DeeSpencer

Drafting for needs is dangerous at any spot. The most important objective with pick 3 is to get a high quality player regardless of position. If we can do that at pick 6 (and I think we can) then that’s good too, but pick 3 gives us more certainty. 11 is more likely to get a nice player than 26 but not by a huge margin. To take the risk at moving back from 3 I want certainty with the other half of the deal. Yes we lack quality in the forward line but we are more than 1 or 2 kids away.

Maybe we finished 17th more because of lack of togetherness and selfless football rather than because of lack of talent. Jenkins would be a missionary keen for a media career. A self promoter and not exactly a team player. Do you think he'd be happy at Casey? I don't. I just can't see Jenkins being successful enough to bother. If we want depth then go find someone younger with upside, we found Tim Smith, there has to be a younger version of someone like him out there in the state leagues. If we want someone clearly better than Weideman then make a move for that kind of player.

Hawthorn giving up far too much for a couple of late 2nd/3rd round pick types. I could see the Hawks doing 11 and late picks for GWS' future first and Bonar/Patton instead of pick 26, but you don't go from 11 to 26 without something valuable thrown in. Bonar/Patton just aren't worth that level of drop. I wouldn't be overly keen on 3 and 26 for 6,11 because I'm not sure in this draft if 11 and 26 are all that different. We'd have to get some upgrades to use 3rd and 4th picks if that's the case.

Heath Shaw, Paul Seedsman, Rhyce Shaw, Heath Scotland, Sharrod Wellingham, Paul Williams. Even Josh Mahoney! Not many and they are pretty good at selling lemons. And we liked buying them. Aish will go to Freo, and we should always be buyer beware with all players up for trade. But I wouldn’t automatically rule out Pies players.

We just sunk over 1M and a 2nd round pick in to Langdon and Tomlinson purely to be hard running accumulating mids. Phillips would be another 600k and at least a 2nd round pick, too much to spend on one position. I’d only be spending that on a forward, a very underrated defender or a versatile skilled mid.

Signing a decent player who’s turned his career around under their new coach and knows his system isn’t reflective of that.

Fair enough, but the guy can play. The Pies don’t want him because they can find useful half back flankers on their list and their salary cap is under the pump with 3 guys about to make 1M per year. They have to dump someone. We tried for Elliott. I’d try for Mihocek. I’d probably have a look at Scharenberg. There’s a few young players I’d ask about - Flynn Appleby, Nathan Murphy, Tyler Brown I’d try to grab as well. Press them when they’re under the pump

Was soft at the Lions and took a while to become a man, that happens. He was very handy at half back last year for the Pies. Smart, skilled, hard running and far better overhead than I’d given him credit for. He’s better than ordinary but injuries, cost and ease to replace is why he’s on the table.

Dallas Seattle Philly

It's a tricky situation for all involved but Dodoro's outlandish public demands (or reports of them) and reputation usually hide calm and reasonable decisions. Peter Bell may have surpassed him when it comes to making big statements and having them backfire.

Either getting Sydney to put a future pick in the deal or trade a current pick to a team for a future pick next year. Similar to what Adelaide did with Carlton. Or the opposite of what we did with the Gold Coast back in the Oliver/Weid draft. With live drafting now I'm sure they'd be an opportunity, just a matter of taking the risk and knowing they'd have to be patient for a year. In fact I think we'd very much consider trading pick 3 for pick 6 and GWS' future first so we've got 2 hits at next year as well. Patiently waiting for that pick to come isn't ideal but it could pay off next year, especially if the Giants don't back up.

