DeeSpencer

Yeah he had 1 game as the number 1 ruck and did the job, but otherwise was ordinary. I look at Darcy Cameron being available and apparently off the Pies this year and think he would've been a smarter get. But at least we have a back up. The most important quotes were about Preuss working on his professionalism and training standards and not as a forward. If he gets fit and gets his skills up he'll be a better than handy back up who can come in for a stretch of games if Max is out.

Henderson and Jones were the only players from that list who weren't handy players before 26. There's guys who go up a level with a new side, new positions, injury luck, greater roles etc and Higgins is the best case for that but talent was never his issue. I'm not sure a guy like Frost who struggles with game sense and skills will drastically improve, he's had a consistent run of games and I assume there's not much left in his body to get better and I can't see him excelling in any other position. He could get slightly better in a few areas as he did this year and go from handy to better than handy but even if he went to the Hawks I'd be shocked if he was suddenly cured of the flaws in his game.

Racked up a lot of touches and had some excellent games but the Dogs might've played as well or better without him late in the year. Plus he's off the charts with footy IQ. Liam Baker's been doing a good job for the Tigers down back, it's not impossible but you need to be really strong in the air for that size as well as bringing a lot with the ball. Given most of these Irish guys fail I'd rather take a chance on a guy with more upside.

I don't mind signing up a number of small forwards but the Irish have been most successful at half back and it's hard to play there at 173cm.

As it currently stands according to the website our NT zone is in South West NT around Alice, whilst Darwin isn't allocated for Indigenous talent (maybe becomes Gold Coast now?). Geel, Coll, Haw, Ess also have parts of the NT. https://www.afl.com.au/news/game-development/nab-afl-rising-star-program/nga-clubacademies The NGA zones in Victoria don't match up with NAB league (formerly TAC) teams do they? St Kilda has a big bayside area all the way to Frankston kids from that area could play for Sandringham, Dandenong or Oakleigh, Collingwood have a zone that stretches along the freeways which could be Box Hill, Oakleigh, Sandringham or even Northern Knights kids. We have Dandenong to Cranbourne and then the Mornington Peninsula. We got Toby Bedford because he's from Rosebud not because of the TAC team he played for. I don't even know if there's a prominent Indigenous community in any part of our Victorian zone, possibly Rosebud and surrounding area - excuse my ignorance if I'm missing a big community. The multicultural aspect around Dandenong is probably a more likely recruiting stream.

Apparently the Dogs got 9,560 in Ballarat whilst the record attendance at Casey Fields is 10,099 for a Hawks v Bombers preseason game in 2007. A quick google shows that about 65-100 toilets would do the job for a crowd that size, I'm sure whoever does the races every year would have it sorted. Food and drink is easy. Traffic would be a nightmare but hey you only have to do it once. I think I'd whinge non stop about it when it happened but at least it would be a proper home game and something new.

Still so annoyed that he got injured. He played in the practice match against the Pies on their rock hard ground and put Dayne Beams in to next week. Then had something like 15 tackles at Casey against the Lions shifting on ball after injuries. If his foot is at least in a stable place then I think there's some chance he makes it back but the management has to be extremely conservative and smart.

Time to get serious about hosting a home and away game at Casey. Sell 12k tickets and profit all the cash rather than write a cheque for playing at Marvel.

Whitfield is a pre-agent this year. Do the Giants have the belief that they'll keep him to such an extent that they'll give up a really valuable pick (or picks) now? Are they in their window so much that it's worth the risk. Gold Coast took the pick for May. Port took the picks for Wingard. Essendon might be about to take the picks for Daniher. If you're GWS do you take pick 2 (or a combination of pick 10 and a future first) now rather than pick 12-18 next year? If there's a year to go after Whitfield then it might be right now. As for Tomlinson - sign him up if he's good value and it won't hurt our cap long term. If we are paying overs for Tomlinson then it's not a good idea regardless of future trade targets. Paying overs for limited players is bad cap management and deserves to be questioned.

In 2009 when drafted he was a fleet-footed midfielder, and it looks like the Lions have just copied and pasted from his Geelong profile when he went up there in 2015. You can make an argument in 2015 as a midfielder he probably did have a good amount of speed, but for 2019 as a forward then yeah he doesn't have good speed. He can rarely get away from a defender. I'm not saying you're racist, just my opinion about how easy stereotypes and comparisons are made when evaluating players.

Christensen was out of that line up and the team the Cats had named with Varcoe, Hunt, Smedts, Murdoch was super fast. I was saying their best 22 with Rivers, Christensen and Enright would actually be slower.

We should be rewarded for not screwing with the careers of Dangerfield, Rioli or Rance. Morton had a heap of talent and no development.

When you take out Hurn and Jetta kicking it to you and take out the options of kicking it to Kennedy and Darling are we sure Masten is better than JKH and Stretch? The basic stats on this year say he wasn't. Upgrading the bottom end of the list is smart if you're upgrading to an AFL quality player, I'm not sure Masten still is one. I'd probably stick with one of our own guys who's still young enough to improve or take a chance with the draft.

If he was white I'm not sure anyone would mention him as having speed or pace. Falling for the stereotype on that one. A crafty footballer at his best who was a sharp mover but never anything special in a straight line. Now he doesn't really have the size, speed, strength or fitness to be damaging at half forward and can't draw free kicks as he used to. I can't see us being interested.

Not that it's every just one night but a night on the charlie for your birthday doesn't necessarily make you a trouble maker, nor does having a knockabout country mates. I'd bet money on Clarrie having come across a few undesirables in his time. Family is often a better guide. But my concern with Murray is he's a bog ordinary kick. Might run really well and win contests but there's no point getting it if you can't use it.

