deejammin'

Thats a quality lineup, Daniel Cross listed as back pocket though? Also you don't think we'd be a bit too tall with Fitzy + 3 tall forwards? I'd love to see this work but clearly those would be the two biggest concerns.

Hi Deeman, wish you'd put these all in one post so I could reply a little more easily but here goes. For a start Viv Michie may very well be a great mid for us and be in the top 5 at our club, but at this stage he has barely played any AFL and I thought it would be disrespectful to a number of our players, including the soon to be added Cross to rate him in the top five. I have no doubt the club would eventually be hoping that Cross will be a mentor to not only Viv but also Trengove, Toumpas and co. and that hopefully they will go past him rapidly, but on last years form and accumlated form accross their careers at least 4 of the five I listed deserve to be rated as such. Tyson I put in as we need him to be top 5 immediately and clearly the club thinks he will be having traded some quality picks for him. Which midfields do you feel our top five are better than? I hope you are right and I am very excited about next year but I don't see our top five clearly beating any of those I listed. We are clearly better than last year, and to win games we will be hoping our mids can get close to breaking even so we can rely on a strong backline and potent forward line to get us across the line. I don't see our mids as clearly ahead of anyone at this stage, with some improvement from Trengove, Toumpas, McKensie, Evans, M Jones and co and some quality coaching we may have the depth to go past some by the end of next year. Mayne rotates through the midfield occasionally, although with Ross Lyons setup it can be hard to tell who is playing where. Also I did this off the top of my head and said at the top of my post some would dissagree. Clearly I forgot Hill, but Pearce, Sylvia or a number of others could be there, Freo's mids are clearly better than ours with just their top 4! Jack Martin is yet to play a game, he probably will be, but as I said above I am trying to be honest about exposed form, Tyson is my one exception (because if I left him out posters like you would be lecturing me on what a star he was). Prestia is a good midfielder, to be honest you are right he should be there, I just forgot him, sorry. Edit: Edited my post from above to include Hill and Prestia

In light of some people getting a bit excited about where we may finish next year and also because I have been in a list and chart making mood lately I thought it would be interesting to compare our top 5 mids against the top 5 of all other clubs. Obviously our midfield has been our weakness over the last few years with our spine looking strong this year. But quality midfields win games, particularly in modern footy. There will be dissagreements over who the top 5 at each club are and obviously depth is important, but in thinking about this I think it may reveal just how far back we are coming from. Melbourne: N Jones, B Vince, D Tyson, D Cross, J Viney GWS: C Ward, D Shiel, T Scully, Treloar, Greene St Kilda: Hayes, Montagna, Steven, Armitage, Roberton W Bulldogs: Griffen, Boyd, Cooney, Liberatore, Wallis Brisbane: Rockliff, Rich, Redden, Adcock, Moloney Gold Coast: Ablett, Swallow, O'Meara, Bennell, Prestia Adelaide: Dangerfield, Thompson, Sloane, Douglas, Van Berlo, West Coast: Priddis, Masten, Selwood, Shuey, Gaff North Melbourne: (Harvey?) Wells, Dal Santo, Bastinac, Cunnington, Ziebell, Essendon: Watson, Goddard, Zaharakis, Stanton, Heppell Port Adelaide: Boak, Hartlett, Cornes, Hartlett, Wines Carlton: Judd, Murphy, Gibbs, Thomas, McClean Richmond: Cotchin, Martin, Deledio, Jackson, Ellis Collingwood: Pendleberry, Swan, Beams, Ball, Sidebottom, Sydney: Hanneberry, Jack, Kennedy, O'Keefe, McVeigh Geelong: Selwood, Bartel, Johnson, Duncan, Kelly Freo: Fyfe, Mundy, Barlow, Crowley, Hill Hawthorn: Mitchell, Lewis, Sewell, Burgoyne, Smith On that list, even if Tyson is a gun I would say we still have the least impressive top line midfielders in the AFL, the rest of our team may be able to make up the difference on a lot of teams and we may bat deeper than some teams but I think this shows we still have a huge amount of work to do in terms of our midfield competing with top 8 teams.

