Strategy Trade and List management Thread Part 6 (opposition supporters - READ posting rules before posting)

[spinningmagnets]

Is anyone a bit concerned with some of our list management decisions over the past few years?

Yes. Agree with your points, and you can add long contracts to a few other guys too. But I mean, who would have expected guys like Macrae and Daniel to be on the outer. This is very bad.

I hate thinking it because I like Sanders and he'll be a good player, but gee Wilson looks a star and I remember liking a post from someone late last year (I think Mofra) saying they were hesitant to give away first round picks to trade up when a guy like Wilson is available. He'd be sitting on one of our wings right now and we have a big wing problem to go along with our future midfield problem. And we have no first rounder this year and it's looking like it might be a juicy pick.

 

[The Inbetweener]

Is anyone a bit concerned with some of our list management decisions over the past few years?

• Trading two 2nd rounders for Lobb when we had Darcy waiting in the wings. It also practically made Bruce redundant
• The Dunkley trade and lowish return for him (although that may have been more to do with Brisbane then us, but we had the opportunity to trade him earlier at the same time)
• The unnecessary signings of some of our fringe types for more then a year (Gardner,Baker,Poulter,Scott)
• Slow to cut some of our spuds
• Continuing to pick players from Footscray and not working out (McComb, Poulter etc.)
• Trading 3 first rounders to pick Sanders (time will tell on this and it also meant we secured Croft for sure with this trade and maybe at a lower price possibly)

I'm a little bit concerned. I think we've been far too slow to see where the games been trending, towards the faster, smaller types. Geelong and GWS for example were in a similar position to us and have been much quicker to react then us. We at least have tried to cover it a little bit in the last few drafts, but we're still a fair way behind. We put too much priority on the Lobb trade when I think we had other areas of need. Trading 3 first rounders for Sanders wasn't something I would have done, but I think he will be a good player all the same.

The positive for us is they have built a very good list of future talls to build around. And Liam Jones is probably the best recruit we've had since I have no idea when, I just wish he was 25. O'Donnell too will be a great asset that we got for free.

So what does everyone think? Have they done a good job? Should they be doing better? Are you concerned or is the issue with the coach?

I think this is very fair. Power started well with the Bruce, Keath and Treloar trades, and is generally revered here, but I think he’s had a bad few years. Whether it’s all on him or the list management team is hard to say.

Not being able to extract a suitable return for A grade talent in Dunkley was a big problem. People also lament picking Darcy and Jamarra for the reason why we have no depth, but giving 2 2nds for Lobb was bizarre at the time and even worst in hindsight.

It has meant picking up guys like Baker, Poulter, Harmes and Bramble which is a waste of time as they aren’t AFL standard.

I’m also yet to see anything in Milesi to think he’s an above average recruiter. Hasn’t hit with any of his later picks which Dalrymple used to do for fun and who knows about his early picks in Busslinger and Clarke.

With a club like ours that will never attract A grade talent via trade or free agency, you need a gun recruiter and I don’t think we have it.

 

[DueWest]

Is anyone a bit concerned with some of our list management decisions over the past few years?

• Trading two 2nd rounders for Lobb when we had Darcy waiting in the wings. It also practically made Bruce redundant
• The Dunkley trade and lowish return for him (although that may have been more to do with Brisbane then us, but we had the opportunity to trade him earlier at the same time)
• The unnecessary signings of some of our fringe types for more then a year (Gardner,Baker,Poulter,Scott)
• Slow to cut some of our spuds
• Continuing to pick players from Footscray and not working out (McComb, Poulter etc.)
• Trading 3 first rounders to pick Sanders (time will tell on this and it also meant we secured Croft for sure with this trade and maybe at a lower price possibly)

I'm a little bit concerned. I think we've been far too slow to see where the games been trending, towards the faster, smaller types. Geelong and GWS for example were in a similar position to us and have been much quicker to react then us. We at least have tried to cover it a little bit in the last few drafts, but we're still a fair way behind. We put too much priority on the Lobb trade when I think we had other areas of need. Trading 3 first rounders for Sanders wasn't something I would have done, but I think he will be a good player all the same.

The positive for us is they have built a very good list of future talls to build around. And Liam Jones

19

Liam Jones

Age

33

Ht

199cm

Wt

98kg

Pos.

Def

Career

Season

Last 5

D

9.4

2star

K

6.5

3star

HB

2.9

3star

M

4.3

4star

T

2.0

4star

MG

134.5

2star

D

7.6

2star

K

6.1

3star

HB

1.4

1star

M

4.1

4star

T

1.4

2star

MG

116.3

2star

D

9.4

3star

K

7.4

3star

HB

2.0

2star

M

4.0

4star

T

2.2

4star

is probably the best recruit we've had since I have no idea when, I just wish he was 25. O'Donnell too will be a great asset that we got for free.

