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

[Libbaaaa]

Okay hypothetical, say we kept Dunkley, Smith, Macrae. We can play all of them in the middle with Bont, Libba, Treloar and Richards yes? 6-6-6 be damned.

 

[Thunderoad]

Do they have any idea what they’re taking about?

On Triple M's midweek rub today, Dale Thomas started going on about Bailey Smith being a free agent before Barrett and Montagna had to pull him and let him know that Smith was just out of contract.

It's probably the biggest story in footy over the last 24 hours and this 'personality' was happy to talk about it despite having clearly not done a single second of preparation.

 

[cherrypie]

Wow... Lloyd's comments were plain stupid. Apparently Dunkley was a ruckman when he left lol.

He definitely was. The 2 hitouts speak for themselves

 

[The Inbetweener]

Okay hypothetical, say we kept Dunkley, Smith, Macrae. We can play all of them in the middle with Bont, Libba, Treloar and Richards yes? 6-6-6 be damned.

In hindsight it probably wasn’t good list management loading up on the midfield, and unfortunately we’ve lost our 2 youngest in Dunkley and Smith.

Hope we don’t make the same mistake loading up with key forwards. Im becoming less certain that the three key forwards is the best set up.

 

[perro_loco]

Nobel to GCS Daniel to Collingwood 26 to us

I want to say thank you to Mcrae and Daniel. But with those types of players we don't win a premiership. Too slow and meek. The sooner we bring fast running and skilled players the better. Also a new coach would help.

 

[Mojorisin]

I want to say thank you to Mcrae and Daniel. But with those types of players we don't win a premiership. Too slow and meek. The sooner we bring fast running and skilled players the better. Also a new coach would help.

Both have a premiership medal as does the coach.

 

[perro_loco]

Both have a premiership medal as does the coach.

Thanks for the memories, but time has past them. I want more Premierships not memories. We should; be like Hawthorn, with a win at all costs mentality. Daniel was a liability in the final and Mcrae did not make an impact. Trade them for really good value if they want to go.

 

[Dogs_R_Us]

Think I’m also with the consensus here… no need for more than 1 year for McNeil. He’s not going anywhere, and would be good to have the flexibility to delist next year if required, either in terms of form, new coach or simply flexibility on list spots.

It’s not actually a consensus - quite a few approve of the two years

 

[Ash1337]

McNeil & Duyrea locks away the ones we knew are going on next season. Hope for Garcia to re-sign.

Houston makes sense to as a wing but not sure if he wants to play wing or inside mid. I believe part of his leaving is he's not playing in the midfield. Would be great to beat the blues & Pies in getting a premium player of Houston.

 

[perro_loco]

McNeil & Duyrea locks away the ones we knew are going on next season. Hope for Garcia to re-sign.

Houston makes sense to as a wing but not sure if he wants to play wing or inside mid. I believe part of his leaving is he's not playing in the midfield. Would be great to beat the blues & Pies in getting a premium player of Houston.

I think that both Garcia and West are ok. Can they make a change in a final like the one last week. Not sure. They look small and not fast enough. We need a couple of very fast mids and wings. that makes us powerful with our forwards and tall backs.

 

[Dogs Rule]

Trying to think back to when the Hoks threw out half their team as Mitchell came in and if there was as much media hyperventilating and catastrophising.

 

[DueWest]

Yikes.

Poulter, Baker and Scott got two year deals and were made irrelevant very quickly into them.

Gardner got a 3 year extension one year early. This was the first year of his extension and he played 0 AFL games, and found himself exiled to full forward for Footscray. All in all since signing the deal at the start of 2023 he’s played 10 AFL games compared to 17 VFL games lol.

It’s not about salary cap pressure, these guys would/should be thrilled to be making league minimum. That’s fine. List spots are valuable though, and there’s nothing wrong with being a bit more ruthless with fringe players.

Do we genuinely believe McNeil has some ceiling he’s yet to hit? Were we at risk of losing him to competition if we offered him a one year deal? Is he going to be useful in 2026? Because if he’s getting games then we’re in some deep shit. If he’s getting games next season it means we’ve failed to address a positional weakness.

Bramble getting the one year deal was good! Roarke Smith

37

Roarke Smith

Age

28

Ht

184cm

Wt

82kg

Pos.

Mid

Career

Season

Last 5

D

11.7

3star

K

5.6

2star

HB

6.1

4star

M

2.4

3star

T

1.7

4star

CL

0.4

2star

No current season stats available

D

12.0

3star

K

5.8

3star

HB

6.2

4star

M

3.0

3star

T

1.6

4star

CL

0.2

2star

made an entire career of being a fringe player on one year contracts.

