DeeSpencer

No club would want him. There's a provision this year to replace a retired player with a rookie pick prior to the start of the season. I'd imagine that will be the move for Jeff. I get the feeling we couldn't fit his pay out in this years salary cap so we're waiting for next years. Hey if he does come back from summer break in career best shape maybe things can change but I'd have it as a <1% chance.

FB: Hibberd May Jetta HB: Lever ????? Salem C; Fritsch Brayshaw Kade Kolo HF: Spargo T Mc Petracca FF: ##### Weid Melksham Foll: Gawn Oliver Viney Int: Harmes, Vanders, ?HBF, ?forward/mid They'll be a battle for the best CHB option. Then there's lots of competition for the last few spots and some options with guys like Fritsch, Kade Kolo and Vanders capable of multiple roles. Depth: Oscar, Preuss ANB, Hannan, Stretch, Baker, Maynard, Wagner, Jones, Lewis, Hunt, J Smith, T Smith, JKH, ?Garlett Development: ?Keilty, Petty, Bradtke and draft picks Key defenders: May, Frost, Oscar, Petty, ?Keilty 3rd tall: Lever, J Smith Back pockets: Jetta Flankers: Hibberd, Salem, Hunt, Lewis, Wagner Inside mids: Oliver, Viney, Brayshaw, Harmes, Maynard Outside mids: Kade Kolo, Fritsch, Jones, Stretch, Baker Ruck: Gawn, Preuss, Bradtke Mid/forward: Petracca, Vanders Key forwards: T Mc, Weideman, T Smith 3rd tall: Melksham Flankers: Spargo, ANB, Hannan Crumbers: ??Garlett I think filling the remaining list spots the focus should be on a gun crumbing small forward as number 1 priority but after that just look for more class and run.

He was and is still on the draftee wage scale. Best part of 100k per year plus 5k a game. He made 190k last year and will make over 200k if he plays every game this year. Unless those kids eat caviar they’ll be fine. The Eagles offered him 600k from 2020 on. They can’t change his draftee deal. The question should be whether he had to be drafted at all given he missed out in about 4 drafts. But given he was the Cats and Eagles operate under the rules they’ve been given

Here's why I wouldn't worry so much. 1. We have a guy for Hogan's best spot - a guy who really stole it this year in T Mc. He's the CHF of our side. 2. The full forward role Hogan often played this year can be covered by Weid. Who has shown - maybe not enough but he has done it - a few really nice things: A) An ability to beat up on bad teams on the rare occasions he got great supply at Casey. In his first year he had a couple of 4 goal games, a couple of 3's. In an interrupted second year he had a game where he kicked 6. And last year at Casey in 10 games he had a 7 a 5 and a 4. B) The ability to go in to the ruck C). A growing inclination to tackle and pressure It's too hard to be a reliable full forward these days and consistently take marks and kick goals. The better player to have in that 2nd tall role is one who can kick some goals on their day but contributes in other ways. 3. We have multiple players capable of beating one on one match ups deep - Petracca, Melksham, Hannan. These are often the guys you want inside 50 now. It's the balance of options and roles that not only covers the loss of Hogan but makes us better due to versatility and match ups.

Looks like he’s sunburnt in Bali but yep that was a great interview and a strong endorsement for Goodwin

I don’t agree with that. There’s lots of chances to move up and down the draft order these days. I think with more time we could’ve tried to move the 6 and 23 we got for Hogan in to something like 10 and 15. Then offered the Suns various deals that allowed us to keep a first round pick. If hypothetically we had pick 2 we would’ve surely traded it down before sending it to the Suns. But we didn’t have the leverage in either situation. Freo and Gold Coast both knew Hogan out and May in was an acceptable result for us. Anyway, we seem to have a philosophy that it’s better to not haggle over the last bit of change in a deal. I don’t always believe in it. But the player managers organized the big 7 team deal today. Keeping player managers happy might have a lot more value than people think

Who did he play on? The question has often been Oscar or Frost. My answer is neither. Give me May, Lever and a 3rd tall option depending on match ups that could be Oscar or just as likely could be Hibberd or Joel Smith.