I have to say reading most of these ladders I am suprised how many rate North. I know they are the flavour of the month, but imo they are one injury to Petrie away from a tough season. They have a reasonable backline, a solid, but not star studded midfield and a forward line with alot of average sized blokes with one real KPF. They still rely heavily on Boomer, who is getting on and will eventually have his form slide, Petrie, who is a good KPF but really their only pack splitter, and Lindsay Thomas had a stellar year last year that I doubt he will replicate. They will be in the mix for the 8, but I can see them missing and don't think they are top four material. Hawthorn, Sydney, Freo, Geelong are all still way ahead of North. As for us I will be stoked for 15th, also while I think GWS should stay near the bottom, there is so much talent on their list that any confidence and early season form could see them jumping a few clubs, including us.......

Lost Gained 2013 Hawthorn Lance Franklin, Xavier Ellis Pick 19 Geelong None None Fremantle None Colin Sylvia Sydney None Lance Franklin Richmond Matt White None Collingwood Dale Thomas Pick 11 PA None Matt White Carlton Eddie Betts Dale Thomas Essendon None None North Melbourne None Nick Dal Santo Adelaide None Eddie Betts Brisbane None None West Coast None Xavier Ellis Gold Coast None None Bulldogs None None St Kilda Nick Dal Santo Pick 25 Melbourne Colin Sylvia Pick 23 GWS None None So with the 2nd year all over there it is. Bit too early for trends, but we are yet to see a team in the bottom 5 land a significant free agent despite having more cap room.

I hope you are right, but I was critqueing lists not trying to guess asada penalties. On a lighter note, thank God Mitch Clark is back!!!!!!

I only ask as I think next season is shaping as one of the closest in memory, I think you can write Hawthorn, Sydney, Freo and Geelong down for the 8, but for the other 4 spots there are 10 teams who look like they could do it. I think Saints: Starting a rebuild, losing Dal Santo, Milne, Blake, Koschitske to add to Goddard from last year as well as relying heavily on aging stars like Lenny Hayes look destined for short term pain and are all but certainties to finish bottom 4, if not bottom. GWS: On exposed form seem likely to stay bottom four, but there is a plethora of young talent on their list which only needs an early season win and some confidence to jump out of the bottom four. Their midfield is streets ahead of ours, St Kildas, Bulldogs, Brisbane and co and you would think they have the potential to suprise this year, not to mention a forwardline with Boyd, Patton and Cameron looming. Brisbane: Losing a lot of talent and relying on some older bodies (Jonathan Brown) as well as a coaching change and a board scuffle look all but certain to leave Brisbane in the bottom four. However they still have a midfield that can compete with ours, and could still beat us this year. Bulldogs: Hard to read, seem to still lack KPP and rely heavily on their older players like Boyd, Cooney, Murphy, Gia and Griffin. However their second half of the season was impressive and the likely inclusion of Crameri would help their forwardline immensely. I think they will be bottom four/five. Adelaide: Suffered a hangover from their prelim in 2012 and effectively lost both Tippett and Walker for the season. However they have a strong lineup once Walker is back, some stars in the midfield, a solid ruck in Jacobs and a solid backline. I don't see them plummetting to bottom four, in fact with luck with injuries they would be thinking top 8. WC: Same as Adelaide were cruelled by injuries. Have lost some quality players but still have a solid midfield with great rucks, great KPF in Kennedy and Darling, solid key backs and depth. With some luck with injuries they would be thinking top 8. What I think is while I, like many on the board am really excited and think with all going well we could be a good team next year. I think the problem with this time of year is we lose sight of what other clubs are doing and tend to forget that almost all clubs are improving, with many improving just through better luck with injuries. I think looking pragmatically our list is in the bottom five with St Kilda, Brisbane, WB, and GWS, and although I hope we shoot up the ladder this season I think with some bad luck we are equally as likely to finish below a couple of these teams.

Out of interest given that you have said the bottom 4 won't include us, who will be in the bottom four bub?

