DeeSpencer

Removing the sub rule is an interesting change. Thought I'd consider it for Clayton. The obvious change is you can't debut as either the sub or with plans to sub off. Short term that's not good. But medium term that's a good thing to not have players stuck as the sub multiple times. It also means they'll have to go back to the VFL to regather form instead of being sub for a week. Which means they have to be used to getting dropped and to working on their games. The other change is in having the 4th bench spot. 22/4 instead of 21/4 means slightly less - 82% game plan per player. Now if your 4 deepest defenders can do 90, even 95+% TOG that means one player might be able to get away with 60-70% game time. However with 90 rotations that probably means only 1 rest per player per quarter and so longer spells on the ground when the player and more on the ground rotations. Given Hogan, Garlett, a ruckman and possibly another tall or goal kicker will likely play forward most of the game it means even a first year player like Oliver probably has to do midfield minutes. From the training reports that probably won't be a problem, he seems to thrive in the contested stuff. But it might mean 2 or 3 minutes in the midfield spelling an experienced mid before going forward for another 5 or so minutes in each rotation on the ground. Will he have the fitness to do that and keep a high work rate? The Nab challenge will be very interesting for how we plan to manage rotations and how our younger players can handle that.

Please Saty, we love/hate having you back. This is one of the latter. A finger injury isn't a valid excuse to be underdone, but it is what it is and Jeff can build his fitness back and still play well.

Anything on Ben Ken, Harmes or JKH? I think one of the 3 will get the nod for round 1 depending in a half forward spot.

I agree, it's the mature and responsible way to fix trade week and free agency. But salaries have to be public to allow that and draftee deals have to be longer than they currently are. You can't have a first round pick leaving in under 4 years, probably not even under 5 if you want a franchise tag style situation. So in that case it wouldn't really help young Cam who has decided that 2 years was the most he could give in Western Sydney, but it would help in some regards as the situation would be more transparent and if he really was homesick or depressed to the stage that he could no longer train at GWS I'm sure they would trade him for a fair deal. The strange thing is being from WA he should've had a year off between school and being drafted and some time to reflect on the realities of being drafted and the realities of signing a contract extension. Unfortunately either he didn't or his manager gave him bad advice and made him sign a contract extension that he was never planning to fulfil.

It can be. There's 3 reasons why I don't like that formula: 1. If you're swapping a defender/ruck and the other team has 2 key forwards and 2 rucks (say North with Goldy, Petrie, Brown, Waite) then you might need 3 other taller defenders to swap with. 2. You don't get much rest these days with the moving zones and two way footy that most defenders play, whilst you can sneak a bit of a break as a deep forward. Less interchange will mean longer stints on field and I don't want someone doing 7 minutes in the ruck then having to play on a dangerous forward. Not to mention it's easier to get on and off the field rotating with a forward. 3. I think backlines in particularly still play best when working together and reasonably predictable combinations. That's obviously true for forwards as well, but in particular I think it helps if backmen know each others tendencies and when the spoil, leave their man etc.

Not really that relevant but didn't Pike usually play forward for the Brisbane Lions? At this stage I'd rather Dunn at FB and Garland the 3rd tall. Hopefully Oscar McDonald is keeping the selection pressure on and I'm interested in the idea of Hulett as a defender. I'd love to see Max King take on the 2nd ruck role but from a training perspective he hasn't quite made the leap I was hoping for and so we'll have to see how he goes in practice games and probably at Casey first.

I don't mean to sound cruel, but homesickness itself isn't really an illness. It's feeling a little sad and disappointed. So if that was the case in trade week then GWS have every right to say 'you just signed a 3 year contract extension' and that they will keep him, give him his break from September to mid November ie. 10+ weeks back in Perth, give him his 2 weeks over Xmas back in Perth and work with him to facilitate other things like family and friends coming to spend weekends with him in Sydney. They don't have the power to hold him hostage and have rightly let him take some extended leave and I bet they are still paying him. Now if he has depression or another serious illness they have to help him and if they lose out at the trade period later in the year then it's too bad for them. But it's an adult business and he signed a contract as an adult and GWS have every right to decide to hold him to it.

