DeeSpencer

FB: Dunn Frost Jetta HB: Grimes McDonald Garland C: Vince Jones Lumumba HF: Kent Dawes Salem FF: Garlett Hogan Howe Foll: Jamar Tyson Cross Int: Viney, Watts, Pedersen, JKH Casey: FB: Georgiou HB: Hunt ***** Terlich C: M. Jones Riley Toumpas HF: Bail Fitzpatrick Barry FF: Gawn Foll: Spencer Michie McKenzie Int: King Harmes Stretch Just looking at how things line up in terms of depth and for Casey. We can cover the tall defenders from the senior side (can easily take a tall out and have plenty of height) or using Pedersen back as well as Georgiou. Very little depth in the small defenders if Howe is forward though. Options of midfield replacements in terms of talent coming through isn't great but the draft (particularly pick 2) should add to that depth. Some hard working types who may have a little improvement as well as a sprinkling of younger guys who could step it up (Toumpas, Michie, Barry). I very much expect at least one if not both of picks 40 and 53 will be spent on speed and skill types.

My mail says Evans is gone but haven't heard anything on McKenzie and I think given he's a good culture guy around the club and has actually played AFL (even in a very limited taggers role) I expect they wouldn't move him on in contract. If he cuts out the ridiculous turnovers he'd be back to having a future at AFL level, if he doesn't he at least has a role 'captaining' Casey. I'm really hoping our VFL set up under a new coach is a lot more successful and enjoyable this year and has guys getting more positive reviews as they fight for a spot.

I think GWS v Sydney is a confirmed round 1 fixture these days. I wonder if the AFL will go for a Sunday night game? They didn't this year at Easter and Sunday nights flopped but for round 1 before a public holiday it actually makes sense. No such thing as too much footy on TV come round 1. Ess v North as a rivalry makes the most sense for the best commercial game from what's left. The 5 Vic clubs are already fixtured so we aren't getting a big commercial fixture. I'd actually rather avoid a belting from North or a dispiriting MCG loss to the Saints, Dogs or interstate team. Never keen to travel to Perth in April either. Really I'd be all for going to Adelaide and taking on a South Australian side and putting up a good effort (win or lose) before returning to a home game with some confidence. The other team you'd like to play early in the year is Essendon with players accepting an ASADA ban.

The foot injured contributed to the slide, as did the fact it was a very good draft with 20-30 really nice prospects so clubs weren't going to spend too highly on a little fella. But read the following and you'll see Taylor was rated exceptionally highly and was one of the best junior footballers in the land. http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/geelong-falcons-star-lewis-taylor-will-miss-the-rest-of-the-season-with-a-foot-injury/story-fni5f3kt-1226706002803

I cbf'ed looking up the stats but I remember Hannebery getting a taste whilst he was at school then straight in the team the next year. Parker similarly. Brayshaw has the height, strength and size to play very early. And the fitness if he gets through preseason. If we do recruit him he'll be treated the same way in JKH in that he'll be given the opportunities in preseason to push his case. I believe he's born in the first week of January and finished school last year anyway. So he'll be ready to go for a big preseason. That said he's not even locked in for us anyone. So no point naming him in prospective teams. And when it comes to any young talls we draft I wouldn't expect to see them in the team any time soon.

I think that's pretty much everyone's ideal forward line, with a 2nd ruck on the bench and midfielders rotating through that half forward spots. If we do draft McCartin or Wright I expect both of them to see significant time in the VFL. When it comes to Howe I wouldn't be surprised if he's still in the backline. His intercept marking is a weapon and he's our best kick from half back, no matter how sad that sounds. Lumumba I think will move between wing and half back and Frost and McDonald may even be forced in to a bit of friendly competition to nail down spots. A lot depends on the form and fitness of Dunn, Garland and Grimes and whether they are effectively moving the ball from the backline. If they aren't then I expect Howe will be back there in an instant.

By the way, look at the graph in this post. 23 and 40 compare pretty well. http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/the-history-of-pickflation.638451/page-4#post-35376498

The Membrey situation is interesting. With academy picks and rookie upgrades the swans have nothing they want to get from St Kilda. I don't think they would've traded. But the possibility that Sydney fills its list and then Membrey became a DFA could've happened, although it doesn't seem to go that way. Funny how that was a threat before the end of the trade period but not after? What seems to annoy me is that we were caught on the hop with that. We should have seen that coming and therefore potentially got a better trade. Or seen through it and held our ground. In some ways it does look like we will need 2 picks in the draft regardless (after 2 and 3) so splitting 23 in to 40 and 53 plus getting Frost is somewhat reasonable. I would've preferred if we split 23 with a 3rd club in to something better like 35, 45 and 50 and sent 50 to GWS. It's not that useful for them but they could've packaged it up with other picks and got higher in the draft.

