DeeSpencer

Preuss and ANB are contracted, if the club wanted to keep them all they would have to say to anyone interested is it's not happening unless you offer us huge overs. Who knows what T Mc wants, but there's been enough smoke there to suggest the club would be keen on finding him a new home, they can't just boot him and his contract out the door. Crazier things have happened than the club stumping up for 2 years for Hannan if we wanted him. I'm not sure aggression is a huge factor to decide if we turn over 8 or 12 of the guys rated 20-40 on the list. Contracts, who's available for free, strength of the draft etc matters more. The aggressive moves involve trading in or out anyone who gets a game every week.

It's usually more about the salary cap isn't it? Delist him and the pay out has to go in this years cap. Keeping him on the list a portion of it can go in to next years. Plus he can go on the non active list and be replaced by a rookie over summer that doesn't go against the cap.

No exposed form for this year and only NEAFL form before that but Wooler might be worth looking at as key forward depth if we need some. Good endurance runner and neat skills, maybe not the quickest or most explosive but could be useful across half forward. Mitch Hinge a good size left footed half back flanker who still doesn't have a deal for the Lions and obviously is stuck behind some good players in Brisbane's backline. Could be worth grabbing

There’s no incentive to put your hand up if it’s clear there won’t be elections. The board reviews themselves and decides who to add, so they better be making good self evaluations. Richmond copped a lot of grief for the group of guys who tried a takeover in 2016. The sitting board crushed them but the whole club rallied together. The challenges did strongly propose Balmey take over the footy department and that was a big success. I don’t think we need a takeover, but even if these are the only 2 names on the ballot let us vote for them. Make the club a club. The process alone will make more people engage with the club.

I can’t get passed the paywall but if it’s about the Geelong Falcons it’s clear the Cats have a wonderful advantage. I’ve often thought a club like the Saints should’ve been super bold and moved to Frankston (with a stadium and not Seaford) and set up as the Mornington Peninsula team with guys like Nath Jones, Weitering, Hunter Clark, Hibberd, Tom Lynch etc. Footballers get married and have kids earlier than most people these days. They can’t go clubbing. They settle down. Regional life and family is a huge appeal.

Good. Hopefully he puts a couple of players who played like him in the midfield mix. Ie. Players who can receive handballs and kick

Skillset is important but surely culture is more important. The AFL thinks boards should fill their own vacancies and avoid drama. Personally I wouldn’t mind an election every now and then to actual get a competition of ideas. Maybe even some every day folk who give voice to the fans. They won’t win the board seat but they might give the directors a taste of what members value

I feel for Plapp, I liked him. Did a good job at Casey, did the best he could with our non stoppage mid game and I thought he improved the forwards a lot this year. Just a young bunch of forwards with an inconsistent midfield made it hard for consistent results. The midfield coach had to change. Whether that’s shuffling the existing coaches or bringing someone new. We waste Gawn. We’re lazy to set up. Players crowd the footy. There’s no creative handballing. Oliver’s refused to use his legs and plays hot potato with 1m nothing handballs. Joel Corey I believe is out at the dogs. He was the dogs stoppages coach and they are brilliant with how they use the ball. And an unselfish player (as was Matthews) who dealt with a lot of prima-donnas at Geelong

The Tom and Sam combination rolled us in to finals - beating top 8 sides for the first time all season - and then winning 2 finals, and the pressure was too much? Inadequate depth I'll grant you - because we kept battlers like Keilty and the very unlucky Tim Smith on the list rather than drafting and developing depth. Poor medical management for sure - no forwards would've done anything with that midfield in 2019 being so underdone. Awful coaching - the lack of run and skill in our side meant we had no game plan besides plan A, which also is overly physical and not an encouraging way to play. But apart from the fact we manage to make players worse over summer all the time those guys were ready to be the guys with the right team around them. Weideman is even more ready now and showed it this year. Tom has managed to completely break his own body, spirit and confidence and so should be replaced. Brown would give us depth, but not the kind of cheap, young, hungry and developing depth we need across all positions that you get by taking the right draft picks and the right mature age or delisted pick ups.

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.