List Mgmt. Brady Rawlings | Head of Football Talent (Recruitment, LM & TPP)

[DesertRoo]

I know hindsight is 20/20, but geez looking in depth at this past trade/draft period shows an absolute mess, and it's hard not to give Brady negative marks.

To summarize:

Positive Moves
Parker + Konstanty for pick 44
Darling for pick 67
Selecting FOS at 2
Selecting Mattlock at 27

Trading in senior talent for late picks is absolutely the right move, and FOS + Mattlock were good selections at their respective picks (how we got there is a different story).

Mediocre Moves
Selecting Urquhart at 57
Selecting Stevens at 67

Hard to criticize late draft picks, but I feel like at that stage of the draft you should take fliers on players with high upside, and neither of these guys seem to have any indication of having elite attributes. Although I'm not a draft expert so that could be way wrong.

Bad Moves
Zurhaars Contract Extension

I like Cam, but he doesn't provide the leadership we need from a senior player. He's also shown enough that FA compo would've flirted with Band 1, at minimum we would've picked up Band 2.

Catastrophic Moves
Daniel for pick 25
F1 for pick 27 + F2

These two alone should be fire-able offenses. We should've been prepared to walk away from Daniel, and the draft night trade absolutely reeks of desperation.

There's an alternate universe out there where Brady didnt make the bad/catastrophic moves and we went to the draft with 2, 25, band 1 or 2 compo, 62 and we kept our 1st rounder.

That would be an immensely better result than what we ended up with.

Id argue the biggest failure of that catastrophic trade as you called it, we didn't go far enough.
After picking up FOS, we should've really pushed the point to get both 27 & 28 off the tigers to secure the under 18 AA full forward and back in one swap.

 

[DocSholl]

Oh wow.

I've poisoned my eyes with some codswallop on here over my time, but this would undoubtedly be the greatest fairy tale load of excriment i've seen.

Of course its true. 3rd hand, huh? Yeah........keep convincing yourself it happened.

Gronk.

Why couldn't it be true?

 

[Sphynx]

I wouldn't be recruiting Brayshaw to replace Sheezel, I would want them in the same mid rotations.

Our midfield isn't very good. The weakest links in it need to be replaced with better options. I would be recruiting Brayshaw to replace Powell, Phillips, Simpkin, Shiels and Curtis/Zurhaar's midfield minutes.

It's not very good, yet.

We also have Luke Parker to consider in your rotations, who I have no doubt has been brought in as that 5th defensive minded midfielder at stoppage for the next 1-2 years.....

I think part of the problem has really been balance.

LDU and Simpkin learned some really poor habits under the multitude of coaches they have had.

Both of them are shockingly unaccountable, with the remainder of the midfield being kids still learning their way. LDU has definitely improved his defensive side, but it's probably at passable, rather than really poor.

If we don't win the ball at the coal face (which we are very good at), we get annihilated defensively around the midfield, particularly in transition.

Xerri made a massive impact inside the contest at points because of his defensive work and tackling.

Wardlaw when fit, firing was a game change for us. He doesn't have the tank yet to prevent the transition movement, but that 4-5 week patch of good form was on the back of him doing the heavy lifting for LDU and Sheezel. But he can't do it all. Sheezel pressures, but he's not a big defensive impact.

Powell doesn't run both ways and we really can't afford at any point to have LDU, Powell and Simpkin in the middle together anymore.

Brayshaw is very good defensively and if we are bringing him over for that role, fair enough. I just worry what it means for some others.

It is however why recruiting FOS was so important, Why we lucked out with Sheezel and McKercher as top end talents. They are all versatile.

 

[CarnTheKANGAS]

What is going on with Brady? Some very strange decisions this off season. Reminds me of the horror show we had with Ned Guy.

The future first for 27 is even worse when you consider you traded pick 25 for Caleb Daniel. So you had a pick in that range but had to trade a future first to get one back. That’s pick 2-8 for Caleb Daniel and Richmond’s 2025 2nd pick 22-26.

That incompetence is worth getting fired over isn’t it?

**** off.

 

[roos_fanatic08]

Oh wow.

I've poisoned my eyes with some codswallop on here over my time, but this would undoubtedly be the greatest fairy tale load of excriment i've seen.

Of course its true. 3rd hand, huh? Yeah........keep convincing yourself it happened.

Gronk.

