is who goes out. Tracc, Lever, one of Oliver and Viney. May if anyone wants him. Hopefully get some picks and big chunk of cap space. If I really had to land a key forward I’d plan a year ahead. Mihocek no longer interests me nor does overpaying for Mitch Lewis. So the target should be guys out of contract 2026. Caleb Lewis is a Casey player who went up to the suns mid year and did very well. I’d offer him more cash than he’s worth for next year, in the hope that the Suns match it. Just a little dint in the Suns armour. Then for Plan A: I’d offer Ben King and Jed Walter a stack of cash knowing the Suns could only keep 1 of them. Plan B. Jordan Croft, write your own cheque. Knowing Dogs are committed to Naughton and Darcy. Plan C: I can’t quit Ollie Lord just yet. I think there’s a very good player in there. I’d hope to land one of those 4 next offseason

The Tim Lamb special

A nice addition to Casey but Bonner hasn’t stood up in attack or defense for a few years now. I doubt that changed at Casey. That’s the right level for him.

Billings isn’t getting any quicker or less nervy in front of goal tho. 2 issues that make him not at all useful in any forward role. We’ve got enough midfield/wing options. If we can actually get Henderson healthy and covering the ground for a big preseason he did show the right attributes for that high half forward role that’s very hard to fill. There’s a young guy at Geelong VFL- Tobyn Murray - getting buzz about his running but generally it’s so hard to find them.

He looked pretty decent at AFL level given how quickly he was thrown in to a bad side. Then his form kind of tailed off at Casey, possibly indicating he was battling injury. He's a high half forward/mid, goal kicking isn't a huge part of the role. He was identified as the best state league player and didn't really get a big chance to prove that one way or another. At this stage I'd imagine we'll have more list spots that we can fill with useful draft picks or trades, so we'd only be replacing him with another late rookie or mature ager.

Already rumours of Hore retiring. I suspect we won't wait on a coach for Fullarton and Billings. But we might wait for the B+F. Which leaves Woey, Brown, Sestan, Henderson, Verrall. Plus Spargo, Judd OOC. I've heard rumours of a Henderson extension, I suspect we keep him if Spargo goes. Brown and Sestan would be the 2 that I'd wait and see with a new coach.

Bucks wants the job, he wouldn't have stayed in this long if he didn't. But he's now squaring off with the best assistants in the league especially those from Collingwood and Geelong who have spent 60 or so hours a week for the last 4 years on the cutting edge of innovation. Meanwhile Bucks has been mucking around on Best On Ground and getting Whateley brained on SEN. He has the advantage of experience but it's hard to know just what that provides us. His media profile likely helps us little, if anything we would do well to be decidedly out of the spotlight for a while, even if that hurts the financial bottom line. That's far more valuable to Tassie than us. All in all, the leaking of apparent lack of interest to me just sounds like a guy making sure he's saving face for the strong likelihood we hire one of the assistants instead.