2019 trading, drafting and list management: players and personnel

[rb4x]

Well at least one of Bell and Amartey will need to be placed on the senior list. I would assume Bell but possibly both.

[Jeynez]

To be a good midfielder (not even a great one), you have to be VERY accurate with your disposals. He doesn't have that accuracy. He's a kick now, think later, type player.

Where does that rank guys like Treloar, Shiel, Dangerfield, O'Meara then? All very ordinary kicks of the ball, some worse than Jones.

[longmile]

Fox, McLean, Bell, Amartey, and Knoll re-signed for 2020

Five Swans secured - sydneyswans.com.au

Feel a bit sorry for Dean Towers. Always thought he was a bit hard done by and was finally showing he was seriously best 22 before his eye injury. Fox just seems like a bit more of a crap version of towers (except can take the odd screamer)

[Thunder Shaker]

Possibly they'll have to hang on until after the trade period, when the club will have a better idea of list spots available, draft picks held and player "types" needed. I think Maibaum is also out of contract, and have wondered (internally) whether there is room for both he and Pink on the list. It may come down to one or the other.

Player types we need are pretty clear. We need a couple of good midfielders and possibly a ruckman.

We were ranked 17th for inside 50s (ahead of only Gold Coast) and 16th for clearances and contested possessions (though Richmond were worse than us in both of these, so perhaps those stats are not particularly useful). We're having problems winning the ball and getting it forward. Recruiting a couple of midfielders is pretty obvious.

[Bloods05]

Feel a bit sorry for Dean Towers. Always thought he was a bit hard done by and was finally showing he was seriously best 22 before his eye injury. Fox just seems like a bit more of a crap version of towers (except can take the odd screamer)

I would have said quite the opposite. Fox is Towers with skills and better decision-making. Not a star, but a role-player. Towers always let himself down by panicking when he got the ball.

[Thunder Shaker]

I was disappointed about the prospect of losing Jones - mostly because he does have some pace and aggro, and because he is a bit more experienced and physically mature than many of our list. The last month of the season, when Jones was missing, moderated my disappointment somewhat because the midfield did OK without him, albeit in some games against weaker sides. In particular, his absence opened up the opportunity for Rowbottom to play more in the midfield and I thought he did very well playing in a similar style to Jones. He doesn't have Jones' raw pace but he still likes to tuck the ball under his arm and take on opponents, often successfully. His kicking is more reliable than Jones' too. However, he still is very young, and it's to be expected that he'll take another couple of seasons to develop into a consistent and reliable midfield option.

Jones has a weakness for a bit too much aggro at times. He's not useful if he's serving another suspension.

[liz]

I think he plateaued because he had to play more in the midfield given our injury situation. To me, he is more a high pressure small forward and he did this role really well at NEAFL level.

Plus he's a local junior. I hope we give him a contract.

I don't think he has the pace or ground level agility to play as a small forward at AFL level though. I realise that applying pressure in the forward line is a key component of the AFL game nowadays, but I don't think you can keep a spot in a side purely by doing that. Using my Foote comparison again, he was also a strong and frequent tackler at NEAFL level. He also had a serious turn of pace (though he didn't use it very often) and was as strong (probably stronger) overhead than Wicks. He was good enough to make an AFL debut but not to go beyond the 22nd man picked. I don't think Wicks' attributes, as a package, are as strong as Foote's.

I get that he's a local boy, and that he is a hard worker. But that's not enough. And we don't have unlimited list spots. If he were to be retained for another season as a Cat B rookie, that shuts the door on any of the current U18 or U19 development squad getting a year on the list.

[Ludwig]

I would have said quite the opposite. Fox is Towers with skills and better decision-making. Not a star, but a role-player. Towers always let himself down by panicking when he got the ball.

Yes. I agree with this comparison. Towers was a timid player. I feel that Fox can become a solid role player in defence or as a tagger. He has the potential to be a good stopper.

[Ludwig]

I don't think he has the pace or ground level agility to play as a small forward at AFL level though. I realise that applying pressure in the forward line is a key component of the AFL game nowadays, but I don't think you can keep a spot in a side purely by doing that. Using my Foote comparison again, he was also a strong and frequent tackler at NEAFL level. He also had a serious turn of pace (though he didn't use it very often) and was as strong (probably stronger) overhead than Wicks. He was good enough to make an AFL debut but not to go beyond the 22nd man picked. I don't think Wicks' attributes, as a package, are as strong as Foote's.

I get that he's a local boy, and that he is a hard worker. But that's not enough. And we don't have unlimited list spots. If he were to be retained for another season as a Cat B rookie, that shuts the door on any of the current U18 or U19 development squad getting a year on the list.

I agree with your comparison with Foote. I think Foote was unlucky that he got injured in his final year. He was looking an improved player before he got injured. You've get to get lucky as a fringe player, like Nic Newman.

I think if Bell gets elevated to the senior list or transferred to the Cat A rookie list (I don't know if this is possible, but think it is), then another Cat B list spot will open.

[rb4x]

With our need for mids I hope we are taking a serious look at Luke Partington.
He was drafted by West Coast with their first selection and twenty-eighth overall in the 2015 national draft.

