North Melbourne Priority Pick 2021

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blitzer

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Aug 27, 2006
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Okay then, if you qualify for finals in the future, then just forfeit the match and be done with it.

Or, lets go back to the Final four system.

Or we just keep the picks the way they are and teams rebuild over time through making smart decisions off field including recruitment, development, salary cap management etc. Is that an option as well?
 
Mar 20, 2002
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Or we just keep the picks the way they are and teams rebuild over time through making smart decisions off field including recruitment, development, salary cap management etc. Is that an option as well?

For some it may be but I think there has to be a better system in place than the current one which sees teams stay down the bottom longer and their better players are continually picked off via FA by the finalists.
 
Aug 13, 2006
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For some it may be but I think there has to be a better system in place than the current one which sees teams stay down the bottom longer and their better players are continually picked off via FA by the finalists.
Carl, Gold Coast and the finals losing Essendon have signed the 3 free agents this year, and they've come from Adel - deliberately happy to give away players, Richmond - best team if this era, and Sydney - finalist.

The big name free agents - Buddy, Lynch, even Frawley have gone to big finals sides. Others like Goddard and Dal Santo moved to teams that were hoping to be on the rise more than a sure thing.

The system sure needs changing but not nearly as drastically as you've said.

Now that the footy department cap has had time to work the gap between the smartest biggest spending clubs and the minnows is drastically shrinking.

Melbourne ended up in a huge hole because Neale Daniher ran the entire footy department in a possum infested shed. Eventually the Dees have manage to turn it around by employing enough good people from other clubs in key roles. Recruiting, fitness, coaching.

Carlton ended up where they did because of awful board members, debt, cheating and so on. Carlton are now trying another talented coach. Another list manager. A hall of fame CEO. And for better or worse stole Hawthorn's fitness guy. At some stage you'll get those decisions right and the players will look good. Carlton haven't struggled because of lack of draft picks either, they've had more than enough and just haven't got them right.

Gold Coast have never got going. There's no way I'd change the draft because of them.

The team this thread is named about in North won't be down for too long and giving them extra draft picks wouldn't help unless they had to trade them. My guess is they won't because they don't care about minor improvement, they're trying to build something special. If North are bottom 4-6 for 3 more years I'm happy to be wrong but I'd be very confident about North pushing for finals in 2023.
 
The team this thread is named about in North won't be down for too long and giving them extra draft picks wouldn't help unless they had to trade them. My guess is they won't because they don't care about minor improvement, they're trying to build something special. If North are bottom 4-6 for 3 more years I'm happy to be wrong but I'd be very confident about North pushing for finals in 2023.

I disagree. A number of players we recruited last year had an impact this year, similar with Essendon and other clubs. Someone like Powell was ready to go this year. Phillips hadn't had the same opportunity to play/train last year so he was further behind. KPP tend to take a lot longer, but running players sometimes don't. It depends on what your need is and what is available.

The reason first year draftees usually don't have much impact is the clubs who recruit them have someone else more mature to play the role or there are other issues like not being physically ready, KPP for example take longer to get ready for AFL level and inside mids sometimes take longer if they aren't physically developed.

I don't think any club needs priority picks, but if the AFL is dishing them out they should be consistent and fair with it.

I think they need to acknowledge that Free Agency is an abject failure when it comes to equalisation and it has significantly diminished the impact of the draft to equalise talent pools, the intention is for top teams to cycle after short periods but clubs like Geelong have shown you can abuse the system to artificially stay up there longer without having to rely on the dregs of the draft to rebuild on.

When you are solely relying on money as the mechanism to balance lists, it becomes open to abuse when players will take significant salary cuts to go to contenders but those outside the top 8 tend to have to pay a significant premium to get access to even mediocre players. $1 has a very different value depending on how high or low you are on the ladder yet everyone has the same budget.

If we had the player retention problems other clubs have had, it would have made the process of breaking into the top 8 seem daunting, if not impossible, those that keep turning over players struggle to get anywhere, it doesn't matter if you get adequately compensated in terms of draft picks, because it sets your build backwards, the lost development time is what kills you more because everyone else you recruited keeps ageing.

Like when Freo lost Weller and then lost Neale, they might say, hey we got Cerra and Brayshaw so our midfield is still strong but Fyfe and Mundy kept getting older, now Cerra wants to leave after 4 years, Mundy will be retired before whomever Freo get has his nuts drop. You can tell things are taking too long when the long term development KPF you recruited in 2013 is now 28 years old and you are still struggling with keeping your core midfield together.

