poita

I really hope we settle him into one position for a while rather than expecting him to learn ruck work, playing as a key forward and who knows what else all at once.

We definitely needed some additional height and marking power so, as long as we have generally picked on merit, this is a good thing. The younger players coming through have had 10 - 15 years of football right through from Auskick, so are far more developed than older players who have changed sports or joined teams in their late teens. As long as we retain a few wise heads such as Pearce and Scott, this seems like the right mix.

This is so dumb. You can't just trade out every depth player on your list and expect to be competitive. The first time Lever or May gets injured you are back to playing Hore and Smith in the key defensive roles and wondering why the backline is completely dysfunctional. The same goes for trading Preuss and expecting Gawn to play 22 games every year without any support. And for what? He probably brings a third round pick that will get pushed back to about pick 60 and deliver nothing. Or Goodwin will go ga-ga for yet anothermid-sized forward who can spend the next two years wandering around at Casey. I'd much rather keep Oscar, build his confidence and work on not allowing his weaknesses to be exposed so easily.

There is no way North could be remotely close to paying the minimum salary cap this year given how poor their list is, so I can't see that Polec's salary will be issue here. If North are desperate to get him off their list, they can pay half his wage and take a third round pick. Otherwise he stays and receives $700K a year to play VFL for the next three years.

Great news. I really rate Petty and hopefully we have got his injury issues sorted. Two years is the right number for both at this point.

Is that the Mitchell who won the Brownlow Medal two years ago? I'm pretty sure we'd squeeze him in somewhere. As for Frost, it's not good practice to trade out every half-decent player on your list who isn't best 22. It means you get left with, as we have at the moment, 20 decent footballers and 20 who have no right being on an AFL list. Richmond's players 21 - 30 are light years ahead of ours, hence they don't fall away every time they have a couple of injuries.

If the Jesse Hogan thread is nearing 12,000 posts and the entire AFLw sub-forum has 3,500 posts, is it time for Jesse to get his own sub-forum? It is getting difficult to keep up with the latest developments in one massive thread, so perhaps we can separate them by each (perceived) indiscretion.

I'll take him if they take Kolodjashnij, Neitschke, Bedford & Chandler.

Harley's decision to leave the hub makes it pretty clear to me that he wasn't expecting to play on next year, and this seems to be supported by his actions after the event. He tried, we tried, it didn't work out as we had hoped, but it wasn't a failure either. We move on and hopefully Harley has something to fall back on as well to keep himself out of trouble.

Average player who doesn't work nearly hard enough. Averaged just 8 disposals, 2.3 marks, 0.8 goals and 1.7 tackles in 2020. Dropped three times in his last four games this year. He has had numerous opportunities over the past three years, so if we're going to be ruthless with our list, he'd be a strong candidate for delisting.

Best of luck, Jack, for whatever your future holds. I was sad to see you leave and I hope that you still consider yourself a demon. Truly one of the nicest players I have met at family days and wonderful with the younger supporters.

You can't trade out every key position player on the list. He's a keep for me.

I wouldn't be upset if Preuss left but we need (a) to get something decent in return and (b) another ready made backup ruckman. I can't see Bradtke making it, even if he is still on the list next year and I doubt that Jackson has the size to be anything more than a part time option. Gawn's age and injury history make a genuine backup essential.

Is this a serious consideration? We already have one tall, thinly built witches hat in the forward line who can only take a mark on the lead and is useless when the ball hits the ground. Why would we want another? And if it came down to a choice between Weideman and Brown, I'd take the one who is five years younger and whose pay packet is half the size. Interesting also how many people have written off Tom McDonald, but imagine that Brown will miraculously return to form in new colours.

Congratulations to Christian Petracca, a very worthy winner after a consistently excellent season. That said, I would have been very happy to see Steven May win, if only to break the stranglehold that midfielders have had over the award over the past 18 years. Perhaps we need an award just to recognise our best performing defender each year. The results of Hibberd, Lever and particularly Melksham show the positive impact that a well managed demotion can have on an underperforming player. Hibberd took his dropping well, worked hard on his game and was a strong contributor when he returned to the team. Melksham was allowed to coast along for an entire season without consequence, and never once came close to performing at an acceptable level.

Three down, hopefully at least six more to come. Best of luck to Josh, Corey and Kyle, but these were inevitable and essential delistings.

It's weird how we have millions of dollars of coaching and development "talent" on the books but, instead of putting them to work to find out why McDonald and others have regressed in recent seasons, we want to take the easy way out and trade them for peanuts. There are posters on this forum who have never rated Tom and that's their right, but he was our best defender for several years, then he went forward and kicked more than 50 goals in a season (the only MFC player to do so this decade). The guy can seriously play, and you don't get rid of your better players on the back of one poor season. Like others I want to know what has happened to Tom this year, and I want the club to fix it. Trading him would be a cop out and a big mistake and I will be furious if we do so.

I like it. If we try really, really hard over the next few months, I'm sure we can have a list with May, Lever, Gawn and 37 small / medium forwards for next year.

I was all for the club recruiting Harley at the start of this year, and I think that both the club and Harley have done everything that could have been asked of them until this point. That said, this is a simply unforgivable error of judgment from a player who has been given multiple chances by multiple clubs over the past decade. We are no at a point where his performances and potential outweigh the risk of keeping him on the list beyond the season. If he can't be trusted to make good decisions now with his AFL future at stake and in a highly controlled environment, how can we possibly trust him over the pre season with a brand new contract and left to his own devices? This club doesn't have a spare $50,000 to waste fixing this guy's mistakes and the last thing we need as we try to resign sponsors and 40K members is this type of bad publicity. Thanks for your efforts Harley, but you're done here.

Clearly there is a fair portion of the membership base that is pretty unhappy with this situation. Will the club bother responding at some point? Other than fluff pieces, communication with members has been pretty ordinary this year, although I get that staffing has been reduced. It is one thing to donate the value of a standard membership to the club. It is entirely another to fork out additional money for reserved seats, grand final guarantees and other add-ons that have provided zero value during the year. If these aren't delivered, then they should carry forward to future years at no cost.

I think he is probably done, but I'd still have him at the club ahead of any Bedford, Kolodjashnij, Jordon, Nietschke, Chandler, Wagner x2 and Dunkley and probably half a dozen others as well. It really depends on whether the club is collectively going to put its big boy pants on and make some hard decisions at year end. If we prune a lot of dead wood on the list, then I don't have an issue with Jones getting one more year to support what would be a lot of new players. If we only make a few changes, then the need for an experienced mentor-type is significantly reduced.

https://womens.afl/news/51858/suns-or-lions-aflw-cult-hero-eyes-move-north An update on Sarah Perkins - a big loss, as our inability to translate midfield dominance into goals is our number 1 issue. Hopefully Tegan Cunningham can rediscover her mojo.

If we're trading anyone for Saad it should be Salem.

On talent yes, but definite no in terms of workrate, value for money and quality of person.

We're saving money by making Victorian clubs travel interstate several times a year? Makes sense.