Dee-licious

Taj not named for GF day. I'm assuming the reason being is he has a PF the next day as none of the East Freo stars have been named in the WA team.

Good luck to TMac and BBB during the off-season. Weid is going to come hard. Really great interview and just seems so angry about what he hasn't achieved. We say this every year, but maybe next year is the one.

Andy is up on the Herald Sun draft guide (top 70 prospects, but no Taj, bah!). Cant copy and paste, but the gist is 180cm, 73kg. Wingman/Outside mid - smooth mover and uses ball well. break away speed, good agility, good ball user, good around stoppages and spreads to find space. Played against men for the last couple of years.

its just the Lewis quote at the end of the article saying we dont need him. Nothing to see here.

A good time now to revisit that trade to work out if we 'won' it: Brisbane traded: 18 (21 Bowey), 19 (22 Laurie), 2021 second round (33, likely down 3-4 spots) = 2496 points (original value) Melbourne traded: 2021 17 or 18 (likely down 2 spots), 25 (academy bid from Collingwood on Blake Coleman at 24), 68, 69 (pushed up to 48 to take Henry Smith, a ruckman) = 2083 points (value as 17 and 48). If you do a little bit of creative accounting, you can make a call that Brissy wasn't that bent over using draft points as a metric (e.g., 2206 v 1999 with 'final' values) and roughly 21, 22 and 37 for 20, 24 and 48 doesn't look too bad for them, but they would really want to make sure they pick the lights out of this pick they have because we nailed it with Bowey. And we have a Laurie to come!

Oh mama. another 25 touches and 2 goals.

I find it really interesting on Mac this year. 1) serious lack of exposed form. He wasn’t in the system and he hasn’t played a lot of footy in the two years he was. So yes he’s had a big impact in some games and quarters, but recruiters are putting a lot of faith in that. 2) potential, potential, potential. High ceiling. Jackson-like. All of the conversation has been about his raw athletic talent and what he could be. We weren’t overly excited when Taylor was looking at a raw ruckman from WA. And the Dees followed him for years. It is a big call to spend a top 10 pick on a project player (see Lucas Cook). 3) Jackson is the exception, not the rule. Grundy was talked up and dropped. English was talked up and dropped. Jackson was talked up - and went higher than expected. Who knows what camp Mac will fall in too. basically, who knows what is going to happen with this draft. Only Daicos and Horne-Francis have made every post a winner so far. After that, it will be a guessing game until the night. If last year threw up surprises (remember Twoomey got it very wrong), this year is going to be worse. fingers crossed he comes to us, but if we had a pick in the top 10 - would we be wanting Taylor to pick Mac?

Honestly no idea. People are presumably paid a lot of money to work that out. I agree that a) how would we have space to take the 600-750 asking price and b) what would we trade. but it is nice to know we are still trying to improve the list.

Where there is smoke, there is fire. Considering we don’t have draft capital for Cerra, why is our name in every article about him? What are we trying to do? Future first no doubt, but if I was Freo Id want more. I guess Hogan > Cerra and Hogan was 6 & 23.

I watched the first half. Basically think a low possession game from Brayshaw and that is what it is. Playing the defensive wing - running all day. Uses it well when he gets it, dropping back to fill space and go after other people’s man when they lose them. It won’t be a high stats game, but I think our coaching team would be happy with how he is playing.

26 and 2 goals in a best on ground performance. I cannot wait to see him play for WA and see if he is the real deal.

Um is Hore going to play this year?

The most Jayden thing since his video looking for owls...

I did mine and picked the 5 Melbourne players first. Then found it very hard to pick the other 17. There are so many really great players in that 40 and huge that we have 5 of them. Such a great sign because guys like Walsh, Brayshaw, Kings, Anderson look like being greats of the game.

