Lucifers Hero

? I was going to 'Like' your post until I saw the last bit.. It would be like an ? for me.

Not saying this about Geelong but there are lots of ways friends of a club can give players benefits: jobs for family members, paid education, free use of sporting/holiday facilities, post footy career jobs, discounts on any number of purchases and services etc etc. All on a handshake of course. Technically they should be caught in the sal cap as '3rd party payments' but not sure if the AFL police them anymore. Suspect clubs would be very good to ensure there is no audit trail.

If GWS force a trade Geelong can use two first round picks and effectively get him 'cheaply'. Geelong have picks 11, 13 and 18/19. They can give 11 and 13 to GWS (which they got on the back Tim Kelly (a 2018 2nd rnd pick #24)). See below. Very astute trading. They were preparing their war chest for 2020 FA's with a few targets in mind (Viney, Crouch and Cameron) so if forced to trade they had the currency. ...The pick swap with GCS was borderline legal but the AFL ok'd it. If they use 11 and 13 it will be 3 players (Cameron, Stephens, Evans) for the original price of Kelly +/- steak knives. They will do even better if they don't use both picks in a Cameron trade. I hope GWS (and Adelaide if Geelong go for Crouch) force trades to soak up those 3 first round draft picks.

Thanks for thoughtful response. Tbh my comment last week was a bit of a throw away line so I was a bit surprised by the pile on. Thought it would derail the thread if I responded so chose not to. Yes, I'm pessimistic at the moment and hope this trade/draft period and Pert's review change that. iirc Coll 1st round 2018 pick was in the high teens having been GF and 2019 pick expected to be similar. Without looking at 'points' our pick 6 was valued very highly by GCS. But I prefer to no to rehash the various trades. Can I leave it by saying I understand where you are coming from and I'm glad people are optimistic. I desperately want you all to be right.

Agreed. So many things go into a decision to change clubs and often $$$ isn't the reason. We could add success, facilities, club strength to the criteria you mention. I just feel that we don't rank highly in the intangibles so have to pay a higher price ($ or picks), which may not be the case. I guess I'm just jealous of big and successful clubs.

Fair enough. Thank you for responding reasonably. I happen to think we aren't a destination club and won't be until we become a 'big' club and start regularly winning finals.

Our big and medium fish: May was well on his way to Collingwood but they couldn't satisfy GCS with draft picks. We could. Like someone else said it was a marriage of convenience coming to us. Saints pulled out of the race for Tomlinson and we were the last option. Lever was our highest paid player when he arrived, reportedly more than other clubs were prepared to pay. The above commentary was in the media at time. People can do their own research and provide evidence that what I've written above is incorrect. I can hear people say: 'do you believe everything you read in the media' cry. The answer is no I don't. Nor do I think that everything they right is fiction. If people pile on that is fine. I can deal with it. I just ask them to do some research before they go full on with the keyboard. And if people just pile on without evidence then I shall choose to not respond. I'm with @Demonland: Sad to admit it but without $$$ or the high draft picks to trade we are not a destination club.

That seems to be the only way we get really good players: outbid other interested clubs with $$$ or picks. I need to get my flak jacket out - the last time I posted something like that there was a huge, negative pile on!

Has chosen Geelong. FA needs to change: Buddy to GF'list Lynch to Premiers Daniher to Prelim team The AFLPA can carry on as much as they like abut the number of players that don't exercise FA or a few go to low teams. But as the above shows the best go to the best teams which just makes them stronger.

Perhaps we aren't the destination club people think we are... Tmac staying?? No takers or we have decided to keep him? iirc the only people who have linked us to Brown are those who see we need a tall fwd, Brown is available so 2+2=5.

Why would he go to the saints instead of us.

Winning finals, in general: Pressure, pressure, pressure Smart coach Tried and true game plan "win the 'key' moments" (according to coaches this week) A balanced team that has top talent on every line. Winning finals by demons: we fall short on most of those. We might be ok at some but 'ok' doesn't win finals. Our team isn't balanced: Most of our top talent is in the midfield. We have a deficient 'spine'. We have 3-4 players at the top AFL level, 2-3 next level players, 3-4 next level, 3 hi potential developing kids and then a lot of (too many) journeymen. Based on the first round of 2020 finals the top 4 teams were awesome with their pressure. Two lost but they are in the GF. To me we are a fair way off the pace of those teams in what I've identified required to win finals.

