List Mgmt. 2020 Trade Thread - Part I

[bird_man]

Geez this is getting tedious.

Again- when i was speaking about danger it was "as an example to highlight that all the work in deciding whether a RFA stays or goes happens behind closed doors, months before any free agent timelines/trade periods."

The danger trade was just like the fyfe or dusty etc re-signings in that all the work was done behind closed doors well before any free agent timeline etc.
(Ie- NOT an isolated instance in that regard)

You are continually talking about a totally different aspect of the danger trade (that we went for unders), without seemingly reading anything I've said to draw your attention to this misunderstanding you are working under.

Haha, sorry mate but the Danger one was nothing like the Fyfe or Dusty one.

Two stayed with their club, the other chose to go.

All deal are done behind closed doors, they aren't going to broadcast it on prime time tv.

You've posted about half a dozen times on this matter and I still have zero idea what you are on about.

Time to move on I think.

 

[ScrappyDo]

Our salary cap is a finite resource.

Sure it would be nice to upgrade seb, but not at the cost of then not being able to fix more pressing problems elsewhere.

We need to spend the big bucks where it is most needed.

I think we have a huge hole in our midfields ability to win the inside ball.
Sure jones and steele look promising- but the jury is still out as to whether they can keep improving, and be reliable.

We are leaning too heavily on marshall and gresh winning inside ball- we need gresh to get out from the bottom of the pack, and we can't be 1 marshall injury away from getting destroyed in the middle every week.

We shouldn't blow our wad on a 'nice to have' upgrade when we have other major issues to address

What more pressing problems do we have other than improving the midfield?
And who are the stellar ruckman backing up Grundy, Gawn and Goldstein? Don't look it up, I'll tell ya. No one.

This place has taken a strange turn lately.
Now we don't want the best available players coming to us because we have to pay them, and we don't want to lose our GOPs because of no reason l can establish... you're all clearly drunk of 2 wins l think..

 

[Enclosed_Animal]

Jones was an okay half back. Ross is a multiple B & F winner, high poller in the Brownlow, club leader etc. Your distain for him doesn't make his value less to others. He would be around the same mark as Crouch or Bryce Gibbs IMO.

Can we please park this whole ‘Ross gets votes in the Brownlow’ thing as a sign he is a good player.

If anyone really believes that, then I assume the same logic works in reverse. Because in 2018, the only players to average 28+ disposals and not get more than 10 Brownlow votes were Treloar (only played 13 games), B.Crouch and Ross.

In 2019, Ross had no Stuv taking votes off him, and as a team we won a lot more games (= more votes). He still couldn’t crack top 25 in the brownlow. Players like Bont, T.Kelly and Shiel average roughly the same stats, and get many many more votes than Ross does.

More importantly, look at where his 2019 votes came from. Gold Coast TWICE, Carlton, Melbourne, Freo and Hawthorn. More than half of his votes came just against GC and Carlton. Some heavy hitting teams there! Where was he against decent opposition? By contrast, Marshall got his votes against teams like Richmond, the Bulldogs and Geelong. Personally I would rate even 1 vote against Geelong, Richmond, GWS or Richmond much higher than getting more than half your votes against Gold Coast and Carlton.

So even if we use Brownlow votes as a measure of success, then there is still ample reason not to rate Ross at all.

Sheed averaged about the same amount of touches and got the same amount of brownlow votes. He only just cracked top 10 in the B+F and was about 100 votes off the winner. Not sure West coast would lose too much sleep if they lost Sheed. Duncan is the same. Averages almost identical stats and got 11 Brownlow votes. He ran 8th in the B+F.

So if the umpires rate Sheed, Duncan and Ross about the same (and they get about the same amount of stats), the only ones overrating Ross were our previous coaching staff that handed him the 2019 B+F.

FFS this is largely the same coaching group that gave Dan McKenzie a top 10 finish in the B+F from 13 games. They rated Dan McKenzie so highly that even though he played half our games, he was considered one of our ‘top 10’ players. In their judgement, a 22 game Dan bloody McKenzie would have just about won our 2018 B+F. Just think about that for a minute.

