poita

Phenomenal second season by Oliver, particularly given how he struggled to run out games in his first season. He must have done a mountain of work over the off season to get his body right. He will deservedly win the B&F by a large margin. The challenge for Clayton from here is to be a more damaging player when he gets the ball. Whilst he'll never be a Dangerfield / Martin - style run & carry player, he'll be far more dangerous when he starts kicking more and being less predictable. As he has met every challenge to date, I have no doubt he'll keep developing & improving. It was interesting to hear Petracca on MMM a few weeks ago suggesting that he would choose Oliver to work with on his endurance, rather than Jones or one of the other senior players. It is good to see him being highly regarded by his peers, and hopefully he can develop some strong leadership abilities over the next few years.

Not sure why that would be the case. Dean is such a dedicated and hard working individual who performs at a consistently high level each week. I'd trade him for pick 95 just to free up a spot on the list.

I don't quite understand the animosity towards Tyson on this board. That said, whilst his best football is undoubtedly very good, his worst can be pretty ordinary. The bigger issue is our lack of midfield depth. Tyson sits behind Oliver, Jones & Viney as the fourth best midfielder on our list, and there is a fair gap back to the next level. That means that he is currently a certain selection each week regardless of form. People saying to trade Tyson are kidding themselves. What we really need is to add 3 or 4 half decent (or better) midfielders to the list so there is genuine competition for spots and so that a player like Tyson finds himself at Casey if his form dips. Perhaps Brayshaw and Petracca can be 2 to step up, but we need to trade / draft some others.

Brayshaw had 24 AFL games on the board before Petracca made his debut. Petracca has now passed him with 39 games to 36. That is a huge amount of football for a young player to miss, and even in the games he has played there has been no continuity. We saw glimpses of the form that made him a No. 3 draft pick against St Kilda, then he looked all at sea against Collingwood. Even though his VFL finals campaign ended early it was the right decision to play him, as he just needs to play football at any level. Hopefully he can have a big pre season (no more head knocks), win himself a role in the midfield through the pre season comp and have a big 2018.

The odd thing about Max is that his first game back against West Coast, with no match fitness, was probably his best all round effort. The Swans targeted him physically the next week, and he dropped his bundle completely thereafter. We can argue whether he was fit enough or not ad nauseum, but I suspect he just wasn't mentally up for the challenge this year. He just gave up against Sydney & St Kilda and went completely missing against Collingwood when our season was on the line. He got beaten both in the ruck and around the ground by some very ordinary players this year. Right now the jury is out as to whether 2016 was a freak occurrence for a good player, or 2017 was a bad year for an excellent player. Max needs to cut back on the extra curricular activities, have a big pre season and focus on being the best footballer he can be next season. In a contract year you would hope he would have no shortage of motivation to get back to his best form.

Jack's best work this year was excellent, but for the most part he was down on the high standards he set last year. Who knows how long his foot was bothering him before we heard about it. Unfortunately the injury was badly mismanaged by the club (and possibly the player), and there is every chance that this will remain an issue into the 2018 season. That would be a massive setback, as our midfield remains our weakest link and we need our best players firing in that part of the ground.

The guy is a [censored] of the highest order, and I'm so glad he is finally off our list. He was nothing but a parasite from the moment he walked through the door. For all the good work he did with the club, Roos really screwed us over by giving this bloke a four year deal on good money.

If he didn't break Cripps' jaw, we may well have beaten Geelong and / or Fremantle and / or Richmond and finished top 8.

Great story, thanks for sharing.

Seriously good player. From memory the suspension that cost him the opportunity to play 150 games was just ridiculous.

We can all see the potential in everything he does, its just a matter of time before it all comes together. There is a lot of Dustin Martin in Petracca's development in that (1) the club needed to develop him as a player beyond just getting the ball and kicking it as far he could and (2) he needs to develop the tank to allow him to spend more time in the midfield. My only criticism is that I would like to see him take the game on a bit more. If Christian gets the ball 60 metres from goal I don't want to see him short passing to someone who is a worse shot for goal. I want to see him play on and kick the goal from 50, as Martin and Dangerfield do.

Not sure that Stringer is the answer to our prayers, but agree with ignition's post above. You don't overlook players of that quality just because they aren't choir boys. Just one example, but I would hate to think we picked Weideman over Curnow because Charlie got picked up for drink driving. We are simply not in a position to knock back elite talent.

I thought Jack's form prior to injury was pretty solid, particularly given that he was asked to play a significantly different role. Sure he dropped off a little on his return, but the whole team was struggling at that point. I'm not sure why Jack always seems to cop the brunt of supporter and coach abuse, when the end of season problems were far more attributable to the midfield. I see Jack as a crucial part of the team going forward, and hopefully the coach give him some love over the pre season.

