DeeSpencer

Proof of Life

Got there at 9:40 as the boys were finishing their warm ups. Windy, cool but not cold by that time, a bit soft under foot but no rain. Training the Winehouse down Baker just walking. Hannan some light jogging. Petty and Vanders with a mix of solid footy training and some steady running Bradtke and Weid joined in to make 4 for some kicking and marking. Weid later returned to the match sim Not sighted: Spargo, Tomlinson Young talent time LJ 17, KP 24, TR 20 Jackson - reports of his kicking being an issue are greatly exaggerated, has no problem kicking a nicely weighted drop punt. Didn't get too involved in many drills, but at one stage had a nice lead, spilled a mark and then turned and laced a kick. Did a little mock ruck contest with Bradtke and I saw his noted speed to gather the ball after a contest. Pickett - be it via handball or kick he gets the ball where he wants it to go and how he wants it to go, a natural. Makes all the little adjustment steps before marking or disposing with nice balance. He's not tall or bulky but in a bunch of mostly uncontested stuff he looked comfortable. Rivers - bearing in mind I didn't stay to see any endurance running he looks like a very good athlete and another who didn't look out of place at all. Can use it well on both sides, moves well to get the ball in the handball drill. Good first hit out. Missin' Misson injury update Oscar McDonald left the ground in the handball drill, not sure what happened and not obviously carrying anything but didn't look right, maybe copped a knock? Tommy then promptly went down rolling his left ankle trying to change direction. It's nice to know he still has ankles but this one didn't go well for him. Was in obvious discomfort. Then took him off and strapped him and tried a run through which didn't look too bad but sanity eventually prevailed and he walked back to AAMI (I would've used the golf cart for him but whatever) Nath Jones then later walked off looking rather grumpy. Unsure what happened there. Could be as simple as a bit of veteran rest. Comedic break: a dramatic reproduction of Demonland arguing over who we should've drafted with pick 3 Is that Italian Saty pushing to draft the ruckman? Drills Warm up exercises Kick to kick in 4's with pressure coming, using both sides Kick to kick around the ground with a partner Small group craft drills - ground balls, marking, clearances etc Handball in a 60 by 30 rectangle working the ball end to end Kicking in a 60 by 30 rectangle end to end Match Sim The 3 young guys sat out this one, initially watching before doing some standing kick to kick - all 3 rarely missing 15m passes, then a bit ground ball work and handballs Gawn - who was the defender so had the wind blowing it to him over the back took his usual number of strong marks, but Preuss got a couple back later Petracca, Oliver and Viney all had moments of quality and a stack of the ball Dunkley kept finding it out on the wing with varying results. Langdon started slow then got more involved Lockhart was the standout initially with excellent quick penetrating kicks on both sides of the body, turned a couple over later but its not easy with the wind Weideman took one nice grab inside 50, had a good lead and then turn and hit up kick Jordon gets involved, a few messy handballs but a nice smother Melksham busy across half forward. Fritsch the standout forward though. May a nice pack mark. Lever some well timed intercepts - although not playing on anyone Overall it was pretty messy due to the wind I think. Not as clean as last week. But very willing.

Incompetence.

Live reporting from ESPN 8 the Goscho 17 - Lamar 20 - Trent from punchy 24 - krop duster

Don't forget Jake 'I'll just jog and watch my man run off' Melksham. I think we can fit them all in but it's going to take a massive shift in the training methods to get more pressure out of those guys. Fritsch might not be a great tackler but he's an excellent mover, no reason for him not to get pressure on. Jackson's somewhat the same, if he does make it as a forward early in his career forward pressure will be a decent part of the reason why. Weideman or Petty - they aren't bad movers, just a matter of them showing they've got the tank, smarts and urgency. But Tom and Jake, two guys who's backs and ankles don't seem to move when the opposition have the ball, that has to change this year.

Gets to the right spots, can win the ball, is quick with his skills and has the right kind of quick agility to tackle or evade tackles. He didn’t get much of the ball on debut (in an awful team effort) but his tackling was easily sharp enough.

Poor choice of adjective, substitute whatever you like that means lack of endurance, lack familiarity with the game plan, weighing 71kgs and possible lack of confidence to bring the same crash and bash against AFL players that he does to kids.

Easily in our most talent 25 or so players. If Pickett is as raw as he's likely to be then Chandler will be ahead of him as the most suited to a pressure forward role. His tackling was very good on debut, in many ways he's the incumbent in the role.

They hand out 1400 media passes so they can revoke them if they don't like the coverage. But the amount of full time journos covering the game is probably declining. Channel 7 and AFL media give it a fair go, but otherwise I'm sure the age and the HS don't cover the game like they used to.

A couple of important points. 1.Have we got the preferred spelling of Kozzie/Kozzy/Kossie/Kosi/Kossy? Need to sort that out. 2. Given his full name and his ability to make defenders soil their pants I'd like to suggest the nickname of the Krop Duster.

