DeeSpencer

Has a bit of height and aerial ability that makes him more like Hannan and separates him from the small smalls we've got. Wouldn't be rushing to sign him but he's not the worst. The Saints are loading up with midfielders and probably trying to get Billings and Gresham through the forward line more. Maybe with Jack Higgins too. With or without Lonie. That puts a squeeze on their list spots.

https://www.afl.com.au/news/202143/future-trading-given-goahead-but-with-restrictions

To trade a future first you have to possess a future 2nd, 3rd and 4th. We are now light on for a future 3rd. But there's plenty of opportunities to get it back. Could be the Preuss trade for instance. I'm a bit of a skeptic on Mahoney's plan to get deals done early to then be in a position to evaluate later in trade period. But these are probably the deals best done early so there isn't any snags when it comes to making more important deals. I don't think we'll be trading our future first though. It's likely too big a risk to take it out of a clean draft and try to move up in to this mess of a draft.

Frost, 42 (very little difference with 50), 61 (no value) and a future fourth-round FOR 50 and Hawthorn's future second-round selection (23) We then spent a future second and redeemed a future 4th with Langdon. Which allowed us to do the Pickett trade and keep a 2nd, 3rd and 4th this year. So we aren’t trying to get more picks, at this stage we are just trying to get better picks. A core part of Mahoney’s job is to try to get players in whilst still giving Jason Taylor something useful to work with at the draft. I think that’s worth bothering with.

We can't trade our future first now (not that we should) until we get a future 3rd back, but we've got Preuss and Hannan maybe others who could make that happen. It's a bit early to know where the academy matching bid picks will fall. There's a chance a number of picks between 43-53 get sucked up and the picks end up nearly identical and we look stupid. But I'd suggest this is part of a bigger deal to get up the order early. So whilst I generally think trading up is a silly idea that chips away a draft capital without much gain I'll wait and see what else we can do with this pick 43. One thing our move last year indicated was if you're going to trade up you're best to do it aggressively and early rather than on or near the draft night when clubs fall in love with players and pay big overs.

2-7 make sense. We’d be mad to knock back any decent deal for Brayshaw. The only case to keep him is if Oliver goes next year and if that happens were in trouble anyway.

Played a ripping game against Grundy earlier in the year, then faded. Struggles for consistency and staying healthy but otherwise is solid enough as a back up. We could take more of a chance on someone with more versatility but if we want a cheap back up ruck he fits the bill

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.