DeeSpencer

Isn't it more about protecting 2018's cap number from a big pay out than 2019's salary cap? Say Langford was owed 400k in 2019. If he's delisted now that 400k has to go in to 2018's salary cap. Redrafting him as a rookie allows them to pay out some fraction in to the 2018 cap and then hold the rest over for next years cap. Also I think it's only the base of a rookies wage that is cap free, not the total. So they might agree on paying him 300k to retire now, dump 200k in to the 2018 cap and then have 100k to pay him next year to be on the rookie list. Also I think the AFL were going to allow clubs to draft 1 extra rookie on the eve of the season so they'll get the list spot back. https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/afl-to-introduce-mid-season-rookie-draft-in-2019-20181004-p507sq.html To be honest I'm surprised we haven't done the same with Jeff Garlett. Maybe we are waiting for the drafts or to see how he comes back in preseason, but I can certainly see us getting him to retire so we can add another rookie by March 15.

I don't think they are that bad. From their side that beat Sydney last year their outs are May (who was best on), Lyons, KK and Lonergan (delisted). They won't be able to replace May or Lynch but everyone else they've let go weren't huge losses. They have far more skilled flankers and young players than we did when we were rubbish in 2013. The question is can a spine scraped together with Witts, Hombsch, Day, Wright, Thompson and 3 state league players do the job and can a midfield led by Swallow, Miller, Miles and Brodie be better than terrible. David Swallow has very much reached the Nath Jones last man on the sinking ship type of player.

An AFL recruiter told me mid year this isn't a deep draft without much talent after pick 40. I think teams are manipulating the salary cap better, using rookie spots and conducting almost a secondary trade period now with delisted players. It's pretty much a trash and treasure swap meet with delisted players. I think rebuilding sides will get most of their picks done by pick 45 and then the teams in contention who have traded in players like the Hawks will roll the dice with late picks. Our strategy seems to be to get 3 good picks and fill the last 3 list spots by the best available means be that drafting one or two more kids, drafting a state league type, picking up a delisted player or having an extra rookie.

Anyone seen much of Sam McLarty? Some Pies fans aren't happy he was delisted. A reasonably high drafted young tall getting the chop after only 2 years is unusual.

So who can we rule out being available at 23? Excluding academy players because their teams picks to match come after 23 I'd say the following names appear too consistently to fall to 23 outside of a dramatic fall: The top names (7): Walsh, Lukosius, Rankine, Rozee, B Smith, M. King, B King The consistent mid first rounders (4): Caldwell, Hately, Clarke, Collier-Dawkins After that the next best grouping, some of which might be available at 23 (9): Duursma, Stocker, Butters, O'Halloran, Sturt, Taylor, Jones, Hill, McLennan Every year there's 1 or 2 bolters in to the top 20 who aren't talked about by the common media/draft experts as well as a couple who the group think has as top 20 who are actually 35+. Keen draft watchers, are there any of the top 11 I've named who are any chance to fall to 23? And what about the next group or any others, who's likely to be gone before we pick?

C - Viney VC - Gawn Can see the benefits of dual captaincy and would consider it if that's how it looks in preseason. Viney obviously needs to get himself 100% right and it's impossible to know from the outside how the relationships between these guys and younger players are. LG - T McDonald, May, Jones If he settles in well and has the right work ethic and respect with the group I'd throw May in. If he plays anywhere near his best he'll be the leader of the backline, he should have the title. T Mc leads the forward line. Gawn/Viney the mids. Jones should stay in even if he's not locked in the best 22 or playing a vital role because a veteran with the connection to the younger players is important.

I see Josh's role overseeing the football department mainly broken down in 4 areas: Coaching, medical/fitness, list management and culture. Shorting of asking Josh to explain his own role I have a number of questions based on what I think is important. Coaching: Does the club have a kicking coach? If not why not? Medical/fitness: Repeated foot injuries, what's the plan? Has it been reviewed? List management: I don't have a question here, whilst I think there's still work to do I'd give the team a tick on this one! Culture: How are the players, staff and fans embracing success and what's the plan to embrace it whilst not getting ahead of themselves?

