Changes Round 8 vs Freo

[Golden_6]

Worth bearing in mind that it was effectively Lindsay for Carmichael + Budarick.

I can see how you see it that way but I don't. There were other avenues to acquiring a pick for Budarick than downgrading our first rounder.

 

[dogsuperfan]

Carmichael has a whole career ahead of him but it looks like we missed out on one in Lindsay. Looks a gun already.

I still think we should've picked Harley Barker.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

To forum members who watch a lot of VFL,
Keen to hear comments about AFL listed players who haven’t debuted yet and who might be ready to step up into the senior side.
E.G L. Kennedy, and Charmichael.

Are they ready, tracking well or struggling at VFL level?

Kennedy is a good runner who is skillful off both feet but isn't as composed in traffic as you'd like for a guy who plays midfielder and not really any other position. And probably isn't as athletic enough other than being a guy who runs/motors all day, ie, he's not that tall, strong, agile, quick.

Carmichael is natural reader of the play who makes good decisions with ball in hand and is skillful and clean with ball in hand. Like you would trust him to make the right decisions kicking-in, and his vision is excellent before making the decision. But he lacks a bit of athleticism, his running capacity while okay isn't outstanding (and half back flankers who are short are often cover the most territory in a game). He also lacks a bit of straight line speed agility to break the lines off half back. And lastly, while he competes well for his size defensively tackling/marking, he simply lacks the size in the first place (he is "merely" 184cm with a short wingspan and still skinny given his age, rather than being taller and having greater ability to jump etc).

Carmichael tracking better, his VFL ball use is very good, I think but I also think with an interrupted pre-season we want to build him up match fitness wise so we're not exposed if he's struggling to run and get to contests if it's a really open game.

 

[Redders98]

No Bont, Ed, or Libba on the track today.

Slightly concerning or just letting them ease into the week?

 

[Doggy]

No Bont, Ed, or Libba on the track today.

Slightly concerning or just letting them ease into the week?

It's only Monday.

They will do the main session in a few days.

English there? Jones?

 

[Cudi]

Sounds like Naughton and Libba good chance to play.

 

[lachy]

To forum members who watch a lot of VFL,
Keen to hear comments about AFL listed players who haven’t debuted yet and who might be ready to step up into the senior side.
E.G L. Kennedy, and Charmichael.

Are they ready, tracking well or struggling at VFL level?

L Kennedy is tracking ok but given the lack of experience currently in the team I am not sure he is ready. Charmichael is also doing ok. For both I would say we would just be getting games into them at the moment and we need to be a little more patient

 

[Sentinel]

I can see how you see it that way but I don't. There were other avenues to acquiring a pick for Budarick than downgrading our first rounder.

Fair call.

However I don't agree that assessing the trade 7 weeks into year 1 is a great idea though.

 

[House_of_Dahl]

Apparently Naughton at training today and moving well!

 

[bedford]

Kennedy is a good runner who is skillful off both feet but isn't as composed in traffic as you'd like for a guy who plays midfielder and not really any other position. And probably isn't as athletic enough other than being a guy who runs/motors all day, ie, he's not that tall, strong, agile, quick.

Carmichael is natural reader of the play who makes good decisions with ball in hand and is skillful and clean with ball in hand. Like you would trust him to make the right decisions kicking-in, and his vision is excellent before making the decision. But he lacks a bit of athleticism, his running capacity while okay isn't outstanding (and half back flankers who are short are often cover the most territory in a game). He also lacks a bit of straight line speed agility to break the lines off half back. And lastly, while he competes well for his size defensively tackling/marking, he simply lacks the size in the first place (he is "merely" 184cm with a short wingspan and still skinny given his age, rather than being taller and having greater ability to jump etc).

Carmichael tracking better, his VFL ball use is very good, I think but I also think with an interrupted pre-season we want to build him up match fitness wise so we're not exposed if he's struggling to run and get to contests if it's a really open game.

Sorry to but in , but biased with Luke Kennedy , he was going well on Friday with 18 disposals to Half Time before coping a stray elbow to the eye and spent 6 hours in the eye and ear hospital .
Thankfully he is okay with a torn eye lid and hopefully will only miss one game , he will just get better and better

 

[threenewpadlocks]

I can see how you see it that way but I don't. There were other avenues to acquiring a pick for Budarick than downgrading our first rounder.

Fair call.

However I don't agree that assessing the trade 7 weeks into year 1 is a great idea though.

In fairness, even if Budarick was a pretty "fringe" player that could be acquired cheaply, it was a pretty weak draft. If other club in another year was happy just to move on Budarick, they may have done so for a pick in the 40s or 50s and simply copped that later live draft selection in a stronger overall draft. AFIAK pick 35 in last year's draft was like pick 50 in a typical draft, was how I had it explained to me by a "source".

