Strategy Trade and List management Thread Part 6 (opposition supporters - READ posting rules before posting)

[Philthy1]

Why is everyone losing their minds about Sweet? English is an AA ruckman, Lobb provides the backup and we have Darcy coming through. Ruck is not a problematic position like it was up until recently.

Sweet moves on at year end for more opportunities. Good luck to him.

We have way more pressing issues.

 

[dogwatch]

Aaron Naughton said he doesn't want to play back he only wants to play forward.

English said something similar about playing ruck.

We have a bunch of selfish individuals on the team. What happened to playing a role for the team ? Doing whatever it takes to win ?

If there's truth in it I agree (and if three can be called "a bunch"). However these reports are mostly second hand with some journo/BF commentary laid on top of it.

I have no problem with players saying what their preferred position is. It's only when they get so precious that they won't adapt in some games to meet team needs (or sulk it up afterwards if they do) that it becomes a problem.

 

[Dog 36]

Why is everyone losing their minds about Sweet? English is an AA ruckman, Lobb provides the backup and we have Darcy coming through. Ruck is not a problematic position like it was up until recently.

Sweet moves on at year end for more opportunities. Good luck to him.

We have way more pressing issues.

Don't assume English is AA as Marshall from Saints is finishing off well. Whether he is or not is irrelevant to me.

English may cost us 900K plus so not sure I want to spend that money on the ruck position.

Lose at least one of English, Lobb or Darcy (his body is not ready for ruck) to injury and we are thin in that area

Lose Sweet we will need to draft another ruck as back up.

Sweet output may be 80% of Timmy's on 30% of his pay. worth a try to see.

Our midfield may have functioned so differently with a Sweet type ruck who creates space and his tap work has come along way. Given his work at VFL and form at a bare minimum he should have been tried and I still don't understand why he wasn't to see what it would look like.


I maintain Sweet and English should have played more games together.

I think Sweet is gone anyway so we will never know a real pity.

 

[Angak]

If there's truth in it I agree (and if three can be called "a bunch"). However these reports are mostly second hand with some journo/BF commentary laid on top of it.

I have no problem with players saying what their preferred position is. It's only when they get so precious that they won't adapt in some games to meet team needs (or sulk it up afterwards if they do) that it becomes a problem.

This is 100% true.

Naughton was asked on (SEN Crunch Time) a few weeks back if he would play back and he said 'I wanna kick snags' and that he doesn't want to go back. Everyone at the club is sh*t scared that if we move him back he will also request a trade.

Tim English was so pissed off that Lewis Young was played ahead of him in the ruck he was looking at his trade options at the end of the 2021 season. His manager said this on SEN at the time.

Obviously the Baz news is coming out more recently but I'm sure there are others who have declared to the club that they only want to play one position. This is massive culture issue the club need to fix.

You can't have a successful team if everyone is thinking for themselves ahead the team.

 

[dogwatch]

I laughed KH, but it's true.

Not sure how you instill that into him this far into his career though. Maybe the Robert Walls "put him in the middle of a circle and everyone punch him" tactic? (Not serious, btw.)

How do you make a passive, skilful giraffe so angry he starts throwing his weight around?

Wait, I thought he was a unicorn ...?

 

[Philthy1]

Don't assume English is AA as Marshall from Saints is finishing off well. Whether he is or not is irrelevant to me.

English may cost us 900K plus so not sure I want to spend that money on the ruck position.

Lose at least one of English, Lobb or Darcy (his body is not ready for ruck) to injury and we are thin in that area

Lose Sweet we will need to draft another ruck as back up.

Sweet output may be 80% of Timmy's on 30% of his pay. worth a try to see.

Our midfield may have functioned so differently with a Sweet type ruck who creates space and his tap work has come along way. Given his work at VFL and form at a bare minimum he should have been tried and I still don't understand why he wasn't to see what it would look like.


I maintain Sweet and English should have played more games together.

I think Sweet is gone anyway so we will never know a real pity.

If English did leave, Sweet is not the answer. I've seen him spud it up against part time VFL ruckman.

 

[dogwatch]

This is 100% true.

Naughton was asked on (SEN Crunch Time) a few weeks back if he would play back and he said 'I wanna kick snags' and that he doesn't want to go back. Everyone at the club is sh*t scared that if we move him back he will also request a trade.

Tim English was so pissed off that Lewis Young was played ahead of him in the ruck he was looking at his trade options at the end of the 2021 season. His manager said this on SEN at the time.

