DeeSpencer

Andy Maher spitballing to the former Bulldogs captain. A little irresponsible for the SEN to misquote their own hosts. No way Hunter goes anywhere unless the Dogs get at least 1 elite player back. He's probably their 2nd most important player behind Bont. He was perhaps unhappy earlier in the season. A serious drink driving charge and suspension followed by person leave will do that to you.

Daisy can’t captain the women’s side, work as a commentator and be on the board. But she can be asked her opinion. Lingy’s a good second? What does that mean? If Ling has made any sense for more than a second I’d be surprised

Certainly good to have some footy knowledge on the board and Greeny is a good bloke. It’s just a really tough time to be joining the board, not a lot of upside involved Id imagine. We almost have to make it clear that Green won’t have the weight of coaching and footy department decisions on his plate. Let him learn rather than take the heat for big decisions. I love the Giants getting Jimmy Bartel. Dunstall would be the dream but he’d never do it. In terms of former Demons I’d love to get Al Nicholson. Maybe Green’s the right guy for the job. It was so nice to see the past players energized in 2018, hopefully we can build on that

A captain for one year with a disaster of a team. His assistant coaching career could be the best endorsement but he was under Malthouse and Brad Scott.

This might be unpopular but having followed Brad on Twitter I don’t observe a smart analytical mind at work. Apart from the time he put Saty in his place. Then again, the Hawks seemed to do just fine with Kennett in charge.

Good question. I have no idea. Obviously swimming is quite a young sport and gymnastics an ultra young sport. Where as tennis you often seen teenagers fighting it out with Serena who's a veteran and a mum. The semi professional nature of AFLW I think lends itself to veterans going on for a number of years at a high level, especially the likes of Pearce and Paxy who are super diligent in their preparations. And given how late they were to start I guess they should have fresh legs. The question for all the older women is how quickly does the new talent zoom by them. Daisy was a cut above with skills but many have caught up, though she adapted well to half back. Paxy will probably always have a fitness edge and keep accumulating the ball but she has a unique style that might be challenge if the pressure keeps mounting.

Given the average man is about 14cm taller than the average woman it's a very rough guess to say at 186cm she compares to about a 200cm bloke and looks like she moves like a wingman. That's taller than say Bont. Or about Blicavs style athlete (minus the freak endurance I'd guess). Pretty exciting prospect if she's up to it.

The problem is if you take Phillips off their hands you free up space for Mihocek. If you get Mihocek they probably have the space to keep Phillips or at least demand a big price for him. I don't think Moore's the type to demand top dollar and JDG's price has most likely decreased. Last year they got away with just moving on Aish. I don't think they'd be keen on Mihocek going and still giving away other players

Talented but being a touch underwhelming for mine and it's a harder sell to crack our midfield than the teams chasing him. I think we'd have to trade someone out to show him a path to games (and to free up the cash and picks). Probably cost our earliest pick this year and more, I'd probably rather give JT a chance in the draft

Some of the best signings have been happy accidents. See "Jack Gunston role" Jeremy Howe. But he can't mark and can't turn, so to me he'll always be fringe 22 and there were plenty of cheaper ways to find that. Almost the bigger concern I have with it is that anyone who watched any of the finals last year could tell he wasn't up to the pace of the game on the wing. The Giants knew that, hence they dropped him for a desperate late dice roll with Deledio for their first final. There's a lot of teams out there looking for wingmen, it's really hard to find the right combination of speed, endurance, football smarts and skills. But we seem to be worse at it than almost anyone. The best case for Isaac Smith is that at least he's done it before.

Pretty bad signing. We wouldn't be chasing a 32 year old Isaac Smith if Tomlinson could actually play on the wing. We might find use for him as an oversized half back flanker but we haven't fixed the role he was bought in for and there's a lot cheaper ways to find half decent slow mid sized back flankers ie. Marty Hore.

With Zac Williams coming in I don't think Carlton will be able to front load any contract to the same extent this year and there's more than 2 teams ahead of them in the PSD order, including Essendon and the cashed up Kangas who were also keen on Saad. In Saad's case I'd imagine the PSD threat is an empty one.

Tom McDonald was very good in a ruck/forward role in ‘17 as well. But the fact is he was out of contract after ‘18. We can’t time travel and ask him to have played better footy before that. I don’t think it was a monster deal, it was the deal you give a 50 goal kicker. Harmes - I’m convinced the length of deal was to lower the total per year. Harmes is going to be around for 5 years in some form. It’s a non issue. Tomlinson - absolutely agree. A desperation move after trying 15 wingmen the year before. Goodwin changed the defensive system with good effect this year. He finally got improvement with our mids going inside 50. Not enough but it was the right step. We’ve made a heap of mistakes the last few years, I don’t think any individual is to blame. The way I see it is Goodwin and Mahoney took too much reinforcement from decent results and the Roos, McCartney, Jason Taylor school of contested ball and competitors. We missed out on Williams and Saad but we’ve seen the impact Langdon made last year compared with Brad Hill. If we’re turning over the list and improving the game plan we can make big steps without big names (or sacking Goodwin and Mahoney)

If we’re having to beg Smith to join us with a longer contract then we should back away from the deal. If we’re a 9th place team with a bright future bound for finals then he should be keen as mustard to join. If he’s not, let’s find someone else

Preuss would only be competing for a spot in a sides best 22. Until he shows he can get fit and stay fit for a full season he can't be considered a lock best 22 players. Every year there are ruckmen who hit the 23-25 year old age range and become ready made rucks. It's not rare at all. Teams are competing for Preuss' signature, they won't be competing for offering us more. We can set a minimum bar of what we'll accept in a trade but if it's a high second I think every club will say thanks but no thanks. He's just not worth that much.

