List Mgmt. Mitch Brown and Joel Hamling delisted with Hunt

Aug 17, 2006
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regardless, your assumption that he suffered no season de-railing injuries is incorrect as his 12 games in 2012 & 13 games in 2013 due to those injuries indicate.
Either way, those in the know have made the right calls and we move on to better things in the coming years.

1. It isn't an assumption; it's a fact.
2. What I actually wrote was career derailing. I'm talking Matthew Egan, Bowen Lockwood, Jason Snell, Luke Molan, Marcus Drum...guys having to give it away in their early-mid 20s because they literally can not get on the park (and most of whom actually did play senior footy). Not Joel Hamling.
3. I see no evidence that he was ever close to a senior game either before or after any of his injuries, even after he played every game in the VFL this season.
 

Footy Smarts

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I see it completely differently, to be honest. Geelong could have made a call last year on several of these players that they have subsequently delisted. Personally, I would have put Cowan on the rookie list after 2013, if I was to keep him at all. Burbury wasn't exactly a no-brainer pick to be elevated, Schroder had played five games in three seasons, Hamling wasn't looking likely to play AFL anytime in the foreseeable future. These aren't Captain Hindsight suggestions; these are all things that were being offered as alternatives to decisions like offering Chapman an insulting deal to play on in 2014/delisting him and delaying the Blicavs elevation (wonder what he's thinking now about Burbury being elevated ahead of him at the end of last year).

But Chapman didn't go because we preferred to keep those guys on the list, he went because we preferred to play other guys in the first team. All the guys you mentioned (Cowan, Schroder, Hamling and Burbury) played a grand total of 5 games between them. Burbury was the only one who played and even then it was basically only because of injury (McCarthy, Smedts, Motlop and Christensen were all unavailable at the time). Chapman went because we couldn't guarantee him game time. Getting rid of guys who were unlikely to get games (barring a massive improvement) wouldn't have helped that fact.
 
Aug 17, 2006
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But Chapman didn't go because we preferred to keep those guys on the list, he went because we preferred to play other guys in the first team. All the guys you mentioned (Cowan, Schroder, Hamling and Burbury) played a grand total of 5 games between them. Burbury was the only one who played and even then it was basically only because of injury (McCarthy, Smedts, Motlop and Christensen were all unavailable at the time). Chapman went because we couldn't guarantee him game time. Getting rid of guys who were unlikely to get games (barring a massive improvement) wouldn't have helped that fact.

Wow. Couldn't disagree more, sorry. Chapman had been an automatic best 22 player for Geelong for well over a decade at the time, he'd probably been in Geelong's top eight or so players in 2012-13 when he'd been available, and he would have been an absolute certainty to walk into the senior team throughout 2014...provided the games were being distributed on merit.

Geelong kept others ahead of Chapman, because it felt that he only had 1-2 years left (which is fair enough) and it had to find a replacement from the fringe players that it decided to retain. Many of whom may have just been outlasted by old Chappy as AFL players.
 
Aug 17, 2006
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it isn't fact though, it's just your opinion and I strongly disagree with it because I consider missing 3 months halfway through your season a severe derailment. Regardless of how you wish to flip it.

Of course it's a fact. Joel Hamling's injuries have not derailed his career, because he played every game this year and still wasn't given a go. The injuries weren't chronic things and nor was there any indication that he was anywhere near a senior game prior to them occurring.
 
As far as I'm concerned, the changes at the end of 2013 gave the impression that the club needed to transition...but just the older players. And this year's changes suggests that the club got the decision on several of the players that it retained (or even upgraded) wrong.
Yeah, but saying 'they got it wrong on certain players' is different from 'it doesn't look like a consistent purpose is there.' Certainly I don't see a contradiction in action between 2013 and 2014 (2012 is a different matter), and you haven't really outlined one - they said 'we have to transition the list and gives games to younger players to see what they've got', they largely did that, and have now made decisions (one way or another) on some of those players.
 

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Norm Smith Medallist
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At the end of 2013, we sat on the fence with a number of fringe younger players (and I'd argue that was partly due to not giving them enough opportunities at senior level that year, to give a better indication of whether they were up to it), instead choosing to dump ex-premiership players. And of these fringe younger players, how many actually enhanced their reputations in 2014? I'd say just Horlin-Smith, Bews, Walker and Hartman.