B: McDonald,Frawley Terlich HB: Grimes, Garland, Michie C: Watts, Tyson, Toumpas HF: Howe, Clark, Trengove F: Hogan, Dawes, Kent R: Jamar, Jones, Viney IN: Vince, Evans, McKenzie S: Blease E: Dunn, M Jones, Spencer KPF: Clark (BU Ruck), Dawes, Hogan Forward/Mid:Howe, Kent Mids: Tyson, Jones, Viney, Watts, Mckensie, Evans, Trengove, Michie, Toumpas, Blease (Sub) Back/Mid: Grimes, Terlich KPB: Frawley, Garland, McDonald Coaches: Senior: Paul Roos Senior Assistant: On Ice Fwd: ??????????? Mid: George Stone Backs: Jade Rawlings Dev Fwd: B Miller Dev Mid: B Matthews Dev Backs: B Allison I have the lineup but the more relevant bit is the splits into roles. I believe Howe and Kent will play 70/30 Forward with short stints in the Midfield, similarly with Terlich and Grimes I think the vast majority of their time will be as running backs with roles. This leaves us 10 decent players to rotate through our midfield, I think Watts and Toumpas are best suited to the wings due to their speed and skills while I see Tyson, Jones, Viney as our No.1 centre bounce lineup with all in form as it has the most grunt with ball getting ability in order to get the ball out to the runners. It would be interesting to see some other centre bounce structures as I think , Vince, Mckensie, Trengove would not be a bad rotation. i'm backing Jamar to get into some form and make the ruck spot competitive although I wouldn't mind seeing Gawn in there should he be able to gain the tank. Clark and Watts to provide chopouts in the Ruck with Clark to do the rucking in the forward line to keep our ruckman primarily behind the ball. The midfield rotation still isn't great, but its a hell of a lot better than last year in theory, I can't wait to see what this lineup can do, particularly if we keep all our KPPs and main mids on the park for 15 or more games. Also I included the coaches to gain feelings on who is likely, or in the spirit of the thread, ideal, to be our forward coach??? Edit: Forgot Evans, who I rate. To emergency with you M Jones.

I disagree, (with the exception of Yze who Biffen correctly states was not a leader, however it would have been good to not dump him so ungraciously as to lose his presence around the club) I think Bruce is a quality football brain and got the most out of himself and had we not been so stubborn on his deal, would have stayed, or at least would have been willing to walk in the door of our club. Green did the best he could in a bad situation, he may be a development coach, but many quality coaches are in development (See Gavin Brown at North), also I would have rathered see Greeny lead for another year than Gillies, Rodan, Pedersen or Byrnes enter our list. It was a bad decision. One of the major reasons for our current predicament was our inability to correctly assess the value of our senior players. So much so now we are willing to trade the 2nd highest draft pick just to gain it! Not to mention our disastrous intake of experienced players last year. We got rid of quality people too early, didn't recognise the value of them instilling high training standards and setting the example and we are now reaping the consequences. The Junior decision was the worst, but it was part of a general philsophy that palmed off many senior players who are now seen by quality clubs to have value. It astounds me that after the past 6 years people are still defending our list management decisions. Clearly they failed!

Actually if I recall this correctly, I think it was Demetrio who came out and said that this was just journos speculating and there was no evidence to suggest these sanctions would occur. Then Fahey came out and gave Demetrio a big whack for commenting on an active investigation and gave no indication which way the penalities would play out.

I would agree with that, but I think all four players, particularly Junior, Bruce and Yze, left the club on very bad terms. Junior was already unwilling to come back this year at least partly due to residual bad blood. Anyway, its not entirely my point, we let go of 4 players at a time where we desperately needed strong leaders to drive standards citing a need to bring in more youth. As a result these players have had little to nothing to do with the club since. Also many on here questioned the leadership abilities of a couple of these guys (Mainly Green, Bruce and Yze) only for two of them to have strong roles with the reigning premiers coaching panel and the other coaching the midfield of the club which finished 6th. If we had have let these players finish out for one or two years each we may not have been as desperate for experience as to engage in the Rodan/Byrnes experiment and may have been able for them to move straight into development roles. Instead we have to rebuild our list by trading for experienced players and have very little contact with these past champions.

Lamb is a good player, but otherwise I agree.

It would seem we only have one assistant and 3 development according to the successor article, I updated the above post accordingly, so definately 2 vacancies.

