He's falling apart, by mid season next year he will be sharing a room with DMac at Healing Hans sanitorium in Germany.ohhhh mid season trading - Shiel can be got in June
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AFLW 2024 - Round 9 - Indigenous Round - Chat, game threads, injury lists, team lineups and more.
List Mgmt. 2023 Trade Thread - Part IV
- Thread starter stavro#4
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Yep $1.5m for however long he wants for all I care
Dr Spaceman
Premium Gold
It’s all well and good to say we should keep this one or that one as depth, but that only works if those players are happy being depth.
If another club rates them higher, promises greater opportunity and more security, then you can’t blame the player for moving.
Conversely, if a player would prefer to stay on our list and run around at Sandy, then you’d be a bit concerned as to their motivation and their overall impact on the team.
All of Gresh, Billings and Coffield have the potential to make us squirm a little bit in the years to come, however there’s not much point having a clean out unless you actually clean some players out.
If another club rates them higher, promises greater opportunity and more security, then you can’t blame the player for moving.
Conversely, if a player would prefer to stay on our list and run around at Sandy, then you’d be a bit concerned as to their motivation and their overall impact on the team.
All of Gresh, Billings and Coffield have the potential to make us squirm a little bit in the years to come, however there’s not much point having a clean out unless you actually clean some players out.
DougalHoward
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GWS and Freo were interested but he didn't want to move interstate
But maybe there's a culture argument.
Some players are positive for your culture because they drive standards around them.
Some players are neutral for your culture because they just go with the flow.
Some players are negative for your culture because they make the vibe and standards worse.
I don't know if Billings is in the third bucket but if he is then it makes sense to walk him out the door and give some younger guys a chance to build a high-performing culture themselves.
He doesn't drive poor culture in a Oliver or Ginnivan way.
We don't gain by getting rid of him.
People are making him out to be of pretty poor character, and i think they are dead wrong.
gubby88
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To be fair, they did go on to smash a team who was in the top 4 all year a week later
SFA
Yeah I have no idea what his character is like, but the trade would make sense if he was negative for the culture of the group.
"Driving poor culture" in an Oliver way is a particular thing. By all reports he's a super hard worker so he doesn't lower standards on the track, but obviously if he's leading others astray off the field then that's a problem. It's entirely possible that Billings is the exact opposite - choirboy off the field but doesn't set a good example on the training track.
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Got a massive 26 games out of Coffield Gresham and Billings this year and the same last year.
We lost ONE best 23 player and he was a player most wanted dropped numerous times this year.
All this over reaction.
And very very little reality testing apart of it.
Coffields 2020 5th place finish
Billings 2017 & 2019
Greshams 2017 & 2018
That’s how long ago we saw the absolute best of these blokes. Not individual games. But full seasons.
If all 3 star, so be it.
Realistic outcome based on the above says we will be unlucky if 1 turns out to bite us in the ass.
We lost ONE best 23 player and he was a player most wanted dropped numerous times this year.
All this over reaction.
And very very little reality testing apart of it.
Coffields 2020 5th place finish
Billings 2017 & 2019
Greshams 2017 & 2018
That’s how long ago we saw the absolute best of these blokes. Not individual games. But full seasons.
If all 3 star, so be it.
Realistic outcome based on the above says we will be unlucky if 1 turns out to bite us in the ass.
The culture is; are you fully invested as a Saints man or not. If not, seeya later champ.
Even with a contribution to Billings salary, we have probably cleared out around $2m worth of cap space based on this year's TPP between Coffield, Billings, Gresham and Jones (who was on $650k now much lower). Even if Henry is on $500k and Dow the same, that leaves us with an additional $1m for next year (plus the inflation in the cap which Gallagher was smart enough not to write into our contracts). Gotta say that SOS seems to have managed the cap very well for a good tilt at a big trade in 2024.
$10m over 7 years for Butters anyone?
$10m over 7 years for Butters anyone?
Please elaborate...
The disheartening this is how are we ever going to build a list better then sides like Melbourne, who have 2x picks before our first, the dogs who have a top 5 pick, plus Croft who is roughly a top 10 pick before our first etc. I know that winning a premiership is a lot more then just draft picks and trades, but it always seems we take 1 step forward, while other clubs around us take 2
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Ross was saying earlier in the year it takes 2-3 good drafts to completely change the narrative and a clubs fortune.
Nas/Windy/Owens is 1
Pou/Caminiti/ ??? Could be 2
This year?
