List Mgmt. 2025 List Mismanagement and Trading

Remove this Banner Ad

Happy with retaining Schoenberg, Borlase, Strachan and Cook if we’ve exhausted other options, the issue is the multi-year deals mean we can’t explore other options. Were there seriously other clubs offering two-year deals?

I don’t think it’s revisionism to say even in 2023 a Crossley type could offer as much as Strachan if he was truly intent on getting two years. Schoenberg I see similar to Berry this year but having shown even less: yes he’s shown glimpses but we have a number of low ceiling midfielders and positional needs elsewhere. Cook has talent but would surely be closer to having other clubs not interested than offering two years for him.

Another blunder: signing Burgess, who directly correlates to losing Himmelberg (despite what some think on here, he’s significantly better depth). I get the need for extra KPF depth but having Gollant and Himmelberg OOC this year and Burgess contracted meant we really had to nail our talent evaluation of him, which we didn’t.
There's only so many you can cut in one off season.

I don't think there will be many issues in finding a bunch of delistings from out of contract players at the end of 2025.

Smith, Tex, Burgess, Schoenberg, Strachan, ROB, Bond, Murphy, Milera, Crouch, Taylor - and I'm probably forgetting some.
 
Burgess pickup might genuinely be our worst since Gibbs - I know he costed SFA, but considering what him being contracted has meant for some of our other list spots (losing EH, helping to minimise list spots), and especially how poor he’s looked compared to what we probably expected, it’s a pretty big blunder

Burgess helped us get a first round pick and has cost us **** all. Himmelburg wasn't worth keeping, and we probably wanted another pick but there were a few ways to get that (which we didn't do).
 
The mistake was giving him a contract at all.
It was a speculative punt and if it worked woukd have added a goalkicking marking forward to our list. It hasn't worked and in a years time we will let him leave and he will probably make a good SANFL forward

Edot. Scorpus makes the point he was tied up in the pick trade we did for 14 so it may have had a salary dump element involved
 
Last edited:

Log in to remove this ad.

There's only so many you can cut in one off season.

I don't think there will be many issues in finding a bunch of delistings from out of contract players at the end of 2025.

Smith, Tex, Burgess, Schoenberg, Strachan, ROB, Bond, Murphy, Milera, Crouch, Taylor - and I'm probably forgetting some.
Why are we cutting Crouch, Taylor & Bond?

Should all be kept imo.
 
Burgess helped us get a first round pick and has cost us **** all. Himmelburg wasn't worth keeping, and we probably wanted another pick but there were a few ways to get that (which we didn't do).
Who was worse than him?

Hately cost us literally nothing and Frampton eventually got us a pick upgrade

Not saying there weren’t other ways going about opening up list spots, but it hasn’t helped
 
Burgess helped us get a first round pick and has cost us **** all. Himmelburg wasn't worth keeping, and we probably wanted another pick but there were a few ways to get that (which we didn't do).
Himmelberg absolutely was worth keeping ahead of Burgess & Strachan!
 
Himmelberg absolutely was worth keeping ahead of Burgess & Strachan!
To be fair, it was Berg's choice to leave, exercising his FA rights. The club would have been more than happy for him to stay. His departure was what triggered the need to recruit Strachan in the first place.
 
To be fair, it was Berg's choice to leave, exercising his FA rights. The club would have been more than happy for him to stay. His departure was what triggered the need to recruit Strachan in the first place.
Not sure how you arrived at this conclusion Keiran Strachan was recruited in 2018 only 2 years after Himmelberg and there was never any serious talk of Himmelberg leaving at that point. The first time there was talk of Himmelberg leaving was prior to lat year when the giants showed interest vut we held Berg to his contract.
 
Not sure how you arrived at this conclusion Keiran Strachan was recruited in 2018 only 2 years after Himmelberg and there was never any serious talk of Himmelberg leaving at that point. The first time there was talk of Himmelberg leaving was prior to lat year when the giants showed interest vut we held Berg to his contract.
He meant to say Burgess not strachan
 
Not sure how you arrived at this conclusion Keiran Strachan was recruited in 2018 only 2 years after Himmelberg and there was never any serious talk of Himmelberg leaving at that point. The first time there was talk of Himmelberg leaving was prior to lat year when the giants showed interest vut we held Berg to his contract.
My bad... I meant Burgess, not Strachan. Brain fart at my end.

