The Sandgroper Roper

The Sandgroper roper. He's a rustler! Wrangler Wallsy and co are out there on their annual muster, lassoing and herding prized young West Aussies back to the Fremantle farm. Time to Restump Podcast the trade parade.The seemingly very focused Freo strategy of enticing quality age profile applicable young west Australians who fill or add to positions of need, continues. So far, we’ve seen off Liam Reidy and we welcomed home ex-East Fremantle product, Judd McVee, to the Freo family.Under the clever guise of being neighbourly, Wallsy and co orchestrated a position that saw Judd McVee head to Fremantle, essentially for a very fair price, and potentially substantial unders. It unlocked the block that allowed West Coast to get their mature aged defender, Brandon Starcevich. We gave up picks 12, 33, 44 and 50 and received Judd McVee, pick 19, 23 and 46. Liam Reidy has made his way to Carlton with pick 53 and 71 while picks 50 and 68 returned. Nothing to write home about but what more could we realistically expect? You don’t have to win every trade. Trade period isn’t over yet but you’d imagine there wouldn’t be too much more action from a purple perspective, other than Will Brodie heading to Port Adelaide to team up with Josh Carr. But who knows what unfolds in the frantic few moments before the final bell?Has the free agency compensation system gone past the point of repair? The manipulation and exploiting of the seemingly fluid rules, the lack of transparency around decisions made and compensatory awards handed down, suggest it’s time to either scrap it altogether or blow it up and rebuild it in a more appropriate manner. Jojo has been banging on about it for years and now it surely seems he’ll get his wish.The Chief is still running his one-man campaign to sound out Geelong’s Ted Chlohesy. With Switta’s often unreliable availability, could Ted be the perfect candidate to mitigate that risk and fill our post-Schultzy forward pressure deficiency? However, we’re already in the workshop building the wagon to carry the picks, points and punters for the Chadwick28 Restump campaign ready to roll out next year! As always, we somehow come up with plenty of propaganda to prattle on about. So, as we always say, if you’re not pickled or plastered and passed out on purple, your performance isn’t presentable. If you haven’t overdosed, you’re not doing it right. Feel free to join us on the pod to get a momentary fix, or even just to top up.Send us Fan MailSupport the show