You can stay on the rookie list whilst making more than the rookie minimum. For the last 2 years he would've been on at least decent money. Do agree that this is his best chance of a pay day and he deserves one.

1. Will there be a midseason draft? 2. How do we pay him to be a coach/player under the playing salary cap and then retire him? 3. If Jones has played 6 games by midseason just how stuffed are we?

The case for it: 1. Essendon haven't won a final in 14 years, the only way a key staffer like Dodoro keeps his job with that record is to keep having reasons why they haven't gone up the ladder. First it was the end of the Sheedy era, then the problem was Matty Knights. Then it was the supplement saga. With a new coach who they want to give some time and space to reset the game plan and list the best way to save everyones job is to have one big clean out. They won't be completely hopeless next year with or without Merrett, the list isn't that bad, so you go backwards for a year but you've got 5 first rounders in 2 years to show for it. For all his trade shenanigans Dodoro has always drafted well enough to hang in there. 2. If Merrett leaves in free agency he'll have to get a bigger contract than say Brad Crouch will get this year. And if Brad Crouch is only getting an end of first round pick then maybe Merrett's in line for similar. You have to assume we'd offer up our future first to start negotiations. I like Merrett but I don't love him. There's not enough smoke just yet to make me think we're all that keen and I think Essendon would certainly rather keep him. But it's an interesting one.

There probably is a number that someone tries him for but if we're paying him 400-500k a year to play against us we may as well just pay him the full whack to be with us.

Surely the reason Tom McDonald is staying is because we've tried to shop him to 17 other clubs, even with a huge discount, even with this story about magically shedding weight (like that wouldn't have been tried last year post a knee injury) and he's just no good. Picture yourself at any of 17 clubs and think would you take on Tom McDonald, even for a 5th round pick and on 100k a year. Who says yes? So we're stuck with 2 more years with Tom McDonald at 700k+. Which in turn means bringing Ben Brown in at a decent wage is tying up a lot of cap space on two ageing big men with suspect movement. Big key forwards don't play well after 30. Brown will soon be 28 and he's never turned all that well. Ben Brown's one of the best goal kickers in the league but even then he's 3 goals a game from a heap of inside 50 targets. That's what he is and what he does. A couple of contests up on the wing but no tackles, no defensive pressure and I doubt that he's keen to start back up rucking again. The Weid can mark it, he showed that. Fritsch can absolute mark and get shots on goal inside 50, even if they are points at this stage! We've got Jackson. We've got Petty. Petracca will play more forward in a longer season. Maybe we should just stick to what we've got for this year if there's no perfect options. If Tom comes good, great. Odds say he won't, but then he'll only have 1 year left and might take a payout or be easier to move on.

Looks a good size and a smooth mover. Must be so hard to draft given the standard of opposition seems pretty week so I guess you look for skills and traits and there's certainly some smart stuff on display here. So many of the existing players are either athletic but poorly skilled or well skilled but with shoddy athleticism. I can see why the Dees headed to the draft. The draft highlights show good skills and clearly they are developing athletes as well. As the level of competition improves at the junior level the level of talent will only improve too.

Williams tore Collingwood apart in a prelim this time a year ago, he would've been a full time midfielder at any club other than GWS. Walsh is ready to move on ball - though they do need a wing replacement. For some odd reason Teague was more focussed on using Walsh's run to help the teams outside game rather than just releasing him as an inside beast. Cripps, Walsh, Williams is a great start to a midfield. If Martin wants to be his best he'll rotate in. Saad they plan to use in the Kade Simpson sweeper role. If he gets 20 kicks a game up the ground rather than deep he's a core part of the team. There's always enough cash to pay everyone. My concern for the Blues would be they've quickly accelerated their time line adding a pair of 26 year olds and their depth is shoddy.

One reason they have so much cap space is their next generation of mids - Dow, O'Brien, Stocker and even Kennedy and Setterfield haven't come on nearly as well as predicted. Williams should play as a full time midfielder and Martin should rotate in. Depth and trying to find a way to bring in any future recruits might be an issue.

Maynard and Walker were category B non footballers, they don't count, throws at the stumps with little downside. Matty Jones was ok, if we could draft him again now I almost would, 5% more skilled and tougher and he plays 150 games. T Smith had the talent, the perfect kind of player we need just never had any luck. Let's see with Hore. Hannan not a failure and Vanders was a success - a poorly managed success. We don't need miracles, and a Tim Kelly comes along once in a life time, just a couple of better fringe players and maybe one above average best 22 type. Mature agers let you turn the list over quicker too. You usually know full well if they are any good in 2 years and you aren't weakening the training standards or VFL side.

The Cats keep topping up because their best players remain in the window - Hawkins, Taylor, Ablett, Selwood, Dangerfield, Duncan - and some of them are too old that going backwards to go forwards isn't worthwhile. Plus they have the advantage of being confident that they'll get more out of veterans for a number of reasons. Well coached, good leadership and probably the biggest one that they bring a lot of locals home who will be happy to be home. Guys are moving back to Geelong to be happy with their families, they want to keep playing and play well. For all the reasons you laid out we shouldn't be opposed to veterans but I think we should look to add guys who are likely to settle in with the group and have a reason to play well or even improve. Brisbane have been the best example getting Hodge and then Birchall, getting them fit and them being half backs (or pockets really for Hodge), so playing them in spots where leadership and experience is at it's best value. Flying Jetta back across the country when he's already moved home, whilst probably retiring his cousin Nev doesn't really fit the bill. I'm a bit worried about his ageing legs but Isaac Smith makes more sense especially if we keep the kilometres low. There's probably others to consider as well. The other thing the Cats have done is had good success with mature age draft picks. Tim Kelly, Stewart, Menegola, Atkins. That's something we should keep trying to do.