IMO Marshall should have won last years B+F by the length of Flemington straight. The 2017 award? Absolutely Ross deserved that. The 2019 award, not a chance the coaches got that right.

Apologies for the rant. Just had a gutful of the ‘he polled brownlow votes in 5 games so he must be a good player’ argument. Aaron Hall got 3 BOG’s in a row. Doesn’t change the fact he is a spud worth about a 5th rounder. And as far as I am concerned, Ross' second B+F belongs to Rowan Marshall. From what I understand from the rooms reaction on the night, plenty of other people thought that too.

 

[RWB4life]

So what would Ian hill, Caldwell and constable cost?

Hill - late second/early third
Caldwell - mid to late first
Constable - second/third

Getting Caldwell and another would be huge, but probably takes our first and a future second.

Means no more picks to trade. Which means if we want to improve our midfield nowwe need to trade players for players/picks or free agency.

Without trading Ross or carlisle, we have no players with significant value to be ontraded for other players, meaning we need free agency.

Surely we're after crouch or Williams pretty hard then.

 

[gringo2011]

I want more, and BETTER mids. Williams is the perfect upgrade on Seb because he can fill the same roll as Seb does now, but he cracks in like a m****** ****r and doesn't cough it up under pressure. If we could possibly get a first for Seb then send it to Port and get Wines.

Williams, Wines, Jones, Steele, Gresh, plus Bytel, Byrnes, a first round pick, and Dunny just to keep the Greek happy.
Plus we'd still have enough to grab a Caldwell or the like.

You can't seriously say you'd rather hang on to Seb in lieu of a midfield roster like that.

I'm not a Wines fan and Williams is still a potential mid not definite mid.

 

[gringo2011]

Can we please park this whole ‘Ross gets votes in the Brownlow’ thing as a sign he is a good player.

If anyone really believes that, then I assume the same logic works in reverse. Because in 2018, the only players to average 28+ disposals and not get more than 10 Brownlow votes were Treloar (only played 13 games), B.Crouch and Ross.

In 2019, Ross had no Stuv taking votes off him, and as a team we won a lot more games (= more votes). He still couldn’t crack top 25 in the brownlow. Players like Bont, T.Kelly and Shiel average roughly the same stats, and get many many more votes than Ross does.

More importantly, look at where his 2019 votes came from. Gold Coast TWICE, Carlton, Melbourne, Freo and Hawthorn. More than half of his votes came just against GC and Carlton. Some heavy hitting teams there! Where was he against decent opposition? By contrast, Marshall got his votes against teams like Richmond, the Bulldogs and Geelong. Personally I would rate even 1 vote against Geelong, Richmond, GWS or Richmond much higher than getting more than half your votes against Gold Coast and Carlton.

So even if we use Brownlow votes as a measure of success, then there is still ample reason not to rate Ross at all.

Sheed averaged about the same amount of touches and got the same amount of brownlow votes. He only just cracked top 10 in the B+F and was about 100 votes off the winner. Not sure West coast would lose too much sleep if they lost Sheed. Duncan is the same. Averages almost identical stats and got 11 Brownlow votes. He ran 8th in the B+F.

So if the umpires rate Sheed, Duncan and Ross about the same (and they get about the same amount of stats), the only ones overrating Ross were our previous coaching staff that handed him the 2019 B+F.

FFS this is largely the same coaching group that gave Dan McKenzie a top 10 finish in the B+F from 13 games. They rated Dan McKenzie so highly that even though he played half our games, he was considered one of our ‘top 10’ players. In their judgement, a fit Dan McKenzie was considered in our most valuable few players, and a 22 game Dan bloody McKenzie would have just about won the 2018 B+F. Just think about that for a minute.

IMO Marshall should have won last years B+F by the length of Flemington straight. The 2017 award? Absolutely Ross deserved that. The 2019 award, not a chance the coaches got that right.

