Diamond_Jim

Saad has been saying he was thinking of leaving all year and Daniher was almost always certain to go. I wouldn't call it imploding but it's fair to say they are a 10-14 team with a downward arrow. Much the same as Hawthorn. Of course one has to remember they weren't too far off beating us a few weeks ago.

As you say it will be a border issue The other states are insisting on around 14-30 days free of any community transmission. For Victoria this is very unlikely given the history of this virus. The issue facing the AFL will be that they will want all their big games in the second half of the season when they have a chance of unrestricted crowds. My guess is that we will see the first four rounds announced at some stage in January/February and the next four will not be announced until the season has commenced. The natural thing would be to have mini festivals of football in SA, WA and Qld for the first four weeks assuming unlimited crowds. Perhaps four teams in Tasmania. That takes you to 18 April assuming a season start date of March 25. By that time we should know what the new normal is looking like for 2021 It would not surprise me if only for the sake of money that the Anzac day game for example is notionally moved to August. On a positive note as well as vaccines there are a lot of rapid non invasive tests being developed. If one of these proves reliable we could have a near normal 2021 while we wait for the golden needle.

Nic Nat will be 31 at the end of 2021 which would be the end of LJ's present contract. If you were LJ's manager what would you be advising him? The only thing preventing him going "home" would be our demand for a top 4 draft pick which WCE would have to trade for. I would be trying for a one year extension for LJ in the hope that he develops a like for the place (ie Melbourne).Two years may be just that little too far.

You are a very small minority I suspect. Most buyers are motivated by the attendance and then support I would think.(let me rephrase that..most buyers are motivated by apathy by virtue of the auto renewal process.) The clubs made it difficult to get refunds this year. The trick and lets's agree it was a trick of saying you could have your money back but you then went onto a waiting list for things such as the GF guarantee, reserved seating etc etc or even worse if you were an AFL or MCC member. Shoddy to say the least.

Saad needs to make it clear that he will leave if not traded. Probably the only way to deal with Dodoro. We could have had Langdon for free (pick wise) so it always amazed me that we didn't do a play similar to Carlton

Welcome aboard AD. There's an excellent thread on tactics that was started a few months back. I don't have the link but hopefully someone will put it up soon. Suggest you repost in that thread and enjoy the dialogue. The points you have raised are well worth discussing.

harsh but almost true I had hoped some other team would take on 300k of Tom's contract but you could be right. We were dumb enough to take KK so you never know.

Dodoro stuffed up Daniher's move and he's repeating the playbook for the Saad move. Clubs have to remember that restraint of trade sits like the spector at the feast if they become impossible to deal with.. Saad is worth at best a first round pick towards the end of the round.

the media money will not have recovered by then. The present reduced deal goes out to the end of 2024. Foxtel have made it clear they want a reduction of more than the AFL are offering. ( Foxtel will no longer loss lead with AFL.) It's either reduced lists or reduced salaries.The AFLPA are clearly favouring reduced lists. PS I was a big supporter of the Lewis deal but I'm not sure we will see the likes done again for the next few years. Equally there will be other senior players on offer from other clubs if you want a Casey mentoring/backup role. As they love to say these days... "it's the new normal."

In a time of reduced lists five years should be reserved for the absolute elite. It's the equivalent of an 2018 seven year deal. I hope the money in the fourth and fifth years is highly conditional.

No way will Anzac Eve have full crowds. Lucky if it is 50% capacity. QB is arguable but I suspect much the same. The sensible solution is for takings to be shared between the competing clubs in 2021 (recognizing that there was zero income in 2020) and for the rotation to recommence in 2022. The MCC money was AFL lease money. It's still there but I'm not sure whose pocket it is in at present. Transparency on stadium deals was never high on the AFL agenda. My concern is that until May all games will be played interstate which will take care of Anzac eve.

Agree..five years is 2 years too long given his form. Viney is likely to be a 5-10 ranked player at best. Hope he proves me wrong but I just can't see much upside and his present best is okay without being much more.