It's all bluff. Dodoro plays the media and fans for fools and everyone buys in to it. The days of Essendon being unwilling to trade fairly are well and truly over. They've done deals for Shiel, Stringer, Saad, Smith in and Hibberd, Ryder, Melksham out and so on without too much drama. Yes some of them went down to the wire late but that's the reality of how most of these guys negotiate not Dodoro being unreasonable. Asking for Heeney or Blakey is all for the media to focus on whilst he does his job, which should be chasing Florent or Parker if he can and otherwise either getting a huge draft haul or keeping Daniher. If acting like an idiot is whats required to stall time to either get a great deal or keep Daniher then I'd be all for it if I were a fan. Of course there's valid questions about just how well he does do his job in terms of building the list but I think they are due to Essendon being unable to have a stable coach and list build since the Sheedy years and not because he's unreasonable at the trade table.

Interesting to compare the teams: Langdon v Hill: 600-700k pa v 900k, 2nd round pick v at least pick 12 and a fair bit more. Hill's the better player but Langdon's the better value I'd suggest Tomlinson v Z Jones/losing Jack Steven: Both guys who should give you 22 serviceable games for a few years. Saints need more inside help and grunt like Jones, we needed more of an outside spread player. I prefer Jones, but it's a case of keeping the 2nd or early 3rd round pick when you get a free agent. The counter to that is the Saints are shipping Steven out to create the pick and room for Jones - or at least that's what the plan might be. Losing Frost v losing Bruce: Probably like this for the Saints more because they have Max King ready to go and are bringing in Ryder for cheap depth where as we are possibly turning to Oscar. Pick 3 v Dougal Howard: I like Howard and he won't cost the saints pick 3, most likely 18 will form the basis of that trade. We could end up bringing in a player like Howard (solid, high upside) next year after either using pick 3 or splitting the pick this year staying put v Butler/S Gray/Ryder: All depends on how our later draft picks and players on our list go. Probably prefer the Saints approach here to make sure they've filled holes. For some reason we've kept all our depth in place rather than chased replacements. I probably prefer the Saints moves more, but they'll also be left with their best players coming from a group of: Gresham, Billings, Max King (+/- his brother), Brad Hill, Marshall, Carlisle, Hunter Clark maybe without a lot of room to add players unless they get lucky. If we get it right at the top of the draft and add another young star then we might have a brighter collection of top talent and more room to work with to fix the gaps. We will bought in Lever and May the Saints were hitting the draft, now they are paying up for Brad Hill whilst we should draft some high end talent.

Max has also signed until 2022, no doubt on generous but not over the top money. But if Ben has a great season he'll get offers of huge money, hopefully not Tom Boyd level stupidity but it could be close to the 1M a season. Will the saints have the salary cap after their splurge this year? I doubt they'll want to pay him that to play CHB. And if Max is the better footballer then all of a sudden you have to pay him 1M+ on 2023 on. Essendon banking the draft picks and cash from selling Daniher then offering it up to the Suns seems likely to me. The romance of playing with your brother might not be worth another million or so in the contract.

Not just related to this comment but in a packed field Ralph is about as useless as any reporter. To claim free agency is working because Ellis and Tomlinson signed with bottoms clubs and that cancels out Lynch joining the premiers is ridiculous.

Port traded up to get Rozee. Rankine signed an extension until 2022, not entirely convinced it means he stays, he might just need the financial security after missing all of this year with injuries. Lukosius is in the same boat as Ben King. I expect the Crows in particular will be circling.

Good call. Pick 22 seemed about spot on for Jack Martin, we might've been working with Carlton on a deal to get them that pick.

Probably because the social media team make the highlights not so much the recruiting team and it's easy to search through footage with 'Langdon + goal' and grab the highlights than searching line breaking runs throughout games.

It will be interesting to see how they fill the other 40% of game time on the wing. Clearly the futures of VDB and KK are still very uncertain but I think if KK comes back they can settle him where he's played his best footy at half back and have him earn a spot there before worrying about the wing again. Meanwhile if Vanders makes it back to fitness they can have him at half forward rather than big midfield minutes. Probably still a need to keep drafting wing/forward kind of players or mids with more versatility. Still it's far easier to fill in for 5-10 minutes a quarter on a wing when the regular guys do a mountain of running and play most of the game.