He made his AFL debut in the sixty-eight-point win against the Brisbane Lions at Domain Stadium in round 19 of the 2017 season. Basically stuck behind a very strong West Coast midfield including Gaff, Shuey, Sheed, Masten, Yeo, Redden etc. He tied for the best and fairest in 2018 at East Perth, West Coast's West Australian Football League affiliate at the time, but was delisted by West Coast at the end of the 2018 season.

For the 2019 season, Partington would move back to South Australia and join the Glenelg Tigers in the South Australian National Football League. He would cap off his 2019 season by winning the league's best and fairest award, the Magarey Medal as well as playing in the premiership winning team with Jesse White.

A mature mid with good disposal skills is what the Swans need and I think he could fit in well. A SA boy so no go home to Melbourne issues and he should now be realistic regarding how hard he would need to work to crack it properly in the AFL.

[tlock]

Jones - the champion for high turnovers. Glad his gone. Good riddance.

[707]

Tell us what you think, don't hold back????

[bloodspirit]

Well, a busy 24 hours that I am catching up on!

Some assorted thoughts:

* the biggest news is the re-contracting of Fox, Amartey, McLean (and Knoll and Bell - but that was reported and expected respectively). Together with the delistings of Tucker and Rose this gives us more knowledge about what the club is doing. Now there remain just five players with question marks still hanging over them: Menzel, Maibaum, Pink, Hirst and Wicks. I take liz's point that it may wind up being Pink or Maibaum. I'm not sure which I'd take. I wonder what future they see for McLean. Particularly if we get Daniher, we don't need another forward-ruck. So maybe he can become a big towering KPD? Has the right attitude. Can he defend well one on one? Can he intercept? Would want him to develop these skills even if he doesn't develop an offensive game or have great disposal.

* I am concerned that so far we don't seem to be doing much to address our midfield deficiencies other than looking over Riley Knight, a player I don't know much about. Hopefully we have other ideas brewing. Could we possibly be relying only on the organic development of the players we have to fill the breach? Could that be enough? Olly may be developing his inside game, Rowbottom looks a belter, but this just doesn't seem near enough to improve in this area of the field while JPK is declining and too much is asked of Parker and Hewett. Nor is Clarke the solution. There is a big gap to fill since losing Hanners and Mitchell and having JPK decline since 2016.

* Interesting suggestion that we might be into Ryan Byrnes. I was able to find this tidbit on afldraftcentral about him "skipper Ryan Byrnes has put his hand up [to be drafted] with a brilliantly consistent season from midfield".

* I liked the trade suggestions involving the splitting of pick 5 but don't agree with GWS agreeing to swap picks because they need pick 5 "to get Green". The point is GWS have no issues getting Green but they want to be able to select another top player before they have to burn their picks paying for Green. Pick 5 might not give them that security because there is still a risk that Melbourne or Adelaide might bid with pick 3 or 4, although the risk of us bidding with pick 5 would seem much higher. So would GWS do this deal?

* If we trade out Papley, I think Taylor is a good replacement - although it is strange that Taylor's form has not been good enough for best 22 this year. He was a very talented youngster and this did translate to his early years of senior footy and he has got a lot of games into him (which makes him appealing also). Our prospects of getting him cheaply go up if Brisbane succeed recruiting Elliott. This also tends to suggest the Lions are willing to wash their hands of Taylor, irrespective of whether they get Elliott. Again, I wonder, why? [Update, just saw that Elliott has decided to stay at Collingwood.]

* Chris Doerre has published his first phantom draft for the season (i.e. not just draft rankings): AFL Phantom Draft Who goes where in the first round?. He has us using pick 5 to bid on Green and then taking Young with pick 6 after Serong and Flanders are taken by Melbourne and Adelaide. A pity. I think that while Young is the kind of player we are looking for, he is also the kind of player we might already have in the form of Ling or Stoddart or McInerney or Dawson or O'Riordan. I possibly would have preferred one of those two others (but don't follow closely enough to feel strongly). Looks like those players could well be the first 6 taken. Doerre has Ash and McAsey as two relative sliders (relative to their rankings in draft form guides anyway).

* Ludwig will be interested to note that Cutler wants to return (go home) to where else but.... Victoria.

[bloodspirit]

p.s. So happy to see Rampe getting some more of the recognition he deserves (via Champion Data and afl.com.au).

p.p.s. Just because we have made inquiries about Byrnes doesn't mean we are going to draft him, or even hoping to draft him. We would be doing our homework on an awful lot of players. There is so much more homework to be done now that the situation with picks is so much more fluid and we could wind up with just about any picks. But he could be one of the 'gems' later in the draft that KB was referring to.

[Jeynez]

* If we trade out Papley, I think Taylor is a good replacement - although it is strange that Taylor's form has not been good enough for best 22 this year. He was a very talented youngster and this did translate to his early years of senior footy and he has got a lot of games into him (which makes him appealing also).

I'd prefer if we went for Knight over Taylor. Taylor couldn't make the Lions best 22 over Cam Rayner when he was stinking it up, which is a worry.

I reckon he will end up being a Rose 2.0. Will kill it in the NEAFL side, but won't translate that form at AFL level. Pass.