List Mgmt. 2024 Trade Thread - No.2

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From our ladder position. An extra pick 8 ain't going to dramatically change our fortunes.

Losing best 22 players who have just entered their prime will.

The top 5 pick being touted for battle didn't even happen. Now suddenly pick 8 is good.
This is the time for a Saint supporter to be hopeful. Right up until mid March. Join the party.
 
We have simply had far too many misses in recruitment over the past 10 years and as result we are playing catch up with our list build. Losing Crouch is a huge hit and some dont give him enough credence to how good and important he was to our year in 2023. Even so with some luck with injuries we still most likely are playing finals this week.

Hypothesis: if we put Warner & Bontempelli in our side next year we are a chance to win the entire thing, even with the loss of Battle.

Our midfield list remains a work in progress, but our coaching is first class. Our immediate issue is getting sufficient quality and list depth around Marshall, Steele, Wilkie and Sinclair before they fall away. Hopefully we can find some cheap top up players and another 4-6 kids who are ready to step up next year.
 

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i'm stating if our aims is to collect high end draft picks because we think the list is no good to be challenging for a flag then we are better off getting a shit coach not one thats going to extract everything out of the list

i dont agree with the aim BTW i dont think the high end picks matter as much as others do. i don't think we can compete in that space and certainly not with the current coach
So, tanking by coach. No thanks.
Do way more harm than good.

I think the state the list is in right now we don’t need to be a basket case.
We have certain needs obviously and this draft should help with those.

We need to be clever. And maximise every opportunity. There’s pros and cons with Josh but he will be replaceable, even short term with stop gaps until we develop our own.

We are seeing plenty of green shoots over the past 3 drafts.
 
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It's a commercial deal we agreed to, unless there's a contractual violation (which is unlikely since the AFL is run by lawyers) then there's just nothing there.



The media never support little clubs against big ones or the AFL, they know which side their bread's buttered on. Look at what happened when Bassat came out and complained about the academies. The general line from the media was "yeah whatever but you guys are shit so deal with it".

It's a two-bit operation rigged in favour of big clubs, always will be unfortunately.
Your first point is legally correct, but that is seldom how high profile organizational battles are resolved. The contract is meaningless when dealing with forward looking concepts like fairness and equality. Those are not concepts that contracts usually deal with. So it’s not a claim for damages under contract, it’s an appeal for rectification of those, or at least recognition, on a forward basis. That takes media strategy. I have been part of these at state government, or victim you may say… ;) ours could be a LOT better if we chose that way forward.

Your second point, didn’t we get our academy concessions as requested?

Your third point, I agree entirely. That’s why embarrassment is the only viable option if we seek to do anything about it.
 
The football department are duty bound to make the best of every situation. There was probably an opportunity to put a little bit extra into Battle's offer but that moment passed and he's gone. The fact he hit free agency (or was coming out of contract as he was entering it) was standard practice among many players around the league. We have more egregious examples of the club being incompetent (if this last one qualifies as such).

People like Joffaboy are more (and justifiably) complaining about the system and how it is currently preventing us from taking the last step to premiership contention (and while it is a big step, it is just one step, we play good footy already and are competitive). AFAIC, the draft is the real issue. The fixture changes from year to year, and the blockbusters aren't going away. As long as we engage in mature conversation about distributing the money made from blockbusters (Carlton v Collingwood ain't going anywhere), we should suck it up when it comes to the odd 4:40pm Sunday at Docklands.

But the anachronistic elements in the draft that actively work against its objectives (to even the competition by giving the worst teams access to the best talent) is the first order problem, and we should wholeheartedly support the club in any endeavour to see this rectified. Levi Ashcroft should be wearing a black jumper with a yellow sash next year, or Brisbane should pay Richmond what it takes to get that pick. Until the draft is fair, I'm not sure what fixing any other element of the system does to be honest.
 