Hope we can find a (very) part time role for him just in some aspect of development or leadership, maybe even just as Jack Watts' personal coach! Always thought Goodwin should take the midfield coach role. Ben Matthews does the stoppages still. Thought Stone might've been kept in a development job under Bretty Allison but definitely thank him for a good years service and we move on with largely the same team of well credentialed coaches.

If we had Zac Dawson we wouldn't need McDonald or Frost. He's unco as hell and looks like a clown but he rarely has goals kicked on him. I can't see how anyone who's played footy at any level doesn't appreciate how Zac Dawson is the annoying red head step child tall defender that exists in every second team at local footy, he's just the AFL version. It doesn't take a great coach to look at Adelaide's list and see they have one good shut down medium/tall defender which is Talia. They have no locked in 2nd or 3rd tall defender. Hence Watts and Dawes playing very well against Adelaide this year as Talia went to Frawley. You also note a lack of hard at it, physical players in Adelaide's backline (and several other spots in the team). Poor Sloane, Dangerfield, Walker, Thompson and a few others take some heavy hits for a lot of the team. So Cheney fits that aspect as well. Adelaide rate Cheney because he fills a need. It's the same reason we rate Lumumba

Also I'm not sure even GWS would give us a top 10 pick for Howe. I think it might have been pick 7 and Frost (and maybe pick 40) for Howe and 23.

There list is still based on high draft picks, 17 year olds who would've been high draft picks and hitting on 2 out of 3 big money uncontracted poaches. Backline: Davis, Haynes, Hampton, Bugg, Buntine, Plowman (Shaw, Patful) Midfield: (Griffen), Ward, Shiel, Treloar, Kelly, Whitfield, Coniglio, Hoskin-Elliott, Greene, Scully Rucks; (Mumford), Tomlinson Fwds: Cameron, Patton, Dev Smith, McCarthy, Palmer It's high picks galore and then guys like Cameron, Shiel and Treloar who were top 5 picks who skipped the draft. All they did is besides Boyd they traded out the players they didn't really care about keeping or not and last year they turned that in to pick 2 and Mumford, Heath Shaw. This year they turned it in to Griffen and 2 more picks in the top 7. These late trades do represent a bit of urgency to win games but really they are about realising they have most of their best 22 already so instead of turning over more players by bringing in top end kids and forcing someone else out they wanted to just bring in the class players. I think it's was intended to be a message to their playing group that we wont keep bringing in kids in a never ending cycle. They wanted to say these are our best 25-28 'required' players and it's finalised now and to say to other teams we aren't a development club. At next years trade period everyone will be gunning for one of their players and they wanted to say nope he's part of a future and it's now. Instead you might get someone out because GWS will have picks 4, 6 and 7 in reserve.

I'm not sure I'm buying this. I mean our interest in Dangerfield was confirmed a long way out. If he was accepting of our contract and Adelaide decided to cash in then 3 and 23 would've been a really good start and we surely had days to upgrade that second pick. The Trengove deal happened on Friday. That's the best part of the week to find an alternative. Was Watts the only offered? Surely we had alternatives. 23 probably only had to get in to the low-mid teens and from there Adelaide have to accept. I can't imagine Adelaide wouldn't have been helping us get the deal done because if they realised he was going next year then the best they can hope for is one pick and somewhere between 8 and 12 most likely. I can't think that any swans discussions wouldn't have been laughed out the door. They lost the grand final. They have no need to trade a top player for a draft pick no matter how high.

How does Trengove and 23 for 12 sound now? Personally I reckon it sounds pretty great. And that's the reason we wanted to trade him. Because the risk of reinjury is high (turns out it already was injured), the time it will take him to get back on the park is a long time and his form prior to injury wasn't any good either. If we did Trengove for 12 we could've made traded 12 for just some really good picks. Imagine turning 12 in to 30, 31 and 40 with a club who wants quality over quantity. From there we could've got Frost with 40 and headed to the draft with 30 and 31 instead of 40 and 53. Maybe it was part of a big deal. Maybe it wasn't. I'm not hating on GNF. I reckon something was brewing and it got canned and his information just came too late. Maybe the clubs really stepped up it's work and is trying to find the moles and also putting some disinformation out there trying to shake a few trees. Managers knew this year Melbourne were circling and they'll know next year as well.

