Lucifers Hero

Given some of the reports of club interest levels in players rated 6 - 10/12 a few very good players could slide out of the first round. There are also a few reports of 'bolters' into the first round: "A Tom Papley-like small forward is attracting ample interest from clubs with first-round picks, with Sandringham Dragons prospect Charlie Clarke looming as a possible night one selection...The Giants, which hold two late first-round selections and the first pick of the second round, have been heavily linked to Clarke and put work into him across the past month. Rival teams expect the Giants to target a small forward with at least one of those picks... Collingwood, which holds a first-round selection sandwiched between two Giants picks, had also been linked to Clarke" With a few 'sliders', some 'bolters' and unknowns whether F/S Davey and Fletcher go in the first round suddenly make pick #20 very valuable and would attract a pick swap premium, not as big a premium as #19 but still a very handy pick to be holding at the end of the first night! It is currently with the Eagles.

Eagles may rue the Rioli deal where they gave up him and pick 2 for pics 8, 12, a F2 (Port) and F3 (Port) as GCS seem quite keen on Gibney who by all accounts WCE were going to take at pick 8. But that could be posturing by the Suns Eagles got an extra 1st round pick but it was a big slide from 2 to 8 when it was known there are 'player' cliffs around pick 5/6 and another around 9/10. So they may take Jefferson at 12!

To me it seems there has been a consistent media bias all year toward talking up our opponents no matter who they are. Would even say they barrack against us! It carries over from the print media during the week to commentators before and during a game. It really does my head in! We certainly go in massive underdogs even tho Harris is playing this week which she wasn't when we lost to the Lions earlier this year. Hope we can show everyone up on Sunday and bring home the 🏆

If Ess take Phillipou at #4, Tsatas will slide setting off a domino effect for other highly touted top 10 players: Humphrey, Clark, Ginbey, Mackenzie, Hollands and will be looked at by Hawks, Saints, Carlton and WBD making it more likely that two or all three of the other WA players slide into the 12 - 20 range where WCE have pick 12 and 20. . WCE first pick is #8 and Twomey has them taking Gibney.

It could be a red-herring planted by WCE to get us to take him @ #13 instead of Allen or Hewett, making it more likely they get at least 3 of the 4 WA players ranked by Twomey in the top 15 (Ginbey, Hewett, Allen and Busslinger) with their picks 8, 12 and 20. Lots of ducks and drakes being played out...

I find it staggering that we may not have been offered a training run on the oval. So I'm starting to think that we may one on Saturday...assuming we fly up on Friday.

You made up for it by the success in @Demonstone's quiz. 👏

Gee, Tigers and Cats are a surprise!

Not sure whether accidental but there is also a clue in this post...

I think the rules are different for the finals: Geelong wouldn't be allowed that ticket allocation in a final. For the AFL GF an even number are allocated to members of each team for each participating team. It would seem grossly unfair if this wasn't the case for the AFLW GF.

Do you think Lions refused us a chance to train on at Springfield or we chose not to? And why wouldn't we fly up Thursday?. It all looks very rushed for us given the oval is at least an hour or two from Brisbane

I'm surprised the club didn't get a ticket allocation. Surely the club could use them to link up with our Qld fan clubs to 'rent a crowd' and bus them to Sprinfield. Its a GF! For our team to fly up on Friday, not train on the oval, not have time to adjust to the hot weather and not have many Dee fans at the game seems like we are taking it all a bit too casually for my liking...🙄

Twomey goes on to say he doesn't think any of the clubs with 3, 4, or 5 will move. It sounded like there was a lot of pick manoevering going on with some clubs.

The guessing games begin as to who we are chasing in the top 5/6!! The following players are consistently mentioned in the top 6 in the main Phantom drafts. Ashcroft Wardlaw Cadman Sheezel Tsatas We sure aren't chasing a tall KPD in a move up to 3, 4, or 5. Unless of course there is a late Oliver type bolter!! With the exception of Cadman the top 10 in Twomey's phantom draft are midfielders between 180cm and 190cm and nearly all are Victorians. If nothing else it certainly rattles the cage of all those thinking the top 10 club selecions were pretty well set.

Pick 19 carries a premium so it would cost better than whatever other teams are prepared to pay. There is no way of knowing what other offers might be until draft night as pick swaps are not allowed before then.

