Club Focus Geelong 2024

[Ticky009]

Data from footywire. To check the draft order see the thread here.

Footywire says: "While we make every effort to keep up to date with player contracts, it is likely that our data may at times be out of date, incomplete or inaccurate. If you find any player contracts that need updating, please let us know using our brand new contract submission form."

 

[CatToTheFuture]

Parish has a team friendly contract.
Heavily frontloaded 6 year 800k contract that doesn’t rise with the cap.
In 5 years the average AFL player will
Be on about 5-600k and that’s about the same as Parish contract.


Putting my cats hat on:

Believe Cats have enough talent to contend if they upgrade their midfield. Due to the younger players they have bought in the past few years and excellent player development. (man that Bowes trade was a Heist)
Believe Parish is one of the best contested players in the comp.
Believe defense is about effort. He’s been better recently now that Essendon has standards and would improve at Geelong who have standards.
Believe Parish and Bruhn are both Small midfielders and Parish is significantly better.
Believe 1 good (but not too good) first round pick is fair value to Upgrade Bruhn to Parish.
Cats expect to get 7-9 years of Parish with 4-5 at near AA level

A pick in the 5-10 range has about a 30% chance to be an AA player who plays 150 games.

So Bruhn + a 30% chance to get what Parish is producing/expected to produce with some certainty makes a lot of sense. It’s a very good deal for Geelong.

Bruhn would not including Parish be the 5th best small midfielder on Essendon and wouldn’t be best 22 so a 3rd team would have to be involved to get Essendon to consider the trade as they would want multiple picks and the 15% chance to get 2x players as good as Parish who better balance the list.

Yeah look I just don't think Parish is that player and wouldn't trade for him. He'd be handy but I wouldn't be giving up the farm for him. Last year we'd likely have only made an offer if it wasn't going to be matched.

Bruhn against Parish is an interesting comparison because his stats against 21 year old Parish are virtually identical with less ToG%. Parish was playing an extra 18% game time for 3 more handballs and less tackles. Parish had higher DE% but likely reflects higher handball %. I think we lose more than we gain in a trade there even if it was one for one.

 

[Footy Smarts]

Parish has a team friendly contract.
Heavily frontloaded 6 year 800k contract that doesn’t rise with the cap.
In 5 years the average AFL player will
Be on about 5-600k and that’s about the same as Parish contract.


Putting my cats hat on:

Believe Cats have enough talent to contend if they upgrade their midfield. Due to the younger players they have bought in the past few years and excellent player development. (man that Bowes trade was a Heist)
Believe Parish is one of the best contested players in the comp.
Believe defense is about effort. He’s been better recently now that Essendon has standards and would improve at Geelong who have standards.
Believe Parish and Bruhn are both Small midfielders and Parish is significantly better.
Believe 1 good (but not too good) first round pick is fair value to Upgrade Bruhn to Parish.
Cats expect to get 7-9 years of Parish with 4-5 at near AA level

A pick in the 5-10 range has about a 30% chance to be an AA player who plays 150 games.

So Bruhn + a 30% chance to get what Parish is producing/expected to produce with some certainty makes a lot of sense. It’s a very good deal for Geelong.

Bruhn would not including Parish be the 5th best small midfielder on Essendon and wouldn’t be best 22 so a 3rd team would have to be involved to get Essendon to consider the trade as they would want multiple picks and the 15% chance to get 2x players as good as Parish who better balance the list.

Parish would have been really handy this year to bridge the gap between Guthrie, Danger and Blicavs, and Holmes, Bruhn and Clark in midfield. But if those 3 develop as we hope, and the preseason has been incredibly promising from all 3, then there's no massive need for a mature midfielder.

We definitely aren't going to give up a top 10 pick just to upgrade Bruhn to Parish. We'd be hoping by the end of this year that Parish doesn't even look like a major upgrade on Bruhn.

 

[jdstorm]

Yeah look I just don't think Parish is that player and wouldn't trade for him. He'd be handy but I wouldn't be giving up the farm for him. Last year we'd likely have only made an offer if it wasn't going to be matched.

Bruhn against Parish is an interesting comparison because his stats against 21 year old Parish are virtually identical with less ToG%. Parish was playing an extra 18% game time for 3 more handballs and less tackles. Parish had higher DE% but likely reflects higher handball %. I think we lose more than we gain in a trade there even if it was one for one.

Possibly. I won’t pretend to have watched much of Bruhn.

The young cats midfielder I’m most excited about is George Stevens. Think he was an absolute steal this draft. Think he ends up being your Danger replacement in 2-3 years

 

[CatToTheFuture]

Possibly. I won’t pretend to have watched much of Bruhn.

