Strategy Trade and List management (Add your rumour to the simmering stew that is the post season. Edition.)

[Mutt]

Hopefully the nutjobs here can hold off needlessly abusing him and driving him away as seems to have happened before. Shame as Sedat is one of the best posters going around.

Agreed.

 

[The Inbetweener]

Most of which people were calling spuds before the premiership

Houli maybe. Don’t recall the others being called spuds.

Irrelevant anyway, they are all good players now. Their list is quite good

 

[ossie_21]

How did this happen? We had the deepest midfield in the league 2 years ago.

Don’t under estimate the loss of Libba & Clay to injuries. 2 of your toughest, if not the 2 toughest out really hurts

 

[Doggy]

Houli maybe. Don’t recall the others being called spuds.

Irrelevant anyway, they are all good players now. Their list is quite good

Astbury is their Fletcher Roberts. Plays well in their system but wouldn't be much chop elsewhere

Nankervis is the one i wanted at the time and reports were we had a crack but didn't offer enough.

Caddy plays a role for them and was a spud elsewhere.

Rioli was always good and would definitely have him.

Houli meh ..

 

[Golden_6]

Or we didn't. And that was us overrating our list. Which success brings about. I think that Beveridge was able to take a list not premiership quality, to a premiership. A list a lot worse and younger than Richmond's last year.
So what we are seeing now is a revert to the mean.

We had a great midfield in 2016 and for a bunch of reasons it hasn't held together. Bont was unreal as a full time midfielder, Libba was fit and hungry, Dahl was in terrific form, Picken and Smith were pinch hitting, destructive players. It seems like a whole bunch of smaller differing factors have come together to form a major problem. We could cover one or two of these issues, but all together results in what you see now.

 

[Mofra]

In the last 3 years we have drafted 1 genuine midfielder (Porter last year, with a pick in the 70's that we only had because at the last minute we delisted and re-rookied Roarke Smith). We have not used any rookie selections in that time on a midfielder, and we have not traded in any midfielders in that time. We've also shipped off fringe mids like Hrovat and Stevens. Before anyone pipes up, Dunks and Lipinski are not mids - they are hybrid high half-forwards (and part time rucks in Dunks' case).

Lipinski was playing midfield (and had a 30+ possession game at u18 level) before he was drafted.
We have to remember Macrae was a flanker, Mclean a forward, and Bonti only played midfield late in his TAC cup year. Beign drafted in one spot doesn't hold you to that spot (e.g. Geelong Falcons full forward Cameron Ling).

Lipinski covered the 4th most ground for us against Collingwood - he absolutely has the ability to become a midfielder, but I agree with your sentiment that we are light on for genuine midfielders (especially quick ones - Lipinski is not quick compared to modern mids).

 

[Dogs Rule]

If we knew we were into trengove and Naughton (and likely we would have) when we re-signed Roberts, why re-sign him? And why for two years? Why not wait to re-sign fringe players that other clubs arent going to be chasing anyway? Ditto Campbell, while leaving Wallis and Dahl unsigned.

Dumb list management on multiple fronts.

Yep, and sure enough that list manager is gone.

 

[immortalmike]

Don’t under estimate the loss of Libba & Clay to injuries. 2 of your toughest, if not the 2 toughest out really hurts

Both barely played in 2015.

 

[Mofra]

Both barely played in 2015.

And Clay rarely played midfield in any case, was your 'lock the ball in' forward.

 

[SlimShaddy]

Astbury is their Fletcher Roberts. Plays well in their system but wouldn't be much chop elsewhere

Nankervis is the one i wanted at the time and reports were we had a crack but didn't offer enough.

Caddy plays a role for them and was a spud elsewhere.

Rioli was always good and would definitely have him.

Houli meh ..

Caddy is on track for a 40 goal season. Astbury is a good defender who positions himself well, keeps his feet and rarely loses a 1 v 1. Why do you think Rance gets to play the way he does?

Roberts gives up positioning and goes to ground far too easily.

