Pates

So much of our hopes will rest on his broad shoulders next year, we struggled to consistently kick a winning score and still didn’t seem to have great cohesion between midfield and forwards (though it showed signs of improvement). He’s a good pick up for us, despite the higher pick price tag on Daniher’s compensation pick, he’s definitely 2nd when rating the available forwards behind Cameron. And we didn’t have to sell the farm to get him. God I hope this works out. ?

Random question, who was the last player to wear no 50 for us? And is there one player of note who’s worn it?

I remembered the AFL being sure that the 6.6.6 and the “no need to kick in/man further back at kick ins” rules being the answer to all our problems. No matter what they do you can count on the coaches working around it. They keep tinkering with the rules to the point the game is now unrecognisable compared to its foundations. I liked the quirk or the defender having to kick the ball to themselves in order to take it out.

I said earlier I couldn’t imagine any Dees fan being unhappy with the trading of Brown into the club. Thanks for proving me wrong! ?

Those calendars must be nightmares for the promotional staff at clubs, one year we had Watts before he went to Port and the following year we had Hogan before he went to Freo. They’re good things to have but boy it can backfire quickly! In Brown’s case though I feel like that one was well in the works early.

He’s a Demon for 2021, let’s get behind him now. I think swinging back to defence is the best path for both club and player; we have Brown as our clear FF, Weid and Jacko as our developing forwards, and M Brown as experienced coverage. There’s no place for him there (I know I started a thread asking the question). Train him with the defenders from the start of pre-season as the second tall defender, Lever moves to being solely an interception marker. Tom can continue on his path of getting leaner as May will take the main tall forward. His (hopefully improved) marking ability can be used for a bit of variety with kick outs. Am I totally convinced it’ll work? No. But I think it’s the best opportunity to play him regularly and get return from his contract.

In order of most likely (only my opinion) - Pies are the obvious one after their disaster of a trade period. We destroyed them when we were at our best (and they were at their worst), they limped into finals but credit to them beat WC. Still I think they’re vulnerable and a player revolt after the clubs trade actions could be on the cards - Saints are my next pick only because I see a lot of us in them both historically and in their rise up. Rats is a good coach and I think they’ve done well, but losing to us showed they’re still fragile in the mental stakes. If they have a couple of things and results go against them early I think they’ll struggle to recover - Port are my next pick but I think they’ll still be in contention for top 4, they played a lot better than I expected of them this year and they have some genuine quality in their line up but they are ageing. Will they be able to do a Geelong and stay up with their list getting on? - Dogs have recruited well so I think they’ll be ok but they were very hot and cold last year The rest I’d expected to be firmly entrenched pretty quickly, though I’d love to see an injury crisis hit Geelong. Tigers have had a few the last couple of years but still keep going, I hate saying it but I admire that willingness to keep fighting.

His disposal and decision making improved as the year went on, he was a great pick up who will get better.

Sequels are very rarely any good. If they are to go ahead with this then they should allow clubs to continue to communicate and negotiate. Only turn up on the day with you have deals actually ready to happen. Could be a chance for TMac if both he and the club have someone in mind. I still can’t believe the AFL (with all that time to discuss it) couldn’t come up with a decision on list sizes BEFORE the trade period.

I’d say most of us here are laughing at the immeasurably stupid and arrogant position they have put themselves in as well as the way they have handled it. Comparing back to Melbourne I will say that I’m now extremely happy that we still have Nev and Jones on our list because they are senior players that have the love and respect of their teammates. I would hope that Clarry and Trac would see how we have dealt with them with respect and say to themselves, “this is a club I want to be at”. Clearly that’s not everything but respect goes a long way in relationships. EDIT also even though we would probably have preferred to send TMac elsewhere we didn’t play anything out in the media.

Agreed, if he said something like “I’m looking forward to learning a lot under Simon and Adem” all good with that. If he said something like “I’m looking forward to the learnings I will gain...”. ? Question becomes what number will he take on as a Demon?

I can’t imagine any Dees fan being upset about this trade, regardless of his 2020 form (which is difficult to read given the bizarre year) this is an absolute steal for a bloke who has consistently been up there in the Coleman medal race in a team that has been mostly mediocre. What Brown will give us is a true focal point to look to when going inside 50, there are players that “demand” the ball when they’re leading and Brown is one of them. This is a massive get for us and Josh has pulled off a great little trade period for us. Perhaps I would’ve liked a little more activity on the wing side of things but internally it sounds like they are backing themselves that they have the tools available. Big 2021 coming and I look forward to seeing Sideshow Ben kicking bags of goals in the Red and Blue!

