I'd rather dip my balls in sulphuric acid.

Slightly reduced the team's talent ceiling but lifted the floor considerably IMO.

A little sad to not pick up Khamis after he nominated Carlton, but that's on the Bulldogs.

Will miss Curnow's crazy moments of sheer talent, but won't miss the failed hero ball moments that are just as, if not more frequent in his game.

Best analogy so far, spot on.

I don't disagree, but would also say we've added components to make us a better team but lost some individual talent.

We have lost some individual talent.
But we have also lost the reliance of those individuals for us to win games, now it will require a collective effort.
We have options, we will be less predictable and less vulnerable to injuries or players out of form.

Can someone explain how draft day works for us with the Harry Dean pick and whether we trade to get ahead of it?
Presumably, we would have to trade 2 first rounders eg. Picks 9 & 11 or one of those and one future first rounder to entice a team to give us picks 5 or 6, right? And the future fisrt rounder is likely to be an ordinary pick #15-#25 depending on how well we or Sydney go next year?
And, if so, don’t we still need a pick to use on Harry Dean if he is called at, say, pick 8?
Aren't we just better off using one of our existing picks on Harry and the other to pick another good young player?

How did it work for Essendon** and Kako last year?
And are the father-son/ Academy rules a bit different already this year?

I'm sure there are others who know better, but this is my understanding.
If we use pick #9 on an early bid and that is enough points we will still have pick #11, however if we require more points we use pick #11 also and get a pick back in change of equal value of the balance.
Where the issue is, is if Dean is not bid on until after pick #11, we have to trade back so we don't use the full value of pick #11 on him or we just cut our losses.
Either way we are in a good position and hopefully it is a late bid on him, but I doubt Richmond or * will be giving us a leg up.

If all goes well I hope the following happens:
Pick #9 - Sam Grlj
Pick #11 - Harry Dean
Picks #43, #54 & #67 - Jack Ison

So the best scenario it seems is if we get to the second Essendon** pick currently #6 and someone we like is still available, we could live trade 9 & 11 for 6, 27, 30.
So we take the player at 6 and 27 + 30 is enough points for the earliest possible bid which is then at 7.
This takes into account that some picks in the teens and 20s are used for matching so 27 & 30 actually come in slightly.
Essendon** could be ok with this having used 5 to then upgrade two second round picks.

Firstly picks #9 and #11 will be effectively picks #12 and #15 after academy selections.
If for example pick #7 is bid on Dean then we will need to use our pick #12 to match the bid and pick #15 will be pushed back a few spots to account for the points deficit.
Same principle applies for Ison and I hope we don't go into points deficit for next year.

Picks #27 and #30 wouldn't get enough points for Dean in 2025.
Last year it probably would have been OK but not anymore.

In a perfect world…

Sam Cumming
Harry Dean
Cameron Nairn
Jack Ison

In a less perfect world…

Harry Dean
Jack Ison
Two of Nairn, Rodriguez, Oudishoorn-Bennier, Driscoll, Holmes, Barker, Coulson, Addinsall, Prindable… or a tall, or a small…

So the best scenario it seems is if we get to the second Essendon** pick currently #6 and someone we like is still available, we could live trade 9 & 11 for 6, 27, 30.
So we take the player at 6 and 27 + 30 is enough points for the earliest possible bid which is then at 7.
This takes into account that some picks in the teens and 20s are used for matching so 27 & 30 actually come in slightly.
Essendon** could be ok with this having used 5 to then upgrade two second round picks.