I think our club has focused on putting together as strong a group of midfielders as we can because it seems the midfield is the most volatile group to hold on to and to put it bluntly, you will see a significantly faster turn around with mids than you will get from the longer-term KPP investment. You kind of need to bolt out of the bottom half as quickly as humanly possible just so your value-point position changes dramatically. I think an influx of talent can help clubs do that, if it is invested where they can make a quick impact.
 
Oct 12, 2008
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North paid Aidan Corr last year because he was the only free agent they could get really. GWS alone had about 25 more talented players yet alone the rest of the comp.

Extremely strange thing to say. North went after Aidan Corr because he fills a need, we've needed a versatile tall defender like him since Scott Thompson retired.
 
Aug 13, 2006
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If we had the player retention problems other clubs have had, it would have made the process of breaking into the top 8 seem daunting, if not impossible, those that keep turning over players struggle to get anywhere, it doesn't matter if you get adequately compensated in terms of draft picks, because it sets your build backwards, the lost development time is what kills you more because everyone else you recruited keeps ageing.

Like when Freo lost Weller and then lost Neale, they might say, hey we got Cerra and Brayshaw so our midfield is still strong but Fyfe and Mundy kept getting older, now Cerra wants to leave after 4 years, Mundy will be retired before whomever Freo get has his nuts drop. You can tell things are taking too long when the long term development KPF you recruited in 2013 is now 28 years old and you are still struggling with keeping your core midfield together.
I agree on that, but the Saints have managed to recruit plenty of players. The Dees became a semi destination club for a while there. Carlton seem to be able to sign anyone they want. Smaller, less successful clubs are finding ways to bank cap space and target players. WA and SA teams usually have a fair shot at returning players. It's more challenging for the Northern teams but Sydney haven't struggled to attract players for a long time and Brisbane only had to get their coach and footy manager right and suddenly Neale, Cameron, Daniher lined up.

Gold Coast are stuck in the Doom loop. It's a situation I know well. But draft picks aren't the answer. Or aren't the only answer for sure.

Freo were looking at a pair of prime draft picks in the 2018 super draft - could've been Rozee and Ben King - and went after Hogan, Lobb and a pick downgrade for Sturt. That's 2 years after drafting Logue who hasn't really shone.

They've also lost Neale, Weller, Langdon and Hill which is quite an amazing stretch of experienced quality mids going out of an established club. And on the back of a Ross Lyon post apocalypse kind of list with a heap of work to do to rebuild.

They've also had a tonne of injuries - like worst in the league I'd imagine. And after all that they're only a game and percentage out of the 8. They've had time to draft and develop a standout young ruckman. They have good tall defenders (if they can stay healthy), serviceable key forwards (despite the investments not paying off) and a handy group of flankers.

They're yet to make their move at really bringing in talent but if they haven't banked salary cap and got a bit of a shopping list coming in the next year or so then I don't know what they've been doing with the cash. Cerra hurts and certainly pushes pause on really lofty expectations but with Brayshaw, Serong, Mundy and Fyfe they should be able to find a capable mid or two for a bit of cover until the Cerra replacement comes along.

In other words it should be hard to contend. It shouldn't be so hard to rebuild to a competitive standard. And Freo have made plenty of mistakes even whilst cashing in on incredible deals for Hill and Weller and have still turned it around to be on the fringe of the 8. 5 years out of contention for the 8 is maybe 1-2 too many but that's the price of a Ross the Boss special and terrible drafting/luck through the 10's. It's not a case to completely change the draft.
 
I agree on that, but the Saints have managed to recruit plenty of players. The Dees became a semi destination club for a while there. Carlton seem to be able to sign anyone they want. Smaller, less successful clubs are finding ways to bank cap space and target players.

This is the extent of their free agency acquisition since 2014. They have only got one person in via free agency that was good enough to trigger a compensation and there were some serious concerns about Crouch at the end of 2019.

2020: Brad Crouch (2nd round), Shaun McKernan (no comp), James Frawley (no comp)
2019: Ryan Abbott (no comp)
2016: Nathan Brown (no comp)
2014: Tim Membrey (no comp)

I think Saints FA was just compounded by dubious trading. We were guilty of the same thing under Scott and our previous list managers, best thing we did was clean out the house.

There is nothing wrong with trading, or FA. as long as you are not trying to use them to avoid rebuilding when you need to rebuild.