If baffles me that the AFL didn’t decide/announce this prior to the trade period. How can clubs properly trade and negotiate when they didn’t know how many spots will be available?

If I was North I'd tell us to get F-d if that's the offer and let Brown walk to take a chance at the draft. He was god awful this year with lots of problems but you look at where he has ranked in previous seasons when fit and he's worth more than a future second rounder. It's actually intriguing that it sounds like we're the ones doing a bit of hard ball on the deal, usually Mahoney looks to get deals done fairly easily if there's a player we want. Not saying we should blink but Brown is a player we require so let's not go down the Blues path and force him into a draft lottery.

Viney, Jones, Smith, Spargo, Fritta, Harmes, and Lever probably all next in the firing line I would imagine. Fans will never fail to find someone else to bag.

It’ll put us a hell of a lot closer than two second round draftees in a very speculative draft. I’m still hoping we hold out, if we are to give up two second rounders perhaps ask for a third or fourth round pick back (if they have one).

As long as they’re postmarked on the day of trade period they should be accepted. Count every lodgement!

Genuinely looking forward to our first match against GWS. Max vs Preuss.

I think one of 31/33 with pick 43 is what we should holding firm on for as long as we can, perhaps drop that down to 26 if they really want to play hard ball. But we should not be letting them dictate terms by the way they have dealt with Brown. 2 second round picks? Hell no.

I think there needs to be a responsibility to accommodate a certain amount of fans, I love the hostile nature of a home but it needs to come with a little balance. The added fact that their ground is now essentially paid for by the government and not through their own funds means there should be a responsibility it have a minimum capacity allowed to travelling fans (particularly any Victorian teams). Fill the allocation from font to back and any left over can be bought by locals on the day. Even premier league clubs (with less capacity) allow more than what the cats do with their seating availability.

I liked Preuss but he was surplus to our needs given that he is a first team ruckman in probably about 5-6 other teams so I wish him nothing but the best of luck (except against us!). As for the trade, well done Josh. Pick 31 from Preuss is a damn good trade for us, I tip my cap to him. I had a bad feeling we would accept a low 4th round pick for him just to move on to other deals but having Preuss on our list did give us some coverage so he wasn’t without value to us and he was contracted. From Tyson (who did NOTHING) at North to Preuss who held up well when required, to pick 31. Gotta be happy with that.

I know it’s very early in his career to be trialling this but would Jackson be worth a crack on the wing this year? We know he’s got the legs for it, it’s just whether he has the footy brain for it (yet). I see Brown as the clear FF, and Sam goes to CHF. If, it’s a massive if, Tom were to become more aerobic again he could be used in a HFF position. I will say this, this is all unlikely as it makes us very top heavy. However this is also making the crazy assumption that all 4 of these guys hit irresistible form. Should that happen having marking options across the ground makes things happen.

Firstly because the ground belongs to the MCC and like all the clubs that call it home we are a tenant club (though closer aligned to the MCC than others). Secondly as stated there are such a high volume of games every week the curators have decided it needs that time through the week to recover. Even if we were to get on the ground it wouldn’t be major sessions so it wouldn’t really be worth it compared to doing a proper session at Gosches paddock or (hopefully in the future) an MCG sized training facility of our own.

So I’m going to throw out a hypothetical situation just for curiosity’s sake. Tom isn’t getting huge amounts of interest on the table, gut feeling (lots to play out though) is that he will still be a Demon next year. Rather than be doom and gloom about it I’m going to come at it from a position of positivity. Right now he’s working hard to shed kg’s and become leaner and more mobile, one thing I used to love about Tom was his elite fitness meant he could run his opponent into the ground. So let’s throw out the best case scenario: We get Ben Brown and he’s the key forward we’ve been wanting for a while. TMac returns to some good form, Sam continues his upward trajectory, and Jacko just keeps being Jacko. Thinking creatively are there ways to be able to play all four in the side? Are there previous Premiership winning clubs that have been able to manage that many tall forwards? Don’t want to hear people bagging Tom, we all know he’s been way off since the end of 2018 (I’m sure he would know better than we do).

It happened the moment we put all our eggs into the Tom/Weid basket, I remembered thinking when we traded Hogan (and we can argue that was going to happen regardless) that this is a big gamble to be saying we expect Tom to be able to perform that way year after year. Sadly it was a gamble that definitely has not paid off. We also expected Weids development to shoot up in 2019, but that still hasn’t really happened (improved in 2020 but still not to the level we need him to be).