It's why the draft dropped off so dramatically after around pick 40, with many teams even drafting mature-agers instead: only 58 actual live, newly eligible 18 year olds were added to all AFL lists last year via the national and rookie drafts, compared to 79 in 2024.

On the other hand, we did actually benefit somewhat via bidding system arbitrage. GC wanted the points, not the live draft pick. If Budarick was literally the same player for Carlton, we probably would of have to had paid out an earlier pick in the 30s to get him, or at least get to that point via offering an additional future 3rd or whatever.

Although it's contracted vs uncontracted but not like for like, it's the same reason why we didn't give up Khamis. Whatever live pick we would have gotten for him we might have just taken into the draft as an additional live pick in a weak draft. What's not to say that we would have traded that current pick for a future pick, the same future pick that we'd get for Khamis now anyway should he want to leave us while OOC. And at least in the interim we get Khamis this year alone producing on a cheap contract.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Sorry to but in , but biased with Luke Kennedy , he was going well on Friday with 18 disposals to Half Time before coping a stray elbow to the eye and spent 6 hours in the eye and ear hospital .
Thankfully he is okay with a torn eye lid and hopefully will only miss one game , he will just get better and better

I thought he was playing pretty well to read Ladhams' dominance, but some of his ball use was pretty patchy, lots of his quick handballs at stoppages were knocked down/not clean etc.

Personally, I don't think it's all that impressive that any AFL-listed player that plays onball in a VFL game gets a lot of touches - there's the default expectation already baked into via being a listed player that they should get more touches than the VFL player next to them in the stoppage. I don't mean he played badly and he played better than some of his other games, but I was responding to a question about how far away he is to stepping up to AFL level. Still a way off in my opinion, even though his improvement this week is a good sign.

I'm glad the injury was not that bad too and hopefully he comes back fit and firing.

 

[go_sports_team]

Apparently Naughton at training today and moving well!

 

[Optimistic Dog]

I think we are middle of the road team without many injuries. Before the season started, I thought we finish 5th or 6th and even with a 4 nil start did not think we were any better. Got the lions at the right time still was good win. The giants are our bunnies and had injuries. The crows I rated about our level and that was good win.

We were terrible against the bombers in the second half. Injuries and form since have been a disaster. In hindsight I think 5th or 6th with good run of injuries was probably a bit high.
]
Where we finish will depend on how quickly we get the troops back but without Sam I am thinking about 10th.

 

[Doggy]

I think we are middle of the road team without many injuries. Before the season started, I thought we finish 5th or 6th and even with a 4 nil start did not think we were any better. Got the lions at the right time still was good win. The giants are our bunnies and had injuries. The crows I rated about our level and that was good win.

We were terrible against the bombers in the second half. Injuries and form since have been a disaster. In hindsight I think 5th or 6th with good run of injuries was probably a bit high.
]
Where we finish will depend on how quickly we get the troops back but without Sam I am thinking about 10th.

So optimistic you even made excuses for those we beat.

 

[Doggies7]

So sounds like English is still a watch, but having put in a big session Saturday (which we tend to usually do and hear about before they return the next week) and with still 4 days before the game, might get Tim back this week. If so my changes would be:

IN - English, Libba, Coffield, Jones or VDM

OUT - Emmett, Hynes, Gardner, Treloar (Have a feeling he might not get up and may be managed as soreness same as after VFL game a few weeks back).

I would go close to a 50/50 ruck split and let Tim play more forward to help Naughty and reduce the bash and crash on his knee a bit, can also have him floating back a bit more to help the defenders this week. Backline may be a bit small with Buss, Coff and Buku, but I feel like Coffield could go with Amiss (who is in decent form), Buss with Treacy and Buku with Voss. It's not pretty but I don't think Gardy would help too much more really, it's going to more about winning it in the middle and not giving the ball back to Freo.

I like adding Arty or VDM (If Arty needs a VFL run) for some more pace and forward nous over Hynes.

 

[Optimistic Dog]

So optimistic you even made excuses for those we beat.

Optimistic doggy where do think we will finish and what did you this before the start.

 

[Doggy]

Optimistic doggy where do think we will finish and what did you this before the start.

I'm hardly fully optimistic but it's pretty deflating coming on here mostly seeing sky is falling crap all the time. Some of us log in to have a bit of an escape from our busy lives and don't only want to see negativity. It's draining.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

As much as I understand the idea of dropping Gardner for a 3rd tall in Coffield (or Cleary) and backing Khamis in to be the 2nd tall, this isn't the week you do it. Cox off the bench rucking but playing some forward, Treacy, Amiss and Voss are all strong forwards that will absolutely monster Coffield or Khamis.