Take it or leave it, I couldn't give two ****s. It's a forum, if you don't like information being shared then **** off somewhere else.

Gronk.

 

[The Nostradamus]

The biggest mistake of the offseason was without a doubt the Daniel trade. It kicked off a series of events.

Not because of him as a player, but it was arguably a bigger overpay than the F1 trade.

He was in the VFL for parts of the season, was one of their highest paid players in 2025 on a back ended deal, and is 29 years old in July. He'd had a bust up with Bevo. They didn't want him in the VFL in 2025. It's an absolute shocker, I wont hear otherwise.

In no world is he worth a R2 pick, or even a F2. We paid overs and it was a salary dump to boot. The Dogs should have been paying us....


Had we landed Matt at our natural R2 then done the same trade for Jack as we did the other night, I think the narrative around would be far different. Downgrading our F1 to a F2 to bring in both KPP brothers at either end we rated around the top 10 in the same age range as our top mids , would have been considered good business by most of the industry considering all our other pieces. In fact, I reckon you would go as far as saying the AFL industry would have been pretty afraid of North adding FOS, M.Whitlock and J.Whitlock in 1 offseason to what we already have.

Instead we get Matt and 29 year old Daniel for 2-3 years of decent footy (maybe.) Daniel vs Jack Whitlock will be a something hard to stomach over the next 5-10 years when he's well retired.

It's something we will regret more than the F1 trade, I have no doubt.

if i had to sum up rawlings in a nutshell this passage of events does it

 

[year of the roo]

Brayshaw is very good defensively and if we are bringing him over for that role, fair enough. I just worry what it means for some others.

I agreed with everything you wrote except this bit. **** what it means for others. How about we worry about that when (and if) it becomes a problem. I don't envisage a problem.

 

[Twangler]

I know hindsight is 20/20, but geez looking in depth at this past trade/draft period shows an absolute mess, and it's hard not to give Brady negative marks.

To summarize:

Positive Moves
Parker + Konstanty for pick 44
Darling for pick 67
Selecting FOS at 2
Selecting Mattlock at 27

Trading in senior talent for late picks is absolutely the right move, and FOS + Mattlock were good selections at their respective picks (how we got there is a different story).

Mediocre Moves
Selecting Urquhart at 57
Selecting Stevens at 67

Hard to criticize late draft picks, but I feel like at that stage of the draft you should take fliers on players with high upside, and neither of these guys seem to have any indication of having elite attributes. Although I'm not a draft expert so that could be way wrong.

Bad Moves
Zurhaars Contract Extension

I like Cam, but he doesn't provide the leadership we need from a senior player. He's also shown enough that FA compo would've flirted with Band 1, at minimum we would've picked up Band 2.

Catastrophic Moves
Daniel for pick 25
F1 for pick 27 + F2

These two alone should be fire-able offenses. We should've been prepared to walk away from Daniel, and the draft night trade absolutely reeks of desperation.

There's an alternate universe out there where Brady didnt make the bad/catastrophic moves and we went to the draft with 2, 25, band 1 or 2 compo, 62 and we kept our 1st rounder.

That would be an immensely better result than what we ended up with.

Agree with everything except Zurhaar, would have been a likely band 2 and retaining players in his age range is an absolute must. Zurhaar still a clear top 10 player albeit I hope he has a more consistent season next year.

 

[Twangler]

Id argue the biggest failure of that catastrophic trade as you called it, we didn't go far enough.
After picking up FOS, we should've really pushed the point to get both 27 & 28 off the tigers to secure the under 18 AA full forward and back in one swap.

Well I’m sure we tried to do just that!

 

[DesertRoo]

Well I’m sure we tried to do just that!

I would've hoped so, there's something nagging that it was an after thought or we didn't go quite hard enough for both picks knowing exactly who we could've picked up.

I hope like ****, they're white anting port as we speak.

 

[Kangaroosters]

My favourite part of all of this is people struggling to comprehend between a bad trade ‘optically’ vs a straight up bad trade.

IF we pulled the straight trade at 11 and picked Whitlock you’d be calling Brady a star for finally addressing our needs. We make the same pick at 27 AND get pick 19 for next year and everyone melts.