Obviously the Baz news is coming out more recently but I'm sure there are others who have declared to the club that they only want to play one position. This is massive culture issue the club need to fix.

No, you're confusing interpretation and 100% truth. They aren't the same thing.

I know Naughton said he wants to play forward (no problem with that) but did he say I am NOT playing in defence under any circumstances?
Managers say all sorts of things to apply pressure. My understanding is that Tim wasn't serious about leaving. (Not sure which one is the truth)
The Baz stuff has just been reported today by a journo looking for clicks.

Yes it could be true for any or all of them. But it might also be untrue. Or the comments might be heavily massaged.

BF has a way of taking casual remarks and converting them into the gospel and a big story. I'm just sceptical until there's more evidence.

But I do agree with you that players need to just suck it up sometimes. The club should be bigger than a few star players. We have suffered for not enforcing that at times over the years.

 

[geoffjennings79]

Wait, I thought he was a unicorn ...?

He was... until Sam The Real Unicorn Darcy arrived!

 

[Dog 36]

If English did leave, Sweet is not the answer. I've seen him spud it up against part time VFL ruckman.

Not recently not this season he has consistently put 40 plus hit outs every week

Some of the midfielders At Footscray love Sweets work

 

[Dog 36]

Aaron Naughton said he doesn't want to play back he only wants to play forward.

English said something similar about playing ruck.

We have a bunch of selfish individuals on the team. What happened to playing a role for the team ? Doing whatever it takes to win ?

With this in mind I would love to know the real reason why Lobb was moved to the backline vs GWS recently.

I find it hard to believe any player will dictate where they play other than what is best for the club

 

[geoffjennings79]

With this in mind I would love to know the real reason why Lobb was moved to the backline vs GWS recently.

I find it hard to believe any player will dictate where they play other than what is best for the club

Naughton has photos of Bevo with McComb.
And with Hannan.
And with Gardner.

But the Billy Gowers ones are the ace in the pack!

(Joking btw... English has copies too, and Baz wants copies.)

 

[dogwatch]

He was... until Sam The Real Unicorn Darcy arrived!

STRUD.

It could just stick.

 

[Foxman98]

I'd 100% be trading Baz and English this off season

Like previous people have stated English is a "unicorn" but locking up that much cap space on a position most decent clubs pay 300k-400k for an honest battler is stupid especially considering how often he isn't impactful against them, Sweet has developed into exactly what most clubs need.

Baz is simply a liability now outside of the Essendon game his tackling is pathetic and his kicking is so bad there isn't a word to describe it.

 

[Angak]

No, you're confusing interpretation and 100% truth. They aren't the same thing.

I know Naughton said he wants to play forward (no problem with that) but did he say I am NOT playing in defence under any circumstances?
Managers say all sorts of things to apply pressure. My understanding is that Tim wasn't serious about leaving. (Not sure which one is the truth)
The Baz stuff has just been reported today by a journo looking for clicks.

Yes it could be true for any or all of them. But it might also be untrue. Or the comments might be heavily massaged.

BF has a way of taking casual remarks and converting them into the gospel and a big story. I'm just sceptical until there's more evidence.

But I do agree with you that players need to just suck it up sometimes. The club should be bigger than a few star players. We have suffered for not enforcing that at times over the years.

Naughton as someone who is in the leadership group should say... I'll play wherever to help the team win. This attitude feeds into the rest of the playing group.

 

[geoffjennings79]

STRUD.

It could just stick.

SOLGOD?

Son of Luke, Grandson of Dave.

Or just GOD for short?!

 

[Dog 36]

I'd 100% be trading Baz and English this off season

Like previous people have stated English is a "unicorn" but locking up that much cap space on a position most decent clubs pay 300k-400k for an honest battler is stupid especially considering how often he isn't impactful against them, Sweet has developed into exactly what most clubs need.

Baz is simply a liability now outside of the Essendon game his tackling is pathetic and his kicking is so bad there isn't a word to describe it.

Real dilemma with English because of his cost.

Assume we pay 900K a year for him. If we get a Sweet type for $300K to do 70% of what English brings to the table then we have $600K a year to target another midfielder.

Then we get a good draft pick for Timmy which we can get another good midfielder on draft wages for a couple of years.

So you have potentially two very good midfielders and an okay ruck

I maintain that Sweet may be a better ruck option for this Group not a better ruck than English.

One thing I know is I don't trust the current football department to make decisions on players now.

