DeeSpencer

I didn't listen to the full thing but the club posted a clip which was just Gawn and Wattsy having a laugh over Watts getting absolutely blitzed at Max's wedding. Whilst Gus watches on thinking wow what a great time.

What lesson? We’ll end up giving up the same pick to get Pickett as the pick we used on Pickett. A similar situation occurred when we traded up a year for Weid. Trading Hogan for May worked beautifully. If it was pick 10 not pick 6 it would’ve been seen as a huge win. The only time we’ve truly given up first rounders was for Lever and they weren’t the true high picks. We covered that off with getting plenty of 2nd rounders. We should aim to have a nice 2nd rounder and other useful picks this year. If you aren’t excited for Sparrow, JJ, Spargo, Fritsch and Petty then we just haven’t recruited well enough. I’m thinking there’s a bit of talent there we might see shine next year

Only took a week for this loser to pop up on the captains official podcast. Having a laugh about how much of a party boy he was. Is this club every going to have some professional standards?

Gosh, I hope we walk straight away from this big sideshow bob fella. Would be a costly mistake

I agree, was making the case for it rather than what I think will happen. But he does have to play out the year unhappy in a poor side and run the risk of getting hurt. A lot of the talk recently is that Daniher doesn't get first round compo on his Brisbane contract. It's looking more like Essendon are happy to roll the dice and keep Merrett but they'll surely have to consider any serious offers that come for him.

A skilled pressure mid/forward is probably as big a need as any of those other positions. We lose a lot of games because we don't have midfield rotations to keep the work rate high, we don't have guys to take the handball receives from Oliver and co and we don't have anyone who can kick inside 50. We need the yin to Petracca's yang. It doesn't stand out as a need because we've never used someone in that role, but to me it's a clear need and why we got Bennell.

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.