As far as I'm concerned, the changes at the end of 2013 gave the impression that the club needed to transition...but just the older players. And this year's changes suggests that the club got the decision on several of the players that it retained (or even upgraded) wrong.

You're equating 2 different issues.

The first issue we faced was how to get game time into talented youngsters. The only way to do that was to not play older guys. So 4 senior players were tapped on the shoulder. Because of that, fringe guys like Horlin-Smith, Caddy and Murdoch played virtually every game when available this year. All 3 of those last year were dropped at certain times. I reckon guys like McCarthy, Vardy, Kersten and Smedts were in the same boat where the MC would've liked to give them 10+ games but unfortunately all of them suffered injuries that stifled their years.

The second issue is whether keeping our not so talented youngsters was worth it. Should we have kept Burbury, Schroder, Stringer, etc for this year? In hindsight probably not. But if you'd delisted them then you still wouldn't have solved the other issue of how to give the more highly rated youngsters game time.

So rather than having one choice of seniors Vs fringe juniors (Schoder, Stringer, etc) we had 2 practically unrelated choices. They were:

Seniors Vs Talented youngsters. Last year we chose to discard some senior players to ensure young players could get game time. I'd say the improvement in Horlin-Smith, Caddy, Guthrie and Walker as well as the exposure given to Hartman, Bews, McCarthy, Thurlow, etc meant this was the right decision. Sure Chapman and Pods had good years but guys like Horlin-Smith, Kersten and McCarthy could easily have walked away if they hadn't got the game time they did this year. Personally I think that's the right decision.

The other decision was:

Fringe youngsters Vs Late Draft Picks. Here we decided upgrading Burbury and keeping Stringer, Schroder, etc was better than having more late draft picks. In hindsight maybe it was the wrong decision. But then again maybe those guys weren't in the gun and some or all of Bews, Walker and Hartman would've been first in line to be delisted. Of course of the group of youngsters we kept a whole bunch were never going to make it. Would we have correctly predicted last year who to keep and who to delist? I don't know since all of Bews, Walker and Hartman's names came up in discussions of possible delistees on this board. Knowing what we know now it would've been disappointing to delist one of them last year.
 
Aug 17, 2006
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Yeah, but saying 'they got it wrong on certain players' is different from 'it doesn't look like a consistent purpose is there.' Certainly I don't see a contradiction in action between 2013 and 2014 (2012 is a different matter), and you haven't really outlined one - they said 'we have to transition the list and gives games to younger players to see what they've got', they largely did that, and have now made decisions (one way or another) on some of those players.

2012/13 (McIntosh, Rivers, Caddy, just two draft picks): Reloading, have another crack at a flag over the next two years.
2013/14: Out with the old, give the young players ownership of the team.
2014/15: Dump several of the younger players, after finding out they're not up to it.

Geelong upgraded Burbury and re-signed Hamling at the end of last year, for starters. That doesn't seem very consistent to me. What has changed in Geelong's assessment of these two players in 12 months?
 

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Wow. Couldn't disagree more, sorry. Chapman had been an automatic best 22 player for Geelong for well over a decade at the time, he'd probably been in Geelong's top eight or so players in 2012-13 when he'd been available, and he would have been an absolute certainty to walk into the senior team throughout 2014...provided the games were being distributed on merit.

Geelong kept others ahead of Chapman, because it felt that he only had 1-2 years left (which is fair enough) and it had to find a replacement from the fringe players that it decided to retain. Many of whom may have just been outlasted by old Chappy as AFL players.

That shouldn't have read as though we thought we had better players, what we wanted to do was give opportunities to our youngsters. We got rid of Chappy because we wanted to give other guys game time instead, not because we thought he was completely finished. That's why mentioned the 10 game idea since we could then both get games in to our talented youngsters while also getting Chappy's best work. If we kept Chappy for 22 games this year then somebody like Horlin-Smith would've missed a lot of games which the club didn't want happening.

But if we'd delisted Schroder and kept Chappy that wouldn't have solved the problem. We'd still have Horlin-Smith (or somebody similar) being prevented from getting game time because Chappy's playing every week.

