Recruiting AFL Trade & Free Agency XII - 💰💰💰

[Lore]

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Spoiler: 2024 Draft Order

 

[Keystone agony]

Wat

Which part dont you understand?

 

[MarkJohnson#1]

He's very, very good at reading the ball off ruck taps and in motion. Usually very clean at collecting and moving through congestion to transition from inside to outside of a stoppage, and we've seen how he can play massive games in the wet.

He's a guy you want as your 2nd or 3rd best midfielder alongside some bigger bodies IMO. Imagine him lining up with guys like Dangerfield and Holmes (both ~ 190) alongside him.

Our midfield mix is a bit wonky because we simply don't have the big bodies to roll through there, and we lack genuine hardball winning players, so Parish is a bit of an odd one out. But he can certainly win contested possessions, just not the hardball gets component that we don't really have anyone else doing either.

He’s gutless and it’s an accurate reflection of the culture and standards of our club. He is the exact type of player that would not fire a shot when the heat turns up in finals footy.

 

[MarkJohnson#1]

Which part dont you understand?

He played half back basically the entire season, may have started the odd centre bounce on the wing but 90%+ of the time he started in the backline. His role did change slightly but he wasn’t a wingman this season.

 

[Vindicater]

The forward line looks undersized - a Wright-sized player

Langford Jones Kako
Rosas Caddy Draper

 

[jdstorm]

He chose to leave we didnt delist him

We chose to value him in a way that made it impossible for him to stay.

 

[ant555]

Rd 1 Hawthorn got blown out with Archie Perkins ripping through their midfield.

Fair to say Mitchell deserves a lot of credit getting the team to the level they are at.

Hawks winning with abrasive physicality and efficient transition offence.

Round one they where missing a couple midfielders and a couple of others had interuped pre seasons. Once they got the engine room up and running thry took off. The offensive transition comes from elite endurance running, speed and elite kicking across a number of players.

 

[andleanback]

Aceman always has good intel. Port have approached Parish.

Makes sense, their midfield needs some more grunt. Would probably be a good mix if they moved Rozee out and put Parish in.

View attachment 2102603

Zero chance parish wants to move interstate, just had a kid and his missus would not let that happen

 

[ant555]

Can you imagine Martin, D'Ambrosio and Duursma holding down the wing? We'd be set for years to come.

Instead, we played a guy that just retired, a tall forward and a skinny 200cm guy at various stages alongside Duursma.

Hopefully Saad, Martin and Duursma can be equally as good if not better next year.

But that requires Scott to use his common sense and play Martin on the wing. None of this Martin at HB anymore. That's probably one of the biggest disappointments of the year. Moving an AA quality winger to HB.

Who would Mass be kicking it to ?
I would rather have Mass than Cox on a wing but what makes Mass as good as he is at the Hawks is the system they play and the personal they have to play the system.
They basically let him quarterback the footy and then jog up and down the wing in space. They can do it because they have a fleet of endurance runners and several players in the back half that kick at over 80% efficiency.
Mass would do some nice stuff for us but our side and system is not theirs and I think he would be limited in how much he could do.
If he went to the Hawks fom any other club everyone here would be calling him a soft outside sheepdog as that is his role. He just has one elite thing, kicking, that we also need.
He is probably the guy we need in 5 years after we sort out the half backs and small forwards and balance the midfield.
The reason Martin ended up at half back is common sense. If you want to sing the parises of the Hawks then it is Scilily and Scrimshaw that set it up. They are the guys that also kicked at elite level. That is what they wanted to achieve with Martin. Would be ideal if we could play Martin on a wing or half forward again but we do not have enough round pegd to put in the round holes.

 

[Bjchan13]

Sunk cost fallacy. We could force him out and get a second for him no doubt. I’d even pay some salary.

