John Crow Batty

Surprisingly Strauss and Maric have better kick averages than recently departed Charlie Spargo who arguably was our best ball disposer by foot though this year his efficiency dropped off markedly. If only we could unearth another Travis Johnstone.

Sharrod Wellingham in the Western Australian suggests that WC who have picks 1, 2 and 13 trade out their number 1 or 2 pick for 2 other first round picks so that they end up with 4 picks in the top 20. Holding 7 and 8 pick would be tempting for us to make this deal if we choose to play the numbers game to acquire a player we really want. The West AustralianWellingham: Why Eagles should consider top pick splitFormer Eagle Sharrod Wellingham has praised West Coast for their ‘calculated’ trade period, but says they should be open to fielding offers to split one of their first two picks in this year’s draft.

One would think that playing for Collingwood would have failed the character test for citizenship.

Yeah, can’t remember about Jackson but there was a lot of talk that Kozzie was picked too high.

To be fair a new player is going to say kind things about a club champion and leading diva in a club video. Are hardly going to complain if they felt ignored or wronged. Could easily be scripted as well.

In 2023 when both Petracca and Oliver were becoming worryingly sloppy with their disposal we lost 8 games including finals for a grand total of 69 points for all losses. Bad disposal from our two biggest ball winners played a big part in many losses.

I liked his hard at it style but we have reached our quota of over 30’s. At this stage I prefer we use the rest of our vacant list spots for younger players for balance purposes.

No such thing as 100% for top 4 picks. Too many disappointments there as well. We should know from past experience. Playing the numbers game is still high risk.

I would grade it a B+. A pressure valve has been released with the departure of two highly talented but turbulent disruptors who were never going to lead our revival. McVee no great loss as he showed he checked out early in the season. Spargo was happy to return to his spiritual home after a poor return season coming off a long injury. Mihocek and Steele are great pick ups for their true grit and character and still solid performers. Jiath has been playing somewhat callow at Hawthorn but at his age he IMO has more to offer and not peaked. Heath is the type of player who could be anything. Picks 7 and 8 plus another first round give us draft opportunities that will be unavailable when Tassie is activated.

It looks like these picks will be pushed back to 10 and above. But there are enough duds in the top 10 and enough gems in the 10-20 range to make it almost a 50/50 chance we will get some decent talent even though there is no identifiable junior superstars in this draft.

Some of the usual suspects haven’t been hanging around the club for a while.

Looking at past drafts the chances of picking up a very good to excellent player in the back half of the first round are only slightly worse than the front half especially if there are no standouts. Thats what we are looking at after academy and compo picks.

Petracca as with Oliver are stranded assets which are worthless to the club and bleed money for many years. Like owning once prime land that is poisoned and unusable but costs more than it’s worth to clean up. No amount of chest thumping by fans will realise their former true value. These double mill stones are sucking the life out of the club and any half reasonable offer is worth it to move them on. Unfortunately we are at the stage where losses must be cut in order to move on. If Petracca was a golfer or tennis player I would consider him a consummate pro but in a team sport and not buying into the team ethos diminishes his standing.

Tend to agree. Lots of big names as well.

Geelong have form for being caught for player payment irregularities. They were fined $40,000 in 2020. See this article. https://archive.sen.com.au/news/2020/03/05/geelong-hit-with-hefty-fine-by-afl/index.html