DeeSpencer

They don't have to do it alone. Petracca should spend more time forward next year and when the games demand it he should be the match up inside 50 like he was against the Saints. Fritsch will be there as a goal kicker. And there's room for a 4th marking option (tall or medium) as long as they contribute in other ways - a Petty, Melksham, Hunt or Harmes. Even get creative and put Kozzie at full forward and kick it over the top or out to space. Jackson should ruck more when the match up presents and allow Gawn to play more forward. If we're having days where a team drops back and clogs the 50m arc there's no better solution than a 208cm monster who rarely gets out marked. No individual draft pick - especially one in the mid 20's is a sure thing, but we have to keep having tickets in the lottery that is the draft each year. We went a few years loading up at top end picks but missing on late ones and just not taking enough in the top 40 or so and we've created a hole in the list. Same kind of thinking for the salary. It's incredibly expensive to bring star players in and even just to hold on to your own stars. Brown shouldn't be one of those super expensive deals, but he takes up enough cash to restrict you from even having the opportunity.

There's not a coach in the AFL that can make that combination work whilst maintaining the defensive pressure and work rate required to support a backline. Richmond have flirted with playing Mabior Chol alongside their 2 key forwards but he just gets in the way and Lynch and Riewoldt are both solid at ground level, whenever they play 2 rucks they sit one on the bench the entire game. They don't even play Josh Caddy who would make a very nice 3rd tall goal kicker, they are happy to move Dusty forward when needed. Brisbane play 2 rucks and 2 talls but both of their key forwards are incredibly mobile and very sound defensively (they just aren't good enough at being key forwards). Geelong I'm sure would love to play Esava or Jenkins instead of Gary Rohan or one of their midgets and let Dangerfield play more midfield time that he has been in these finals. But they don't because they can get enough out of Stanley when he's not rucking and don't want to crowd their forward line or lose anything defensively. Port play 2 rucks and 2 key forwards. Dixon is a great tackler when he's healthy and Todd Marshall is an incredible athlete but really he's just 198cm of flanker. No doubt they'd love to have Georgiades in their best 22 but they know until he increases his defensive work they are better off without him. West Coast are the one team that routinely plays 3 key forwards but Josh Kennedy would run laps around Ben Brown, Darling is in another league than Weideman as a half forward and defensive player and Oscar Allen compares favourably to Jacko as a ground level forward.

Want to bet? Jackson's going to play, he'll back up ruck and he's too talented not to contribute forward. Goodwin's been talking for years about trying 3 big forwards and every time he tries it for a week or two he goes straight back to playing smaller and even at times this year just playing the 1 tall target.

There's not another successful side in the comp that plays 2 big key forwards who don't defend and don't get up the ground. Every coach worth their salt values defensive pressure in the forward line, it's the only way to stop other teams ball movement and create forward half scoring chances. Jackson shouldn't be overplayed but he's ready to play. He's not a skinny kid (he's already 95kg) and he already has a great tank. With longer quarters he'll have to ruck more next year too. Neither Brown or Weid ruck, nor would we want them too. I wasn't talking about key forwards either, let's draft another Rivers. There's only so far any coaching can take a midfield full of thumpers. We need variety. Geelong have Mitch Duncan. Richmond have Edwards or Bolton. We need a guy to get the handballs from our inside mids.

We have limited picks and limited salary cap space, I don’t think we can’t just use them on marginal upgrades. Bringing Brown in will cost us Weideman’s spot in the side, a 2nd round pick and I’d imagine 600k or so. If we avoid Brown we could keep Weid, draft a 10 year player to add to the team and have salary cap space to make a serious play at Merrett or Kelly - the missing pieces of the midfield puzzle.

I think if we bring Brown in we’ll stuff around trying to play 3 talls and then eventually settle on one of Brown or Weid and won’t be significantly better. There’s so many other positions to improve and if we invest in hard running skillful players the goals will come.

Still a hard no for me. Will provide a momentary short term boost that will stall the development of the other tall targets and cost us an asset that we need to improve the skilled runners and strong defenders that influence the game far more than one trick forwards.

