DeeSpencer

Dwayne Russell thinks he's off to Hawthorn. Might explain why our coach wasn't making definitive statements.

So back on topic if we are stuck with pick 3, then the Giants have picks 12 and 18 or 19. That's not enough to do a deal IMO. I think we'd ask them to get future picks or players involved to bump that pick 18 up at least to pick 10. The Giants run of finals success has hurt the chances of splitting the pick.

How dare the coach be honest in the media and reflect the true status of negotiations/decision making. The horror. Elliott's clearly got options, we've got interest but sounds like we aren't going to offer him stupid money and he might chose another option. Realistic. The worst possible media relations outcome for this trade period is that we don't sign any players and get a reputation like North. Tempering fan expectations with free agents who have full control over their destiny is perfectly reasonable.

Just a hunch but it wouldn't shock me if Willie was more towards the regular than infrequent user. I still think he's an idiot not a drug cheat and therefore should get the punishment for an idiot and not the punishment for a drug cheat. Dodging the test now appears more sinister - as he had something to hide, but also less sinister as all he was hiding was some weed.

Not an easy one to find, someone with the smarts, skills and speed/agility to mix it with the big boys and contribute around the ground. Melksham in to the midfield as well is an option. This might be too bold or premature but if we're looking for tackling and agility to compliment Gus/Clarry/Viney then I'd love to see Kade Chandler given some midfield minutes. He's a keen tackler with good evasive skills and creativity. Played as a midfielder as a junior and some of his best higlights come around the packs. He could do a little of what Parfitt has done for the Cats providing some defensive pressure

Matt Crouch is the last player we need! He's a decent extractor and excellent accumulator but either handballs or chips the ball short, very low metres per possession and low impact. Plus slow to defend, both at the contest - 3.4 tackles per game is awful and around the ground. Why did the Crows midfield struggle so badly this year - because of the Crouch's being not very good. We're already struggling to fit Viney, Oliver and Brayshaw in the one midfield, we don't need to add Matt Crouch! Brad has a bit more juice with taking the game on and providing burst around the stoppages, but his skills are more up and down and injuries have possibly robbed him of going to that next level with improved skills and consistency in his game. He's going to cost a lot and require shifting one of our centre square players out of the side or probably out of the club. 700k and a top 10 pick for him. I can't see it. Petracca needs to become a genuine midfielder and Viney/Oliver/Brayshaw need to get back to their best. Otherwise we should be looking for guys who can play on the wings or flanks and then rotate in to the midfield not the other way around. A Shane Edwards style outside-in mid is what we need. Someone to feed off the handballs that Viney and Oliver will dish out.

Best 12: No. Might finish close to that in the B+F (play all 22 and by default you should finish at least top 16 with standard injury/form of others) but not on talent. Finished 7th in a tight field last year in the Giants B+F which is a surprise but otherwise no top 10 finishes- I think all their injuries would've had him far lower on a per game basis. Decision making: Solid enough but usually takes the safe options Key tall at either end: Very much doubt it. Doesn't seem to have a good leap, power or bust off the mark, nor is he a super tall 198+ type - at 194cm he's more an oversize mid. His marking is poor for his size but he's still damn tall for a wing. Excellent tank allowing him to play wing, back up ruck or if needed on a flank Not sure about leadership but certainly a flawless clubman who does a lot of media for the Giants. If not a leader he'll be a good follower. Lack of speed is my biggest concern if the comp keeps heading the way the Tigers have taken it. Suddenly he goes from a good utility who can play wing and/or 2nd ruck to a bit of a nothing player (especially if teams start playing a pair of 200cm+ specialist rucks). That's why he was dropped for the Giants first final but he was also bought back in to do a job after the Giants lost Deledio through injury.

A kid from the housos has the chance to set himself and his family up for life, extend his career in to his 30's and play a significant role rather than end up in the VFL, pretty reasonable choice to me. If the Tigers have been smart they'll have convinced him to look around and never bothered with making a token offer that could just hurt his feelings. They'll get at least a 2nd round draft compensation pick and with the way they've recruited lately they'll probably turn it in to a better player anyway.

Maybe I shouldn't have combined the 2. Elliott's a gamble on upside - my concern there is the injury risk, Tomlinson is very much a move to bolster bottom end of the 22. It's nice that he's a utility but I'm not entirely convinced that ups his value. If there was a Wins Against Replacement stat for footballers I think Tomlinson's would be pretty low and therefore spending significant money on him doesn't make him good value.

