Diamond_Jim

Thanks Ethan... so the catch is you lose the occasional sports program such as overseas tours by the cricket team, NFL etc. plus of course the soccer if you are into those things. At least being able to do it online avoids the interminable phone waits.

Cannot see much reason for substantial improvement by Essendon (7th at best) but I would expect Carlton to improve to around 10-12. Collingwood could drop off quickly and finish around 14-17. (Interesting to see if they play Moore down back and then make the big play for Lynch at years end.) Hawthorn and St Kilda are hard to pick as are the Eagles. Each could end up anywhere between 6 and 12. GWS, Adelaide , Swans will definitely feature in the 8 somewhere. Probably Geelong also because of home ground advantage. Freo , Gold Coast, North and Brisbane for the bottom four. Leaves Richmond, MFC, Port, and Bulldogs fighting it out (along with the Hawks, Saints and Eagles) for the four remaining places in the 8 The absolute key to the season is beating the bottom 4 whoever they maybe. To state the obvious two losses to North will almost finish our chances. So unless you count Richmond as a definite there are 8 teams fighting for four spots in the 8. Have the feeling that 2018 is going to be a "long" season.

Out of curiosity ... do Fox make it "easy" for subscribers to cancel Fox Footy over the summer months?

29 is mid second round ... this would be a high draft pick for Fritsch. I think he is more likely to go late second round or first half of the third. To use 29 will be a hard decision as it is apparent that we need once again to start looking at topping up our mid fielders given our midfield age profile and the lack of obvious starter talent at Casey. Not sure that he will bulk up much more. Undoubted contested marking skills. If we had not drafted Lever you could argue that he may develop into an intercept player capable of playing back and forward. Watched him play about five times this year. Cannot recall much in the way of outstanding ground skills but I may well have missed that attribute in the scrum that is often VFL football. Hard choice for the recruitment team.

I can see a whole off season challenge here ... picking teams with players whose surname begins with the same letter followed by a virtual play off. Wonder how the Z's would perform and has there ever been an X'er?

they beat us in Round 23 while missing several players ... how do you rank us?

The problem with 2018 is that the bottom 8 are getting stronger. Who are the bottom 4 likely to be... Freo, North, Brisbane and Gold Coast perhaps. Now will we beat them all (and if we play them twice will it be both times) ... that is worth 6-7 games in itself. Going into 2018 I am less optimistic than I was about 2017. The reason being was our end of season fade out when notwithstanding that most players had returned from injury we were ordinary at best. My target for 2018 is positions 3-6 and win two finals. Not unrealistic but there will need to be a quantitative improvement for that to occur and that includes improvement in the coaching team. Less than 13 wins is a big fail. Finally 2017 showed that there were a number of Casey players who will not make it at AFL level which makes the job even harder. As you might gather I am getting a little tired after 10 plus years of abject under-performance,

More of a TKO unfortunately ADC in that all they are doing is offering refunds to some customers and changing their advertisment. Not doing anything to revert to the old screen size. Live sport continues to be one of the major battlegrounds in the online/cable world and unfortunately the war will go on for quite a while I think. Interesting that the world of kodi add ons seems to be attracting the attention of the big anti piracy players as it starts to eat into their market.

Last year we had 4 specialised ruckmen on our list. Admittedly they were at different stages of development but that was at least one and I suspect two too many. There has to be another way to develop the players through that 18- 24 year old period. Would much prefer one of those two places to go to a back up KPP player who provided solid ruck relief at VFL level. Perhaps the other to a specialist small forward.

Fantastic job. Well done. On a serious note it underscores the importance of oral histories. I hope the club is doing something to ensure that the history is preserved. An example could be all captains and/or all players over 100 games. Hearing their voices is so emotive.

The whole idea of the ruckman is up for debate. I am starting to think that you have one maybe two at the most and then you back it up with KPP/Ruck players. These are competent Casey level players who would ruck for that team at least one quarter per game. The idea of grooming future ruckmen is just too fraught with chance and ties up list spots. I also think it is relatively easy to go into the trade season and pick up another club's back up ruckman in return for a promise that they will be first ruck. Coming into 2017 I was excited by the dominance that Gawn could deliver. Injuries aside my thoughts have now changed and while I think rucks are useful they are rarely winners. Will be very interesting to see how Natanui and Gawn perform in 2018.

Pick 31 has 3 players (Shane Wakelin, Paul Chapman and Jake Sinclair) around or above 200 games. Take them out (you are talking 31 year averages) and the average number of games played drops down substantially. Perhaps better to look at the median level of games which I suspect is around or below 30 games for pick 31. By the way we got Jakovich for pick 6 but of course he only played 47 games. The top game players for pick 6 were Kepler Bradley and Chad Wingard both at just above 100 games. As you say a cursed pick.

so I assume no one wanted Kent? Says a lot for our depth players

I know it's special circumstances etc but one cannot help but note that we have lost another home grown veteran. Now that Watts has gone I think that leaves only Jones and Gawn as MFC drafted players over 25... (Vandenberg technically qualifies as well I think)

WOW... just wow Almost Howard Hughesque

I like the one year but it does confirm that the FD think he is a long shot. Good luck.

Very surprised by the AFL decision. Dubdee's was my fist reaction but when you do some reading the answer is obvious. The IOC have been dealing with this issue for some time and have clear rules based on testosterone levels. Mauricey clearly satisfied the testosterone levels as a female athlete. End of issue from my viewpoint.

no problem with trading Macca. It is simply that the terms of the trade whichever way you look at it simply do not make sense.

Someone earlier posted $165K or thereabouts which was a third. What was your source for the higher figure? The basics of this trade are so flawed that it becomes more unbelievable by the day. How not to negotiate and trash your limited brand in one exercise. Sorry if I have little faith in the football department but they have done nothing to command the blind faith that many on this board seem to exhibit.

on no level is this a good deal. Whatever you think of him he's better than what we will get at pick 31 (sure I could win Tattslotto but unlikely). And then we part pay his salary so the idea that somehow that it will free up money is a misnomer. So we are left only with the send a message brigade... that is so old school it does not need to be discussed

tough ... uncompromising ... etc etc ... seems we had a coach like that in recent years. This will be a big year and not just for the playing group

Once upon a time we had four Jacks and now there is one. Hope this is not an omen for the last Jack and his "foot."

ok... but if that were true you would still expect the number of trades to remain relatively constant across the board in the sense that at any one time there will always be teams at the various evolutionary points. Still does not really explain the absence of trades this year. Also if you accept that this year is a "shallow" draft you would expect a higher number of trades as teams try to compensate for the lack of talent in the second round etc

contrary to the collective wisdom on the Jake Lever where the "experts" kept telling everyone that a player beats a speculative draft pick any day of the week.

Fascinating .... wonder what is the driving force in the change