Lucifers Hero

He has a contract from the club ready for him to sign. He has put off a decision. All the noise indicates he is going albeit reluctantly.

My take is that the Grundy move is primarily part of our finals strategy: Petty will not play as a tall fwd. we are accepting of 4th on the ladder with the double chance: we don't need to win the rest of the games. we now know the other contenders, their systems, strengths and weaknesses. we have the luxury of testing finals tactics over the coming weeks to defeat those contenders. if my hunch is right Grundy would know and be a willing participant in these finals plans. Am expecting to see different fwd half tactics when Grundy returns to the seniors in readiness for finals. A few fwd half surprises for opps in finals would be fun!!

The not so esteemed HS has ignored that little word 'if'! Of course he will be back in the side playing ruck fwd! Its click bait! And of course a heap of other media scribes jump on the headline and miss a crucial little word.

No MCG. Bit of a surprise since iirc they held a prelim final there are few years ago. And no Marvel stadium. Two years ago they got 40,000+ to the GF in Adelaide at the Adelaide Oval. Any theories on why they are using second string venues which have very small capacity and probably limited facilities...really limits revenue raising and merchandising for the GF.

You are right. I forgot the finals part. Thanks

I don't know☹️ Mu guess would be that we use our next available pick.

The 'bold' part is the answer. I think it is like Woewodin. iirc in 2021 we did a draft night pick swap of our 3rd round pick (reported as 51) for a future 4th. Our next pick was 80 something which came in to 65 because teams passed and the number of picks that had been used for points.

When the Captain's did their preseason predictions one had McVee as their RS winner and he hadn't even played a game. It couldn't have been Max as the rules are you can't vote for club/teammates. Wouldn't mind that captain giving us Lotto numbers!! The RS will probably go to Ashcroft being a midfielder and draft position. McVee is 'off-broadway' but deserves to feature on the podium: played every game, consistent performer and like Ashcroft will play finals. What is in his favour is that the voting is at the end of the season rather than game by game. So the judges can look at the season as a whole rather than tally the game by game votes.

I can't find the article which talks about a limit of 2 Academy players. It was in a discussion related to GCS who have 3 top Academy players. I suspect it will be discussed a lot as the EOS gets closer. Yes, they can take the 3rd player on a straight out bid.

I'll post to the Draft thread to avoid sidetracking the kalani thread.

tbh I see many differences. The common factor being they play a similar role however play it quite differently. We don't need McVee to get to Hibberd's strength as we have Brayshaw to take that forward as and when needed; McVee will outsmart the rest, be they small or medium defenders.

Agreed. Anyone would think we want him to be a KPF like Jeremy Cameron. I'd say learning the 'forward craft' Richardson referred to is related to a specific role where he needs a few forward skills to compliment our other forwards and to not compete with them. To me it seems like we have identified a gap in our fwd structure/system and are looking to Grundy to fill it. So all this talk about Grundy not being a fwd is shallow thinking by the commentators. Of course he isn't and won't be but he can play a role which may not be kicking heaps of goals. And as for being traded. A key reason he chose us was because he likes the city lifestyle and didn't want to go back to SA.

Good guess. The Age is reporting that recruiters think he will go in the 3rd round (pick 45 to 60) which should be easy for us to match. Especially as JT doesn't use picks outside the 2nd round.

I missed that. Could you post what the venues are. TIA.

You need to have a word to your son!! He can't just drop Salem!! He needs to know it is possible to have = #1 favourites!! I have Salem❤️, Hunt💙 (both since the beginning of time) and now Mcvee❤️ on my = #1 fave list. However, as I can have only one avatar I confess to replacing Salem with McVee early this year so I get how your son feels!!

I doubt Petty will play. Goodwin said we can't keep subbing him out (which we have for two consecutive weeks.

I believe 2 is the maximum. It is a dilemma faced by GCS this draft as they have 3 players rated in the first round, 2 possibly in the top 10 so one will be up for grabs. They will need lots of points for the 2 top 10 possibilities so a good chance for us to trade for their first round pick. They have been good trading partners in the past so if both want to deal a deal should get done.

Good to see we open the season instead of the usual Carlton/Collingwood. Very happy to finally play the Crows on our turf at Casey!!! To also play potential finalists there in WBD and Freo is good for us. We have beaten the Lions at their ground. Ikon Park holds no fear for us where we play Pies and Roos. Finally the Away games: Eagles, Geelong, Hawks and GWS those are ours to lose! Very happy with our overall fixture. Fair reward for being Premiers.

Scott has already started the mind games declaring: We are the danger...! Lets wait and see what they are made of when they play the top 3 teams in the coming weeks - the teams they need to beat in the finals. Beat Coll (G), Port (KP) and Lions (Gabba) and it could make them GF favourites. They will be going all out to finish 5th and get a home final. If an an interstate team sneaks into 8th, most likely GWS the game will be at KP. That would be a fascinating first final as GWS beat them at KP and both teams have improved since. Hopefully the physical toll of their run home wears them down in the finals and they don't go beyond the second week.

They don't even realise there is a game this week let alone who they will be playing!

In McVee we have found Hibberd's replacement. Did as good a job on Cameron as Hibberd has in the past. And he has tamed a few other small forwards this year. Moves like a gazelle and its a joy to watch him weave through traffic with lowered eyes, taking his time looking for the best option. As an East Fremantle product, Freo must be ruing they didn't take him in that rookie draft. They could do with a gun defender who is a star in the making.

Probably the most boring read of any game preview I've come across. Up to page 12 and still not a word for next week’s game. Their fans have all but given up on the season and now turning on a few of their players. Thank you Rory, you've been a wonderful player, but shouldn't be selected again Changes??? I couldn't care less anymore. The only changes I'm interested in are changes at the end of the year. Continuity matters. Still mathematical finals chance. No change. That will absolutely loose me Why bother even starting this thread. when we know that sloane, sholl, murphy, mchenry are going absolutely fxxkn nowhere. they wont be dropped. Not a fxxkn chance. I would think so highly of Rory if he announced his retirement this week. Or that he didn't want to be picked, and will play 2s for the rest of this year. And maybe next. I have no idea what they can do with Sloane. He's miles of it, but there seems to be some delusion about where he's at. Powaa has no problem dropping their captain. Sloane isn't even captain and the club is scared of the reaction from the Facebook brigade. Fmd. I can't wait for next February where we argue which spud deserves his spot in the best 22 only for the happy clappers to talk about what amazing depth we have. We push Murphy from the forward line up to the stoppages because it's the only thing he's good at.. The other team doesn't care about him because of his poor skills so we gift them an extra in defence. If Crouch or Himmelberg are playing on Sunday I'm not going Poor Rory!! Imagine if we had talked about Jonesy like that. No respect being shown to Sloane. I'll check back in a few days and hope they have something more interesting to say.

That is very gracious. Thank you.

So its fair to say Grundy is not being 'managed' for fatigue or loads, he has been 'dropped' and would be playing at Casey this week if they didn't have a bye.

We also had three 10 day breaks in 2022 between rounds 13 and 16. The difference is that in 2022 we were blindsided by the late schedule release so had no chance to tailor our training accordingly. I've mentioned before it is no coincidence the AFL released the 2023 fixture to the end of round 15 ie after all the byes were finished.