List Mgmt. Contracts, trades, draft - 2021 offseason edition

[Keys]

So the 2021 season is officially done and dusted.

It’s time now to fully turn our attention to the off season and what we can do through the trade period/draft to chase down Melbourne in 2022.

List and personnel changes have already been made and I’ll update this OP as and when any further changes are made.

As it stands these are our official list changes :

Out -
• Venables (R) - retired
• Vardy - retired
• Hutchings (R) - delisted
• Ah Chee (R) - delisted
• Ainsworth - delisted
• Johnson - delisted
• Collins (R) - delisted
• Brander - cluster****
• Cameron - retired/delisted not that it was officially acknowledged by the club
• Sheppard - retired

Inactive listed -
• Cole
• Chesser

In -
• Petrevski-Seton - traded for pick 52
• Chesser - Pick 14
• Hough - Pick 31
• Bazzo - Pick 37
• Williams (Jack) - Pick 57
• Clark - Pick 62
• Dixon - SSP
• Joyce - SSP
• Strnadica - SSP
• Naish - SSP

Players on main list - 37 (Including 2 inactive)
Players on rookie list - 7

Future trade picks :
In - Port Adelaide future 2nd
Out - Future 4th

Assistant Coaches :
• Out - Graham, Hickmott
• In - Schofield (Strategy and Stoppage), Knights (Midfield), Wiley (WAFL coach), Brennan (development)

Link to contract status of all players -

The Contracts Thread

2024 List Changes : Out: Retired- Gaff Delisted - Jones, Trew(R), Baker(R), Witherden, Burgiel, Culley(R), Rotham, L Edwards Traded - Darling (NM) Barrass (Hawthorn) In: Trade/FA acquisitions - Graham (Richmond) Baker (Richmond) Owies (Carlton) Draft - Allan (Pick 16) Shanahan (Pick 30) Gross...

www.bigfooty.com

 

[southcoast]

WC should sack em...both are list cloggers anyway.

On Rotham.

IIRC - wasn’t he a ‘last minute’ resigning at the end of 2021.

Not sure he was being shopped around, true worth being considered by list management, may have been a $ issue not certain on this.

Someone confirm?

 

[Obeanie1]

This is not how it works.

All the flag winning teams have top 4 midfields....
To get those midfields, you typically need 2x top 5 picks...
Most players in the AFL are followers - they play well in top 4 sides, ok in middling sides, and like dogshit in bottom 4 sides....
The elite players are the ones who are elite given any circumstance, and they are critical in lifting bottom 4 sides up the ladder and into flag contention (Bont, Dusty, Cripps etc)....
So any team wanting to build towards a flags needs those 2x top 5 draft picks (and some)....
They rest are those follower players who ride the coattails of the elites.... when they are surround by some elite players in a good system they flourish.....

Our small or midsize defenders just don't matter right now. What is putting Yeo down there going to do? He's a midfield bull who is lacking match fitness. He's the guy, along with Kelly who will mentor and protect our soon to be acquired top 5 draft picks.

Meanwhile, Rotham and Witherden and Duggan are playing in a shit team with a recently broken game plan that is probably confusing because we are trying to break the mould Simmo set for 8 years.... Not easy. These are players who will probably come good.... once we have a fresh coach with fresh ideas and some elite talent coming through.

We're not going to fix our "small defender problem" by changing the small defender. We're going to change it by bring in new elite talent into the midfield and a fresh gameplan. And that's a few years away.

All we can do now is watch AO and Chesser develop, and maybe Dugg to realise he's now a leader and has to step up, and watch our newly acquired top 5 talent to develop. What's happening with our small defenders has f'all to do with f'all.

Yes small defenders are not at the top of the shopping list. However they can be gained efficiently and not cost much at all.

D Rioli is a rfa this year and playing his best season ever at half back. Only got a 1 yr extension last time.

Long at the Saints also out of contract, likely would cost nothing to add. He has some mongrel and can play on the small forwards, still young.

Nelson is a rfa this year and I think / hope the club will encourgae him to look elsewhere. A team may look at him at no cost.

Rotham I can see being offered up. Same as Waterman. Witherden even a chance.