Actually, with three vacant assistant coaching positions we have Junior (GWS), Green (Carlton), Bruce (Hawthorn) and Yze (Hawthorn) in key positions after having being burnt by our club. Perhaps if we had handled the exits of our senior players better we could have kept these valuable indiviudals as part of our club, or at the very least not feeling angry at us. I'm not saying we could have had all these guys as coaches, but clearly other clubs see value in players we chose to show the exit.

This is what I have garnered, so I am assuming we have: Senior Coach: Paul Roos Senior Assistant: Forwards: Mids: Backs: J. Rawlings Dev Forwards: B. Miller Dev Mids:Allison Dev Backs: Matthews Which means we need at least a Midfield Develoment Coach ( If Matthews is the Mids coach and not backs) or possibly both as I have assumed. Or possibly we need a Development Backs coach. As well as senior assistant. We have a minimum of two vacancies still, three if the senior assistant was to be a non-line coach role. I hope the club completes the coaching line-up soon. Purely for peace of mind. Edit: Updated based on the MFC article regarding the senior coaching vacancy.

Its well and truly covered but I would add that I agree there is no place for players nominating their preferred club. It ruins the honesty of the trade system, puts the club with the player to be traded in a compromised position and is prejudicial to the draft if that is where the player ends up. The whole reason free agency came in was to provide players with this option. You want to choose your club; wait until you are a free agent You want to risk a trade, then your club will get the best deal it can. You want to risk the draft, all clubs should be able to draft you, whomever has the first pick and is willing to spend it, gets you. That is how it should work, all things being equal(ised).

Hi RPFC, I think ultimately we agree on Franklin then, in so much as it seems contrary to the intent of FA that a team like Sydney can outbid a team like GWS for Franklin. If they make large cuts to do it then it makes sense but so far it appears unfair. I don't see how the AFL can stop it though. Hopefully it means the death of COLA. I'm not sure on FA either way, I think the post I put up of the results so far are very ambiguous, it has clearly hurt some clubs while helping others. Whether there are trends there it is too early to tell, certainly I don't think it has gone very well for the MFC, that may be because we have mishandled it, but it is also because unfortunately FA came in when we were at our lowest Ebb. FA would have been much better for MFC in 2001 or 1988. I also don't think Port were "smart" in getting 2nd round picks for Chaplain and Pearce, I think they were the lucky beneficiaries of a bizarre compo system. Certainly I don't think Rivers + Moloney - Byrnes = worse than Pearce and Chaplain. Also, for the record I didn't leave Sylvia's compo pick out to suit my argument, I left it out as we don't know what it is yet. However, I don't think it will be what we need right now. I don't see us trading this pick for a better player than Sylvia, and it has been pretty well acknowledged that we don't need talented kids as desperately as we need experienced, hard-bodied midfielders. I have vivid memories of everyone on this site talking up what we would get for Moloney and Rivers only to discover a pretty terrible result. I think that may happen again. I'm expecting the worst compo band. I think this is a great point, it punishes teams for gaining and losing players, something clubs may have no control over. I think your proposed changes would be vastly better.

You could say that, talking only in terms of experience, but that has nothing to do with building a successful football club, we effectively got Clark and Dawes through our compo picks for Scully, we lost Rivers, Sylvia, Moloney, McLean for Shannon Byrnes, Pick 48(Dean Kent),Pick 11 (Gysberts) and Pick 19 (Strauss). Had we been able to retain Rivers, McLean, Moloney and Sylvia, we would have Clark an Dawes in our forward line being fed by 3 experienced midfielders, and with a strong experienced player to lead our defence. Instead we have one quality experience mid (Jones) and a whole bunch of speculative picks that yielded talent that is unlikely to surpass the four players we lost for at least 3 years if at all. None of those four players are superstars, but they would all walk into our best 22 any day of the week. We should look on the bright side as it has happened and there is nothing we can do about it, but FA has hurt us more than most.