Couldn't force him interstate though is the point

 

[jdstorm]

One things for sure there’s a big difference between an elite kicking backline > a league average backline and McGrath, McKay, Kelly and Laverde trying to share kick ins

One thing that’s becoming clearer is the baseline for what makes an acceptable afl level kick is being raised

 

[JayJ20]

Who would Mass be kicking it to ?
I would rather have Mass than Cox on a wing but what makes Mass as good as he is at the Hawks is the system they play and the personal they have to play the system.
They basically let him quarterback the footy and then jog up and down the wing in space. They can do it because they have a fleet of endurance runners and several players in the back half that kick at over 80% efficiency.
Mass would do some nice stuff for us but our side and system is not theirs and I think he would be limited in how much he could do.
If he went to the Hawks fom any other club everyone here would be calling him a soft outside sheepdog as that is his role. He just has one elite thing, kicking, that we also need.
He is probably the guy we need in 5 years after we sort out the half backs and small forwards and balance the midfield.
The reason Martin ended up at half back is common sense. If you want to sing the parises of the Hawks then it is Scilily and Scrimshaw that set it up. They are the guys that also kicked at elite level. That is what they wanted to achieve with Martin. Would be ideal if we could play Martin on a wing or half forward again but we do not have enough round pegd to put in the round holes.

I never said Mass was the only thing we need. But he has something our side desperately needs. We still need elite kicks/intercepters/playmakers in defence (Martin is not that) as well as loading up on elite pressure/crumbing small and medium forwards. The latter is something we'll be able to address with Kako and our first rounder, but we're an elite kick short on the wing. We also need a tall forward that's actually physical and takes contested marks/brings the ball down for the crumbing forwards.

You can always add the fleet of endurance runners to support him after the fact. That's the difference between building a list of individual players and a building a cohesive team. We do the former without considering the latter.

 

[ant555]

I never said Mass was the only thing we need. But he has something our side desperately needs. We still need elite kicks/intercepters/playmakers in defence (Martin is not that) as well as loading up on elite pressure/crumbing small and medium forwards. The latter is something we'll be able to address with Kako and our first rounder, but we're an elite kick short on the wing. We also need a tall forward that's actually physical and takes contested marks/brings the ball down for the crumbing forwards.

You can always add the fleet of endurance runners to support him after the fact. That's the difference between building a list of individual players and a building a cohesive team. We do the former without considering the latter.

Or you could just keep drafting Roberts types who are good kicks and more aggressive at the footy.
So yes Mass ticks off be box and it is a very big tick but how long until you want to replace him with a guy with two ticks or three ticks ?
I know I am in the minority but for me Mass is the guy we may need in 5 years time.

 

[ghostdog]

I never said Mass was the only thing we need. But he has something our side desperately needs. We still need elite kicks/intercepters/playmakers in defence (Martin is not that) as well as loading up on elite pressure/crumbing small and medium forwards. The latter is something we'll be able to address with Kako and our first rounder, but we're an elite kick short on the wing. We also need a tall forward that's actually physical and takes contested marks/brings the ball down for the crumbing forwards.

You can always add the fleet of endurance runners to support him after the fact. That's the difference between building a list of individual players and a building a cohesive team. We do the former without considering the latter.

When you've got as many deficits in as many positions as we do, I would have thought you take the best available for any of those positions as the opportunity arises. Quality and type and number of players available to us varies year on year.

 

[JayJ20]

Or you could just keep drafting Roberts types who are good kicks and more aggressive at the footy.
So yes Mass ticks off be box and it is a very big tick but how long until you want to replace him with a guy with two ticks or three ticks ?
I know I am in the minority but for me Mass is the guy we may need in 5 years time.

Each to their own of course and you're certainly in the minority on this, but I don't believe you can go wrong with a Mass-type on our list. Our list is bereft of elite kicks and our kicking is what let us down so many times this year. I believe our year would have looked a little different if we played Roberts earlier and had Mass and Martin on the wing from the beginning.

We're very lucky that we have Martin, Roberts and hopefully Saad who can play that role for us. That's what makes the Mass error a little more palatable. We just need a rebounding defender with an elite kick so we can play Roberts and Martin onto a wing.

 

[Vindicater]

Watching Scrimshaw and Sicily casually kick it fifty metres to each other to open up space shows what recruiting elite kickers looks like.

 

[JayJ20]

Watching Scrimshaw and Sicily casually kick it fifty metres to each other to open up space shows what recruiting elite kickers looks like.

Meanwhile Laverde and McKay can't even effectively handball to each other in space.

 

[ant555]

Meanwhile Laverde and McKay can't even effectively handball to each other in space.

Well McKay to us is their Sam Frost. Reid not being able to play and Ridley getting injured twice gave us Laverde who we are happy to move on.