We’re denying ourselves list flexibility for no real reason other than that we usually overrate these players, and then quickly cast them aside.

Good post. I think eventually if you continuously used the one year strategy with those types the ones who show a bit would be picked off by other teams.

Having said that Im surprised McNeil got 2, he’s was never going anywhere else

 

[Anja_Nees]

“Bailey is disgruntled, why would the dogs play him mainly half forward?”

…Played his best footy in the finals there.

Media have no idea.

And which of Bont, Treloar and Libba was supposed to be making way for these guys so they could get more time in their favourite position?

 

[Snarls Barkley]

I think McNeil was pretty solid after coming back into the side. I think he can be unfairly lumped with Vandermeer who had a poor season by any metric (until he gets a scandalously high B+F finish and we start getting VDM actually had a great year apology posts).

McNeil did some good things and I think it was quite noticeable at times. He was right up there with West and Weightman for pressure acts and tackles. He was second in the competition for crumbing possessions which surprised me. Really solid contested possession numbers (6.2 per game) and a surprising amount of intercept possessions (2.5).

Unfortunately he undoes most of this good work by not being clean or clinical when the ball is in hand. Would have been close to the worst in the league in front of goal, just six goals from 17 shots and there was some real gimmes amongst them. Still probably fumbles too much for my liking as well.

And for that reason he probably should only be on one year deals at the moment. Four seasons and 54 games in now, it’s sort of what you expect he will always be. Its mistakes you accept from first and second year players but you expect them to be more ready for the AFL this far in. Deserved to get a contract for next season, his good was beneficial, but if he doesn’t clean up his use when he gets it, its only a matter of time before he gets replaced by a more dangerous player.

 

[Anja_Nees]

In hindsight it probably wasn’t good list management loading up on the midfield, and unfortunately we’ve lost our 2 youngest in Dunkley and Smith.

Hope we don’t make the same mistake loading up with key forwards. Im becoming less certain that the three key forwards is the best set up.

It wasn’t great in the final but I think it generally worked, particularly once Jamarra hit form. One of them is a backup ruck anyway and a lot of sides have two KPFs and a second ruck.

The problem is when one of them (in the final, obviously Jamarra) puts in a low energy performance. If it’s going to work they all need to put in effort to make sure we’re not giving up territory easily.

I think the best way to improve is to find players who can do VDM and McNeil’s job who can also hit the scoreboard.

JUH and Darcy averaged around 2 goals per game and Naughton 1.5, and JUH left a lot of goals out there.

 

[Anja_Nees]

I think McNeil was pretty solid after coming back into the side. I think he can be unfairly lumped with Vandermeer who had a poor season by any metric (until he gets a scandalously high B+F finish and we start getting VDM actually had a great year apology posts).

McNeil did some good things and I think it was quite noticeable at times. He was right up there with West and Weightman for pressure acts and tackles. He was second in the competition for crumbing possessions which surprised me. Really solid contested possession numbers (6.2 per game) and a surprising amount of intercept possessions (2.5).

Unfortunately he undoes most of this good work by not being clean or clinical when the ball is in hand. Would have been close to the worst in the league in front of goal, just six goals from 17 shots and there was some real gimmes amongst them. Still probably fumbles too much for my liking as well.

And for that reason he probably should only be on one year deals at the moment. Four seasons and 54 games in now, it’s sort of what you expect he will always be. Its mistakes you accept from first and second year players but you expect them to be more ready for the AFL this far in. Deserved to get a contract for next season, his good was beneficial, but if he doesn’t clean up his use when he gets it, its only a matter of time before he gets replaced by a more dangerous player.

Happy for him to keep going obviously. The big worry is that he consistently seems to struggle with making the distance in set shots over about 40m.

I think both he and VDM need to do a lot better offensively and are vulnerable for that reason, but I also know why they’re there.

 

[Dogs Rule]

The issue with Smith is typical of the younger generation now. Don't work through it and get better, earn trust and respect and win your place back, just say 'I'm not getting what I want or deserve, I'm off'.

 

[Mofra]

I think part of the problem is that in any one game we seen to blame the guys who are taking up 10% of the cap and not expecting the big money guys to perform.

Talking about VDM, McNeill, Harmes in the final? Marra earns more than these guys combined and was terrible in the final. All of our mids got their arses handed to them. And let's not talk about Timmy.

