deejammin'

Of that list if there’s two best 23 out, Viney and Bowey (although it’s a tricky exercise to work out which mid to drop for Viney), and MAYBE one of Jefferson, Johnston and Kentfield would’ve got a game, but all three can’t play together. Casey’s depth will be challenged but only 2/3 best 23 missing from the 1s is a hell of a lot better than we were looking a month ago and leaves us with a pretty damn good team which will have some tough choices at selection. Also with AMW available we finally have the small lockdown defender many have been crying out for, if he can find last preseasons pre-injury form lookout. I wouldn’t want to have to pick the team this week, some very good exciting players will miss.

The 2021 premiers. Saints one flag was…. Not recent 2010 choking? Last year? Year before. We’ve At least made finals and won a flag recently

I reckon his ability to get a quick handball and get the ball out to the running power GWS has looks very good in the second half. Put Callahan and a few others in there and he’ll be a weapon.

Of that list who’s a chance to get back for round 1? Gawn, Melksham, Petty, Culley maybe? AMW maybe? Get Gawn, Culley and Melksham in and I’m not sure Petty is ahead of TMac right now and that’s a pretty good team. Bowey’s absence hurts the most, Viney a close second. I don’t think TC, Hendo, McAdam, Johnston, Matthews, White are in our best so they’re hurting our depth, development and Casey more than best 22 and we looked better with McDonald ahead of May last year so maybe that’s not so bad. All in all if we get those 4 players back for round one I reckon we’re looking pretty good. Saints will be tough but they are also great chokers and were young and an unknown quantity with King at this stage.

Good start to the death ride, yes it’s a practice match, yes GC had a heap of stars out, but they still have the same problem as last year, they leak scores. Also it was in GC right? Thats pretty pathetic considering. That St Kilda team looks good but is not the best team they’ll face this year, probably mid tier. Keep it up GC, pick 8 would be lovely!

Great ins but geez GG and especially Denby are stiff! I thought Denby had some game saving and breaking moments last week and is in a lot better form than Lampy and Banno as much as I love them playing.

Great game. Super proud of all the girls, Hore, Tahlia, Heath, Lise, Paxy, the Taylor’s, Blaithin and Goldy, Harris, Cambell and Witherspoon with the key moments in the last. The umpiring was bordering on match fixing, the fifty simply wasn’t there, the Adelaide player ran into Paxy for the reversed free kick the spoil was close to perfect and that was a dropped chest mark if ever I saw one. It was game over without those clear blunders and it didn’t come back our way. There was some similar stuff in the second quarter last week. I would be shocked if there wasn’t some bias from the umpires towards trying to make a closer game or keep more interstate teams in it it was that bad. Ok tinfoil hat off. I went with my son and mother and father and had a great day, yes it would’ve been nice to have a bigger crowd but I’m not sure chiding each other or continuing the Melbourne’s crowds suck talk is going to fix it. Go Dees, who knows what happens next week, on paper the Roos win but the week off and both teams on a neutral ground with us hopefully getting more stars back in Zanker in particular who knows. I just wish we could see what would happen if Purcell, Chaplin, Beasley and Zanker were all available, fully fit and playing. I actually think that team would beat the Roos.

And while we’re at it what’s wrong with “ground” or “Melbourne Cricket Ground” or “Self contained breathing apparatus” or just “apparatus” or “Australian football league” or “Melbourne Football club”’and “demons”! Ban all acronyms and nicknames!!! We should say everything in full or not at all!

I remember Grace’s three games being pretty outstanding though. I imagine the plan coming into the season was for Kate to play more forward with a more stacked midfield but injuries to Purcell, Mackin and Beasley have prevented that. If she gets her game ready I suspect she’ll be in.

If that’s true it’s absolutely shameful. You couldn’t have kept him for one year and seen how he went with King then traded him for a junk pick next year? Trac’s salary and what we were planning to pay Judd going off the books isn’t enough? Nup that’s trash. GAGF Tim Lamb.

Luke Jackson goes alright

Mate we want Trac to stay. King especially. He will not trade him for a bad deal. 7 and pick exchanges doesn’t get it done.

I agree about Oliver but Kozzie’s last two years of gradually building up midfield time have been super impressive. His clearance numbers and even pressure in there is great. If he stops these dinky little upwards kicks into the forward line that rarely come off and starts drilling his passes he’ll be elite. I think his running patterns are really quite good.

I really think if we take enough of his salary on we will get 12. Let’s see.