Cheers. Good stuff, all important players to be back in the main group. Hopefully Petracca can start running in the next week or so as that would give him a month in some form of training to hopefully get him fit for the 2nd NAB challenge game on March 6th, or a VFL game on the same weekend which is probably the cut off for playing round 1.

He's still contracted for this year and next year as well I believe. So he'll have to be traded. I hope that after a month or so off in WA he gets back to playing for GWS (via their reserves I imagine), finishes the year and then it will be up to the WA clubs to see what his trade value is. If he retires or GWS sack him for failure to fulfil his contract then it's going to be like the Mitch Clark situation.

Because Jon O'Rourke and Lachie Plowman are going so much better? GWS didn't draft South Australian's as a rule, they didn't risk Wingard going home and that looks a bad decision. They've made many. The best way to stop stuffing up high draft picks is to stop having high draft picks.

The 45 minutes in a car each way probably doesn't make them happy but I'm sure the players enjoy training on an oval with close proximity to a toilet. Were Tyson, Brayshaw and Frost back in full training? Any Petracca sightings? He wasn't wearing his moon boot in his instagram pic yesterday. It's getting close to the 4 weeks off legs.

Had been avoiding this thread. Was hoping it wasn't as bad as it turned out to be. I just want our young players to be the best they can be and I'm sick of comparing our draft picks. Can't wait to see Clarry pull on the red and blue jumper.

No thanks. The biggest problem with relegation (and there are many) is that it means only a select handful of teams can win the league as they are the powerful teams who don't ever have to think about relegation. The majority of teams will either be battling relegation or in mid table mediocrity. There are other issues as well but the 2nd biggest might be that there isn't enough money or interest for a proper 2nd tier league in Australia. Making games between bottom teams meaningful is a dumb idea to cater for neutral supporters. It's mainly journo's or league administrators who call for things like this. It's only something that's become popular since every game has been shown on TV (and live at that) and the simple solution to avoid "meaningless games" between bottom teams is to change the channel! They are usually on at non peak times anyway. Every Melbourne game is interesting to me and same for true fans of both teams competing in dead rubber games. And games of bottom teams v top teams should be interesting for the upset scuttling the plans of the top team. Unfortunately upsets have been rare over the last 5-10 years of terrible inequality between top and bottom teams. Back in the 90's and early 2000's there were a lot more upsets.

12 in finals - terrible Nab cup in finals - laughable Bottom 6 playing off for 5 weeks - shithouse 11th and 12th missing out in finals for those 2 above - also bad This is Eddie's plan to guarantee 2 or 3 home games in the final 5 rounds against big drawing in contention for finals opponents. Once he schedules his home games against Carl, Ess, Richmond, Hawthorn in the first 17 rounds he's guaranteed most of his 11 home games will be big crowds. The teams who end up stuck in the bottom 6 (and it won't be Collingwood any time soon) for any more than 1 or 2 years will be completely stuffed as they won't play good opponents or draw crowds, becoming reliant on the AFL and therefore by comparison Eddie increases his power.

Not that I've seen, but they'll plate it, put a cast over it, jab it and he'll play, but whether he can be effective I guess we will find out. He'll be ok in pass coverage and if he can 'hit' as they say, where they just spear in and make a tackle that way, not sure he'll be able to tackle if he has to use his arm/hands to hold a tackle.

Do you we keep changing? Not really. The skill level and pace should improve and see us play more high level footy, and we should hold our nerve against the best teams. But overall I still expect us to be a defensive first team and not overexpose our backline by trying to play Port Adelaide style footy. I'm fine with that. What I'd like to see is more forward pressure and up the ground zoning instead of sagging back to defend. Petracca? He'll play. What I expect from Petracca will be times he has to get dropped and go back to the VFL to regather his confidence and work on his defensive skills and efficiency with the ball, not any issue about getting him in early. Like Nakia Cockatoo from Geelong. Hogan? I expect a slight dip in goal tally and a few more matches where expectation outweighs performance, that's the reality of 2nd year syndrome. I'm also a bit worried about this plan to bulk him up, it makes no sense to me. I'd rather see him back up the front of our running groups and getting up and down the ground with freedom. If he's outmuscled then it's in a failure of delivery or failure of his leading patterns. But hey, I'm not in charge. I still expect some very strong performances.