Apparently Simon Black was in the same room so he would also have been a very fitting presenter. One of the Lions all time greats.

I kept a close eye on the coaches votes and found high consistency in how their 5 and 4 votes were allocated, medium consistency in their 3 vote and a bit of variability with their 2 and 1 votes. As both coaches are voting it is unlikely the overall result would be affected by any 'messaging'. The top 4 players in the Coaches votes were the same players as the top 4 at the Brownlow with spots 2 to 4 being close in both talllies so some minor repositioning.

Top 5: Neale, Cripps, Fyfe, Martin, Dangerfield. I get that Neale and (maybe Cripps) would be short odds but the others are more 'yesterday's heroes'. So, how do the odds work?

Looks like Oliver has bragging rights over Viney for the Brownlow and the AA squad. That should be enough to offset any disappointment at being just a few points behind him in the BnF. 9th is really an amazing effort by Oliver when we had Petracca and Gawn polling well. Hopefully, that quietens the folks on here that have questioned his 2020 performance. Good to see the umpires finally giving him the recognition he deserves.

The anecdote refers to when Oliver started which was 5 years ago. It doesn't mean he still is: “...‘Clarry’ was just so headstrong, which for some coaches can be a real turn-off ..." My read is that coaches need to find what makes each player tick to get their best. Macca found the right buttons to press with Oliver and it showed in his performance. We have a coaching panel befitting a bottom 4 team so I'm not sure why some posters (not yourself) let them off the hook. Oliver and all our players deserve the best coaches; coaches that know how to motivate diverse individuals not coaches that want players who do as they are told to make their jobs easier or as Macca says who 'can be a real turnoff!' If coached properly we have a lot to look forward to with Clarry. Macca: "...Oliver hasn’t even scratched the surface of his potential..." and rated him with Selwood "...for competitiveness, his drive to win and compete...and ...we haven’t seen anywhere near the best of him yet, there’s a lot more to come." The sooner we get coaches that can work with each player's personalities to get the best from them the sooner we will rise up the ladder.

If he is paid out presumably it will be in this year's sal cap. He may be kept on the list so he can still access medical and other support services for another year, which I would agree with. He could be kept on the rookie list. Only guessing.

This thread is about Petracca. This thread is about the Brownlow count, tonight

One wonders why Goodwin got a mentor if he isn't going to reciprocate or participate in a plan to make it work.

Very true. But in his role to develop (assistant) coaches and mentor to Goodwin wouldn't it be in his remit to remedy any issues in the box? If not him. who?

Had a look at the AFL Predictor brownlow-medal/predictor and Petracca is on 18 votes. However, it has not scored him votes in rnd 6 vs GCS, rnd 8 vs Lions and 17 vs Giants. The coaches gave him 7, 7, and 6 in those rounds. So he may get a few more than 18. I don't think he will overtake Neale but votes in those 3 rounds could be enough to overtake Boak. Note: the 3,2,1 by round in the mfc article differ occasionally to the AFL Predictor.

Article on Club website: brownlow-medal-form-guide-a-round-by-round-preview Predicted Melbourne Leaderboard: 18 – C.Petracca 7 – M.Gawn 7 – S.May 7 – C.Oliver 5 – J.Viney 4 – A.Brayshaw 3 – E.Langdon 2 – B.Fritsch Will be interested to see how many votes Oliver gets. It always seems odd that he polls so few, even in AA or winner of BnF years. Plenty of players score highly in poor performing teams so do not think that is the reason. And its hard to think the umps don't notice him. Just wonder whether he is still suffering from the false claims of 'staging' in his early years.

By all accounts he has a lucrative 5 year contract, at which time he will be 32. In 2018 and this year had serious hamstring issues. At his level they don't sign contracts based on games played so gets paid whether injured or playing. Guess the Pies think they aren't going to get value for money over that 5 years. Can use it better on other players. Clinical by them but may become the norm with reduced sal caps. I'm glad he is calling them out on it. It seems they wanted him to happily go to GCS so they could play the 'be with family' card to justify the trade to members. Gutsy young man to take on the pies and Eddy machine. Good on him.

Not at all Skuit. A few posts in the thread were hung up about he reportedly being upset about his bnf finish and it seemed to trigger a bit of a pile on his improvement and performance. I felt it was getting a bit absurd so tried to put a bit of perspective into his contribution this year.