I think moving that 2nd pick ahead of any Toby Bedford bid. We'd hate to have kept pick 36 and had to use it to match Bedford. Now we can draft with 23, 28, then match a bid for Bedford that comes in the 30's or 40's, then take a late flyer on someone. Similar draft to last year, 3 picks in the 2nd round and then a later flyer. Not sure how we fill the remaining 3 spots on the list but I'm not too worried about it either.

Don't love the trade. KK was pretty much free so it's pick 6 for May. Would've preferred to swap pick 23 up to a higher pick in that deal as well. Anyway. Love the player though. Big. Angry. Physical. Skilled. Proper key defender.

Hogan: 8 goals in 6 games against top 8 opponents Weid: 8 goals in 5 games against top 8 opponents from round 22 onwards We'll need to find a back up. I think Preuss or Tim Smith can do it short term. Add another scrap heap or VFL option but draft for long term.

Hibbo and Lever should go up a level. Oscar down a level to Casey

Read the Naill article. It's about 8 teams involved and no team wants to be the first to accept a deal when there's so many moving parts. The only currency teams have are draft picks (including restricted future picks), players and occasionally paying a percentage of contracts for other teams. A huge business deal would rarely feature so many independent and competing companies and they'd be able to offer different forms of compensation as well as bonuses, penalties etc. At the moment it looks like Brisbane won't move until they're happy with the Beams deal. Freo won't move until they've got the Neale deal sorted, after which they deal with Port so that they can work out deals with GWS and Melbourne. Port are involved with Gold Coast, Hawthorn and Freo and then Melbourne can deal with GC. The bones of the deals might be lined up but then Port might feel they are being slightly undervalued so might ask Freo for a little more, who then might get that little more from Gold coast who then might pass it on to us. Suddenly a team asks for pick 25 instead of pick 20 and then all of a sudden that pick 20 which was going to be used in the next 3 deals doesn't exist any more and it's back to the drawing board.

Where's the evidence of that? One comment from Craig Cameron with no real backing from anyone to do with May. Meanwhile the Jake Niall article lays out the deal that will have him as a Demon.

Whilst at his best he would've helped us there's clearly 2 issues that lowered his value: 1. He clean snapped his leg in half and that's not the kind of injury you want for a guy who's entire game is reliant on his running. He's not a great contested ball winner and he's not a good ball user. If he's not out running his opponent he's not helping you win. 2. In late 2016 he signed on for a further 5 year contract that incorporated the last year of 6 year 6 million dollar deal with a new 4 year 500k per year deal according to reports. Maybe he had 500k left on the old deal, maybe it was 1 mil left on the old deal. If the Giants wanted much needed cap relief for 17/18 included in his deal then there's a lot of that money left over in 19/20/21. It could easily be as much as 800k a year for those 3 years. I haven't seen it clearly stated one way or another how much he was owed but my guess is somewhere between 600-800 per year. My guess is we would've struggled to afford him and a lot of other Victorian clubs would struggle as well.

May's age means he has to get paid a heap of money to be in the top 5% of players and therefore draw first round compensation. That would mean he has to get through the year without injury and in decent enough form to draw the big offers. I rate him very highly, but I want him now and not after another year of battling around in a crap team. The longer you do that the less likely it is you get back to your best. Also pick 5 in this draft is worth far more than only a potential chance of a pick 2. The idea of knocking back pick 5 is all silly talk because May's true value is more like a couple of mid to late firsts with pick swaps, similar to Lever, rather than handing over a prestigious pick like pick 5. Gold Coast are just spreading some doubt to keep the price high.

