Aggree 100%.

I don't care about draft picks. I care about development - something we have serious lacked!

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"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit"
- Aristotle

I only used "kids, kids & kids" because it stood out and I thought it was a good comment to use. As is aboves.

If I'm excited about anything at the moment, its Kreuzer. Even though I'm guilty of calling for him to be traded, if he comes good for us I'll be the first to say I got that one horribly wrong. What a story it would be, everything he's gone through to finally come good and we win a flag with him in the team. My hypocrisy knows no bounds ...

And he is still our best ruckman. Keep Kreuzer.

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Essendon-Only team to have ever been found guilty of salary cap breaches in a premiership year!

I'll put it out there again.....Jon Ralph's doppelgänger is Jonah Ryan from Veep. This is in substance as well as looks! He is a great big streak of pelican poop who flip flops on every word he's written or spoken. Adds nothing to any TV broadcast or radio show who bothers to use him.

Jonad

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Go Blues

Transgenderformer

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The only way for some people to understand is for them to be on the receiving end

Left wing moralists
In self serving denial
They shit me no end

Our number 1's are number 2's

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If I want your opinion, I'll give it to you!

1. Jonad

2. J Rock

3. Jizzy Gillespie

4. Jack and the Giant Jackoff

5. Gayleon

6. Tinkerballs

7. Wadzilla

8. One Erection

9. The Pointless Giant

10. Jimpanzee

11. The 60-Foot Virgin

12. Jono Ono

13. Hagrid’s Nutsacks

14. Scrotum Poll

15. Transgenderformers

16. 12 Years a Slave to Jerking Off

17. Benedict Cum-In-His-Own-Hand

18. Guyscraper

19. The Cloud Botherer

20. Supercalifragilisticexpialidickcheese

21. Teenage Mutant Ninja A**hole

22. Spewbacca

Ahhhhhhh TV Gold from Iannucci

Regards Cazzesman

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Ricky Gervais - “Everyone has the right to hold whatever beliefs they want. And everyone else has the right to find those beliefs f***ing ridiculous.”

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“I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned.” ― Richard Feynman

I think this can be overstated somewhat. Yes, leadership is important but that doesnt necessarily mean keeping older players around (see cripps)

Imo, we should be turning over a LOT of senior players. We currently have 20 players that are currently ≥ 25 - there are another 5 players that are currently ≥ 24. For where we are at, the list is way too old. We need to turnover this group of players quite substantially over the next 2-3 years, particularly those in the 24-28 yo group. We currently have 20 of these guys - do you really want 20 players that are 27-31 in 3 years time? I think not.

As it currently stands, the ideal off season for me would be something along the lines of
judd - retired
carazzo - retired
kreuzer (F/A) - 1st round pick
walker/jamison + 3rd round pick (38) -> to dogs for 2nd round (27)
henderson -> cats for 1st round (11) + 3rd round (47)
yarran -> tigers for 1st round (12) + 2nd round (30)
warnock -> delisted
ellard -> delisted
watson -> delisted
holman -> delisted

Net
picks 1 (first round), 2 (FA), 11 (cats 1st), 12 (tigers 1st), 20 (2nd round), 27 (dogs), 30 (tigers), 47 (cats 3rd), 56 (4th round)

draft/trades
1 - weitering -> CHB (ready made first 22)
2 - francis -> HBF/utility (ready made first 22)
11 - curnow -> utility
12 - ryan clarke -> pacy goal kicking mid
20 - buntine (GWS trade) (ready made first 22, leadership)
27 - aish (similar to docherty trade) (ready made first 22)
30 - best ruck prospect or try to trade for ruck man of interest (nicholls/smith from GCS?)
47 - rice (i.e. 3rd round bid)
56 - silvagni (ie 4th round bid)
72 - wood (rookie elevation)

pick up 2 X rucks with rookie draft -> 1 X delisted mature age (hampson/simpson/gorringe/derickx/currie/lobb/downie) + 1 X rookie project

Of the list above, weitering, francis, buntine, aish would be physically capable of slotting into the first 22 from round 1 next year. The extra one or two spots in the 22 freed up by moving the older players on could be fulfilled through maturation of boekhurst, whiley, sheehan, graham, byrne, rainbow etc

IF buntine & aish are unable to be picked up, then picks 20 & 27 should still be used to target ≥23 yo players from other clubs that could slot readily into our best 22. Particularly those that still have a lot of development in them i.e. emerging ruckmen, mids that are starting to establish themselves as damaging players or former early picks that are expected to kick on.

Post 2016, simpson, jamison/walker would go and we'd start to thin out mid-age players that might not have a longer term future (jones/tutt/curnow) and youngsters that just haven't made it (giles/dick/whiley).

I'd expect us to be fairly competitive in 2017.

Some clever thinking there 4th chicken - we have to get expansive in our approach no doubt

My build was - GWS young talent has been complimented by well chosen mature players......we will need some as well.

thankfully SOS played a role in getting the balance right

Speaking of list management ...

