Roast The Hun "Worst Trades Ever"

[Clay Davis]

Not strictly true.

Lloyd was drafted in 1994 (same as Lucas) and debuted in 1995.

Your point stands, but the clubs from whom you signed uncontracted players were given compensatory picks in 1994 to be used on players who were 16 years old that year. Essendon took Lloyd for Ridley, Geelong King for O'Reilly, etc.

Speaking of which, O'Reilly to Carlton is hands down the worst trade in the history of the AFL, and while you didn't really benefit from it you certainly didn't fare as badly as the Blues did...

I knew I was in error somewhere, but effectively we never had a chance at Lloyd.

There were mistakes made at early Freo, no question. But the real mistakes are glossed over in reporting. Like actively trading Farmer - who wanted to stay, and eventually came home - for a hack. McLeod never wanted to play for us, it would have been very much a similar situation to Buckley with the Brisbane Bears. Or the idiocy in taking Ben Edwards at pick 7 in 1995.

However, I think this history could have been overcome post-2001 had we not traded like fools during the Schwab years.

 

[prattsta]

However, I think this history could have been overcome post-2001 had we not traded like fools during the Schwab years.

Yeah all the initial errors would be long forgotten had we made the most of the 2001-2007 period.

 

[Dr Ralph Dagg]

I agree with all of this, in many ways Neesham was ahead of his time, but for all of his genius in some of his tactics, he was way too stubborn and pigheaded to admit that he was sometimes wrong, and that was in the end what brought him undone..... i just hate looking back on the list of recruiting and trading blunders that that period was riddled with (although it does help me appreciate our current situation all the more )

I think it is widely recognised he was clueless. But Hatt and McNeill weren't far behind.

Last year Brad Wira was on ABC 720 talking about how Neesham used pick 7 to get Brad Edwards down from Claremont just to have a look at him and the de-listed him before the end of pre-season training. Imagine that in today's terms.

Have a look at out draft selections in 1995 and you have to admit our selection processes were way, way behind every other club. Remember this was after our first season.

http://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/td-fremantle-dockers?year=1995


Have a look at the first 5 seasons. I think we managed to draft 2 200 game players in 5 drafts: Shane Parker and Shaum McManus. JLo is probably the next best because he was cruelly cut down by injury.

 

[Dr Ralph Dagg]

However, I think this history could have been overcome post-2001 had we not traded like fools during the Schwab years.

I disagree. At the time there was a lot of agreement about those trades with the exception of Headland and Josh Carr. Headland was a big risk as he had only half a good season in four years. Even so Brisbane thought enough of him to make him a very good offer.

Croad for example was a highly touted player. Hawthorn fans thought enough of him to cut down a point post at Glenferrie Oval. He came over and even with our middling midfield managed to kick 40+ goals.

Matthew Carr was considered the trade of the year in his first season. He was racking up stats like Broughton. Bell was a great trade, Cookie a reasonable trade, Heath Black coming back wasn't too bad.

The one really awful, awful trade was Josh Carr. They traded three draft picks for a slow, short, poorly skilled in and under midfielder in a team loaded with short, slow, poorly skilled, in and under midfielders. Its not that he wasn't a great player but that he was never going to improve us when we had Bell, Hasleby, Matt Carr and Schammer in the midfield.

The other measure of the Schwab/Connolly era was who we moved on. We got rid of a lot of duds. And, a lot clubs have done dud trades. Who would have thought St Kilda would trade for Aaron Fiora?

With hindisght, I've come to believe that Connolly just didn't get the best out of what he had.

 

[im_a_lazy_sod]

We were one game away from a flag in '06 - CC did alright for short term but really didn't set us up well in the long term (trading high picks for ready made players who would give us our most realistic chance at a flag, in the shortest amount of time)

 

[theGav56]

Yes I agree Dr Dagg. There are seasons in what you do with recruiting, and their mindset was clearly to go hard at recruiting anyone they thought would assist us getting a flag. They got it wrong clearly and history has judged that, and they often over-paid, and rarely underpaid (gee that has changed) which ended up with long-term costs for us. But if the club thinks we are a Croad (heading back to Hawthorn), Ottens or Jolley away from a flag, go for it.

 

[Rob]

Last year Brad Wira was on ABC 720 talking about how Neesham used pick 7 to get Brad Edwards down from Claremont just to have a look at him and the de-listed him before the end of pre-season training. Imagine that in today's terms.

Not only that, he could have picked Edwards up as a zone zelection for free before the draft.

That, IMO, was the most incompetent display by a recruiting team ever. Neesham had a lot of strengths as a coach, but the sheer magnitude of his weaknesses were so great that he could never be considered hard done by to fail as an AFL coach.

