DeeSpencer

The Rams would not only be leading the NFC South (or tied?) but they'd be the best team in it by a fair stretch. Are Tampa out of it yet (almost Seriously) It's nice to see the Eagles copping what the Bears did last week. I had doubts on GB, because I saw them like the Broncos last year, great QB, but not strong enough of D or on the offensive line. But they are changing my opinion. As well as Manning played last year, with his ability to extend plays and scramble I'd say Rodgers is a level above. He doesn't need an offensive line right now (even if they are playing well) and he's giving the green bay D such a lead to play with as well. The Bengals and Browns completely swap form (I had initially tipped Houston but swapped to Detroit). I know there are still blow out wins, really bad teams (next week Oakland) and some boring games, but wow this any given Sunday thing is fun with unpredictable results. The AFL should really try one of these (somewhat) even and unpredictable comps one day.

Crouch turned in to an elite lock down defender. Buchanan (for a short period including a grand final) was a dangerous half forward. And I think Luke Ablett was a bit underrated. He probably had some more Ablett traits that we'd now recognise in his cousin even though he looked pretty plain at first. Certainly Bolton, Kirk, Matthews, Ablett and Dempster as the tagger were the grunt of the Swans midfield defensive style. Fosdike and Paul Williams were about it for outside types and then there was Goodes as the superstar. I never knew how Bolton, Kirk, Ablett etc beat the West Coast superstars, but I guess the answer is they didn't. They just restricted them, lent on their great defensive set ups and did enough for a few gun forwards to kick a winning score. I try to think if we were recreating the Swans of 05 what we are missing. They might not be up to standard but at least we have the midfielders on our list to push for spots now. Newton is going to be a better player if he works for a spot now he's here and doesn't just coast in to one. We have some dour defenders, ok rucks and I'm hoping star forwards are in the pipeline (no pressure Hoges and others). Tadhg Kennelly from half back and a midfield star would be nice, maybe Tyson or Brayshaw plus a gun runner and ball user picked up in this draft please!

Brisbane Broncos Brisbane Lions Australian national wheelchair rugby Steelers Also this could be the week for Oakland.

Riley had a badly broken ankle to recover from. So I didn't expect him to do much and not to play until mid season at least. So in some ways he exceeded expectations. Michie was expected to play round 1 and he did. I expected a bit more from him for the season but he did break his jaw and then get stuck in the Casey que whilst Roos wasn't shuffling the team much. He was better with a second chance, I wish it had come earlier. It should hopefully be harder to get a game round 1 this year for midfielders. But I'd still expect Newton to be right up in selection plans in to round 1 and unless injured to play 10 games. If he got 4 with Port he should get 10 with us!

Who hadn't played well for years. Port also gave up very little for Jake Neade. I don't know if GWS would've said no to us for Anderson. We did give them 3 and 13 for Hogan and 20. I would've thought it was reasonable to add a decent set of steak knives to that deal considering what Gold Coast and Adelaide had paid for the other mini draft picks. If they said no to us and wanted to save Anderson for a separate deal then that's fair enough I guess. But I'd be disappointed if we had our pick of he young Territorians valued between 3rd round/rookie picks and chose Barry over Anderson. Oh well.

I don't think Grimes or JKH/Kent get squeezed in to the midfield mix and stay in the team because of new players coming in to those spots. I think they'll have to fight harder for their own positions. We'll likely play 3 or at max 4 small/medium forwards (including the sub) all or some of which will have to do midfield bursts: Garlett, Howe (if not back), Kent, JKH, Bail, Salem likely compete for those spots. Only if we have a midfielder with above average forward ability would this number come down to 2 unless Salem or Kent are fit and good enough to be classified as midfielders, which would be exciting. We'll likely play 7 defenders, 1 or 2 of which might have to spend time on the wing. That's Lumumba or Grimes maybe. Add in 2 key forwards and 2 rucks and there's room for 8 midfielders. Jones, Tyson, Vince, Cross and Viney are the first 5 picked. Newton will be competing for one of the 3 remaining spots with Toumpas, Michie, Riley, Watts, McKenzie, Matt Jones, Brayshaw and others. I actually think Toumpas and Watts have the inside running because we desperately need more outside run to complement the 5 I named as definite starters. At the same time Roos will still be focused on winning contested ball and defensive work rate. It's impossible to say just where Newton will fit in. I lean to him being in the round 1 team because I think he'll be knocking the door down in the NAB challenge and the coaches will be keen to get a look at him. There's not much point recruiting a guy and then not giving him a shot. He's probably better suited as an inside player but being a left footer who likes a goal he could adapt to a wing role better than the likes of Riley, McKenzie etc and edge out Matt Jones or Toumpas. I don't mind resting our better mids in to the season and our talls and established forwards or defenders, but next years preseason games should be absolutely flat out for round 1 spots in the midfield.