I just don't think they accumulated enough talent and what they were building was built on shaky foundations. If they hit the draft hard for a longer period of time and focused more heavily on the midfield early, I think they would have been in a much better position. I am not going to bag them for taking McCartin over Petracca, because they couldn't have foreseen what happened to McCartin, but I think those who target KPP instead of mids with very early picks are rolling the dice. Nobody wants to be the club that passes over the next Franklin, but it has been a long time and another Franklin hasn't come, we are just littered with regrets as there is a very high complete failure rate of top end KPP. Saints weren't lurking long enough at the arse end of the table to take the kind of risks they were taking imo and they didn't have the trading capital that a team like GWS had so the players they were losing were generating a lot of extra first round picks.

They are now a middle of the road side, they don't have enough talent imo to challenge for a flag but they are still going to win plenty of games, to try to fix their problems from where they are going to end up on the ladder over the next few years is going to be challenging, thankfully the talent in the draft runs fairly deep, I mean the top 30-40 this year looks pretty good, they need to nail their drafting and need to trade to increase the size of their draft hand rather than put on list cloggers who they are going to delist in a couple of years, s**t, Frawley didn't even last one year, retired before the end of the season. Wasn't that he retired last year enough of a warning?

Saints are like Collingwood, in that they are hard to play with their physically imposing midfield when they can play with that manic pressure, but that pressure is impossible to sustain. They are going to share Collingwood's fate unless they have a plan to turn things around.

WA and SA teams usually have a fair shot at returning players.

They develop more talent than NSW and QLD does. A lot of Vics want to come home as well, but it is diluted based on the number of teams here. Corr wanted to return home for family reasons, which was the main reason we got him.

It's more challenging for the Northern teams but Sydney haven't struggled to attract players for a long time and Brisbane only had to get their coach and footy manager right and suddenly Neale, Cameron, Daniher lined up.

They produce less talent, but nobody wants to go somewhere where the environment sucks. I don't think the Swans have any troubled attracting players for some time. Brisbane complained about player exodus but it was obviously a problem with the environment because they were able to address it in a short period of time. Some players will want to leave for whatever reason, that is an inevitability.

Gold Coast are stuck in the Doom loop. It's a situation I know well. But draft picks aren't the answer. Or aren't the only answer for sure.

Their recent kids bought into what they doing when Dew first got there, the test is going to be holding on to King next year with the sharks circling already, if he doesn't extend early it will get fever pitch. Also Dew is fighting to stay alive there, their footy is still a rollercoaster from great to terrible. Clarkson isn't going to move on Dew, but if they get a lot of hands to push Dew off a cliff, I am sure the AFL wants someone of Clarkson's stature there as the coach.

Freo were looking at a pair of prime draft picks in the 2018 super draft - could've been Rozee and Ben King - and went after Hogan, Lobb and a pick downgrade for Sturt. That's 2 years after drafting Logue who hasn't really shone.

They've also lost Neale, Weller, Langdon and Hill which is quite an amazing stretch of experienced quality mids going out of an established club. And on the back of a Ross Lyon post apocalypse kind of list with a heap of work to do to rebuild.

They've also had a tonne of injuries - like worst in the league I'd imagine. And after all that they're only a game and percentage out of the 8. They've had time to draft and develop a standout young ruckman. They have good tall defenders (if they can stay healthy), serviceable key forwards (despite the investments not paying off) and a handy group of flankers.

They're yet to make their move at really bringing in talent but if they haven't banked salary cap and got a bit of a shopping list coming in the next year or so then I don't know what they've been doing with the cash. Cerra hurts and certainly pushes pause on really lofty expectations but with Brayshaw, Serong, Mundy and Fyfe they should be able to find a capable mid or two for a bit of cover until the Cerra replacement comes along.

In other words it should be hard to contend. It shouldn't be so hard to rebuild to a competitive standard. And Freo have made plenty of mistakes even whilst cashing in on incredible deals for Hill and Weller and have still turned it around to be on the fringe of the 8. 5 years out of contention for the 8 is maybe 1-2 too many but that's the price of a Ross the Boss special and terrible drafting/luck through the 10's. It's not a case to completely change the draft.

Yeah, I agree with the Hogan and Lobb thing, there was that other nutter as well they attracted who left GWS. I think Freo need to keep away from nutty WA forwards who want to go home. There seems to be pressure on the WA clubs to take any West Australian that wants to go home even if they aren't what their club needs.

