2020 trading, drafting and list management: players and personnel

[MattW]

That's a bit Bernard King don't you think?

Paddy is a seriously good mark, too courageous (for his own good) and a pretty good kick. Playing with his brother, he would be more invested in the Swans than at any other club and being a second chance, he will grab it with all he's got. Yes he'll be cheap.....so why not? He's a number one draft pick!

I'd be happy if we gave him a one year contract.

[Markwebbos]

We should work GWS for a deal. Mummy and Jacobs retiring means they literally only have one kid on the whole list who can ruck, and he can't ruck in senior footy yet. They will be desperate for a ruck, and even another backup ruck.

Let's unload sinkers on them for draft picks or one of their young players?

Why would GW$ want an ageing poor ruckman? Why wouldn’t they get something younger and better, particularly after the rucking disaster of 2020. We won’t get very much for him anyway. Can’t imagine he’s on big money. He’s a better backup than any of the others in our ruck “centre of excellence”.

We need to acquire a ready to play ruckman and rationalise the array of understudies: Knoll, McLean, Amartey can’t all be on our list next year.

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That's a bit Bernard King don't you think?

Paddy is a seriously good mark, too courageous (for his own good) and a pretty good kick. Playing with his brother, he would be more invested in the Swans than at any other club and being a second chance, he will grab it with all he's got. Yes he'll be cheap.....so why not? He's a number one draft pick!

I reckon someone will pick him up if he’s ok medically. He’s a number one pick KPF who is now the right age to flourish. And he’s not going to cost a lot.

[Ludwig]

Swans' 2020 Report Card on AFL website makes for interesting reading. I don't know who Cameron Noakes is but he gives us a D ratiing. One of the factors of influence being that we didn't improve our ladder position. He identifies as our big holes, our ruck situation (surprise), and suggests Geelong's Darcy Fort as someone we might look at. He thinks JD would be a risky move because of the injury history of both Bud and Reid (no surprise there either). He suggests Jeremy Cameron. The other hole - midfield. I don't think he has taken into consideration Campbell and Gulden on the horizon.

There's always going to be a lot of truth about these kinds of reviews. The fact is that we finished 16th, so a lot is not right. There will be questions on the ability of young players to improve in following years. The very same questions arise and are debated here on RWO.

The Disappointment section comments are both true and explanatory in that it sets the background for our youth movement via the draft. The best way to maintain quality of talent in the team is to go to the draft, where the club can increase its proportion of players on lower contracts. If you have a good list manager, and we do, then you can get a lot of talent on the list. The problem is that they have to be developed, and that takes time. Whatever we think about Buddy, his long term contract has forced us down this path. Now we just have to hope that the football department can mould the talent we have into a competitive team in the coming decade.

I found the suggestion of Darcy Fort a bit disingenuous. Geelong are one of the clubs looking for a ruckman. Why is Darcy Fort good enough for the Swans, but not Geelong? And Noakes makes the claim that we've been strapped down with the Franklin contract, but suggests we repeat this problem by going after another outrageously highly paid player in Cameron.

This Report Card is the typical superficial analysis we can expect from these post season reviews. Do we really learn much from a synopsis that a good team is made up of healthy and experienced players?

[Blood Fever]

Swans' 2020 Report Card on AFL website makes for interesting reading. I don't know who Cameron Noakes is but he gives us a D ratiing. One of the factors of influence being that we didn't improve our ladder position. He identifies as our big holes, our ruck situation (surprise), and suggests Geelong's Darcy Fort as someone we might look at. He thinks JD would be a risky move because of the injury history of both Bud and Reid (no surprise there either). He suggests Jeremy Cameron. The other hole - midfield. I don't think he has taken into consideration Campbell and Gulden on the horizon.

Another hack Melbourne footy journo. Who cares.

[Melbourne_Blood]

That's a bit Bernard King don't you think?

Paddy is a seriously good mark, too courageous (for his own good) and a pretty good kick. Playing with his brother, he would be more invested in the Swans than at any other club and being a second chance, he will grab it with all he's got. Yes he'll be cheap.....so why not? He's a number one draft pick!

Yeah probably a touch over the top haha. I just don’t think I’ve ever witnessed much more than the odd good glimpse from him. Yes he’s not had a good consistent run at it that is true.


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[Ludwig]

Another hack Melbourne footy journo. Who cares.

Cameron Noakes has a high proportion of articles about the Swans. I don't know if he's a hack or not, but he's not focused on Melbourne. He wrote this rather positive article on the Swans' midfield after the Hawthorn game victory, which was mostly about Ollie Florent.

The new Blood in the guts: Meet Sydney's midfield future

[Aprilbr]

I look back on our season with far more optimism than the journalist mentioned but I do recognise that we once again finished low on the ladder. Our rebuild started a few seasons back when we decided to offload Hanneberry and Rohan. Since then we have invested heavily in the draft and brought in a small number of fringe players from other clubs. The drafted players have begun to develop and we now have a nucleus of good youngsters that should form the basis of our next good side. However, we are not there yet, so we need to invest in the draft again. Hence, the two academy boys and utilising our first round pick to acquire a top youngster should be our priorities. Bringing in a ruckmen from elsewhere should be the other priority. I'm not convinced the timing is right to chase players like Daniher or Cameron.

