We have prepared to pay to Draft Walker, with two picks we have banked on him, and possibly a tiny deficit.

From there we do our best to secure the best hand for next year: FA, Trade and a surprise or two from the Sate Leagues. A No 1 Ruck, a KPF, a speedy HB a quality Mid, a new coach and another preseason under the kids' belts.

Getting a player like Riley in next week's MSD is a bonus we can do with, but not the end of the world if we don't. He doesn't fill the need for a bonafide No 1 ruck to win or nullify our biggest weakness imo, the CB. We will know in a few days time.

Walker is ours. He joins Walsh and Smith in the midfield. The future looks bright again.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

Weitering doesn’t hate to lose. He’s got that rusted on selfishness that just gets him through the weeks.

“Why give 100% when 35% will get you paid and laid.”

He’s had one game of proper selfless team defence & he’s gone into a reboot cycle of ‘tightness’ and ‘awareness’.

Port, Scum, Tigers, WEagles, Filth. I think they’re all gettable & we probably won’t climb up the ladder. We might find ourselves having won seven on the bounce, sitting 8-8 going up against the poos & wees. That’s not going to restore the damaged culture.

If they want redemption, it starts at Moorabbin. If the senior group can’t put up a fight there, elevate themselves above this inter-company scratch match intensity that they bring, then all they will have done is cut the legs out from under the future generations.

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"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter" - Winston Churchill.

Doc you’re the Williamstown guru - what’s your take on Joel Fitzgerald, knocks up getting possessions in the VFL, is he worth a look in MSD or not what we need right now?

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"Hence you will not say that Greeks fight like heroes but that heroes fight like Greeks"?

Winston Churchill

He's Willy's Tom Stewart with one exception. Joel is great when he doesn't have responsibility for an opponent. Reads the play extremely well, great overhead, brings others into the play, but at the top level he'd get lost I reckon.

So Jason Cloke then.

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“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace turns into a circus.”
Turkish Proverb

so, an immediate upgrade over anything we have, is what you're saying.

Watching Matt Carroll have a good season, Jagga impress last night and provide plenty of excitement for the future, along with the recent improvement of Wilson and Cowan, makes me think Austin did a reasonable job. He was probably treated a bit harshly and made a scapegoat for our poor performances under Voss.

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'The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule it'
H.L. Mencken

It certainly could end up working out that way.

Binns and Lemmey have probably been his biggest busts thus far. His last couple of years don't seem to have been too bad, but time will tell.

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The Artist Formerly Known As BamBam7

Yeah, I thought he was pretty good. But I also thought the Binns choice was pretty strange.

I’m a bit concerned that the position will be rewritten with much of the work turned over to an LLM.

If you give a hammer to an idiot, he’s not a carpenter. He’s a dangerous idiot.

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"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter" - Winston Churchill.

Exhibit A: bluehammer

Sent from my moto g54 5G using Tapatalk

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#DonTheStash

Might be worth looking at the 202 cm Key Forward Will Elliott in the mid season draft . Former Oakleigh Chargers / Preston now Werribee . Elliott can take a grab and kick a goal . Any thoughts recruiting guru's .

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All my dangerous friends

Well he’s probably photographed the Carpenters…

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“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace turns into a circus.”
Turkish Proverb

This weekend we had 11 players unavailable.

Young kids O'Farrell 20, Hollands 20, Lord 21, Campo.L 20, Monohan 21, and now we can add 20yo Carroll all injured.

Got me thinking back to the days of the deep cuts SOS made to the list only to see our injury list stay high for years.

Looking at Effendopes and Tiggers injury list reminded me how SOS got it so wrong cutting so deep.
Those 2 teams playing in the Dreamtime game prove teams need to surround and support their kids with senior bodies, with experience, possessing high footy IQ in a comp where the game is at its most brutal.

Last night our 20ish yo kids Ison 19, Byrne 19, Cowan 21, Dean 19, Wilson 21, Carroll 20 and Smith 20 did well, but were supported by senior bodies and we won comfortably. Winning made the kids feel good and confident about the future. Not the same can be said about Effendope and Tiggers kids.

If senior players Cripps, Hewett Walsh Florent Hayward Newman Haynes McKay McGovern Cerra and Ainsworth weren't there to support the kids and lead them to victory, the kids would have been lambs to the slaughter. I'm sure if the leadership and support was left to 'young' players like Kemp, Derksen, Evans, Young and the like, the kids would have been smashed in the trenches, week in week out. Their bodies couldnt sustain be on the front line.

We have to learn from history that we need the older statesmen, and cutting the list hard, for picks before Tassie will not be helpful for sustained success for our team and kids, let alone survival.

Looking at the above kids on our list, we can all agree we have plenty of good kids. Heaps. We will add Walker, and if we want to draft more kids from our 2026 3 x 2nd rounders, 2027 first and second rounder, and a 2028 first and second rounder to an already young list. But we will also see senior experienced players like Williams, Acres, Gov, Saad, Haynes, Fogarty and Boyd retired this year; Cripps and Newman the following year.

We need to replace those players with senior experience to help the kids develop. We might have a compromised Draft for next 4 years, but we still have a war chest to attract FA and Trade a few of those Draft picks for experience, and not all our picks, and more, have to be used on kids.

2 years on, we will have Koutoufides, Scotland, Thornton and Arli Walker coming to us. Plenty of 'known' kids in the pipeline we will develop as we have Ison and walker.

IMO its important to keep our bookends, and do whatever we can to land a great No 1 ruck to supply the kids from next year onwards, respect the role Senior players play in the fabric of team, and its inevitable with a bit of care in our culling, we will be a success.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

I'm no guru.

Can he jump at a CB, or is he an improvement on Kemp and Gov, or 20yo O'Keefe?

Can he ruck? How old is he?

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

Not sure . That's why I'm asking . I remember watching him at Preston and I was struck by his overhead ability . I also tuned into the Collingwood V Werribee VFL match on the weekend and same deal . He was grabbing them . But that's just a small sample size Bondi and I may have struck him on his good days . Just wondering how his form stacks up over the long haul . Got a feeling he may have been Captain of Oakleigh Chargers at one point .

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All my dangerous friends

Same class as O’Keeffe. He was the #1, but there was something about his knee issues that saw him miss out.

Can play.

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"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter" - Winston Churchill.

OK thanks Cruz ............ I always maintain a good big man hurts you in the air .

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All my dangerous friends

As well as lack of an elite ruck or rucking depth. a lack of height really showed in the VFL game this week with Derksen playing AFL it was only Lewy Young down back and Moir and Farrah as our tall timber up forward. i was there for the first 3/4s and we just looked so undersized all over the ground against a more mature bodied but definitively taller side in Coburg. Go to see when I left they kicked 7 goals after managing 3 for the first 3 quarters. wheels came off in the twos with three or more regulars out.

If the AFL are successful in putting protocols in place to prevent what happened to Elijah happening again to _any_ AFL player (as they seem to think is possible given that they fined CFC) then why is he 100% delisted? But maybe BamBam knows something most of us don't know. Seems to me a set of specific protocols for 'Lij wouldn't be hard for a professional medical team to establish and protect him from a repeat incident, if he actually wants to keep playing at AFL level. Otherwise the AFL measures being considered aren't worth the paper they're written on. Optics wouldn't be good if intention is to delist him. But if not the optics would be ok, assuming he wants to do another preseason and try again. who knows ? (rhetorical question, i dont think anybody here really knows all the details, nor should they share them if they did).