DeeSpencer

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.

Hannan’s not worth that and the pick scale always undersells the value of first round picks. We’ll have to add more to get that deal done

What were the club thinking giving a 26 year old key forward who just kicked 50 goals after a very good ruck/forward year a 4 year deal? Should’ve just had him year to year. Maybe even made him pay subs. Same for Harmes. 24 years old. Best 22 for 3 years. Can play a variety of roles. Silly giving him a 5 year deal through his entire prime and likely getting a discount for it. Should’ve paid him far more money for 2 years and risked losing him in free agency, that would’ve been a much smarter move.

Should we take a stab at him?

The way his form has gone we might be better off keeping him for 2021 then paying him to retire in 2022. It’s hard to see a club taking a chance on him for anything more than the minimum

And it cost us drafting Rowan Marshall and Ladhams, so hopefully we won’t make that mistake again

I doubt it, I think we'd want someone cheaper, with a bit more appetite for the ruck and probably younger (which goes against McKernan)

Purely guessing: Nathan Vardy (likely stays at Eagles if Hickey goes to the Swans) Max Lynch - out of contract Collingwood ruck Sam Hayes - 3rd in line to ruck at Port Callum Coleman-Jones - Tigers could dump him for poor behaviour Majak Wylie Buzza - delisted by the Pies

I'd say that this part of his job would have to come in as footy department work. Although how the AFLW and VFL/W work applies to AFL cap I wouldn't know. Where as this part might not be So there could be something too that but overall I think it's moving Mahoney sideways to get a more experienced football person making strategy decisions. But not a more experienced person in the role. Perhaps the best we could do given the circumstances.

141 afl goals. I’m guessing that’s probably in the top 8 for most goals from all forwards coaches.

We identified a player who brings on and off field skills and had worked with our incoming midfield coach, that’s not the same as saying we desperately needed outside run. Improving coaching and team work will be the biggest improvements we can make. After that we need to add good players at the right price rather than paying up for short term additions

I wonder which other ruck/forwards apart from McKernan they are looking at. Sam Hayes at Port? Otherwise I hope we look very hard at cheap key defensive depth, a half back and a half forward just to turn over the list. But preserving draft capital has to be a factor too. Even if it’s just 2nd and 3rd round picks we need to give JT a chance rather than spending on NQR types.

Either of those guys would be about as useful as you are I at full back. Tom certainly isn’t the answer though

He was such a good defender in 2017 that we immediately handed over the keys to the backline to his brother and put him in a ruck/forward role. He’s better off elsewhere. A mature lockdown key defender should be a must for us this year, that’s for sure. If May goes down we can’t hand the job to Lever, Petty, Hore or Tomlinson. But there’s cheaper and better options than keeping Tom

Commercial lawyer and head of the players association might be a step up from radio sales and following Eddie around. That said, our President’s one heck of a lawyer and he seems set on Pert

He was very well regarded as an assistant coach and he got just about the worst job possible at the Saints. He won more games there than a whole lot of coaches would’ve. Balme’s the best in the business and his Demons coaching career was hardly stellar. I have more confidence in Richo’s judgment than Mahoney’s. The whole structure seems wrong to me but as a temporary measure in a huge budget cut it might be the best we can do.

The one positive might be that if Goodwin and this new plan flop we can scrap all these changes and just start fresh. Richardson goes back to a primary coaching role, Mahoney moves out and we get a fresh GM with a fresh coach to completely redo things. This seems a compromise under pandemic circumstances trying to move people as best we can.

Mahoney negotiating the Ben Brown trade from both sides would sure be something. He could have the deal done at 9:01 on the first morning of the trade period and have somehow overpaid on both sides.

I don't. Almost by definition can't you only have 1 GM of the Department? The one person who works very close with the coach to set the direction of the footy program? There was too much on Mahoney's plate, but only because our list manager is some former copper, our coaching team was inexperienced and lacked direction and there's probably lack of support all around him. He might not have been good enough either. But find someone better to take the top job, and/or the coaches job and upgrade the senior footy department staff.

Same goes for the coaching. We're stuck with Goodwin obviously, right or wrong. We're stuck with Chaplin because he just fits the kind of mediocrity we so love. Yze comes in for what may be the 2nd most difficult job in footy. Then Stafford gets promoted to the toughest assistant job around in our forwards coach despite very little experience in coaching because why the heck not? Plapp had years of experience and did a pretty decent job dealing with a forward line that was Melksham, the ghost of McDonald and 6 blokes under 50 games.

Seems like drastic compromises everywhere. Co-GM's doesn't sound right. Mahoney will be desperate to get out of the club now. Richo gets taken away from hands on coaching which should be his bread and butter and put in to a decision making role which requires an analytical mind which I don't really think suits him. Surely the ideal structure is 1 person who can administer everything then having the right people with a variation of skills around them. Get a list manager who's great at managing contracts. Get a recruiting team that can recruit. Get a coaching team that can coach. Get a footy admin team that can make sure the boots and shined and the bills are paid.

2 of those guys are ruckmen, the other 3 all played a varying amount in the ruck at times. Tom McDonald had 33 pressure acts against North in a game where he rucked a decent amount and also when North's backline were a mess at inviting pressure.

Two of the best key forwards at pressure in the entire competition.

Hmmm I don't know. When did Richmond win 3 flags in 4 years and when has there not been a 100 goal kicker in over a decade.