The young cats midfielder I’m most excited about is George Stevens. Think he was an absolute steal this draft. Think he ends up being your Danger replacement in 2-3 years

Ironically he's the one I'm most certain won't make it. He has enough endurance but not sure you can make it at afl level with the turning circle of the QE2.

 

[jdstorm]

Ironically he's the one I'm most certain won't make it. He has enough endurance but not sure you can make it at afl level with the turning circle of the QE2.

For me I’ve just seen too many basketball players who were skilled but physically deficient (ie Too slow) make a real impact after reaching a level of baseline physical competence

Stevens has the size, foot skills and reads play so well. Just needs to get his body to an afl standard which will happen as he matures physically (and with lots of hard work)

 

[Footy Smarts]

Possibly. I won’t pretend to have watched much of Bruhn.

The young cats midfielder I’m most excited about is George Stevens. Think he was an absolute steal this draft. Think he ends up being your Danger replacement in 2-3 years

Did you watch the Essendon Geelong practice match? If you did I'm not sure how you could rate a guy taken at pick 58 in a very shallow draft ahead of Holmes or Clark.

 

[CatToTheFuture]

For me I’ve just seen too many basketball players who were skilled but physically deficient (ie Too slow) make a real impact after reaching a level of baseline physical competence

Stevens has the size, foot skills and reads play so well. Just needs to get his body to an afl standard which will happen as he matures physically (and with lots of hard work)

Yeah he certainly has a lot more going for him than say Charlie Constable did

 

[jdstorm]

Did you watch the Essendon Geelong practice match? If you did I'm not sure how you could rate a guy taken at pick 58 in a very shallow draft ahead of Holmes or Clark.

Unfortunately I had Holmes on my SuperCoach team last season and holding him too long cost me a top 1000 spot. So I’m going to be skeptical. Especially with the way Essendon and plays defence. Made a lot of average players look decent in their internal trials.

He’s fine as an outside mid/HB Was worse than Nick Martin at the same role. Martins good but he’s no Mills or Dawson or Whitfield or Wanganeen Milera or Coleman or Daicos/Sheezel ect

Clark looked good. But all things being equal (skill, speed, tank ect) size matters and you’d rather a bigger player

 

[CatToTheFuture]

He’s fine as an outside mid/HB Was worse than Nick Martin at the same role. Martins good but he’s no Mills or Dawson or Whitfield or Wanganeen Milera or Coleman or Daicos/Sheezel ect

Sorry are you talking about Holmes there?

 

[jdstorm]

Sorry are you talking about Holmes there?

In a round about way good HBs > Martin > Holmes.

 

[CatToTheFuture]

In a round about way good HBs > Martin > Holmes.

Huh?

 

[jdstorm]

Huh?

I’m bias against homes cause he was a burn man for me last season in SuperCoach. Can’t bring myself to get excited.

Think he’s a solid outside player. Don’t rate his congested work.

 

[CatToTheFuture]

I’m bias against homes cause he was a burn man for me last season in SuperCoach. Can’t bring myself to get excited.

Think he’s a solid outside player. Don’t rate his congested work.

I think you may have a bias going on the background there. Watch where he's at in a year or two.

 

[Kobe Gryant]

I think you may have a bias going on the background there. Watch where he's at in a year or two.

Feels like he's in SuperCoach in mode when constructing a list too.

There's human beings involved here. Parish would have to want go to Geelong, & Bruhn (or whoever else) would have to want to go to Essendon.

One just signed a long term deal at Essendon, the other is a highly rated youngster seen as a future leader at the club. Seems pretty unlikely on both sides one would think.

I don't mind his idea of constructing a list in terms of the stars needed in each third of the ground, but I'd prefer to look at it like this:

Defence: SDK, COS, Holmes (50%)

Midfield: Conway, Clark, Bruhn, Holmes (50%)

Forward line: Stengle, Henry, Dempsey

****************

I'd say it's pretty clear that that group doesn't exactly suit the timeline of Parish's career.

Smith isn't perfect either, but he's just a better fit for what we're building. We've already got two players who are tracking to be similar players to Parish in Clark & Bruhn.

Even if you rate George Stevens really highly as a future star, he's similar again as a meat & potatoes, contested ball inside mid.

Similar with Knevitt again. A bit more inside/outside, but at his peak it seems we're trying to make him Joel Corey 2.0 as a contested mid with ridiculous endurance. He just doesn't have the size yet.

Smith offers a point of difference, and he fits that trajectory age wise that that group is looking at.

Parish doesn't, and if that group doesn't come on as hoped, or just takes a little longer than we'd like, he's going to be 30+ by around the time they're competing to be a great midfield.

He doesn't come cheap either. It would be so un-Geelong to give up huge draft capital/players for a 'just okay' midfielder who will be 28 by the time he plays for us.

For all the crap we cop about trading for established talent, we only really go hard for the genuine superstars (Danger, Jezza).

