List Mgmt. 2025 List Management discussion

[CaptainRisky]

Everyone has a price.

17mill wasn't enough for Finn , not sure money is everything

 

[SteeleSaints]

So the plan as stated by the president is to start competing for a flag in the next 12 to 24 months or so. That clearly is almost entirely dependent on getting an LDU and TDK. But what happens if we are genuinely bad this year and the above doesn’t occur?

Players just don’t go to bad teams via free agency, it just doesn’t happen. I wish it did, that was the rationalisation for free agency by the players association but it was a load of shit. I wish the AFL had a culture more like the NFL and players went wherever the money was best cause they genuinely believed they can win anywhere. It would be a hell of a lot more interesting. Unfortunately the AFL is too dumb or spineless to realise this.

Read about the history of the NFL and particularly Pete Rosell who was the commissioner who presided over the league for 30 years and turned it from a second rung sport behind baseball to the juggernaut it is now and how strong he was on equalisation and any given Sunday as they say. There’s a reason it is so widely popular now. A strong and even league makes everyone stronger.

If we can’t get free agents to compete whilst Wilkie, Sinclair and Marshall are still very good with Tasmania coming in and the likelihood of not getting access to an elite talent this year I genuinely have no idea what we do. I think we may have missed the boat on trading any of the above for real value and they are too old to be enticing for the Devils.

I think we would need to start preparing a case to the AFL for concessions for this year. Not in extra picks but for us not to get pushed back down the draft order. Imagine sitting through a year where we finish 16th and then getting pushed back to a talent in the teens whilst the Suns and Lions get 4 picks in the top 6 between them. We can put up with a lot as Saints fans but that would be too much for me.

The team we put out on the weekend was as bad a team as we’ve had on the park at any point over the last 15 years of shite. It was seriously devoid of talent. I’m so sick of being a mile behind everyone for from a talent stand point. Injury played a part in that but to see us in this position after being so irrelevant for so long and to start a season with no hope. Feel as low as any point in my time as a fan. Earliest season I can remember is 1995.

Very worried the 4 pillars as they’ve dubbed themselves have backed themselves into a corner and won’t be able to change course and we’ll continue to see Jones over Boxshall and Cordy over Keeler for the rest of the season. Too much egg on their face.

An excellent post thanks B&B.

The free agent space is definitely worrying as after our strong finish last season and draft, we are now putting all our eggs in attracting free agents. As much as the club talks up their culture its not consistently translating out on the park. If things were that rosy you wouldnt have players like Battle walking out.

I just read the HS article on Membrey and he suggested that he wasn’t going to be offerred any sort of contract by our club. I find that astounding given his service, abilities and the way he finished last year. I dont know the inside workings, but he has been our most reliable forward for years and to not to offer him a contract was a really poor list management and move by the club.

It would seem our culture is only wonderful if the club still want you - otherwise they drop off pretty quickly.

Players/Managers all see St Kilda as a minnow club and if we are not showing anything onfield I think our chances of attracting free agent/s are ZERO! If that occurs the club will have stuffed their on the run rebuild, as the gap between the aging core and the inexperienced younger group is too wide and fear it will spell another generation of wasted talent at St Kilda.

 

[stavro#4]

That's ok

We'll take this guy


OR this guy

Do you see a world west coast finish above us or a world they don’t take Rodriguez before us?

Duursma isn’t exactly a genuine mid. Was the one I was hoping to avoid if I’m honest.

Would love one of the talls like Emmett to have a massive year and force clubs to take him pick 1-2

 

[akaifu]

Do you see a world west coast finish above us or a world they don’t take Rodriguez before us?

Duursma isn’t exactly a genuine mid. Was the one I was hoping to avoid if I’m honest.

Would love one of the talls like Emmett to have a massive year and force clubs to take him pick 1-2

Nah I think they definitely will if available but who knows how bad we'll be this year and whether we can finish below them

Duursma hopefully gets runs in the midfield this year now that he isn't a bottom-ager for CTL and Champs. He's got all the attributes to be dominant through the middle; tall, skillful, athletic. Honestly could be more a Will Day than Travaglia but we'll see

Yeah exactly my thoughts on the talls too; Emmett, Duff-Tytler, Curtin etc hopefully bolt up. Or even an Onley or Greaves who are good mids but I don't think we need any of those taller types now that we have Pou/Boxshall

 

[SteeleSaints]

Do you see a world west coast finish above us or a world they don’t take Rodriguez before us?

Duursma isn’t exactly a genuine mid. Was the one I was hoping to avoid if I’m honest.

