2019 trading, drafting and list management: players and personnel

[dimelb]

Rowbottom will probably get another crack but Hewitt may be out as well. Mills an option but if Longmire is reluctant, why not give O'Riordan a crack in midfield? Has played there in NEAFL IIRC. Hard at it with a bust of speed, Jones style. Worth a thought.

I like that idea - I admire O'Riordan and would add that he strikes me as a good kick.

[707]

Drafting thread guys, player selection stuff needs to go into the Changes for Geelong thread.

I may have been the one who derailed this a few posts back!

Mid Season Rookie Draft tomorrow at 6pm, will be live on Fox. Currently we have available to use pick 4 & 15. Don't think the timing or Reg's retirement was coincidental so maybe we will have two picks?

[KSAS]

HS Mid Season draft article on VFL players who shined recently & may get picked up. No mention of Kyle Dunkley. Warning: it is very Melb centric!

Category: | Herald Sun

"24-year-old inside midfielder Lochie Dickson who also finished with 24 touches for the Lions.

Dickson’s sheer size, standing at 190cm and weighing 94kg, should have clubs sniffing around the former Norwood player."

JPK replacement?

[Markwebbos]

Depending on which journo you read, you get a very different picture as to who’s going to go where. But I guess I should be barracking for Melbourne today.

I didn’t realise that Cresswell was a mid season acquisition

[ugg]

Latest rumour on twitter by footy journos is that Carlton are going to pick Deluca

[Markwebbos]

Yes sounds like they are looking for a player who'll have an immediate impact. We could really do with a decent ruckman

Blues set to take former Dockers midfielder with No.1 pick - AFL.com.au

[liz]

Latest rumour on twitter by footy journos is that Carlton are going to pick Deluca

A week or so ago, Dunkley was apparently going to be the first picked, maybe on the basis of Sydney showing some interest. Then it was rumoured we had our eye on Deluca.

The club has just about 24 hours to make sure it's linked to some utter dud, just to persuade Carlton to jump in and take him first. Would be good for the laughs.

[liz]

Yes sounds like they are looking for a player who'll have an immediate impact. We could really do with a decent ruckman

Blues set to take former Dockers midfielder with No.1 pick - AFL.com.au

We have a decent ruckman, and another dominating at NEAFL level in waiting. Sure, we don't have a great ruckman and ours tends to struggle against the very best. But do you reckon there's a state league ruckman running around who can come in an do better against Grundy or Gawn?

[Markwebbos]

We have a decent ruckman, and another dominating at NEAFL level in waiting. Sure, we don't have a great ruckman and ours tends to struggle against the very best. But do you reckon there's a state league ruckman running around who can come in an do better against Grundy or Gawn?

Sinkers for all his enormous efforts is never going to be a top-line ruckman. And he got destroyed on Friday night. Given how well Sam Reid went (admittedly pinch hitting), I think it wouldn't be mad to give him more rucking and Sinkers less, or even give him a spell and bring in Cameron.

In answer to your question, I don't know. I don't think anyone would have predicted a player of the calibre of Tim Kelly would be running around playing WAFL and have the impact he's had.

There may be players with the physical attributes to be better ruckmen than Sinclair out there if they got the opportunity. He wasn't much of a ruckman when he joined the Swans and has played out of his skin due to the injury to Naismith. But I'm not sure he's going to get any better. I wonder how far away Sam Naismith is now?

[Blood Fever]

Sinkers for all his enormous efforts is never going to be a top-line ruckman. And he got destroyed on Friday night. Given how well Sam Reid went (admittedly pinch hitting), I think it wouldn't be mad to give him more rucking and Sinkers less, or even give him a spell and bring in Cameron.

In answer to your question, I don't know. I don't think anyone would have predicted a player of the calibre of Tim Kelly would be running around playing WAFL and have the impact he's had.

There may be players with the physical attributes to be better ruckmen than Sinclair out there if they got the opportunity. He wasn't much of a ruckman when he joined the Swans and has played out of his skin due to the injury to Naismith. But I'm not sure he's going to get any better. I wonder how far away Sam Naismith is now?

Really admire Sinclair for all his limitations. 110% effort every week.

