2023 List Management

[Nico]

Reid, the great survivor, to play back?

Reid or Haynes? Reid has one year at best in him if his body remains sound. Do we just plug a hole with him for a year? I'd go for Haynes who is a proven backman.

[Blood Fever]

Food for thought

[crackedactor 01]

Tom Barass just told the WC eagles he is going nowhere. He wants to be part of the re-build. Good luck with that one! Anyway are back line is starting to Gel and Arnold is looking promising. We also keep our first round draft pick.

[dejavoodoo44]

The latest ESPN draft rankings have Cleary listed at 16.

AFL Draft Power Rankings August 2023 Jasper Chellappah - First round locks starting to take shape - ESPN

Which seems to be about his upper range. For instance, the Rookie Me rankings don't have him in their top 30. Although they did have a "your questions answered" article about those rankings a few days later and apparently the most asked question was, "Where's Caiden Cleary?" They replied that he was strongly considered, but they rate his draft range as being around 25-40.

AFL Draft Power Rankings: July 2023 - Aussie Rules Rookie Me Central

Either way, our second round pick tied to Hawthorn should be ours to use on someone else. Our current picks are 9, 22, 28, 41 and 47. So, if Cleary was bid on at 16, we could match that bid with 28 and 47. If he slips to 21, the bid can be matched with 41 and 47. Although free agency compensation picks could blow those picks out a bit.

In regards to what we should do with our picks, there's a reasonable chance that Connor O'Sullivan will still be available with our first pick. Which is an option that I really like: a KPD from southern NSW, who was MVP for the Allies and a childhood Swans fan. If he's already taken, Ollie Murphy could be an option. He's an athletic 200cm KPD, who's also played ruck and recently won the Vic Metro MVP.

At pick 22, George Stevens might be still on the table, as there's some divergence on where he could be taken. ESPN rank him at 14, while Rookie Me have him at 30. It seems that Rookie Me are giving more weighting to athleticism. That is, both sites rate his ball skills and inside work, but it seems that he lacks a bit of pace. However, he was the Vic Country player that impressed me the most in their game against the Allies. He's also captained the National Academy side and ESPN claim that the current player that he's most like is Luke Parker. So, investing pick 22 on a midfield bull who could be a successor to Parker seems a decent gamble to me.

[wolftone57]

I disagree. Francis and Melican are middling defenders. They are prone to playing the odd good game but overall a bit too slow and make poor skill errors with the ball.

P.McCartin is probably going to retire, and it's sad to say but Tom is in the high risk category now too. Rampe only has another year or two left and Gould unfortunately just isn't good enough.

We need a KPD most in our list

Gould is not a lock down defender. We tried to turn him into that but it didn't work. It was a need thing that he play lockdown because we had nobody in the reserves. He played well on reserves FF. But could not turn that into AFL mainly because he was way too short.

Hd seems to be playing pretty well forward. I don't know why they don't play him in the mids. He played there a few times for Glenelg, very successfully.

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[dejavoodoo44]

Tom Barass just told the WC eagles he is going nowhere. He wants to be part of the re-build. Good luck with that one! Anyway are back line is starting to Gel and Arnold is looking promising. We also keep our first round draft pick.

It seems that yet again, the AFL media personalities claiming that a player was almost certainly going to the Swans, were largely empty vessels making noise.

[Captain]

Hard to see what our KPD play is now that Barrass and HH are off the table. Don't need another KPF and while a ruck like Grundy would be handy a KPD is no.1 priority

I don't think we need a KPD play this year (but we will next year).

Going into 2024, our greatest issue is the ruck. This is a clear weakness for us given Hickey is close to the end, Ladhams doesn't appear to be the solution and McAndrew is still very much a project player. Basically we have no one.

With regards to KPD's we are pretty well covered in the short term. McCartin, Rampe and Fox (for that Jeremy Cameron type) are more than capable, then we have Melican and Francis as back up options. Clearly Rampe is nearer to the end and will need replacing, just doesn't need to be next year.

I'm not suggesting our KPD stocks are the envy of the competition, just that we are better covered there in 2024 than the ruck.

[Blood Fever]

Gould is not a lock down defender. We tried to turn him into that but it didn't work. It was a need thing that he play lockdown because we had nobody in the reserves. He played well on reserves FF. But could not turn that into AFL mainly because he was way too short.

Hd seems to be playing pretty well forward. I don't know why they don't play him in the mids. He played there a few times for Glenelg, very successfully.

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Don't think he is athletic enough to be an AFL player full stop.

[wolftone57]

Don't think he is athletic enough to be an AFL player full stop.

I don't agree. Very much like Rowell in body type

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[i'm-uninformed2]

The latest ESPN draft rankings have Cleary listed at 16.

AFL Draft Power Rankings August 2023 Jasper Chellappah - First round locks starting to take shape - ESPN

Which seems to be about his upper range. For instance, the Rookie Me rankings don't have him in their top 30. Although they did have a "your questions answered" article about those rankings a few days later and apparently the most asked question was, "Where's Caiden Cleary?" They replied that he was strongly considered, but they rate his draft range as being around 25-40.

