DeeSpencer

I suspect Langdon’s midfield time will decrease once Pickett is back from suspension, or at least his centre bounce time will. Rivers will be playing plenty of mid unless we rack up more backline injuries. Wait and see on Harvey, I suspect his contested work has a bit of a way to go but I also wonder if he’s really doing smart stuff across half forward. Didn’t learn too much against north, we’ll learn more against Freo.

Glad someone else has been paying attention

Maybe it's just too hypothetical but I was against the Dunstan pick up but after a year of Demons conditioning and game plan work he seemed ready to come in and give us a little bit of something right before he did his knee. Maybe nothing more than just a few games worth of throwing his body around and a fresh midfield look, but that could've been useful. We'll never no I guess. Culley's younger and with a genuine point of difference with his height. He's worth a roll of the dice even if he's just depth.

As long as we aren't terrible it's probably a perfectly fine or even good deal for us. The academy system is so flawed though when you have a guy right towards the pointy end like Kako was you can load up and benefit multiple times from the trade out, the discount and then a guy falling. Say we finish 8th, that can be a nice win for us, if the draft isn't overly compromised and Essendon end up with say pick 15 and take a good player it can be a heist for Essendon after you add in what they paid for Kako and other really solid bonus picks they picked up.

They'll be a good side, they've effectively added Houston and Perryman to a team that won a flag. We'll see if Membrey can do anything in the real stuff. That said, what youth? The only inexperienced young player who started in their side last night was 22 year old Reef McInness. Hopefully they don't win it all and the cliff comes quickly.

They'll get that pick back from us next year, as long as we aren't top 6 it will likely be of similar value. The strengths of this draft were a very solid top 7 and the deep collection of first round worthy players that generally runs out somewhere between 12 and 18 and last year stretched all the way to 30. I think it's abundantly clear Kako would've gone before that Essendon pick, the only option they had would've been to trade it higher up the other and I assume every team said no to moving down.

Their run of form in 2022-2024 reminds me a lot of us in 2018 (breakout year), 2019 (everything went wrong), 2020 (good side that throws in an inexplicable loss and a couple of close games against good sides and somehow doesn't play finals). We got beaten by their best footy last year in terrible match ups with our midfield unable to run and theirs being both strong at the contest and super fit. They weren't really shock results.

I will try to put this carefully but I swear they’re just trying to troll us with players making late claims to Aboriginality purely to avoid the draft. This is the 3rd such case of a highly rated player attempting to become academy eligible in their draft year. Maybe that’s wildly wrong but it doesn’t seem authentic. I’m not trying to deny anyone their ancestry but when it comes to joining the academy surely it has to be established before you join. The entire point of the academies is to find guys who are disadvantaged and help their footballing journeys, not to find star talents then sneak them in for draft advantages.

Melbourne traded with Essendon so that took pick 6 and 11 out of the equation. St Kilda did a nice favourable trade with Essendon right before the draft started, so that took care of 8 and 10 (9 was a saints bid on Lombard). Richmond didn’t bid at 7, probably a fraction early. Didn’t bid at 12, eventually bid at 13. 3 teams had every live pick between 6 and 13, made it pretty easy to make sure he slid.

The afl made a last minute back flip allowing academy players like Kako to go to clubs in the top 40 picks again. Essendon then trade their first rounder to us for next years first and a huge swag of other later picks. Then Kako fell in the draft because teams agreed not to bid on him. Then they got the further discount in bid matching. That entire benefit means as long as we aren’t top 4 next year they’ll likely have picked up Kako for stuff all cost wise. It’s an incredible help for a side.

Not sure what to do with Kos, we generally play 22 at a time and sub guys out rather than rotate extras. Maybe one of Chandler, Sharp or Sparrow sit for the first half? Of course that’s assuming Tracc, Viney and all other mid/forwards are right to go. If there’s no Casey game this week I agree that taking Henderson to play a quarter is reasonable. Just get him that experience or travelling with an afl team and bonding time with team mates. Less important for Culley who’s been around the side all summer and on an afl list before.

I don’t think so, Baker and Graham will thicken up their midfield mix, forward line is good if Allen is reasonably healthy (yes he’s had issues but there’s hope he over them) and they’ve got enough down back even if they’ll miss Barrass. I think 5-8 wins this year. Whether they keep momentum in to 2026 and can hold on to Allen and Reid is another question, because that would potentially ruin their rebuild.

