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Andrews may be walking a knife edge early next year anyway. Firstly, the Boxing Day Test will test his resolve on crowds. Adelaide Oval has put its hand up to host it. It is reported Andrews wants the Aus Open to go ahead. How he is going to 'bubble' players and their entourages and not risk the virus taking off is hard to see in any practical sense. The AFL has had to use extreme controls over players and families who have generally behaved. Will international folk and their families... So the AO is another test of his resolve on restrictions and crowds. Furthermore, It will be a bad look if thousands of sport folk and their entourages are allowed into Australia when tens of thousands of aussies can't come home because State Premiers have restricted the number of people they will take into quarantine. Other states have a vested interest in border closures with Victoria - poach our premiere events and the tourism $ that go with them. Lots to play out before we even get to the AFL season. By then one way or another crowd rules will be worked out. In a worse case scenario, if State Premiers don't open borders I can see the summer tests and Aus Open moving to NZ, cancelled or Victoria by-passed. The first Test is about 10 weeks away so decisions need to be made soon.

In the 'Captain's Run' Gus said his foot is a lisfranc injury. Says he heard it pop in the Sydney game and it would have been better to not have come back on. Expects to be ready to run at the start of the preseason.

We don't get many games vs high revenue (big Vic) clubs. Last year we got return games vs Richmond and Collingwood and because we were losing fans didn't show up so the revenue didn't eventuate. From a revenue point of view I'd rather Home games at the G vs Carlton, Hawks, Ess etc but we get those as Away games, if we are lucky. On that basis the answer to your question is 'easier' games to help us climb the ladder. But we are so inconsistent who knows what 'easier' is as we often drop games against bottom sides. We have beaten only 2 top 4 sides (eagles/hawks in 2018) in years and rarely beaten a top 6 side. We won't go up the ladder until we regularly beat top teams so imv winning 'easy' games might make us feel good but it doesn't really help us get significantly better to regularly contend for a flag.

Good idea! I wonder if the AFL will stick to original 2020 fixture given that a season, albeit shortened was played and we have a new ladder. Our 2020 double up games were: Adelaide, Gold Coast, Fremantle, Collingwood, Saints. That would give us 2 games vs bottom 6 teams, 1 or 2 vs middle 6 team and 1 or 2 vs top 6 teams.

2021-season-start-date Key points Late March start date. 22 round season. Unlikely to be 16 min quarters (will be more). I'm hoping they are back to the full 20m + TO I wonder how they will allocate the 'double up' games. My MFCSS says we won't get any fixture favours.

Last round starts tonight. Obviously going for Big GWS win over Saints and Bulldog loss to Freo. Hoping for a big win over Ess.

The most compromised draft ever (Academy and F/S) is about to be compromised further. Quite a few FA's are being courted: Daniher, Couch, Williams, Cameron, Viney etc. Nearly all would land a first round comp pick and those recipient teams will be in the top 10 of the draft. The draft system is completely broken. We did well to check out our best 2020 chips last year. Wouldn't think we take too many picks before 35 to the draft. Best to trade out our better chips for players we need.

Agreed. The Langdon trade: "... Fremantle pick 22 in this year’s draft as well as a future 2nd rnd selection. The Dockers have handed over pick 26 as part of the deal and a future 4th rnd selection, receiving the Demons’ pick 79...". The early picks went out because of Academy/FS picks but the later picks came in for the same reason (lots of lesser picks used to get the total points). Overall, the trade was approx a high 2nd round pick. So agree Saad should be about the same. However, there may be a bit of a bidding war as apparently North and Carlton are now keen. I read that Saad wants a five year deal (Ess offered 4) and is keen to play finals. The latter aspect would put us ahead of the pack. As an aside, it looks like most clubs trade picks at initial 'natural value' otherwise there is too much second guessing how the academy/FS bids pan out on draft night and trades would stall.

That is effectively what I was saying in the post above yours: extra contract years = more income and more 'security'. Foot could deteriorate at any time. Naturally he wants max $ and high $ in earlier years achieves the same result but will be difficult with sal caps going down.