Apologies for the rant. Just had a gutful of the ‘he polled brownlow votes in 5 games so he must be a good player’ argument. Aaron Hall got 3 BOG’s in a row. Doesn’t change the fact he is a spud worth about a 5th rounder. And as far as I am concerned, Ross' second B+F belongs to Rowan Marshall. From what I understand from the rooms reaction on the night, plenty of other people thought that too.

Ross had a pretty poor year compared to his previous form in 2019. Hall is a very uneven player, his best was outstanding, he got 3 votes because he can play....just not consistently. Sheed and Duncan are good players, no issue with having a player of that standard. WC have a better list than us so of course he finishes behind others. Same with Geelong.

 

[The_Steadier]

What more pressing problems do we have other than improving the midfield?
And who are the stellar ruckman backing up Grundy, Gawn and Goldstein? Don't look it up, I'll tell ya. No one.

This place has taken a strange turn lately.
Now we don't want the best available players coming to us because we have to pay them, and we don't want to lose our GOPs because of no reason l can establish... you're all clearly drunk of 2 wins l think..

I think you've mistaken my point- i want us to spend up big on midfielders.
I'm just saying we need to splash our cash on ball winning inside midfielders, not better versions of outside mids like seb.

I'm also not saying we get another ruckman at all- i'm saying we need to spend up big to get 1 or 2 A grade ball winning midfielders so we aren't so heavily reliant on roma getting us clearances every week.

 

[BrutThough]

Can we please park this whole ‘Ross gets votes in the Brownlow’ thing as a sign he is a good player.

If anyone really believes that, then I assume the same logic works in reverse. Because in 2018, the only players to average 28+ disposals and not get more than 10 Brownlow votes were Treloar (only played 13 games), B.Crouch and Ross.

In 2019, Ross had no Stuv taking votes off him, and as a team we won a lot more games (= more votes). He still couldn’t crack top 25 in the brownlow. Players like Bont, T.Kelly and Shiel average roughly the same stats, and get many many more votes than Ross does.

More importantly, look at where his 2019 votes came from. Gold Coast TWICE, Carlton, Melbourne, Freo and Hawthorn. More than half of his votes came just against GC and Carlton. Some heavy hitting teams there! Where was he against decent opposition? By contrast, Marshall got his votes against teams like Richmond, the Bulldogs and Geelong. Personally I would rate even 1 vote against Geelong, Richmond, GWS or Richmond much higher than getting more than half your votes against Gold Coast and Carlton.

So even if we use Brownlow votes as a measure of success, then there is still ample reason not to rate Ross at all.

Sheed averaged about the same amount of touches and got the same amount of brownlow votes. He only just cracked top 10 in the B+F and was about 100 votes off the winner. Not sure West coast would lose too much sleep if they lost Sheed. Duncan is the same. Averages almost identical stats and got 11 Brownlow votes. He ran 8th in the B+F.

So if the umpires rate Sheed, Duncan and Ross about the same (and they get about the same amount of stats), the only ones overrating Ross were our previous coaching staff that handed him the 2019 B+F.

FFS this is largely the same coaching group that gave Dan McKenzie a top 10 finish in the B+F from 13 games. They rated Dan McKenzie so highly that even though he played half our games, he was considered one of our ‘top 10’ players. In their judgement, a fit Dan McKenzie was considered in our most valuable few players, and a 22 game Dan bloody McKenzie would have just about won the 2018 B+F. Just think about that for a minute.

IMO Marshall should have won last years B+F by the length of Flemington straight. The 2017 award? Absolutely Ross deserved that. The 2019 award, not a chance the coaches got that right.

Apologies for the rant. Just had a gutful of the ‘he polled brownlow votes in 5 games so he must be a good player’ argument. Aaron Hall got 3 BOG’s in a row. Doesn’t change the fact he is a spud worth about a 5th rounder. And as far as I am concerned, Ross' second B+F belongs to Rowan Marshall. From what I understand from the rooms reaction on the night, plenty of other people thought that too.

