poita

Completely agree. Not sure whether it is he or Mahoney or Goodwin driving our draft strategies, but they have been poor from the Weideman pick onwards. This is absolutely not the draft to be taking punts on ruckmen and small forwards with high picks. Premierships are won by midfielders and key position players - everything else is secondary.

Needs to get significantly fitter and stronger so that he can impact games for longer. Currently seems to go hard for a couple of contests and then disappear for long periods whilst he recovers. Good news is that he has two years to work on this.

You appear always to bag other posters without putting forth an opinion of your own. Back on topic, Martin clearly doesn't want to play for Melbourne, so time to move on and focus on players who want to be here.

Either GWS come to us with a deal for pick 3 or we put in a bid for Green at that pick. It is just that simple. You can never have enough quality midfielders, and our midfield depth is non-existent behind the big 4.

Taking a ruckman with a top ten pick would be almost as stupid as taking a midget with a top ten pick. Have a look at where the likes of Nankervis and Lycett, the most recent premiership ruckmen, were taken in the draft, to say nothing of all the decent ruckmen changing clubs for third and fourth round picks in trade week. The chances of finding a top class ruckman in the draft are miniscule - we have simply have to find two 200 game players with our top ten picks.

Our lack of mid-sized defensive depth made it inevitable that Wagner would be retained, but he is a deeply flawed player who was dropped four times this season. If he is playing even semi-regularly in 2020 there is a fair chance we will be bottom 4 again.

I'm not sure why people let these sort of opinions bother them so much, but I guess that goes for most things in life.

I'm not sure what part of "national competition" it is that people don't get. There are 17 other teams in the competition, 8 interstate, 8 Melbourne + Geelong. We play 11 away games, so it reasonable to assume that 5 or 6 will be interstate each year. Our 7th interstate game is our own doing, so can hardly complain about that. If the Geelong game is tiring out the players then there really is no hope for them. Conversely we play 10 home games in Melbourne, so assume that roughly 5 will be against interstate teams each year. We've had home games against both Richmond and Collingwood in consecutive years so can hardly complain about not getting Essendon and Hawthorn as well. It seems as though some people don't want to play the interstate teams away due to the travel factor AND don't want to play them home due to the poor crowds. Short of going back to an amateur, Victorian-only competition, I'd love to hear how this can be avoided.

I'm not quite sold on Lockhart yet, but clearly a full pre season will be crucial. I'm amazed the club kept playing him each week as he hit the wall late in the year - he should have been given the McDonald / Spargo mini pre-season to reset. There is no point him being part of the revolving door half forward brigade - he needs to offer a point of difference as a crumbing forward pocket or a lock down defender. The fact that he can potentially do both is a massive boost to his chances of becoming a long term player.

I'm not sure Oliver is a genuine A grader in terms of being a match winner and dragging a team along with him, but he is a very good player nevertheless. Hard to disagree with anything else in that analysis. I think McDonald is still potentially an A grader, but he needs a lot more support in the forward line.

Corey proved himself to be decent depth this year and I am happy to retain him on the basis. He is fine as the 22nd player on the team sheet coming in to perform a specific role. The problem is when injuries hit and suddenly he is the 15th player on the team sheet, as happened several times this year.

The club's mismanagement of Neville Jetta during the 2019 season was as bad as I have seen in all my years of watching sport. He had an interrupted pre season and was thrown into the round 1 side on the back of limited training and match play. He then hobbled through the first three rounds before he was given round 4 off. Upon returning to the side in round 5 he hobbled around with little influence before suffering a supposedly unrelated knee injury which cost him the next three months. Inexplicably back in the side in round 17 of a dead season, again off limited VFL time, he hobbled through three more games before the pin was finally pulled on his season. Neville is a very good player and an important part of the team, so why we are taking unnecessary risks with such players is totally beyond me. I'm sure, as with the Viney debacle of previous seasons, at least part of the blame is with the player, but we have medical staff who are paid big money to make the right decisions. They need to put their big boy pants on and make the best call for the club long term.

The only hope Spargo has of making it as an AFL player is as Jetta's replacement. If he is smart he would ask his coaches to train with the defenders all summer. Lockhart is more likely though.

Certainly exceeded expectations given his low draft pick and poor debut game. Needs to make significant improvements in his defensive work and his disposal to play regularly next year because there is no way that he and Lever can play in the same team. He should be aspiring to push Hibberd out of the team by mid season.

Chandler's work at VFL level was nowhere near where it should have been to get an AFL game this year, and I cannot believe we gifted him one. I still don't see the point to keeping both Bedford and Chandler on the list as neither appears to have the tricks to become an AFL player. As an under-performing rookie Chandler can count himself very lucky to get a second year. Hopefully he makes the most of it.

There is no point having a depth player who is always injured when you need him. Good on him for keeping on going when others would have given up but, at 29 before the start of next season, he would have been delisted if he hadn't retired first. We do need to replace him with the best state league key position forward in the country in the pre season or rookie draft.

Thankfully Goodwin's appalling decision to gift Petty a debut in 2018 didn't completely destroy his confidence, and he showed good signs at both ends of the field this year. I think he can become a really good long term player for the club if we look after him properly.

Jeff spent most of the past two seasons giving off the impression of wanting to be doing anything other than playing football. That said, his body of work in the preceding seasons was very solid and our inability to nurture a replacement during his time at the club is an indictment of our recruiting and player development.

He can play, but he needs to get much, much fitter to be a decent AFL player. A bit of upper body strength would be handy as well. A two year contract gives him time to work on these things at Casey in 2020 and become an AFL regular in 2021.

Most of those games we won without Gawn were in 2017 when Pedersen was in a purple patch. The reason that worked was that it was something different that other teams struggled to combat. Putting in an inferior Gawn clone (ie Preuss) is unlikely to have the same impact. If we think Tomlinson can pinch hit as number 1 ruckman for a few weeks if Gawn does get injured, then we can probably survive.

I get the idea of teaching a young player new skills and roles, but the timing of Fritsch's move to the backline was just atrocious. Not only did he move back without the benefit of playing alongside May & Jetta, but it left the forward line horribly undermanned at the same time. Thankfully Goodwin didn't completely destroy his confidence and Bayley was able to make a strong contribution late in the year when back in the forward line. He is certainly capable of kicking 30 goals or more next year (and will probably need to given that we didn't recruit any key forwards in the trade period).

Our big problem is that we have 12-15 genuine AFL players, about 20 depth players and a handful of kids who are not (and may never be) ready. Richmond have about 28 genuine AFL players, a small number of depth players and some developing kids. That's where we need to get to.

Neal-Bullen's contribution in 2018 was magnified by getting on the end of some good play in big wins against crap sides. He has always had the tendency to go missing when the side is struggling. His biggest problem is that he doesn't win enough of his own football, so is reliant on players around him providing with him opportunities. His running ability and forward pressure can be important, but he also needs to work on his contested marking and his clearance work.

We traded our first and third round picks for Libby Birch. We lost our second round pick because we retained the player (Casey Sherriff) we picked up as compensation for losing Daisy Pearce last year - not really clear on the rationale behind that one. Given that we lost players to both Victorian expansion clubs and have come in so far down the draft list, I really don't see how we can hope to improve this year. Having Pearce back will be great, but she hasn't played for a while, whilst the pressure will be on Birch to perform.

It was good to see Jayden playing some decent football in patches, but it still feels as though he is capable of so much more. I'm not sure that he is best 22 in a full strength forward line playing his current role.