 

[Clay Davis]

I disagree. At the time there was a lot of agreement about those trades with the exception of Headland and Josh Carr. Headland was a big risk as he had only half a good season in four years. Even so Brisbane thought enough of him to make him a very good offer.

The 2001 draft contained an absurd amount of talent. The top 10 alone has yielded three Brownlows, one MVP, two Norm Smiths and four premiership players. 2002's most decorated top ten pick is Andrew Mackie, while 2003 has Cooney as it's Brownlow winner and that's it.

That's without including the likes of Johnson, Dal Santo Swan and Ablett who were taken outside the top 10.

To barely participate as we did in order to get a player that lasted two seasons with us did more to damage our chances than any other trade. Yes, we overpaid for Carr and Headland, but those drafts yielded very little by comparison.

My feeling after the 2001 trade (after Freo had committed so many egregious mistakes in trading and list management that led us to that diabolical year) was that we'd truly blown a chance to fundamentally remake the club as it should have been done in 1995. The draft picks we had were our best since formation, in the best draft in history.

No matter what you think of Croad, it's hard to stomach what we could have had and missed out on.

 

[theGav56]

The 2001 draft contained an absurd amount of talent. The top 10 alone has yielded three Brownlows, one MVP, two Norm Smiths and four premiership players. 2002's most decorated top ten pick is Andrew Mackie, while 2003 has Cooney as it's Brownlow winner and that's it.

That's without including the likes of Johnson, Dal Santo Swan and Ablett who were taken outside the top 10.

To barely participate as we did in order to get a player that lasted two seasons with us did more to damage our chances than any other trade. Yes, we overpaid for Carr and Headland, but those drafts yielded very little by comparison.

My feeling after the 2001 trade (after Freo had committed so many egregious mistakes in trading and list management that led us to that diabolical year) was that we'd truly blown a chance to fundamentally remake the club as it should have been done in 1995. The draft picks we had were our best since formation, in the best draft in history.

No matter what you think of Croad, it's hard to stomach what we could have had and missed out on.[/QUOTE]

Croad also went on to become an AA and premiership player, just not with us. In terms of the quality of the player, I think that trade is not as bad as it is talked up to be. We overpaid to get a quality, young KPP to fill a very real need at the time. He was handled badly when he got here which stuffed the trade up. Hawthorn overpaid to get him back.

 

[Clay Davis]

Croad also went on to become an AA and premiership player, just not with us. In terms of the quality of the player, I think that trade is not as bad as it is talked up to be. We overpaid to get a quality, young KPP to fill a very real need at the time. He was handled badly when he got here which stuffed the trade up. Hawthorn overpaid to get him back.

Yes, I'm aware you'll excuse this trade to the day you die.

How was Croad a need? We had picked up Longmuir, Pavlich, Brown and McPhee over four years, and then went and got Croad, McPharlin, Simmonds, Polak and Sandilands in 2001. We could have easily have done without Croad and used our first pick on a A grade mid. It would have set us up for the decade, unlike

our middling midfield

which plagued us for years.

We were hardly light on for quality talls. Croad was quality, but he wasn't Judd/Hodge/Bartel/etc quality.

 

[Dr Ralph Dagg]

The 2001 draft contained an absurd amount of talent. The top 10 alone has yielded three Brownlows, one MVP, two Norm Smiths and four premiership players. 2002's most decorated top ten pick is Andrew Mackie, while 2003 has Cooney as it's Brownlow winner and that's it.

That's without including the likes of Johnson, Dal Santo Swan and Ablett who were taken outside the top 10.

To barely participate as we did in order to get a player that lasted two seasons with us did more to damage our chances than any other trade. Yes, we overpaid for Carr and Headland, but those drafts yielded very little by comparison.

My feeling after the 2001 trade (after Freo had committed so many egregious mistakes in trading and list management that led us to that diabolical year) was that we'd truly blown a chance to fundamentally remake the club as it should have been done in 1995. The draft picks we had were our best since formation, in the best draft in history.

No matter what you think of Croad, it's hard to stomach what we could have had and missed out on.

This is a fair point except it is the retrospective view. I remember dsicussing this draft on Dockerland and we were all hoping to get Polak. It was very much a Sampi/Polak discussion and it wasn't as if 2001 was going to be a once in a generation talent list. Personally, I think Geelong hit the jackpot and it makes it look good.

To pump up my own tyres, I was very big on Dal Santo.

Even then we got Farmer for Heath Black (a win for us), Simmonds for Bandy (a huge win for us), we got Medhurst for pick 56 (a big win).

I still think 2004 cost us the most when when you think we could have had both Nathan Van Berlo and Mark Le Cras instead of Josh Carr.