Also, Keep in mind Melbourne have those picks because they lost Jackson and the dogs have traded out of next years draft and have been kissed on the one eyed snake for their father sons.
If we hypothetically lost Pou next year back to SA. We would be asking for 2 first rounders or 1 high first and a second.
That would give us either 2 firsts, 1 second and 3 third rounders or 3 first rounders and 3 third rounders next year - if we compared scenarios to Melbourne.
Depends on your expectations I guess.
Playing 150 games of AFL footy puts him ahead of about 95% of players who we've had at the club.
He didn't turn into Leigh Matthews though.
Interesting that the clubs taking a look at Billings were are all in contention for a flag at the moment.
Still can't believe we got a first round pick for Gresham!!
Going to be fantastic not having to watch him float helicopter kicks past players or take set shots from distances he can't reach (40m) or burn teammates for shots he can't kick
Going to be fantastic not having to watch him float helicopter kicks past players or take set shots from distances he can't reach (40m) or burn teammates for shots he can't kick
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As in clubs with healthy lists and little pressure on individual players to come good? I'd say it's pretty unsurprising.
Melbourne can swallow Billings up like they did with Dunstan. He either elevates himself to a lock or he doesn't, they'll be fine regardless. They have huge depth in med sized forwards and midfielders, they even sold one to the Dogs because he was surplus to needs. Billings has zero expectation riding on him. Maybe it'll be the making of him as a solid Seb-Ross like 4th mid. If not, no one will care. He wasn't pick 3 for them. It worked for James Aish and probably plenty of others.
For Saints fans, he wears his draft number like a yoke around his neck. The team have needed him for most of his career, then finally moved on without him. If he'd stayed with us, he would have maintained the pressure to "finally come good" and every setback would be catastrophic to his self belief.
I think a move was realistically the best for everyone. Could have done it a few years ago and got a decent pick for him, but what's done is done, let it be a lesson for the future regarding holding onto our players too long.
They've committed to play youth instead of list cloggers. If we drop down next year I'm not bothered one bit coz we're on the right path at last.
Mangus
Team Captain
Yes but Melbourne had to lose Jackson to have that hand and Dogs had to lose Dunkley.
Probably should have traded Billing’s 4 years ago. I would be more concerned about Gold Coast and North who both just got gifted a shot at a flag by Northern Academy Rules and compensation for being rubbish.
Still this years premier looked headed to full rebuild just a couple of years ago just shows make enough good decisions and we can have our turn.
- Aug 17, 2014
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Have always thought Billings would be perfect for a top 4 team, and Melbourne needs as much class as it can get up forward. It's a smart pick up for them. He will fit in well spraying easy set shots like the rest of them 
Noone had Bont ahead of him in the pre draft predictions, so it's not fair for us to say we could have had Bont when the Dogs reached for him at 4. Cal Twomey had bont at 12.
Noone had Bont ahead of him in the pre draft predictions, so it's not fair for us to say we could have had Bont when the Dogs reached for him at 4. Cal Twomey had bont at 12.
StFly
Space to Rent
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The answer is simply be the club we are meant to be instead of almost consistently repeating history.
Melbourne have people that care and they strived to be the better club to then build upon, sure with help after the tanking debacle, but nonetheless, they had plans and people in right places.
Dogs have the groundswell of community, hell, I still remember their footy clinics locally as a single digit person, they're the reason auskick got up some years and they helped get the North v Fitzroy exhibition match back in the day in preseason where I saw many a naked male as no one cares about the children meeting AFL players.
Meanwhile in our world...
Some blokes went to Rugby to later be charged for cooking books.
Some blokes sniff sniffed and slept under tables, in chairs, against a wall or sliding down a window.
We rotated all the chairs until GT tried to sit on all of them at the same time.
Party culture, lets piss off to Frankston as I hear there's a lot of land there to piss up in.
That was only 7 years ago from paying cents in the dollar in the 80's and having creditors called in to assess in the 90's. Ask yourself, how much in the shit would you have to be to have the AFLPA president quit and take up your CEO position almost immediately? Then ask yoursaelf, what player would want to set up shop in that mess of a club?
So we retain a lot of players, we enter the Summers+Finnis years, again 7 years ago and what happens? We start churning is what, because we can finally start having things instead of just existing on a precipice. Players then see that and suddenly you have some minor interest, players want to come here, players want to play for us as we have an idea, that idea leads t a road and we know how to walk it to get to that success, we just might not have all the pieces yet.