Ross received more votes from largely the same group coaching us now. His best stretch of games was also after Richo left the club so if your holding not the fact he only won because Richo was voting, then you're wrong there as well.

Fact is, he played 2 more games than Marshall and the award is given off 22 games not who the fans vibe with more.

Instead of the coaches of our club, coaches of other clubs, the umpires and the media overrating his performances last year, it appears to be you who is just not recognising that he played better than you want to admit.

 

[ScrappyDo]

I think you've mistaken my point- i want us to spend up big on midfielders.
I'm just saying we need to splash our cash on ball winning inside midfielders, not better versions of outside mids like seb.

I'm also not saying we get another ruckman at all- i'm saying we need to spend up big to get 1 or 2 A grade ball winning midfielders so we aren't so heavily reliant on roma getting us clearances every week.

Ok l get it now. I think you might under rate Williams here.
Like with Jones, the fact he's not in the center full time at GWS doesn't mean he can't do it.

I'm not getting transfixed with the notion of a single ball pig that will solve all our problems.
IMO we just want to improve any position we can, then the next one, then the next one, and if we've got the opportunity to grab a player of Williams' caliber then we just do it.
From what I've seen, his current roll is pretty close to what Seb plays, so it's an easy swap. The difference in salary would be about 300k, so well worth it IMO, especially since we don't lose picks. A total no brainer..

 

[The_Steadier]

Ok l get it now. I think you might under rate Williams here.
Like with Jones, the fact he's not in the center full time at GWS doesn't mean he can do it.

I'm not getting transfixed with the notion of a single ball pig that will solve all our problems.
IMO we just want to improve any position we can, then the next one, then the next one, and if we've got the opportunity to grab a player of Williams' caliber then we just do it.
From what I've seen, his current roll is pretty close to what Seb plays, so it's an easy swap. The difference in salary would be about 300k, so well worth it IMO, especially since we don't lose picks. A total no brainer..

There's only ~$500,000 difference between paying the minimum salary floor (95%) and the maximum salary cap.

300k extra is a LOT in salary cap land.
Paying a guy like williams 800k instead of a guy like seb 500k to do the same job could be the difference between getting or missing a gun like hill and instead having to settle for a guy like tomlinson or acres.

I just don't see that seb is doing a bad enough job (as a mid, not when out of his spot at half back) to make it worth the investment.

It's one thing to gamble on jones (at what circa 4-500k?) making it as a fulltime mid.

It's a whole new level of risk gambling on a guy being a genuine 800k a year A grade gun fulltime mid when he hasn't attempted it before.

It would be a huge mess up if he became yet ANOTHER 'half-back/forward-that-isn't-a-mid' on our list.
(Last time I checked our list of 44 already has probably 30 blokes that fit that description.)

We've made the mistake for years of drafting natural half forwards/backs in vein hope of turning them into mids, let's not start making those mistakes at the trade table too.

 

[Captain Paddy]

The last thing we need to do is use all our spare cap space on another half back flanker and hope he can become an elite mid

 

[Winmar2Lockett]

Can we please park this whole ‘Ross gets votes in the Brownlow’ thing as a sign he is a good player.

If anyone really believes that, then I assume the same logic works in reverse. Because in 2018, the only players to average 28+ disposals and not get more than 10 Brownlow votes were Treloar (only played 13 games), B.Crouch and Ross.

In 2019, Ross had no Stuv taking votes off him, and as a team we won a lot more games (= more votes). He still couldn’t crack top 25 in the brownlow. Players like Bont, T.Kelly and Shiel average roughly the same stats, and get many many more votes than Ross does.

More importantly, look at where his 2019 votes came from. Gold Coast TWICE, Carlton, Melbourne, Freo and Hawthorn. More than half of his votes came just against GC and Carlton. Some heavy hitting teams there! Where was he against decent opposition? By contrast, Marshall got his votes against teams like Richmond, the Bulldogs and Geelong. Personally I would rate even 1 vote against Geelong, Richmond, GWS or Richmond much higher than getting more than half your votes against Gold Coast and Carlton.