[Blood Fever]

Cameron Noakes has a high proportion of articles about the Swans. I don't know if he's a hack or not, but he's not focused on Melbourne. He wrote this rather positive article on the Swans' midfield after the Hawthorn game victory, which was mostly about Ollie Florent.

The new Blood in the guts: Meet Sydney's midfield future

Fine. My point is that it is just one opinion, no better or worse than any of us here on RWO. Not sure why people put any significance or importance on it.

[707]

Cameron Noakes, some bloke they found in a dunny cubicle who can string more than three words together so he's now writing season review articles.

Most of us on RWO know a lot more about our club and what we produced this year than Mr.Noakes, not worth the time to read.

I'm just wondering who makes way next year for Buddy, Rampe, Heeney, pick 3, Campbell and Gulden?

[Blood Fever]

Cameron Noakes, some bloke they found in a dunny cubicle who can string more than three words together so he's now writing season review articles.

Most of us on RWO know a lot more about our club and what we produced this year than Mr.Noakes, not worth the time to read.

I'm just wondering who makes way next year for Buddy, Rampe, Heeney, pick 3, Campbell and Gulden?

Interesting point. Not sure if all young guys will play a lot of games. One thing this year has given us is knowing that we have more depth than we thought. Fox, Bell, Wicks, Foote come to mind. Brand looked useful early. Hope I haven't put a hex on any of these guys and they get cut!

[barry]

.....and you wonder why people have a go at you. Seriously Barry, you're your own worst enemy. I try to be subjective when assessing other peoples post's but will always call out madness when I see it. An F+.....seriously? That's what I would give our injury list.....which seems to have been forgotten by many when assessing our season.

You really do get upset by different opinions.

To quote Wikipedia
"The 16th place finish was also the lowest in club history".

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Why would GW$ want an ageing poor ruckman? .

Because they are desperate, and have a history of it.

[AB Swannie]

When considering this trade and draft period it is important to firstly understand our restrictions:

1. We are (fortunately) committed to drafting Campbell and Gulden. Best case scenario is that they get bid on at picks 10 and 30. This would cost us ~ 1600pts with the discount.

2. Assuming we use pick 3 in the draft and don’t trade it for later picks, we have 1259pts available to match those bids leaving a deficit of 341pts.

As you can see, even in a good scenario where our academy lads are bid later than expected, we still don’t have enough points.

The good news:
* We get 3 high quality kids in a draft that is full of unknowns.

* The points deficit comes off our 2nd round pick in 2021 rather than our 1st. Even better, if we don’t hold a 2nd round pick for 2021 it would come off our 3rd and 4th round picks.

The bad news:
* The 2021 draft is supposed to be a good one so trading out of this draft or losing points value could hurt.

Conclusion:
We don’t have much currency in terms of draft picks to pick up players people are suggesting. 2nd round 2021 is likely the best we can do.

If you are hypothesising a trade, understand that you’ve got to give something to get something and we don’t have much to give.

[goswannies]

.....and you wonder why people have a go at you. Seriously Barry, you're your own worst enemy. I try to be subjective when assessing other peoples post's but will always call out madness when I see it. An F+.....seriously? That's what I would give our injury list.....which seems to have been forgotten by many when assessing our season.

You really do get upset by different opinions.

To quote Wikipedia
"The 16th place finish was also the lowest in club history".

There is no refuting that this year is the lowest we’ve ever finished, at 16th. But the thing about numbers, barry, is that it they can tell a very different story depending how you present them. A glass half empty pessimist would say that it’s the lowest we’ve finished in history and leave it at that.

Dig a little deeper and you might reverse the ladder. Take into consideration that there are more teams now than at any time in history so finishing 16th isn’t as low as you can finish. How about we (equally irrefutably) accurately present the ultimate 2020 ladder position as we finished third last rather than simply 16th. When you look at it that way, we’ve finished 3rd last 13 times in our history (1985, 1984, 1979, 1957, 1955, 1954, 1949, 1948, 1940, 1928, 1921, 1901, 1899). So 10.6% of the time since the inception of the VFL/AFL the Swans have finished 3rd last.

In fact, on 24.4% of occasions the Swans have finished 3rd last or lower since the inception of the VFL/AFL competition.

A quarter of the time.

So it’s not as though this season’s ultimate position is necessarily an aberration for our club’s history. Likely merely a disappointing divergence from the recent trends of success.

Given our injury history this season & the uniqueness of the Covid compromised season, I prefer the glass half full view that we finished 2 places better than a couple of other teams this year and I feel that the Swans have a lot more upside for 2021 than a number of other teams who finished above us this season.

[barry]

Sure, and in those 24.4% I would have graded mostly 'F'. There are no participation medals in AFL.

[stevoswan]

You really do get upset by different opinions.

I respect that there will be different opinions and that I just won't agree with every one of them.

So no, I actually get upset with ridiculous opinions......laced with pessimism.