Watts Jurrah Dunn?

Cop out. Will only have ourselves to blame if we miss. Had to beat Geelong round 1 without Danger, Henderson, S Selwood, Ablett off no pre-season, and Harry Taylor off in the first quarter. Botched selection for the Port and St Kilda games also completely our own doing.

We gave up two first rounders for him and they say this years top 20 is exceptional. We have gaping holes in the midfield, which is where games are won and lost. Lever nominated the Dees so we held the power. We massively overpaid for a guy that does not fix our problems. He is a 'nice to have'. Midfielders that can run and kick are a 'need'.

May is a contracted captain of another club. We just overpaid for Lever as though it would fix all our defensive issues and now can't burn a 3rd first rounder on May. Our midfield is terribly unbalanced and we can't spend another 1st rounder on the backline. Jordan Roughead as a free agent would provide a 200cm 105kg key defensive option and genuine ruck depth if Gawn went down. I appreciate he's not quite a full back and not quite a ruckman, but we desperately need some mature bodies and extra height back there. Oscar is always 2 years away from having the necessary strength, and it seems there is no competition for his spot given the club has banished Frost. Roughead would be a much better free hit for us than coughing up a first rounder for May.

The blind, long, high bombs into the Forward line have been an issue since Round 1 where it, and the selection of Maynard and Wagner, cost us another match we should have won. It is not easily fixed because it is not the forwards at fault, it's our crash and bash one dimensional, unbalanced midfield that have no class or ability to accelerate out of a stoppage, lower their eyes and spot up a well-weighted short pass. We desperately need to add a Shaun Higgins-type free agent and trade for a Devon Smith-type as well. Hopefully Gaff and Murphy might be the Free Agents this year, and maybe they can trade for a Darcy Parish or similar.

He's too nice. Got a lot of the Jack Watts-basketball-bruise-free-non-contact about him. Just drifts around when he should be using his enormous frame and power to knock a few out of the way and lay some enormous tackles. Has to physically impose himself on the game. Also his disposal is just horrendous and he always tries to kick the cover off the ball and hand pass it through his teammates rather than to them. Just has no 'touch' whatsoever. The centred ball to Hogan going 10m over his head a case in point. Sadly De Goey (a few picks later than Petracca and Brayshaw) looks like being by far the best player out of that draft. I spose De Goey wouldn't have interviewed well enough for the Dees though.

Why move him up to the box if he was doing such a terrific job for the past 2 years?

He was very fumbly and ordinary on wings and flanks in AFLX and JLT1. When they threw him into the middle to play the inside mid role against the Saints he was very good. He's an inside midfielder. I wish they'd play him there. Obviously Oliver and Viney are ahead of him in that role but I can't work out for the life of me why you'd play Maynard ahead of him. He's also a few years younger than Tyson and has more of a future than him. Jones and Lewis shouldn't have to play inside anymore with all these young bulls. I see Oliver, Viney, Brayshaw with cameos from Petracca as being the 10 year midfield. I wish they'd play him because right now Brayshaw at 3 and Weideman at 9 look very ordinary picks.

Yeah Weideman at 9, 4 picks before Curnow was a shocker. You get that one right and we are on our way. You'd just love to know how keen we were before the drink driving thing, which was probably setup by Carlton.

Should have kicked 6. Missed two sitters and gave away one in the goalsquare. Looks a terrific prospect and should go past Bugg and Harmes reasonably quickly. Appears to have X factor with his marking, and the quick snap goal while being tackled showed he's good at ground level as well. All that 'weak draft that falls off a cliff after pick 15' stuff looks wrong already.

We haven't played finals for a decade mate. Question everything the football dept do. If Goodwin plays Pederson early last year ahead of Spencer and Tim Smith, we play finals. If Taylor calls out Charlie Curnow instead of Sam Wiedeman a couple of years back, we play finals. They are not always right. Too many sycophants on here.

Here it is simplified for you. We are out of the super draft next year, so there's another opportunity gone to get a quality midfielder. 3 of our mids are almost done. Only 2 are proven AFL midfielders and will be there in 2020 when we are beating down the door. We don't need another half forward flanker or key position defender. Constable or Petruccelle at 31, and Worpol at 37 would have been better selections given our lack of midfield depth.