We have simply had far too many misses in recruitment over the past 10 years and as result we are playing catch up with our list build. Losing Crouch is a huge hit and some dont give him enough credence to how good and important he was to our year in 2023. Even so with some luck with injuries we still most likely are playing finals this week.

Hypothesis: if we put Warner & Bontempelli in our side next year we are a chance to win the entire thing, even with the loss of Battle.

Our midfield list remains a work in progress, but our coaching is first class. Our immediate issue is getting sufficient quality and list depth around Marshall, Steele, Wilkie and Sinclair before they fall away. Hopefully we can find some cheap top up players and another 4-6 kids who are ready to step up next year.
Is crouch formally gone or is that a working assumption (which seems obviously correct)?
 
Is crouch formally gone or is that a working assumption (which seems obviously correct)?
If his knee is as cooked as it looked (I feel like Dr Seuss), I feel like he'd be in negotiations re: getting paid out to finish up after hitting the extension trigger. Even on one leg he was racking them up at times in the 2s. From one perspective, that loss might have cost us a crack at a finals spot when you think how close we ended up and how well we did when Pou came good and Dow came in. Henry was a costly out too in that sense.
 
i think retaining the best pieces of your list whilst using the "one first a second and a couple of dodgey NGA's" is the way forward yes

i don't think one extra round 1 pick is going to do anything. i do think we run the risk of losing more players if we are non-competitive through shedding parts of the teams spine or engine room.
Well you must love mediocre 7 to 13th finishes. Absolute way to be irrelevant.



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If his knee is as cooked as it looked (I feel like Dr Seuss), I feel like he'd be in negotiations re: getting paid out to finish up after hitting the extension trigger. Even on one leg he was racking them up at times in the 2s. From one perspective, that loss might have cost us a crack at a finals spot when you think how close we ended up and how well we did when Pou came good and Dow came in. Henry was a costly out too in that sense.
He will almost certainly attempt a full pre-season before that decision is made. The SPP selections dont finalize until like February from memory (I think thats when we picked up Camaniti?) which would still give us an opportunity to take another player if theres a decent one available.
 
i think retaining the best pieces of your list whilst using the "one first a second and a couple of dodgey NGA's" is the way forward yes

i don't think one extra round 1 pick is going to do anything. i do think we run the risk of losing more players if we are non-competitive through shedding parts of the teams spine or engine room.
Disagree - We don't have an engine room - we have a chassis! We have outside run and skill, and badly lack an engine room. Our spine is OK, without being elite. I am happy to shop some future picks to bring them forward to this year and next, and not worry too much about the first and second Tassie drafts. That also means we bring forward the development of first year recruits. Look to be hitting up free agency and trades in the first two Tassie drafts (as much as possible) and minimise our participation in those drafts to the minimum the AFL permits.

The exact opposite of how we handled the drafts when GCS and GWS entered into the competition.

If we get any offers for players, look at them seriously, trade future picks, bundle up lower picks for higher picks, do whatever we have to, in order to maximise our haul from the top of the next two drafts
 
Well you must love mediocre 7 to 13th finishes. Absolute way to be irrelevant.



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Port have had one top ten pick in the last decade and have arguably the best midfield in the comp. No silverware, but top 4 finishes four out of the past five seasons, and will be thereabouts again. Cotton Ons have had 2 (Clark and Cockatoo). Top 10 picks aren't the be all end all. We think we need more because Dow and Clark aren't up to it. Spot the fallacy.

Hawks "hit the draft" but have risen up the ladder despite their top 10 picks, not because of them. DGB, Ward, Mackenzie, Watson... you'd think only Watson and probably Mackenzie will make it at this point. Meanwhile Weddle could be the best player in the comp in a few years.

Probably irrational but I would've struggled to come to terms with trading Battle for pick 8 straight up. Bird in the hand and all that. Trading for an established midfielder would be a completely different story.

