DeeSpencer

She has the bulk and the handball skills when she’s on. She was Jack Viney last year, beating a stronger Lions midfield than this year. Just had a crappy season. I’d hate to lose her unless we got Parker

FB: McVee May xxxxx HB: Rivers Lever Salem C; xxxxx Petracca xxxx HF: ANB Petty Pickett FF: Fritsch JVR McAdam Foll: Gawn Oliver Viney Int: Bowey Sparrow Brayshaw xxxx S: xxxxx If McAdam has a big preseason fitness block I think he slots in to the best side. His combination of goal kicker and pressure player is something we don’t have in a medium or tall forward. After that: Backline: Hore v Turner v Tommo Wings: Langdon v Hunter v Windsor v Billings v Woey Small forward: Spargo v Chandler Med forward: Fullarton v J Smith v Tholstrup v Billings So many moving parts depending on game plan, match ups and if they move guys around. For instance if Rivers moves in to the midfield then suddenly you’ve got a competition between Hore and Howes for a back flank. And you have to decide between Tracc as a nearly full time forward, Viney as a forward or Gus on the wing. I just hope they genuinely train guys up in multiple roles this summer and experiment with a heap of different line ups.

Hawks trying to punch multiple of our players. Their coach ‘shock’ retirement. West Coast chasing Daisy. Can I bet on Daisy coaching the Hawks next year?

I'd hate to lose Sherriff, she's our best pressure forward. But if we can bring in a pressure forward who kicks goals more regularly that would be an upgrade. I'd really hate to lose West without an upgrade. Her and Purcell are our true ball winning mids. She had a bad season but showed in the Cats game how vital her contested ball can be to drive our game plan. Without an upgrade we'd be going backwards in the most important part of any side. I'm not going to shock anyone with my opinion on Birch. Would be fine with cashing out there. The other one we should look to deal is Bannan who hasn't made any progress with her contested game and is still an ordinary pressure player. I'd also be open to getting out of the Taylah Harris business.

Personally I'm glad they changed it and we picked JVR rather than Mac.

White seems a talent but there’s not really any evidence those guys will be really high picks. Or in White’s case even choose Melbourne. If they wait until every club has had a good run they’ll never close it. We got a great deal on Viney once upon a time. More than happy to pay a fairer price if we do get highly rated guys.

I don’t think Adelaide would’ve accepted the pick that became 40 for McAdam. They didn’t use any second rounders this year. I don’t think that’s a good second round pick either. I think we only get a future third for it. Might’ve accepted (25) 34 and on traded it for a second. You’re right we could’ve done that too. No one traded out a second straight up so there’s no direct guide. I think we get a future second for it but not from a bad club. Gold Coast were the only side trading down multiple spots at any stage of the first round, we took the chance to get it when we could. I don’t see the relevance for Reid. If they didn’t want 6, 14, the second rounders and a future first then combining it to 11 doesn’t really convince them. From the Eagles perspective I’d have wanted the combo of more picks as they have a lot of needs and more list spots. We have to trust JT when he says they got up a tier in the draft. With Sydney taking a ruckman (a good one but still), GWS trading up for about the same price for Leake, the Crows going for Charlie Edwards who’s raw as can be and North drafting project players if we didn’t want Wilson I can see it as a tier.

25 and 33 became 34 and 40 as the draft went on due to academies and father sons. As I said. 40 had almost no value to us. We spun 44 for a Saints future 3rd. Do we need another future 3rd on top of that? We used 34 to get up 3 spots to get Tholstrup. Essendon gave up 36 for 1 spot. GWS gave up a future 2nd in a deeper and less compromised draft to go 1 spot to get Leake. We would’ve had to pay to get up one spot to get Leake. We weren’t ever linked to Wilson. Clearly we thought getting above Sydney and St Kilda was important. There’s an argument to stay where we were at 18 and take Wilson, Edwards or DeMattia. The counters are; obviously JT has been good at this trade up business at times. We’ve committed the list spots to Billings, Hore, Melk, Ben Brown, T Mc and they all have value to try to win a flag now. We do have a solid crop of young talent now as is. And the second rounders in this draft weren’t worth more than mid year rookies, late picks, SSP additions etc in future years.