You're stuck in the 90's or 80's or 70's or whatever. Yes, key forwards do have to kick goals. But anything more than 2 goals a game per average this year is as good as it gets. Even last year in full game length 2.5 goals is a great result. No one is averaging 5 goals a game and kicking 100 goals. So what you do for 100 minutes (or 80) has to be more important than the 2 times it goes right and you nail a goal. That mostly means getting to the right spots and contesting in the air so the defenders don't mark then staying involved at ground level. Lynch and Riewoldt combined for 2 goals in a winning prelim. Hawkins kicked 2. Big numbers of goals rarely happen in finals.

I'd imagine he hates the lifestyle and is willing to part with several million dollars over the rest of his career to live a more normal lifestyle in terms of public scrutiny. I feel for him because he's not making the choices of a well adjusted rational person.

Petracca needed a huge summer to really get his body right. I don’t know if Hunt has much improvement to make physically, he’s a quick twitch athlete that probably won’t ever have a huge tank. It’s not like he’s a terrible endurance runner either. For Hunt I guess it’s working incredibly hard to really nail his skills. The promising thing about Hunt’s last game was he balanced up and slotted a couple of very nice goals. His best games at half back were mostly bomb it 60 or shank the kick. If balancing up before he kicks is a sign of skill development then he might start adding other skills too.

I think he’s worth keeping but the faults in his game keep him out of the side for a reason. Goals and disposals are going to wax and wane for a half forward, pressure is where you have to make your mark consistently. And for all his pace Hunt is an ineffective pressure player. Whether that’s lack of tank, lack of smarts, poor lateral movement or poor tackling I don’t know. If he can fix his defensive pressure he’s good enough on the lead and dangerous with his pace so he’ll always offer something in attack.

Lockett and Coventry combined would’ve struggled to kick a goal in Cairns. On both occasions Weid had to come up the ground because Preuss and Brown weren’t contesting well. Neither was Sam, but the delivery was all at sea and his legs had clearly had enough. I really believe he’s ready to be the man now and we should back him in. He’s shown he has the hands to clunk marks, his legs and core strength are coming in.

I don’t think Tom Hawkins has ever kicked a goal in a situation like that in the last 5 years. The best players know bringing team mates in to the game is worth more than stats. Key forwards shouldn’t pass off set shots unless someone is wide open, their job is to nail them. It’s actually selfish not to take responsibility. But running in to open goal the ball should be shared.

Any kind of compensation or trade value isn’t true free agency though. You’re subjecting players movement to outside forces. Its why there should just be restricted free agency and unrestricted free agency. The Giants will match and force a trade for a restricted free agent in Cameron. They won’t match and force a trade for someone like Aiden Corr who they accept will move on and save them salary cap space. If your best players are always restricted free agents (at least until they’ve given 8-10 years of service) there won’t be any concern about losing them for anything but a fair trade. Everyone will adjust

Isn't there still the rule that you can pay 95% for 2 years and then pay 105% for a year? Salary banking. Plus front loading contracts. If you load on all your long term deals over a period of time you'll then create space. I believe Carlton have done both of the above and hence have opened up room for potentially 3 high paid spots.

But the work doesn't move (apart from this year) and whilst players may sign a centralised contract they represent one club at a time. If clubs were to routinely relocate based on where their revenue or where the work was then players would have to follow, but that's not what happens. The draft, salary cap and list spots divide the available positions. If clubs want to allocate a chunk of the cap to a guy who's served a long period I'm fine with that. Just design a system where the club losing a player can use the cap space they've found themselves with to fill the vacancy. No it wouldn't. Rugby League has no draft and guys can sign a contract mid season for some silly reason and the well run teams are consistently good, whilst the poorly run teams struggle. Yes it's easier to be a wealthier club but there's plenty of movement in the ladder. Gold Coast lost Lynch, but boosted their midfield with Brandon Ellis and Hugh Greenwood. It took them a year and they had to a pay a small draft pick for Greenwood. If there's a whole bunch of players available every year then clubs can go and fill holes immediately. The biggest concern is the Northern states sides but Brisbane and the Suns have been able to attract a lot of players since they became competent clubs. Sydney never struggles to recruit. GWS have never had to trade in players before, but at some stage they might stop complaining and work out that anonymity and the perhaps best city in the world to be young, attractive and have a good income is a decent selling point. My point was you aren't free to move if you have a special tax applied on that movement.