I'm wondering whether the contract term is an issue. Jack will be 27 next April. At any time his foot could deteriorate so he may be looking for a 4/5 year deal taking him out to 31 or 32. Nothing against Jack but I hope we don't offer that. In recent times we have given a lot of 4/5 year deals: TMac (when he had a significant toe injury), Harmes, Langdon, Lever, Tomlinson, May, Brayshaw etc. While some were necessary how many can we have without impacting list management flexibility. eg TMac, Tomlinson and Harmes are not best 22 yet signed until 2022, 2023, and 2024 respectively. Difficult to trade players out for any value when they are not in best 22. Geelong tend to not offer longer term contracts. With their interest in Daniher and Crouch and not being a club who pay overs there is a good chance they don't take Jack. But Geelong wouldn't be the only club considering Jack as an FA.

I'm more confident of beating Ess than I was a few days ago. If Daniher goes, which seems likely, they will get a 1st round pick immediately after their natural pick. On current ladder position that is pick 6 and 7. If they beat us and end up 11th they will have pick 8 and 9. That differential could be enough to make them tank.

Bulldogs, who are still in finals contention, have announce departures of Assistant Coaches. bulldogs-assistant-coaches-salary-cap-financial-impact Look fwd to our changes. Clean out essential.

No. If Hawks are prepared to let him go after giving up Pick 15, 35 and Burton (who was pick #19 just two years earlier) there is a problem. iirc didn't he tell GWS or GCS to not draft him as he wouldn't go there. Stay away.

Nev is contracted for next year. Jones is said to be on min contract. And he might stay next year. The club has additional critical signings: Jackson and Rivers are OOC next year. Petty is OOC this year. They are the best of our up and coming players whom I hope we re-sign ASAP. Fortunately Kozzie is signed until 2022. Not to mention attracting a player we need. It is said the sal cap will go down significantly so the club has to be disciplined with how they spend it.

If we match the offer he probably stays and there will be no picks and other trades. Geelong don't muck around. They are honest brokers but they drive very hard bargains eg they got Rohan, Dalhaus and Stevens for 3rd round/ 4th round picks but didn't let Kelly ago until they got the deal they wanted which happened a year later. Geelong will take him as an FA but probably not entertain a trade. And they are linked to Jeremy Cameron who is also an FA so if they were going to trade for an FA it is more likely Cameron. If the club believes they have put a fair deal to Jack they should stick to it and let the cards fall where they may. If he stays it has to be on the clubs terms.

Worsfold has put the cat among the pigeons on his way out: “I understand that Essendon people think that Essendon should be better, but they’ve also got to understand that the competition challenges clubs now to work to the same rules – the draft and the salary cap. “No one team has any more right to be successful quicker than any other team, just because they’re a big-name club.” Just love that! Big slap down to those entitled cheats. Thrashing them next week will be a delightful end to our year; not a substitute for finals but a good consolation prize.

Ess are setting themselves to win next week: This week they left out Hooker (omitted) and Hurley (injured but not on their injury list) and didn't bring in Francis, Laverde or Bellchambers who were all 'Test'. Wouldn't be surprised to see the majority of them come in next week. They lost 20% of their membership this year and will be keen to end the season on a high note - that means our scalp. They will give it all they have and we need to be ready. Can't mark it down as a win for us.

Mathematically possible. But I think our race is run. Too little. Too late. Only thing left is to smash the bombers.

Maybe he does want to be at the dees but on his terms. No player is bigger than the club. Hope the club sticks to its guns.

Great feedback to him from May on playing his role by reinforcing the right behaviours: “Both of his goals came from closing down his man and winning the ball back… I told him that’s what happens when you work hard and play your role. “I’m super proud of him and that should give him a lot of confidence.”

I was thinking Crows overtaking North (who play the Eagles next week) on %. But agree Crows will lose to Rich so probably won't get the % boost to get off the bottom.

Good on them. Showing that pride is more important than pick 1 (or they can still get the draftee they want with pick 2).

I had used the 'Ha Ha' icon for this post but worried you might think I was ridiculing your comments so changed it to 'Like'.?

Crows are on a roll: thrashing Carlton. That might change but they have a big 5 goal lead! Glad we played Crows when we did.