Parish feels more like a Higgins/Smith type where we pick him up near the end as a moneyball option. If it works, great. If it doesn't, at least you didn't give up anything of value.

 

[CatToTheFuture]

Feels like he's in SuperCoach in mode when constructing a list too.

There's human beings involved here. Parish would have to want go to Geelong, & Bruhn (or whoever else) would have to want to go to Essendon.

One just signed a long term deal at Essendon, the other is a highly rated youngster seen as a future leader at the club. Seems pretty unlikely on both sides one would think.

I don't mind his idea of constructing a list in terms of the stars needed in each third of the ground, but I'd prefer to look at it like this:

Defence: SDK, COS, Holmes (50%)

Midfield: Conway, Clark, Bruhn, Holmes (50%)

Forward line: Stengle, Henry, Dempsey

****************

I'd say it's pretty clear that that group doesn't exactly suit the timeline of Parish's career.

Smith isn't perfect either, but he's just a better fit for what we're building. We've already got two players who are tracking to be similar players to Parish in Clark & Bruhn.

Even if you rate George Stevens really highly as a future star, he's similar again as a meat & potatoes, contested ball inside mid.

Similar with Knevitt again. A bit more inside/outside, but at his peak it seems we're trying to make him Joel Corey 2.0 as a contested mid with ridiculous endurance. He just doesn't have the size yet.

Smith offers a point of difference, and he fits that trajectory age wise that that group is looking at.

Parish doesn't, and if that group doesn't come on as hoped, or just takes a little longer than we'd like, he's going to be 30+ by around the time they're competing to be a great midfield.

He doesn't come cheap either. It would be so un-Geelong to give up huge draft capital/players for a 'just okay' midfielder who will be 28 by the time he plays for us.

For all the crap we cop about trading for established talent, we only really go hard for the genuine superstars (Danger, Jezza).

Parish feels more like a Higgins/Smith type where we pick him up near the end as a moneyball option. If it works, great. If it doesn't, at least you didn't give up anything of value.

I'm still upset about Higgins for pick 30 tbh.

But yeah it's parish's age so much for me but he's not the type that would balance our midfield. For all his flaws Smith has power and burst at the stoppage. That is what we need, because it's what we lack. It gives Bruhn, Bowes and Clark space to pick up less pressured possession and use it better.

 

[Pure_Ownage]

Parish has a team friendly contract.
Heavily frontloaded 6 year 800k contract that doesn’t rise with the cap.
In 5 years the average AFL player will
Be on about 5-600k and that’s about the same as Parish contract.


Putting my cats hat on:

Believe Cats have enough talent to contend if they upgrade their midfield. Due to the younger players they have bought in the past few years and excellent player development. (man that Bowes trade was a Heist)
Believe Parish is one of the best contested players in the comp.
Believe defense is about effort. He’s been better recently now that Essendon has standards and would improve at Geelong who have standards.
Believe Parish and Bruhn are both Small midfielders and Parish is significantly better.
Believe 1 good (but not too good) first round pick is fair value to Upgrade Bruhn to Parish.
Cats expect to get 7-9 years of Parish with 4-5 at near AA level

A pick in the 5-10 range has about a 30% chance to be an AA player who plays 150 games.

So Bruhn + a 30% chance to get what Parish is producing/expected to produce with some certainty makes a lot of sense. It’s a very good deal for Geelong.

Bruhn would not including Parish be the 5th best small midfielder on Essendon and wouldn’t be best 22 so a 3rd team would have to be involved to get Essendon to consider the trade as they would want multiple picks and the 15% chance to get 2x players as good as Parish who better balance the list.

No one is trading for parish now (that ship sailed last year as FA) and geelong are not trading bruhn period.

 

[Ricky Vaughn]

Why is Parish being discussed? Re-signed with Essendon last year. It’s done.

 

[Keeper]

Geelong being linked to all these high-profile big money players suggests to me they think their youth is already good enough, and they're angling toward the snap rebuild Clarko attempted in 2016. Dangerous road to go down.

 

[The 747]

Geelong being linked to all these high-profile big money players suggests to me they think their youth is already good enough, and they're angling toward the snap rebuild Clarko attempted in 2016. Dangerous road to go down.

Well, we tend to be linked to everyone every year.

We do have cap space.

And yeah they do rate the youth.

We won a flag two years ago with our top up strategy - and we need to top up with experienced players IMO.

 

[CatToTheFuture]

Geelong being linked to all these high-profile big money players suggests to me they think their youth is already good enough, and they're angling toward the snap rebuild Clarko attempted in 2016. Dangerous road to go down.

I prefer to think of it as the same as the response last time we missed finals and traded in Dangerfield, Tuohy, S Selwood, Zac Smith, Lachie Henderson etc.

