DeeSpencer

Very good first game. Needs to work on his repeat speed, tackling and the classic left footers issue on what to do when he gets hemmed in.

It’s one afl player per side going to Tassie, in fact if GWS and GC are a guide they’ll probably sign about 10 legit afl players at most and few delisting, semi retired guys. That won’t impact the value of list cloggers. If anything now is the time to take on a bunch of fresh kids so we aren’t reliant on draft picks when the list concessions bump them all out

Having watched the replay: Midfield stoppage dominance was the reason for the victory. Not a lot of quality outside ball movement but some good work not just winning clearances but running the ball out of stoppage. Kolt was the main driver of it. Probably the best game I’ve seen him play particularly in tight. Laurie solid, Billings good around the ball but excellent work rate in space. Any time he had to nail a kick it wasn’t pretty. Down back: Adams had a stinker of a first quarter. He was tepid at the contest, lost in space and turned it over. But after quarter time he was excellent, defending, interception and rebounding. Fullarton played well but it was mostly uncontested footy, any hopes of a Lobb like resurgence don’t seem likely. Lual - he does a lot of nice things and moves exceptionally for his size, don’t think he’s on an afl trajectory at 26 apparently, if he was 21 you’d sign him up. Forwards: Metha flashed early and had more chances, he just needs to be consistent with his defensive attention to detail, he has good pressure when he’s switched on. Spargo very solid and consistently made great space. The key forwards had a tough day against AFL level defenders in Frost and Blank and with poor entries. I’m excited to see where big AJ can get to with a full preseason, he’s much more mobile than people think. Luker had a stinker of a first half followed by a clinical second half. The Jeffo hate is a bit misplaced, he really played as a flanker with the other 2 taking most of the contested marking chances. He actually took 2 marks but one was a free against after a Cross unrealistic attempt, the other got paid down field. He went off after 12 minutes of the 3Q. Hopefully just minor. But in <2.5 quarters he kicked 1.1, had 10 touches and would’ve been involved in 3 or 4 other scores. Ground ball gets inside 50 are super valuable. I think he lost 1 contest with the ball kicked over his head then barely had another genuine marking contest. Maybe could’ve found more space on the lead but against a really good backline Casey weren’t exactly kicking it to leads.

Midfield really dominated the longer the game went. And even then I thought Liv was fairly scratchy, Hore barely played midfield and no Goldy. Mackin deep back too. Pearce clearly managed in the ruck too, Campbell with plenty of game time. Forward line was very good even without Harris and missing Gall. So reinforcements to come there. Wotherspoon not picked? Mahoney added some grunt, she'll be a good midfielder in time but does a nice job as that contested half forward. Meatball Pisano looks much more confident in her attack on the footy and could've had 2, didn't miss by much. That left boot will find it's aim if he she keeps finding the ball. Backline probably got lucky with a couple of Dogs posters but they looked very good considering they were missing I think 3 first choice players in Gillard, Goldy and Denby Taylor. Possibly Colvin too. Was a patchwork backline really around Chappy. Mackin offered something different down back. Lampard not perfect but provided some stability. Then 3 new (or close enough to) as part of the back 6. Saraid Taylor - interesting, not perfect but a good athlete and has a dip. O'Hehir - very interesting. Raw, is going to need a lot of development but her running and long kicking for her height is appealing. I can see what they're going for. But the biggest shock of the night was Laela Ebert, she looked like one of the classiest players on the field and did enough defensively too. 19 years old and an injury replacement pick up? That's a steal.

6 - hanks 5 - Purcell 4 - Heath 3 - Chaplin 2- Fitzsimon 1 - Hore

Pearce too injury prone for the top 50 these days. Gillard very close, probably injuries and a dip of form last year costing her. Liv Purcell absolutely top 50 and Chappy too. Chappy not being mentioned by now in this thread shows how underrated she is! I wouldn't have Shell Heath as I'd go with more skilled players but you probably couldn't pick 50 players before her to field a side either.

Just in case any other AFL teams do their recruiting via fishing comments from fan forums. Not a good VFL debut. 4 touches, 3 turnovers, was afraid to go near the ball and was overhead making multiple slurs before drink driving one the way home. Rookie at best.