With the senior players last year it was all about opening up places in our best 22 to give the talented youngsters the game time they needed to prevent them walking out for more opportunities. You don't open up places in your best 22 by getting rid of guys who aren't getting a game.
 
Nov 12, 2002
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2012/13 (McIntosh, Rivers, Caddy, just two draft picks): Reloading, have another crack at a flag over the next two years.
2013/14: Out with the old, give the young players ownership of the team.
2014/15: Dump several of the younger players, after finding out they're not up to it.

Geelong upgraded Burbury and re-signed Hamling at the end of last year, for starters. That doesn't seem very consistent to me. What has changed in Geelong's assessment of these two players in 12 months?

That's what really is puzzling. At times the club seems absolutely schizophrenic to me the way players are managed and selected.
 
Nov 12, 2002
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All I can add is....

In Wells We Trust.

It had a far more elegant ring to it when we were winning premierships. Now, not so much.

We chopped not one but TWO first selection draft picks today. If Wells got those wrong (and he did) then he might get this year's wrong too.

What's becoming very clear - neither Stephen Wells nor anyone else at Geelong is perfect. They can, have, and do make mistakes. Admitting it doesn't actually mean you love the club less.
 
Nov 12, 2002
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That shouldn't have read as though we thought we had better players, what we wanted to do was give opportunities to our youngsters. We got rid of Chappy because we wanted to give other guys game time instead, not because we thought he was completely finished. That's why mentioned the 10 game idea since we could then both get games in to our talented youngsters while also getting Chappy's best work. If we kept Chappy for 22 games this year then somebody like Horlin-Smith would've missed a lot of games which the club didn't want happening.

That would make sense if Chapman was struggling last year. He wasn't; on actual output he was one of our better veterans. He was better than Bartel, he was better than Corey, and he was better than Kelly. He was certainly better than Kelly this year.

If the idea was really to get rid of a senior player to free up a spot, Kelly would have been the obvious one, and not Chapman. The way it played out suggests they wanted him gone.
 
Nov 12, 2002
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either way, again, the club has made the right decisions, you can't possibly see how we could have kept so many talls with the recent upgrades that just came in.
Simpson, McIntosh, Mackie, Lonergan, Kolodjashnij, Kersten, Hawkins, Walker, Stanley, Blicavs, Brown, Rivers, Taylor, Vardy, Hamling, Toohey . . . they had to be cut.
You could even make a case we are still a little too tall but given nine are already in the starting 22 with Walker & Kersten beginning to make inroads this year, we can now give Kolodjashnij, Walker, Kersten & Vardy ample time in the seniors next year.

We don't know that yet. We can't know that. The proof will be how the team fares in the 2015-2017 seasons.

Looking at the list even with the omissions, as far as I'm concerned the team is still too tall. No matter how much people want to believe otherwise, they can't all play. So let's go through them, barring injury, Lonergan, Taylor, Rivers and Mackie will all play Round 1. If McIntosh is fit he'll play. Hawkins will play. That leaves 1 ruck spot, and 1-2 tall forward spots, to accommodate Simpson, Clark, Stanley, Vardy, Walker, Kersten and Blicavs. My guess is Clark, Stanley and Vardy will play, Simpson, Walker and Kersten will be in the VFL, and Blicavs will be put on a wing.
 

Trent Conheady

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Cunnington was a top 5 pick, Stanley was pick 21 this year, and pick 47 in his draft year.
Rhys stanley, Pick 60 ->Geelong
Pick 21 -> St Kilda

Levi Greenwood -> Collingwood
Pick 25 -> North melbourne

I hope that makes my post clearer. I do apologise if it didn't make sense.
 
Aug 17, 2006
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You're equating 2 different issues.

Only if you consider 'Paul Chapman being on an AFL club's list' and 'Paul Chapman being an automatic inclusion in that team's best 22, unless he's injured, had an unprecedented form slump, or been kidnapped' to be different issues.