So what does everyone think? Have they done a good job? Should they be doing better? Are you concerned or is the issue with the coach?

Agree that our trading / deal making record is pretty poor. We are now faced with a fire sale of players who were top 22 at points of there career that we signed at the peak of their powers but have fallen off a cliff.

I would like to retain Macrae as he will help when Libba and Treloar invariably finish up but we will end up trading Lobb and Daniel for next to nothing

 

[geoffjennings79]

Is anyone a bit concerned with some of our list management decisions over the past few years?

• Trading two 2nd rounders for Lobb when we had Darcy waiting in the wings. It also practically made Bruce redundant
• The Dunkley trade and lowish return for him (although that may have been more to do with Brisbane then us, but we had the opportunity to trade him earlier at the same time)
• The unnecessary signings of some of our fringe types for more then a year (Gardner,Baker,Poulter,Scott)
• Slow to cut some of our spuds
• Continuing to pick players from Footscray and not working out (McComb, Poulter etc.)
• Trading 3 first rounders to pick Sanders (time will tell on this and it also meant we secured Croft for sure with this trade and maybe at a lower price possibly)

I'm a little bit concerned. I think we've been far too slow to see where the games been trending, towards the faster, smaller types. Geelong and GWS for example were in a similar position to us and have been much quicker to react then us. We at least have tried to cover it a little bit in the last few drafts, but we're still a fair way behind. We put too much priority on the Lobb trade when I think we had other areas of need. Trading 3 first rounders for Sanders wasn't something I would have done, but I think he will be a good player all the same.

The positive for us is they have built a very good list of future talls to build around. And Liam Jones is probably the best recruit we've had since I have no idea when, I just wish he was 25. O'Donnell too will be a great asset that we got for free.

So what does everyone think? Have they done a good job? Should they be doing better? Are you concerned or is the issue with the coach?

Others have addressed/ageeed your other points, so I won't repeat them, but Bruce was redundant after 2 ACLs anyway. Great club man, and if he'd played the 2021 GF the whole forward dynamic would have been better, but he was done, as both a forward and defender. Sad ending for him, but IMO Lobb was a risk worth taking.

 

[geoffjennings79]

Lobb, Harmes and Gardner are the deals I can't get over, 3 years was ludicrous, 2 at most.

Dale, Daniel and Macrae's deals made sense at the time so can't really complain. Dale and Macrae have at least shown that they are willing to accept the criticism and respond. Dale with his ball movement and efficiency and Macrae with his defensive pressure.

Dale has topped the player ratings in the last two matches, while Macrae has been ranked 1st in tackles and pressure points over the same period.

Williams, I would've preferred 3 but 4 is acceptable given that he can play both wing and defense.

Daniel is the big worry out of that lot though, showed next to nothing before getting dropped and hardly excelled tonight. I'd wager he is the most likely to leave.

Not sure we'd entice Lobb with only 2 years, and at the time with Darcy still relatively raw, and Eagles in English's year, I still think it makes sense. I think he should have rucked more after his ankle recovered last year, and English let roam or rest forward, but yeah, agree on the others.

 

[dogwatch]

Others have addressed/ageeed your other points, so I won't repeat them, but Bruce was redundant after 2 ACLs anyway. Great club man, and if he'd played the 2021 GF the whole forward dynamic would have been better, but he was done, as both a forward and defender. Sad ending for him, but IMO Lobb was a risk worth taking.

I agree although I wasn't keen at the time.

In hindsight the 2 second rounders we paid for him have probably hurt us.

 

[geoffjennings79]

I agree although I wasn't keen at the time.

In hindsight the 2 second rounders we paid for him have probably hurt us.

True, maybe Power should have pushed harder, a 2nd and 3rd perhaps? Bell usually talks a big game then folds like a pack of cards.

I meant more as a list acquisition regarding Lobb, but you're right, the draft capital is just as significant

 

[glenashley]

Sadly if we continue on this ladder trajectory, I can see letting English go for a tier 1 compo pick becomes even more appealing, especially since we've lost our natural round 1 pick.

 

[goodcop badcop]

Others have addressed/ageeed your other points, so I won't repeat them, but Bruce was redundant after 2 ACLs anyway. Great club man, and if he'd played the 2021 GF the whole forward dynamic would have been better, but he was done, as both a forward and defender. Sad ending for him, but IMO Lobb was a risk worth taking.