I think we need to heed the warnings of Port Adelaide. Spent a lot of salary cap space on Watts, Rockliff and Motlop who were all available for a reason. Yet to get great return on any of them. And probably cost them the salary cap space they needed to re-sign Polec and Wingard. They might've got out of that pretty well by nailing 3 picks in a superdraft but if they messed up those picks they'd be in a world of trouble. Every dollar overspent on free agents or trading in depth can come back to bite us. Tomlinson and Elliott already make me nervous, I wouldn't be rushing out to add more from a limited pool. I reckon a good look at the state leagues, delistings or free to a good home trade types can find guys who can be depth just as easily as bidding for those guys who are popular but have a low floor. And now there's the ability to hold list spots over until after summer I'd certainly look at that method.

Raiders, Falcons, Giants. It's a nightmare tipping week with so many back up QB's on the road.

Would love to have a training base that doubles as a VFL and AFLW stadium and have them all train and play together as much as possible but you can't always have everything. By the way I'm sure the Tigers VFL guys don't train with the AFL players at all times, they have to work just like the Casey guys do. Also I hope we get out to Casey more often in preseason to train on the full sized oval.

The Cats played really slow from the backline all year, which requires fitness but controls tempo. If anything I think they got too comfortable going too slow and to beat the best defensive sides you have to put pace in to the game at times. Their backline didn't have the skills and run. For some reason they moved Clark from half back (he was great forward too), then moved Tuohy and then moved or lost Duncan. Richmond have 3 slashes from half back - Houli, Short and Baker. The Pies have 2 - Crisp, Noble and can get run from Howe, Maynard and Moore. The cats rely on Tom Stewart doing it all and whoever else they use on the day. Unusual. Apart from that I just think their forward line fell apart. Hawkins obviously had a moment of madness. Gary Rohan kicked 20+ goals in the first half of the year as the 3rd tall and then about 4 in the whole second half of the season, unfortunately you can't rely on him. Young Jordan Clark got injured and the rest of their small brigade that bought pressure and skill were found wanting once teams worked out that they only had a few tall targets and to just jump 1 defender and stay down on the smalls. Atkins, Gryan, Gaz and Dalhaus weren't going to kick a winning score alongside Esava and Henderson, they needed that 3rd marking option as well as Hawkins in. Chris Scott probably outsmarted himself with coaching moves but he had to try different things to get the edge on the Tigers because once the Tigers got rolling they were done. Dropping Stanley probably wasn't smart but the Cats have a surplus of tall defenders and a lack of ruckmen. Blicavs on a wing was a reflection of that same surplus of defenders and a lack of outside run that comes from playing half your games at a stadium without wings! Overall I like the way the Cats are reliable from the back half and manic in the forward half, plus the inside mid pressure Parfitt creates. There's lessons there for us in the way they moved players to create a steadier backline (Selwood defensive winger), more defensive accountable inside midfield and reworked almost their entire forward line in one summer - which worked for half a season.

The comparison with the Tigers I think is more that they started rebuilding (for the 2nd or 3rd consecutive time) in 2010 with Hardwick, made finals from 13-15 with a bunch of quality players but were poor around the fringes then dipped. We started rebuilding (for the 400th time) with Roos in 2014 and all but made finals in 17 as well as 18, we've got a lot of quality and we've got stuff all around the fringes. Bouncing back to win the flag almost certainly won't happen but there's a lot of positives to take from 16/17 that compare favourably to Richmond's 13-15. Yes it's 3 finals series to 1 but we also managed 3 finals in 1 year compared with 3 elimination final losses! Maybe a better comparison would be some of the North seasons that saw them bounce back but I want to be a little more optimistic than that!

Defensively I think we need some speed in the front half - and coordinated, well coached, well drilled pressure - and then a fit midfield group which includes clearly an upgrade on the wings in terms of fitness and smart positioning and then a proper two way midfield effort. I look at the way the Giants are defending this finals campaign and think that's the blueprint for what we can do which. And the way we've defended last year even without the ideal defensive personnel has shown we were on the right path there. Lever in the Haynes role, May in the Phil Davis (or Lachie Keeffe) role and off we go. In terms of the plan with the ball I think we need to train a style that allows us to do 3 things. Plan B: Slow down the line plays that use Gawn and hopefully a pair of competent tall forwards. Plan C: A fitter midfield group particularly on the wings that works hard for switches and uncontested steady build up play Plan A: Maximise what I see as the strength of our team for ball movement which is that we've got Oliver, Harmes, Gus as mids, Petracca mid/fwd, Melksham and Fritsch forward. We've got a lot of 188cm guys who can either take a grab or win the ball if it spills. We don't need to out sprint teams if we can get the ball moving our way and spread through the corridor and to the fat side at half forward we've got a lot of guys who can get the ball on the lead. The Eagles are excellent at taking riskier kicks to Yeo in the middle or Ryan, Waterman, a 3rd tall etc at half forward. Then it's one on ones deep which is why the Eagles talls are so potent. Pretty much I just want to see us add width and variety to the style we played in 2018. The play on and quick kicking game can be extremely damaging it just needs to be balanced with some safer play and a little more creative and less running in to a brick wall. Then we also need a big improvement in the way we link with handballs from contested situations. The Tigers are the forward handball masters and that's where I'm not sure we could ever match them - no one can when the game opens up - but we have to at least become competent at stoppages and from long kicks down the line in getting runners free in to space. Again, fitter runners and more speed but apart from that just train the right set ups.