AFL Draft Power Rankings: July 2023 - Aussie Rules Rookie Me Central

Either way, our second round pick tied to Hawthorn should be ours to use on someone else. Our current picks are 9, 22, 28, 41 and 47. So, if Cleary was bid on at 16, we could match that bid with 28 and 47. If he slips to 21, the bid can be matched with 41 and 47. Although free agency compensation picks could blow those picks out a bit.

In regards to what we should do with our picks, there's a reasonable chance that Connor O'Sullivan will still be available with our first pick. Which is an option that I really like: a KPD from southern NSW, who was MVP for the Allies and a childhood Swans fan. If he's already taken, Ollie Murphy could be an option. He's an athletic 200cm KPD, who's also played ruck and recently won the Vic Metro MVP.

At pick 22, George Stevens might be still on the table, as there's some divergence on where he could be taken. ESPN rank him at 14, while Rookie Me have him at 30. It seems that Rookie Me are giving more weighting to athleticism. That is, both sites rate his ball skills and inside work, but it seems that he lacks a bit of pace. However, he was the Vic Country player that impressed me the most in their game against the Allies. He's also captained the National Academy side and ESPN claim that the current player that he's most like is Luke Parker. So, investing pick 22 on a midfield bull who could be a successor to Parker seems a decent gamble to me.

The ESPN rankings are a bit of an outlier to most of the others I’ve seen re Cleary, who seem to peg him in that 25-40 range.

One thing that looks challenging is getting our hands on O’Sullivan. He’s effectively going 6 or 7 after you remove the two GC Suns players likely to be picked before him. We’d need to drop a couple of spots on the ladder to have access to him. The other option - depending on where the Suns finish - is to target their first pick and slide up the pecking order. We won’t be alone in going after it, so may have to pay a bit of a premium, but he looks worth it.

[wolftone57]

I don't think we need a KPD play this year (but we will next year).

Going into 2024, our greatest issue is the ruck. This is a clear weakness for us given Hickey is close to the end, Ladhams doesn't appear to be the solution and McAndrew is still very much a project player. Basically we have no one.

With regards to KPD's we are pretty well covered in the short term. McCartin, Rampe and Fox (for that Jeremy Cameron type) are more than capable, then we have Melican and Francis as back up options. Clearly Rampe is nearer to the end and will need replacing, just doesn't need to be next year.

I'm not suggesting our KPD stocks are the envy of the competition, just that we are better covered there in 2024 than the ruck.

I don't think Barrass is the answer either. He will be 28 next year. He has been injured a lot this year. I think if we trade him hd could turn out a dud due to injury

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[i'm-uninformed2]

I don't agree. Very much like Rowell in body type

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Maybe, but the aerobic capacity is zero. He’d spontaneously combust if he spent five minutes on ball at AFL level.

I don’t get to see our guys live much anymore but I was behind the Randwick end goals for the Freo game and watched him closely. I know we took a kicking that day, but two repeat efforts and he was cooked. I wish he had a tank as he has a lot of AFL traits otherwise, but he just doesn’t.

[Blood Fever]

+1

[Ludwig]

Is there any evidence that Gould has no tank?

I've seen him with hands on hips looking exhausted, but things like that have to put into context. I don't think it's anything definitive.

It was well known that Amartey had aerobic problems, but he seems to be doing okay now, although he does fade in the 2nd halves, which might mean he still has work to do.

Playing forward looks easier than defence in the modern game, in that it's less challenging on decision making. Perhaps just running set patterns as a forward will suffice in making Gould a decent player. So far it's looks good at VFL level. His long accurate kicking is a weapon we should try to keep if we can.

[Auntie.Gerald]

the hardest area i suspect as a supporter is for us to guauge where our current crop is at re their ability to jump to the next level.

i agree though that Ruck is ahead of a key defender in our list of priorities...... unless we think that our general game style of "absorb and slingshot" will work as well as the Tigers were able to achieve when they gave away stacks of centre clearances vs the competition but won 3 premierships. I mean this style of stacking the defence does minimise our dependancy on a dominate ruck and or intercepting defender. But i mist say at our best our defence looked more likely last year with Paddy intercepting and moving it on to our running defenders fast. It really leaves the opposition players flooding forward a big task to get back and block our counter attack.

RUCK - do we take a chance of Grundy at $650kish per season........hard to argue against it depending what the Dees want vs other local vic clubs that could beat us to the punch with strong trade currency.

KEY DEFENDER / INTERCEPT DEFENDER - i like how we gather in numbers and collect that poor kick from the opposition and slingshot back the other way...........but a strong intercepting key defender helps so much when playing the best of the best. Maybe there is one we have our eyes on to slip into the second draft? Maybe Francis and Arnold will step up? Maybe we have a 191cmish to 193cmish athletic defender at another club we have our eyes on that is good value and doesnt cost the earth?

FORWARDS - i could be wrong but McLean and Amartey are sneaking up on us aren't they.....no doubt we see a lot more next few weeks on how they handle different defence / defenders. Im loving how Heeney can lead a little out on the wings and leave the Amartey, McDonald, Mclean rotation to run lines and circle backs through the arc. They are starting get it but starting believe in their goal kicking which is great to see.

McLean - 49games now and 42 goals.......big season for him in 2023
Amartey - 25 games and 28 goals