Wines had a heap of endurance work to do to start his career. Port really rotated him in to their midfield for most of his first year. Yeah he had muscles and was a big boy. But plenty of kids do who aren't near AFL standard. You know why we should've took Wines, because he's damn good not because he's ready to go. We took Tapscott over Fyfe. One a ball of muscle. The other as skinny an 18 year old you can find. Guess who played more games in their first 2 seasons. Unfortunately you aren't good enough at this to be a troll.

Well we should sign up James Magner and Tom Couch. The draft age is 18. Everyone older than that has been passed up in previous drafts. 18 years old (mainly) have school commitments. They are also not fully grown. Nor are the fully developed mentally. Aggghh why am I even replying. You are either a troll or an idiot.

Which is why I think we might do it. I mean what's the benefit of talking this guy up so much if we wont take him? The saints wont do it and then it doesn't matter if Lever goes at pick 4 or pick 24, he's not getting to pick 40. It doesn't benefit us if he goes to GWS or if he goes to Geelong really. Are we hoping to talk him up, not take him and hope he does an ACL so we can seem smart? That's not a great plan. And now we've talked him up so much if he becomes a star everyone will question why we didn't take him. Unless someone in the FD let is slip and from there the rumours have just spread and we didn't feel any need to contain them I'm fascinated as to why we've heard so much about Lever.

High school sports teacher with tennis lessons on the side sounds about right for Barry. Shame he couldn't make that call before he signed a contract. But thankful he did before it's too late. 40 was definitely always in play, but I think Taylor would be glad with 53 as well. From the outside (and perception is often all that counts) you get judged by how many good players you recruit and how well the team does, not by success rate % so much. Draft a few guns and a few decent players and no one remembers the busts. So 53 is a nice free hit for a recruiter I'd say.

Hmm someone to think about. He looks more like a medium forward than a true marking tall on those highlights, despite the 194cm. So he'd need to have a fair set of legs on him to have the endurance and speed to pull that off at AFL level. If we go McCartin at 3 he'd be a big no no I'd say because what's the point with Dawes, Hogan, McCartin and others of having a guy who in all likelihood is just short term depth. If we don't then yeah he could be worth pick 53. If the recruiters think he can bring some of what he did this year to AFL. I'd be thinking more rookie draft though. Tall blokes just don't do much when given a chance later on (Pods aside). Most of the best have been on AFL lists for years because they are rated and drafted early even if they wont deliver for years.

Hence why we will take Brayshaw as a dual sided gun to replicate Sam Mitchell! Throw in Kent, Viney, Newton, Tyson and Salem and we are starting to get somewhere. Cockatoo is definitely a right footer, but seems confident swinging on to his left when needed in that (short) highlights video.

The other thing is if we are going for an out of the box and probably poorly rated DFA (see James Sellar) whether we could save money and flexibility and pass on 53 and pick that same player with the 3rd round rookie spot and have 5 rookies and 39 list players. I'd hope we rate the draft better than that though.

I do wonder if he leaves just a little wriggle room with the later picks for more needs based ie. if we go midfielder, midfielder, midfielder then for pick 53 he'll promote a tall a couple of spots in the list if they are about equal. But otherwise I'd be doing it exactly like that. Straight down the list with DFA mixed in. Of course hopefully the DFA's are in the draft pool as well so you can just call them out and have them locked in. I also wonder if there's a cut off with the list where if it gets below a certain point we consider passing on 53 and getting a bunch of players training before the PSD. 53 is probably too good a pick to do that as there'd still be 15 or so picks before PSD pick 2. But if we had 73 I'd be doing that, instead of rushing in for a guy who's most likely to still be there in the next draft I'd pass on it and evaluate the options.