We can still bring in Coffield (or Cleary) as an option, being a bit taller in defence generally. Bramble will simply go back to playing wing/half forward (replacing Hynes or West that we drop instead of Gardner). Maybe a bit of speed lost out of defence, but Fremantle move the ball slowly and without risk, hence why they're only rank 9 for points for (while being rank 2 for points against). You can go with a taller defensive group line, because they're not going to expose your lack of defensive speed/groundball winning via sharp, open forward line ball movement.

Gardner wasn't good at all, I agree, but you hope that he can get some of his contest losts vs Amartey/Curnow out of his system and he's better for how to play these contests. He showed enough by closing contests, putting a body on forwards and spoiling the ball effectively when some of our other defender failed to.

 

[Snarls Barkley]

As much as I understand the idea of dropping Gardner for a 3rd tall in Coffield (or Cleary) and backing Khamis in to be the 2nd tall, this isn't the week you do it. Cox off the bench rucking but playing some forward, Treacy, Amiss and Voss are all strong forwards that will absolutely monster Coffield or Khamis.

We can still bring in Coffield (or Cleary) as an option, being a bit taller in defence generally. Bramble will simply go back to playing wing/half forward (replacing Hynes or West that we drop instead of Gardner). Maybe a bit of speed lost out of defence, but Fremantle move the ball slowly and without risk, hence why they're only rank 9 for points for (while being rank 2 for points against). You can go with a taller forward line, because they're not going to expose your lack of defensive speed/groundball winning.

Gardner wasn't good at all, I agree, but you hope that he can get some of his contest losts vs Amartey/Curnow out of his system and he's better for how to play these contests. He showed enough by closing contests, putting a body on forwards and spoiling the ball effectively when some of our other defender failed to.

If you're going to lose the contest anyway you may as well have someone who isn't a net negative with the ball as well. I think there is no justification to go back to Gardner but I expect we will

 

[threenewpadlocks]

If you're going to lose the contest anyway you may as well have someone who isn't a net negative with the ball as well. I think there is no justification to go back to Gardner but I expect we will

Fair point too. I'm just trying to find a way to move Bramble out of defence in fairness. While he wasn't as bad vs Sydney there as he was vs Hawks and Geelong, I'm just finding a bit strange how happy we were to move him straight back when he played surprisingly very well across half-forward in the first 3 games of the season.

 

[Snarls Barkley]

Fair point too. I'm just trying to find a way to move Bramble out of defence in fairness. While he wasn't as bad vs Sydney there as he was vs Hawks and Geelong, I'm just finding a bit strange how happy we were to move him straight back when he played surprisingly very well across half-forward in the first 3 games of the season.

I would also prefer Bramble out of the backline. Think he was very decent as half forward / wing

He's been serviceable enough there the past few years but don't think he adds many traits that add to the side. He's not a great lockdown player, not an interceptor, an ok kick but there was still an unhealthy reliance on Dale being the one to get us out of defense the last few years. He's sort of just ok at everything. Thought he added more further up the ground but until Carmichael is ready there seems like very few options. Gallagher played there last year but think he is far to poor of a user to be the replacement

 

[threenewpadlocks]

I would also prefer Bramble out of the backline. Think he was very decent as half forward / wing

He's been serviceable enough there the past few years but don't think he adds many traits that add to the side. He's not a great lockdown player, not an interceptor, an ok kick but there was still an unhealthy reliance on Dale being the one to get us out of defense the last few years. He's sort of just ok at everything. Thought he added more further up the ground but until Carmichael is ready there seems like very few options. Gallagher played there last year but think he is far to poor of a user to be the replacement

It's only a minor issue until Budarick comes back from injury. The fact that we didn't have a defender we could pick to replace him (or Jaques when we managed him for a week before Budarick's injury) shows you how lacking in depth we are in that position. Cleary despite playing 20 games last year and being fit clearly isn't trusted enough to play a similar Budarick/Jaques rule yet.

 

[BigFloppa]

I'm hardly fully optimistic but it's pretty deflating coming on here mostly seeing sky is falling crap all the time. Some of us log in to have a bit of an escape from our busy lives and don't only want to see negativity. It's draining.

If you want optimism, I'm absolutely bullish about our 2027. I reckon we'll finish top 4.

This season is over though. Next win will be in round 18.

 

[Doggy]

If you want optimism, I'm absolutely bullish about our 2027. I reckon we'll finish top 4.

This season is over though. Next win will be in round 18.

You're not even good at trolling anymore. You might even be better at your job now.