RPFC while I respect and admire your contribution to this board I think you have actually made the opposite point than you intend. Franklin left the Premiers for the 4th ranked team, if FA was going to work in a way that was fair for the comp it would have aided lower teams GWS or another lower ladder side in being able to outbid top sides with extra cap room in order to better their list and make the comp more equal. The fact free agency helped Franklin to go to a successful side that he liked rather than aiding those who need him most shows that this system serves the players and strong clubs more than any others. In fact I think this is the first clear example of free agency being bad for the comp. If, by contrast, Franklin went into a trade system most low clubs would have more assets to outbid Sydney for Franklin, or Sydney would have had to lose a good player or draft pick to gain him. As it stands they have lost nothing and gained an extremely valuable player while the poorer clubs get poorer.

Thought I would put this together to make the results of Free Agency clear, many players who were trades (like Brian Lake and Chris Dawes) are being used against FA. I have not included Delisted free agents as i think this is irrelevant to any discussion regarding teams losing required players. Also I have put the results in ladder order to make it clear which teams are most affected. I will do 2013 when its finished but here is 2012: Lost Gained 2012 Hawthorn Tom Murphy, Clinton Young Pick 64 Adelaide Chris Knights Nothing Sydney None None Collingwood None Quinten Lynch, Clinton Young West Coast Quinten Lynch Pick 60 Geelong Shannon Byrnes, Jared Rivers Freo None Danyle Pearce North None None St Kilda Brendon Goddard Pick 13 Carlton None None Essendon None Brendon Goddard Richmond None Troy Chaplin Brisbane None None Port Danyle Pearce, Troy Chaplin Pick 29, Pick 30 WB None None Melbourne Brent Moloney, Jared Rivers Shannon Byrnes, Pick 48 GC None Tom Murphy GWS None None Needless to say we have not been well served by FA, as it stands we have lost Brent Moloney, Jared Rivers and Colin Sylvia for a net gain of Shannon Byrnes, Pick 48 and most likely another 3rd round pick. Not a good return for three experienced players who would all be best 22 when they left.

This is very dissappointing, in a year where the AFL is allegedly commiting to equalisation it beggars belief that Sydney can afford to have Goodes, Tippett, Franklin, Kennedy, Hanneberry, Jack, Richards, McVeigh, Malcevski, Reid, O'Keefe, Jetta and Shaw all fitting into the same cap that we fit our players. Something is broken, there is no way a premiership team should be able to afford to keep all its required players together without a hint of any leaving while adding the two most sort after KPFs in the AFL in two years. Even if they pay the maximum cap with their allowance we are still paying 90% to our team which won 2 games this year! Also there is no way that Bolton (as a veteran part of his salary would have been outside the cap right?), White, Mattner, Morton and Mumford were getting paid 1.1million + 4 draftee contracts this year. Each of them would have to be on at least 345k. This seems so wrong.

Great post DC. This to me is the crux of what is wrong with FA and the trade period in general. I have said this elsewhere but if the AFL was really interested in equality they wouldn't have implemented a system by which players can abandon clubs in need for personal success. It goes without saying that the Saints would have been better this year with Goddard, and the Cheats worse, The Bulldogs better with Lake, North would be vastly superior with Hale and Gibson, Port better with Burgoyne and the Hawks would be closer back to the rest of the field. None of these players left because their teams didn't make fair offers, often they took worse offers for success. I understand the perogative to give players the right to move when they are unhappy. But this trend of players leaving lowly clubs for success is creating a game of musical chairs in which the clubs that happen to be down the bottom while FA has come in are left without a seat. The AFL's unwillingness to stop players like Luke Ball abusing the draft by avoiding lowly clubs that otherwise would have drafted them has exaserbated the problem, not to mention the effect of expansion teams on the value of high draft picks. If the AFL is serious about an equal competition they need to look at which clubs are actually losing required players to FA. As it appears it is largely successful clubs poaching good, experienced players from lowly clubs with the promise of short term success. There needs to be an incentive for players to stay loyal and drag their own clubs up the ladder, and with the current climate it seems loyalty does not suffice. As for Melbourne it is interesting to look at how many required players we have lost over the last few years, often for this very reason, if we lose Colin this year it will continue a trend which I find worrying.

The umpiring has been terrible, I think to Carlton's detriment. 3 goals from fifties to richmond, 6 goals from frees and double the free kicks to the tiges. I hope the dees get that treatment next time we make a final.

Is it just me or are the ABC commentators very Werribee biased? Anyhow, good game, go scorps!!!