DeeSpencer

Gowers is delisted and Dale is the only pure forward there and he’s out of favour. With Cavarra a pressure type. Hannan’s either handy depth or allows them to move Richards to the backline, wing or on ball. Richards is very talented but ordinary as a forward Smith (wing/back) and Duryea (back) are the kind of depth who would be handy for us. Although not as handy as the top dogs in those roles.

No club is going to go in to a draft with less than 4 list spots tho. You need 3 minimum and it's pretty easy to find the 4th worst player on your list and re-rookie them. Forget 65 it has no real value, so 11, 29 and 47 for pick 1. It's an absolute dream. We gave that up for pick 8 last year!

Both us and Brisbane did a nice job inflating Elliot's price last year. Probably not to 600k but certainly wouldn't be cheap. They have a really deep list of mature players, it's not all mismanagement. But they've been borrowing from the future years to get under the cap and that's a nasty cycle. I've always been dubious of Phillips' skill but he had a huge ball winning season, somewhat inflated by the Magpies game plan that sees wingers push back hard and then sit deep for slow easy kicks. There's no doubt he deserved a decent contract. But if it was right after his peak year and also involved backending to get under the cap that's how you get to such a big number.

There's no way North are giving up Ben Brown for less than Preuss. Well not right now anyway. I hope this gets done with 30 seconds to go in the trade period. Because it will show Mahoney put it all on the line. We've got nothing else to do of any importance. What's the rush?

I have to say I was wrong on this one. I thought a pick upgrade in to the 40's was about the best we could do. Pick 31 will blow out possibly even until 40+ come draft night and GWS have no use for later picks really, so we might've been helped there, but it's still more than I thought was worth.

Spot on. It’s really only worth that much for teams who need to use points like the Dogs. Any other team trying to trade up in the order always has to pay a premium. Teams have (foolishly) traded picks like that for pick 21 on draft night. The maths they used to determine pick values doesn’t factor in a lot of variables IMO. Without even getting too abstract pick 12 will slide 1 spot due to academy bids whilst 26+33 will slide multiple spots as well. That said, it’s still to much for Brown imo. We’ve got the upper hand here, no reason not to push

Essendon and Collingwood are the big logjams. I expect Essendon will eventually get moving. Carlton's offer for Saad is fair, the bombers just don't want to take it and want to maximise it. Same with Fantasia. Once that goes they can up their offer on Caldwell and then get serious on Dunkley. Someone's going to take at least 1 of those Pies players I reckon. But there's no rush to help the Pies out, the longer everyone waits the bigger the fire sale.

I can’t see any path to it being a great success that gives us an advantage. If I had to set up a game plan to make it work: Jackson - wing McDonald - forward/ruck Weid - full forward Brown - CHF - big tank and nice kick stagger those 3 to only have 2 on at any stage

If the club had offered Tom anything less than 4 years at 700k I'd imagine he would've asked for a trade back then. So at the same time as we were rightly getting Hogan out of the club we would've been left without any proven key forward options. I can't remember anyone on here saying we should've done that. It's just a reality that guys lose form and fitness and now that the contract numbers are so high it looks bad. I don't think it's a matter of 100 or 200k, I think it might be up to 350k we need to pay of Tom's wage per year and that's fine by me. 550k is apparently what we have offered Ben Brown. A player we still think is good and want to bring in. Tom's value is far less than that. Any team bringing him in is doing so for insurance depth or experience with the possibility of trying him in different roles. Mitch Brown - the quicker we walk away from that cat the better. Got dropped twice and played 1 decent game chasing chest marks on the wing. Complete waste of a list spot the moment we bring in Ben Brown.

Are the Saints desperately looking for speed and X factor? They bought in Hill and Butler last year to go with Billings, Gresham and co but this year they’ve recruited Brad Crouch to thicken the soup. They might be stuck with Lonie and Kent. Clearly they have interest in Higgins but speed is just a part of his game to go with class They might’ve decided Butler, Kent and Lonie/Higgins is enough. Can we say the same about Pickett, Spargo and Bedford or are we better off to keep searching?