I hope not. We've already got King developing. Just trade or draft a mature ager if come next year we need them as back up if Jamar retires. Even better get an international recruit so they don't take up a list spot. We've only got 2 picks and both might be early enough to find players of value around the ground.

I'd probably prefer to have him on the rookie list than Max King. At least we could then turf Spencer eventually (Sorry Spence I love you and your best is good but it's so infrequent) and have Hannath as the ready to go number 3 ruck. But yes Freo got us. The Saints would've done the same with Frost.

In the top right corner of any quote there is a little hooked arrow that redirects to the original post quoted. It's great for CONTEXT. You'll see I'm replying to a poster who called me a hypocrite for calling out some of the racist posts. I don't believe my view that I would largely ignore drafting guys from remote backgrounds to be racist, I see it as analytical. The success rate is just too low. And we don't seem to full grasp the cultural challenges, the family responsibilities and probably the biggest the spiritual differences. Hence why I said at the end of my post "It's far different to not drafting Cockatoo". I've already posted saying I'm all for Cockatoo as he's from Darwin etc. So we really don't need to start the entire argument again but just check what exactly you are replying to first.

As a senior list player. I'm not sure that's the same as nabbing a guy from a rookie spot a club has lined up for him.

Haters gonna hate, Saty's gonna sate

Regarding your tweets you should put a fullstop (.) in front of any starting with a @ sign so they go out to all your followers, otherwise they will only go out to those who follow you and the person you start the tweet with unless someone follows you and that person. You may already know that, but just a hint if you didn't.

My issue would be why are Freo demoting him? 2 years in the system, had a debut, decent draft picks. Sounds to me like all the injuries have them worried. And if it's got them worried it should have us worried. Not sure about using a main list spot on him, but we could jump them with RD pick 2. Is there an etiquette involved in all this?

I wish we could've as well but we couldn't. The saints would've taken him. So: Frost >>>> PSD 2 Pick 53 >>>> Pick 81 And it's up to the recruiters to find a guy at pick 40 who's as good as pick 23. To be honest I'd like a pick around pick 30 or even 35, I think there's enough talent in this draft to get to those picks easily. Only time will tell if it holds out to pick 40.

I'd avoid white players from remote backgrounds with strong cultural and spiritual bonds to their communities as well if they existed. Barry, Jurrah, Skinner, Josh Simpson. There's too strong a go home pull. Josh Simpson from Freo last year had a family member get sick and had to drive back several times a week as part of the medicinal process. That's a way of life incompatible with AFL football and I stand by that. It's far different from saying lets not draft Cockatoo because he's Indigenous he might do a Barry or Jurrah.

There's a lot of law students, not a lot of lawyers. Evans' old man is a lawyer. He's a bright kid. But a long successful AFL career then spun in to a legal career can lead to so many openings - see Al Nicholson, Brendan Gale, even Mike Fitzpatrick. I get that he's not Mitch Robinson, he's got other options. But think of how much work he's done for footy at this stage of his life. You wouldn't give that away if you believed you'd make it next year. I don't think any Hawthorn players would be walking away. They'd back themselves that with a year of A grade development they were a shot (even behind a strong team) of making it as AFL players. I'm not blaming Evans. I'm blaming the MFC for not creating a brain washing culture of excellence. Because that's what the Hawks have. Battlers line up to play for Box Hill because they think the system will make them stars. MFC half decent players don't want second opportunities on the rookie list.

You do know there's a difference between the coach speaking to a player at training and having a sit down and explaining the reasons they aren't in the team as well as that senior coach actually getting to Casey to watch the games (something which Roos did little off I'm led to believe). I also don't expect any MFC player to lean over the fence and tell the overly curious old guy that's it's all the coaches fault. I would hope none of our players are that gutless. If they didn't make it, it does come back to them. But the Casey situation was poor last year, as it has been for a long time.