[Ruck'n'Roll]

As you say Liz, the impact of Buddy's onfield presence on other players' development is harder to gauge.
But the days when the opposition allocated 2 defenders on Buddy seem long gone. Phil Davis has been demonstrating how to beat Buddy for some years, this week Jordan Roughead even managed it too.
I hope that McCartin and Blakey will not have their development curtailed, just as I hope Reid, Rohan and maybe Membrey wasn't.

We'll never know what went through Clarkson's mind, but for such a relentlessly results driven coach to risk a potential premiership (especially after losing one) by moving a champion goalkicker up the field because he may be leaving next season just doesn't ring true to me. It seems far more likely that Clarkson might make that move if he believed it would enhance his teams chances.

I must admit I find it hard to comprehend one member of a team getting more than 10% of the salary cap, leaving the other 46 players to share 89%

[Ruck'n'Roll]

As you say Liz, the impact of Buddy's onfield presence on other players' development is harder to gauge.
The days when the opposition allocated 2 or more defenders on Buddy, leaving our other forwards relatively free, seem long gone. Phil Davis has been demonstrating how to beat Buddy for some years, this week Jordan Roughead even managed it.

I hope that McCartin and Blakey will not have their development curtailed, just as I hope Reid, Rohan and maybe even Membrey didn't.

We'll never know what went through Clarkson's mind, but for such a relentlessly results driven coach to risk a potential premiership (especially after losing one) by moving a champion goalkicker up the field because he may be leaving next season just doesn't ring true to me. It seems far more likely that Clarkson might make that move if he believed it would enhance his teams chances.

[bloodspirit]

As you say Liz, the impact of Buddy's onfield presence on other players' development is harder to gauge.
But the days when the opposition allocated 2 defenders on Buddy seem long gone. Phil Davis has been demonstrating how to beat Buddy for some years, this week Jordan Roughead even managed it too.
I hope that McCartin and Blakey will not have their development curtailed, just as I hope Reid, Rohan and maybe Membrey wasn't.

We'll never know what went through Clarkson's mind, but for such a relentlessly results driven coach to risk a potential premiership (especially after losing one) by moving a champion goalkicker up the field because he may be leaving next season just doesn't ring true to me. It seems far more likely that Clarkson might make that move if he believed it would enhance his teams chances.

I must admit I find it hard to comprehend one member of a team getting more than 10% of the salary cap, leaving the other 46 players to share 89%

It's a fair point but that's capitalism and market forces at work.

As regards Buddy and where he should play, this is Adam Curley's take on afl.com.au:

If you have the greatest forward of the modern era in your team, you don't try and turn him into a midfielder. Some media reports in the lead-up to Friday night's clash with Collingwood suggested Sydney should push Lance Franklin up the ground to 'benefit' the Swans' other forwards. A player with 930 goals, four Coleman medals, eight All Australian selections and 11 club goalkicking gongs on his resume. Forget the fact that playing alongside Franklin is an enormous psychological boost for youngsters like Nick Blakey, Tom McCartin and Jordan Dawson, but we saw the real-time benefits of his presence against the Magpies. He attracted the opposition's best tall defender, Jordan Roughead, which left Sam Reid to take advantage of a size mismatch on Jack Madgen and Jeremy Howe. Reid took nine marks, six of those contested, and booted a career-high six goals. There's little doubt the Swans are too Franklin-focused at times, why wouldn't they be? But taking him away from what he does best isn't going to help them win games, or his teammates develop. - Adam Curley

[wolftone57]

Who's now filling the traditional role of; not playing, not on the injury list (although he probably is injured). It seems that we have one each season: Pink, Ronke.

Toby Pinzk is developing into quite a good defender. Ronke played well in the reserves.

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[liz]

Thank you Adam.

There are a couple of good reasons for allowing (or encouraging) Buddy to sometimes roam up the ground. Firstly he's the best field kick in the team and can execute passes into the forward line that no-one else is capable of. Secondly, it helps give him a bit of space if he's playing on an octopus, like Phil Davis. But just to leave more space for 2nd, 3rd and 4th string forwards shouldn't be the reason.

That doesn't mean that the team can't improve by learning to be less Buddy conscious. Indeed, they showed good signs of progress in that direction on Friday. They kicked to Buddy plenty of times when he was one-on-one with Roughead and the forward line was reasonably open, but at other times they looked for different options, evidenced by Reid's goal tally. Papley thought about a short kick to Buddy before going back and converting the shot himself, but he didn't take the option. And at other times players ignored him on a short lead and kicked elsewhere.