Because it shrinks to nothing?

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Formerly: Ackland the Wonderkid / Army the Wonderkid / quivering mess / molsey / Tony Lynn Fan Club

All plausible.

Preference would be to retain Hendo as a CHB.....have to make tough calls ie yarran and Menzel (both are luxuries)

Looking at the ressies' last Saturday we don't have much else in the bank (other than possibly Byrne)

Agree. But also his body language doesnt do him any favours. He looks laconic and as though he doesnt give a toss. That surely gets passionate supporters goat up.

Praise the lord , haalay luyah!,

Now, I know I am a bit of a worrier but is anyone else concerned that we have only re-signed 2 players so far this year. Admittedly they were important players in Cripps and Docherty but we still have about one third of our list out of contract.

...............why should we be rushing to re-sign a third of a list that is favourite for the spoon?

I know what you are saying but some of these are in our current best 22 in Henderson, Kreuzer, Curnow , Carrazzo and Armfield.

Carrazzo? retire.

Armfield - had a purple patch. I wouldn't be in a rush to re-sign him. Doubt he's in demand.

Kreuzer - just came back from injury. Give it time.

Lachie - trade bait. Club's choice despite what media is spouting.

Curnow - could be used to get picks needed to get SOSOS & Rice.

Kreuzer and Hendo are the only two there I care about.

Kreuzer has publicly stated he's not leaving and has rebuffed offers in the past. LOCK.
Hendo wants to play for us, won't hang us out to dry, can trade if right deal comes along. LOCK.

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dane's trolling again

A top 3 pick or Kreuzer ?

I'd take the top 3 pick.

Not sure why you'd pass up the best 8 years of his career for that, particularly in this draft.

Either way, we have first refusal for any offer sheet.

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29 different attributes,
And only 7 that you like;
20 ways to see the world,
Or 20 ways to start a fight.

Yep, with Warnock gone, Kreuzer is almost untouchable now. Aside from the fact he's bloody good.

There is no point even discussing a Kruezer trade. Won't happen. Simple.

Trade options of any possible value are Henderson, Yarran & Menzel. That's about it.

At best we will trade 1 or 2 but that's about it.

I hope some way we can grab another 1 or 2 picks inside top 20 but it won't be easy. In the end I hope for once we can get the majority of our picks in the draft right. That's the key.

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#NewBlues beginning 25th August 2015

who said anything about a trade ?

or compensation, or him leaving or anything else. He isn't going anywhere

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#NewBlues beginning 25th August 2015

Thankfully, you're not in charge of our list development.. When you're a bottom 3 team, you don't necessarily want to be signing up all players in your best 22. Think about it, would curnow, carrazzo and armfield be re-signed by the likes of hawthorn, sydney, freo? NO... For a list such as ours who are right at the start of a rebuild, we need to cull, not re-sign, just because they currently play in our ordinary "best 22".

Carrazzo situation reminds me a little of ryan O'Keefe at sydney last year. Difference though is that Sydney and coach Longmire refused to let reputation and past performance get in the way of astutue list management with a medium to long term vision. Carlton needs to take a leaf out of their list mgt books, and make the right call on players like Carrazzo, for the clubs medium to long term sake.

I think players such as armfield , carazzo , curnow etc would be role players in many teams. Look at laidler. Garlett. But there is no way that carazzo would be on the huge money that he is at carlton. Armfield would just be another piece in the teams fabric. Same for curnow. Its not their skills per se, its the surrounding players that make them look worse than they are. They need better players surrounding them, that maintain the teams structure and momentum when the pressure is on. But players such as murphy, gibbs are not mentally tough enough to do this, therefore it falls to players such as carazzo and armfield and curnow to step up when the pressure is on, and whilst they have leadership qualities, they are not equipped physically or skills wise to do this successfully and so make errors and draw the ire of us faithful supporters..
Its down to Kreuzer and maybe simpson at the moment with the demise of judd and thomas this year. I think that is why mm called kreuzer the recruit of the season before the season started. He regarded his leadership and desire very highly. He recruited daisy for the same traits. He must have been exasperated when kreuzer was unavailable and daisy went down. That just left an ageing judd .
Its an indictment on murphy and gibbs that they cannot stand up when they are really needed.
I think good teams have a core group of 8-10 players that have the leadership and desire to overcome on a regular basis the pressure that other teams try to place on them. They can collectively lift when they are required to, and the drag the role players back into the game at the same time. We desperately dont need any more role players, we need, either through development or recruitment to more if these core leadership Group of players.
My list for next year.
1 kreuzer
2 simpson
3 cripps
4 docherty
5 thomas

Which means we are about 5 short. I am hopeful that from the irish trio we can add 1-2 more. Tuohy seems to be back on track. Byrne and sheehan seem to have the right attitude but are not there yet obviously. Maybe graham can step up as well.

Players that are skilful and that we expect big things from but are not leadership material are
Yarran
Henderson
Murphy
Gibbs
Menzel

I think its no coincidence that their names are the ones most frequently put up for trade.. They have the sexiness that will attract other teams and have trade value, yet at the same time, do not have enough mental strength/ leadership to rise above adversity and often go missing in the big pressure games. Because of this they are not really integral to our leadership structure and team performance.
Strong sides are under no illusion about such players and are often getting overs for them during trade, whilst all the time they are searching for the real leadership gems. We have been guilty of falling for the sexy trade in the past. Players like warnock come to mind. Other players have been recruited following good performances against us regardless .
If we are going to make a huge play for a player he MUST be both elite in skill AND leadership./character. I can see why daisy fitted that criteria, that is why i have the ( minority) view that he was worth the play. Pity about his second injury.
Judd of course is a once in a lifetime opportunity , so was ablett. Normally these sorts of players do not come up as they are the epitome of every performance criteria.

Many words. Little substance.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

Yeah, let's keep everyone who has played anything at least vaguely resembling a purple patch 'just in case' and hopefully we'll fall into a premiership in 2046.

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Just because I'm offended, doesn't mean I'm wrong.

That's been the thinking for more than a decade. People get emotional about players. How about being agggressive and look at building a list that will win a Premiership?

Just a thought?

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#NewBlues beginning 25th August 2015