Agree in hindsight Bruce was done, but he was going to become redundant with or without his body failing which seemed a waste to me. We had to push him out of the forward line when he was never a good backman, he proved that twice when he was at GWS and the Saints. It was beyond optimistic he could be a decent back which is why I say he was made redundant. Anyway, his body let him down in the end so was made extra redundant.

My point is we really had a surplus of key forwards and pushing out a 50 goal forward out and paying a high price to get a ruck/forward in when you have a future gun waiting in the wings is just not the best use of the resources we had. Yeah, we were trying to go for a premiership, but we had other needs to fill as well. Darcy was already playing well before we brought Lobb in and that was without a preseason and barely any footy under his belt. It was always a high chance that he was going to greatly improve after just one preseason and more games under his belt.

We were just far too committed to the Lobb deal to walk away. I remember on radio Chris Grant said, Lobb was the No 1 target for us, even above Jones. They had to have the guts to walk away from the deal, if it was any more than one 2nd rounder. I would’ve been ok with it if we paid one 2nd rounder for him.

Timely post. I was going to post something similar.

Add to your bullets the signing of Daniel (2026), Dale (2027) and Macrae (2027) for long term contracts. Dale is now looking OK again (was shaky for a few weeks) but Macrae and Daniel are past their best. Macrae is probably still earning his keep depending on how much we're paying him. Not sure how long he can sustain it though, as his decline seems sustained.
Daniel is looking more and more a long-term list liability as this season progresses.

At the time we signed these players they were in good form and probably close to top 5 in the B&F. So it seemed like good sense back then and hardly anybody raised an eyebrow. Not so now.

Williams is another that I'm a bit concerned about. His recent contract renewal is also until 2027. He's best 22 but he'd be in the bottom half of that 22. Will he still be top 22 in the fourth year of that contract?

Gardner and Harmes with contracts through to the end of 2026 concern me.

Something is not quite right here. There needs to be a good working rapport and exchange of information between the coaches, strategists and the list management team but it feels like they are on different pages. I just hope it's more an accident than a structural defect or a debilitating rift between strong personalities.

Whatever it is, it doesn't look good and we don't seem to be getting the best outcomes.

Here's the current list sorted by Contract End Year (CEY). The final column shows their age in October of their final contract year:

View attachment 1973128

Yeah, some of those deals were fine at the time, a little bit hard to criticize some of those. There’s been some strange ones though.

Somethings certainly not right, our list management team don't have much foresight.

 

[goodcop badcop]

I think this is very fair. Power started well with the Bruce, Keath and Treloar trades, and is generally revered here, but I think he’s had a bad few years. Whether it’s all on him or the list management team is hard to say.

Not being able to extract a suitable return for A grade talent in Dunkley was a big problem. People also lament picking Darcy and Jamarra for the reason why we have no depth, but giving 2 2nds for Lobb was bizarre at the time and even worst in hindsight.

It has meant picking up guys like Baker, Poulter, Harmes and Bramble which is a waste of time as they aren’t AFL standard.

I’m also yet to see anything in Milesi to think he’s an above average recruiter. Hasn’t hit with any of his later picks which Dalrymple used to do for fun and who knows about his early picks in Busslinger and Clarke.

With a club like ours that will never attract A grade talent via trade or free agency, you need a gun recruiter and I don’t think we have it.

I’ve been pretty forgiving of Milesi as he had three pretty tough drafts to contend with over the Covid period and the 2022 draft was a tough one as well. Good recruiters should be able to find players from anywhere though. I'm also a bit skeptical, but I am a bit happier with him at the same time.

I was happy with the later picks in his last draft. Freijah and Smith were two player’s I rated, Freijah in particular was my no 1 target for us at our 3rd pick. I preferred Charlson over O’Driscoll as he's more of a genuine small forward, but it may not be a bad pick. Hopefully he's alright, was always worried he was a bit small.

The Busslinger pick I wasn't a big fan of and I thought we reached a little bit for Clarke, but we needed a small forward and GWS were keen on him. Rated Gallagher above Clarke so I'm happy with that result at least.

 

[Wizard17]

After watching both the young guns games I'd really like to see us have a real good look at Uerata, Magginess and Hanily from the midfield group.

 

[TiAn_]

I’ll genuinely fume if we piss away our midseason pick on another low-ceiling list clogger retread like Spicer.

 

[Bald]

I’ll genuinely fume if we piss away our midseason pick on another low-ceiling list clogger retread like Spicer.

What would you prefer? I can't imagine we'll be able to fill an area of need from a mid-season pick.

 

[yebach]

The club knew the issues with Dunkley and their response was to sign up a inferior player he had issues with to a 5 year deal.
Should have taken the Essendon offer.