I will agree the current system is no good. Clubs should be penalised for queue jumping & using their privileged access to players, rather than rewarded with some contrived points discount. I'm okay with giving Brisbane access to Ashcroft but it should completely cripple their draft hand (this year and/or next) & not be a straightforward decision for them to match. It should be in GC's interests to use their actual pick on Lombard rather than pay a substantial price if they wish to overlook him and match a bid later on. Removing the discount and de-valuing later picks will go a long way towards solving this.
 

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Well you must love mediocre 7 to 13th finishes. Absolute way to be irrelevant.



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so if i understand correctly... the difference between chasing a flag and finishing 7th to 13th is one additional Pick 8?
 
so if i understand correctly... the difference between chasing a flag and finishing 7th to 13th is one additional Pick 8?
If it turns into a gun mid then yes

Might not be next year .... but our current youth group is as good as any and we are methodically adding to that squad which could take us to the glory land

Pou
Nasiah
King
Sharman
Windhager
Henry
Caminiti
Owens
Clark
Wilson
Garcia
Hastie
Schoonerskuller
Pick 7
Pick 8
Pick mid 20s
 
With all those constraints above, how do we get the picks to get the elite players?

What are our realistic options?

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The realistic option is to do exactly what we have done with Battle to improve our draft hand.
There just is no other choice.
He is a very good player, but replaceable. Other teams have done it - we just become too attached to individual players.

Ultimately it had to be done. These are the decisions we are forced to make because of the inequities we face.
 
I genuinely don’t get the melts going on rn.

Pick 8 would be the best outcome. Pick 25ish would suck. Paying Josh Battle 1m odd for 6 years is the worse possible outcome lmao.

I genuinely cannot see how people would be happy to keep Battle at that price.
 
i think retaining the best pieces of your list whilst using the "one first a second and a couple of dodgey NGA's" is the way forward yes

i don't think one extra round 1 pick is going to do anything. i do think we run the risk of losing more players if we are non-competitive through shedding parts of the teams spine or engine room.

Exactly, players like Marshall, Sinclair and Wilkie will be like Stuv, Armo etc and play out a whole career with no vision for a flag in their time. We move so slowly that clubs like Collingwood and Dogs have won flags rebuilt and challenged again in the time that we still haven’t finished the one started in 2011. Stavro seems to think we aren’t going to challenge until our under 21s are older players.

If I was a manager I would not be sending players to us. We have low ambition.
 
It's a commercial deal we agreed to, unless there's a contractual violation (which is unlikely since the AFL is run by lawyers) then there's just nothing there.



The media never support little clubs against big ones or the AFL, they know which side their bread's buttered on. Look at what happened when Bassat came out and complained about the academies. The general line from the media was "yeah whatever but you guys are shit so deal with it".

It's a two-bit operation rigged in favour of big clubs, always will be unfortunately.


They have tried but we don’t stand up. We are always wanting hand outs. We play finals build momentum then shit the bed and put all the broadcasters and sponsors off.

If you make yourself an attractive brand people jump on. You can’t spend 15 years barely awake and expect everyone to want to put you up in lights. Not even our fans turn up because we are an untrustworthy club.
 
I think Geelong are a good case study and will be an interesting watch over the next few seasons. Pretty sure they are the only club never to have had a Pick 1 in the Draft. As perennial contestants for the flag they rarely get good picks. They've fallen on their feet over the years with father-son freebies like Ablett, Hawkins and Scarlett but that's all ancient history now and not relevant to their current position

Many commentators have criticised the Pies for having 9 players over 30 next season. But take a look at the Cats.
Hawkins 36, Dangerfield 34, Tuohy 34, Duncan 33, Rohan 33, Blicavs 33. Stanley 33, Guthrie 32, Cameron 31, Stewart 31, Bews 30. That's 11 players 30+ years of age and you can add one more year on to that when next season rolls around.

Is that poor list management to allow their list to become so stop heavy age wise ? I think it is but don't hold your breath waiting for the commentators to say so. The Cats will no doubt bring in ready made players like Bailey Smith over the next 2-3 years but they are soon going to become a much different looking team to what they are now. What's more the players that will depart make up the majority of their current best 12 players. Not forgetting they've also recently lost Selwood.

