deejammin'

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 🙄

Except that that story just isn’t true. We very well may have to wait til after GF day for King if the cats go through, which is precisely why we could’ve waited for Bucks if we wanted him. We didn’t want him, King was more impressive. Notice how all the Bucks ummm and ahhing started when he realised he was going to have to do a proper process with an interview and presentation? Couldn’t be that he was hedging his bets and managing his PR in case he lost, especially as he’s never actually done a proper head coach process before, it has to be that we’re incompetent, because media said so! All those external experts and our new highly qualified CEO and board director and our unanimous board are all fools, they should’ve just waited when they had to wait anyway! What [censored]! These highly informed media people, who got every report about who was leading our process wrong, were clearly so much more right! [censored], do you even support this club?

Can I just put in a little tip. Bucks won’t get Tassie, it will be Longmire. All this Tassie spin will be revealed to be Bucks PR after losing a process (he’d actually never done one before, King has). I might be wrong but let’s check back in a few years, I’d be taking the Bucks spin with a HUGE grain of salt. Long live the King!

Great appointment. The most experienced coach in it (Bucks hasn’t coached a game in four years, only did one apprenticeship under Malthouse and was handed the keys in a train crash, King has done it the right way and has also sat in the hot seat at the suns). A lot of media mates are already getting the PR going for Bucks their mate to make sure it looks like he didn’t lose. But I have it on good authority we’d have taken King over Bucks, possibly even Kelly. King completely blew the panel away with his presentation and his pedigree is beyond compare. Bucks has literally worked with one senior coach, King the majority of the best coaches of the last two decades and is knee deep in a finals campaign. He’s the right choice, can’t wait to see what he does with the list. I predict some surprises.

No Lindsay again? Is he ok?

In the AFL media landscape reporting is extremely binary, players are almost always “gone”. I’m not going to re-litigate the Oliver one with you again, he’s still here, there’s been 8 times in the past 2 years a large amount of the media landscape has reported several players are leaving our club and they are yet to get a single one right. Not one. Even the obvious ones like Jordon, Bedford and Harmes were reported relatively late. Grundy is the one exception and I think we know he was leaking that himself. I don’t think they have a good source inside our club on the trade front, and the evidence supports that. I also think there has been a clear bias against our club since a couple of people left in 2021 in certain parts of the AFL media but that’s not what I was arguing here.

Glad he’s staying. So: Petty, Oliver, Kozzie, Viney, Petracca, Oliver again, Kozzie again, failed to know ANB was leaving til the day it happened, now Fritsch and despite our board having a “six week” long discussion on Simon Goodwin’s future and eventual sacking no leak til the day it happened. I don’t think the media know anything about the internal workings of our club, operating at 0% accuracy currently.

Longmire sure Bruce or Enright or any number of other assistants with impressive showings in a thorough process sure Hinkley no thanks Simmo no thanks, was past it years ago Hird hell no, should never work in the industry again, maybe we could get Dank, Lance Armstrong and the 90s Russian and Chinese swim teams in to help with Hirdy’s sports science program too! Bucks I hate with the fire of a thousand suns. Would be the only time that I just don’t think I could do it, might have to take a break from footy. Also he’s very similar to Goodwin except that Goodwin is a good person and Bucks is not. You want cultural problems, have a look at what went on at the pies under Bucks and especially when Bucks was Malthouse’s assistant, yikes and yuk.

I think Harry plays his best footy as forward/backup ruck, which solves a real need for us and is good for his confidence as a player. It allows him to get up around the ball get his confidence up and then unleash forward. Won’t help our goal kicking much though!

I share the concerns of everyone here about Jack Vuney’s health but reading between the lines of the club statement is it not possible that his omission has more to do with match preparation and fitness than lingering symptoms? The statement says the “objective things are tracking well” I assume that’s the medical recovery but that “Jack wasn’t quite ready for a the demands of an AFL game” I assume that refers to the more subjective amount of contact training and full training he’s been able to do. Maybe it’s rose coloured glasses but I read that as a good sign that we think the team is working well and want Jack cherry ripe before he returns, rather than something ominous medically. Fingers crossed. Also he’s flying with the team to do training in Alice, isn’t it a bad idea for someone experiencing symptoms from concussion to fly?

I assume with JVR travelling with the AFL team to Alice after replacing Bill as an emergency he’ll be out of the Casey squad? In some ways that makes this team more balanced. Allows us to play Verrall, Fullo and Jefferson through the forward line which feels like a bit more of an opportunity for them to do well. Go Casey!

This is THE game to show we’re back. Win this and we’re 6-6 with Port, North, Carlton, Saints again and Eagles as five more must win games in the run home to take us to 11 wins. We would probably still need to jag one or two of Pies x2, GC, Adelaide, Dogs, Hawks to make finals. Lose this game and we’d need to win 8 out of last 11 games with some tough runs in there. Probably season over. Let’s stick with what’s working, win and hopefully win well enough to creep our percentage back up towards parity. Out: Spargo In: Viney

TMac is stiff, however he had three all time terrible turnovers in the first half last week that led to goals. Against a depleted Sydney tall forwardline of Hamling, McLean and Ladhams clearly the match committee is hoping we can intercept and hurt them the other way and think Lever, Turner and May are better at this than plugger. Tom will be back, his lockdown has been outstanding but the connection between Lever and May and Turner’s exceptional form make this the option. It’s also not a bad idea to give our old boys weeks off, I wish Melksham had played against the Hawks, but maybe his exceptional game against Brisbane was the result, TMac may well need to come back refreshed against Owens and co at the Saints. Spargo and Sharp would want to play well with Viney closing in on a return.

Does Hamling and Ladhams as the forwards mean we can’t play both Turner and Lever as well as May and McDonald? I’d think May on Ladhams, McDonald Hamling and Turner Hayward leaving Lever free might work? But also could make us vulnerable at ground level?

With Lever, Viney and Lindsay all (fingers crossed) available this week I think this is the first week we’ve had our full best 22 available all season. No Kozzie til round 4 then Lever went down, May in and out in the early rounds and Windsor as well. With all due respect to AMW who may have been pushing one of Salem, Bowey and McVee for a small defender position I doubt it. McAdam also may have been pushing a Fritsch or even a Spargo but would’ve needed to hit his straps. Marty Hore is good backup but it’s going to be tough fitting May, Lever, McDonald and Turner as it is. This is it, our best team, while Sydney miss Gulden, Papley, Amartey, McInerny and Francis. Cmon dees! Let’s get on a roll! ins: Viney, Lever. Outs: Spargo, Sharp Fritsch to sub

Xavier Lindsay training Ghosty?

GOAT. No question.

Spargo out, Viney in I think Lever needs another run in the twos to get to full form and Disco down back is looking like peak Jake Lever anyway. Not sure what we do once Jake is fully fit, but not next week. Hope Lindsay is just precautionary, he’s a gun and we need him. Incredible win, god I wish we’d brought that last quarter against the Hawks. Win next week and we’re back in this season, especially if North, WC and Richmond can steal a couple more off our rivals.