 

[dergert]

Can someone remind me why we gave Carlton our 2nd rounder this year.

 

[VitalDread]

Can someone remind me why we gave Carlton our 2nd rounder this year.

to land Ed Richards

 

[dergert]

to land Ed Richards

Worth it and then some. That kid will be our next star.

 

[Sedat!]

We may only need two key defenders, but we'd usually play three. If you think all of those six you've listed are depth, rather than injured (Naughton) and returning from long term injury (Morris and Adams), you're kidding yourself.

When Roberts was resigned, he was top 10 in our 2017 BnF count and had recently played a great role in prelim and grand finals. At the time, we also didn't have trengove and naughton while young was yet to play a game.

You can say what you want about having too many key defenders, but the reality is if we'd decided to have fewer, naughton would be the one we missed out on. List imbalances can be fixed by delisting/trading a couple of them down the track, but you don't get the opportunity to recruit a player like naughton very often.

I think you're missing my point. I absolutely love Naughton and am rapt we picked him up because he will be one of the competition's elite intercept defenders, and will make the 8 clubs who overlooked him look very foolish in the future. What I'm saying is that having 8 key defenders (Cordy and Trengove plus the 6 that I previously mentioned) on a list is overkill IMO, and at the same time we are going with the threadbare minimum in terms of midfield depth and running power. My discussion is a philosophical one based on the fact that we've drafted/traded for precious few genuine mids in the last 3 years, while the rest of the competition has been loading up on running power in that time.

Roberts could have been given a 1 year contract. Locking him into a multiple year deal has hamstrung our ability to address the list imbalance. Why has Tom Campbell had a contract extension when he's playing 2-3 games a season? Why was Redders offered a multi-year deal? Ditto Clay Smith. Why pick up a clydesdale half back like Crozier on a generous 3 year contract when we already have a plethora of running half backs on the list? All of these decisions are perfectly explainable in isolation, but combined they have contributed to our list imbalance in terms of genuine midfield running power. I think JMac has not placed a premium on our list spots, otherwise he would not have offered multi-year contracts to a number of players for little more than depth purposes of sub 5 games a season. I hope Sam Power has a more strategic and thoughtful approach to developing a balanced list.

 

[Sedat!]

Hopefully the nutjobs here can hold off needlessly abusing him and driving him away as seems to have happened before. Shame as Sedat is one of the best posters going around.

Thanks mate but not at all. I spend a fair bit of time on The Main Board - never felt badly treated on this board. Diverse opinions are essential and I love them, banter included. At least here there are people who know and understand our club intrinsically. Out in meedya land, the depth of our issues are explained by the fact that we need more talls up forward

 

[Sedat!]

Lipinski was playing midfield (and had a 30+ possession game at u18 level) before he was drafted.
We have to remember Macrae was a flanker, Mclean a forward, and Bonti only played midfield late in his TAC cup year. Beign drafted in one spot doesn't hold you to that spot (e.g. Geelong Falcons full forward Cameron Ling).

Lipinski covered the 4th most ground for us against Collingwood - he absolutely has the ability to become a midfielder, but I agree with your sentiment that we are light on for genuine midfielders (especially quick ones - Lipinski is not quick compared to modern mids).

I'm very encouraged by Lipinski in the last few weeks. He is treacle slow but if he has that genuine running power and big tank, coupled with his high football IQ, we will have a very good player.

 

[Mofra]

I'm very encouraged by Lipinski in the last few weeks. He is treacle slow but if he has that genuine running power and big tank, coupled with his high football IQ, we will have a very good player.

His delivery is excellent and he actually moves the ball on quickly - not in a Jong/Honeychurch hot-potato style, but to our advantage. Bartel was never quick but he moved the ball quickly and he was an absolute champion.
I was surprised as up to this year I wasn't sure Lippi would make the transition to midfield but he looks like Gia mk 2 in many ways. Still very much a pup too, a lot of development left.