Jones missed 6 weeks last year with a quad and has already done a calf this pre-season. Vince is borderline best 22 and has 1 left. Lewis has 1 good season and 1 ordinary season left. Salem and Brayshaw are far from proven, bona fide afl mids capable of playing 20 good games a season. When Viney misses, as we saw last season - it all falls onto Oliver's shoulders. There is not enough depth. I hope Brayshaw and Salem finally begin to justify their draft ranking, and that Maynard, vandenBerg and Harmes come on to help this. I like the look of Petty, but it certainly wasn't a need. Our key defenders are young and developing. The way they have pumped games into him, our FD seem to have great faith in Oscar as a long term prospect. Unlike the midfield, no one retires in a year or two, in fact they'll just be entering their prime. Petty now develops behind Oscar, Lever, Frost and Keilty, who have 8-10 years ahead of them. Who knows how Tom Mac goes as a forward when the oppposition start putting work into him as a forward. I also see no need to bring in a medium forward who is a clone of Mitch Hannan. Fritsch needs two seasons in the gym and has not proven himself of being able to pinch hit in the midfield at VFL level. Once he puts on 8 kilos, will he be good enough to dislodge Petracca, Hannan, Melksham, ANB, Harmes, Bugg etc from a half forward flank? We have them coming out of our ears! Anyway, good luck to them and I hope I'm wrong, but for mine, Fritsch and Petty picks should have been Pettrucelle and Worpol.

Tom Mac will be Forward 5 minutes if Weideman comes on mate. How many backs do you need? Richmond and the Bulldogs have won flags with how many dominant Key Positions Forwards? Matches are won and lost in the midfield. We added a dwarf 170cm forward mid, and an outside winger that averages 16 touches in the NEAFL. Petrucelle and Worpol were still on the board. I hope I'm wrong, but I see the midfield as seriously lacking depth in a year or two when Vince, Jones and Lewis are gone.

Some of the Phantom drafts mentioned West Coast were really keen. They took the extra time for the very next pick. I reckon we threw them. Too early for mine.

Petrucelle the next pick? Best available before needs. Given the plethora of key and medium sized defenders we already have developing, I'm not sure about this one.

There is a 3 minute highlights video of him available on the afl.com.au Draft Machine. http://www.afl.com.au/draft/draft-machine Type in Oscar Baker. Looks a nice prospect but it almost looks like a non-contact league in that video, and I'm not sure AFL players will buy the candy he is selling.

From a couple of the Bigfooty Phantom's: Snoop Dog: Knightmare: Young Talent Time:

The Pick 35 sh1ts me. With compo it will go to 37 or 38. Just speculative crap. For us to cough up two first rounders we had to make the Crows find us something in the Top 25. The soft Roos trading mantra of "win/win" and good blokeing yourself lives on.

But the bigger hole in the list is that we have no midfield class, pace or depth. Tom McDonald has to play forward to accommodate Lever. Tall defenders are hardly a gap in the list. They're there. I don't see any midfielders that can break away from a stoppage, evade, bounce and hit Hogan lace out. The midfield lacks pace and kicking skill. Lewis, Vince and Jones are approaching the end. Bradshaw is no certainty. It is absurd to trade 2 first round picks when we lack skill and pace through the middle AND the player has nominated us.

We'd get him for free? Or we'd have to use pick 10 in the Draft? Treloar was 2 first rounders and a 2nd rounder back. However, Collingwood's first rounders were something like 6 and 8? Melbourne's are going to be 10 and 12-14 (hopefully). Lever is a Key Position Player, harder to find than midfielders.

Because, by even the most conservative estimates, we've offered him 4 years at $750k, which is an A Grade salary. Adelaide are quite rightly saying - you've made Lever one of the highest paid 22 year olds in the game - we've developed him beautifully - you're going to get 200 games out of him - your '17 and '18 first round picks aren't particularly special. 10 & 12 are hardly rolled gold top 5 picks.

I think it was Greg Denham the other day that said Freo are heavily into Menzel and he will be heading there.

He's that smart he doesn't let himself get caught in positions where has has to wrestle with a gorilla one-out. I watched him closely in the GWS first final. A GWS player has the ball at half back and is kicking long down the line to a contest on the wing. Lever has Rory Lobb, who he gives 3-4 inches away to. As the ball left the boot, Lever bumped into Lobb and put him off his line. Lobb didn't even make the drop of the ball. Later in the night, when Patton wanted the ball put on his head in the pocket, Lever stood 5 meters in front of Patton and just blocked his leading space. If the GWS player kicked it high onto Patton's head, Lever backed himself to get back in time and fly for the spoil. Wrestling is not his go. Playing smart is. Oscar and Frost are still crucial to play on the Daniher, Riewoldt, Brown types, with Lever taking a less dangerous forward and zoning off for the most part. And when it is Lever's turn to mind a Ben Brown, he'll certainly play it shrewdly.

Paul Connors spoke at an Old Xavs golf day yesterday and said Lever will be a Demon, and he will be the highest paid player at the club. He also specifically mentioned that it is a very interesting move as he manages Petracca who, next year, might be asking for similar money.

Yeah you're right. When players nominate clubs they always seem to get there for a bit less than market value, so I was holding out hope it might not be much more than pick 10. A 1st and 2nd Rounder for him now is a win for Melbourne. Another final or two like that and we'll be looking at two 1st Rounders.