Agree and all the more important for the club to engage fans in innovative ways. Full crowds in Melbourne will be July/August at the earliest assuming a vaccine approved for use by January 1. WA still doesn't have full crowds and they have not had a case in Perth for literally months. Melbourne will never go virus free for 60 days or whatever the test is for full attendance before the vaccine. VFL could be a possibility given lower crowds but if it was the only "game in town" that creates its own problems. The big question is whether the AFL will hub interstate until say May and take it from there. One idea I liked (not sure if it worked) was by St Kilda who screened one of their games at a drive in. The AFL also needs to recognise that there are fans such as yourself who will be reluctant in 2021 to attend large scale events. Like we have no alcohol areas we may need strict social distancing areas where preference is given to older fans.

Because we perennially underperform and thus attract a minimum loyalty bonus. The chance of a premiership is worth 10-20% salary wise. Interstate clubs have a similar benefit when trying to recruit or retain players "native"to their state.

Interesting that there is no senior role for "fan engagement". Sure you can say its part of BD and membership but in reality after media rights money the next biggest source of income is the fans followed by sponsors. BD smacks of sponsorship and corporates whereas membership is administrative in the main I thought fans were badly treated in 2020 and were taken for granted as clubs raced for the TV rights money. Understandable but no business should take a core revenue stream for granted.

This discussion does raise the point that no one person should by virtue of their contract have the ability to frustrate the whole of the club's development. Whether Goodwin is the right coach or not is irrelevant if we are precluded from moving him on because of cost issues. The AFL has insisted that for those clubs under their funding control coaches should have a maximum pay out provision in their contracts of six months. If all clubs were to adopt this stance problem solved. Soft caps and limited budgets have made this a necessity

LH well argued but I would be concerned that your plan renders the coach too powerful. In fact the coach is already too powerful by virtue of contracts and pay levels (see Goodwin). I see the Football GM as a manager responsible for the medium to long term on field success of the club. It is the job of that person to put in place all the necessary systems to support on field success in the medium as well as the short term. Coaches are more concerned with short term success. Goodwin in 2021 is a perfect example. The dynamic between the GM and the coach is one area I think is evolving. I am not sure where the balance should be. Interesting debate to have and I would be glad to hear how this dynamic is managed in other professional sports starting with NRL and then looking overseas.

why would it be any better? Serious question 2020 we had no injuries and we had several wins under 10 points against lesser clubs. Not once did we beat a club that was better than us at the time except St Kilda and that was by a point. Membership drops by the biggest margin of any club. Chairman tells the players they are soft and the list goes on. We have a non performing forward who is in our top five paid players (T Mac), we have sold the farm for an ok at best backman (Lever) and we've thrown money at a journeyman such as Tomlinson. Sure we might luck a turn around but objectively the prognosis is not great with the present coach and gameplan.

I suggest a set of wireless earbuds programmed with every distractive noise you can think of. The aim is to completely zone out everything and kick. Can't do much harm. Plus study every ground and work out how far you can lead to the pocket before substantially reducing your accuracy. Let's face it he only needs to turn one of those behinds each week into a goal and he's a top ten goalkicker. Pity he can't practice at the MCG but we just have to be smarter with some of our training

When are clubs going to be forced to get a real alternative strip !! https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/cats-leave-jumper-clash-in-afl-s-court-20201004-p561wc.html Geelong has placed the ball squarely in the AFL's court over the prospect of a Cats-Collingwood final being marred by a uniform clash for the second straight year.

Excellent news....now for Luke J

Agree Saints remind me of the 1987/88 demons. Some very good players and lots of solid contributors many of them journeymen. Thinking back our bottom 6 in '87 were probably pretty solid.

Jealous is an understatement. A question for the experts...did the King twins play in the same under age sides as they grew up? Must have been interesting to see which one played full forward.

It's tough but no more travel. They now move to Brisbane and will stay there.

Waking up to the cold realisation that Pies could win the flag. Geelong... 50/50 Brisbane...why not Port or Richmond (slight underdogs) Pies were fortunate with their accuracy last night but there were few players who had a quiet night. Grundy, Pendlebury and De Goey.