It makes them 25% more expensive to move tho. Which limits their choices. If your boss said you’re going to cost 25% more and you won’t get the money then a lot of people would be fired or quit! If you gave them a cap discount for staying they’d at least get the extra cash. That’s worth considering. But I don’t think we have a problem with too many players leaving, we have a problem with the design of the system.

No it doesn’t, it’s an arbitrary barrier. Melbourne of 2018 shouldn’t have had restrictions the same as Richmond. It has to be the same system for everyone. Without free agency coming in there would’ve been a court case at some stage and the players would’ve won. Trading for Uncontracted players just doesn’t make any sense. How can you have trade value without a contract? Hawthorn lost Buddy but got Frawley. Net losers. Cats got Danger for cheap but so far that’s about it. Richmond have been the biggest winners getting Lynch for free but they’ve also got draft picks for players leaving. Allow their mid tier players to leave for free too and they would’ve lost a bunch of them.

Then it would be taxed agency, not free agency

No the initial contracts should be expanded to up to 4 years. Draftees should do their time just like Uni students, apprentices, young doctors or people joining the army. But once you’ve done your service to the league you should have the right to play where you want to play. The key is proper restricted free agency that make it so clubs can match, trade or let guys go.

The choice to pick your employer is almost a human right, the AFL did very well to get the restrictions they have in place. Top 4 bans and stuff like that are nonsense. Would never happen. The issue is the initial free agency was meant to be a stop gap solution for a proper expanded system and its never happened. Expand restricted free agency back to 5-6 (or even 4) years and then unrestricted free agency after that and the salary cap would be more of an equaliser. GWS will match and force a trade I’m fairly certain. But if they didn’t match and just signed Cameron then other teams should be able to swoop in and poach a lot of Geelong’s lesser players and hammer their depth. As it stands teams don’t want to do that because they have to give up draft picks.

It's pretty much all pressure and ability to withstand and move the ball through pressure. Geelong and Richmond both have huge work rates that allow them to always have pressure on whilst not allowing space out the back. We made some decent progress there this season. Port press too high, Brisbane are just not there yet, although both sides are very good. So get rid of blokes who can't or don't run. Get rid of blokes who aren't sure in their abilities to win or halve contest - you don't always have to win the ball in every circumstance but you can't lose them. Then work out a system that organises your players to attack based on a scheme or philosophy. Richmond just handball and kick forward and swarm. Simple (in attack) but devastatingly effective. They always have numbers on the outside pressuring in so any opposition turnover becomes Geelong's defenders spread and their midfield has a huge work rate and ability to create space for short kicks. Players lead and replace in a pattern that looks far more like soccer than footy. Their backline aren't amazing kicks but the work rate and discipline is so good that everything flows. The biggest challenge for us is to decide how much we want to be a kicking v handballing side, and how direct we want to play, and then proving our midfield group has the fitness, skills and discipline to pull it off. Richmond and Geelong play like well oiled machines largely unbothered by the opposition. We might have the talent but it's hard to believe we have the discipline or the coaching to instill that discipline.

Thank god we didn't ruin Neale's career. We recruited the best young player from Kybybolite and stuffed his career, we didn't need to do it to the second best young player from there too.

He needs time but he's got a future as a ruck/forward I think. He'd be a very nice partner for Jackson when he's the primary ruck. But I don't think we should spend the resources on a player like that whilst Gawn is the number 1 ruck and Jackson is the support man. Hit the draft and find the next Esava now so he's ready to go in a few years. GWS really should grab him in the Cameron trade. He'd pair nicely with Preuss.

He's a ruck forward who would pair really well with Jackson, but it might be too early to put too many eggs in to the life after Gawn basket. I'm not sure you want him in the team if he's not rucking. The way the Saints used 2 mobile rucks both capable of playing forward is how I'd like use Jackson and a player like Esava in the future. The Cats actually do similar with Stanley and Blicavs now.