 

[go the dogs]

Our list is still in good shape. If we had say a Sam Mitchell as coach we would comfortably be in the top 4 pushing for a flag.
If we get a new coach next year (we can hope) we wll still be pushing for a flag.
If we got a stupidly good deal for English you would have to look at it but outside of that i wouldn't be looking at trading any of our big names.
Smith under a new voice next year could be the player everyone thought he was going to be.

 

[adogsfan5]

I know Tim has had a very good season but his last two weeks, against Reeves and Williams, has been simply embarrassing.
All Australian caliber ruckman should be absolutely demolishing those two, unless of course, he is sore. Which I haven’t heard he is.

His game yesterday, was one of the worst I’ve seen from him. Every time contact came his way, he shat himself and just dropped the footy. He had multiple opportunities to bump an eagles player who won the ball first but instead decided to go reaching for it. It was deadset piss weak and he needs to understand that he sets the tone early for us.

 

[adogsfan5]

Biggest guy on the ground, you tell me if you think these efforts are acceptable.

View attachment RecordIt-D20F6670-CB2A-4C92-B786-182B2F2A9EFD.mov

 

[Angak]

Biggest guy on the ground, you tell me if you think these efforts are acceptable.

View attachment 1781270

If you've watched closely all season there are a million examples like this.

 

[hutchy31]

Biggest guy on the ground, you tell me if you think these efforts are acceptable.

View attachment 1781270

It's always been a problem. I never thought he'd make it as an AFL ruck because of it, but I have obviously been proven wrong - he's in the conversation for AA, and is probably the favourite. Problem is, he's getting that award not because of his ruck work, but because of possessions and around the ground work. Now that's fine, but if he can also be outmuscled and intimidated out of the contest by a poorer-skilled but stronger workhorse then he'll never become reliable in clutch situations.

Pyke/Mumford, Hale/McEvoy, Roughead, Nankervis, Vardy/Lycett, Gawn, Stanley. Take Gawn out of there and you've got 10 of the past 11 flag sides without superstar rucks. I know the game has changed now, but arguably without third man up it's been even more important to have a ruck that can stand up physically.

I probably still lean on the side of keeping him, but maybe it's because of sunk cost from the many years we suffered through his development to get to this point. It doesn't seem right to part ways (unless he forces his way out) right as he seems to be arriving as a genuine AFL ruck. But I probably also wouldn't be distraught it we ended up with good draft capital and cap space instead.

 

[Whoyagot]

Big strategic decisions on the horizon for our meagre footy department. The elephant in the room is the Tassie team which means if we rebuild we need to pull the trigger now and get as much top end talent into the club in the next few years as we can before all the high draft picks get sucked up by TAS.

We absolutely do not want to be treading water for the next few years because if so it will take us so long to regenerate the list.

 

[jdz101]

Big strategic decisions on the horizon for our meagre footy department. The elephant in the room is the Tassie team which means if we rebuild we need to pull the trigger now and get as much top end talent into the club in the next few years as we can before all the high draft picks get sucked up by TAS.

We absolutely do not want to be treading water for the next few years because if so it will take us so long to regenerate the list.

Not even close to rebuild territory.

 

[LittleG]

IF it was up to me:

Trade:
Macrae (second rounder at best)
Daniel (second rounder at best)
English (early first rounder)
B Smith (early first rounder)
B Williams to be allowed to leave

Retain:
Sweet with it made clear to him that English is gone and it’s his job.

Bring in:
D Robertson (late token pick)
Tomlinson (late token pick)
Another defensive midfielder

Target in the draft Best Available. Which with 3(4) first round picks, would be a midfielder, a KPD, an outside midfielder (Rogers (GC) and then take Lual after GC match Rogers) and trade out the Lions pick for a future first before Croft gets bid on.

I would be targeting multiple defensive midfielders in the draft with later picks. Perhaps 1 will make it and that would be great.

Bring in a mature backup ruck.

This would restructure our team a lot and really focus on building our KPP stocks to be elite.

Then next year bring in 2 great midfielders with our 2 first rounders.

Yes we will drop down the ladder a few spots BUT we will end up with a better mix. The idea is to let the defensive midfielders and Sweet clog the middle. Then use Bont, Lual and Treloar as more outside players.

Play a rebounding game, rather than a possession dominating game.

 

[bullish23]

Not even close to rebuild territory.

Not sure what you call it, but the midfield needs a reset so it’s capable enough to compete in a couple of seasons when we’ll be stacked for developed KPPs.