Especially when Gawn taking the ball out of the ruck removes the midfielders from the equation and the times Max chooses to win the hit outs there's no reasoning behind when and where he's going to hit the ball. You'd have more luck predicting a roll of dice than predicting a Max Gawn hit out.

I think it's a genuine 50:50 and we'll find out during the week. But if he decides its time to spend more time with his family I wouldn't be surprised at all. Go out on a high. Could just be that we rested him as it's been a long year and the last thing he needs is a hammy that delays preseason, but I just have a feeling (no mail) that he might be ready to go out in good form

A Thilthorpe when you’ve got pick 1 in a draft with 2 good players in the top handful (of which only 1 is mentally healthy) helps a lot. And having your other 2 most talented players lob home on cut priced trades helps too. As did the ability to load up with AnB, Peatling and Cumming to fix a super shallow midfield. Not playing tonight but Max Michalleny is a very good father son too. In terms of an advantage on the competition their best work has been finding guys on the scrap heap or in funny spots at the start of their rebuild: Keays and Hinge for free as delisted Brisbane players, Murray and Keane as key backs from funny spots. A couple of really quality picks in the Worrell, Soligo and Curtin coming fast, but it hasn’t been a standard load up in the draft rebuild. They burnt their first early pick of the rebuild in Fish McAsey and haven’t exactly nailed repeat drafts.

27 would’ve moved to 34 and there’s some useful talent there, not much special but a 50:50 of someone useful. 34 would’ve been in the 40’s and despite Freijeh and Dear no one rated the depth in that draft. But we also gave up a F2 for McAdam which became a great pick that took Nibbler to get it back. Only to toss it away again in the Lindsay trade. Definitely would’ve been better just to pay for McAdam upfront (if at all). How about 49 and 3rd round pick swap for Sharp! Way too much for a player we were doing Brisbane a favour by taking off their books.

Agree x 3. I don’t mind the aggressive trade ups when you’re looking for a missing piece (Pickett) or for a special player at the very top of the draft. But especially when it’s time for a list to take its medicine and rebuild the depth of talent you have to make as many useable picks as you can. This might not be the draft to do it but restocking extra mid round picks has to be a priority.

I suspect it’s the end for T Mc even if he’s been perfectly adequate. If he wants to keep going I’d give him another year but Melk talking about spending time with his family makes me think he’s had enough. Culley another year. Tom Campbell another year if we can’t find a ready made ruck. AMW another year. Billings, Hore, Fullarton thanks for your services. Spargo probably leaves as a free agent. Kynan Brown and Sestan maybe. Henderson, Woey, Verrall maybe not. Just depends how many list changes we make with trades in and out.

Be realistic, we aren’t going to play a bunch of kids who have had all season to convince the selectors and haven’t done so when it’s most likely VFL wildcard round. Melk will start and barring any issues Tommy Mc will too, farewell games for them both. Someone in for Sharp, can’t say I care who, probably Spargo.

Hes close to never again. Dumb, selfish and soft

Walking to the psd is an option for them. We’d get nothing. they’ll offer us something. But no way they’ll pay full value

I don’t think it will happen but I’d also expect no other serious candidate will apply for the job whilst there’s this much Buckley smoke. Maybe a couple of young assistants who just want to experience the process. If it is an open search we better start communicating that to candidates.

At this rate no one else will apply. Then Bucks will probably pull out. Will have a search committee with no candidates.

I’ve always doubted the midfield time stuff, he was playing half back for his wafl colts team when we drafted him. What I bet he wants is to play at least half back rather than being the main lock down defender. Salem was his mentor when he came to the club and I bet he wants his spot. Unfortunately back pocket is a big gap in our list that Richo, Lamb and the list management committee didn’t even try to fix. I guess the 3 possible candidates all got injured - AMW, Hore and Sestan. We’ve tried Howes at times, but any coach is putting McVee on a good small forward not Howes. But it’s not like Judd is stuck in the back pocket forever, eventually we’d find a replacement and chuck him up the ground. I think the bigger reasons Judd will leave are 1) cash 2) family 3) McQualter. McQualter was a big Judd guy. Last year we tried him up the ground more than this year. (Because we had other options). Unfortunately when you hire fresh assistants and they leave they often take guys with them. That’s how we got Melk and Hibberd after all. West Coast are also going to absolutely ream us with the PSD threat. We’ll be lucky to get a future second. Maybe we can push the AFL to make their priority pick dependent on trading it and get a start of the second rounder. Either way it’s not a win.

