Lucifers Hero

Not many examples where a non RFA, out of contract player's club has forced a high trade price by playing hardball. Kelly to WCE is one of the few I can think of in recent times.

Initially I thought the pre GF bye was a good idea. Then I heard an interview where the comment 'there are always hard luck stories at GF' was made. And seeing this amazing position that Chelsea Randall has taken convinces me there should be no pre GF Bye. chelsea-randall-concussion-ruled-out-of-adelaide-crows-vs-brisbane-lions-clash Such a gracious, thoughtful person showing great leadership to the AFL community and trust and inspiration in her team. On the back of that the Crows will win the GF

Thank you. If Hibberd doesn't play much this year he may struggle to get a new contract. Agree with others but the club may want to keep options open and offer 1 year in some cases. I would probably put Jordon up there on priority signing especially as he is an RFA this year (due to being delisted then rookied last year) and depending on how he plays I would like to see Weideman continue with us but right now he wouldn't be a top priority.

Update for Oliver 2 year contract (and spelling of Smith's name) @GarboI update this table based on info in the media at the time a contract is signed. I notice footywire has Langdon's contract expiring this year which I highly doubt as he wouldn't have come on a two year contract. Let me know if you have seen other info on his contract and I will update accordingly. We may have a few extra players unsigned this year but I suggest not many are 'must keep'. Now for Salem's signature!

Awesome first post. Thanks for reassurance that Salem will sign.

Except that Dodoro does the wheeling and dealing as GM List Management. Mahoney is GM Football so I think they are peers. .

Oliver hasn't been with us for 8 years. He won't be an (R) FA until end of 2023, if he re-signs for two more years. If Oliver requests a trade we can ask a very high price but the player holds all the aces and once an OOC player nominates a club we have little choice but to get the best deal we can.

I'm pretty sure he is an RFA as he has been there 8 years and would be in their top 25% earners. If he isn't in the top 25% he would be an FA - altho that would be very unlikely. So Ess can match.

Ess love trade time drama and would match just about any $ offer and demand a trade (ala Cameron @ Geelong) to extract more than the AFL compensation draft pick and or players. Dodoro will do it just for the sport.

We are in the queue port-adelaide-eye-bombers-star-merrett "Melbourne are another club to have shown strong interest in Merrett, who would add run and ball use to a formidable ball-winning midfield". If we get him we must be planning to trade some reasonable players out to make sal cap space s I doubt the players that are likely to not have contracts renewed this year, will free up anywhere near enough $ after their replacements are recruited. Not to mention our talent need to be rewarded. Will be an interesting trade period. We would be looking very attractive to him and any other FA's looking for success.

What is it with Goal of the Year this round? Whoever nominates them has a preoccupation with flukey, dribble kicks from the boundary - one of the three nominees was even described as an accident by the commentators. Meanwhile, Max roosts one from the center square at a critical time of the game and crickets!

I didn't see the incident. From what Clarkson said last night I doubt they will appeal.

Mitch Lewis suspended for a week so won't line up against us on Sunday. MRP decisions have favoured us this year,

Such a heart wrenching plea, ding. Simply and beautifully said.

Correct. The coaches votes split after Petracca and Gawn were: 4/0 Oliver 3/0 Langdon 2/0 Lever 2/0 Salem 1/0 McDonald 1/0 Pickett Pure guess work as to which were Goodwin votes and Scott votes. They certainly saw the game differently.

Coaches Votes: By Coach: 5/5 Petracca 4/3 Gawn The rest are obvious. Again agreement on the top 2 but no agreement at all on the rest. I guess it reflects the team effort and overall contribution by 22 players. Leader Board 28 Taylor Walker ADEL 22 Max Gawn MELB 22 Jack Macrae WB 20 Clayton Oliver MELB 19 Dustin Martin RICH

And info for members?

It seems odd that we have had no press conf, press release nor member email to announce the appointment. Tom Morris who leaked the story of Bartlett standing down seems to have gone to ground. And the Pert email he thought had been sent on Saturday night doesn't seem to have existed or he was misinformed. Wouldn't mind seeing something official from mfc on Kate's appointment.

Nothing from/gy the club yet, od. This article we-have-got-to-be-better-equality-key-to-roffey-s-melbourne-presidency is based on an interview on the ABC. Listen to the interview on the link in here: melbourne-football-club-kate-roffey Having now listened to the whole interview, the 'equality for all subject' is one of quite a number of goals. Just shows the earlier tweet failed to present a balanced report of the interview.

It looks to me helping deliver a flag is a top priority. From the article: 'While Kate Roffey wants to do all she can to lead the Demons to premierships and off-field stability, the new Melbourne president spoke passionately on Monday morning about pushing for equality on a number of issues'. 'Roffey ...said another priority was to secure a home base for the Demons...' There is no reason why she and her Board cannot have more than one goal.

Other Board members would have known what she stood for and in choosing her have endorsed the goals she has laid out. Impressively, our Board managed to pull off a 'bloodless coup' when success is on the horizon. We don't know the reason for ousting Bartlett but they must have had a good reason to change. We need to trust their decisions.

One thing in our favour for Mac Andres is that clubs are unlikely to use a top 20 pick on a pure ruckman who probably won't play for a few years. We used pick 3 on Jackson but he is seen as ruck/forward/tall midfielder. I don't think 'the top 20' cutoff for NGA players is adjusted for Northern Academy and F/S players taken in the first round so that would help him slide to outside the top 20. In the AFL article: "During the upcoming recess of the NAB League competition Melbourne is expected to increase its work with Andrew, including the potential of him featuring for their VFL side Casey Demons". early-season-blitz-puts-ruckman-on-demons-nga-radar Good to see he gets an early start start with us. That is partly why Sydney Academy players are ready to play in their early years.

Listed on the umpires website each week: https://aflua.com.au/umpire-appointments/ Round 4: https://aflua.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021-AFL-Season-Umpire-Appointments-Round-4-edit.pdf

Geelong rely on outscoring ops early in the game in the hope they will hang on and win. In the last two games they were well ahead at 3/4 time only to be outscored in the last. vs Brisbane 4.3 to Geelong 1.1 in the last qtr who were lucky to win by a pt vs Hawthorn 4.3 to Geelong 1.2 in the last qtr who again were lucky to win by 5 pts Those games and their fade out in the GF says they can't play out a full 120 min even at the smaller Geelong ground where the Brisbane game was played. There will be nowhere to hide at the MCG. The key is to stay with them (or be ahead) on the scoreboard at 3/4 time and then run them off their feet. And kicking straight will help this immensely. The other key thing is their scoring efficiency - not many scoring shots vis a vis the opp but get more goals than points which has been a feature of their game for a long time, especially against us. We need to force them to kick for goal from further out to reduce that efficiency. We will win.

He is the Lachie Whitfield, Daniel Rich half-back type player. Worth their weight in gold even if not top money earners. A large part of why Salem 'looks better' this year is because we have better ball movement processes and positioning and a mid field who understand their roles better. He has always had exquisite skills and footy IQ and been very, very good and under rated on this board.