2022 List management, trading, drafting

[stevoswan]

But we had a better version on our list !

George is now averaging 30+ possessions a game in a finals bound team. He's absolutely firing, week in, week out.....how's our better version stacking up? He's damn good but we still miss Hewitt.

Seriously, if Dawson was up front and honest with the club about his 'actual' plan, Hewitt would probably still be with us.....and Auntie Gerald, stop saying 'we let Dawson go'.....we didn't, he backstabbed us and screwed up our plans (in letting Hewitt go)....and then we had no wriggle room due to the Crows having such an early pick. You do remember that don't you?

[stevoswan]

Here are George's ave disposals per game whilst at the Swans
2016 17.3
2017 18.7
2018 18.6
2019 21.9
2020 13.8
2021 17.9

Obviously this stat isn't the be all and end all, but are they really the figures of an "elite midfielder"?
Only one year out of 6 he averaged more than 20 touches per game.
Last year at Carlton he averaged 28.9, but that was at Carlton.
Who knows how he would have gone here last year and this?
When he was at the Swans he was mostly regarded as a very average plodder, and esp here on RWO.

He didn't play for Carlton last year, he played for us.

I never saw him as a plodder and his efforts in last years elimination final were epic. I wanted him to stay and the way he fought in that final, I think he wanted to as well.

[KTigers]

He didn't play for Carlton last year, he played for us.

I never saw him as a plodder and his efforts in last years elimination final were epic. I wanted him to stay and the way he fought in that final, I think he wanted to as well.

Yes, this year at Carlton he's averaged 28.9 touches. It's a been a long season already and we're still only at Round 17.

[707]

Please read the new thread I've just posted about Dustin Martin news

[Faunac8]

But we had a better version on our list !

And after tonight it’s pretty clear that Chad is a much better version.

[TheBloods]

And after tonight it’s pretty clear that Chad is a much better version.

Give it a rest , you know good and well Chad was never in the mix for Hewitts spot

[Faunac8]

Give it a rest , you know good and well Chad was never in the mix for Hewitts spot

Well who were you referring to then? Or were you, as usual having a crack at James ?

[Auntie.Gerald]

It's so strange looking at Freeo and the Pies above us on the ladder

They are a genuine chance and a win ahead of us which just amazes me.

We have so may supporters that think our organic growth and development is more than enough.....no need to bring in serious talent in 2023 ie an elite player that could help us rise above our current win loss ratio.

Yet what is different about our organic growth vs Freeo and or the Pies?

Why is ours so special?

How do we prove this?

Is it fair to say we have not proven that we have more talent nor a win loss ability vs say Freeo, Pies, Brisbane, Cats etc ?

So does this reaffirm our current strategy is superior to the teams above us on the ladder?

Do we suspect that our current strategy has in fact allowed for an elite player to come on board and tip the scales of probability vs other very strong teams above us on the ladder?

[bloodspirit]

I'm very much in the hope we don't bring in Dusty camp - so I was relieved to hear the rumours which I had never seriously entertained, at least not until I read that Caro reported ït's on". I think it makes a lot more sense for Dusty to go to GWS - they need the publicity he would bring them - but how they manage it salary cap wise is the question. I think that both Dusty himself and Richmond would have to be prepared to take a bit of a haircut to make it happen - and that's not out of the question. I think it might be reasonable for a club to pay Dusty $3M for 4 years if he was prepared to accept that - even still that's a gamble, but a gamble that might be worthwhile for the right club. A bit like our $10M gamble on Buddy.

I would love to have Hopper or Taranto but I can't see it happening. Why would Hopper leave GWS? Taranto may possibly wish to leave and that's going to be bad news for the Giants, except it will make their salary cap more manageable and they still have a good list without him and they'll get some decent picks for him.

Mostly I agree with Ludwig and SwanSand's comments on this topic.

AG, re Freo and Pies - first, the season is not over. Second, I don't know why your so amazed about Freo. I certainly didn't tip Freo to be top 4 this season but I do think Freo have done a brilliant job assembling their list through trade and draft over the last few years and they will reap the benefits for a long while to come - we still haven't seen the windfall of their last draft haul. But even Freo are not yet the complete package and need a bit more in the front half. However, Collingwood (and maybe also Freo - I don't have the stats) are a team with a lot of experience that, together with their younger players, are helping them achieve their success. I suspect our team is younger and less experienced than Collingwood and quite possibly Freo too. Incidentally, Collingwood certainly haven't been bolstered by bringing in elite talent in recent times - on the contrary they have shed it (e.g. Treloar) while spending $$$$$ on the likes of Grundy, De Goey and Moore. Their best recruit was Darcy Cameron who they got for a packet of chips from us. Him and that Bulldogs midfielder who they also paid next to nothing for last trade period (and who we were also reportedly interested in).

