Jaded No More

I don't mind his positivity. Being negative helps nobody. But I don't like that he says we are a different core, because fundamentally we are not. We refuse to play a different midfield mix from 2021. The only difference is now Kosi plays there, and that's only because he is so good he's forced our hand. We lost on Sunday with a very similar set up, and we all know that if Lever and May were available, they would have played and we would be largely unchanged in key roles since 2021. In the first three quarters we played Windsor in the midfield and did well, only to sub him out and lose the last quarter with Gawn, Viney, Trac and Clarry playing midfield. Even when the game was there to lose, Kosi was rotting on the bench FFS! Until Goody lets go of the nostalgia of the team that won him a flag, we won't move forward.

I really want them to bring Jefferson back in. Dry fast deck, against a terribly weak defense, this is a perfect game to get some exposure and confidence into him. Petty needs to go back to defense, and perhaps release Howes to play a bit higher up and use his skills more. If that means Salem has to come out the backline then so be it. Try him at half forward to help our woeful entries. Or better yet free up Rivers to play midfield. Just try anything different FFS.

If the AFL gives West Coast a single hand out I’m done. Richest club in the AFL with a flag in the last decade. They made their bed. What a total joke.

This week would be a good time to announce he’s re-signed. We could all use mildly positive news after the debacle on Sunday.

It depends on the club I think people over play the salary card given the cap grows each year. Many clubs would have the money to pay them. The same clubs chasing all the other gettable stars out there. I reckon if I’m Adelaide and I know I need more contested ball winners I’m happy to trade a first round pick for Oliver, having finished top 4 but maybe failed in the heat of finals. If I’m Hawthorn and I need more quality up forward I’m happily trading a first round pick for Fritsch If I’m Essendon and I’m trash and I have to get out of this finals slump, and I have 3 first round picks I’m happily trading one of them for Trac. Likewise if I’m the Pies and I reckon I can go again and I need an upgrade on the ever injured De Goey, I give up my first round pick or a future first for Trac. But if I’m Richmond I’m going back to the draft because I know these guys won’t be around for the next flag. Of course you have to also convince the contracted player to come across. I can’t see Clarry moving to SA or Trac going to the hot mess that is Essendon. We “overpaid” to get May who was not baggage free by any means because we felt he was a critical missing piece. We were right on.

Nor are they giving us them for Oliver or Trac.

Sure, but trading players not in demand is a silly way to improve your list. You want to trade players who are surplus to your needs, but who also have good market value. Trading someone like Fritsch for example, who is on a moderate salary, and a player who would improve good teams significantly makes more sense from a list improvement point of view, than trading our two best midfielders (still) for draft picks that may or may not land us equivalent, let alone better replacements. I am all for trading Clarry or Trac if it helps us land a good proven player, or if we get a bunch of good quality draft picks we can continue to build the list around.

Being ruthless is about improving our list, not about trading for well unders. A second round pick for Oliver is extremely unlikely to improve our list. Nor one first round pick for Trac in a poor draft. Pies had to move Grundy on for salary cap reasons. We don't have this problem. Everyone says be ruthless, sell sell sell, until we trade a good quality player for absolute peanuts and then they have a meltdown. Fair to say we lost on the ANB trade, which we made on compassionate grounds, but I would rather ANB over a second round pick, wouldn't you?

OH please what a load of [censored] There is interest in Clarry, there is just no interest to pay our asking price.

Has his contract stopped us getting another player or signing our own stars like Kosi? Where did supporters get the idea that we have salary cap issues? Was it the Houston chase? the fact we are talking to Reid's manager? that we tried luring McKay out of Carlton for 2 years?

Yes well if we all had the benefit of hindsight we end up with Curnow over Weideman and we probably have 3 flags in the last 5 years.

A future first in this year's middling draft would be just as bad, especially given Geelong were never missing finals this season. The reality is that the draft is a gamble. The chances of ending up with someone as good as Oliver even in his current form, is very low, unless it's a great draft and you have a strong hand. To throw away good players, even if they are not as good as they once were, for a gamble at the draft, is not the solution to climbing back up the ladder. Put it another way, if Trac or Clarry played for another club, and we could get them for a second round or a late first round pick, we would jump at the opportunity right?

Goody had just won us a flag, and while we did go out of finals the next two years, we finished top 4 and lost by a kick in finals after some pretty unfortunate injuries. We were never going to talk about a transition plan, and Yze was rightly never turning down a senior gig he has worked so hard for. It's unfortunate that Yze got a senior role offered to him then, a year later and things may have been different.

Hooray we will beat the worst team in the competition missing half of their best players. What a feat. Absolute disgrace that we are even contemplating not smashing them!

Geelong offered us their second rounder and didn't want to take on his entire salary. Remember their first round pick was tied up in the Smith trade. There would be riots if we traded Oliver for mid second round pick and were still paying some of his wage.

Doubt it. Due to play his 250th! Absolute balls.

What a [censored] 24 hours

10 points for speaking to the members -10 points for not saying anything

Only our two biggest proven match winners sitting on the bench with 1:20 left to play. You. Cannot. Make. This. [censored]. Up.

I love this new lawyer. He sounds like a Saints fan who’s had enough of the AFL bullying the little guy. Is he available to play FF?

It’s been less than 24 hours since I’ve been outraged. Time for more outrage.

We have senior players on every line. Yes we missed Lever and May, but we have McDonald and Salem on like 400 combined games in the backline. The midfield has Gawn, Trac, Viney and Clarry, that's 800+ games of experience. Even our relatively young forwardline has Melksham and Fritta. Gawn had some howlers in the last quarter with his tap outs, but there are a dozen experienced leaders who ALL needed to do something to fix a clearly turning tide. To not take it upon themselves to SLOW THE GAME DOWN with 3 minutes remaining and bottle up the time left, and lock the ball in for repeat stoppages, was diabolically bad from a senior group. And it's also on the coaches to not send out that directive, to let by far our most dynamic player in Kosi rot on the bench until there was less than 2 minute left in the game, and to not scream black and blue at that last centre bounce the second they noticed we weren't in a 6-6-6 formation. Once the umpire signalled the penalty, the TV panned over to our bench where Mark Williams was head counting. You can't make up this level of incompetence for a bunch of seriously experienced players and coaches. Absolutely diabolically shambolic. We broke a 120+ year old record by losing that game. It literally doesn't get more pathetic than that.

To be fair we lost two assistants to senior roles, which is actually a credit to Goody and the club. Chaplin and Stafford were/have been around for a long time. I worried when we lost Yze and then McQualter, and replaced them with inexperienced assistants, because I just didn't know who would run the box on match days. That used to be Yze's job, and then McQualter's, who were both very experienced guys that have coached before as caretakers. I have no idea who runs the box now. I saw Jones on the phone late in the 4th quarter on the telecast. Now don't get me wrong, love Jones as a player, but nobody will convince me that he's got the experience to run a matchday box!

Completely agreed. I prefer we chase an experienced guy to replace Richo, and then just go for the best most experienced assistant out there. At the very very least we MUST get an entirely new assistant coaching panel. I am not here to hang [censored] on anyone in particular, but our midfield and especially our stoppage work has been diabolical at times this year, which is unacceptable with the players we have in there. The way our midfield capitulated and just made the dumbest decisions in the last quarter yesterday, has to be examined. It's not the first time either.