Would love one of the talls like Emmett to have a massive year and force clubs to take him pick 1-2

Rodriguez being a local if he is rated that high he would be hard to pass up. But like us they have holes all over the list, so I wouldnt be surprised to see them look at key forwards early. Either way we seem to always find a way to not take genuine midfielders early in the draft!

 

[stavro#4]

Rodriguez being a local if he is rated that high he would be hard to pass up. But like us they have holes all over the list, so I wouldnt be surprised to see them look at key forwards early. Either way we seem to always find a way to not take genuine midfielders early in the draft!

And the eagles likely band 1 compo. Unless we are disastrously shit. It’s finals or bust (second round of midfield talent or talls like last year) for talent acquisition for us.

 

[billings2paddy]

That's ok

We'll take this guy


OR this guy

I can see us taking another flanker who may become a mid.

 

[Saint Ray]

Do you see a world west coast finish above us or a world they don’t take Rodriguez before us?

Duursma isn’t exactly a genuine mid. Was the one I was hoping to avoid if I’m honest.

Would love one of the talls like Emmett to have a massive year and force clubs to take him pick 1-2

If we win the wooden spoon.

 

[_Maximus_12]

I’ll be mightily close to 50… but both my boys will be teenagers and can see it with me.


Deal!

I’d like to win one that I can celebrate without children, before the celebrations become much more subdued with them

 

[Sir Owens]

Whats going on with the playing stats on the saints website & app. Any chance they could update it and get rid of the people who don't play for the club anymore. FMD

 

[botts]

I can see us taking another flanker who may become a mid.

There is a bloke at sandy this year who’s grand dad was a champion at our club. Can’t remember his name but suppose to be a gun

 

[Miha]

How good was that culture building win against Blues last year?

 

[SaintsSeptember]

There is a bloke at sandy this year who’s grand dad was a champion at our club. Can’t remember his name but suppose to be a gun

Sign his grand dad up.

 

[beside the seaside]

How good was that culture building win against Blues last year?

Do we need to hear about this every time we lose a game? What difference would it have made now? For all we know we'd have taken the same two players. Or we'd have Langford who got 5 possessions on the weekend and we'd be complaining about him. Sounds like Tauru is going to be a jet so maybe the win helped us get him.

 

[TheJackal]

Do we need to hear about this every time we lose a game? What difference would it have made now? For all we know we'd have taken the same two players. Or we'd have Langford who got 5 possessions on the weekend and we'd be complaining about him. Sounds like Tauru is going to be a jet so maybe the win helped us get him.

Langford: sub, came on at an impossible time during the game. Played 20% gametime and got 5 touches. Love your work but that's a bad example

On another note, when Higgins kicked a goal on the weekend, the other half pipes up and goes - oh remember that time last year when Higgins kicked that goal in the last round....

Hopefully it was culture building and not just a repeat of Norfs 'culture building' win that meant they missed Harley Reid.

 

[ScrappyDo]

So the plan as stated by the president is to start competing for a flag in the next 12 to 24 months or so. That clearly is almost entirely dependent on getting an LDU and TDK. But what happens if we are genuinely bad this year and the above doesn’t occur?

Players just don’t go to bad teams via free agency, it just doesn’t happen. I wish it did, that was the rationalisation for free agency by the players association but it was a load of shit. I wish the AFL had a culture more like the NFL and players went wherever the money was best cause they genuinely believed they can win anywhere. It would be a hell of a lot more interesting. Unfortunately the AFL is too dumb or spineless to realise this.

Read about the history of the NFL and particularly Pete Rosell who was the commissioner who presided over the league for 30 years and turned it from a second rung sport behind baseball to the juggernaut it is now and how strong he was on equalisation and any given Sunday as they say. There’s a reason it is so widely popular now. A strong and even league makes everyone stronger.

If we can’t get free agents to compete whilst Wilkie, Sinclair and Marshall are still very good with Tasmania coming in and the likelihood of not getting access to an elite talent this year I genuinely have no idea what we do. I think we may have missed the boat on trading any of the above for real value and they are too old to be enticing for the Devils.

I think we would need to start preparing a case to the AFL for concessions for this year. Not in extra picks but for us not to get pushed back down the draft order. Imagine sitting through a year where we finish 16th and then getting pushed back to a talent in the teens whilst the Suns and Lions get 4 picks in the top 6 between them. We can put up with a lot as Saints fans but that would be too much for me.

The team we put out on the weekend was as bad a team as we’ve had on the park at any point over the last 15 years of shite. It was seriously devoid of talent. I’m so sick of being a mile behind everyone for from a talent stand point. Injury played a part in that but to see us in this position after being so irrelevant for so long and to start a season with no hope. Feel as low as any point in my time as a fan. Earliest season I can remember is 1995.