I was thinking/fantasizing about setting up Aussie Rules football schools in poorer countries, eastern euro blocks, Mexico, Brasil and such, cherry picking giants (dad huge, mum huge, brothers huge ..) and get the kids at a young age playing football and learning football as part of the curriculum at school, all funded by club benefactors. Like a secret scouting organisation whereby the prospects are not only fully prepared by the time their ready for import, but they are club schooled too. Culture, history, "our way" of doing things.

Think Ivan Drago from Rocky IV

If the AFL is going to continually prop up interstate love children and pretty much leave the dregs of the draft for 15 /16 clubs to fight over - when there's a whole world out there of potential giants and god knows what talents we could groom into freaks of the game.

Every club is trying to get an edge over the competition, just ask Essendon*

We can't create our own Ivan Drago's like Essendon* tried

But what's to stop us finding, training and importing our own Ivan Drago's ?


I MUST BREAK YOU

If you had the choice of keeping either Curnow or Carrazzo on the list next year, I'd assume without any other variables involved, it'd be Curnow hands down.

Let's then change that to Carrazzo on a one year deal on minimum wage topped up by a 2 year deal as a development coach for 17/18 vs. Curnow on a 2 year deal at 200-250k a year.

What say you?

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BLUES 2010: PAV AND JUDD = FLAGS. DOING IT FOR THE LOVE OF DICK PRATT.

HAVE YOU SIGNED UP FOR TALKINGCARLTON SUPERCOACH 2009 YET?

its not an either/or scenario.

We could easily retain an older player or two - turning over 8, 10, 12 players doesn't make that much difference - its the longer term vision of what you bring in and who gets played.

If carazzo was a one year deal, why wouldn't you have carazzo as a mature age/delisted rookie? - secondly, what has carazzo done to indicate that he wants to be involved in that area? (i.e. training courses) - IIRC, he was looking to get into umpiring post-career (in which case, he wouldn't be able to be a development coach)

We could easily retain both in theory. In practice, I think there's probably a case for one tagger too many at the top end of the list.

You could quite easily retain Carrazzo by those means - although pretty sure he's vets list eligible anyway, so what's gained there may be minimal. No idea what his motives are for umpiring, potentially $$ life after football related. Wonder what the difference between offered salary for a development coach vs. first year umpire would be?

My point is that if Curnow remains one we're holding out on a contract on, I think that's a creative way of solving an immediate issue as well as a long term one that has plagued us with senior players not deserving contracts - either the length or value. Provided good service, Curnow, but I'm not thrilled by the idea of 6 figures/multiple years.

Hopefully we don't retain both..

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BLUES 2010: PAV AND JUDD = FLAGS. DOING IT FOR THE LOVE OF DICK PRATT.

HAVE YOU SIGNED UP FOR TALKINGCARLTON SUPERCOACH 2009 YET?

Retaining both doesn't mean playing both - one would be depth only. Realistically, neither is going to be around for the next flag push - in which case, it wouldn't bother me if both went.

With respect to curnow, a team pushing towards finals might want to pick up 'an elite tagger', however it isn't something that our team/list needs atm. If we could get a pick within the top 30, then we should let him go.

We wouldn't lose too much if we let curnow go and rotated younger mids through in order to develop them in non-tagging roles (whiley, boekhurst etc).

How has our record been with these picks or similar over the last ten years. Are we really going to pick up a better than Hendo at 11 or a better than Yarran at 12? Or will we get another Bootsma, Lucas, Jordan Russell, Watson, Hampson etc, etc, etc

We need to get rid of the dead wood and have a few retire, and retain the little mid 20s talent we have.

Yeah i agree.

Would rather keep Henderson and Yazz and just draft with what picks we have - but for once put in some research & effort into who we draft.

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"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit"
- Aristotle

Like that's worked before.

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

Winston Churchill

Looks like Byrne will be promoted to the senior list for 2016. That will be one new guy onto our list.
As for who else from other clubs, I would like to wait and see who we can trade out for picks first. There are swaps we can make there.
I would like to think we will draft four new players into our side, not including Byrne. So, take out who we will trade scenarios, and FA comps and all that, as it stands, that should leave us with something like Picks 1, 19, 37 and 55.
Where will Rice and Silvagni go? Only time will tell. Mind you though, it's not a strong draft this year.
So if we add Byrne to the list, by my count that means we will need to delist five players minimum.
Judd is one vacancy. Watson and Warnock will make another two IMO.
Ellard and Armfield are FAs this year. One or both won't be there next year I feel.
So, what are our other options? Well, on the talk of Carrazzo and Curnow, no, I don't feel both will be on the list next year. Theoretically as mentioned it's possible but other trades will need to be made.
Which reminds me, what do you think we will get for trading Curnow out? A late second rounder would be enough wouldn't it?
Also, an unnamed poster was discussing a Rowe/White trade. What for them? He was saying in the 30s. I would be delighted with a pick in the 40s for them.
So all that done, we may have a pick or two to bring in somebody else. Under the age of 25 is my preference.
And all this is said with the thoughts and intentions of not trading out Hendersons, Yarrans and all that. Go Blues.

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Essendon-Only team to have ever been found guilty of salary cap breaches in a premiership year!