Himmelberg told them that he was leaving, exercising his FA rights. GWS had shown interest the previous year, so he knew there was a market for his talents/abilities. He knew that Thilthorpe had gone past him, so his opportunities were always going to be limited at Adelaide. Berg's decision was clearly in the best interests of his own career, and I wish him well in his endeavours.

Adelaide's response was to recruit Burgess, to provide depth in both the KPD and KPF roles. Little did we know that he sucked so badly at both roles that the AFC would have to resort to using Borlase as a KPF at times in the 2024 season.
 
Last edited:
To be fair, it was Berg's choice to leave, exercising his FA rights. The club would have been more than happy for him to stay. His departure was what triggered the need to recruit Strachan in the first place.
IIRC we had a two year offer on the table for Himmelberg but retracted it late in the season (which lines up with us suddenly believing Peatling was gettable and needing the vacant list spot). From that narrative, it seems like our list squeeze and signing of Burgess directly caused us to lose significantly better KPF depth.
 

(Log in to remove this ad.)

There's only so many you can cut in one off season.

I don't think there will be many issues in finding a bunch of delistings from out of contract players at the end of 2025.

Smith, Tex, Burgess, Schoenberg, Strachan, ROB, Bond, Murphy, Milera, Crouch, Taylor - and I'm probably forgetting some.
This is something I’ve seen brought up a couple times now when I question our lack of one year contracts. Geelong and Collingwood both have 21 players coming OOC in 2025. We started this year with 14 players coming OOC and start 2025 with 13 players.

It’s not about offering short contracts so we can delist players at the end of it. It’s about offering short contracts to the players at the very bottom of our list so we can have flexibility and evaluate what our list needs year on year. When we’re talking about types like Burgess, Strachan, Cook, Borlase and even Schoenberg, can we really argue the multi-year deal was a necessity.
 
Hang on... Himmelberg left, and was replaced by Burgess, at the end of 2023. Peatling arrived at the end of 2024. I don't see the connection.

Burgess was a straight up 1 for 1 replacement for Himmelberg, as our depth KPF/KPD.

On SM-X205 using BigFooty.com mobile app
Hang on. No!

Himmelberg did not leave at the end of 2023.
 
Hang on... Himmelberg left, and was replaced by Burgess, at the end of 2023. Peatling arrived at the end of 2024. I don't see the connection.

Burgess was a straight up 1 for 1 replacement for Himmelberg, as our depth KPF/KPD.

On SM-X205 using BigFooty.com mobile app
Last year he requested a trade to GWS but they never came for him this year. We could have easily retained Himmelberg until it became apparent we (rightfully) needed an extra list spot open for Peatling, a squeeze partly brought on by bringing in a VFL standard player.

If Burgess was truly our Himmelberg replacement, then why did we not let Himmelberg go to GWS last year as he requested?
 
Last edited:
Hang on... Himmelberg left, and was replaced by Burgess, at the end of 2023. Peatling arrived at the end of 2024. I don't see the connection.

Burgess was a straight up 1 for 1 replacement for Himmelberg, as our depth KPF/KPD.

On SM-X205 using BigFooty.com mobile app
You try telling adelaide to get rid of Himmelberg for 2024
 
This is something I’ve seen brought up a couple times now when I question our lack of one year contracts. Geelong and Collingwood both have 21 players coming OOC in 2025. We started this year with 14 players coming OOC and start 2025 with 13 players.

It’s not about offering short contracts so we can delist players at the end of it. It’s about offering short contracts to the players at the very bottom of our list so we can have flexibility and evaluate what our list needs year on year. When we’re talking about types like Burgess, Strachan, Cook, Borlase and even Schoenberg, can we really argue the multi-year deal was a necessity.
Nail
Hammer
Head!

Good list management should allow flexibility for changing scenarios like landing Peatling.
 
Hang on... Himmelberg left, and was replaced by Burgess, at the end of 2023. Peatling arrived at the end of 2024. I don't see the connection.

