Undeeterred

3 hours ago, DemonDave said:

At least he didn't have Paddy McCartin in his top ten...

I think we'll miss Hogan enormously this year, his workrate up and down the ground is second to none, he was averaging career best midfielder-like numbers for the most part of the year. He was I would still hazard a guess getting the best defender most weeks from the opening bounce. His ability to be that link up marking option is one that Weideman has yet to master, albeit in the nascent stages of his career, lets hope those finals games weren't a flash in the pan for Weids, I dont think they were but we are putting all our eggs in the basket of he being the foil key forward this year, I cant see Pruess kicking double digit goals. Tim Smith is a capable b-list backup and then its  tumbleweeds for our KPF depth.

 

Interesting - he was the only one to kick two in the praccy match last week...

56 minutes ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

Not sure Nick has his facts right.  Tom started playing forward in mid 2017.  This time last year he was injured but when he did play it was as a forward.  So he has been a forward (not a swingman) for the best of 18 months.

Reckon there are some biases in his top 10 rankings.  But he is right about Tom thriving this year being the main man. 

Agree that Tom can win the Coleman this year, especially if the high level of forward deliveries are more accurate than the past.  Dittto don't see Jessie winning it especially as he seems to be playing a high forward/mid role at Freo.

We are kidding ourselves if we think Hogan isn't going to have a huge year. He will smash it at Freo, notwithstanding the fact I still think the trade was a good idea and we won out of it.

38 minutes ago, binman said:

Yes to TMac winning the Coleman.

• Won't play in the ruck at all i wouldn't have thought (except for some forward 50 throw ins)
• Hogan won't take goals off him (though he will get the opposition's best defender),
• He uses his hands a lot to push players so that rule change will help him
• Any increase in one on one marking opportunities as a result of other rule changes will help him
• He is the best kick for goal of any forward
• We are the highest scoring team in the league, a trend that i have little doubt will continue this year
• We will win more games this year and therefore kick more goals
• If the rule changes do make blow outs more common (which i'm not convinced about) we could kick some big scores this year

By the by currently $10 on Sportsbet so reasonable value and worth a flutter if you are that way inclined. Daniher is $12 which is ridiculously short given he practically didn't play last year and bombers will struggle this year. Kennedy and Franklin share favoritism at $5. Also way too short as that price would be fair enough if they play the whole season but a lot has to go right for that to occur. A bookies sucker punch, akin to long range bets on favorites for the Melbourne Cup.

To be fair,  a lot of those changes apply to all decent KPFs

12 hours ago, chookrat said:

I met one a few weeks ago for a business venture and asked point blank if he had signed up as an MFC member and he said no. I told him our business interests would only progress if he signed up. He laughed and I asked why he was laughing and that I was serious. 

That's absolutely hilarious

Sounds like a deadset peanut. No thanks.

My two cents is that this is a really rubbish fixture, for all our 'blockbusters'.

Geelong in Geelong, again. North is Tassie, again. Worse this year because we play them when a top 2, 4 or 8 spot will be up for grabs.

West Coast in Perth, again.

Playing teams in Alice that are used to warmer temperatures. again.

And we lose our QB home game.

At least we finally get a home game against Essendon and we get to spank St Kilda twice.

We also could well be 4-1 or 5-0 going into Anzac Eve - Essendon are our biggest threat in those first few games, I think Sydney and Geelong in particular, but Port as well, are candidates for a pretty big fall next year.

On 10/30/2018 at 7:04 PM, Wolfgang219 said:

After reading an article about Sam Mitchell returning to the Hawks, he had a three year deal with WCE but left after one year, I was wondering why AFL clubs still bother with contracts? 

 

I know Carton have Bolton on an employee contract and I have only seen one real coach poached (Ross Lyon) so why do AFL clubs bother. 

 

Given the players/coaches complete disregard for contracts and clubs happy to break/trade them, is there any benefit to a contract? It seems the clubs get lumped with a contract in a long term injury situation but they have lost any real benefit of securing talent long term. 

Contracts protect the employee, not the employer, and that is the same for all of us.

I wonder how many of you who complain about footballers changing employers would think twice about ditching your own employer if a competitor came along and offered you double the pay and work you enjoyed more.

Give me a spell.

Just now, EnterTheDragon said:

That is very interesting. So here we have yet another football commentator, this time more respected than Langdon, Nixon and others, none too subtly alluding to ‘off field issues’ regarding Hogan.

