Molly wrote:
It wasn't good, but you guys are all kidding yourselves if you thought we were going to win a flag this season. You just had to watch the Crows game to see that wasn't going to happen. So in the end, the pain of losing and going out was bound to happen in this finals series somewhere along the line. I actually think winning last night, and then b!tchslapping the Dogs next week like we usually do was going to mask a lot of the issues we have.
In my mind, the biggest issue is list structure. After the Hawthorn game we knew we had a weak bottom 6-8 on our list. If you look at last night's game, the only blokes in that 6-8 who had been weeded out from the Hawthorn match were Bentley and Setanta. And I include Setanta in that list out of kindness to the MC, as he was possibly missing because of injury rather than as a general assessment of where he is at. So basically, we are saying that the bottom 6 is holding us back after the Hawks game, and there is no change at all by season's end.
What the club needs going forward is development from Yarran, Austin, O'Keefe, Robinson, and Browne so that they can fill at least 5 of those bottom 6 positions on the team sheet every week. We made some inroads this year through the development of Joseph, Armfield, and Hammer, and we'll need more of that next year. We also need Grigg to get back to something like what he was last year.
In terms of trading, the last thing the club needs to do is to go after a big name player. We need every single draft pick we have available. We need to add to that list of Yarran etc with a further 4-5 young players who can slot into this list.
What we should be doing though is looking at our 2nd and 3rd tier and working out how we can do player for player swaps with players at other clubs who can fill structural holes on list. So we need to identify where we have a surplus of a particular type of player, pick the most tradeable, and swap for a type of player we don't have who is at a similar level at an opposition club. I think someone has identified an in and under midfielder, and I would think this is exactly the sort of player we should target in this kind of swap deal. We need to look at trades as win-win... we're not trying to stiff arm the opposition, we're trying to give them a player who will be serviceable for them and who is surplus to requirements for us, and we need to get a serviceable player in return.I won't comment on coaching developments as I don't claim to know enough about the off-field situation and how it should be working. So my comments only relate to what needs to be done with cattle. The two go hand-in-hand though, and given the equitable playing field introduced by the AFL the battle for premierships is now a battle of ideas and nous, so we need to work out whether our efforts are being maximised in this area.
Oh... and to the guy who said we needed Rich rather than Yarran because he would have won us the game last night. Fair dinkum, I don't know where to start so I won't.
It's a very astute point you make Molly.
I'm leaving alone the topic of trading for KPP at either end of the park as I think it's a different kettle of fish. We have a surplus of outside midfielders, we need another inside midfielder. The most
attractive second tier midfielders to other clubs on our list are Carrazzo, Grigg, Russell, Simpson and Walker.
Carrots bleeds Navy Blue and IMO should be VC next year. Simmo is in the same boat. After all the hard work put into creating some leadership in this age group, do we really want to gut it?
Walker is another who seemingly loves the club, and after years of perpetual injuries do we really want to trade this talented kid now he can actually get on the park?
Grigg is perhaps an option, but really he is just a pup and could develop into that role given time. And if anyone so much as thinks of trading Russell I'm going to come and burn down their houses.
I am by no means shit-canning your philosophy Molly, I agree with it whole-heartedly, just presenting the obvious list-management difficulties we have. Unlike Adelaide and Brisbane, our veteran players, bar Fevola, are not first-tier players anymore, nor are they IMHO great leaders. They are worth nothing to other clubs on the market and very little to us, aside from being slightly better than younger middle-tier players. We are in many ways stuck because we can't trade off veterans who aren't pulling their weight, nor can we make Fev a few years younger to develop along with the rest of the side.
Oh and Ratts can't coach. Obviously.
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