Our game plan was to bomb it to congestion at half forward then burst out of that and hit Fritsch inside 50. That's where we've changed but I also think the league has changed too. Teams will keep a lot of deep defenders now. You have to move the ball faster and wider to get out to space across half forward then have more guys inside 50 rather than a 1 out option so often. A fair counter is Jamie Elliott was dominating in a Fritsch style role for a lot of the year so maybe it's not over for that kind of player but Elliott is also more well rounded. Of course he won't be Viney. But for a lot of this season (and last) Fritsch has been close to uncompetitive. Hopefully that's changed now. Anyway, mid year I'd have sold him for pick 40, now I'd want something top 25 and a Jason Taylor level of belief that it's a pick they can find someone with. I'd certainly be open to keeping him too.

Excellent. Now take note of who Graham Wright is lining up as coach in waiting at Carlton and nab one of them as the senior coach and away we go

No one made a serious offer for Clarry at the end of 2023. The best offer from Geelong last year was just about a joke. No one made a serious offer for Tracc last year, he’d have forced a trade if one was remotely available. The only one of those who the club was actually offered a deal for was Petty for a couple of late firsts in the 2022 draft with no doubt a second or more going back the other way. Easy to say now we should’ve done that but that undervalues how much good footy at both ends of the ground Petty should have left. Petty for Darcy Wilson or James Leake and a pick swap isn’t the home run some think it is. I’d have put Fritsch on the table last year, the writing was well and truly on the wall, but at the same time we’d lost AnB and we need guys in the forward line who aren’t kids or Melksham. The bigger issue with our list management is handing on long mega deals that have seemingly bounced up with the cap. We signed Clarry super early with a mega deal, which given he’d never missed a game and never played poorly was perhaps fine (even if he was never the perfect citizen off field). But what was reported as a 1M deal at signing seems to now include years peaking at 1.7 after the cap rises. If he was on a reasonable wage we’d be able to eat a bunch of it and get a pick for him.

Because the game is going past him so it's better to cash out now rather than hold on. Depending on the offer. For most of the season (and honestly for about 3 year now) Bayley has jogged around in second gear. It's not that he doesn't tackle enough it's that he sits and watches play go by until he makes a defensive effort and then invariable it's too little too late. The number of sloppy too high free kicks he gives away is abysmal. Plus the terrible attempts at winning a contested ball on the deck and over reliance on the get the ball out the back efforts at contested marking rather than playing in front and being willing to wear a defender crashing in to you. Similarly he's been tried up the ground and for such a skilled player his ball use and decision making are dreadful. He looks like a local football when up the ground. Now the last 6 weeks or so the penny has appeared to drop a little. He's putting in more effort at the contest and defensively as well as finding the ball consistently. But we've also played a very soft draw. I'd probably still have a draft pick in mind at which point I'd be willing to let him go. He's far from untouchable. But for now anyway he's not almost free to a good home as he would've been mid year.

In the press conference he gave a similar comment about needing to leave the MFC to further his career at some stage but also suggesting he'd be glad to stay. My guess is he's contracted for at least next year. I doubt he would've taken on the challenge of forwards coach without some contract security. If the new coach gives him permission to leave and he can find a job without relocating his family he probably takes that opportunity. Backline coach at Ess/Rich/Carl etc you name it. If the new guy wants him to stay and holds him to his contract then he stays for at least the 1 year more.

He’s an Essendon supporter on the RV board, I’ll be pleasantly surprised if he knew the earth was round yet alone anything about football. (Of course, he and the head of footy - if backed and not sacked - both belong on the search committee, along with outside football knowledge please)