Any idea why we don't get a training run there. Surely the club would fly up Thursday or at the very latest Friday to give us a chance to adjust to the weather so there would be time to fit in a session or two?

Media reports are saying it is a F1. If we are able to get #19 before the first round of the draft is over we will have some leverage to get value for it from other teams by on-trading it at the end of the night. If GWS hold it until the end of the first round I don't see us getting any more value for it in an 0n-trade than GWS would get. So I'm not sure where the value of #19 is for us. If a player we want slides or we want another pick in the late 1st early 2nd round I would think we target their pick 15 or 18 or WCE #20 which don't have the premium #19 does. .

Our two F1 are most likely to be in the 14 - 18 range. Doubt GWS will accept just a F1 for pick #19. They will want something else which could be a F2 depending on which of our two F1 is offered and what other clubs are offering. Unless they get an 'offer they can't refuse' GWS will hold on to #19 until the first round of the draft is over when they will have all night and next day to negotiate the best deal. So doubt there will be any news before the first round of the draft is over. As an aside, draft pick swaps are closed until the start of the draft itself. Lots of wheeling and dealing in the meantime...

It looks like we may not even see the oval before the game: Melbourne midfielder Maddison Gay said the Demons weren’t worried about only accessing the ground on game day...It would be nice even to just see the ground but if not, that’s OK as well...We’ve played home and away games and not been on the field before the game day anyway so it won’t be too different.” aflw-grand-final Gay towing the company line nicely but not too convincingly🙄 I thought I read somewhere that Lions will be training there this week. Can anyone clarify? Surely, both teams should be given equal access. I have been accepting of Springfield because the Lions won the right. However, if they train on it and we don't I will be really cranky about it. It is within the AFLW's power to ensure equal access to both teams. Hopefully, our leaders are pushing for this.

I wonder how many tickets were actually available to the public! The 600 grandstand seats would mostly have gone to Sponsors and VIP's. Hopefully MFC got an allocation. Greg Swan's dummy spit over the criticisms of choosing Springfield included comments about marquees being ready for the game. If these are inside the ground they would take up space that should be available for the other 7,000+ tickets. However, they will be filled by Corporate groups and other big spenders. If marquees are outside the ground will they set up temporary seating like they do at the Grand Prix for such groups? Regardless of the facilities for them a fair chunk of tickets would have been reserved for them. A tell tale sign of that: "Tickets for the grand final sold out hours after going on sale to the general public, with the Lions saying, should further tickets become available, they will be released via Ticketmaster on Thursday from 2pm (AEST)". Of course, 'further tickets' can only come from Reserved tickets not taken up!! AFLW GF tickets So how many tickets were available yesterday for the rank and file fans? Precious few I suggest.

It should be Kozzie...

I guess Springfield is better for us than the Gabba/Metricon where the Lions have more experience and maybe get 10 to 20,000 fans and be much louder. While it will be hot and that favours them, the humidity is forecast to be low so the ball won't be slippery and should help our skills. The ground itself doesn't offer them any advantage. It looks short which might help us in attack. We can still use the width of the ground to our advantage. Their best bet is to shut down our ball movement by attacking the player rather than trying to possess the ball. Adelaide did that and so did North but we found a way to overcome their effort. Can anyone offer some insight into what is their strengths are that we need to negate from the get go?

I had already read the article but won't give the answer away. Might note the article focuses on players from each club who have already played AFL games which reduces the options somewhat..

According to this article we have nominated him afl-draft-2022. Interestingly it shows the latter rounds of the drafted truncated to a few teams. Not sure the logic behind it. But anyway, it shows our picks as 13, 37, 78 (round 5) and 83 (round 6). While it was reported we would take two players at the draft (and promote Chandler with our last pick) there is scope to take F-EB with pick 78. Edit: I have reservations about the accuracy of the listed NGA nominations as it lists Keeler as Adelaide's nominee and they have chosen to not nominate him albeit he was eligible. Also, they have shown Kyah Farris-White as an NGA nominee but he joined us as a B-rookie. So NGA nominations are still bit of a mystery.

He retired two years ago so came back as an Unrestricted FA so could chose his club. As an aside, Brisbane will be greatly improved with McKenna, Dunkley, Gunston, Ashcroft and Fletcher.