And then you have other opportunities at the rookie draft / SPP etc.

Our best picks are looking at mids and a ruck.

 

[Miguel Sanchez]

On Rotham.

IIRC - wasn’t he a ‘last minute’ resigning at the end of 2021.

Not sure he was being shopped around, true worth being considered by list management, may have been a $ issue not certain on this.

Someone confirm?

Last minute re-signings don’t usually get three year deals.

 

['51 Bewick]

Hi folks,
Which WAFL club is aligned with the Eagles?

 

[Carbine Chaos]

Hi folks,
Which WAFL club is aligned with the Eagles?

The Eagles.

 

[southcoast]

Last minute re-signings don’t usually get three year deals.

Thanks for that - my memory bank must be a little dusty.

Didn’t realise it was a three year extension. Maybe they were discussing contract length and $

 

['51 Bewick]

The Eagles.

No idea who that is. What is the club name please.

 

[Carbine Chaos]

No idea who that is. What is the club name please.

The West Coast Eagles.

 

['51 Bewick]

The West Coast Eagles.

Oh! do they have a bye this week?
Just looking at the WAFL matches this week and they aren't listed.

 

[Carbine Chaos]

Oh! do they have a bye this week?
Just looking at the WAFL matches this week and they aren't listed.

Sorry for being a tool haha.

Yeah, they had to postpone their match against East Freo because we couldn't field a team. They're playing it next weekend instead.

 

['51 Bewick]

Thanks for the help mate.

 

[Monocle]

My top 2 in the draft at this stage
Scully
Lemmey

Then these 3 the most likely but there are a couple of others who are putting in performances that could see them up there.
Busslinger (almost certain IMO)
Keeler (Massive upside and can really see him jumping up boards)
Jefferson (Genuine lead up forward)


I can see one of the above getting knocked out of the top 8 by Sheezel though, can see him shoot up the boards particularly if he plays more midfield. If he starts really racking up the ball he could actually go top 3.

My top 10 as of now
Scully
Lemmey
Ashcroft
Wardlaw
Keeler (The Mac Andrew of the draft and a big boom or bust pick)
Hewett
Busslinger
D'Aloia
Jefferson (Will be dependent on his Championship outings but have been told he's 196cm now)
Sheezel (Could go much higher)

No I didn't forget Tsatas. I think he will slide due to decision making, being more outside than I thought and while his kicking is generally very good his biggest asset is his speed and his kicking whilst at speed is poor.

Not out of the question, however if would be a stark break from most previous Drafts, if so many tall's went in the first 10.
At this stage I would agree Lemmey will be in the top 10 ( most likely top 3 ), as you say Champs will be critical to see how they all perform.

TBH i'm not against picking Scully if we finish bottom two. Have been told he's now 204/205 cm so with tutelage under Nicnat could very well solve the puzzle of absolute top tier Key forward and Ruck.

fu** the melts on here if we went Scully/Lemmey and then Broadbent at our second pick. It would be a sight to see. It'd almost certainly break bigfooty.

A lot is going to depend on the championships and in particular how the Victorian cohort come on through the year.

The thing is scully has now kicked 35 goals from 5 games this year. Yes a large part of it has been him simply being too tall for his opponent but he's still getting to the drop of the ball, has good hands, a good kick and very good athleticism. Is it elite agility at his height getting him to the right places or is it elite footy IQ.

Looking forward to seeing how Scully will perform against WA when he may well have The Gunsslinger playing on him ( now that would be a tantalising match up ).


I would also like to see how Scully goes in the West Adelaide League side to assess how he performs against bigger stronger opposition.
Part of the problem with that idea, is that West Adelaide are just blessed with young talent, as currently Lemmey is already playing seniors for them and its hard to see them playing both the puppies, Scully and Lemmey, in the same line up, there again if they are good enough why the hell not.

If Scully has in fact grown to 205 then he is going to be a temptation to take early for some team.

Personally I like Keeler to I am a big fan, as IMO he has huge upside.

As for your comment about the melts here, if we took two tall's.

Actually I could live with it providing that we nailed both picks.