Very worried the 4 pillars as they’ve dubbed themselves have backed themselves into a corner and won’t be able to change course and we’ll continue to see Jones over Boxshall and Cordy over Keeler for the rest of the season. Too much egg on their face.

Very good post mate. I have nothing to offer anyone who may be worried about our future as it would be with good reason. All l can say is that it's incumbent on all clubs to do the best with what they have, and we need only ask ourselves if we feel that's happening at Stkilda.
I feel like our club is doing its best. It may be that it's not enough, but at this point the inequities built into the competitionare holding us back from profitability and list development. The league will spruik equalisation while cutting us off at the knees which keeps us in the hole.
The Pres and coach have been openly critical of the inequities and the list management are drafting and trading well whilst fishing hard for elite talent.
I'm not seeing much else they could do, though were it me I'd be making a much bigger racket about the inequities. However, while the league remains under control of the corrupt scum that infest the place as now, there's only so much can be done.

 

[beside the seaside]

Langford: sub, came on at an impossible time during the game. Played 20% gametime and got 5 touches. Love your work but that's a bad example

On another note, when Higgins kicked a goal on the weekend, the other half pipes up and goes - oh remember that time last year when Higgins kicked that goal in the last round....

Hopefully it was culture building and not just a repeat of Norfs 'culture building' win that meant they missed Harley Reid.

Haha yeah 5 as sub isn't bad I guess. Fair point I'm just tired of hearing it. Funny you mention the other half, every time someone kicks a snap my youngster says "It's like that Higgins goal last year". Certainly stuck with him

 

[The_Steadier]

We've played it safe by not cashing in one of sinclair, marshall or steele for a top 10 pick to hit their peak with pou, wilson, nas etc in 4-5 years time.

Now we are in no mans land.

Im ok with the call to ship membrey off and back in caminiti, king, sharman to step up.
But we have been gutless in not going further.

Half measures don't win flags.

 

[Saintos The ITK]

We keep fielding sides and playing as badly as last week we’re getting the spoon %.
Mind you we didn’t have much of an option but to field the side we did. Still, no excuses.

 

[Saints43]

We've played it safe by not cashing in one of sinclair, marshall or steele for a top 10 pick to hit their peak with pou, wilson, nas etc in 4-5 years time.

Now we are in no mans land.

Im ok with the call to ship membrey off and back in caminiti, king, sharman to step up.
But we have been gutless in not going further.

Half measures don't win flags.

But if we get rid of good senior players wouldn't we see more of what we did on Sunday? No thanks.

 

[billings2paddy]

Langford: sub, came on at an impossible time during the game. Played 20% gametime and got 5 touches. Love your work but that's a bad example

On another note, when Higgins kicked a goal on the weekend, the other half pipes up and goes - oh remember that time last year when Higgins kicked that goal in the last round....

Hopefully it was culture building and not just a repeat of Norfs 'culture building' win that meant they missed Harley Reid.

Exactly

 

[The_Steadier]

But if we get rid of good senior players wouldn't we see more of what we did on Sunday? No thanks.

The point is we are going to see plenty more of sunday this year regardless.

So we're dumb to have not been brave enough to cash in one of sinclair or marshall or steele for a top pick.

Instead we've been hitting the accelerator on a rebuild (ie ditching membrey, playing lots of kids) and simuntaneoulsy hitting the brakes on a rebuild (ie bringing in macrae and not being willing to cash in one of the above)

Half measures taking us nowhere closer to a flag long term or short term

 

[Stan_Darsh72]

But if we get rid of good senior players wouldn't we see more of what we did on Sunday? No thanks.

And if you bin the good senior players, you turn into norf for the last 5 years, who have been a bottom 2 side since the 2025 season.

 

[Stan_Darsh72]

The point is we are going to see plenty more of sunday this year regardless.

So we're dumb to have not been brave enough to cash in one of sinclair or marshall or steele for a top pick.

Instead we've been hitting the accelerator on a rebuild (ie ditching membrey, playing lots of kids) and simuntaneoulsy hitting the brakes on a rebuild (ie bringing in macrae and not being willing to cash in one of the above)

Half measures taking us nowhere closer to a flag long term or short term

Who would have paid a top pick for those players?

King would have been realistically the player to trade.

 

[LuckyBounce!]

This is the year we really hit the tank mode. Get a top 3 pick and finally draft a gun midfielder with speed and power.

Billings, Dow and Fiora were pick 3