He (and a lot of others) have gone with Brayshaw (as the likely pick 2) on the bench. Given his size, shape, fitness and endurance he's a chance to play round 1, but I'll wait until we actually get him!

Hogan replaces Frawley. Clark, Byrnes, Clisby, Nicho and anyone else who is delisted gave us nothing gave us nothing. The only player who might decline is Cross. So therefore anything we get from Lumumba, Garlett and Frost or draft picks will be improvements. The issue is you have to keep improving each year just to stay the same. So we will need improvements from others from last year, we all know the names. With the same level of injuries (excluding Clark of course) Melbourne 2015 clearly beats Melbourne 2014. It's just a matter of whether it's by enough to result in the same or more wins and percentage.

What have you seen in him that says best 22 though? He's still an undersized unskilled key defender. Good teams don't carry 3rd or 4th tall options that don't rebound the ball or play well on small defenders. If we were in a premiership window you'd keep him like Cheney was kept at the Hawks for so long. But since he isn't we could use the list space to develop another player.

St Kilda, Bulldogs, Richmond, Carl, Essendon and Collingwood should be in our sights. None of these clubs improved over trade week and the dogs and Pies got worse. Gold Coast and Adelaide we went close to and beat respectively this year. They might improve with new coaches or they might not. Gold Coast should anyway but they still lack depth. Heck we probably shouldn't even fear Geelong or Freo at home (provided that home isn't in the NT). It will take a huge effort for us to beat Hawthorn, Sydney, Port. North and West Coast have our number and GWS and Brisbane seem to as well as just got much better. I think a lot of interstate teams will do very well. The comp is swinging back towards them after favouring the Vic sides from 2007-2014. That means a lot of evenly placed Victorian teams. If we drag ourselves out of a losing mindset in only takes a short burst of form and a couple of upsets to get to 7 or 8 wins. The dogs have done it the last two years without being great at all.

So you're playing him ahead of McDonald, Frost, Garland or Dunn? In particular the last two. Adelaide would love Dunn or Garland. But they aren't options for the crows. The crows have Talia, then Kyle Hartigan, Luke Thompson and Sam Shaw as there other tall and medium defenders. They have a gaping gap in their list and will therefore fill it with Cheney. His disposal is not good. His decision making is reasonable and when surrounded by brilliant running players he uses them. Hence why the hawks only played him as a depth tall as they have so many better medium sizers like Gibson, Stratton, Birchall. If we were taking a change on a fringe Hawk it would be Lowden or Hallahan because ruck and inside mids, whilst not our biggest problem are still areas of concern.

The 5 that I've listed are gone and have been replaced. We are yet to here anything official about Blease or Strauss but I'm sure they are gone. Tapscott not as sure. Evans, less sure as he's contracted. Anyone else like McKenzie or Trengove is complete speculation. I don't think it will be long for Blease and Strauss to be official. That's pick 2 and 3. Everything after that I presume will take time over the next 2 weeks. Does anyone know about Georgiou? Will Frost coming in and the likelihood of a tall at one of the top picks, combined with Pedersen being a versatile option I don't see much point in keeping him. At the same time I understand he did a good job for us early last year.

Yes but if you are always going backwards or sideways unless miles clear you'll miss attacking opportunities. It's why I don't get so upset about Tom Mcdonald when he takes the game on with his run and turns it over after making a decisive option because he'll never improve if he plays within himself. Grimes is overly conservative then still turns it over, the worst of both worlds.

Correct, typo. Stef Martin and Jurrah our success stories in the PSD. Both turned in to big failures really considering we got so little for Martin.

So the saints could've spun Membrey in to a Delisted FA (maybe because Sydney's list was full?) yet we couldn't do the same to Frost and therefore they could've pinched him. As usual we are the ones getting screwed All those last place finishes (well 2 of them!) and we couldn't ever get anyone of value in the PSD, except for Jetta, which turned in to it's own disaster.

Should we now show the highlights from the consecutive games where Riewoldt and Josh Kennedy kicked 11 on the giants? If Frost and McDonald both play well enough to stay in the side next year and establish themselves then get excited. Right now we have 2 baby Zac Dawson's and have to turn them in to consistent players.

If you can't kick yes. But the best players back themselves. Frost and McDonald in the same team will be interesting and we are yet to bring anyone in to fix the kicking woes of our flankers. Maybe if Lumumba plays well on a wing, Michie/Riley step up and we draft a ready to go midfielder then we can designate Vince and even Salem to half back. Frost does look a good option for another Roos type defensive first project.