Exactly. Aside from brief patches of Tippa form and fitness Essendon haven’t had good small forward in a long time. Part of the reason why they’ve been no good. The AFL pretty much gave them a priority pick allowing Kako access at the 11th hour. Jason Taylor’s even commented that it used to be a position he thought he could find at the back of the draft and now rates supremely highly. Hence our interest in Kako.

Windsor - pure speed, backline lets him attack and break lines. Rivers - strong body, built his tank, ready to play midfield Melk - injured. Sub or finals is really Melk's go this year Billings - he's fitter, stronger and set for a permanent wing spot. I'm not sold but there's reasons for optimism Ruck - we don't need a 2nd every week, AJ will be handy when the weather starts to cool down Backline - Petty as a competent ground ball player is a key component to balance out May and Lever. Agree it's a big year for Salem and Bowey Plenty of midfield rotations available this years, especially if the kids and new SPP guys are up for it. Tracc's going to play a lot forward, got to nurse him along. Lindsay's a good prospect but didn't have the perfect summer, could be ready, could take a while, we'll know more this weekend. We have really dangerous medium forwards in Fritsch, Tracc and even Langford. (Unfortunately McAdam isn't on the list too). If we can move the ball at pace and in to space more people will convert to the 2 tall set up!

I suspect this is mostly to make sure he has a proper payout if he's sacked at the end of this year, without angering their fan base by offering him another 1 year deal nor leaving themselves open to losing him or his price skyrocketing if he has a great year. He's in a unique situation where the club are very sure that he's their man and most things suggest he's a good coach, but the finals results aren't yet there to convert that in to long term security with a 2 or 3 year deal. It's a reasonable solution for their situation, but I do wonder if they have a good year this year if you'd just swap him back to a 2-3 year extension. All AFL financially supported clubs are apparently capped to 6 month pay outs and I'd expect other clubs have attempted to follow suit by restricting pay out amounts to something like 6-12 months rather than full values of the deal. So really the years of a contract are now worth less, it's the termination payout that matters.

AFL coaches are well above the high income threshold.

Larkey isn’t really a power forward but he’s a great free kick machine. Wasn’t Petty’s best outing but with May behind him he’ll be back to his preferred spot. It’s unfortunate for Tom and if Petty doesn’t produce we might be forced to make the swap. But we’ve spent all summer getting Petty settled back in. He’s the best contested mark aside from Max in the side and a great mover, he’s what we need at CHB to match with mobile CHF’s like Treacy. Freo completely smashed us in the ruck and the midfield and more than anything ran all over us with superior work rate. We need to reestablish a midfield with a good clearance game and proper 2 way running power. If Treacy is legit and Amiss goes up a level then yes their key forwards are a problem but I’m far more interested in our mids getting a good test this weekend.

Howes will be the 7th defender, I get why he’s unpopular but he has a lot of scope. Every team wants guys with key tall height with flanker movement. Woey was ordinary down back last year, he’s been training wing all summer and is right in the competition with Lindsay and Billings. 2 of those guys play round 1 on the wings. The other is a genuine chance of sub. Langdon is playing midfield. We’ll see it against Freo. Sharp - as we saw against North is playing forward. Both of those guys probably cover some wing rotations but that’s about it. Wing ball was fun. Long live 2021. But we’re putting our talent in the corridor now.

Want a bet? None of those traits matter if we’ve got 3 better tall defenders to pick

I think we should develop him as a specialist tagger and then he can have a list of players who have been Culled.

If Sam Mitchell’s not first on the list of most ruthless coaches it’s only because he’s equal first with his old boss

An option, but hard to have a backline of Bowey, Salem, Windsor and another small. AMW has more aerial game. Really it’s someone who can cover Judd and Hore

Best half back outside the afl system? Jez McLennan in the sanfl? Anyone in the wafl?

Kolt’s pretty big and should be playing forward with mid rotations at afl and mid resting forward at vfl. But given he’s not fit it doesn’t matter much! Culley’s more attractive if he can play forward or wing but I think Henderson getting the nod suggests the coaches probably only see him as a mid.

Rivers back, he comes in on ball? Viney or Oliver miss time he comes in on ball? He’s a depth mid but he’d be rivalling Laurie for our first choice depth mid. That said, unless he’s lighting things up I’d be looking at a half back. Or even another small forward, can never have enough!