Toump Ass
The Big Deal
- Jun 14, 2015
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It would appear VDubs has some competition.Geelong's 2024 prelim starting 22:
-6 players 30 or older (2 of them - Bews and Stanley - should drop out of the side in 2025)
-4 players aged 26-29
-12 players aged 25 or younger (add Smith and SDK in 2025, Conway too if he's injury-free)
It wasn't an ancient side, nor will it be in 2025. Dempsey, Holmes, O.Henry, Neale, Bruhn, Mullin, SDK, Smith all have improvement in them. Then a whole stack are entering that sweet spot of prime-aged football around 26 years old. It's a well balanced list.
Although Dubsy is naturally pessimistic, I don't think even he has said burn it all down and start again. He, like most of us are aware we've been shedding ourselves of veterans or shuffling them into peripheral roles quite aggressively. There's 3 key figures left that are 30 or older. It was 9 or 10 around the 2020-2022 time.It would appear VDubs has some competition.
Nothing is revered as much on BigFooty as "young and shit...hopefully good in 5 years".Pies won a flag in 2023, and beat the 2024 premiers both times they played them in 2024.
But we should trade every player we have with trade value, to guarantee bottom 4 finished for the next 5 years?
Geelong's 2024 prelim starting 22:
-6 players 30 or older (2 of them - Bews and Stanley - should drop out of the side in 2025)
-4 players aged 26-29
-12 players aged 25 or younger (add Smith and SDK in 2025, Conway too if he's injury-free)
It wasn't an ancient side, nor will it be in 2025. Dempsey, Holmes, O.Henry, Neale, Bruhn, Mullin, SDK, Smith all have improvement in them. Then a whole stack are entering that sweet spot of prime-aged football around 26 years old. It's a well balanced list.
But like you could see it wasn't an old team we sent out for finals, right? Probably the most 25 and unders we'd had in a final since 2009.Given the retirements and delistings from the squad, the Cats will go into 2025 with very little VFL depth, relying heavily on Toby Conway to get over his injury issues and praying there's no significant injuries to our key forwards (and that Shannon Neale continues to develop well).
The successful (and surprising for many) performance in 2024 was underpinned by getting great value from the past five or so draft classes (if we throw in Bruhn and O.Henry), including getting mature agers like Close, Dempsey, Humphries and Mannagh in the later stages of the draft or the rookie draft. But the Smith trade meant we weren't a big player in the draft this year and the fact that we've picked up Humphries, Mannagh, Dempsey etc. from outside the traditional U18 comps means that there is a fairly big gap on our list currently developing with players born after 2003.
To my mind, for Geelong's rejuvenation on the run process to continue to work, you/we need to pick up about three quality players from each draft class on average (i.e. about 15 players over five years), as well as hitting on your free agency targets, locking in the players you need to re-sign and everything else. When you include Bruhn and Henry, I think we've largely managed that between 2019-23 (albeit with a few guys who are now closer to 30 than they are to 20). Will we continue to hit that target over the 2020-24, 2021-25 periods and beyond? I hope so, but it's a big ask.
I was absolutely against our 2025 first rounder being considered as an option Smith trade precisely because I wouldn't be surprised at all if it ends up being well inside the top 10. It just feels to me like we need a hell of a lot to go right this year to get to the finals again and make it past the first week.
But like you could see it wasn't an old team we sent out for finals, right? Probably the most 25 and unders we'd had in a final since 2009.
So tear it all down doesn't make sense. We've been adding a few new young players each year and retiring a few old ones.
Little-to-zero depth in the event of injuries, compared to which sides? It only makes sense if you can objectively list the sides that have more depth and less reason to tear it all down and fully commit to a fresh rebuild. More so than Melbourne, Richmond and Collingwood - to keep it roughly on topic with this thread? How does our depth compare to Carlton, Brisbane, Port, Freo, Sydney, Hawthorn et al? Can you explain how it's worse?I didn't say it was an old team; I said that we now have little-to-zero depth in the event of injuries in a number of key areas and that, as a by-product of some of our recent moves during trade period and that, due to the (understandable and correct) call to use some late draft and rookie picks in recent years to select mature age players, we have seen practically nothing from our players who've been born since 1/1/2004. Jhye Clark showed some glimpses last year (though he played VFL exclusively from mid-July), Connor O'Sullivan and Ted Clohesy have made some very fleeting cameos and that's it.
As far as inserting talent from the under 18 crops from 2022-24 (i.e. the group on our list born since 1/1/04), at this stage it looks like we're putting a hell of a lot on the shoulders of Clark and O'Sullivan to carry that group (a couple of diamonds in the rough from 2024 would be nice too, we didn't have a selection in the first two rounds).
So I'm not particularly optimistic about our prospects in 2025, given the lack of proven depth on the list and I'm also concerned that we may have set ourselves up to have a hole in our list of players in the 2004-2006 group as well attempt to rejuvenate the list. I guess we'll see in due course.
Really ? List your depth, so I can compare it to Melbourne's.It only makes sense if you can objectively list the sides that have more depth and less reason to tear it all down and fully commit to a fresh rebuild. More so than Melbourne, Richmond and Collingwood - to keep it roughly on topic with this thread?