What's special about our list build is the way we bottomed out and yet have bounced back to finals so quickly. We did this without bringing in any high profile trades but with a couple of shrewd moves (e.g. Hickey) and through our great drafting.

That doesn't mean we couldn't now top it up by recruiting someone really good. But I'm with Ludwig - we'd be much better off getting Taranto than Dusty if we want to (and can afford) to bring in a big fish.

[Ludwig]

I don't know how much of our list rebuild strategy was forced upon us or was by design. We went for the double big payday pair Tippett and Franklin, lost our COLA, the got cheated out of the 2016 premiership. We may have just recovered from this salary cap squeeze which led to the loss of several good players and effectively cut us out of the top end of the recruitment market.

I was in the minority who wanted to let Mitchell go to get another draft pick at the end of 2016. This was the start of the rebuild. So it's been going on for 6 years now, although we've been competitive in 4 of the 6 years, which is not bad for a rebuild. The point of my position at the time was to face the reality that our 2012-2016 premiership window was closing, and that group, which contained manly elite and high quality players, was on the way out. And the salary cap squeeze prevented us from doing a Geelong type top up that might have kept the window open for a few more years. We also needed to change our game plan to become more of an outside running and skills based team. Putting aside how one might rate our particular draft selections, we did go for this kind of player with most of our non-academy picks.

Good recruiting and lady luck play equal parts in getting this rebuild strategy right. Sometimes things go wrong, like with Matt Ling, and sometimes a star like Chad can be drafted with pick 39. Hopefully this all evens out at a minimum, and we can draft, over the period, an average of 3 or more AFL quality players per annum. So in 6 years we have 18 AFL quality players. I figure that we just get over the line on this count. If we add Paddy McCartin and HHK to the count, we definitely fall over the line. So I rate our 6 year plan a success.

The chances of being successful in this kind of rebuild is to compactify the age demographic so that the group becomes proficient at executing the game plan for a long period of time. We haven't been consistent this year, but when we play our best football, we've proven that we can beat anyone. So now we just have to play our best football more often. We still have a fair few young players to come through, including the 2021 draftees. There will be far more players coming in the door than going out the door, since we don't have that many players nearing retirement; the main ones being JPK and Franklin, and we've learned to play and win without them, so we can move on from that era when they were at the top of the game.

If we do, in fact, finally have a reprieve from our salary cap squeeze, how best should we use our cap space?

1. Firstly, we should make sure we can hold on to the players we want to keep. We don't want to have a repeat of the Dawson defection.
2. If we do recruit a player from another club, we should make sure the player falls into the demographic of the rebuild, so a Tim Taranto is okay, but Dusty is not okay.
3. It's better to wait to identify a specific need, then recruit for that need, rather than just go out and get whoever is on the market at the end of the year. Opportunities will arise, and when we take a shot, we should make it a good one.

Right now, I can't identify a specific type of player we need that can't be potentially filled by someone already on our list. We have some high quality players running around in the VFL. We have 2 first round draft picks this year. I would prefer to see how this plays out before going after a big name recruit. If an opportunity presents itself, then go for it. But no need to go chasing at this time.

[Markwebbos]

I have to admire your optimism and belief in our ability to meet all of our needs via the draft, but I think our list would be improved by:

Another KPD to replace Rampe and play alongside the Iron McCartin
Better small forwards
Another KPF not sure it’s fair to expect Logan to be the messiah
Another elite mid or two

[Ludwig]

I have to admire your optimism and belief in our ability to meet all of our needs via the draft, but I think our list would be improved by:

Another KPD to replace Rampe and play alongside the Iron McCartin
Better small forwards
Another KPF not sure it’s fair to expect Logan to be the messiah
Another elite mid or two

On the game thread you said that our current team can beat anyone. So obviously you think we are already good enough to win a premiership. And you say I'm the optimist. The current team is young, so should only get better. That's the starting point; a young team that can win a premiership this year.

Not playing in this team are:

• Harry Cunningham (picked as the sub), a proven small defender.
• Campbell, who most think will be a star.
• 2 Capable small forwards in Ronke and Wicks.
• A decent backup key defender in Melican.
• An untried key or 2rd defender in Gould, who is playing very well in the VFL.
• 2 quality young inside midfielders in Sheldrick and Roberts.
• 2 wingman types that show a lot of potential in Hugo HK and Corey Warner.
• A promising medium defender who is currently injured, in Marc Sheather.
• James Bell; categorize as you wish.