So even if we use Brownlow votes as a measure of success, then there is still ample reason not to rate Ross at all.

Sheed averaged about the same amount of touches and got the same amount of brownlow votes. He only just cracked top 10 in the B+F and was about 100 votes off the winner. Not sure West coast would lose too much sleep if they lost Sheed. Duncan is the same. Averages almost identical stats and got 11 Brownlow votes. He ran 8th in the B+F.

So if the umpires rate Sheed, Duncan and Ross about the same (and they get about the same amount of stats), the only ones overrating Ross were our previous coaching staff that handed him the 2019 B+F.

FFS this is largely the same coaching group that gave Dan McKenzie a top 10 finish in the B+F from 13 games. They rated Dan McKenzie so highly that even though he played half our games, he was considered one of our ‘top 10’ players. In their judgement, a fit Dan McKenzie was considered in our most valuable few players, and a 22 game Dan bloody McKenzie would have just about won the 2018 B+F. Just think about that for a minute.

IMO Marshall should have won last years B+F by the length of Flemington straight. The 2017 award? Absolutely Ross deserved that. The 2019 award, not a chance the coaches got that right.

Apologies for the rant. Just had a gutful of the ‘he polled brownlow votes in 5 games so he must be a good player’ argument. Aaron Hall got 3 BOG’s in a row. Doesn’t change the fact he is a spud worth about a 5th rounder. And as far as I am concerned, Ross' second B+F belongs to Rowan Marshall. From what I understand from the rooms reaction on the night, plenty of other people thought that too.

Brilliant post Animal


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[triggering bro]

I want more, and BETTER mids. Williams is the perfect upgrade on Seb because he can fill the same roll as Seb does now, but he cracks in like a m****** ****r and doesn't cough it up under pressure. If we could possibly get a first for Seb then send it to Port and get Wines.

Williams, Wines, Jones, Steele, Gresh, plus Bytel, Byrnes, a first round pick, and Dunny just to keep the Greek happy.
Plus we'd still have enough to grab a Caldwell or the like.

You can't seriously say you'd rather hang on to Seb in lieu of a midfield roster like that.

We would be lucky to get a pick inside 35 for Ross. As animal so eloquently pointed out Ross has been extraordinarily overrated by our previous coaching team which led to greater midfield opportunity & high B&F finishes.

Ross is your typical jack of all trades, master of none. He doesn’t have any real standout features. For someone who accumulates he doesn’t do a great deal with it. Doesn’t win a lot of his own ball. Disposal isn’t great. Doesn’t hit the scoreboard. He’s a nothing player.

Regardless of possession counts & B&F finishes I wouldn’t put him in our 10 most important players. In terms of importance to our midfield (incl wings & flanks) I’d have him behind Billings, Steele, Hill, Jones, Hanners, Gresh & Clarke. Across the field Marshall, Butler, Membrey, Carlisle & Wilkie have more of a say in the outcome of games than Ross.

Really disappointing that Ross has cruised for the past few years. I reckon it was against the Giants in around 06 or 07 when I thought he was ready to take the next step. Unfortunately he’s done bugger all since. Perhaps due to limitations. However he doesn’t display the hunger of someone like Billings, who plays a similar midfield role with greater determination & leadership when it counts.

 

[ScrappyDo]

We would be lucky to get a pick inside 35 for Ross. As animal so eloquently pointed out Ross has been extraordinarily overrated by our previous coaching team which led to greater midfield opportunity & high B&F finishes.

Ross is your typical jack of all trades, master of none. He doesn’t have any real standout features. For someone who accumulates he doesn’t do a great deal with it. Doesn’t win a lot of his own ball. Disposal isn’t great. Doesn’t hit the scoreboard. He’s a nothing player.

