2023 List Management

[liz]

Did u have a more up to date source of reference?

My head. There would have been a lot of discussion (outcry) if the AFL had decided to reintroduce a variant on the Veterans List rule. We benefited from it at the time but it was grossly unfair and distorting.

[Auntie.Gerald]

Feel free to delete Liz
It may confuse and or over excite and we can keep our focus on 2 or 3 players being drafted in Nov ????

[Thunder Shaker]

Thunder I’m struggling to see a standout tall KPD to use via our first draft pick unless it is Ollie Murphy ie probably the best available at pick 16ish

If we draft a tall defender it will probably be Murphy or Leake. I prefer O'Sullivan, but he will probably be drafted before our pick. If by a minor miracle O'Sullivan was still available at our pick I expect the club to take him.

Yes, Leake is somewhat shorter so isn't truly "tall". IMO he would be a replacement for Rampe who will retire in the next few years.

But after watching a bit of him online I find his trajectory of being a serious AFL player difficult to determine.

It could take 4 years plus for his body to handle the rigours of AFL……..

This is normal for taller players.

so the question begs can we find a better tall option within the next 4 years to be a serious KPD at the Swans?

Will we have a player or two that will be leaving and we can trade with to attract a mature defender in the next season or two?

I see the 4 mids in around pick 15 to 22ish as pretty bloody options along with Cleary.

Then player draft or mid season draft select another key defender that is more ready ie in the next season or two.

Tall defenders (195cm or greater) are at a premium right now due to all the 200cm KP forwards that are on club lists or draft prospects. Clubs who are fortunate to have defenders like that will want to hold on to them.

This was discussed a bit here: Inside Trading: Inside McKay chase, Lion set to re-sign, bidding under review (afl.com.au) says in part: "All clubs knew it would be a competitive market, but the McKay chase, and subsequent dominoes of key defenders moving clubs, showed the tall backs environment to be even more fierce than predicted."

It's not hard to see how this market for tall KPD can be "fierce". Just count the KPF forwards on club lists who are 200cm or taller, both now and prospects in the draft.

[Ludwig]

if we are not that impressed with what's available at our 1st pick, we might consider packaging our picks 12 and 45 for a pick in the 2os this year and one likely to be in the 2os in the 2024 draft plus a pick in the 50s of help cover the points for Cleary. We still take 2 picks, but gain a 2nd rounder for next year. It seems that a pick in the high 20s would give us access to a lot of promising draftees that seems just as good or better than ones in the late teens.

[barry]

If we target a KPD with our first pick overall, we are morons, and wasting another good pick.

Take the best available!

[KSAS]

In the words of Forrest Gump, our draft selections nights have been like a box of chocolates!

[BRS328]

Barry,
Let me just say I am glad that you are not the list manager at the Swans. Under your best available for the quickest return concept you would end up with a team of 187cm players. The fact is bigger players take longer to develop and you have to allow for this. Very few big players burst on the scene and have an immediate impact.
The club knows we have Rampe retiring in two years so now is the time plan it, and clearly this is what we are doing

[The Big Cat]

AFL site reporting that Robbie Fox will move from the rookie to the main list so he will count as one of our three selections at the draft.

[Blood Fever]

Happy for that. Well earned. Very good player apart from occasional clanger when accelerating out of defence.

[barry]

Barry,
Let me just say I am glad that you are not the list manager at the Swans. Under your best available for the quickest return concept you would end up with a team of 187cm players.

I am very confident that by just sticking to the amateur pre draft rankings, we would have made better use of first round picks than our illustrious list managers who have only been made to look by the academies.

You do not pick KPD, or ruckman for that matter, with first round picks. Ever.

[i'm-uninformed2]

I am very confident that by just sticking to the amateur pre draft rankings, we would have made better use of first round picks than our illustrious list managers who have only been made to look by the academies.

You do not pick KPD, or ruckman for that matter, with first round picks. Ever.

Barry's actually not completely wrong on his last point here, in his defence. Elite KPFs are usually found at the top end of the draft; rucks and KPDs usually elsewhere.

There are a couple of exceptions in the last 10 years - Weitering and Moore are the two most notable examples. Prior to that, Daniel Talia and Phil Davis. But exception is the key word here. If the Dogs play Darcy down back, he'll be one.

Look out our record over the years and what a motley crew they have been - Craig Bolton (discarded and small); Leo Barry (converted from offence); Heath Grundy (same, and a rookie too); Ted Richards (recruited as forward); Rampe (rookie and undersized); Tom McCartin (converted forward).

Where Barry is wrong is that sticking to pre-draft amateur rankings is the way to go. They're as wrong as everyone else, including list managers. From Richard Tambling to Jimmy Toumpas to Jack Watts - and yes, Dylan Stephens was basically in the top 10 of every pre-draft board - some players just don't make it.