I think their drafting has been pretty strong, they have targeted good midfielders, have built up capable key defenders from cheaper investment stock, the main weakness of their midfield is that it is lacking somewhat in offensive class, Fyfe is a superstar but his kicking is a bit dodgy, they don't have great ball use going inside 50 so they can be a bit hit or miss. Fyfe, Mundy, Serong, etc in the middle, hard to get first possession against them, especially if you are undersized in the middle, but I think if you focus on pressuring them and you stay strong in the corridor they will be forced to go wider or turn the ball over a lot and you need pretty good foot skills to consistently hit targets going wide.

I just think Cerra would have been less likely to go home if Freo was a consistent finalist and Freo was chasing a premiership. Even though he barracked for Carlton, the allure of Melbourne would have been super tempting, but they just couldn't reasonably make a trade for him. Carlton has become a bit of an elephant graveyard for over-paid players who never seem to rekindle previous on-field highs.

Carlton does attract plenty of free agents, do they have a salary cap? Is Visy paying everyone on the side again? Who knows, every year they seem to add another person on massive overs, it probably isn't a surprise they end up where they are, I thought we were a rabble having 3 coaches in 3 years but I am glad I am not a Carlton supporter. They have Cripps and Walsh in the middle, De Koning looks like he will be a quality ruckman... they have McKay up forward and Weitering down back and they are hopeless, and by hopeless I mean they lost to us by 39 points when finals was still alive for them.

I just don't think any of their free agency acquisitions have helped their club, in any way, nor has their trading with GWS. They are another club looking for shortcuts because they feel entitled to be successful rather than work hard to earn it. I am not sure Crazy Vossy is the answer, but there is something wrong with the club, they are making sweeping changes so perhaps the future will be different. They have a lot to work with but it is a bit of a concern given where they are at.
 
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Aug 13, 2006
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I just don't think they accumulated enough talent and what they were building was built on shaky foundations. If they hit the draft hard for a longer period of time and focused more heavily on the midfield early, I think they would have been in a much better position. I am not going to bag them for taking McCartin over Petracca, because they couldn't have foreseen what happened to McCartin, but I think those who target KPP instead of mids with very early picks are rolling the dice. Nobody wants to be the club that passes over the next Franklin, but it has been a long time and another Franklin hasn't come, we are just littered with regrets as there is a very high complete failure rate of top end KPP. Saints weren't lurking long enough at the arse end of the table to take the kind of risks they were taking imo and they didn't have the trading capital that a team like GWS had so the players they were losing were generating a lot of extra first round picks.
Think it's fair to say Paddy was a bad pick, even if he's had nothing but bad luck. Petracca was the clear standout. Then they got spooked.

The King brothers, Naughton, H McKay, Oscar Allen, Luke Jackson. Obviously there's risk but there's enough reason to draft a tall early.

Are the Saints condemned for the middle of the road - time will tell. You'd love them to have 1 more gun mid but you can find gun mids unexpectedly just as Jack Steele has gone from ok to good to very good and even great.

But they've been willing to get fair dinkum about making sure they are at least middle of the road and hopefully better. That demands respect.

That's the core issue with suggesting drastic changes to help teams rebuild faster. Teams can rebuild faster if they're willing to give up picks and not hoard them. Especially if they aren't chasing home run trades but are willing to take on guys who are a bit older or a bit less fashionable.

Melbourne hoarded picks for the years - got nowhere. Melbourne gave up picks for Dom Tyson, Sam Frost, Bernie Vince, Jake Melksham all who helped speed the journey up but didn't make the Premiership side. Obviously we kept the top picks for Oliver (actually traded up for him), Petracca, Salem and got a bonus pick for Brayshaw (who's really not that good and could've been drafted with pick 20 not pick 3) but we still gave up multiple good 2nd round picks and even did the Kelly for Salem trade and risked pick 2 for pick 9.
 
I advocated for this before Melbourne won the flag and I’m still advocating for it.

First round of the draft is based on premiership drought.

Therefore:

1. St Kilda
2. Freo (entered 1995)
3. Carlton
4. Adelaide
5. North
6. Essendon
7. Brisbane
8. Port
9. Collingwood
10. GC (entered 2011)
11. Geelong
12. GWS (entered 2012)
13. Sydney
14. Hawthorn
15. Dogs
16. West Coast
17. Richmond
18. Melbourne

Or alternatively finals drought.
 
Jul 14, 2012
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This is the extent of their free agency acquisition since 2014. They have only got one person in via free agency that was good enough to trigger a compensation and there were some serious concerns about Crouch at the end of 2019.