The biggest stitch up was that he was contracted for 2 more years at 400k and the Suns were keen to get out of the contract. First year was pretty solid. Looks like a guy who checked out last year

He’s 23, it’s not completely crazy to sign him until he’s 31. And that was reported as the managers first offer. A 5 or 6 year deal at 1M is about what I’d expect Hogan to sign with Freo for. We gave Lever 4 years 800 and that’s before he’s in his prime. Plus key forwards get more. With the cap rising 20% in the next 4 years the 1M seems correct. Really I think this is Freo looking for deflection. Blaming the manager is an easy way out

I've had the feeling the whole time there might be a 2nd big name alongside May if the Hogan deal got what we wanted, but it's only gut feel. The reality might well be that the pick 60's in the Kent and Preuss trades are set for some late swaps once we get our salary cap situation under control with the big name deals. If not there's been a recent history of players being delisted who would've been traded for next to nothing when the clubs couldn't get the deals done before deadline.

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All those flags were initially built around the players they drafted - with priority picks helping - prior to 2018. Roughy, Franklin, Lewis, Hodge, Mitchell, Rioli, Birchall etc. Then they started trading out of weak drafts to get Burgoyne, Gibson, Gunston etc to fill the gaps. But they still needed Isaac Smith and Brad Hill, so you have to keep some decent picks. There's not a lot of evidence the Hawks trading post 2015 will work. They won't go down the ladder but will need to find some great players with later picks to stay up. They've found a couple of good ones - Sicily and Hardwick with later picks. Time will tell if they can do it again. Dealing pick 10 for Mitchell and a late pick for Scully is wise. Selling the farm for O'Meara and Shiel maybe not. We have a young core a bit like the Hawks in 2008, maybe not as good which isn't a knock on us but just a statement of how good those young Hawks were. So I definitely think we are in trade in mode. But we need some good draft picks too! The other thing the Hawks did really well between 09-13 was trade out the right type of players - they said goodbye to Gilham, Campbell Brown, Tom Murphy, Clinton Young, Mark Williams - all guys who were overrated and injury prone and got value for them. Are Watts, Tyson and Hogan the right guys to trade out? I think they are.

Preuss is the next man picked if Max goes down. So in many ways he's = 23rd. Tyson is 8th in line for the 4/5 inside mid spots in his preferred position clearly behind Oliver, Viney, Brayshaw and Harmes and most likely behind Vanders, Jones and Petracca. Even Maynard isn't far off. He's probably closer than that for a wing spot but it's time to develop long term answers there. With the way things were going in a years time Preuss is still next man picked if Gawn goes down. Tyson is drifting further behind.

Was contracted for 2019. I imagine we might've paid a bit of his salary, only because I think North would've paid him huge money in 2019 followed by peanuts in 2020/2021. No real issue with us paying a bit of money if it gets the deal done.

Good player. Although the KingDinga has a point about the ACL, we should've mentioned that when trading for him. It was after all the reason we didn't just pick him at number 3 in the draft. Freo are spreading all sorts of stuff about Hogan right now. It wouldn't have killed us to at least bring up Lever's history. Lever's best 3 games came against Jacob Townsend, Pat Kerr and Darcy Fogarty. Hopefully we get him healthy and he can start playing CHB against some real footballers and doing the same thing he was doing against no names. If he develops well he'll help a gun full back by stopping the ball every getting down there, but if we have a gun full back he'll help Lever by covering up deep in defence. Who's more valuable? Maybe Lever because he's younger and could be a long term leader. Who's better? Well we need both of them and we desperately need a big time stopper in May.

Agree with most of that. From any time he's been interviewed he's clearly not stupid. In fact I'm guessing one of his problems is he's a bit too smart for his own good. Seems a player for which footy is a job more than a huge passion. I just wish we rested him when his form was slipping in the latter half of the year. Might've prevented an injury or got on top of one early. If anything it would've been a mental reset. Apart from beating up a few bad sides he was all out of sorts and that can mess with relationships at the club and confidence. Who knows? Pure hypotheticals but maybe Freo offered him a truckload of cash mid year and he's spent the last 11 weeks worried he's about to leave.

History books don't care about which clubs look silly. They care about the wins and losses and if the opportunity still exists before Wednesday to turn Hogan in to May and something then we have to do it.