Pates

With Chocko I wouldn't put anything passed him, he's a different unit and he'd be wanting to make a strong point. Hopefully if he burnt anything physical it was a photocopy! I'm really super excited to see LJ this year, he was showing a bit of something different last year with the way he almost glides across the ground. He really could be anything. I think there's things to be excited for this season, but I'd be lying if I said the injuries to Broad and Weid haven't dulled my eagerness for the season to start.

Realistically 5 years is the soonest I could see it happening, it makes sense for Tassie to aim for sooner rather than later but with the way the world is it’s just not going to happen that quickly without the AFL being 100% behind it. Absolutely agree, if they can get people to register (even put a down payment towards a membership) and there’s enough people interested it might just force the AFL’s hand.

He really is an absolute unit, perhaps a little bit of creativity from Mark Williams and Yze will be able to unlock his full potential. I always look at these guys as a free hit, if they come off then brilliant and if they don’t then we’ve lost very little.

Just saw on the Richo interview thread the reason for Kozzie’s absence, awful news my heart goes out the entire Pickett family. So very sad. Take the time you need Kozzie and your Dees family will be here to support you when you’re ready.

This stance from Tassie could end up with a mini-ultimatum for GC from the AFL, get competitive or be prepared to relocate to the coldest part of Australia. The thing I wonder about is whether the AFL genuinely feel they are making headway with the Suns at winning supporters. If they do think it’s building then it’s worse pursuing over Tassie, because as much as it doesn’t seem right that Tassie have been dudded there isn’t room for growth there. So the only advantage with Tassie (should they take the opinion the Suns AREN’T gaining support) would be you maintain the 18 teams for TV rights and you get a team that would (surely) be more popular and closely followed than the Suns. I think North relocating has been done and dusted, despite their ongoing precarious position. The loss of income will really hurt them though. The Hawks will not relocate, but I will have a little smirk about the hole in their budget. Perhaps they’ll have to do games in Darwin (that would be sensational to watch).

Right now he’s in no better/worse position than OMac being invited to train with Carlton.

Don’t mind this, good luck to him.

If he were ever considered a spot for us I would much prefer us offering a place at Casey (perhaps someone could shed light on if this is possible) and say to him let’s see how you go in competitive footy before the mid-season draft. Is it a similar system where you can nominate players to have first dibs on? But he’d have to be out there playing regular footy with zero symptoms before a place would be considered. And even then it just doesn’t sit well with me.

I vaguely remember that when he left it was family reasons, and therefor considered a private matter. I guess when you’re a football nothing is really private. I hope he and his family are ok during this tough time.

I'm concerned for Kozzie, but I'm hoping there are others who are stepping into the void to put their hands up for selection.

Great reporting PF! Fraser Rosman is sounding more and more likely to debut round one, looking forward to seeing him in action in the warm up matches. LJ as well is tracking well, could be a bit of a break out year, particularly with our first choice tall forwards injured for the early stages. TMac kicking a few snags is always great news, good for his confidence as well.

They were/are victims. Are you going to tell jewish holocaust survivors and their families to just get over what the Germans/Nazi's did to them? I think most people would recognise that changing the date of Australia Day won't solve all the problems, in fact it would merely be a small step towards reconciliation. Much the same way that Kevin Rudd saying sorry was a small step in the right direction. How can we expect to celebrate Australia Day as a united nation when it's the day the British people essentially began the atrocities against ancestors of our first nations people? Regardless of whether the British were any better or worse than the French, Dutch, or Spanish.

Oliver has the ability to be our best by the end of our career (potentially go down as a legend of the club) but right now he is not our best midfielder of the 21st century. Still plenty for him to work on, currently a great clearance player and gets plenty of the ball, but he needs to be more damaging, he needs to start kicking goals, and his kicking needs to go up a gear. To clarify I think he will improve in ALL of these areas, but pound for pound currently I'd have Yze, Junior Mac, Jones, Bruce, Green, and then others who you question "are they forward or mid" such as Petracca and Flash ahead of him as best midfielder of the century. Give it to as early as the end of this year and that could well change.

I'll just weigh in saying that at that time in history they probably would've classified essentially enslaving them in order to modernise them was considered to be doing it in their best interests. Much in the same way the stolen generation was because they wanted to get them out of the hands of their true parents to move them towards a white way of life (and basically breed their culture/race into extinction). I've got no doubt there would've been countless undocumented acts of cruelty in the name of "harm prevention". We are largely ignorant to our own bloody history because we aren't taught enough of it, and because the history books are always written (or re-written) by the "winners". Also it may well have been punishable by death to kill a native, I'd be very interested to know how many were actually convicted of it.