Lobb was only a good trade If we really thought we were a serious flag threat.
Then we lose to Hawthorn & West coast. And miss the 8.
Should have actually played Sweet while Darcy developed.

Then the Sanders deal.

That's a lot of quality draft picks up in smoke.

There doesn't seem to be any kind of intelligent strategic planning. One week we're planning for the now as we have a top 4 list. The next week we're in the middle of an evolution.

Leeds me to believe the people running the joint have no f**king idea.

 

[Golden_6]

The club knew the issues with Dunkley and their response was to sign up a inferior player he had issues with to a 5 year deal.
Should have taken the Essendon offer.

Lobb was only a good trade If we really thought we were a serious flag threat.
Then we lose to Hawthorn & West coast. And miss the 8.
Should have actually played Sweet while Darcy developed.

Then the Sanders deal.

That's a lot of quality draft picks up in smoke.

There doesn't seem to be any kind of intelligent strategic planning. One week we're planning for the now as we have a top 4 list. The next week we're in the middle of an evolution.

Leeds me to believe the people running the joint have no f**king idea.

I tend to agree. The Sanders deal proves that the club thought it would be on the up and challenging the top 4 this season.

Bevo then talks about this ‘evolution’. Why are we keeping him on as coach if that’s where he sees the list? There’s clearly a great disconnect between the coaching staff, list management and the board. It’s run like a suburban club with a few large egos acting as the heavy hitters.

 

[4Seasons]

Did you piss yourself again when you said beast mode??

Thankyou, I did again.
Beast mode makes me piss myself laughing everytime,only second to generational

 

[4Seasons]

The club knew the issues with Dunkley and their response was to sign up a inferior player he had issues with to a 5 year deal.
Should have taken the Essendon offer.

Lobb was only a good trade If we really thought we were a serious flag threat.
Then we lose to Hawthorn & West coast. And miss the 8.
Should have actually played Sweet while Darcy developed.

Then the Sanders deal.

That's a lot of quality draft picks up in smoke.

There doesn't seem to be any kind of intelligent strategic planning. One week we're planning for the now as we have a top 4 list. The next week we're in the middle of an evolution.

Leeds me to believe the people running the joint have no f**king idea.

Beast mode..

 

[Munnez]

I’ll genuinely fume if we piss away our midseason pick on another low-ceiling list clogger retread like Spicer.

Do we have a list spot for a mid season pick?

 

[weltschmerz]

Do we have a list spot for a mid season pick?

If we put Baz on the LTI list.

 

[Dogs Rule]

The club knew the issues with Dunkley and their response was to sign up a inferior player he had issues with to a 5 year deal.
Should have taken the Essendon offer.

Lobb was only a good trade If we really thought we were a serious flag threat.
Then we lose to Hawthorn & West coast. And miss the 8.
Should have actually played Sweet while Darcy developed.

Then the Sanders deal.

That's a lot of quality draft picks up in smoke.

There doesn't seem to be any kind of intelligent strategic planning. One week we're planning for the now as we have a top 4 list. The next week we're in the middle of an evolution.

Leeds me to believe the people running the joint have no f**king idea.

But they honestly think they know what they're doing and there's nobody challenging for those positions in the front offices right now, so we're just in this perpetual loop where we punch, scream into and kick the s*** out of the pillow in sheer frustration every weekend at the ineptitude on field and the Magoo-like cluelessness off.

 

[Munnez]

If we put Baz on the LTI list.

Could probably add Cody to the LTI as well 12+ weeks is basically season done

 

[Unorth]

Leeds me to believe the people running the joint have no f**king idea.

This is a reasonable conclusion and I hope we realise this before we assume Bont's total loyalty.

 

[TiAn_]

What would you prefer? I can't imagine we'll be able to fill an area of need from a mid-season pick.

A young player recently overlooked in a draft. I don’t care if they can’t scratch out a few games immediately. Whoever we pick isn’t moving the needle for us this year, so use the pick to try to improve the list long term.

 

[adammonerz]

I really wouldn't be surprised if Bont throws an ultimatum at the end of the season , poor bloke looks mentally and physically spent. He has been looking seriously unhappy after losses and even on field since about halfway through 2023 saw it all over his face after the Eagles loss and the Bombers. I think he thinks the place is being run by morons

 

[Dog 36]

I really wouldn't be surprised if Bont throws an ultimatum at the end of the season , poor bloke looks mentally and physically spent. He has been looking seriously unhappy after losses and even on field since about halfway through 2023 saw it all over his face after the Eagles loss and the Bombers. I think he thinks the place is being run by morons

He doesn’t think it is he knows it is.

Board is like an episode of Fawlty Towers.