If people also haven’t figured it out yet - the second rounders are going to be so valuable next year for a few reasons:

1. 10-12 top end academy/father sons
2. Teams need to slide back - they won’t have the assets to jump in front of bids in the first round.
3. You can’t just stockpile picks in the 40s now

SO: you can bookmark it - our 2 seconds will be on the table IF we want to get back in. IF we do, we will have pick 6-12 you can absolutely take it to the bank.

 

[perplexed]

Nope.

Its the amount of emotional turmoil these poor little dears are having to contend with all because we made a bold move. The attitude and the vitriol they use is the icing on the 'intellectually challenged' cake.

So stuff them.

Oh the vitriol, I see. The emotional turmoil, mmmm.

You haven't even attempted to make a coherent argument but in your last few posts have called various people the following:

crumpets
gronk
nuffmuppet
intellectually challenged dribblers
nuffies
poor little dears

And all because some posters pointed out that trading out a pick for Caleb Daniel and then buying it back for a future first wasn't a particularly clever use of our resources. Bold move indeed.

 

[Makeshift Park]

If Caleb Daniel

5

Caleb Daniel

Age

28

Ht

171cm

Wt

72kg

Pos.

M/F

Career

Season

Last 5

D

21.3

5star

K

11.5

4star

HB

9.8

5star

M

3.5

4star

T

2.9

4star

CL

1.4

4star

D

19.5

4star

K

11.1

4star

HB

8.4

4star

M

3.6

4star

T

2.0

3star

CL

1.0

3star

D

16.4

4star

K

7.2

3star

HB

9.2

5star

M

3.4

4star

T

2.6

4star

CL

0.2

2star

makes the 2025 All-Australian squad, do we get to revise the "catastrophic" rating of his trade?

Or are the value of individual trades utterly separate from the business of actual football.

 

[perplexed]

Let me preface this by saying this information has come to me 3rd hand. But if it’s true, it makes the F1 deal look even worse.

During the trade period Richmond offered 11 & one of their 2nd round picks for our F1 and Current 4th round pick. We held our ground because we thought there would be better offers….on draft night we went to Richmond and wanted the same deal they said no, because they were really keen to get those talls on their list.

By holding out thinking we were going to get a better deal we essentially cost ourselves a top 15 pick.

Rawlings ability to negotiate fair value is genuinely shit, and it’s costing us far too much in terms of opportunities lost at both the draft table and the trade table.

Hard to believe. We were supposedly trying to get 13 off GC with our F1 at the time, 11 would obviously have trumped that and given us a better play at Houston, or failing that, a great pick for our favourite tall.

 

[ToxicMegaPunts]

What is going on with Brady? Some very strange decisions this off season. Reminds me of the horror show we had with Ned Guy.

The future first for 27 is even worse when you consider you traded pick 25 for Caleb Daniel. So you had a pick in that range but had to trade a future first to get one back. That’s pick 2-8 for Caleb Daniel and Richmond’s 2025 2nd pick 22-26.

That incompetence is worth getting fired over isn’t it?

 

[Kangas_11]

Agree with everything except Zurhaar, would have been a likely band 2 and retaining players in his age range is an absolute must. Zurhaar still a clear top 10 player albeit I hope he has a more consistent season next year.

True, but when you have players like Perryman and Battle getting their clubs Band 1 compo, you'd have to think Zurhaar would've gone close.

 

[perplexed]

If Caleb Daniel makes the 2025 All-Australian squad, do we get to revise the "catastrophic" rating of his trade?

Or are the value of individual trades utterly separate from the business of actual football.

Hard to believe, but it certainly would make the trade feel better.

It was a poor trade, not so much because of Daniel's value but for the potential trade opportunities it cost us, and it eventually lead to us losing our F1. It was a strategic blunder. This was pointed out by many at the time, and so it eventuated.

WB clearly weren't fussed if Daniel stayed or went. When push came to shove our F2, F3 should have been enough. But we folded and it cost us.

 

[Makeshift Park]

Hard to believe, but it certainly would make the trade feel better.

It was a poor trade, not so much because of Daniel's value but for the potential trade opportunities it cost us, and it eventually lead to us losing our F1. It was a strategic blunder. This was pointed out by many at the time, and so it eventuated.

WB clearly weren't fussed if Daniel stayed or went. When push came to shove our F2, F3 should have been enough. But we folded and it cost us.

I guess I just don't understand this school of thought that posits that trades can be properly evaluated as soon as they happen.