Ouch, poor guy. This one might be a costly one for the club/insurers as well. Rotten luck for all involved. We'll never know if he could play at all but he looked like he had a bit of something at trainings.

I really feel like from an on field coaching and tactics situation that Goodwin in charge of the side whilst Roos oversaw him and took responsibility worked very well in 2016 - to win 10 games with that list was brilliant coaching - and set us up well for 17/18. A lot of the failures in fitness, injury management, list management and game style had roots in that same time frame but overall I'd still give it a tick. The problem with transitioning from one coach to another is you're more likely to either keep things in place or bend towards the new coach without a proper clean out. Which should be fine, but if you aren't well set up across your footy department you risk the situation we are in now. But that's true for keeping a long term coach and if you bring in a completely new coach you can toss out all the good with the bad. But for the actual succession - as long as Worsfold doesn't pull a Mick Malthouse - I'd actually think it will work for Essendon short term. Long term they might end up needing a harder look at their list, their full coaching set up, their medical staff etc.

Both teams were content to bomb the ball up and down the line, if you look at the heat maps there's almost no switching or corridor play. And with multiple talls at either end it's not like he was going to be an aerial presence. He was really the 22nd player used to fill some ruck time, a little bit at half forward (which isn't his go) and some wing time. It wasn't a good performance but I thought he did ok in the ruck (at least compared with Mumford) forcing the Brisbane rucks to hit to predictable areas and I noticed a few times that he does keep his space well at stoppages which is another key part to the wing role. All comes down to the what the contract is. If we're paying him valuable money it might turn in to a waste, if he's on a pretty standard contract then it might prove to be money well spent for a good character/no fuss type player.

Oscar Allen has very fresh legs, half back flankers can be found and so can competent rucks. They are still in a far better position than Freo. I always thought Gaff's contract resigning was odd and that he wasn't 100% locked in forever and I have thought about whether we have a nibble, but really if we were chasing an expensive outside mid I'd have won the race for Brad Hill and gone down that route. Gaff these days seems not dangerous enough on the outside and really more of a hard running accumulator who skirts the stoppages getting handballs from Shuey and Yeo and goes contest to contest. Watching him closely I can see why the Eagles didn't miss him all that much last year. We could do with that kind of player, but at the same time we could get Brayshaw, Oliver and Viney fitter and develop their outside games.

Still [censored] off that Patricia did a Lions special and they couldn't get me the tip in round 1. Pats Chiefs Browns

Hodge is absolutely locked in at Brisbane for next year and probably the short/medium term but it's worth working on him now for if/when he comes back to Victoria.

I still think the sky is the limit for Lever but it has to be in the right role. Haynes - an AA squad member this year - is about what I expect next year. Get back to intercepting and at least break even in more contests. Plus better ball use, those guys I name all use it very well (apart from the occasional Howie special). If we got our midfield and forward pressure spot on we could get Hore in the side alongside Lever but then we'd be a bit top heavy like the Cats which worries me because I still think the Tigers model is where footy is going. Speed. I think we can carry one bad skills guy in the backline as long as they have good decision making. Smith can potentially have a higher decision making ceiling than Frosty, the basketball background can help with that. I'm not expecting anything from Smith anymore, he's just missed too much crucial development time. But if we commit to Fritsch and bring in reinforcements up forward then I think the depth is more useful down back. Ideally both but at least one of Jetta and Hibberd better play well next year or we are in big trouble, we need replacements waiting for deep small/medium defenders.

I really like Petty but the gap between his good games and ordinary games at VFL and good efforts and ordinary efforts at AFL down back is a little scary. When he's on it's good, when he's forced under the ball or misreads it he gets beaten badly and lacks the pace to fix it. If Frost goes I'd have him in line for the CHB role but if he's messing up (as above) I'd like to see more of him forward, the lack of speed and dynamic skills isn't ideal there but he jumped at the ball way better than I expected, held a few marks and kicked straight and that's half the battle these days. I'd genuinely consider an outside the box solution next year and swap Weideman and Petty between CHB and CHF as required. It might end in disaster (and I wouldn't be chopping and changing every game) but I just think the best possible development for both of those guys would be getting time at either end. I reckon the Weid would hold so many more marks after some time down back.

Talia and Hartigan took the dangerous marking forwards - usually talls, although sometimes Hartigan would move to a medium marking type player and Lever would take a dud tall and dictate position. Jake Kelly was also there to take a mid sized player - he's the most similar to Hibberd at this stage of his career (and Luke Brown played on the smalls). The reality is Lever is most like Nick Haynes, Tom Stewart and Jeremy Howe and not like a proper key defender who intercepts like McGovern. At this stage Lever's not even as good as Haynes and Howe one on one but hopefully he gets to that level with a preseason. It's a vital position if done well. We'll always need another taller player to go with May to free Lever up to play his best footy. Hore doesn't have the speed, strength or height, he might be good enough to still get a game but he's not ideal. If Frost goes I think we'll see a competition between Oscar and Petty which doesn't inspire a lot confidence not but might not be too bad (especially if Petty wins). I'd also be moving Joel Smith back (assuming he's still on the list), he's undersized but at least has the athleticism, even if he's not the answer to replace Frost he's a chance to replace Hibberd or Jetta.

He’s kicked more than 30 goals in 4 seasons, might be 5 after this year. But sure, he’ll add nothing more than Ben Ken. Be concerned about injuries and overpaying - but free agents are always overpaid - don’t be silly and say he doesn’t have talent. How do you want us to play moneyball? There’s not a lot of good players out there for free or at below market cost, particularly not goal kickers. Go through the list of goal kickers who have kicked more than 30 goals, not many of them would be cheap. Sam Lloyd is one who was a good pick up by the dogs but he stank in the final, his home and away season goals probably outweigh his talent