Dee-licious

Dominant. He and Petty looked fantastic together and in the second half probably a little less so. I’d want him signed up by the end of the week. Dont know why the hatred for Hunt here. He broke lines, he put his head over the ball and created contests. He also hit tagets which has been one of his big problems. Also Box Hill tightened up on JKH after a rampant first quarter. Didn’t give him any space so not surprising he wasn’t as influential. Garlett was poor, Bugg tried but he’s not the same anymore. McKenna seems some.

Brown: umpires done a good job today....come on.

Your shout!

Amazing tackle. Also Hunt is brilliant. Such a level above. I’d be signing JKH and Kielty straight away. Holding back my contract extension so the others at the moment.

So we got Adelaide twice last year because of Lever. They like to try and make money out of the big trades and free agents (ie crows v Geelong after Danger). So while the rules around fixturing don’t say “we will do this”. The AFL have enough breathing room to maximise eyeballs.

Not quite but almost. You are drawn against more teams in your ‘6’ but this will generally include 3 from there and 1 from the others. Also depends on trade week I.e if we traded in Patrick Cripps - we’d have 2 games v Blues. Basically, expect 2 games v Rich and Coll (also putting early money on Coll v Melb to have the opening Friday night) and then ??? For the other 3 double ups.

I have been thinking about this a heap in the past 24 hours. Especially on the wing which is clearly an area we lack. I have been trying to find someone from another club we could get to get the ball on the outside and deliver inside 50. Then it dawned on me, we have him, he played there at the start of the year and was brilliant until Lever went down. Christian Salem. Beautiful kick, good break away speed, tackles like a champ. I feel if we can find a half back flank player to replace him (maybe Fritch, maybe Hunt) and can move him to play in the forward half of the ground we are instantly a better team. I think this trade period isnt going to be that exciting for us as we are going to rely on natural improvement, rather than quick fixes.

@david_neitz_is_my_dad great photos - could really see how many people were there!

@Satyriconhome you made it on tv as well.

He is playing well in the back pocket and starting to be more attacking. Could see a rookie list position (maybe), but he is behind Lever, Hunt, Smith and Wagner to come into the backline - so possibly he might also look elsewhere for opporuntities as well? What I do love is every time someone got selected for their first game this year he was always in the video hugging them. Seems like a great team man.

It’s actually quite good for training for future years. What I also love is that it is something they are doing together (everyone is important etc). Also means no extra pressure on one or 2 players. I really like the idea.

Geelong struggled with 2 mobile key talls. Hawthorn are scrambling now to come up with a second key defender. Imagine if they had to find a third. Game styles evolve based on your best 18 players. We happen to have 7 talls in ours who are all mobile and endurance beasts. Might be tough in the wet but on a dry day in September, talls get taller in the 4th.

Jack Viney leads the league in centre clearance average (yes he’s missed most the season and I’m cherry picking). You don’t leave number 2 (dusty) 3 (Cripps) 4 (Mitchell) or 5 (Fyfe) out of the centre square - Viney won’t be left out either.

Some odd shots on goal for him, but gee he was good. For such a young forward, he was clunking them!

Wouldn’t want to see Hamish on Monday..... contact drills this week will hurt him.

You’d expect there would be a little bit of “if you find a good contract somewhere else, we’ll help you” with a few of them but I cannot imagine they’ll want another 8 changes that we had last year. 14 out of contract and a little bit of projection - id assume: Offered new: Oscar, AVB, Vince, Balic, Kent, T Smith, Sign if there is no interest: Johnson, Bugg, JKH, Pedo i have no idea: King, Flip, McKenna, Keilty. Its tough as you have til have 3 draftees. McKenna could go to a rookie list with no issues. I can’t see any of our rookies being upgraded (Maynard, Flip, Kielty, Smith) bar Tim Smith. Honestly it will be tough to work out who goes because we’ve all seen Bugg at his best and he clearly is an AFL player; we assume that one of Flip or King goes; JKH I thought would look for other opportunities but if he stays in our side for a few more weeks will be hard not to offer a contract; Kent clearly can be best 22; Johnson is developing as a small defender but maybe he goes?; I’m thinking maybe Dec might be on the way out sadly and maybe Pedo as well. Feel it does leave us short though in the backline.

Thanks for all of your work on this @Lucifer's Hero - with Gus till 22 and Jetta to 21 we are really just waiting on OMac's signature at the moment. The rest you wouldn't imagine will be on more than a 2 year deal and there is no one on that list I'd be concerned if they hadn't put pen to paper before trade season. 2019 is really interesting with Salem, ANB, Stretch and Weiderman OOC, but the big story will of course be Hogan. I cannot imagine that they'd want that dragging out next year and I assume they'd look to sign him over the off-season up until his free agency begins (2021).

From Swamp: Games polling @AFLCoaches votes in 2018 1x: 105 players 2x: 69 players 3x: 41 players 4x: 29 players 5x: 19 players 6x: 18 players 7x: 18 players 8x: 8 players 9x: 4 players 10x: 7 players 11x: Patrick Dangerfield, Dustin Martin 12x: 13x: ANDREW GAFF

Out of context. Boomer was doing a review of the Freo list and was selling hope that Hogan would come to Perth. In his analysis of the Melbourne list earlier this year he talked about Hogan being a big part of the future of the Melbourne football club. Not a story which is why it is thin and boomer hasn’t followed up the comments.

As much as we gave to Lever but over 5. Media have said opening price will need to be $4 million over 5.

Correct. I don’t know where they were on our board but know that we were pleasantly suprised they fell that low. And both I feel have now shown they were worth more than their pick. Langdon starting to do the same.

@Satyriconhome I get what you are saying in that we tend to overrate opposition players and possibly we are thinking that Gaff will solve all our issues and be our messiah. However he is a proven performer, he’s had many great seasons, the best is still ahead of him, he is a Brownlow fancy, and Sydney put a hard tag on him and he still had 24, 6 clearances and 6 inside 50s. I love billy and ANB but they aren’t getting a hard tag. If he does get tagged out of games at the dees, then think about the space Brayshaw and Salem will get. He might not be the messiah, we might overrate him, but he will make our side better and that’s enough for me.

Interesting and can confirm we were up to our eyeballs in this kid. Taylor called him on the night to apologise he wasn’t going to be a Dee because Oscar dropped to us. We had ANB and Oscar much higher on our draft board than where we drafted them and Ed was pretty sure he was going to be a Dee with pick 53. Don’t know if he’s keen to come back but apparently he ‘understood’ our decision. Hope that insight helps.

Let’s face it. If he was on the open market in a draft year with his pedagree and physicality he’d be drafted. To get a free hit is awesome. The other thing is that we get him like we got Hogan. Basically a year of being in an elite system while he is in year 12 and then will be able to play as of next year. I’d expect he won’t play VFL at all this year. Just looked at at his basketball highlights. The kid can jump and the write ups were all about his agility. Yep he’s not like any big man we’ve seen in the Afl. NicNat like in his agility. If he can kick we might be on to something here.