The merits of the trade are borne out through subsequent performance indicators, like how much that player contributes to the team's competitiveness.

Many people around here clearly have a lower estimation of Daniel to North's football department, and so all the draft assessments are being projected through that lens.

But if you acquire a player who kicks arse for the remainder of their football career, it doesn't matter that you reduced your trade opportunities to get him.

 

[Kangas_11]

If Caleb Daniel makes the 2025 All-Australian squad, do we get to revise the "catastrophic" rating of his trade?

Or are the value of individual trades utterly separate from the business of actual football.

The value of the trade should always be based on the current value of a player. If our list management team is using fanciful "what if" scenarios to determine what they will pay for a player we are in real trouble.

Daniel was a borderline best 22 player at the Dogs this season. The value for a 29 year old borderline best 22 player isn't pick 25. Especially for us when that pick is in a deep draft with numerous KPPs available around that spot.

I like Daniel and I think he'll be a decent player for us, but we substantially overpaid.

 

[Makeshift Park]

The value of the trade should always be based on the current value of a player. If our list management team is using fanciful "what if" scenarios to determine what they will pay for a player we are in real trouble.

What determines "the current value of a player"?

I would have thought its how much a team needs him, how much they're prepared to pay and what they're prepared to sacrifice.

Also, surely list management is all about projections and forecasting, in terms of working out whether they'll be able to get the most out of a prospective player, and whether they'll suit the team's culture and gamestyle.

 

[outwecome2play]

I guess I just don't understand this school of thought that posits that trades can be properly evaluated as soon as they happen.

The merits of the trade are borne out through subsequent performance indicators, like how much that player contributes to the team's competitiveness.

Many people around here clearly have a lower estimation of Daniel to North's football department, and so all the draft assessments are being projected through that lens.

But if you acquire a player who kicks arse for the remainder of their football career, it doesn't matter that you reduced your trade opportunities to get him.

This is the bit that i am struggling with as well.
I need the evidence that it wasn't a good trade as opposed to the opinion that it wasn't a good trade.
We may have overpaid for Daniel but who cares it's only a trade pick.

 

[koshari]

It's not very good, yet.

We also have Luke Parker to consider in your rotations, who I have no doubt has been brought in as that 5th defensive minded midfielder at stoppage for the next 1-2 years.....

I think part of the problem has really been balance.

LDU and Simpkin learned some really poor habits under the multitude of coaches they have had.

Both of them are shockingly unaccountable, with the remainder of the midfield being kids still learning their way. LDU has definitely improved his defensive side, but it's probably at passable, rather than really poor.

If we don't win the ball at the coal face (which we are very good at), we get annihilated defensively around the midfield, particularly in transition.

Xerri made a massive impact inside the contest at points because of his defensive work and tackling.

Wardlaw when fit, firing was a game change for us. He doesn't have the tank yet to prevent the transition movement, but that 4-5 week patch of good form was on the back of him doing the heavy lifting for LDU and Sheezel. But he can't do it all. Sheezel pressures, but he's not a big defensive impact.

Powell doesn't run both ways and we really can't afford at any point to have LDU, Powell and Simpkin in the middle together anymore.

Brayshaw is very good defensively and if we are bringing him over for that role, fair enough. I just worry what it means for some others.

It is however why recruiting FOS was so important, Why we lucked out with Sheezel and McKercher as top end talents. They are all versatile.

Brayshaw?

 

[apollo_creed]

I heard that Brady said no to 10 first round picks for our pick 72. Can you believe it? Ah he's just the worst!

He absolutely is. The laughing stock of the competition.

 

[koshari]

This is the bit that i am struggling with as well.
I need the evidence that it wasn't a good trade as opposed to the opinion that it wasn't a good trade.
We may have overpaid for Daniel but who cares it's only a trade pick.

Richard tambling was "only" a trade pick!

 

[perplexed]

This is the bit that i am struggling with as well.
I need the evidence that it wasn't a good trade as opposed to the opinion that it wasn't a good trade.
We may have overpaid for Daniel but who cares it's only a trade pick.

The evidence is what we needed to do to get the pick back that we lost in the trade.

Getting Daniel was never going to be most important part of the trade / draft period for us. Pick 2, our F1 and what we did with them was always the main game. The Daniel trade was a mistake because losing our second rounder limited our ability to maximise the value of these two picks. We let a minor deal limit our options for our more important assets and it cost us.