Langdon - good fit - good value Tomlinson - questionable fit - solid value (contract hurts but he's free) Jackson - interesting fit - solid value (think he can easily be worth pick 3 if it works out) Pickett - great fit - ok value. If we play well the future first round pick could be a steal, if we go poorly it won't look great Rivers - solid fit - solid value 2 supplemental period picks - watch and see. Overall list needs: Forward line impact tall type - tick Pressure and crumbing forward - tick Backline talent with kicking - tick Outside run - tick Midfield balance - fail Backline tall depth - fail I think we've got a glut of young inside mids who could play if they come on - Dunkley, Jordon, Sparrow - and that we didn't do much to address the list needs of the inside/outside speed and skill type of mid/flanker. Why did we keep both Wagner's, know that we've got ANB, Spargo and the young mids I've just mentioned and not make a move for a skilled mid/forward type outside of a flyer on Bennell? Too many of the same type of player - there has to be someone out there we could've found with some classy midfield skills? And if not why aren't we taking rookie shots on guys like Harmes and Vanders? Jason Taylor watches 1000 players a year, the 50th best guy he's seen this year isn't better than our very extensive depth of similar types?

Doubt it. All he does is grade clubs against his own ratings. That said, I wonder what he would've given the Pies in the year they took Thomas and Pendles. It's also somewhat soothing to be graded along with Hawthorn and Richmond, generally not bad company in recent years!

That's why I want to see him play CHB, it will take him to the ball. He's got great hands at ground level, is a really nice field kick and can lay a crunching tackle at times. The most underrated thing about his final against the Cats was how good he looked as an extra mid when in the ruck. If he doesn't start the season well as a forward then get Petty in - who seems to have some natural ability to lead up and keep front position - and send the Weid down back.

I’m hoping after a couple of months as a useful mature body training with us we forget about Mitch Brown too. Unless we reassign him to somewhat necessary backline depth. If Petty, Weid and Jackson can’t offer more than him we are in trouble.

I’m not a big believer in the go home factor but apart from us drafting Rivers the Pies might’ve done us a little favour picking Jay Rantall. He was Jackson’s room mate in the Aus juniors basketball team. He’ll be moving up from Warrnambool and right next door to the Dees. Yeah he’s the opposition but I’d rather our players be mates with super professional opponents than be friendless or hanging out with trouble makers.

Both of these guys are too good to be playing local Footy in their draft year. My question was more if they’d played together since they were young. Or crossed to different local juniors and joined up in wafl and state teams. Either way if they are mates that’s great although we’ve seen it means little.

HF: Melksham Petty/Weid N Jones/ANB/C Wagner/Spargo FF: Fritsch T Mc Pickett/Chandler/Bedford Int: wildcard - Jackson/Hunt/Hannan Some combination of that is your 7 forwards. If Jackson plays a fair bit of ruck and even mid and if C Wagner or Hunt maybe rolls up to the wing rotation you can get an 8th forward in. Probably the one missing link is the classy mid who can play on ball, wing and half forward. In other words we really need a Harley Bennell type!

Hoping he's on a list of many - including 18 year olds not drafted - that we get down to train and have a closer look at. 2 free spots on the list, we can't have allocated them both to Mitch Brown and a bloke who hasn't played in 5 years.

The entire reason we didn't have a pick in the 20's was because we structured the Langdon and Frost trades to maintain future picks in the 2-5th rounds allowing us to trade our first. Carlton live traded on the night to move back from what was pick 9 to get Kemp and a pick in the 20's. We clearly wanted to keep our first pick ahead of the Bulldogs and other teams in that range to get our man. Trading up becomes more and more expensive on trade night when teams have the lure of the players sitting right in front of them that's for sure. And given the thing we wanted to do more than anything was trade up and get a small forward the best thing to do was to do it early. I certainly think we should target those early 20's picks in the future and get value with trade back deals, but priority number 1 this year was trading up and we paid a lot less for a lot more than the other clubs that did it.

Port traded a future first for pick 16. Gold Coast a future pick 11 for 27. Yes it cost us future flexibility but trading early for pick 8 was a far better move that I imagined. I think it was better to get that pick 8 in our hands and go from there than keep a low 20’s pick and go the other way.

Brisbane have done very well from the McCluggage and Berry and Witherden Vic Country draft. Plus pairing up Lachie Neale and Linc McCarthy later in their careers. I'm not sure this was intentional at all. Rivers just happened to be best available in the eyes of our recruiters.

Maybe Rivers swapped teams late because he's listed as Bullcreek-Leeming all through pre draft stuff and there's stats for him playing a lot of juniors there. But might not have crossed paths with Jackson until WAFL juniors?

Pretty much. They also have a limited time frame, I’d say 3 years, to get it together. If the big 6: Rankine, Luko, Ben King, Rowell, Anderson, Flanders - don’t get it together in the next 3 years the whole club will fold. Sharp is a ready made wing/half back. Get him in now and they’ll have the best chance to be successful before these guys contracts run out in 3-4 years (they’ll all stay longer than 2)

I reckon we thought long and hard about Taylor and maybe Perez. The riskier picks. But Rivers had fallen enough to be the right call. I thought he was best on in the game against Vic Country to win the champs

Up until round 21 the only finalist we’d played were Hawthorn, Richmond and Sydney who we all couldn’t score on, the Pies who we only put up a score through accurate kicking and a Geelong team that were the exception. The stats might not be exactly accurate but it looked a lot like we could score for fun against the lesser teams but would bomb our way for nothing against the top sides. I think we saw last season with the complete lack of scoring and mid year changing of the forwards coach that it was more than just an underdone midfield. Anyway, Pickett should provide classy delivery not just goal scoring and Jackson can help scoring as either a ruck or forward. If we don’t draft another classy mid/forward player tonight it will be interesting to see if the run of Tomlinson and Langdon opens room for mids and forwards. Goodwin mentioned today they plan for Oliver to get out running in space more which in turn will have him kick more.