We took the punt on KK, it failed. We took the punt on Bennell, didn’t go so well. I don’t see any need for us to take a punt on Paddy when we actually do have depth in that area. Ultimately he would still be behind Tom, LJ, and Brown anyway. I also cringe at the thought of him playing footy and taking one more hard hit that could impact him long term (what he’s been through I can’t imagine it hasn’t already).

The funny thing for Tom was that the opportunity to play forward fell in his lap when we ran out of options, now with out first options (that were likely to keep him out of the forward line) injured he's got another chance to prove himself. Really hope he can take it.

I know some of the arguments against but I'm wondering whether we look at playing Salem on the opposite wing to Langdon. He's by no means quick but he has really good disposal and it would be nice to have that delivering to the forwards. Perhaps a situation with himself and Rivers rotating in there. I'm not sold on the idea of Melksham in the midfield, perhaps I'm just scarred by his poor output in 2020.

Through 2019 and well into 2020 that has been our biggest issue. I'm probably a little harsh on Tommy by saying welcome back to 2019, he's been training well and who knows he could have a second sunrise on his career as a forward. Either way we will either need that connection between midfield and forward to actually work (I personally think to do think Fritch needs to play on the HFF instead or rotating with Melksham) or we need to create more goals out of our midfielders such as Oliver, Brawshaw, Viney, and perhaps Harmes. I just really hope for Wieds sake that his hard work over the summer hasn't been for nothing.

Well this has been a crap week for our forward line, particularly as a strong start is so important to the success of our year. Poor Weid, he was putting in so much hard work and now he'll have to start all over again. Tommy has gone from being on the fringes (possibly playing wing), to competing for the other spot in the forward line, to now once again being our focal point. Welcome back to 2019 ?.

Eddie didn't do anything for nothing, it's no surprise that when the game began to attract more and more interest (not just from the gate receipts but the Big Freeze side of things) he demanded it be shared again. The pies were in a blessed position to be gifted blockbuster games, the best time slots, and cushy low-travel fixtures every year. Our protests at the lack of equity dropped significantly after they began to give us this game because we had the "don't bit the hand that feeds you" mentality, essentially it put us under his/the pies thumb. It was a helpful thing at the time, did it save us as a club? Not sure I would go that far. Did Eddie/the Pies do it purely out of the kindness of their hearts? [censored] no. Incidentally, when we did accept the sharing of the fixture I felt we should have made a push to say "we'll have one of you're Friday nigh fixtures as compensation thanks". They still get a heavily favourable fixture commercially, while we have lost one of our few regulars every year.

This is the case for almost all teams in the competition but for us to be a serious threat this year we need a lot of things to go right for us. Firstly we need our Brown recruitment to work. This hasn't got off to a great start as he'll likely miss some early games. We need players that have been teasing becoming top players to take that next step (much like what Trac did last year). We need our injury list to remain at a manageable level. We need our game plan to be something that not only works (in theory), but that the players need to buy into completely. Goody also needs to have some flexibility to be able to combat the other teams kicking goals in a row. I'm not buying into us being a genuine threat, I think we have the pieces of the puzzle available but putting it together I just don't know if we've got it.

A lot of the soccer clubs in Europe and the UK usual do a legends v legends match for charity every year. Now AFL does require a higher level of fitness (and there's the EJ Whitten legends game ever year as well), but I would love to see a classic Dees charity match done even if it's at a half pace bit of fun (could even do a mix of old and new). Imagine seeing the Wiz pass the ball to his son for a goal!

It's massively important that we keep Nev involved in the club after his playing career has ended whether that's in a coaching capacity or a part of our indigenous program. As an aside I'm so happy for him that he didn't end up going to the Pies with everything that's going on there, I can't help but feel he would be trusted straight in front of the cameras for comments had he been there right now.

I think it's fair to acknowledge what he's managed to achieve over his time at the Pies, they've gone from being a working class club to powerhouse in his time there and won a premiership on the way (along with sustained finals appearances and being "contenders"). At times he has been good for the promotion of the game. But clearly the locker-room/boys club style has gone on for too long, they became a tight run ship in certain departments but maintained the schoolyard antics at the players level that let certain attitudes continue there. His character on the radio and the TV seemed to fit into that mold. During his footy show days Sam Newman did plenty of blatantly offensive things, sure Eddie would cringe and put his hands in his face but he never called him out on it. Feels a bit the same here that he might've heard about things, he might not have been party to them, but he didn't do enough to stamp it down. Will be interesting to see if he takes time away from his media commitments while the dust settles on his departure.

I think the Wiz's connection to the club definitely opened some doors for Kobe to get a chance with us, but it'll be up to him to take that chance and do something with it. So far it sounds like he's doing everything right.