The Tigers weren't particularly good for most of 2017, they won their first 4 with a blessed draw, beat us when we lost 2 players early, then they lost 4 in a row followed by gradually building some momentum as a decent side before exploding in finals - in a year without a lot of good sides. They've built on that in 18 and 19 where they are much better now than they were in 2017. So even in a year when they had a huge bounce back and won the flag they didn't become the dominant team they are now overnight. The things to take away from them are: 1. Culture and leadership: The calm from Balme as well as Gale has filtered through their club. All with less talk, more smart decisions, get in and fix what's needed. For the Tigers it was a change in assistant coaches, a few smart trades and then backing in their recruiting and development staff. 2. Coaching: Hardwick fed off that calm environment and got back to basics. Run, tackle, uses attacking handball. Simple stuff. The game plan was based on what Hardwick believes in and what the Tigers had been doing for years which is investing in speed. We've got a bunch of solid body mids and we beat up the Hawks and Cats last year in the finals. There's no reason why we can't still believe in that as the basis of our game plan obviously with some improvements. 3. Belief: They used mindfulness to get their brains in gear but after that it's the way everything feeds back - the coaching, the admin, the care for each other then comes together. Step 1: No more robotic Simon Goodwin. He's one of the younger, fitter and more enthusiastic coaches. Come day 1 of preseason he needs to set the tone. If he trains this playing group with the right mix of high intensity, smarts and energy they'll win plenty of games.

A couple of his kicks were ok but he was let down by team mates not attacking the ball. He would've hit Cameron on the [censored] but he eased up and tried to chest mark it. I'm more worried that he's just going to struggle to crash in for the ball and jump up and tackle, chase etc at his size on the wing than I am about his disposal. Put up a very honest effort in the ruck. As long as he's a utility getting paid towards the bottom of the 22 I'm happy to have him. If we're expecting more we're going to be disappointed.

Game wasn't it? The one against Carlton. That's only one he played as the number 1. It was good but I wouldn't trust him to back it up week after week. No team chased him hard to be the number 1 because they knew he didn't have the professionalism and consistency to take that leap. He might get it in the next 12-24 months. He's not that young but is still developing. He'll stay as insurance or just maybe he might turn it on as a forward, we can only dream.

Had to work very hard to nullify Grundy but looked smarter than Reid in the ruck. Works hard to get to position but stops and watches at times. One thing he does well is quickly gets to position and talks at stoppages. Coaches are mad for that stuff

Nice spoil, turns out 194cm wingmen dropping back are handy.

With Cameron, Himmelberg and Finlayson plus Keeffe in the side to tackle Grundy I'd be very surprised if he played any time forward. And with us we've got T Mc, Melksham and Fristch who are all pretty suited to getting up the ground. If we wanted another key forward I'd go after Jenkins and plonk him in the goal square. If we move Frost on then Tomlinson could end up forward or back purely through lack of tall depth but for the price we're probably paying him I'll be pretty annoyed if he doesn't lock down a role.

Happy to have him train with the players over summer, wouldn't be keen on giving him a list spot. Even if he had a flawless of field record the injuries are astronomical. Cutting out a muscle to create room for a nerve doesn't sound like the right preparation to run 15km a game.

We swapped out Toumpas for Kennedy, at worst a nil all draw. I thought Kennedy had more than enough talent to take a chance on. Howe was replaced by Melksham to play down back, which failed but getting Melk helped to have Hibberd lined up from a long way out the next year to go in to that role. Howe just refused to believe he was a defender. It's one of Roos' greatest fails in not convincing him but unfortunately a coach can't warp minds. A few awful games as a forward for the Pies and Howe finally got the message. A great shame that he didn't get the message whilst at Melbourne. Anyway, not all that relevant to Frost, who mostly knows what he is as a player. How adventurous a new team is with his ball use probably depends on the coach and circumstances. I'm tipping it's lack of confidence in his defensive smarts and positioning that will see him undervalued by the Melbourne list managers if that's our plan more than his ball use.

He's not ready to take over as a number 1 ruck, teams know that. Hence he's not worth a second round pick. Preuss is the young developing ruck, he's just 24 and monsters the VFL rather than being 21.

Watching Blicavs lumber around hopelessly on a wing against the Tigers has me worried about Tomlinson. All the fitness in the world doesn't help you if you can't match the speed and agility.