Pates

Bloody cats, hate em!

I’m not unhappy with these deals, Hore gives us backline depth so one year is about right. Spargo is clearly the polarising one though, after his game vs WC this year I honestly wasn’t sure I could see him breaking into the team again. We’ve seen some stinkers over the years but he was just horrendous. But he worked hard, and in a year with no VFL he still managed to do enough to earn his place back and when he did come back he was hardly the worst player in the team. In fact I would imagine he became one of the most efficient. I know Goodwin loves him, and he’s always looking to be damaging and creative in the forward 50. I think two years for a bloke who’s 21 and had a great first season in 2018 during our finals run is not the worst decision we’ve made. I am concerned as to whether that means Hunt maybe pushed out as I still think he has more upside.

His first “miss” in footy against WC summed up his year I think. Some magic, some excitement, but couldn’t finish his work. I’m hoping that another pre-season and a years experience will help him to rectify this issue as he got himself into some great opportunities at goal and had some costly misses (certainly not alone there). Early days.

Toumpas didn't play enough games to tear my hair out because he was too busy being ordinary at VFL level, then when he got to play at AFL level he'd barely touch the ball.

Can't believe I'm saying this but Oscar is way more of an AFL footballer than Toumpas ever was. Probably our worst top 5 pick ever.

If Smith isn't to come to us I'm not going to be overly devastated as long as we have someone else we're chasing to fill in that role, even if they aren't necessarily as good right now. Smith will be the short term solution, I'd see us getting almost 2 top quality years from him and the third almost being a mentorship role. Something frustrating about the cats being the ones to land him that would just make it a little more annoying, I hate losing to them in any way including them managing to entice a player over us.

If someone wanted to sum Frost up in one piece of vision this is it. Great speed and great chase, butchers the kick and I vaguely remember they ended up with a shot on goal anyway.

I mean I get what he's saying but putting ANB and TMac, in there is a bit ridiculous. Firstly both of those two are likely to be elsewhere (TMac in particular if Brown comes), and also both of those have shown very little in the last two seasons to say they would be dangerous. That said if feel like if players get into form seeing Brown at FF, Weid at CHF, Kozzie and Fritta in the FP, then the HFF positions filled by the likes of Jackson, Petracca, Melksham, AvB, Viney, Brayshaw, and Harmes (those last three I want to see some regular rotations through the forward line) gives me hope of us kicking a winning score.

Plus he won't even have to change his commute into training (well H&A season at least). I like the idea of getting him, I think he fits our side perfectly.

Honestly if a trade gets done I'm not going to worry about a token pick that we won't even use. That's not me wanting to denigrate him but if there can be something done that's simple to get Oscar to a club who'll give him a chance then let's do it and try to make his exit on the best terms possible.

Gary actually made another point that the FD cap is also being reduced and so perhaps he's been given this contract as a sort of player/assistant coach. As long as the club was absolutely straight with him that he is not in the best 22 and so games will not come easy for him we won't be any worse off that instead recruiting a player with pick 60+. I would expect that his salary would also have been reduced as well. I think it's good that in amongst so much bad stuff happening that there was a little room for sentiment, and perhaps this is also a sign that lists will not be culled as much as we thought.

Jeez if he’s a possible target to get out of WC he’s exactly what we’re looking for.

Whoever gets him I really hope they make them pay for their own mismanagement. I would be filthy if Melbourne chose to accept his insanely back ended contract. It also means that another team would be paying for Collingwood’s tactics in which they enticed him to the club. It’s despicable.

I would’ve thought the larger issue isn’t that is wasn’t just his father passing but the multitude of issues detailed by @Lord Travis I really can’t think of any footballer who had had a successful career who’s been able to deal with everything that has happened to Jesse. Remember that the talk of him going home started the moment we signed him on the underage draft. From that moment on he had to deal with that pressure from the media, his family, his friends, and the MFC (and it’s fans). Then came the health issues with his father, and up until that point there had been absolutely no issues with his professionalism and he was always talked about as being quiet and reserved. In the end I think it all just became too much for him, I certainly can’t imagine seeing any player reach their full potential with everything he’s been through. Doesn’t give him a free pass on his decisions but I can understand why he is where he is.

