P-man

1. GWS 2. Sydney 3. Adelaide 4. Richmond 5. Melbourne 6. Geelong 7. Port Adelaide 8. Western Bulldogs 9. Hawthorn 10. Essendon 11. Collingwood 12. St Kilda 13. Fremantle 14. Gold Coast 15. West Coast 16. Brisbane 17. North Melbourne 18. Carlton

No, I meant dribble. As in the stuff that rolls off his chin and onto the page.

It’s going to be brought up the moment results turn south. Caro writing an article on the eve of the season plays no part in that. It’s going to happen. I’m not her biggest fan but I side with those who thought it was a balanced and informative piece. Just try to imagine the dribble Robbo would’ve written if given the opportunity.

Why? How can you posssibly rule it out that unequivocally? Tell me it’s a reason outside of the pressure of being the number one draft. Last year was injury interrupted. Not the best means of assessment. What did you think of his year before that? Ugh. I’m slipping into another Watts vortex and he’s not even a Melbourne player anymore. I’ll let you have the last word.

I think it's a stretch to say that a 26 year old player of Watts' type wouldn't have performed at his peak in a Melbourne jumper this year. Look at his 2016 year. He was trending in the right direction. 2017 was injury affected as we know. We put 9 years of development into him with all the patience and hair tearing, only to palm him off right when he's about to enter his best few years of football. It was a bold decision to say the least. The main solace is that we look to have replaced him with another kid who has serious natural ability.

I don’t even know what to say about that. If he got fined for that then, yeah, I’m speechless.

The Chunky Tulips are back in season 2018 to wreak havoc and shatter dreams.

Bumping for any other ball shiners.

Keen on retaining that title aren't you mate?

Can't find the 2016 thread. Here's the 2017 one:

Place your predictions for any individual or the team as a whole, good or bad, for season 2018. Closest to the pin with their quality and quantity of predictions will win the heralded Demonland Crystal Ball. Previous DCB winners 2016: wretched.sylph 2017: ding

We got him

Interesting read, cheers. Re Balic, I've placed him as High scope for a few reasons. First is the amount of football he's missed due to a wrist injury which wiped out his entire first year. Talent aside, he has played just the four games in two years so he's barely scraped the surface as an AFL player. His first run around the oval trailing the rest of the pack shows he is yet to acclimatise to an AFL environment and standard. Second is how highly he's rated by pretty much anyone familiar with him. Phantom drafters. Fremantle fans (granted they were sorry to lose Michie as well, but they seem more sorry about Balic ). Mahoney has said the club has always rated him very highly since the 2015 draft. Finally he has the look of a good player in the making. His basketball background shows with his spatial awareness and smooth moving. Even with limited opportunity he has shown he's a goal kicker. Ovviously it is still speculative, but when you combine those three factors I'm comfortable placing him as High scope. 2018 will tell us a lot more about the player we have acquired.

All reasonable calls. I think we've seen what Viney's best looks like already, as in individual games. It's a matter of him stringing 15-20 of them together in a season or consecutive seasons. In that sense he does have another level to go to, but I think we know what his best or certainly close to his best football looks like. Oliver is difficult to place because it begs the question, how much better can he actually get given he's performing at such a ridiculously high level already? I'd be happy placing him in high scope, but God help the rest of the comp if he's only tickling the surface now. Hunt can and will improve but needs to further tidy up his kicking and I'm unconvinced of the extent to which he can do that. He's a weapon no doubt but I have him medium as I think he will always be dangerous, but untidy. O Mac is still very raw. He frustrates like only a McDonald can do, but if he continues on the developmental arc he's on I think he'll become an A grade defender. Just needs time. More size. More awareness. More confidence. i like the romance around Vanders and as a fellow Canberra product I'd love him to turn into Clint's vandenFyfe or Ox 2.0, but at this stage I think it's unlikely. He has improvement in him no doubt, and he has assets which should see him remain on the list. Kent I would possibly change to low scope in retrospect. That said, he is capable of much better than what we saw this year. And I doubt we've seen his best. Stretch was a major disappointment in 2017, but he's still young. I place him into medium partly because the kid has the drive to be great. When you're a mentor for Oliver at his age, you've got something going. I'm a JKH believer. We're a dying breed but there's still a few of us left

Cheers. Interested to know what changes you'd make/who you'd slot differently, i realised I left out Filipovic and Tim Smith but can't edit posts after a certain time.

Players who are best 22 and have reached their potential (7) Jones Lewis Hibberd Jetta Pedersen Garlett Melksham Players who are best 22 and have not reached their potential (15) Low Scope for Improvement (5) Gawn Viney Tyson Frost T Mac Medium Scope for Improvement (6) Oliver Lever Hogan Harmes Hunt Neal-Bullen Large Scope for Improvement (4) Brayshaw Petracca Salem O Mac Players who are not best 22 and have not reached their potential (12) Low Scope for Improvement (2) Bugg vandenBerg Medium Scope for Improvement (6) Hannan Kent Stretch JKH King Johnston Large Scope for Improvement (4) Weideman Balic Maynard J Smith Players who are not best 22 and have reached their potential (2) Vince Wagner

Seems likely mate. At least up until reports of houses coming down on the training track.

I'll be renewing but they can bloody well wait. Couldn't muster up a win against a hopeless North from two attempts. Couldn't muster up the prunes to beat a second string Collingwood to give the supporters one measly finals appearance. Meanwhile Richmond, [censored] RICHMOND, plodded their way to a flag on the back of household names like Nathan Broad - a bloke I had not heard of until he snapchatted a stranger with his premiership medallion between her jugs. Yeah, last season still stings.

Not disputing that.

Was Woey that shocking a Brownlow choice that he can't even find a spot on the bench in these teams? Not saying it's right or wrong but it's certainly interesting.

No slight on him at all and I wish him the best of luck, but using the word "star" to describe Joel Macdonald absolutely confirms to me that the word has lost all meaning in the mainstream.

If he's half as good as Freo fans on BF claim he is then we've got ourselves a bargain.

I'm not thrilled with giving up two first round picks for, talented or not, an intercept marking defender. But I'm also not unhappy. He's a known commodity and he makes us a better side. Welcome aboard Jakey boy. May you bring us lots of money. Um, I mean success.

Shout out to the mod who added "Walker" after Tex to my post. I would hate that people thought I was talking about Tex Perkins.

He's prone to throwing the toys out of the cot. I recall he used to get very short with interviewers when asked about Dangerfield, and his post match speech at the GF was surely one of the most pathetic that stage has seen. It's fine to be disappointed but show some leadership for god's sake.