Stretch and ANB playing 11 games is exactly why Hunt is a chance to play! I hope it's tougher this year, but last year it didn't exactly take a heap to get a game. Certainly Hunt has a lot to prove, but he's a lot closer now than last year I think due to his body shape and having completed much more training. Sadly on the back of a few good games he was Casey's top goal scorer, hopefully he can step us his game and still keep kicking goals. Some players were victims of the sub rule, I actually think Hunt is less likely to play because of it's removal. He would've made a handy sub I think and it would've been good for his development, where as the likes of Harmes and ANB need to be playing full games.

My thoughts are summarised as: Carolina offense 8.5/10 v Denver Defense 10/10 - Carolina score approx 20 points Denver offense 6/10 v Carolina defense 8.5/10 - Denver score approx 15 points But there's always the wildcards of: 1. special teams 2. Unexpected turnovers 3. missed FG's and missed PAT 4. Injuries - and on that point Davis is already under a big injury cloud

Newton was amazing, but I feel like some of the other members of Carolina's offense need to get some credit as well. Their O line is really good. Olsen is making a case for the 2nd best TE in the league. Stewart always runs hard and the WR keep making big plays. I don't care if they have drops and bad moments, they keep getting open when they need to be. I feel like the success of the panthers is that their good players are really good and the role players around them just keep stepping up when the time is right.

Irrelevant. You sign a contract you live with it. That's how it works in sports with guaranteed money. No one complains that Angus Brayshaw was underpaid last year based on the set draftee deal. For what it's worth Pedersen came from North on a 3 year deal and apparently for good money as Collingwood were keen on him as well. That deal has since expired and he'll likely now be on a 1 year deal that recognises his value as an ok mature back up player. Dawes has a year left of his 4 year contract and at the end of the year he'll probably be offered (or not offered) some kind of deal that reflects his value in the game as well. The AFL salary cap is 10million per year with 44 players, that's 227,000 per player, given a lot of that are rookies and kids who just make basic wage the average wage for a senior player is well over 300k. If Dawes is on 500k he hasn't exaclty bled us dry.

Wow. That Denver defense is something. I need to watch the replay as only saw the last quarter but to make the stand and stop Brady on the 2pt conversion was something. Brady is amazing and Gronk is even better, just a freak of nature. Peyton looked bad in the 4th quarter, might have to watch more to see if the Broncos will get something going in the superbowl. As for Carolina, they are fantastic. They know who they are on both sides of the ball, aggressive and capable of big plays. Most will tip Carolina for the superbowl and I might too, but I'll be keen to see what Denver come up with on offense because their D will at least give them a chance I think.

Pats 24 - Denver 13 Arizona 27 - Carolina 30

Think you nailed it. Brady gets the ball out so quick a pass rush is irrelevant. I think you have to put 2 on Gronk and maybe even 2 on Edelman at times, then disrupt Brady's throwing lanes and not be afraid to give up a big play every now and then. The issue for Denver is without a great passing game they don't want to sell out and take some risks to force Brady in to a mistake or to get a punt and instead I imagine Denver will die a slow death in this game as NE gradually pull away by sustaining drives.

http://demonwiki.org/Round+22+1987

He's a big improver body wise which hopefully means they've fixed his back and should translate in to both improved performances and consistency at Casey. I'm not convinced he'll be the dashing half back flanker we recruited him for as so far he hasn't been a natural high possession winner which good back flankers are, nor has he used the ball particularly well. But the goals he kicked at Casey and the x factor displayed on the back of an interrupted season points towards him being a very handy half forward type who could easily come in to the AFL side. Early days though, he's really only catching up to where most first year players are in terms of his body and skills,