No other reason for Watson to say that.

Absolutely hates Melbourne. He'd say anything.

2 hours ago, Lord Travis said:

On form, he's not worth a first round pick, let alone pick 5. He's not in the top 5 full backs in the league at present. He's been poor-average for the past 1-2 years. Most believe that's due to not wanting to be where he is now, but there's the chance he's just not capable of playing the way he did a few years ago. 

If all we got for the best young key forward in a decade was an average full back and a token pick I'd be very disappointed. 

Maybe he hates being there....

1 minute ago, Wiseblood said:

Anyone seriously think he would go to Gold Coast? I thought it was family or bust for him, and GC is not only worse than Freo but further away from his family. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but I guess that's been the theme throughout this entire saga. 

I wonder whether things change, and he thought he could get home easily and it would all be good. Now it hasn't worked like that, perhaps he realises what a mess it will be playing with us.

Still, imagine playing with GC next year. Yuk.

Hogan isn't exactly a culture builder.

12 minutes ago, A F said:

I know a few people have alluded to it already, but I think Mahoney tying May to the Hogan deal at all was really poor strategy. It doesn't matter if he meant we wouldn't have the cash or the picks to get May if the Hogan trade didn't go through. That's not the argument here, but mentioning May at all in trade discussions RE Hogan was poor strategy.

I'm on record has being a huge FD and Mahoney fan. I think what they've been able to do over the past 4 or 5 off seasons has been terrific, but this was foolish messaging that has given the little Fremantle man unnecessary leverage that he wouldn't have otherwise had.

Tend to agree, equally we're putting May in the position where he can't publicly state his intentions in the same way as Hogan isn't, so we're kind of giving him cover to wait it out without being under pressure to go public, and also saving face if it all falls through.

1 hour ago, EnterTheDragon said:

There is method to Bell’s seeming madness. His endgame as drdrake mentioned a few posts back us to get both Hogan and Lobb in the door. Freo have close to the worst forward set up in the competition at present and these two coming in will get the Freo fans very excited. This is the real “feather in cap” Bell wants to exit trade week with, not Lachie Neale. The tough talk about keeping Neale is just bluster. 

The lowball pick 11 and 23 offer for Hogan may have seemed pointless but the tactic there is to frustrate Melbourne and also waste our time, with the aim of softening us up to accept pick 5 & 23 at the death in the final day of trade week. Bell knows we would MUCH prefer picks 5 & 11 for Hogan but he needs to retain pick 11 to secure Lobb from GWS. So he is banking on us growing impatient, getting worried by Wednesday that the whole thing is going to fall through, and just signing off on the 5 & 23 deal. 

As soon as the Neale domino falls Mahoney is going to be faced with a reasonably hard call to make. Accept 5 & 23 for Hogan or reject it and make Jesse play out the final year of his contract. Not sure what I would do personally, it’s a tough one. 

Bell is banking on us tiring of the whole Hogan saga and just being happy to move on, get our man May in with pick 5 going out to Gold Coast, and sucking up the fact that we’ve received unders for a forward we - to be honest - haven’t made a huge effort to retain.

Pugnacious, annoying little [censored] Peter Bell. But he’s no dill.

On the other hand we could completely ruin his life by holding on to Hogan and giving Simmo a call over at the Eagles about a deal for Jesse next year! But would that be in our interests? They will probably have a lot less to offer us than pick 5 & 23. 

I think Freo might have us snookered here.

After all that bluster, posting how strong a position we are in on every single page of the thread, and having the gall to call me jelly-kneed when I proposed pragmatism early on.

Lol at you, my friend.

51 minutes ago, KLV said:

Hogan IS NOT A FREE AGENT NEXT YEAR 

sorry to shout, but haven’t we gone through that several thousand times?

Well yes, hence the reference to going in the draft. At which Freo will have one of the first picks. 

1 hour ago, ProDee said:

I don't often subscribe to the view that a player "owes" a club, and I'm not even sure I do in this instance, but vandenBerg was plucked from the NEAFL and there's no guarantee he'd even be in the AFL system if not for the Dees (rookie draft pick).

I could be wrong and @rpfc may be able to clarify.  I doubt he was on any other club's radar.

Anyway, it's great that he's staying.

