Diamond_Jim

yeah but at least they have money and a massive waiting list for both membership and reserved seats. Agree though it's hard to put the finger on why they have failed in recent years. Perhaps the AFL needs to consider giving them a priority pick or two !! PS and who can forgive them for that year when we beat them in the finals yet because of the strange rules applying to "the six" they went on to win the GF.

I think you are right. Great year by Gawn but the challenge is and always has been to the coaching department to leverage his dominance. I would like to see him take the ball out of the ruck more and then deliver in a set play to a particular area. At the season's outset most thought Gawn's dominance would deliver us an advantage with the 6-6-6 set up but for reasons that many have tried to explain it didn't. l also think we need to consider resting him for some games or perhaps taking in Preuss (for 3-4 games) and having him ruck for say 60% of the time. Not sure the coaching staff managed him well when the season was done and dusted. He is one of the few discriminators we have. Anyway as I said great year and hopefully he has another injury free year next year.

then why do it ??

not if you have effectively been out of the pointy end of the draft for X years and desperately need to top up your quality youngsters. But perhaps we just negotiate differently

good point... looking at it objectively you would think the two possibilities are absolutely line ball. I suppose you could say it's the equivalent of the club backing itself which excites some supporters but PR aside it's strange.

it's actually slightly lower than one in five and near one in six who reach 100 games. Only one in three reach 50. AFL is a tough gig and is by no means a gravy train for the vast bulk of players

Partially agree on the probabilities but see no reason to give up the advantage. We desperately need to recruit some quality youngsters and we need every advantage we can get

cannot understand why we needed to drop four places in the second round this year. Marginal negotiation skills demonstrated again given we had the PSD card. Still better than giving away this years second that so many here were happy with

the strategic advantage of this trade (player ability aside) is that we upgraded this years fourth round pick to a mid tier second round next year. Not great but in the scheme of things probably more worthwhile recruitment wise than a mid tier third round pick this year which is what everybody has said would be "fair value" whatever this means. I'll give this one a tick PS missed this years pick 42 (high third) that we are giving as well... deal is marginal at best

where are GCS going to find the salary plus the term and do you think they would take a player who says he wants to play in another state. If there were four clubs between us and Langdon it might be a large risk but to those in the know (and I hope our negotiators are in the know) the risk is perfectly quantifiable and capable of being hedged.

time to stop playing the GWS game and taking their cast offs in return for allowing them to draft the guns. Their modus operandi is so old and transparent it is almost amusing. Tyson anyone ???

GCS were always low risk to take Langdon so the option has been there for a long time. It just needed to be played out properly and Freo would have been ripe for a thrid rounder or a deferred second

especially when it doesn't need to be paid. Won't surprise me though.... To me the value is what is paid to the player...the trade to the former club is just a device... nothing fair or otherwise about it. Ask the power clubs using the Free agency to pillage the lesser clubs.

we would be mad not to. It's one of the few upsides from this disastrous year. Our pick 2 is almost a high pick 1. Should get us something decent at the draft and we need some quality draftees. My offer to Freo would be this years third or next years second. If not PSD.

Good points . Another way is looking at our performances against the various non finalists. Other than Tom Mac and his outing against Freo(?) it's hard to recall any player "ripping" it apart as you would expect a better player to do against the lesser teams. Our few wins were mainly "team performances" which while gratifying don't help individual ranking

Freo are predictable and deserve to be dealt with accordingly.

wouldn't we all like to know the answer to that question. MFCSS tells us that those six weeks or so of 2018 was as good as it's going to get but forever hopeful because if he doesn't fire in 2020 it's hard to see us going far.

and doesn't get reported in round 1 let alone the practice match.

Would be interesting to see how he ranked the coach? C or C- is my ranking

Wood signed a four-year contract with the Roos in 2016, estimated to be in the range of $450-500,000 a season, which will expire at the end of 2020.Aug 15, 2019 https://www.afl.com.au/news/2019-08-15/roos-future-uncertain-could-be-up-for-endofyear-trade

Showed in 2018 that he has an excellent football brain. Something few in our team seem to readily exhibit. Needs to regain his ability to find space and then deliver to advantage. His Casey form in 2019 was rather low which to say the least is worrying. I say that because most players look good in a winning team and thus at AFL level the whole team struggled but Casey had a reasonable season and one might have expected better. I don't think the seemingly unstated policy of resting players after dropping them from the senior team did him any favours either.

Being reported that Essendon may be interested in Mason Cox from the Pies. Opens up the possibility of trade of Weideman to the Pies. Now that would be a hard one to value.

must say I wondered the same thing but at the very least it gave some context to what he will be asking for and one can assume that it is in the ballpark of what the Blues are offering.

didn't a few teams isolate him and he lost out badly in his first few matches. For this trade to make sense given the picks traded and his salary he needs to deliver big in 2020

That's not right when you are one of the also rans such as ourselves, Bulldogs Saints etc. It's all about giving your supporters both a competitive team and some hope. Whatever you may say North have done that very well over the last twenty odd years. I think most of us on this board would be quite happy to have North's record rather than our own