Those other mobs, had about 20 years on us to sort out their shit and start that process, we were too busy having a piss up about the enclosure and then running away to Seaford to biuld our own to then complain about the coffee.
All culminated in that review and RTB returning, hold onto your hats as we be entering some interesting times, we either going to the moon or the Mariana trench, depends if we screwed it up by walking off the path or misreading the compass originally.
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Collingwood paid two seperate clubs to get Brodie Grundy off its books at a time when he was touted as one of the best ruckmen in the game. With the cap space they brought in T Mitchell and B Hill, both instumental in the following year's finals campaign. In 2019 Geelong traded Tim Kelly to West Coast for a handful of picks and won the 2022 premiership. The same year Richmond traded integral senior player Brandon Ellis to the Suns and won the premiership the following year. Sydney traded Jordan Dawson to the Crows in 2019 too and they played in the GF against Geelong in the aforementioned 2022 season.
Good clubs sell good players all the time for loads of different reasons. Some profit from it, some carry on regardless. It would be a lot of work to find an example of a club's fortunes turning sour on the back of trading a star player out. We needed to culturally draw a line under the Rattcho Era (aka the Elshallagher Dynasty, aka the years of the Pelican and the Trout) and I think now we've more or less done that.
I'm not going to try and claim that SOS slam-dunked the trade period, but he did what he needed to do, perhaps what Gallagher didn't have the guts to do. Now its up to our leaders to establish a new non-negotiable culture and to refocus the team around our younger players who are less tainted with the sins of our wasted years. If it doesn't work, then so be it.
I thought Gresham made a positive difference for us this year, but he was apparently not a great fit culturally, and I'm happy to take a punt on a new first round pick to learn the ropes around players like Mitch Owens and Mattaes Phillipou rather than Gresh's mentors Josh Bruce and Billy Longer. Get a young hopeful working the Ross Lyon way from the getgo, rather than having to throw out all the nonsense JB and Jade picked up of Richo and Ratts.
Billings was a nice kid and hard worker, but only the most optimistic fans could see him ever being more than he currently is, even as a depth player he's just another person at the club with the old mediocre mentality that RTB has had to try and convert. In the end regardless of the sunk cost, we had to move on.
I will be surprised if it stops there too. I think that the older half of the player group will be nervously communicating with their agents a lot this year scrambling to find a plan B while Ross and SOS are sharpening their knives.
Good clubs sell good players all the time for loads of different reasons. Some profit from it, some carry on regardless. It would be a lot of work to find an example of a club's fortunes turning sour on the back of trading a star player out. We needed to culturally draw a line under the Rattcho Era (aka the Elshallagher Dynasty, aka the years of the Pelican and the Trout) and I think now we've more or less done that.
I'm not going to try and claim that SOS slam-dunked the trade period, but he did what he needed to do, perhaps what Gallagher didn't have the guts to do. Now its up to our leaders to establish a new non-negotiable culture and to refocus the team around our younger players who are less tainted with the sins of our wasted years. If it doesn't work, then so be it.
I thought Gresham made a positive difference for us this year, but he was apparently not a great fit culturally, and I'm happy to take a punt on a new first round pick to learn the ropes around players like Mitch Owens and Mattaes Phillipou rather than Gresh's mentors Josh Bruce and Billy Longer. Get a young hopeful working the Ross Lyon way from the getgo, rather than having to throw out all the nonsense JB and Jade picked up of Richo and Ratts.
Billings was a nice kid and hard worker, but only the most optimistic fans could see him ever being more than he currently is, even as a depth player he's just another person at the club with the old mediocre mentality that RTB has had to try and convert. In the end regardless of the sunk cost, we had to move on.
I will be surprised if it stops there too. I think that the older half of the player group will be nervously communicating with their agents a lot this year scrambling to find a plan B while Ross and SOS are sharpening their knives.
Dr Spaceman
Premium Gold
Oh well, it was a great journey while it lasted 
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Agreed on Gresh. He was so much more electric before his achilles, but he keeps trying to do the same tricks. His pre covid highlights are elite. I was a genuine Gresh and Billings believer but both their times have passed unfortunately, especially for the coin and age brackets. Getting in Henry and Dow at their ages just makes sense for where we are heading. Hopefully we strike gold with one of these picks this year and Hotton shows why we picked him.