Wouldn’t be against Townsend just to have another big physical guy at training and at Casey to drive the standards. Plus I’d roll him out for the Anzac Eve game. Partington was delisted early for a high pick, not sure he’s much of a player but I can see the appeal of a mid/half forward type. I think he has decent pace/fitness. Skill level and size the concerns Karpany probably appeals more because of our lack of crumber but he’s been in the system for a long time with little results.

I’ll predict through necessity he’ll play high up at the ground at CHF where he rarely had the poor body language and play very well. Just like he did in years 1+2 here. In fact Lobb at FF suits him as a partner more than any Melbourne forward did. I’ll predict he averages 20 touches, 8 marks, 2 goals but doesn’t really make Freo all that much better because even though a lead up CHF is nice it’s only required if your team doesn’t move the ball quickly and accurately enough to produce flowing direct passages of play.

The biggest change in that time was playing Gawn a kick behind the play. Having one of the games tallest and strongest aerial players situated under the ball made a huge difference...Up until when the Eagles smashed us at the contest and kicked to the open wide flank and used 2 rucks to draw Gawn in to bad positions. I don't think it was sustainable use of Gawn. We need him around the contest as the extra mid, as a link man around the ground an pushing forward to goal. The kick behind the play should only be an occasional tactic.

Everyone's so against him I'd probably take him. Defensive pressure can't be much worse than Melksham's and more likely to get on the end of a few than Hannan who chases hard but rarely lays a tackle anyway. Was a gun back flanker in his early days, maybe he can have Lewis' spot. Would be nice to have a gun goal kicker at Casey. A throw back to the days of Fevola! To be serious I'm not sure he's a list fit but at what stage do you take a talented has been over a never was? 47th spot on the list at 150k plus incentives?

Pats, Rams, Vikings

McGovern made the match saving play and Barrass was great. Darling played 1 good quarter and Kennedy played well but his most important stuff was largely getting on the end of smart up field work. A midfielder kicked the game winning goal. We need to replace Garlett but big goal kicker Dean Kent is a good laugh

Players motivated by playing in flags is terrible for the league. Dogs, Tigers and Pies have shown every team should be a chance to win a flag within 3 years. Melbourne are more equipped than Freo now but not necessarily in 3 years if they do things right. If Fyfe, Hogan, Cerra and Pearce can be Dusty, Riewoldt, Cotchin and Rance then why not? Hogan didn’t leave purely because he was unhappy here. In fact I think he had a good off field life here. He said he wanted to leave because his Footy was suffering in Melbourne due to his mental demons. He was going to struggle to win a premiership for us (and therefore with us) playing at 70% of his potential. Playing at 100% for Freo gives him a far better chance of personal success and to drive team success. Moving because you know you aren’t comfortable and aren’t performing to your best isn’t a non winner move to me. It’s taking ownership

Give Jake Long a year this year and sign Ben Long next year? Tom Sheridan - cheap depth wing option if we still aren't satisfied on outside runners? Have often thought Jack Leslie offered a bit as a key defender, but keeping Keilty means we've got heaps of numbers there. Dom Barry? ? Surely Richmond will lock up Derek Eggmolesse-Smith

That post was from Nov last year and with a good run of games Gus got right back to being a star. Was I wrong?

Bugg is hopeless and doesn’t suit any positional needs. Mainly because he couldn’t settle in a position the last couple of years I think we’ll take 4 draft picks and then look for 2-3 mature age players who fill depth needs, depending on the draft those being: Forward/3rd ruck - ie. younger Pedersen Outside kicking/run - a new Bernie Vince/Lewis type Depth inside mid - a cut price Dom Tyson/Nath Jones Crumbing/pressure forward - a new Garlett We need to replace the guys who actually got games over the last 2 years. Not find replacements for guys like Bugg who was hardly picked all year

He was around that mark and started coming in as more draft expert types looked at his skill set. Fritsch was pretty much an older version of an 18 year old draftee, very raw and with a lot of upside and skills. Instead of having a strong under 18 season it took him until his body was right to produce a strong VFL season. Lockhart is more experienced in state leagues having come over from Tassie, that kind of player who's improved steadily usually goes later in the draft. We'd also have made a pretty decent mistake if we pick Lockhart with 28 given Geelong picked up a player by sending 42 to Carlton early in the trade week. If we rated Lockhart with a pick clearly above then we should've dealt 36 to Carlton a week ago.