I find the 'player owes club' argument hard on the basis that clubs draft players acting in the club's interests. It's isn't as if they're doing someone a favour - they are doing it because they think it will make their football team better. On that basis, I don't think players owe clubs anything just because the club was clever enough and ahead of the curve enough to find a player who was otherwise in relative obscurity.

4 hours ago, EnterTheDragon said:

For them - absolutely!

At least you are consistent, but you are wildly overstating our power here.

Regardless of the posts above from Wrecker, by saying nothing about staying, Jesse is clearly implying he wants to go. 

If we can't do a deal, and he refuses to sign long term, we have a massive distraction contract-wise next year right when we don't need one, along with a player who clearly won't want to be there next year, and who already exhibits poor body language when things go his way.

This is exactly why Gold Coast want to get rid of May. It isn't worth the hassle.

Even if Wrecker is right, a player who is torn is going to have a really hard time properly committing, if Freo refuse to give us a fair deal.

He really has to go now, and we really have to take what we can get, all posturing aside.

5 hours ago, dazzledavey36 said:

[censored] me Hoges! Hurry up and make a decision!

Do you seriously think he hasn't??

6 hours ago, Older demon said:

Re Jessie's foot injury. I know one of the professional's at the club who were looking after his foot. Let me put to rest those who think he was faking, he very definitely had a crack in the Navicular bone. The club was grateful that it was early on and not a full fracture requiring surgery. Seriously some of the conjecture and conspiracy theories stated are way out of line.

Fairly drastic solution, but ok!

16 minutes ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

As an aside we went thru this little dance with Jesse with his last contract extension.  It was announced on Oct 4 2016, a few days before the trade period started.  I recall learned chat here on DL that he had been given an ultimatum: extend the contract now or we will trade you.  The timing of that contract supports that chat.

I suspect the same thing is happening now, except maybe a tougher stance on extension terms.  Can't imagine the club wanting this little dance to happen every two years.  For the club, for the team, for Jesse he needs to commit for the long haul or he goes.  I really don't think there is a satisfactory middle road here. 

Whoever is driving this speculation, the die is cast in my view. He has to go - there's no way he can sign up to us with any credibility given how long he and the club have let this go on.

He's definitely going.

8 hours ago, Dr.D said:

the infamous 4276. im just wondering of thats the plan and if i should start looking at the under 18 draftees

Depends. Are you Jason Taylor?

5 minutes ago, Rocky said:

no problems for me.. and i'm watching from an island in the north aegean!

 

Surely you have something better to do!!

1 minute ago, Satyriconhome said:

Not me girls, somewhere else tonight, prior important commitment, following the comedy on here

Can't be that important.

6 minutes ago, Neil Crompton said:

Interesting to note that this thread started in mid July when some pseudo jurno had the audacity to write that he thought Hogan would be gone at the end of the year. Our members jumped all over him - typified by this comment by our DL Administrator:

“This isn't even a rumour. It is an unfounded and uninformed opinion from an irrelevant ex-footballer.”

Did he really know something back then, or was he just shooting the breeze?

Given we've had the same discussion pretty every year, I wouldn't get too excited about whichever journalist it was and their credibility.

I could have written that article.

6 minutes ago, Fifty-5 said:

Posters need to realise that the points deal to get Port's 9 and 10 is 4 AND 22 that Freo get from Brisbane for Neale.

The talk of us trading just pick 4 or even 5 for 9 +10 is fantasyland.  It's really not that hard to look up the points table.

Also 5 + 10 for Hogan values him much higher than 4 + 22 for Neale.

Points mean nothing to us.

If Port want to get up to 4, they will trade 9 and 10. Simple as that. They don't care about how many points are in the balance.

1 hour ago, Nasher said:

Hey, in addition to being bombarded with gambling ads on TV and social media, I can get it on Demonland too! Sweet!

Also I love how this industry refers to itself as a “market”. LOL

So shut it down then!

Bit rough to dump the poor barstad for a prelim, then make him show up and do this. WTF has he done to them??

1 minute ago, jumbo returns said:

That's the issue - not sure

Kent over Hannan? Garlett over Spargo? Bugg?

Would love to find a small forward like Cripps or Ryan

Quite - they don't grow on trees obviously. I think Bugg and Garlett and Kent were so far gone by now that they didn't really have a choice. And the formula has been a winning one...