Burgess was a straight up 1 for 1 replacement for Himmelberg, as our depth KPF/KPD.

On SM-X205 using BigFooty.com mobile app
We brought in Toby Murray thinking that Berg wanted to leave... which turned out to be true.
 
Last year he requested a trade to GWS but they never came for him this year. We could have easily retained Himmelberg until it became apparent we (rightfully) needed an extra list spot open for Peatling, a squeeze partly brought on by bringing in a VFL standard player.

If Burgess was truly our Himmelberg replacement, then why did we not let Himmelberg go to GWS last year as he requested?
Looking in from the outside, one guesses that we have a quota of tall forwards, especially with experience that we like to have. I suspect that Tex (experienced), Thilly, Fog (exp), Berg (exp) and say Gollant was one still one less than we'd like to have, especially on the experienced side, so Burgess was brought in to help with our list balance. With Berg indicating it was likely he'd go from his actions last year, plus with us likely having to delist Gollant to make room for Welsh, the Burgess move made even more sense, add to that what I suspect is a cheap contract and the fact that he'll be loyal to us if we need him to stay on, plus he helped get the pick from GC, meant he ticked several boxes.

If Dodson had've been selected at late first round, like he was touted for a lot of the time late in the year after he made his mind up, none of us would care about Burgess and his contract because Dodson was out of our range no matter what (unless we spend a future first for a ruckman, which is sacrilege on this board, and also hindsight from the night shows that trading back in early to this draft was nigh on impossible). I suspect our list management would've viewed it this way. Its just somewhat unfortuneate that he went much later than expected and we werent geared up for it. Hopefully it ends up small fry in the scheme of things.
 
Looking in from the outside, one guesses that we have a quota of tall forwards, especially with experience that we like to have. I suspect that Tex (experienced), Thilly, Fog (exp), Berg (exp) and say Gollant was one still one less than we'd like to have, especially on the experienced side, so Burgess was brought in to help with our list balance. With Berg indicating it was likely he'd go from his actions last year, plus with us likely having to delist Gollant to make room for Welsh, the Burgess move made even more sense, add to that what I suspect is a cheap contract and the fact that he'll be loyal to us if we need him to stay on, plus he helped get the pick from GC, meant he ticked several boxes.

If Dodson had've been selected at late first round, like he was touted for a lot of the time late in the year after he made his mind up, none of us would care about Burgess and his contract because Dodson was out of our range no matter what (unless we spend a future first for a ruckman, which is sacrilege on this board, and also hindsight from the night shows that trading back in early to this draft was nigh on impossible). I suspect our list management would've viewed it this way. Its just somewhat unfortuneate that he went much later than expected and we werent geared up for it. Hopefully it ends up small fry in the scheme of things.
We didn’t have to delist Gollant for Welsh: in fact I think Gollant would have been better to keep on for 2025 than Burgess, and it’d have been an even stranger call to rate Burgess higher than Gollant in the 2023 offseason. The real kicker of the Burgess signing wasn’t that he was poor depth but that, with both Gollant and Himmelberg OOC this year, we’d essentially tied ourselves to Burgess being our primary KPF depth which compounded how poor he is.

Criticisms of our ruck situation and Burgess contract were present long before Dodson slid, Dodson sliding just served as a reminder of the inflexibility our list current has when a situation like Dodson presents itself. It’s particularly concerning as some of our extensions this year suggest we haven’t learnt from these blunders, particularly with Cook’s multi-year deal.
 
An interesting comment on the draft board about why Dodson slid.

I have no idea about this.

No off field incident that I’m aware of. Nobody in SA (apart from the media that were obsessed with him) was surprised he slid as far as he did. It’d be more concern around his resilience and whether he really has the application, commitment, drive and focus to be an AFL player. Personally, I think Ross the Boss will say “boo” to him and he’ll spit it and run home before July. He’s a bit of a “sleep with the lights on” lad. But, maybe Ross will be the making of him. Time will tell.
 

Remove this Banner Ad

List Mgmt. 2025 List Mismanagement and Trading

Remove this Banner Ad

Back
Top