poita

Bottom four finish guaranteed if that is the best we can come up with. No room for Lindsay?

I'm glad Goody has finally woken up to what most people had been seeing for at least 12 months, and arguably three years, prior to his sacking. I wish him all the best, but there is no doubt that he, and many at the club, were asleep at the wheel for much of his post-premiership tenure.

2025 was almost a free hit for him to learn what is required to be an AFL player. In 2026 he needs to get much fitter and stronger so that he can impact games more consistently. He should relish playing in a Casey side with a lot of tall forwards and on VFL grounds with variable weather, both of which should provide plenty of crumbing opportunities.

He can count himself a little unlucky to have been delisted given his late season injuries, but ultimately he has been on the list three years and hasn't progressed sufficiently. We need to get better at turning over the list and not just hoping that something clicks for players in their fourth or fifth years.

Undoubtedly his best football is very good. However he still goes missing far too often for a guy in his seventh season. Overall he had a decent year, but he should not be coming 6th in the B&F with a season average of 14 disposals and 0.8 goals a game. He pretty much epitomises why we have finished 14th in consecutive years with one of the oldest and most experienced lists in the competition. We have too many senior players putting in good but not great performances each week and getting away with it because there is no competition for positions in the team. That's not Chandler's fault, but we're not moving up the ladder with guys like him, Salem and Langdon finishing top 10 in the B&F.

Another who would be wondering why players of similar ability such as Sharp get gifted regular opportunities, whilst he misses out. I agree that he will never be a star at AFL level, but I would have liked to see him get a sustained run as a lock down small defender this year. That would have also released Bowey to play a more attacking role further up the ground.

Interesting choice given that Casey's success seemed to be predominantly due to the performances of the older players. We really didn't see much development from the likes of Laurie, Howes, Woewodin, Adams and Jefferson at Casey this year, to say nothing of Brown, Sestan and Verrall being delisted.

Very harshly treated when you see the opportunities that were gifted to the likes of Sharp and others. Perhaps if Goodwin hadn't been trying to save his job all year we might have seen some more experimentation with personnel and positional changes once finals were off the agenda.

An exceptionally limited, although very hard working, footballer who should not be getting AFL games ahead of any of Van Rooyen, Jefferson or Kentfield next year. If he plays regularly it is a fair indication that we are on track for another bottom five finish and that our young forwards are not progressing. We definitely need more aggression and physicality in the team, but it needs to be directed in the right areas. Incurring multiple suspensions for actions that were plain dumb and certainly not tough is not acceptable.

A poor man's Charlie Spargo based on the evidence to date. I don't really see the point to locking in a 26 year old VFL-standard small forward prior to the draft, particularly given that he struggled to get on the field late in the year. I'm yet to see what traits he possesses that will allow him to thrive at AFL level.

Fingers crossed he can have a big pre season and challenge for senior games early next year. I don't see the point to giving Johnson or Jefferson games ahead of him.

Who the hell would produce a Melbourne calendar without Pickett, Petracca or Oliver?

It is very hard to have a break out year coming off a serious knee injury, and even harder if you don't get to do a full pre season. I'm yet to be convinced that he has the tools to become a genuine AFL player, and particularly not as a defender. Nevertheless, it is a position of weakness for us, so I'm sure he will get opportunities if he performs well at Casey.

Culley has a bit to work on regarding his defensive workrate and positioning, but nothing that can't be fixed with a full pre season with the team. He clearly has some traits that are very exciting and which give him an excellent chance of becoming a long term AFL player, particularly his size and marking.

I totally agree with this. It's why our obsession with recruiting players such as Henderson and Laurie, who have neither of these traits, is so infuriating. Unless you are right in the premiership window, and we clearly aren't, high draft picks should be used exclusively on midfielders and key position players.

Talk about setting the bar low.

It would be a very Melbourne thing for McAdam to get himself fit and playing half decent football in a contract year. Tim Lamb will put another three year deal in front of him and he'll end up back on the LTI five minutes later. I always remember Travis Johnstone's output in his contract years being about 10 times higher than every other year.

He certainly wouldn't at a well run club with a sensible approach to contract lengths and amounts. We're not one of those clubs, so it is entirely possible.

May was outstanding from 2020 - 2023, and I'm very glad he played in 100 games and a premiership for the club. He is definitely not the future and we need to get games into our next 8-10 year defenders, so this is the right call.

Oh well, they had a good run. Unfortunately any hopes of a 22 team VFL comp, with fewer byes, would disappear as well.

Defence looks too tall and slow with all of Gillard, Colvin and S.Taylor. I think one of those three has to miss out, and one of the smalls stays.

These are the list decisions that we should be making after the trade period, and probably after the draft, not before. Leave a couple of list spots open, and dangle them as a carrot to get the likes of Henderson training their backsides off and stepping up their game in the pre season. Maybe we find a hidden gem somewhere.

I get this argument to a point, but there is absolutely no way that Hawthorn should be outperforming North Melbourne by this much in 2025 given where the two sides were 5-6 years ago. One of those teams has done everything right since then, and the other has been a disaster in every respect. Same for Essendon and West Coast. I know Hawthorn are nominally a big club, but they were not attracting quality players circa 2020, nor were they loading up on draft picks. Their success has been built on finding hidden diamonds such as Newcombe, and then supplementing with players such as Ginnivan and D'Ambrosio that nobody else wanted. Mitchell has been extraordinary for that club, particularly given how little impact Clarkson has had at North. West Coast and Richmond have both won premierships in the past decade, and are now taking their medicine. Richmond's strategy has been fine and they'll come good at some point. West Coast deserve to be garbage for a long time given how they have mismanaged their list. Melbourne are probably somewhere between those two, perhaps closer to West Coast, but it's only four years since our premiership. I do agree that it is a real issue that Brisbane and Geelong can keep adding quality free agents within a seemingly unlimited salary cap, whilst the lower Victorian teams struggle to attract even mid-tier players without paying overs.

Only as a direct swap for someone in the Sparrow / Langdon / Chandler category of fringe players, and even then I'm not convinced.

10 preliminary finals in the past 11 years - that's just extraordinary in an environment where almost every Storm player is recruited from outside Victoria.