 

[dank420_]

Not saying hes a good kick

Im saying i didnt hear or read on here 12 months ago he was our best or 2nd best kick?

Sorry mate we should have tagged you

 

[andleanback]

Watching Scrimshaw and Sicily casually kick it fifty metres to each other to open up space shows what recruiting elite kickers looks like.

Laverde mckay Kelly McGrath would’ve either kicked it to the moon or out on the full all together

 

[dank420_]

Or you could just keep drafting Roberts types who are good kicks and more aggressive at the footy.
So yes Mass ticks off be box and it is a very big tick but how long until you want to replace him with a guy with two ticks or three ticks ?
I know I am in the minority but for me Mass is the guy we may need in 5 years time.

Come on man have you watched him play lately? He clearly has more than one strength to his game. It’s ok to admit we ****ed up either by failing to develop him and/or trading him.

 

[JayJ20]

Laverde mckay Kelly McGrath would’ve either kicked it to the moon or out on the full all together

Kelly has moved on and Laverde should only be depth if he isn't traded out. McKay should be playing on the biggest forwards and McGrath should be the lock-down small defender. His kicking is not good enough to be the 30+ disposal rebounding defender.

Lucky for us Reid, Ridley and Hayes are good kicks and read the play well. So there are some options there. The problem is getting them to stay fit.

We need to recruit an elite kick with speed as a rebounding defender. Redman should go back to the role Martin played this year (and stop giving up so easily) and Martin should be on the wing pushing forward.

The defence needs an overhaul. How we set up this year was not it. To be fair to Scott, he probably had a plan that didn't work out because of injuries to Ridley and Reid.

 

[ant555]

Each to their own of course and you're certainly in the minority on this, but I don't believe you can go wrong with a Mass-type on our list. Our list is bereft of elite kicks and our kicking is what let us down so many times this year. I believe our year would have looked a little different if we played Roberts earlier and had Mass and Martin on the wing from the beginning.

We're very lucky that we have Martin, Roberts and hopefully Saad who can play that role for us. That's what makes the Mass error a little more palatable. We just need a rebounding defender with an elite kick so we can play Roberts and Martin onto a wing.

What we need.
Elite skills
Endurance runners
Speed
Players with inside and outside game
Marking power ie even the small marking types
Crumbing small forwards
FF
Play maker’s at half back with speed and skill
Players who transition defensively better
What Mass gives.
Elite kicking.
Like I have said he is a good player. I would rather him than Cox on a wing.
The reason why I am not as unhappy as most is he ticks one box out of the six we need.
I would not say we are lucky that we have Martin and Roberts and El-Hawi.
Roberts and El-Hawi in particular were specifically targeted to fix an area. They also drafted Lual along the same lines.
The last draft we went after two real weak spots. Caddy forward and two possible running half backs.

 

[FootyGuru]

Round one they where missing a couple midfielders and a couple of others had interuped pre seasons. Once they got the engine room up and running thry took off. The offensive transition comes from elite endurance running, speed and elite kicking across a number of players.

Shows how far confidence and momentum goes in footy. The way we played at the start of the season may have won us that final vs the dogs, but the way we finished wouldn’t have. Same goes for hawks round vs us and their finals va dogs.

 

[Red Black and Blue]

Or you could just keep drafting Roberts types who are good kicks and more aggressive at the footy.
So yes Mass ticks off be box and it is a very big tick but how long until you want to replace him with a guy with two ticks or three ticks ?
I know I am in the minority but for me Mass is the guy we may need in 5 years time.

This isnt to dwell on Mass as an individual but moreso what the decision demonstrates.

Its not that we need him now, its that we didnt need Heppell, Kelly, Parish and Shiel and whoever decided to keep them/extend them over him have a horrible grasp on football. I know there is this theory Scott cares about defense first, but not only can these guys not use the pill half as well as Mass, they cant defend noticably better either.

In the last 25 years there has been maybe 2 teams that have won flags with low skill, defence first types. Its a terrible system to pursue in the first place.

Lets pray Dodoro was pulling the strings still because the scenario reflects poorly on Scotts vision for the future.

 

[southern_crusher]

Watching Scrimshaw and Sicily casually kick it fifty metres to each other to open up space shows what recruiting elite kickers looks like.

We had an elite kicker but wouldn't offer him more than 1 year while then signing a bloke up for 5 years who can't kick over a jam tin.