Smith and Kielty delisted, Walker (cat B) retired. Rookie A list: Lockhart, Dunkley, C Wagner, Chandler Rookie B: Bradtke So if Stretch and JKH go we've then got 5 spots and can use them in any combination of 3 main, 2 rookies or 4/1 or 5/0. My guess is we'd take 4 draft picks and then have someone prelisted (Murray) similar to Corey Wagner or train on for the last rookie spot. I'd imagine we look for another Cat B player as well depending on club finances and who's available. I like the idea of adding an Irishman.

Add me to the list of people somewhat interested in Butler, but at the same time thinking we've got Hunt and Hannan who might not be as nippy but have extra size and aerial ability and can kick a goal a game too. Maybe we train those guys up on how to tackle and chase properly and they become better overall players than Butler Butler would also only be a short term improvement I think, so the draft will be the long term answer. Just like Oscar stays and Frost goes due to contracts I can see Butler not coming and Hunt/Hannan staying for the same reasons.

That year was the one time we did actually have important future trades to do, most years we have nothing more to come and seem to do deals early for a bit of good publicity. The bigger picture = draft picks. Even if it's a late pick or getting shuffled up the order by 2 or 3 picks that can make all the difference. Last year Adelaide and West Coast got 2nd round picks for moving back only 4 spots at the start of the second round. The Giants picked the slider of the draft in Bobby Hill. Then we picked Tom Sparrow. If we were to pick Sparrow I would've loved an extra 2nd round pick as well! If you start with the presumption that we will eventually get the trades done for the players we've targeted - Lever, Melksham, Langdon etc. then the purpose of all the haggling is to give Jason Taylor as strong a hand at the draft as we can. Especially now that teams will live trade up and down the draft there's a great opportunity to get extra value.

T Mc took the best defenders and was clunking marks, splitting packs and kicking his set shots. Melksham was also vital as the set up man. Weideman doesn't have to have 22 good games, half a dozen good games, not too many shockers and if he's injured we need reasonable cover. Richmond and West Coast and arguably GWS are still the only teams with 2 gun key forwards and Riewoldt missed or was underdone for most of the year and Josh Kennedy never plays a full season in good health. Tommy should bounce back and give us a dangerous tall, if not then we'll have to look for that player and it won't matter that we didn't add a Bruce or a Jenkins. No point having a stack of 2nd best guys if you don't have a stud. The lack of dangerous smalls is probably the bigger issue that we haven't attempted to solve so far, hopefully the draft is the solution.

Poking my eyes out with a fork. I hate this stuff. Seems to be Mahoney 101 every trade period. I don't think either deal is bad and I get that they've gained and lost a future 2nd round pick but treat each deal in isolation and get the best possible deal. The object of the trade period should be to make the best possible improvements to the list not to do deals that are packaged up nicely. At least we didn't get the 'we wanted to finalise deals early to work on other priorities' this year, usually get that one every trade period before nothing further gets done.

Hogan kick 3 or more goals in 9 games in 2018. 7 of those we won comfortably against Suns, Bulldogs, Bulldogs, Crows, Suns, Saints, Lions. The average winning margin in those games was over 40 points and only the Lions game where we had a huge lead, hit a wall then pulled away was remotely close. The only times he kicked 3 or more in close games or losses were against the Cats in round 1 where he kicked 3 straight and had 3 marks and against the Saints in that awful loss. There's not a single game in 2018 that we won that we would've lost if he was missing - apart from if it meant Tom McDonald and one of Smith/Weideman were also missing. Our biggest issue with key forwards for 2020 is getting Tom McDonald right and making sure we have the depth to cover the 2nd tall forward spot. If Tom McDonald gets back to 2018 form/fitness and we have 22 solid 'do your job' games from Weideman/Petty/other competent key forward then we'll be fine.