Sure the melts would be free flowing, however I think that most on the board ( even the apologists ) have finally now come round to the stark realisation that our list is just so shit, that it's going to take at least four years of astute drafting to fix the mess.

I think last years draft haul: Chesser, Hough, Bazzo, J Williams and Clark was year one of the rebuild, so three (maybe four ) drafts more at least to go, before the list reboot starts looking more robust.

We need help in all areas of the list profile and if we took another young ruck like Broadbent after we had already picked up a Lemmey, Scully, Keeler or Gunsslinger, I could live with that as there is merit in getting your tall's on the list in a rebuild, before you address your mids, as tall's tend to take a few more years to develop, that way your rebuilt group can come through together.

I really hope ROB does move on at seasons end and that we cast a wide net to ensure we get the best Head Recruiter possible after having canvassed the whole industry.

My worry is that we do the typical "West Coast" thing and promote from within, with out first having explored all possible options.
Would shit me no end if we did this.

I spoke with a Senior Footy Administrator at an AFL Club several years ago and he said the most important groups in any AFL Clubs structure to ensuring long term team success were - In this order:

The Recruiters.
The Medical Staff.
The Strength and Conditioning Staff.
The Coaches.

The Power Brokers, ie The Board, who run the entire show need to urgently review and overhaul every appointment below them.
Not quite sure Gibbs is the man to oversee this.

Russell Gibbs is a nice bloke who means well, but we need a new hard arsed Chairman with a pair of balls and a capacity to make tough calls as we had when Cransberg was Chairman of The Board.

Good to be an Organisation that has a strong moral compass and social standing in the wider community.

But not at the expense of on field performance.

If the current CEO and Board just put as much emphasis on the Clubs on field performances as they do our balance sheet, we would be in a much healthier position today.

 

[ziad]

Not out of the question, however if would be a stark break from most previous Drafts, if so many tall's went in the first 10.
At this stage I would agree Lemmey will be in the top 10 ( most likely top 3 ), as you say Champs will be critical to see how they all perform.





Looking forward to seeing how Scully will perform against WA when he may well have The Gunsslinger playing on him ( now that would be a tantalising match up ).


I would also like to see how Scully goes in the West Adelaide League side to assess how he performs against bigger stronger opposition.
Part of the problem with that idea, is that West Adelaide are just blessed with young talent, as currently Lemmey is already playing seniors for them and its hard to see them playing both the puppies, Scully and Lemmey, in the same line up, there again if they are good enough why the hell not.

If Scully has in fact grown to 205 then he is going to be a temptation to take early for some team.

Personally I like Keeler to I am a big fan, as IMO he has huge upside.

As for your comment about the melts here, if we took two tall's.

Actually I could live with it providing that we nailed both picks.

Sure the melts would be free flowing, however I think that most on the board ( even the apologists ) have finally now come round to the stark realisation that our list is just so shit, that it's going to take at least four years of astute drafting to fix the mess.

I think last years draft haul: Chesser, Hough, Bazzo, J Williams and Clark was year one of the rebuild, so three (maybe four ) drafts more at least to go, before the list reboot starts looking more robust.

We need help in all area of the list profile and if we took another young ruck like Broadbent after we had already picked up a Lemmey, Scully, Keeler or Gunsslinger, I could live with that as there is merit in getting your tall's on the list in a rebuild, before you address your mids, as tall's tend to take a few more years to develop, that way your rebuilt group can come through together.

I really hope ROB does move on at seasons end and that we cast a wide net to ensure we get the best Head Recruiter possible after having canvassed the whole industry.

My worry is that we do the typical "West Coast" thing and promote from within, with out first having explored all possible options.
Would shit me no end if we did this.

I spoke with a Senior Footy Administrator at an AFL Club several years ago and he said the most important groups in any AFL teams structure to ensuring long term team success were - In this order:

The Recruiters.
The Medical Staff.
The Strength and Conditioning Staff.
The Coaches.

The Power Brokers, ie The Board, who run the entire show need to urgently review and overhaul every appointment below them.
Not quite sure Gibbs is the man to oversee this.