I'd be tempted to rookie Pruess and get him to batter Timmy all preseason as a 'harden the F up' exercise.
I'm really worried about the "end" bring near for Libba and Jones but at least we can throw kids to the wolves if that happens - Sanders and Buss. Are they completely ready? No, but they may develop quicker if given more opportunity.

I'd seriously chase a small forward hard though. Konstanty please. Actually tackles at VFL level and that game style should transfer to AFL pretty well.

 

[Scragger77]

Apparently Macrae annoyed Harmes was picked over him in the final.

Doesn’t sound like we are pushing him out either so I wonder if a trade will get done.

I didn’t like it either

 

[Doggies_13]

I don’t get the Houston interest with the price placed on him. Half back is probably up there with tall forwards as the position we least need to fill. If our preferred structure is 3 talls 3 smalls and a rotation how much does Houston actually improve us?

He basically just replaces one of Bramble or Duryea as Dale and Freijah should be locks in our back 6. Clearly he is a better player than bramble and duryea but we were already one of the best teams going from defensive 50 to generating an inside 50 so how does he actually improve us.

Surely we need to be spending assets which this year are limited, on our midfield and wings as priority one and half forwards/small forwards as priority two?

 

[Unorth]

I'd be tempted to rookie Pruess and get him to batter Timmy all preseason as a 'harden the F up' exercise.

I think we’ve tried this. Stef Martin was basically a player coach. He battled against a much more physically imposing Sweet for awhile. We brought on Lade. We have put so much into Tim, and it’s cost us a lot more games than it’s won.

I fear we have invested a lot of time, money and thrown matchups in ruck-Schache. Not sure Tim is going to improve where we need him to, it’s between the ears. What we’ve seen is what we’re going to be getting and generously paying for the next five years.

 

[bobs head soup]

The issue with Smith is typical of the younger generation now. Don't work through it and get better, earn trust and respect and win your place back, just say 'I'm not getting what I want or deserve, I'm off'.

Thankfully all the other players are from a different generation.

 

[Mofra]

I don’t get the Houston interest with the price placed on him. Half back is probably up there with tall forwards as the position we least need to fill. If our preferred structure is 3 talls 3 smalls and a rotation how much does Houston actually improve us?

He basically just replaces one of Bramble or Duryea as Dale and Freijah should be locks in our back 6. Clearly he is a better player than bramble and duryea but we were already one of the best teams going from defensive 50 to generating an inside 50 so how does he actually improve us.

Surely we need to be spending assets which this year are limited, on our midfield and wings as priority one and half forwards/small forwards as priority two?

He wouldn't play half back - he'd slot into a wing and being the best inside 50 kick in the AFL he probably makes any team a 2 goal better side.

It's a hell of a price to pay though and a huge risk.

 

[Al dente]

Yikes.

Poulter, Baker and Scott got two year deals and were made irrelevant very quickly into them.

Gardner got a 3 year extension one year early. This was the first year of his extension and he played 0 AFL games, and found himself exiled to full forward for Footscray. All in all since signing the deal at the start of 2023 he’s played 10 AFL games compared to 17 VFL games lol.

It’s not about salary cap pressure, these guys would/should be thrilled to be making league minimum. That’s fine. List spots are valuable though, and there’s nothing wrong with being a bit more ruthless with fringe players.

Do we genuinely believe McNeil has some ceiling he’s yet to hit? Were we at risk of losing him to competition if we offered him a one year deal? Is he going to be useful in 2026? Because if he’s getting games then we’re in some deep shit. If he’s getting games next season it means we’ve failed to address a positional weakness.

Bramble getting the one year deal was good! Roarke Smith made an entire career of being a fringe player on one year contracts.

We’re denying ourselves list flexibility for no real reason other than that we usually overrate these players, and then quickly cast them aside.

I think we’ve tried this. Stef Martin was basically a player coach. He battled against a much more physically imposing Sweet for awhile. We brought on Lade. We have put so much into Tim, and it’s cost us a lot more games than it’s won.

I fear we have invested a lot of time, money and thrown matchups in ruck-Schache. Not sure Tim is going to improve where we need him to, it’s between the ears. What we’ve seen is what we’re going to be getting and generously paying for the next five years.

i also fear he's one more concussion away from retirement

 

[Zim^zuM]

]

And which of Bont, Treloar and Libba was supposed to be making way for these guys so they could get more time in their favourite position?

And they're old. Would have thought we would be appealing to young midfielder to take over