Don't get me wrong - I'd love a 200cm rangy type to play on the moden, athletic KPF and O'Sullivan looks exceptional. But a lot of tall defenders are found later in the draft.

[Maltopia]

I am very confident that by just sticking to the amateur pre draft rankings, we would have made better use of first round picks than our illustrious list managers who have only been made to look by the academies.

You do not pick KPD, or ruckman for that matter, with first round picks. Ever.

I fully agree our drafting of early picks has been horrid apart from Logan McDonald and Academy bid matching.

A few exceptions come to mind though re not drafting KPD or rucks in the first round. There have been some absolute stars.

Nic Nat (2)

Paddy Rider (7)

Darcy Moore taken at 9 (father/son matched) is one.

Tim English (19) would easily be a higher pick, close to top 10 in retrospect.

Sure there are others who would easily be very worthy first round picks.

[liz]

I think the thing about not drafting rucks or key defenders in the first round isn't that you can't find a good one. It's that you can find just as good a one later on.

Yes, Naitanui, Ryder, English, Grundy, Kreuzer (when fit), Michael Gardiner etc are/were very good ruckman. But they were no better than Dean Cox, Aaron Sandilands, Darren Jolly, Shane Mumford, Max Gawn (who was an ND pick but not an early one) etc.

Yes, Weitering, Moore, Lever, Talia, Glass etc are/were very good key defenders. But were/are they better than Harris Andrews, Brennan Cox, Dane Rampe, Sam Taylor, Dylan Grimes, Heath Grundy?

You could probably mount an argument that, player on player, the very best of the key defenders are likely to come from early in the draft than from late or from the rookie draft, but when you look at them as fitting in to a collective defensive unit, the later picked ones can still be amongst the best.

For rucks, where they tend to be one out, rather than acting within a unit, it's very hard to mount a case that those picked in the rookie draft are of a lesser quality - as a group - than those taken early in the draft.

You could probably extend the argument to small forwards too. It's not that you can't find a good small forward with an early pick, but why would you waste your precious early draft capital when the likes of Eddie Betts, Stephen Milne, Mark Le Cras, Charlie Cameron, Adam Schneider, Luke Breust, Tom Papley etc have been very late ND or rookie picks?

Of course, there's still a high miss rate with rucks, key defenders, small forwards taken late or as rookies. So you have to churn through a lot to find the gems. But you have a lot of late ND and rookie draft picks so you can afford to do that.

[i'm-uninformed2]

Happy for that. Well earned. Very good player apart from occasional clanger when accelerating out of defence.

Well deserved. Was a bit up and down at times this year and not sure whether it was an injury or Horse lost a bit of confidence in him mid year, but he bounced back well.

Others follow this more closely than me, but does that mean Reid’s fate is effectively now down to whether or not we find the sweet spot between having Cleary’s points covered due to him drifting into beyond the late 30s, and seeing a sleeper mid to late draft we really want and taking a third player.

In other words: just Cleary, Reid likely stays; a third pick taken, Reid gone? Or am I a bit drunk and dumb and tired on a Friday evening?

(And yes, it’s possible the latter is true regardless.)

[liz]

Well deserved. Was a bit up and down at times this year and not sure whether it was an injury or Horse lost a bit of confidence in him mid year, but he bounced back well.

Others follow this more closely than me, but does that mean Reid’s fate is effectively now down to whether or not we find the sweet spot between having Cleary’s points covered due to him drifting into beyond the late 30s, and seeing a sleeper mid to late draft we really want and taking a third player.

In other words: just Cleary, Reid likely stays; a third pick taken, Reid gone? Or am I a bit drunk and dumb and tired on a Friday evening?

(And yes, it’s possible the latter is true regardless.)

The article on the AFL site is a bit misleading. It can be read that the Swans have decided to promote Fox, particularly as there are other examples in that same article where they note the player has to be promoted because he has spent the maximum three years on the rookie list.

That is the case for Fox too. The Swans have no choice but to promote him (especially as he is already contracted for next year). So I don't think this indicates anything about Reid's fate, because the club will have known all along that Fox has to be accommodated on the senior list.

In a recent interview (which I have no chance of locating now), Beatson implied that a decision on Reid was dependent on a physio assessment. That suggests they want to keep him, but only if they get assurances from the medical staff he has a good chance of playing a decent amount of footy next year. However, it is also possible they are hedging their bets while they continue to assess the draft pool available to determine if they think they can use the list spot better by drafting an additional player.

If they do want to keep Reid, there is list flexibility. They could go to a 37/5 senior/rookie A split. Or they could delist Reid with a promise of reinstating him as a rookie (and taking the risk of someone else picking him up first - probably a pretty low risk). Or they could just pick up two in the National Draft and one in the Rookie A draft.