I don't agree with the first part. Saad does more defensively and his pace is a weapon. Agree with the second to an extent. Yes and no. Line breaking is a gamble that often doesn't pay off if you just run in to trouble. Houli when fit and healthy is the best at quickly breaking a line but still hitting a short pass rather than the big long run. That's what I want to see from Salem and he's not far off it. Burst run in to hit up. We lack at least one penetrating kicker from the backline. May can do it. Hore's one to watch with his boot which is sometimes shaky but has upside. Rivers hopefully. Salem can do the short hit up corridor kicks but these days it's the big 60m diagonal switch or 45m dart that unlocks gaps as much as any.

Have you seen him play recently? Could be the worst footballer in the AFL. Genuine space cadet.

We have them for top end midfield talent, but need to get more from that advantage. Their backline is clearly superior. May's the best defender of the group and Salem is up there but Wilkie, Clark, Carlisle, Howard, Paton, Coffield, Long are way better than our 3-7th defenders. They have 7 competent AFL defenders with a 2 talls, 2 mediums, 3 good smalls balance. Our best 7 defenders features probably 3 question marks. The forward line could be a similar tale where Ben Brown might be the most accomplished but Butler, King, Membrey et al form a far more consistent group. We need a little internal development to catch up and then we probably need a year adding a few pieces. I get the feeling we probably know that but we want to spend a year getting the cap in order and the coaching right before we try to fill holes.

We aren’t going to get anything based on location. Although if we use what is currently a car park we aren’t detracting from the Olympic park/Goschs’ area. We have to make a case based on what the facility will do. Richmond have their Indigenous centre. Other clubs have promised use by paralympians. Ideally we need some sort of venture that both makes money - because we’ll be putting a stack of cash in to this - and is a good social cause.

Home sickness is a real thing, I don't want to diminish it. But I think this bloke just wants to pick and choose and do things on his own terms which isn't really a team mentality. And to be fairer too him he's also talking to Irish reporters about a move in a few years time. He's not planning to fly back over here in June. So the time to assess it is in the future not now.

Has a bit of height and aerial ability that makes him more like Hannan and separates him from the small smalls we've got. Wouldn't be rushing to sign him but he's not the worst. The Saints are loading up with midfielders and probably trying to get Billings and Gresham through the forward line more. Maybe with Jack Higgins too. With or without Lonie. That puts a squeeze on their list spots.

https://www.afl.com.au/news/202143/future-trading-given-goahead-but-with-restrictions

To trade a future first you have to possess a future 2nd, 3rd and 4th. We are now light on for a future 3rd. But there's plenty of opportunities to get it back. Could be the Preuss trade for instance. I'm a bit of a skeptic on Mahoney's plan to get deals done early to then be in a position to evaluate later in trade period. But these are probably the deals best done early so there isn't any snags when it comes to making more important deals. I don't think we'll be trading our future first though. It's likely too big a risk to take it out of a clean draft and try to move up in to this mess of a draft.

Frost, 42 (very little difference with 50), 61 (no value) and a future fourth-round FOR 50 and Hawthorn's future second-round selection (23) We then spent a future second and redeemed a future 4th with Langdon. Which allowed us to do the Pickett trade and keep a 2nd, 3rd and 4th this year. So we aren’t trying to get more picks, at this stage we are just trying to get better picks. A core part of Mahoney’s job is to try to get players in whilst still giving Jason Taylor something useful to work with at the draft. I think that’s worth bothering with.

We can't trade our future first now (not that we should) until we get a future 3rd back, but we've got Preuss and Hannan maybe others who could make that happen. It's a bit early to know where the academy matching bid picks will fall. There's a chance a number of picks between 43-53 get sucked up and the picks end up nearly identical and we look stupid. But I'd suggest this is part of a bigger deal to get up the order early. So whilst I generally think trading up is a silly idea that chips away a draft capital without much gain I'll wait and see what else we can do with this pick 43. One thing our move last year indicated was if you're going to trade up you're best to do it aggressively and early rather than on or near the draft night when clubs fall in love with players and pay big overs.

2-7 make sense. We’d be mad to knock back any decent deal for Brayshaw. The only case to keep him is if Oliver goes next year and if that happens were in trouble anyway.

Played a ripping game against Grundy earlier in the year, then faded. Struggles for consistency and staying healthy but otherwise is solid enough as a back up. We could take more of a chance on someone with more versatility but if we want a cheap back up ruck he fits the bill

Remember when Hawthorn were actually good and Clarko had a rule 'if you can't kick, you can't play'. Doesn't seem to apply any more

Good tagger. Kicks like he doesn’t know which foot he uses. Not sure we’d be adding another inside mid.