The first issue we faced was how to get game time into talented youngsters. The only way to do that was to not play older guys. So 4 senior players were tapped on the shoulder. Because of that, fringe guys like Horlin-Smith, Caddy and Murdoch played virtually every game when available this year. All 3 of those last year were dropped at certain times. I reckon guys like McCarthy, Vardy, Kersten and Smedts were in the same boat where the MC would've liked to give them 10+ games but unfortunately all of them suffered injuries that stifled their years.

Of course, Geelong could have been getting senior games into many of these players in several of the unimportant games (particularly at Simonds Stadium) that it had once a top four spot was virtually assured.

The second issue is whether keeping our not so talented youngsters was worth it. Should we have kept Burbury, Schroder, Stringer, etc for this year? In hindsight probably not. But if you'd delisted them then you still wouldn't have solved the other issue of how to give the more highly rated youngsters game time.

Didn't say anything about delisting them all.

So rather than having one choice of seniors Vs fringe juniors (Schoder, Stringer, etc) we had 2 practically unrelated choices. They were:

Seniors Vs Talented youngsters. Last year we chose to discard some senior players to ensure young players could get game time. I'd say the improvement in Horlin-Smith, Caddy, Guthrie and Walker as well as the exposure given to Hartman, Bews, McCarthy, Thurlow, etc meant this was the right decision. Sure Chapman and Pods had good years but guys like Horlin-Smith, Kersten and McCarthy could easily have walked away if they hadn't got the game time they did this year. Personally I think that's the right decision.

I had absolutely no problem with any of the older players departing...except Chapman. The others were either already out of the best 22 (West, Hunt), barely hanging on (Podsiadly), or they made the decision themself (Corey). Corey would have been a pretty difficult decision as well, if the club had to make it. So Chapman is the only one I would have kept. With the benefit of hindsight, we'd have to consider keeping Pods too, but at the time, I thought it was the logical decision and I'm still happy enough with it as being the best thing for all concerned. So, with just Chapman to make room for on the 2014 list, there's any number of ways he could have been retained and plenty of opportunities for younger players to get the required games into them, with some strategic rotation (and I'm not talking some '8-12 games for Chapman' BS).

The other decision was:

Fringe youngsters Vs Late Draft Picks. Here we decided upgrading Burbury and keeping Stringer, Schroder, etc was better than having more late draft picks. In hindsight maybe it was the wrong decision. But then again maybe those guys weren't in the gun and some or all of Bews, Walker and Hartman would've been first in line to be delisted. Of course of the group of youngsters we kept a whole bunch were never going to make it. Would we have correctly predicted last year who to keep and who to delist? I don't know since all of Bews, Walker and Hartman's names came up in discussions of possible delistees on this board. Knowing what we know now it would've been disappointing to delist one of them last year.

I really don't see how they're different. If those players (or just a couple of them) aren't on the list, presumably they'd be obliged to keep Chapman. And if Chapman stays and is healthy, it seems ridiculous that they wouldn't play him. I can't remember exactly what my suggestions were at the end of last year, but I'm pretty sure it was along the lines of rookie listing Cowan, delisting Schroder, probably not upgrading Burbury, upgrading Blicavs and Walker (perhaps looking for interest from other clubs in Walker), keeping Chapman and retaining Sheringham as cheap depth on the rookie list. In fairness, I was at about 'put up or shut up' time with Bews and he was outstanding in 2014, but I don't think I was ready to cut him.
 

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Norm Smith Medallist
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It had a far more elegant ring to it when we were winning premierships. Now, not so much.

We chopped not one but TWO first selection draft picks today. If Wells got those wrong (and he did) then he might get this year's wrong too.

What's becoming very clear - neither Stephen Wells nor anyone else at Geelong is perfect. They can, have, and do make mistakes. Admitting it doesn't actually mean you love the club less.

The great thing about Wells is that his mistakes are clearly outweighed by his successes, far more so than any other recruiter in the business. Most clubs look at his mistakes with envy as can be seen by what happens to our delisted players.

Who was the last player we delisted who wanted to continue their career but wasn't picked up? We've had guys like Simpkin, Gillies, Byrnes, West, Hunt and Stephenson all picked up in the last couple of years when we drew a line through them. Chances are it'll happen again this year with most of our discards finding new homes. If guys we delist are deemed good enough by other clubs, the players that we actually keep have to be pretty good.
 