And achieve what exactly? Harmes - McAdam. I'm more than happy with that. We've had nothing for Harmes to do for 2 years and have been crying out for a guy like McAdam to provide a mix of what Fritsch and Kossie do. JJ - Billings. JJ might go on to be a player for the Swans but he was a free agent, we replaced him with a player who could be an immediate upgrade in a needs position. Grundy - Fullarton. Personally I'd have liked to get in on the Brandon Ryan deal but Fullarton has a fair bit of upside and I'd rather have him than an unhappy and expensive Grundy. 33 was worthless in this draft. Would've ended up pick 40 on the night of the draft. We ended up with a spare pick 42 (44 come draft night) which we dealt for a future 3rd. 25 became 34 on draft night. Ended up at Carlton for Billy Wilson. 18, 34 and a pick we'd never use for 13 to get Tholstrup. Doesn't look so bad when Essendon and GWS gave up 2nd rounders to move 1 spot on draft night. We've replenished our depth with better fits and drafted 2 talented kids. It's not flashy but the flashy moves often don't work out. Plus surely we're reloading with list spots and salary cap to be more aggressive next year.

Great interview Andrew. JT never gives too much away. But I think there are things you can deduce if you listen carefully. He somewhat gave away Windsor was at least a little needs related, and watching how slow we’ve been between the arcs the last 2 years it’s not a surprise. Why do I get the feeling they wanted Windsor at 11 but he kept rising? When JT does he due diligence on a player the word probably gets around and other sides start circling. I get the sense he’s excited by Tholstrup’s potential in a range of roles but also they really like the character and early indications are so do I! He was probably a little more excited for Kynan Brown than I expected. Aside from the 2 early picks I get the sense Jed Adams might be a favourite of JTs. Hope he gets through preseason healthy.

Within 10, no points discount and only one first rounder per year and we’re nearly there. Same for fathers sons. Time to restore some sanity to the draft.

The three that caught my eye today: 1. Woey. On a similar path to Sparrow as someone who for a couple of years (not so much now for Tom) has just come back noticeably thicker. We might have our answer for who can go on ball if we're shorter on depth after losing Harmes and JJ. 2. Rivers. He just looks cherry ripe. Leaner than before without losing strength. No idea how much they'll try him in the midfielder but if nothing else he'll be covering more ground. 3. The 2nd year talls. Jefferson is the obvious one because he was skinny to begin with and isn't now. But KFW is a unit. Jed Adams looks good. And Verrall for a 199cm ruck is looking strong without losing mobility.

Jefferson has added some bulk but he’s still a fair way off the size, speed or endurance of JVR last year from a limited look today. I’d have him more on par now with JVR in 2022. Of Chris from camby’s favourites it would be AMW - if nothing more than being healthy to start preseason - who could be in line to make a huge improvement next year

The first rounders usually get the best available numbers, followed by the rest of the draft getting the high numbers no one wants. If Billings, McAdam and Fullarton took 14, 23 and 33 there wasn’t a lot left but I knew there had to be a reason for 39 rather than 27 or 34. That’s awesome that Koltyn chose 39 for Nev

Oh good, the answer to academies is more academies if the NGA switches back to inside 40. Apart from being a total disaster for fairness and draft equality if we slowly shift to a heavily ‘academised’ sport we’ll end up cooking a bunch of kids childhoods be making them semi pro sportsmen at the age of 14.

That was definitely Jetty

I thought I saw him on track but certainly wasn’t in any drills after 10:30, in fact I’d say it’s likely he was either in the tent or in aami

100m or so boundary timed jogs for the young boys. Longer, quicker runs for the main group up the middle of the ground. McAdam, Sestan, Gawn with the 2nd year talls in the slightly shorter distance group. KFW is leading them out well Laurie, Judd, Spargo, Bowser maybe some others and with some effort the Tracc are in the group doing the furthest by a few extra metres. Obviously many of the best runners aren’t on deck today. Everyone out there looks good tho

Cold tin just kicked a checkside over the fence and possibly in to the sun. It hasn’t helped, the weather is still foul. I’d have the trade request in by the end of the day if I didn’t think 40 degrees in November was far worse

New fellas joined in the second rotation of that set of drills. Koltyn seems to be pursuing a strategy of following Tracc everywhere. Kynan had a couple of inside 50 kicks that looked good. Windsor had some nice one touch gathers. Might be because he’s dressed like an 18 year old girl about to hit a wall King street nightclub but he seems to have really long arms From the new veterans for want of a better word: Shane Mc looks comfortable out of the square and snaps on both sides. Fullarton has a tan that won’t survive Melbourne winter

Neither are here, try new questions

Josef is here doing some individual drills that would roughly rhyme with soot jihad

thought I saw Petty but think it was fake Petty (Jed Adams). Adams, Verrall and Sestan have all made physical progress Might be nothing but in a handball, handball across half forward then kick to leading forwards inside 50 drill T Mc started as a defender. 3 new young guys watching with Choco now

Absent: 1, 7, 10, 12, 15, 18, 19, 20, 29, 30, 36, 37, 50 Edit; forgot 13 not here either, oops

Billings 14 Shane Mc 23 Fullarton 33 Windsor wearing a dress length 6 Hore 18 Kolt 39 McVee 4 K Brown 41