Taj is really interesting. We know that his coaches rate him highly (press clips at the start of the year). We know his team mates do (voted captain). He is getting it done each week in the disposal count (but no indication of DE or CBA). He is good enough to be in the WA squad and WA squad watchers have him in their best 22. But none of the Vic track watchers who we rely on for intel (Cal, Knightmare, Sheehan) have seen him play for 2 years. It’d be great if we could get a read on him for our own interests, but would be one that slips through because we know clubs put less work into F/S and NGA as they know they cannot get them anyway - so enough to know where they are bidding (interviews with club recruiters the last 2 years). id love him to be a jet, but who knows???

Glad I’m not the only one going insane over this.

Teams up - but to save you time - Weid, Hibbo, Chandler, AVB, Jordan, Melk, and maybe Daw must be travelling with us as not named.

We’ve had 17 players play 17-18 games this year. And Petty isn’t one of them. We haven’t really changed it up that much, so I’d be surprised if we have more than 1 change. Highly likely it is 0 Changes. yes, id love to rest a few players, bring in my personal favs, and drop my whipping boys, but we’ve played the same 18 odd players for the better part of 4 years now - I’m not expecting us to change off the back of an ‘ok, not great’ game. 0 changes for me. But if I’m being emotional, I’d love to see Harmes take the week off and love to see Bowey get a run (but that’d mean we’d be dropping pig and I don’t see that happening).

Within the first couple of minutes.

Daniel Turner is a key defender at Murray Bushrangers. Is 18 and according to his coach has grown to 194. Averaging 18 disposals and is in the NaB team of the year from Afl draft . Com - and can kick.

Yep - and I watched it all to see them cover the dees. Waste of a couple of hours - could have watched the game again

Hore might have been put to season so we have flexibility with mid season draft.

Expanding on @daisycutter Taj: He can be nominated wherever and we get a 20% discount on the 'points' he costs. So if he goes pick 17 it is about 1000 points, with a 20% discount it is 800 points which can be matched with picks 25 and 51. It doesn't matter where he is nominated, we can take him. Mac: Needs to be bid on pick 20 or lower. So lets say pick 21 (878 points - 20% discount, so 702). We would need pick say 42 and 48 to match the points. This is where it gets harder though. We would need to have 4 list spots open to be able to have 4 picks in the draft to use the points. So we then wouldnt have a pick in the draft and have 2 list spots open for SSP (like we did with Daw and Smith). We can have more rookies etc. so it is a little easier to manipulate, but you cannot stockpile picks like teams used to. If Taj got so good in the championships that he went number 1, we could go into deficit and pay the points with next years pick moving back in the draft based on the number of points we owed. In short - we can have them both as long as Taj proves he is good enough to get drafted and Mac proves he is not a top 20 player. What a weird situation to be in.

As a positive, there were a lot of injuries in that squad, so hopefully there are a lot of guys who are going to take those top 20 spots. He is also a project, so they tend to fall. And bar Jackson and Naitanui, ruckman really arent taken high. It is feeling touch and go now and there is a lot of season left.

Knightmatre’s review of Mac in the game Mac Andrew won fans with his final quarter performance for the AFL Academy. With his getting pummelled, Andrews not only continued competing, but dominated once inserted into the ruck during the final quarter. His leap, ruck craft and soft hands stood out and screamed long-term AFL ruckman, and he routinely outleapt his Geelong rivals and tapped the ball down to the advantage of his midfielders. His touch below his knees and tackling suggested further promise. A Melbourne Next-Generation Academy prospect, Andrew at 200cm, 77kg will require time developing. As he develops physically, because of his mobility, skills, clean hands below his knees, and reading of the ball in flight and contested marking, he has the scope to develop as a key forward or key defender before transitioning into a ruckman. The developing tall managed nine disposals, three marks (one contested), two clearances and five hitouts. If Andrew continues developing and attracts a bid inside the top-20 in this year's draft, Melbourne may be the first victim of the new Next-Generation Academy rules which state that those bid on inside the top-20 cannot have their bid matched.