DeeSpencer

Numbers might be more a reflection of the Lions deep ruck depth. Campbell’s VFL form is excellent though. The age is the only concern with Campbell, he’s nearly 2 years older than Fort, but hopefully he’s got a year in him at least. Grundy was on top at stages in the ruck contests but gave away some silly frees as he’s prone to do and the Lions being so on top with ball movement made the rucks most irrelevant. Grundy was unable to test Fort out around the ground. Be it injury, fitness or otherwise Brodie hasn’t been able to really get on top of anyone for most of the back half of the year.

We tried to move the ball better inside 50 this year at times. Certainly some flatter kicks to leads especially early in the year. The big challenge will be sustaining the risk and run off half back and through the midfield. Which we did improve on whilst it was tenable this year, before dropping back to long down the line footy once we had no midfield or flanker depth left to work with.

Hmmm what could it possible be

He’s going to shock the world in the GF sprint (finish midfield, Darcy Wilson should win it easily from Waddle)

Add McNamara and Heath. We are officially cooked.

Correct me if I’m wrong Evans I don’t think so, was from WA. I was thinking Mitch Clisby but he was North Adelaide. Jace Bode and Juice Newton were 2 we sent over to Norwood tho.

You can say the name. It brings back shudders of the Neeld era but we can work through it. Dean Terlich

I suspect Port are just as happy to ditch the salary and promote Dante Visentini to back up so he can play some games and sign on long term.

West Coast might be the only club in the comp he’d start at right now and there’s no way they’d be keen. He’s better than Stanley but the Cats will try to play either Conway or SDK next year is my guess. At the end of the day he’s happier being a back up in Melbourne than in Adelaide. Marshall’s good as far as rucks go as a forward so they’ll probably play 2 rucks a bit. You could play 2 rucks all the time if they had mobile tall forwards rather than Max King.

He clogged our list playing the most insipid brand of soft, slow, zero kicking penetration, miles out the back footy you’ll ever see for one year and then doing nothing in the second year. Strangely went ok in the finals considering what he served up week to week. I don’t hate him, and I have no evidence to suggest he wasn’t professional during his time at Melbourne, but I hate the decision to get him. It was a move in the complete wrong direction from what we needed.

Mullin’s promising. Brown’s in the 2’s. O’Connor seems to have peaked. Nash took 6 years to becomes a decent defensive mid but has a battle to hold his spot. Keane has the most promise but walked out on the Pies, wait and see if he hits consistently now he’s signed up for the Crows for a while. They’re all good enough to suggest what was still an experiment from the 00’s and 10’s is now looking a more worthy project. But there’s no stars (yet).

Rowan Marshall isn’t a number 1 ruck? That’s a bold call

We’ll be doing well if Jeffo is a good player and one of the other 2 proves useful in anyway at all. So it doesn’t hurt to be on the front foot to try to get Lord in 2026 and even more so when he’s a free agent post 2028 (if he extends until free agency as most players do). It’s just very hard to get quality key forwards to move to any club, yet alone for the Dees to land one.

Lord trained with us as part of the afl academy, he was pick 49 in the 2020 draft. It was the covid year and list cut down draft. We didn’t have a 3rd rounder, we took Fraser Rosman in the 2nd round. Probably fair enough given we had a strong list in 2021 and half the kids in the draft missed most of the year but in general this is exactly why I’m in favour of always having at least 4, if not 5 national draft picks and rather than picking the eyes out of the draft just take lots of lottery tickets. Much better off drafting our own Ollie Lord than make desperate offers to a guy contracted for 2 years who may or may not actually be any good

Marshall might not play again. Cumming and Perryman are free agents. They could probably get Lukosius with those picks, Soldo and a future 2nd. Certainly with a future first. They have no incentive to trade Lord.

Honesty I don’t mind that we weren’t in on it until recently. Rucks are a valid use of the Cat B list, as is NGA players and the best use is probably guys like Wil Parker and James O’Donnell who were footballers growing up and then went to other sports. Tuohy, Hanley and at a stretch McKenna have been the only Irish difference makers since Tadgh Kennelly. 3 or 4 since 2000, whilst the go home and bust factor have both been high. That said, Irish immigration is through the roof which is mitigating the go home factor, the Irish are dominating the AFLW and the game has shifted from a focus on the ball constantly being in tight to more run and space. That shift demands more athletes who excel in that kind of running and are confident playing out in space. Geelong will have the advantage of an established program but I hope we can nab one of these guys if they impress.

Have you seen where he’s going? He’s leaving because he can’t get a game behind Jordon Sweet, there’s not a club in Melbourne he would start at.

I’d imagine they’d want Port’s future first back and are probably planning to give over a pick from 3-8 for a pick from 9-15 back, it’s not a bad idea at all. I suspect he’ll choose Carlton but good on North having a decent crack.

If we don’t have the list spots because we’ve junked up the list with the following cloggers: Hunter, Billings, Fullarton as well as the young lack of talent time brigade (I won’t name them), Then we simply have to pay one of them to retire. Not saying it has to be Parfitt but we can’t enter the season with no on ball depth.

I agree, although I do think Parfitt has good footy in him if fully fit and motivated. Sometimes it takes getting cut to find that motivation again. I also think we can’t go in to a season not having replaced Gus, JJ, Harmes and with doubts over Oliver and Tracc. We do have to add at least 1 ready made mid. If it’s not a clear best 22 guy like Peatling the options get murkier. But also I say it in every thread, let’s stop trying to fix depth problems with blind purchases in September. Get 3 guys to train with us over summer. Add the best option to the main list in March, get the second best option on the Casey list with the carrot of the midseason draft.

Hamilton was ok but messy in his early career games but he missed almost all of 2023 with a navicular stress fracture and most of this year with an ankle injury. You just can’t pick up a guy with that history who never really showed he was up to afl footy. He’ll stay at the Giants VFL team.

Fullarton looked good in preseason. He was abysmal in the ruck all year, he now has a chance to play as a permanent forward which is a simpler role. There’s nothing from the club about Derksen’s role yet but I suspect his value will be as a swing man rather than purely forward. If Fullarton can demonstrate he has the tank and hard leading style, plus be more than a total zero in aerial contests he can claim the CHF role. I’m not feeling sorry for him that he has to compete with a guy who’s never cracked an afl game.

The choice right now is pay Campbell 200k for 1-2 years and hope Verrall or others can take over. Or give up a pick and pay Soldo 500k for multiple years for similar results. I think I’d rather bank the useful pick and extra 300k and use that to target players in more important roles than back up ruck. Obviously it would be nice if we had some trade momentum to adding a best 22 player to justify the cheap ruck option.

Would join Robbie Campbell as inspiring ruck recruits. The only ways this makes sense is if they believe Verrall will be ready in 2026, they have a better target in 2026 or there’s just no one in the state leagues of any quality. Either way, I’d again ask what the rush is if no one else wants him. Get the biggest and best 25 year old down for preseason training and if they aren’t up for it then sign Campbell.

Worth noting Ed’s a scout for Oakleigh so he’s going to overrate the Oakleigh guys. Jagga over Ashcroft, nah.