Our salary cap can only take so many elite players and it's hard to push out a premiership capable side and their backups.

If we recruit an elite midfielder or two, who do they replace and what do we tell Campbell, Sheldrick and Roberts?

Hopefully Gould will be Rampe's replacement. In any case, we should be looking for one or 2 KPPs in the current draft, given we went big on mids in the last draft.

Logan and Amartey look a promising duet for the post Buddy era. McLean is not a bad backup and is still improving. And we should have more from the draft.

We have one of the best small forwards in the game in Papley and Heeney plays as a small forward most of the time. Even if you are not a Hayward fan, that's not a bad couple of small forwards. Plus we have a heap of VFL players on our list who can fill in nicely. Maybe we will go after Zurhaar.

Everyone loves elite players, but elite players command 800k+ in salary. So there's a limit to how many we can have. There will be players like Chad, Gulden and Blakey who will be looking for big bucks in their next couple of contracts. So put down the phone. The stable is full.

I think we have the list, and good prospects of adding to the current list, that should hold us in good stead for rest of the decade. Who knows if it will produce a premiership. It takes more than a good list to win a flag.

I love your optimism. If the team is ready to win the flag this year, I'm ready too.

[KTigers]

Our list is very good. The one thing we don't have any more is JPK. He is a huge hole and sure we could try and trade for someone
near to his experience and caliber for next year and beyond but it will be very difficult. Taranto is good but he is no JPK of a few years
ago. It's likely he never will be.
I always think the centre clearance is crucial. Look at Friday night with all those high balls coming in and Bud and Amartey crashing
around and creating havoc and all that loose ball. It's totally unrealistic to expect the mids to deliver lace out balls to our forwards
from the centre bounces. They are under insane amounts of pressure from four and sometimes six opposition players. It's
mayhem in there and any ball they can get out and towards our end is a win. But it's harder now without the king of the contested
possession.
And as for actually winning the whole shebang, history shows you usually need a bunch of seasoned finals performers who have
gone deep in September and come up short before. There are exceptions of course, but they are pretty rare.

[Ocker]

On the game thread you said that our current team can beat anyone. So obviously you think we are already good enough to win a premiership. And you say I'm the optimist. The current team is young, so should only get better. That's the starting point; a young team that can win a premiership this year.

Not playing in this team are:

• Harry Cunningham (picked as the sub), a proven small defender.
• Campbell, who most think will be a star.
• 2 Capable small forwards in Ronke and Wicks.
• A decent backup key defender in Melican.
• An untried key or 2rd defender in Gould, who is playing very well in the VFL.
• 2 quality young inside midfielders in Sheldrick and Roberts.
• 2 wingman types that show a lot of potential in Hugo HK and Corey Warner.
• A promising medium defender who is currently injured, in Marc Sheather.
• James Bell; categorize as you wish.

Our salary cap can only take so many elite players and it's hard to push out a premiership capable side and their backups.

If we recruit an elite midfielder or two, who do they replace and what do we tell Campbell, Sheldrick and Roberts?

Hopefully Gould will be Rampe's replacement. In any case, we should be looking for one or 2 KPPs in the current draft, given we went big on mids in the last draft.

Logan and Amartey look a promising duet for the post Buddy era. McLean is not a bad backup and is still improving. And we should have more from the draft.

We have one of the best small forwards in the game in Papley and Heeney plays as a small forward most of the time. Even if you are not a Hayward fan, that's not a bad couple of small forwards. Plus we have a heap of VFL players on our list who can fill in nicely. Maybe we will go after Zurhaar.

Everyone loves elite players, but elite players command 800k+ in salary. So there's a limit to how many we can have. There will be players like Chad, Gulden and Blakey who will be looking for big bucks in their next couple of contracts. So put down the phone. The stable is full.

I think we have the list, and good prospects of adding to the current list, that should hold us in good stead for rest of the decade. Who knows if it will produce a premiership. It takes more than a good list to win a flag.

I love your optimism. If the team is ready to win the flag this year, I'm ready too.

Great post and I fully agree with the thrust. However, we can still have fun with all the wild speculation of who we might be able to trade in.

Our bigger problem is who we might lose or need to cut.

[Markwebbos]

Great post and I fully agree with the thrust. However, we can still have fun with all the wild speculation of who we might be able to trade in.

Our bigger problem is who we might lose or need to cut.

We don’t have a cap problem, allegedly, but we do have to turnover our list. I REALLY hope Gould makes it somehow.