One last thing. It's easy to be critical but you have to remember good recruiting was very much a function of money. Up until 2005 we had very small recruiting department. West Coast's was twice the size. Around that time, I was involved in supervising the development of an application for WCE's recruiters to use. They had it all over Freo at that stage. We have come a long way since then -- particularly at extending the Sydney model of using mature age players.

You also have to wonder how much good coaching can make the recruiters look good or vice versa. And no matter what anyone says the fact that Adelaide traded for Daniel Schell for anything at all shows they have the worst trade of all time.

 

[FarmersWife]

The top three are all players that never actually played football with us for a start. They were as much a part of our team, as Andrew Krakouer was of Gold Coast's.

The WAFC and AFL set us up with no recruiting staff or the absolute luxuries that are being afforded to GWS and GC.

But people still harp on about it, as if we were an established club that were expected to make better decisions with the tools that we were provided.

Besides, Lucas, Lloyd and McLeod were all from other states and would have been likely to leave for free in a few years time.

 

[longsuffreosupp]

I think the Croad trade is our worst. The odds of getting a gun midfielder in that draft in hinesight looks pretty good (even though Sampi went top 10 )

I just don't know what they were thinking. They were always going to get Polak but they still thought we needed another KPP, even though at the time we had a host of up and coming KPP's. Mcpharlin could've come to us cheaply (another KPP).

Spending pick 1 on Polak and pick 4 on nearly anyone in the top 20 would've been less laughable.

Could we not have had the opportunity to have a PSD pick as well if we didn't trade nearly all our picks?

Worst all all though, they didn't learn from it. Headland and J Carr trades don't look as bad because the picks traded from them didn't yeild anything too spectacular. Even, so, they are a close 2nd and 3rd.

 

[Dormammu]

The WAFC and AFL set us up with no recruiting staff or the absolute luxuries that are being afforded to GWS and GC.

But people still harp on about it, as if we were an established club that were expected to make better decisions with the tools that we were provided.

^^This

 

[sabre_ac]

The guy that mentioned O'Reilly to the Blues makes a good point, in terms of impacting a club that has to be the worst trade ever.

Worst trade ever? That's easy. Pick 16 and 46 for Stephen O'Reilly who played 12 games for the Blues. AND Carlton had to pay him illegally outside the cap. AND he blew the whistle on them. AND the Scum had to pay a fine. AND they got kicked out of the draft and had to recruit hacks. AND it meant that their multi-million investment in Denis Pagan was a waste because he had no players. Stephen O'Reilly for - Pick 16, pick 46, $1m fine, pick 1, 2, 17 and 33 in the 2003 draft, pick 1 in the 2003 PSD, 1st and 2nd round picks in the 2004 draft. Daylight second behind this one.

I think that was first mentioned bigfooty.

Probably the best posts I have ever seen on this site.

My understanding of the Lloyd trade was he was compensation for losing a out of contract player, hence we never had access to him in the first place.

 

[sabre_ac]

Any player picked up after say pick 15 that goes on to be a star is good recruiting, it's got nothing to do with the club that traded that pick.

 

[Scotland]

There is a fine line between good recruiting and good luck. If you draft a gimp at 4 when 3 and 5 are jets then draft a jet at 20 then well done with pick 20 you still drafted a gimp at 4. I mean in the 2001 superdraft the Doggies took Sam Power at 10 and Brian Harris at 71...

Ten years ago we (Freo & WC) were both keen on Polak and Sampi with our 4 top 6 picks. We took Judd at the last minute because he was still available, and both Polak and Sampi when on to have ordinary careers. If we'd stuck with taking Polak at 3 and took Sampi at 6 we wouldn't have won the 2006 flag and we'd be mocked for stuffing up our 2001 drafting. The Croad trade was a failure, but while you could have had Hodge/Bartel/Judd you could have ended up with Polak/Sampi/X Clarke.

Personally I think clubs need more kudos for developing players who are overlooked because of particular deficiencies in their game. Barlow needed a chance to show what he could do (and he can do a fair bit), but Sandilands for example needed a lot more.

Anyhoo, where does the Tarrant trade rank compared to Headland/Carr/Croad?

 

[longsuffreosupp]

Anyhoo, where does the Tarrant trade rank compared to Headland/Carr/Croad?

It's an interesting one. I'd probably say it's better than those two, but i could understand some would say it's worse because of how current it is and because it's a trade that keeps on churning. Plus the Headland/Croad deals didn't yeild anything great from the teams that gained our picks, so it's debatable.

In short Wiki says we traded - pick 13, pick 47, pick 63, Medhurst and Polak for Tarrant, Solomon and pick 52 (Brock Obrien), though Im not aware of the situation surrounding pick 63 because Collingwood ended up with that too, and I thought it was essentially Medhurst and pick 8 for Tarrant.