 

[immortalmike]

His delivery is excellent and he actually moves the ball on quickly - not in a Jong/Honeychurch hot-potato style, but to our advantage. Bartel was never quick but he moved the ball quickly and he was an absolute champion.
I was surprised as up to this year I wasn't sure Lippi would make the transition to midfield but he looks like Gia mk 2 in many ways. Still very much a pup too, a lot of development left.

Gia would've been a premier inside mid had we not had Boyd and Cross and very little class on our hff. Remember the few weeks he played there when Boyd was injured in the mid 2000s. He was awesome.

 

[Anja_Nees]

Gia would've been a premier inside mid had we not had Boyd and Cross and very little class on our hff. Remember the few weeks he played there when Boyd was injured in the mid 2000s. He was awesome.

Extremely unfair that some opposition supporters had him marked as soft for a lot of his career. As a half forward he tended to sit outside a bit but he put his head over it and was often pretty solid in the middle when given a go.

 

[Mofra]

Gia would've been a premier inside mid had we not had Boyd and Cross and very little class on our hff. Remember the few weeks he played there when Boyd was injured in the mid 2000s. He was awesome.

True, I always felt he was our best user of the ball in traffic but had to be pushed forward because we had 8,000 mids on the list and hardly anyone who could play forward. A couple of Lipinski's handballs were super quick and one pass into the F50 was a low hard worm-burner that is impossible for defenders to stop.

 

[Tommycash]

Of all Jmacs deals this one annoys me the most I think.

Points aren’t the best way to judge but if you add 16 & 40 that’s 1496.

24 (our pick if the ladder remains) 28 & 30 equals 2091.

Consider only two years earlier we traded pick 11 (1329 points) for 20 & 21 (1790 total) PLUS we gave them our future 3rd rounder for their future 4th rounder. The mind boggles

It got us Richards who I like as much as the next guy but I’m not sure he is worth that sacrifice. Given this draft is meant to be so great could we have not got someone as good as him with 24 this year?

I know we used 40 as part of the Schache trade but we could have reworked that surely. Could have given them 28 & 30 for Schache and pick 54.

It says to me that we were quite desperate to turn Stringer into a 1st rounder and to do it we have given away a really useful pick at a time when we are rebuilding.

This isn’t a knock on Richards, I like him. But we gave up a few key pieces to land him.

I reckon Richards is worth it. I understand it is costly, but we surely didn't think we would be playing this kind of disgraceful footy this year. If we were in the 8 I'm sure this deal would look a hell of a lot better. That said, I reckon even with all the rest, Richards looks like a steal and a 200 game player for us.

 

[Mr. Walker]

Can someone remind me why we gave Carlton our 2nd rounder this year.

I think the original deal was:-
Bulldogs get Pick 16 and Carltons third round selection
Carlton get two second round selections plus a future second round selection

As to why we did it no idea other than to say "we are bulldogs, we do those type of deals".

 

[immortalmike]

Extremely unfair that some opposition supporters had him marked as soft for a lot of his career. As a half forward he tended to sit outside a bit but he put his head over it and was often pretty solid in the middle when given a go.

The sad part is that even our own supporters would call him soft. It still happens on this board.

 

[dergert]

I think the original deal was:-
Bulldogs get Pick 16 and Carltons third round selection
Carlton get two second round selections plus a future second round selection

As to why we did it no idea other than to say "we are bulldogs, we do those type of deals".

We did score Ed Richards so I'm pleased

 

[Mofra]

I reckon Richards is worth it. I understand it is costly, but we surely didn't think we would be playing this kind of disgraceful footy this year. If we were in the 8 I'm sure this deal would look a hell of a lot better. That said, I reckon even with all the rest, Richards looks like a steal and a 200 game player for us.

True, and we are on record as saying we rated Richards as the next best player after Naughton but we had no way of knowing whether Richards would be available at 16. We could have ended up with the 15th best player for all we know. It does seem like a 'face saving' type trade more than prudent list management.

The only redeeming factor is that we would lose our second rounder this year anyway on a Rhylee West bid but we will likely have to go heavily in deficit in 2019 when we get him.