Whichever way you look at it on the body of his work over his career and the loyalty displayed towards the club he had earned the right to make this decision on his own. I don’t think he will be gifted games, he will have to earned and as long as the club made that perfectly clear to him going into this year I have no issues with his decision. As a great servant of our club all we can do is wish him the best of luck and that hopefully he gets the opportunity to bow out in the finals.

I would be keen were it not for his enormous salary cap demands, if the pies want to pay 200k for every year I’d consider it but even then it’s a massive chunk to put into a player that we have to ask, does he meet our needs? Plus there’s the draft pick(s) we have to hand over. Pies have really screwed the pooch on this one and it’s time the AFL put in someone at their integrity unit to investigate (and sanction) clubs for acting this way. Roles reversed the pies hold him to his contract, but now that they don’t want him because of their own list management stuff ups they try to make it unworkable at the club? They should be docked points off their F/S, academy, draft positions (I’m still confused about how that works).

Agree that 2 years with triggers for a third would be the way I’d like us to go. Someone did make the point earlier in the thread, if he was to help us win the premiership in one of his first two years, do we even care about the third?

There would be something difficult to swallow about him going to Richmond, it may be because I feel his breakout game came against the tigers in the ANZAC eve match where he beat Rance. I also feel that with Richmond they’d have a free hit with him, not dissimilar to Bennell with us which until the fine at end of the year cost us nothing. They have Lynch and Reiwoldt so they aren’t desperate for it to happen. I want him to rebuild his life wherever that may be, if Richmond can do that, as much as it would suck for us Dees fans, I’d be happy for him.

Given the tragedy surrounding his year and then having to go into the hub environment he did a remarkable job. He also showed the value in dropping a senior player to a younger player (Rivers) a crack, Hibbo forced his way back in and looked so much more like his old self.

Sadly that pretty much sums it up, unless we would be able to renegotiate Tom to a lower salary the bigger issue is freeing up space on the salary cap to be able to afford Brown now and retain Oliver and others later. We got a little unlucky in that TMac and Harmes both had their best years just when they were coming out of contract. We secured them to pretty top coin and expected they’d continue to perform, unfortunately that hasn’t been the case.

The chance about his body size and conditioning is an interesting one, it would be curious to know who thought it was the best way to go; club, player, or both. Tom’s biggest weapon in 2018 (and yes it’s now at a point where it’s hard to use that as an argument for a rapid regeneration) was that he was so mobile. He would do a massive body of work further up the ground and beat his opponent in fitness over body strength. And for that matter his contested marking was still pretty decent. I do think Tom will be gone by the end of the trade period, particularly if we are to get Brown. It’ll be sad because his decline has been a very rapid and disappointing one. If he goes to GWS and is able to get his body right I actually think he could turn it around.

Unless he gets back to his 2018 form, in which case we’re looking great. He needs to be held accountable for his poor efforts like any other player. He’ll play games but no way should he be considered a walk up start.

Lynch didn’t exactly apply a lot of pressure tonight, getting tackles and second efforts from your big men are good but they aren’t necessarily expected. Need high pressure from your small/mid sized players which is why we need more of that from the likes of Melksham, AvB, Pickett, and Fritsch. Plus any midfielders that push inside there. That’s the basic expectation from any premiership winning team, high intensity around the ball. Brown (if he makes it here) will be expected to mark the ball and when he can’t make sure he brings it to ground for our smaller forwards.

It’s funny this is the first one and already it just doesn’t feel right, there’s something about the last quarter hitting just as dusk is coming that brings out the best atmosphere. This year, with the music between the goals as well, feels like some Micky Mouse version of footy. Still I’m sure it’ll be spectacular with fireworks and stuff at the final siren. The game has been super high pressure, now that it’s opening up it looks cleaner and some great pieces of skill. Dusty has dragged Richmond back into it, he is a freak.

I can’t work out why when Melksham was having such a poor year and AvB doing very little we weren’t giving Harmes a run as the defensive forward giving him roles on the dangerous half back. He’s been so poorly managed this year.