No doubt Collingwood win because Reid is a solid AFL premiership player, but imo only win because of this. You can argue the other trades cancel themselves out (including the situation involving Tarrant leaving and Anthony coming to us), and we only lose because we could've got J Reiwoldt for our pick, but having said that, Tarrant and Solomon were our best pick ups in 2006, so I doubt our recruiters would've been on the money with pick 13.

 

[Scotland]

Tarrant played some good footy for Freo, but he played less games than Carr or Headland and played primarily in a pretty poor side.

It's another hindsight special, but overestimating where you were at the end of 2006 makes the trade look a lot worse than it is by virtue of the fact that a top up player like Tarrant didn't have the impact you'd hope for on the team's performance.

If you could foresee how 2007/8/9 were going to go you never would have given up your first round pick & players for a 26 year old (IMO), but like I said - hindsight special.

 

[E Shed]

Tarrant played some good footy for Freo, but he played less games than Carr or Headland and played primarily in a pretty poor side.

It's another hindsight special, but overestimating where you were at the end of 2006 makes the trade look a lot worse than it is by virtue of the fact that a top up player like Tarrant didn't have the impact you'd hope for on the team's performance.

If you could foresee how 2007/8/9 were going to go you never would have given up your first round pick & players for a 26 year old (IMO), but like I said - hindsight special.

No there were plenty of us at the time who thought the team was coming along nicely and that we needed to draft some young speedy midfield talent to bring through underneath.

 

[Lach72]

We would've missed Selwood and Gibbs, taken at 1and 7.
After that, Reid, Frawley or Nathan Brown could have solved our issues at the back.

 

[dominguez]

Croad for example was a highly touted player. Hawthorn fans thought enough of him to cut down a point post at Glenferrie Oval. He came over and even with our middling midfield managed to kick 40+ goals.

Trading pick one for a young tall with a lot of potential was silly though. It would be like throwing a truckload of cash and pick 1 at Naitanui, Hurley or Gumbleton.

Matthew Carr was considered the trade of the year in his first season. He was racking up stats like Broughton. Bell was a great trade, Cookie a reasonable trade, Heath Black coming back wasn't too bad.

Cook, Black and Carr didn't cost much though.

Sinclair, Holland, Clement and a top ten pick was a hell of a lot to give away for a bloke we de-listed 4 or 5 years earlier.

The one really awful, awful trade was Josh Carr. They traded three draft picks for a slow, short, poorly skilled in and under midfielder in a team loaded with short, slow, poorly skilled, in and under midfielders. Its not that he wasn't a great player but that he was never going to improve us when we had Bell, Hasleby, Matt Carr and Schammer in the midfield.

I agree, luckily the 2004 draft was a weak one.

The other measure of the Schwab/Connolly era was who we moved on. We got rid of a lot of duds. And, a lot clubs have done dud trades. Who would have thought St Kilda would trade for Aaron Fiora?

Another measure of the Schwabbolly era is that IMO our best 22 in Connolly's first game was stronger and had a hell of a lot more upside than the side left to Harvey. To leave the list in such a shocking state after winning just one final is a sad indicator of that period in the clubs history.

 

[dominguez]

You also have to wonder how much good coaching can make the recruiters look good or vice versa.

It has a huge impact IMO. Polak was runner up in the Rising Star and Murphy kicked 57(?) goals for South Fremantle as an 18 year old in his first year on our list. Both looked future superstars in their first 12 months at the club and ended up being terrible players at 22. There's a fair chance both would have gone on with it under a better coach.

 

[dominguez]

Could we not have had the opportunity to have a PSD pick as well if we didn't trade nearly all our picks?

That was another lowlight in our clubs history.......Schwab convinced Fabian Francis to knock back a one year deal from Port and offered him a 2 year deal to enter the PSD then the AFL said we didn't have the capspace so Francis was told to spend a year playing in the WAFL where he did his knee and the club had to pay him out for breach of contract.

 

[DrJon]

I've posted this on the main board, but it's still prescient here:

The inclusion of the player that is picked up via a traded draft pick is immaterial to the value of a trade.

Picking up a good player with a late draft pick is good/lucky drafting, not good trading. Likewise if a traded draft pick picks up a dud. For instance, Trent Croad for pick 10 is a reasonable trade, but Freo then pick the injury riddled Ryley Dunn with the pick. This doesn't suddenly make the trade a poor one. If we'd used pick 10 on David Mundy (who actually went pick 19) then the trade may look much, much better but it remains EXACTLY the same.

If you swap a fringe player to another club for pick 70, and then happen to get someone the calibre of Dane Swan then kudos to the drafting strategy not the trade.

As people have said, the Josh Carr trade was over the odds but barely mentioned because Port used the three picks on three less than auspicious duds. Re the Hun, any paper that features Hutchie as it's gun football reporter can't be taken seriously.