Regardless of possession counts & B&F finishes I wouldn’t put him in our 10 most important players. In terms of importance to our midfield (incl wings & flanks) I’d have him behind Billings, Steele, Hill, Jones, Hanners, Gresh & Clarke. Across the field Marshall, Butler, Membrey, Carlisle & Wilkie have more of a say in the outcome of games than Ross.

Really disappointing that Ross has cruised for the past few years. I reckon it was against the Giants in around 06 or 07 when I thought he was ready to take the next step. Unfortunately he’s done bugger all since. Perhaps due to limitations. However he doesn’t display the hunger of someone like Billings, who plays a similar midfield role with greater determination & leadership when it counts.

I agree %100.
It was another poster that speculated he'd be worth a 1st round pick.
I said not long ago that as our team's skills and play improve, Seb's deficiencies will stand out more, and that's exactly what's happened.
He hasn't been awful to be fair, but the bonehead plays and poor composure only have one source now.
Ratts has changed his roll a little which has helped, but for mine he stands to be the one pushed out if we get more good players in.

 

[gringo2011]

I agree %100.
It was another poster that speculated he'd be worth a 1st round pick.
I said not long ago that as our team's skills and play improve, Seb's deficiencies will stand out more, and that's exactly what's happened.
He hasn't been awful to be fair, but the bonehead plays and poor composure only have one source now.
Ratts has changed his roll a little which has helped, but for mine he stands to be the one pushed out if we get more good players in.

I still think he's going to get you a first. He's no worse than lots of those guys like Gibbs who got a big return or Crouch, Wines etc. People have unrealistic ideas about what other mids are like. Ross was good again last week and he's no superstar but he's better than the shit he cops on here as well.

 

[Impatient Saint]

I still think he's going to get you a first. He's no worse than lots of those guys like Gibbs who got a big return or Crouch, Wines etc. People have unrealistic ideas about what other mids are like. Ross was good again last week and he's no superstar but he's better than the sh*t he cops on here as well.

Truth be told Seb playing 6 years under the worst stategic coach in the league did his development no favours - where he learnt and continued bad habbits. Gresham has started the same but hopefully they can work through his scrubby kicks out of the centre whether under pressure or not.

 

[Ducky Tie]

I'm not a Seb basher but there is a legitimate discussion to be had about his development over the past three-four years.

Once he started to break out as a really strong ball winner, it seemed like we were happy to have him racking it up and left it at that. He wasn't that far off becoming a really top midfielder if he added one or two more strings to his bow but he really plateaued. He could've become a slightly more contested player which he had the capacity to do in my opinion. Instead he remained pretty much a high volume link player through midfield. He's a good player, but not what he should be for someone who can win as much footy as he can.

 

[CarnTheSAINTERS]

hill can go to a fourth club fmd

 

[Gosaints12]

hill can go to a fourth club fmd

Dads been saying that since he left the Hawks, he goes for Hawthorn.

 

[Gosaints12]

hill can go to a fourth club fmd

Everyone else can go too.

 

[CarnTheSAINTERS]

I’d be looking at Constable/Fiorini/caldwell and maybe another senior like Hannebery who offers leadership and reasonable service for a couple of years.

 

[ScrappyDo]

I’d be looking at Constable/Fiorini/caldwell and maybe another senior like Hannebery who offers leadership and reasonable service for a couple of years.

Like Williams?

 

[Captain Paddy]

Like Williams?

Terrible idea

 

[MOLTEN GANGLANDS]

Can we please park this whole ‘Ross gets votes in the Brownlow’ thing as a sign he is a good player.

If anyone really believes that, then I assume the same logic works in reverse. Because in 2018, the only players to average 28+ disposals and not get more than 10 Brownlow votes were Treloar (only played 13 games), B.Crouch and Ross.

In 2019, Ross had no Stuv taking votes off him, and as a team we won a lot more games (= more votes). He still couldn’t crack top 25 in the brownlow. Players like Bont, T.Kelly and Shiel average roughly the same stats, and get many many more votes than Ross does.

