I think we all hate the ■■■■■ but sadly with a couple of lads I know well being drafted there I’ve watched them a bit more than I usually would and they seem to have enough talent coming through to stay around the mark for a while. I don’t see them being a serious threat but if they have a run of 4 or 5 years in the top 4-6 they could surprise me and not in a good way. The little grub coaching is loved and respected by all the players to the point of being worshipped, it’s absolutely sickening 
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Unfortunately they are now in a position where they should be able to replace the odd senior player with a quality recruit from struggling clubs. They have a solid enough core group to be consistent finalists for a while as long as their recruits turn out to be good choices.
The AFL system sucks like that.
Gunston is the big one, but the others I feel like they can cover with recycled players and shrewd trading/FA moves.
The big move for them will be bringing in an A-grade key forward. That’s where they’ll (probably) need to cough up unless they can spring a Jesse Hogan-like move.
Hawthorn do well developing defenders
let Jiath and Serong go last year.
And Mraz looks decent already
Mitchell just signed an extension to the end of 2030.
Hate to say it but he has become a great coach.
With them getting King likely for free, hopefully Mitchell pushes for maximum compensation for Merrett to lock in the man he has chased hard for 2 years now.
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Good news for Zach Merrett
The footy gods have given up on Essendon. I have accepted that.
But I ask this of the footy gods. May Hawthorn and Collingwood never, in my lifetime, experience premiership success.
It is not much to ask for given the circumstances.
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Love the equality of the AFL. A team contending for the premiership will just pick the eyes out of some non contenders and grab some quality free agents
Free agency has been the worst thing to happen for equality of the competition. The money offered by lower teams isn’t life changing enough to convince free agents overlook the chance for premiership success, so the quality free agents move to the better teams.
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The difficult thing now is there is no way to go back as the players association wouldnt sign off anything that regresses them from where they are.
Don’t disagree. I think they need somehow offset the draft compensation provided to the team losing the player with draft penalties to those acquiring the player. It will somewhat balance out the draft and make cherry picking too many free agents detrimental to a clubs longer term success as the change of them bringing in any decent quality via the draft will be reduced.
Think last year - the Lions should not have been able to get both Draper and Allen and still have sufficient draft capital to match a top 5 pick in Annable.
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the AFL could curtail FA moves by penalizing clubs who do this
there’s a reason they won’t
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Clearly they are waiting for us to become a destination club that can benefit from Free Agency before they pull the pin on it……..so we are stuck with it for a long time yet.
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SWMNBN Warning
Hawks exploring options of playing games in Cairns, Canberra and NZ after Tassie contract finishes.
Minnow club
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Jesus… can things like this be blur spoiler’ed?! Please and thank you!!
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They really should play games in LeftRightOut
“Massive club”
should’ve merged
They should of cast her in the new clayface movie
GWS should tell them to Fark off from Canberra.
Happy for them to be in NZ though, with no one giving a Fark.
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