Hard to argue with any of those decisions. I am hoping there are another 3-4 to come, hopefully starting with Kennedy, McKenna and Vandenberg. Otherwise we are going to reach the end of next season needing to delist about ten players. I feel so sorry for Jack Trengove. He was badly treated by the club initially, and then let down by his body, but he never dropped his bundle at any stage. I hope he can look back on his career, particularly coming back from injury to play senior football, with pride and can find happiness playing at a lower level. Spencer was a major disappointment for me. We've put 10 years of development into him and he should back at the peak of his powers, but he has given nothing in the past 18 months. His inability to put pressure on Gawn in the last month of this season really hurt us. Anyone who thinks he could be an AFL ruckman with the right opportunity is dreaming. I always thought that a combination of Weideman's football skills and Hulett's attack at the ball would have given us a pretty decent player. Unfortunately we drafted two half baked footballers, instead of going for a player such as Curnow who has both. If you are playing VFL reserves late in your second year, you are clearly in big trouble. I never saw anything in White, and was gobsmacked that we gave him a third year. He was well short of AFL standard, which was obvious last year.

Totally agree with this. There is a big difference between making list changes that actually improve your list, and making changes so it looks like you are actually doing something. I'm not sold on Lever as being the type of player we desperately need, and certainly not if we get sucked into a ridiculous bidding war / pissing contest with Adelaide and / or other clubs. I'm more than happy to hit the draft hard over the next few years and ensure that we keep our list together in the meantime.

Salem has all the attributes to be a very good player, but he was a major disappointment (again) this year. The fact that he was suspended twice for utterly stupid acts suggests that a lot of his problems are above the shoulders. I agree that he is not a defender, but he also isn't fit enough, nor does he work hard enough, to play midfield. As others have said, we are four years in and he still hasn't cemented a place in the team. If we need a decent player to get a trade over the line, his would be the first name I put forward. I suspect plenty of other clubs would see enough positives to think they can make a player out of him.

I'm a massive fan, but I thought he was just okay for most of this season, particularly in the last month. Clearly injury didn't help, but his impact was down before that. I will never, ever question his effort, but his decision making was pretty average at times this year. I would like to see him take the game on more with a long kick, rather than dinky short passes and handballs. He is one player on our list who should have more kicks than handballs, rather than his current ratio.

Unfortunately we only saw glimpses of Jesse's best football this year. This was partly due to self inflicted issues (eg the suspension), but mostly due to run a misfortune that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. Hopefully he has combined all the setbacks his career will encounter into one year, and he has a clear run next season. He will be a star, and if he can get his mind and body right, we will be much better for it next season. At the very worst you know he will take the opposition's best defender each week, which creates some freedom for those around him. At his best he is a match winner, in a team that has precious few of them.

Jack Watts is the best kick and the best reader of the play in the team. He finished top 5 in the B&F last season, and was probably tracking for top 10 before injury this year. Yes, he frustrates at times, but it is ridiculous to blame forwards for problems that start in the midfield. More to the point, our recent record of trading "underperforming" (not my view) talent has been abysmal in recent years. Howe & Martin are the two prime examples of this. We'd be lucky to get a fourth round pick for him based on the record of our master negotiators.

Duplicated

I'm glad Sam is staying, but he is now 6 years into his AFL career. Whilst there are some (very) raw attributes to work with, his lack of development over the past 12 months is concerning. Maybe what we see now is all we are going to get.

No issues with taking him with a rookie pick or very late draft pick if he is still available, but there is no way we should be using high draft picks on mid-sized forwards. You take genuine midfielders and key position players in the first two rounds of the draft, especially as a developing team.

I would love to have Gaff, he is a gun. Would certainly prefer him to Lever as I see our midfield as a much bigger problem. 2018 draft is meant to be very strong, so I would be reluctant to trade any future picks. If we need to trade picks, they have to come from 2017.

Just a tip for everyone trying to trade out our VFL players for draft picks - it's not going to happen. Players like Vandenberg, Kent, Kennedy, Spencer & Bugg have zero value. We might let them walk for pick 100 just to get them a new home, but that would be it. If you want quality, you have to give up quality. Frost may have some value. Salem may have some value. I can't see too many others being considered expendable unless the deal of the century comes along.

I don't really mind the team, at least you have defenders in defence, forwards in the forwards line. It's an improvement on a few years back when they named 16 midfielders. Selwood is probably the glaring error, and I'm not sure that Betts had a great year, by his standards. I'd probably have Greene ahead of Betts, notwithstanding the games he missed. Congratulations to Hibberd, although I thought Jetta might have got in as a lockdown small defender instead.