Russell Gibbs is a nice bloke who means well, but we need a new hard arsed Chairman with a pair of balls and a capacity to make tough calls as we had when Cransberg was Chairman of The Board.

Good to be an Organisation that has a strong moral compass and social standing in the wider community.

But not at the expense of on field performance.

If the current CEO and Board just put as much emphasis on the Clubs on field performances as they do our balance sheet, we would be in a much healthier position today.

I got to a club function last year and Russell Gibbs spoke. Didn't mention footy just minor urban developments and a bunch of charities. The club member survey has the same focus. NO FOOTY. The leadership is way off target,

 

[bzparkes]

The Eagles.

The West Coast Eagles.




And we're here, to show you why.. you need to keep your first round draft picks to secure top end talent instead of trading them out when your list is shot...

 

[The_Gambler]

Reports that English has or is about to resign. Probably good and we either go hard at Jackson or commit to the draft, there’s no one else available worth chasing

 

[Priddis Is Done]

Reports that English has or is about to resign. Probably good and we either go hard at Jackson or commit to the draft, there’s no one else available worth chasing

Hard no to Jackson

Unless he can replace 5 players on the field all at once and rack up 120 posessions.

Who's he rucking to? Himself?

 

[ziad]

Hard no to Jackson

Unless he can replace 5 players on the field all at once and rack up 120 posessions.

Who's he rucking to? Himself?

Well its a plan

 

[Mop]

Nisbett just strongly implied that Nelson will be delisted at the end of the year, given he’s out of contract.
Courtesy of Ben Cameron from Grandstand
“Trevor Nisbett says “I think so” when asked whether the players who went to the hip-e club have compromised their futures at the club.”

 

[Chump Change]

To be fair, he did say he wasn’t keen on using early picks on flankers but it is an area that needs addressing badly. Look at everyone else’s back flankers and how much they create drive out of the back half. They’re quick and agile and can beat their man with footwork. Ours are absolute plodders that try to fend off before inevitably finding out how weak they are, and that’s before we talk about how hard they get burnt back the other way when we turn it over.

Duggans our best by a long way because he actually has, dare I say it, swervability, everyone else just runs at average to below average pace in straight lines.

Watching Freos game last night was eye opening. I have no idea how good guys like Walker and Clark are overall as I don’t watch many of their games, but what I did see was the ability to cover ground at a good speed, and that works wonders for team defence.

Does also help when you have two way running midfielders and be able to win it out of the middle as well though for sure

I agree he wasn't suggesting we spend high draft picks on flankers, but the talk of using Yeo to fix a problem is benign. Maybe Yeo can build his fitness there, but my issue is with talk about fixing our defensive stocks.

When we watch footy shows on TV, they are mostly on a weekly cycle. The pundits mostly talk a week either side of the current day. What happened last game, what will happen next game. This is what the viewers want to hear. But there's another reality that doesn't get talked about much on the TV shows - the long game (or the big picture).

On a forum, the further you are away from the flag window, the more people should be talking about the long game. In the flag window, it's week to week stuff - who should be picked, do we need to trade anyone in, do we need to tweak the game plan etc. When we're on the rise, it's whether we need to draft in a hard body like Chick or Stenglein etc, but when you're at the further point away from the flag window, the long game needs to be discussed. People talking about wanting to make changes to improve performance next week shouldn't be taken seriously (not saying the said poster was doing this, but there's plenty on here who want to go gung-ho for top 8 next year).

Consider this:

1994 = flag
12 years
2006 = flag
12 years
2018 = flag

See the pattern? Let me expand that even further:

1994 = flag
1994 - 1999 = still haven't bottomed out and still think we can win a flag soon-ish. I remember going to the footy in maybe 96 and a first year player called Ben Cousins was the only player who gave a truck.
2000 - 2003ish = bottom out. Cousins is F?S, Judd at #3, and we snag Kerr and Cox late and rookie.
2006 = flag
2007 - wheels start to fall off
2008 - 2012ish - we bottom out and pick up NicNat and Gaff. Kennedy through the Judd trade.
2018 = flag

So the questions are;

1. How can we get back there before 12 years?
2. And how can we have sustained success once we get there? (i.e. 2 or 3 flags)

The answer is top end midfield talent sooner rather than later.