Look, I love Clarry, I wish we would keep him on and he would get back to his best. However, I think it’s clear there were some learnings from 2025: Harvey Langford is a jet and will be one of the leagues best mids in no time, he plays midfield/wing and will do it more and more next year. Kozzie needs to be in the middle as much as possible. Windsor is a mid/wing maybe a mid/hf he’s NOT a HBF as he tried to play the first half of the year. He must play more minutes in the guts next year. Lindsay is a gun, can play HBF (needs to improve his defensive stuff but has time), wing and increasingly mid in time. Rivers offers a lot as a mid and can be tried in there with Lindsay/Howes coming into the team at HB Jai Culley makes us better, plays HF/wing/mid, he plays AFL all year next year. Viney, Langdon and Sparrow are good role players and will do whatever it takes to make the team better. Jake Bowey is our best HBF and must be the running/kicking HBF into mid role. Add to those learnings some wild cards like Salem, Tholstrup and maybe even Laurie and all of a sudden our midfield mix is pretty competitive. What King was clearly telling Clayton is he doesn’t see him clearly playing his role in a midfield of Trac/Humphrey, Kozzie, Rivers, Langford, Windsor, Langdon, Lindsay, Viney, Sparrow, Culley potentially Tholstrup and Salem. I don’t know if I agree but I can see his thinking and if that’s the case perhaps we are better freeing up some cap room bringing in a draft pick and giving a club champion a chance to play his role at an AFL club rather than fighting for a spot with younger stars.

It’s a brave new world. Trac was professional and did a good job this season when he was much more “out” last year apparently. If GC don’t rate him enough to part with a player and it’s just picks then I think King will bank on himself being able to get Trac on board, and the club will tell Trac we’ll trade him next year if another club gets serious. King is still an unknown but he doesn’t lack confidence and with Clarry, McVee and potentially May going there’s no way he lets Trac go for picks. Also FWIW Oliver, McVee, May could net us similar picks to the joke of a deal described here, (definitely if we do the traditional package picks for higher picks later on), to those touted for Trac. There’s just no way we take picks for Trac if we get some kind of combination of pick 12 from GWS, late first/second rounder from Freo (let McVee walk to the draft if Freo don’t come to the table, see if WC pass him up!), third rounder for May. Thats more than enough picks for us, don’t need more for Trac. Humphrey or bust GC.

Any news on what Heaters injury is/may be? I hope she’s ok, she’s my fave.

Lions are the only team in Brisbane and one of only two teams in QLD. We will always be in competition with 9 other teams pushing up deals and making us pay a premium. Especially that mob that gives players farms, cars and cotton on deals outside the cap. Us being a destination club is so much harder than Brisbane.

The problem isn’t players asking to leave. The problem is the clubs getting locked into one trading partner. If Judd had any care for MFC he would allow us to deal with WC and Freo to extract the best deal possible for us. If this is truly about “going home” then there’s two teams there. All this talk about fans “growing up” and being more “professional” with player movement but then the players pick one club and hold their own club to ransom to get there no matter how bad the deal. If a player asks for a trade the club should be able to send them wherever they get the best deal. That would be the league “growing up and being professional”, this is a farce.

I mean, we did beat them in Brisbane this year with our worse list. Footy’s a funny game.

Absolutely, they are now, but Collingwood mortgaged their future on them. Pick 14 and 34 for Schultz 3m over 5 years for McStay (who’s barely been on the park), Richards, Noble, pick 36 and a massive chunk of salary cap for Houston. Thats 5 young players including some guns and potential guns for a 31, 28 and 29 year old next year. It got them close but let’s see what it does to their future. McAdam, Hunter and Billing’s were a huge bust but they only cost us one second round pick and some junk picks, a waste for sure, but not to the same extent. EDIT: Also none of Billings, Hunter or McAdam were on anywhere near the salary of any of Schultz, McStay or Houston, not even close.

Also the amount they paid for McStay, Schulz and Houston almost makes our Hunter, Billings, McAdams deals look good.

How did Buck’s interview go? How’s this incredible process that makes us look shoddy playing out? Lots of candidates?

The devil(s) were in the details.

Ok so the story is that Buckley comes out and says he wants the Dees job when it’s first announced and continues to do so through the whole process, does the interview and the presentation and does a heap of study for it and tries hard and doesn’t rule himself out at any point. Then decides, right at the end of the process, when the Dees ultimately pick someone else that he’s more interested in hearing about a job that doesn’t yet exist, for a team that hasn’t met the stadium requirements it needs to exist in a process that hasn’t started and will probably include several other high profile candidates (Longmire, Hinkley, Simpson and Hird for example) rather than the job he spent months of time, energy and put his public statements on. Yeah, seems likely, not face saving PR at all 🙄