Footy Smarts

Norm Smith Medallist
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Only if you consider 'Paul Chapman being on an AFL club's list' and 'Paul Chapman being an automatic inclusion in that team's best 22, unless he's injured, had an unprecedented form slump, or been kidnapped' to be different issues.



Of course, Geelong could have been getting senior games into many of these players in several of the unimportant games (particularly at Simonds Stadium) that it had once a top four spot was virtually assured.



Didn't say anything about delisting them all.



I had absolutely no problem with any of the older players departing...except Chapman. The others were either already out of the best 22 (West, Hunt), barely hanging on (Podsiadly), or they made the decision themself (Corey). Corey would have been a pretty difficult decision as well, if the club had to make it. So Chapman is the only one I would have kept. With the benefit of hindsight, we'd have to consider keeping Pods too, but at the time, I thought it was the logical decision and I'm still happy enough with it as being the best thing for all concerned. So, with just Chapman to make room for on the 2014 list, there's any number of ways he could have been retained and plenty of opportunities for younger players to get the required games into them, with some strategic rotation (and I'm not talking some '8-12 games for Chapman' BS).



I really don't see how they're different. If those players (or just a couple of them) aren't on the list, presumably they'd be obliged to keep Chapman. And if Chapman stays and is healthy, it seems ridiculous that they wouldn't play him. I can't remember exactly what my suggestions were at the end of last year, but I'm pretty sure it was along the lines of rookie listing Cowan, delisting Schroder, probably not upgrading Burbury, upgrading Blicavs and Walker (perhaps looking for interest from other clubs in Walker), keeping Chapman and retaining Sheringham as cheap depth on the rookie list. In fairness, I was at about 'put up or shut up' time with Bews and he was outstanding in 2014, but I don't think I was ready to cut him.

All this is fine but if we keep Chapman then he plays the vast majority of games. Personally I'd prefer the club to be without Chapman now than be without somebody like Horlin-Smith since they up and leave because they don't get games.

Also Corey's decision was made by the club. Balme admitted as much on radio saying that Corey would've liked to go on one more but the club told him it was time.
 
Aug 17, 2006
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All this is fine but if we keep Chapman then he plays the vast majority of games. Personally I'd prefer the club to be without Chapman now than be without somebody like Horlin-Smith since they up and leave because they don't get games.

Also Corey's decision was made by the club. Balme admitted as much on radio saying that Corey would've liked to go on one more but the club told him it was time.

You can find a full season's worth of games without much trouble at all, by sharing the load between our over 25 players being strategically rotated throughout the season and playing somewhere between 18-21 of the 24 games on offer, not including genuine/serious injuries (i.e. more than two weeks). As it was, Hawkins and Selwood played every game, Bartel, Kelly, Varcoe, Taylor and Lonergan all missed one and Enright, Mackie and Rivers missed two. Give those ten vets an extra two RDOs each and there's 20 games right there. And Chapman said he was fine with something like 16-18 game H&A season and that's actually what he was aiming for. He just got his nose out of joint a bit with the suggestion that he'd spend over half the season out of the senior side and presumably in the VFL.
 

cynical

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Don't know what the club is thinking.

Getting rid of our young fringe players + Varcoe and losing Christensen, not pushing out any oldies, keeping all our long-term injured players, picking up Mitch (how long since he played) Clark and Stanley.

If we planned on using so many picks why didn't we try and upgrade some later picks instead of upgrading 14? we basically have pick 10 and a bunch of crap.

I would hope if we were to delist so many players the plan would be to have a bunch of picks in the 20's and 30's.
 
Nov 12, 2002
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has anyone of the optimists said yet that the reasons why we got rid of brown and hamling and hunt was TPP purposes

"were gonna land a big fish next year"

Ah yes. Of course, Dangerfield.

Because every ex-Falcon secretly pines to come back to Geelong. Didn't you know that? Nothing says success more than coming to a team that used to win premierships.
 

Whit3y

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Ah yes. Of course, Dangerfield.

Because every ex-Falcon secretly pines to come back to Geelong. Didn't you know that? Nothing says success more than coming to a team that used to win premierships.

yeah dangerfield but dont forget scoot scoot scooter and heres one from left field kade kolodnashij
 
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