Schraderbrau
Cancelled
- Oct 7, 2014
- 5,371
- 6,647
- AFL Club
- Collingwood
The singling out of Brisbane is not based on this trade period alone. The players that have left Brisbane the last 5 years or so speak for themselves. don't think you can blame the list managers and recruiters either given it has happened over a number of regimes. Brisbane had a bad trade period but it's really hard to find blame given the circumstances.Imo it's unfair to single out Queensland - lots of other clubs got shafted, paid overs, or failed to fire a single shot this trade period (Collingwood, North and Hawthorn all come to mind), but no one's calling their list managers incompetent.
In the bigger picture, I don't think either club did that badly, although they could have done better. Gold Coast took four top ten picks last year (all of whom have already extended their contracts), so they could afford to give up pick 2 this year for a talented kid who actually wanted to be there, plus they bought in much-needed depth in Young and Wigg. Next year's first for a bunch of second rounders is a gamble, but West Coast are likely to slide, next year's draft is tipped to be better, and it's not like they'd get to play all of their second rounders in 2018 anyway. The Ablett trade was pretty shit, but Ablett's behaviour forced their hand and limited their options.
Brisbane paid overs for Cameron, but we got a best 22 player who fills an immediate need and still have 3 first picks in the first 20, plus the 4 kids in the top 25 we took last year. Hodge is an obvious choice. An end of first round pick for Rockliff seemed fair until the Motlop pick, which is hard to judge since we have no clue how the compensation formula really works. Besides, Rockliff will be 31 in 2021 (the final year of his deal), and has had a lot of recent setbacks with injury which will limit his durability - by then, Hipwood, Andrews, McCluggage, Berry, Witherden etc will all be looking at contract increases and I'd rather be spending the money on them, so it wasn't in our interests to match. And Schache was a unique case - we got shafted in terms of value but I'm okay with my club doing the right thing by a kid who was clearly struggling mentally.