But that's the way they operate. My point is that opposition players see them as a successful team and accordingly a destination club. To their credit the Cats manage to get them to Geelong despite often holding an ordinary draft hand. They also, mainly through the astuteness of Wells, pick the eyes out of their second and third round selections. The icing on the cake is that, aside from Kelly, few players have left them in their prime. Often they even take a salary cut in order to stay.

How we even begin to become a club of that ilk is beyond me. Obviously it has to start somewhere. Geelong's drought breaking premiership in 2007 was obviously aided by the father son selections of Ablett, Scarlett and Hawkins. But their great midfield built around Ablett was the result of fantastic drafting. Bartel, Chapman, Corey, Ling and guys like Enright, Johnson and Milburn were just the reward for incredible drafting. Interestingly, it was built without great star power on the forward line. Mooney was not an elite forward and a young Hawkins didn't make his mark for a few more years.

It will be interesting to see if they can somehow stay in contention when all the players listed above are gone. Surely there has to be a big cliff headed their way soon. But then again we've been saying that for 15 years. The challenge for the Saints is to somehow replicate their model. Easier said than done.
 
Exactly, players like Marshall, Sinclair and Wilkie will be like Stuv, Armo etc and play out a whole career with no vision for a flag in their time. We move so slowly that clubs like Collingwood and Dogs have won flags rebuilt and challenged again in the time that we still haven’t finished the one started in 2011. Stavro seems to think we aren’t going to challenge until our under 21s are older players.

If I was a manager I would not be sending players to us. We have low ambition.

You would have us finishing 7th - 13th indefinitely not making any of the tough calls because you’re to afraid to lose a good player.

Collingwood and dogs have both made hard cuts of good players along the way (in addition to their massive father/son and academy hand outs, which were some of those most egregious in the entire AFL)
 
i'm stating if our aims is to collect high end draft picks because we think the list is no good to be challenging for a flag then we are better off getting a shit coach not one thats going to extract everything out of the list

i dont agree with the aim BTW i dont think the high end picks matter as much as others do. i don't think we can compete in that space and certainly not with the current coach

They got Lyon in because the last few guys they had had no clubland experience when building a footy department. They went austere for so long that they needed someone who could do both.
 
so if i understand correctly... the difference between chasing a flag and finishing 7th to 13th is one additional Pick 8?
So if I understand correctly, your strategy is to do nothing.
Definition of madness is to do the same thing expecting a different result.
I did explain it before but will try again, perhaps you didn't read it.
It is a five year go to the draft strategy and this year is the 4th year. So logically if the strategy is to hit the draft, it would be beneficial to have more top end dp's, no?

Battle was a good player, sorry to see him go, but he wanted a contract only up to Free Agency and we could not stop him.

We now get compo which is likely pick 8, we also have an extra 900k a year we didn't spend on Battle to put to the 1.5 we are offering Mac Andrew or whomever to replace Battle.
The Battle battle is done, look at what they have done and will do.
Battle was good under Ratten, great under Lyon, imagine what Lyon can do to the Battle replacement.


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We have simply had far too many misses in recruitment over the past 10 years and as result we are playing catch up with our list build. Losing Crouch is a huge hit and some dont give him enough credence to how good and important he was to our year in 2023. Even so with some luck with injuries we still most likely are playing finals this week.

Hypothesis: if we put Warner & Bontempelli in our side next year we are a chance to win the entire thing, even with the loss of Battle.

Our midfield list remains a work in progress, but our coaching is first class. Our immediate issue is getting sufficient quality and list depth around Marshall, Steele, Wilkie and Sinclair before they fall away. Hopefully we can find some cheap top up players and another 4-6 kids who are ready to step up next year.

Coaching is pretty good. We haven’t moved forward under Lyon yet. It might end up going either way but the end of season coaching was very solid.
 

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List Mgmt. 2024 Trade Thread - No.2

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