Our youth now is better than our youth then. Just don't ask us about our 25-30 year olds

 

[Keeper]

Well, we tend to be linked to everyone every year.

We do have cap space.

And yeah they do rate the youth.

We won a flag two years ago with our top up strategy - and we need to top up with experienced players IMO.

That was largely on the back of picking up Dangerfield and Jeremy Cameron, two of the best players in the competition. Dangerfield was basically a free agent too because of how weak Adelaide are at the trade table. Cameron was basically swapped in for Tim Kelly.

I would classify 2022 as eeking out a flag with an aging list at just the right time. For the most part in the last 10 years, Geelong have been a finals/top 4 side, but there were always 1-2 teams that were just better and always ready to beat them in the finals. 2022 worked out well because Melbourne dropped off, Bulldogs dropped off, Tigers were still dropping off, Sydney weren't quite there yet and you just managed to scrape past the pies in the QF.

2024 is very different to 2020 & earlier. Now all of your best players are 30+ years old. Sure you have some promising young talent, but so did Richmond in 2022, Hawthorn in 2016-2019, Brisbane in 2009, etc. It's not really a good enough foundation to build a Premiership team from, and I think it would be very poor timing to start targeting the expensive mid-aged players at the end of this year.

 

[The 747]

That was largely on the back of picking up Dangerfield and Jeremy Cameron, two of the best players in the competition. Dangerfield was basically a free agent too because of how weak Adelaide are at the trade table. Cameron was basically swapped in for Tim Kelly.

I would classify 2022 as eeking out a flag with an aging list at just the right time. For the most part in the last 10 years, Geelong have been a finals/top 4 side, but there were always 1-2 teams that were just better and always ready to beat them in the finals. 2022 worked out well because Melbourne dropped off, Bulldogs dropped off, Tigers were still dropping off, Sydney weren't quite there yet and you just managed to scrape past the pies in the QF.

2024 is very different to 2020 & earlier. Now all of your best players are 30+ years old. Sure you have some promising young talent, but so did Richmond in 2022, Hawthorn in 2016-2019, Brisbane in 2009, etc. It's not really a good enough foundation to build a Premiership team from, and I think it would be very poor timing to start targeting the expensive mid-aged players at the end of this year.

But Danger and Cameron were expensive mid-aged players.

And those mid age players tend to come free aside from salary so I do not quite see the downside.

Don't really follow the logic here, other than evident things like a lot of our best players are old.

 

[Keeper]

I prefer to think of it as the same as the response last time we missed finals and traded in Dangerfield, Tuohy, S Selwood, Zac Smith, Lachie Henderson etc.

Our youth now is better than our youth then. Just don't ask us about our 25-30 year olds

Maybe so, but one key difference between now and then would be that it's not nearly as trivial to sign the equivalent of Dangerfield and Cameron on unders. And while Tom Hawkins was only 26-27 years old 2015, he might as well have been 20 years old in hindsight because he had some insane longevity.

Going from Hawkins and Cameron to Knevitt and Jeka will be very rough. High quality key-forwards are very difficult to find and develop, and Geelong in particular have been heavily dependent on both of them for the last few years.

 

[Catastrophe!]

Geelong being linked to all these high-profile big money players suggests to me they think their youth is already good enough, and they're angling toward the snap rebuild Clarko attempted in 2016. Dangerous road to go down.

Or it's just lazy journalism and we won't end up with any of them?

You guys are going through a massive rebuild and you're being linked heavily to Smith - what's the difference?

Also, Smith and Oliver are far different players to Mitchell and O'Meara. Smith is an up and coming superstar who fits our age profile perfectly, and Oliver is a Top 5 player in the game when at his best. If we somehow landed both of them, we'd literally have our midfield sorted for the next 5-8 years...and would then just need to focus on landing another gun key forward - as we have elite smalls, a medium gun in O. Henry, and a lot of faith in Shannon Neale as the Hawkins replacement. If Conway turns out as a ruck, and O'Sullivan lives up to his potential, then we've filled all holes and we go again.

We've turned over our entire list bar Duncan and Hawkins since 2011... we're now in the process of doing it again with 15 of our Best 23 being 28 or under.

We started our rebuild in 2021 and have only brought in young talent since then. I suspect if we think an established player fits an area of need in the right age profile, then we will definitely look at bringing them in as we've never been a club to just go quietly off into the night.

 

[Tonythetiger]

Each year, a select number of players are out of contract and clubs look at who is a available and who improves their list.

If the best available free agent or out of contract player wants to come to you, you get the deal done. Something Geelong did extremely well with Danger and Cameron. I think they are in a position to compete (but not necessarily contend), however the current list make up still has a lot of older guys 30+ guys who surely will all be gone over the next 1-3 years.

Every club has promising youth but it's not guarantee of anything until they truly cement themselves and push out the older types of the team.