The rise from bottom 4 to flag window happens quickly. Three seasons if you have the right talent. Going into the next few drafts we have to decide what sort of players we want (i.e. must have elite disposal skills, speed and decision making also high on the list, and need 1x bull). When it gets to pick 30 and onwards, its best available. In that space we will find the flankers, small forwards, and ruckmen.

As early as this year we might find that half back flanker with a later 2nd round or early 3rd round pick. But I just don't care - because unless we jag a Fyfe type, it has little to do with whether it can, and how long it will take to get back to the flag window.

 

[Get_The_Gaff]

Taking hagan with a later pic would help with small defenders

Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk

Moving Jones back would be a good move . He is great defensively, tackles hard , has genuine leg speed and his run carry in the first game showed his willingness to break the game open .

Rotham was a natural running HBF as a junior. The fact he won the grand final sprint proves he has the pace required but has had this mark , stop , prop game plan drilled into him . He needs to be retrained and given favourable match ups he can exploit rather than been left with McGovern's forward who often out sizes him .

Post mcgovern backline 2024

B Cole Hedwards Rotham
HB Jones Barrass Duggan

hough , Foley , Bazzo

Probably need to draft a designated kicker who is not a sloth like witherden

 

[Chump Change]

Yeah i know we won't be favourite, i just feel we'll pull our finger out for a game or two at some point.

Be better for us draft wise if we didn't obviously, but i can certainly see it happening.

It depends on fitness. Yeo and Shuey probably won't be up to scratch until late in the season and by then our confidence will be so shot....

It's possible (we have the team on paper) but I think the confidence is so low already they it's out of us and Norf. Seriously, how shit are they and what's their excuse?

 

[Get_The_Gaff]

Nisbett just strongly implied that Nelson will be delisted at the end of the year, given he’s out of contract.
Courtesy of Ben Cameron from Grandstand
“Trevor Nisbett says “I think so” when asked whether the players who went to the hip-e club have compromised their futures at the club.”

Sounds like this hipE club fiasco is a smoke screen for the clubs failure on multiple levels

 

[Chump Change]

Moving Jones back would be a good move . He is great defensively, tackles hard , has genuine leg speed and his run carry in the first game showed his willingness to break the game open .

Rotham was a natural running HBF as a junior. The fact he won the grand final sprint proves he has the pace required but has had this mark , stop , prop game plan drilled into him . He needs to be retrained and given favourable match ups he can exploit rather than been left with McGovern's forward who often out sizes him .

Post mcgovern backline 2024

B Cole Hedwards Rotham
HB Jones Barrass Duggan

hough , Foley , Bazzo

Probably need to draft a designated kicker who is not a sloth like witherden

I don't mind playing Jones back and my gut feel is Bazzo will turn out to be a gun. I also know from experience that it will look totally different from what we think.

 

[ziad]

Sounds like this hipE club fiasco is a smoke screen for the clubs failure on multiple levels

poor leadership > poor morale > poor onfield performance and off field behaviour

 

[southcoast]

Nisbett just strongly implied that Nelson will be delisted at the end of the year, given he’s out of contract.
Courtesy of Ben Cameron from Grandstand
“Trevor Nisbett says “I think so” when asked whether the players who went to the hip-e club have compromised their futures at the club.”

Certainly Nizzy was rightfully pissed off with Jackson and Rotham. He did say futures are compromised but no decision until investigation can be completed. There is a possibility there may be other players involved (my interpretation of discussion)

Stated Rotham only playing this weekend coz of numbers available. We should not see him running around on park this evening as a sign of weakness. There was no option to play a ‘top up’.

On Fox last night Nick Riewoldt indicated Dixon was only dropped with AFL approval - apparently not allowed to play ‘top up’s’ if listers are available.

But back to the Hipsters.

My thoughts are drop both to Beagles for remainder of season as soon as possible. This will allow plenty of time to see their response and then make decision at years end. Noting Rotham has the balance of a three yr contract to serve. This may save him.

Nelson may be on shakier ground though.

A long suspension will also create a ‘legal tank’ course and go further towards securing a lower draft pick.