More importantly, look at where his 2019 votes came from. Gold Coast TWICE, Carlton, Melbourne, Freo and Hawthorn. More than half of his votes came just against GC and Carlton. Some heavy hitting teams there! Where was he against decent opposition? By contrast, Marshall got his votes against teams like Richmond, the Bulldogs and Geelong. Personally I would rate even 1 vote against Geelong, Richmond, GWS or Richmond much higher than getting more than half your votes against Gold Coast and Carlton.

So even if we use Brownlow votes as a measure of success, then there is still ample reason not to rate Ross at all.

Sheed averaged about the same amount of touches and got the same amount of brownlow votes. He only just cracked top 10 in the B+F and was about 100 votes off the winner. Not sure West coast would lose too much sleep if they lost Sheed. Duncan is the same. Averages almost identical stats and got 11 Brownlow votes. He ran 8th in the B+F.

So if the umpires rate Sheed, Duncan and Ross about the same (and they get about the same amount of stats), the only ones overrating Ross were our previous coaching staff that handed him the 2019 B+F.

FFS this is largely the same coaching group that gave Dan McKenzie a top 10 finish in the B+F from 13 games. They rated Dan McKenzie so highly that even though he played half our games, he was considered one of our ‘top 10’ players. In their judgement, a 22 game Dan bloody McKenzie would have just about won our 2018 B+F. Just think about that for a minute.

IMO Marshall should have won last years B+F by the length of Flemington straight. The 2017 award? Absolutely Ross deserved that. The 2019 award, not a chance the coaches got that right.

Apologies for the rant. Just had a gutful of the ‘he polled brownlow votes in 5 games so he must be a good player’ argument. Aaron Hall got 3 BOG’s in a row. Doesn’t change the fact he is a spud worth about a 5th rounder. And as far as I am concerned, Ross' second B+F belongs to Rowan Marshall. From what I understand from the rooms reaction on the night, plenty of other people thought that too.

great post, I love me some solid investigative detectoring on the truth behind the ross.

In regards to the greater convo though, I think we have the cattle, it definitely wouldn't hurt to have a few more A grade mids, but in a few years we may have developed our own. I think we just need to coach and develop. Our best is very good, but if we stop running for 3 quarters like today it doesn't matter who we've got in the team. We just need consistency.

With that said we've seen Williams get it done on (almost) the biggest of stages. I'd absolutely love to snag him. Number one realistic target currently.

 

[gringo2011]

great post, I love me some solid investigative detectoring on the truth behind the ross.

In regards to the greater convo though, I think we have the cattle, it definitely wouldn't hurt to have a few more A grade mids, but in a few years we may have developed our own. I think we just need to coach and develop. Our best is very good, but if we stop running for 3 quarters like today it doesn't matter who we've got in the team. We just need consistency.

With that said we've seen Williams get it done on (almost) the biggest of stages. I'd absolutely love to snag him. Number one realistic target currently.

We need a few gun mids, not more beige.

To me the list quality ladder goes

GWS- stars across the list.
Collingwood- stars across the list, good age profiles
Geelong- stars across the list some high quality youth and top end seniors
WCE- stars across the board but a bit lesser down the bottom
Essendon- stars across the list consistently underperform
Richmond- a few stars and lots of grunt, play system footy
Brisbane- rising list with some coming on, most quality is youth
Dogs- a bit unbalanced but probably the best midfield in the AFL
Port- lots of good kids coming through, some stars all through the list, hard to get a read on
Dees- look good on paper, look terrible on the field
North- some stars some youth, still look a few players off finals
GC- lots of incredible youth, lack top end and experience but rising fast
Saints- not much in the high end and mostly young. A bit even with no real stars
Hawks- Look unbalanced but still have some guns and older quality to teach the youth
Fremantle- Look like they are a bit young but have some high quality in the older end
Carlton- constant teases, they have a potential Brownlow winner but not much else. Lots of GOPs
Sydney- in rebuild with some good kids and some worn older players
Adelaide- Look mentally and physically shot with not much coming up underneath and plenty of older players looking out on their feet