Yes.

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Let slip the Blues of war (with apologies to William Shakespeare) (and Sir Francis Bacon, just in case)

But that's the problem we once again have little to no quality experienced mids at the club. Seems to be a problem every year. And now it's worse with no Gibbs. Doesn't take long before we get overwhelmed in the midfield. You've got to wonder if the club will trade picks at the end of the year to bring in a couple experienced but still young quality mids. Dare I say it follow the recent Hawks model.

Someone on BigFooty pointed out how much our list has changed since 2015.

When you actually take a look at the 2015 list, it does remind you how much cleaning out SOS had to do !!!

http://www.blueseum.org/2015+Playing+List

Doesn't mean we shouldn't be expecting to move forward this year... but looking down some of the names in that list, it really refreshes the memory how far we had gone down the wrong path, and puts things into perspective.

LIST CHANGES 2018
OUT
Denis Armfield (retired)
Daniel Gorringe (retired)
Matthew Korcheck (retired)
Kristian Jaksch (delisted)
Liam Sumner (delisted)
Dylan Buckley (delisted)
Ciaran Sheehan (delisted)
Rhys Palmer (retired)
Andrew Gallucci (delisted)
Bryce Gibbs (trade, Adelaide)
Blaine Boekhorst (delisted)
Simon White (delisted)
Billie Smedts (delisted)
IN
Matthew Lobbe (trade, Port Adelaide)
Matthew Kennedy (trade, GWS Giants)
Darcy Lang (trade, Geelong)
Aaron Mullett (delisted free agent from North Melbourne)
National draft
3: Paddy Dow
10: Lochie O’Brien
30: Tom De Koning
70: Angus Schumacher
78: Jarrod Garlett
Rookie draft
3: Matt Shaw

The only one worth noting is Gibbs. Yes we did make some list changes last year but none were in our seniors on any regular basis so we have no missed anyone else. The sad thing is our ins haven't made much of an impact either so far. Doc is a big out but E Curnow has been a good inclusion back from injury.

Body language from Cripps tonight seems a tad frustrated


If Cripps requested a trade to Freo, what do you think we should demand as a fair price?

And if I were Curnow I wouldn’t be resigning in a hurry.

Mullet and o'shea being average and taking games away from kids hurts me. Would rather lose with macreadie, jgm, williamson(injured), polson or actually any other kid.
No point recruiting average big bodied players from other clubs to help you lose.

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"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on". -Winston Churchill.

Soul destroying isn't it, sigh. I was starting to suspect a while ago that our club had no idea how to rebuild. Was livid when they decided that bringing in recycled hacks again last year; instead of picking up young mids like Crowden, Roughsedge, Thompson etc etc. We learned nothing from the Pagan, Malthouse era.

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"Then joked and said he (Jack himself) probably wouldn't even need to play until round 2 against Collingwood."

Maybe when Cripps, Curnow, Weitering, SPS, Dow and the like decide to move on, we’ll finally learn what a winning culture really means - what am I saying, we will just demand more top picks for the next rebuild and blame their parents, wives, family or even weak mentality.

Sorry continue on....

I’m no fan of O’Shea, Thomas, Matt Shaw, Lobbe etc. but to play devils advocate, would replacing them with Macreadie and Polson aid the benefit of those two youngsters? Probably. But would the removal of 2 hardened bodies and experienced minds impact on the development of the youngsters already in the team (SPS, Dow, O’Brien, Garlett, Weitering, Curnow, Fisher, Kennedy, Silvagni, Cuningham)? It may well do.

So how do you balance the need for the development of the guys currently out of the team with the needs of the guys already in it? I suspect the experienced selections are as much about helping the guys already in the team as they are about winning games of football.

I imagine being in the rooms after tonight’s loss would be a horrible feeling for our young guys, it should at least be a little easier with a couple of experienced guys around to have a chat and offer some reassurance.

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@cecil_anderson

You have to start with whether the guy is up to AFL quality befoe arguing ' mature body' over 'kid'.

O'Shea works hard but has appalling kicking and doesn't cover a KPD role. He's a flanker without run and carry and disposal. If you're not AFL quality you shouldn't be in the team to start with - ergo. Macreadie may be a better option.

I think this 'size' v 'age' argument is moot if you don't have 35 AFL quality players on your list.

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Formerly: Ackland the Wonderkid / Army the Wonderkid / quivering mess / molsey / Tony Lynn Fan Club

Put it in a way you might understand - if you have a team of 20 at work, and some guy isn't good enough, you weed him out (you definitely DO NOT recruit him) and give kids a chance. If we fail because of immaturity then fine; if we fail because our senior leaders are holding spots and I can't recruit from the market then that's my fault as leader. And IR laws etc.... i.e. recruiting / trading.

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Formerly: Ackland the Wonderkid / Army the Wonderkid / quivering mess / molsey / Tony Lynn Fan Club

You need 2 book ends either end, a ruckman and the rest is midfield.

Instead SOS has burnt a shit load of pics on to many tall players that are same same.

I don’t think he has done a good job at all rebuilding this at all.

you can argue all you like about our rebuild and how necessary it was. we've still tried to fast track and cut corners by scooping up so many discards from other clubs. thinking we'd somehow put lipstick on other club's pigs. it's peak arrogance.

from here out, it should be an immediate red flag. if another club was willing to let them walk, we should pass.

GWS are laughing at us (as are the rest of the AFL) with how many discards SOS has obsessively picked up, and haven't worked out. most outside of marchbank, aren't even in the ballpark of being AFL players.

i also take issue with our development. we are an AFL worst at developing players, and this is an attribute we've had for nearly 2 decades.

At the time I was in favour of the Gibbs trade however in hindsight we probably should have kept him. Probably should have gone harder for Devon Smith as well.
Then again even if we kept Gibbs we still we would probably still be winless, however would have been more competitive which creates a better environment for developing our young players.

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There is no footy god

GWS won the Jaksch trade.
We won the Marchbank trade.
The other trade was pick #30 (from memory) for Plowman, Phillips, Lamb and Sumner. All things considered I think this was a reasonable deal for us.

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There is no footy god

i dunno, without looking up that draft, i think i woulda preferred the #30 pick.

phillips, lamb & sumner are deadwood. plowman might be okay, but looks a long way off it right now.

Marchbank cost us pick 20 and Tuohy, make no mistake I like Marchbank but we paid overs.


Plowman, Phillips, Lamb and Sumner are list cloggers that GWS did not want.

A few of us have called Plowman as a bust quite early and were roundly criticised for it - he is being found out now and few are now climbing on the wagon.

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"Hence you will not say that Greeks fight like heroes but that heroes fight like Greeks"?

Winston Churchill

The Plowman, Philips, Lamb Sumner deal is like buying a Groupon deal for a weeks holdiday in Adelaide, and paying an extra $50 to extend your stay for another week, whichever way you look at it it’s a waste of $50 and you’re still going to have a crap time.

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"Hence you will not say that Greeks fight like heroes but that heroes fight like Greeks"?

Winston Churchill

A better explanation of my point would be; you have a team of 20. 1 of them is not a strong performer as an individual, but he makes the team stronger as a collective. Do you keep him? I’d expect yes. You’d keep him until someone who was equally as good for the team, but also stronger as an individual, could be found.

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@cecil_anderson