Bear with me a bit on this but I wanted to look at the academy impacts on this draft pick: 28 will be pushed out by Blakely, Tarran Thomas, Quaynor and maybe Rhylee West and Bailey Scott. So pick 28 will become at least 31 and maybe even 33. Where as pick 36 will be pushed out 3-5 spots but move back at least 1 for Blakely and possibly one for West. If it's just the 3 picks my guess is we pick with 31 and the pick we gave up becomes 38. Harder to work out what happens with 46 but it probably stays about the same. Value wise that's not good for us but I'm sure it's about getting ahead of a bid for Bedford as well as the recruiters being more confident of landing a player in the early 30's than late 30's.

Yes, but I believe it was with the MFC's permission/knowledge. The Watts drama last year overshadowed the fact there was a fair bit of smoke around a Hogan trade. Freo had pick 2 and 5. Not sure what if anything they offered or if Hogan would even have agreed to a trade then but I'm sure both parties discussed it. My guess is Freo would've put pick 5 and some later picks on the table last year and MFC said no thanks we'll see if we can win the flag with Hogan and Lever this year and that worked for Freo who needed to get some games in to kids. Hence Hogan's comment about the 5 year plan. Hogan stuck it out in Melbourne for one last go around. I think all the media posturing and Peter Bell's carry on this year might've been because a deal was in place from a long way out.

I wonder if we pushed to include him in the trades, there was certainly a lag between the Suns first 2 mature age pick ups and their 3rd which occurred once the mega deal got traction. We've got lots of options for the 3 talls. Jetta and Hibberd the deep playing small/medium types. Salem on one flank. If KK is set for a wing then we still could do with a run and kick player on the other flank.

Sorry meant might not be able to be taught. That said, I look at Hawthorn, they had Cyril, just line him up and he'll go out there and get to the right spots and make an impact. But they also had Breust and Puopolo as pressure forwards. Puopolo was a state league defender. Breust played rugby growing up. Somehow the Hawks got those guys in positions to maximise their talents. Bedford might not ever get more than 10 touches a game but if he's in the right spots and it's 10 good touches and 5 big tackles that's a very handy player

Delisted players I have the absolute smallest of interest in: Cory Gregson - has the talent but terrible injury run Jed Lamb - would be his 4th team, he's mostly crap but maybe he's the latest of late maturers? There's something about him that could work in a good team, not sure if I'm crazy or not Darren meatball Michington - pressure forward type who has a crack Declan Mountford - tagger who's got just a little class and toe Jon O'Rourke - not sure he's hearts in it but his athleticism is still there Nathan Mullenger-McHugh - great name! Also he's super raw and athletic

12 touches a game doesn't impress me, nor does 1 goal a game. But 8 tackles and 3 clearances are more impressive numbers. That's a guy who can win it in tight and be a really aggressive tackler. I'd want to know why he's not finding the ball in space more. Is it work rate, is it the position the team puts him in or is it a feel for the game thing that might be able to be taught.

When Mahoney said midfield rotation it was very much implying wing not in the centre square and it looks to me like Tyson out KK in is exactly what the footy department were targeting. Correct an oversupply of inside mids for an outside mid. Wing will be an interesting position this year given the 6-6-6 rules. It won't change much in general play but from a centre bounce there might be some different tactics. If he settles on the wing KK might be required to start right towards the back of the square and be a loose defender or play half back flank which he's well qualified to do. And without the extra running off the back of the square he might have sprint to cover a midfielder bursting from the middle. Wing's are vital defensive sweepers and outlets at around the ground clearances so he'll have to do some work there but it's not impossible to improve on.