2020: Brad Crouch (2nd round), Shaun McKernan (no comp), James Frawley (no comp)
2019: Ryan Abbott (no comp)
2016: Nathan Brown (no comp)
2014: Tim Membrey (no comp)

I think Saints FA was just compounded by dubious trading. We were guilty of the same thing under Scott and our previous list managers, best thing we did was clean out the house.

There is nothing wrong with trading, or FA. as long as you are not trying to use them to avoid rebuilding when you need to rebuild.

I just don't think they accumulated enough talent and what they were building was built on shaky foundations. If they hit the draft hard for a longer period of time and focused more heavily on the midfield early, I think they would have been in a much better position. I am not going to bag them for taking McCartin over Petracca, because they couldn't have foreseen what happened to McCartin, but I think those who target KPP instead of mids with very early picks are rolling the dice. Nobody wants to be the club that passes over the next Franklin, but it has been a long time and another Franklin hasn't come, we are just littered with regrets as there is a very high complete failure rate of top end KPP. Saints weren't lurking long enough at the arse end of the table to take the kind of risks they were taking imo and they didn't have the trading capital that a team like GWS had so the players they were losing were generating a lot of extra first round picks.

They are now a middle of the road side, they don't have enough talent imo to challenge for a flag but they are still going to win plenty of games, to try to fix their problems from where they are going to end up on the ladder over the next few years is going to be challenging, thankfully the talent in the draft runs fairly deep, I mean the top 30-40 this year looks pretty good, they need to nail their drafting and need to trade to increase the size of their draft hand rather than put on list cloggers who they are going to delist in a couple of years, sh*t, Frawley didn't even last one year, retired before the end of the season. Wasn't that he retired last year enough of a warning?

Saints are like Collingwood, in that they are hard to play with their physically imposing midfield when they can play with that manic pressure, but that pressure is impossible to sustain. They are going to share Collingwood's fate unless they have a plan to turn things around.



They develop more talent than NSW and QLD does. A lot of Vics want to come home as well, but it is diluted based on the number of teams here. Corr wanted to return home for family reasons, which was the main reason we got him.



They produce less talent, but nobody wants to go somewhere where the environment sucks. I don't think the Swans have any troubled attracting players for some time. Brisbane complained about player exodus but it was obviously a problem with the environment because they were able to address it in a short period of time. Some players will want to leave for whatever reason, that is an inevitability.



Their recent kids bought into what they doing when Dew first got there, the test is going to be holding on to King next year with the sharks circling already, if he doesn't extend early it will get fever pitch. Also Dew is fighting to stay alive there, their footy is still a rollercoaster from great to terrible. Clarkson isn't going to move on Dew, but if they get a lot of hands to push Dew off a cliff, I am sure the AFL wants someone of Clarkson's stature there as the coach.



Yeah, I agree with the Hogan and Lobb thing, there was that other nutter as well they attracted who left GWS. I think Freo need to keep away from nutty WA forwards who want to go home. There seems to be pressure on the WA clubs to take any West Australian that wants to go home even if they aren't what their club needs.

I think their drafting has been pretty strong, they have targeted good midfielders, have built up capable key defenders from cheaper investment stock, the main weakness of their midfield is that it is lacking somewhat in offensive class, Fyfe is a superstar but his kicking is a bit dodgy, they don't have great ball use going inside 50 so they can be a bit hit or miss. Fyfe, Mundy, Serong, etc in the middle, hard to get first possession against them, especially if you are undersized in the middle, but I think if you focus on pressuring them and you stay strong in the corridor they will be forced to go wider or turn the ball over a lot and you need pretty good foot skills to consistently hit targets going wide.

I just think Cerra would have been less likely to go home if Freo was a consistent finalist and Freo was chasing a premiership. Even though he barracked for Carlton, the allure of Melbourne would have been super tempting, but they just couldn't reasonably make a trade for him. Carlton has become a bit of an elephant graveyard for over-paid players who never seem to rekindle previous on-field highs.

Carlton does attract plenty of free agents, do they have a salary cap? Is Visy paying everyone on the side again? Who knows, every year they seem to add another person on massive overs, it probably isn't a surprise they end up where they are, I thought we were a rabble having 3 coaches in 3 years but I am glad I am not a Carlton supporter. They have Cripps and Walsh in the middle, De Koning looks like he will be a quality ruckman... they have McKay up forward and Weitering down back and they are hopeless, and by hopeless I mean they lost to us by 39 points when finals was still alive for them.

I just don't think any of their free agency acquisitions have helped their club, in any way, nor has their trading with GWS. They are another club looking for shortcuts because they feel entitled to be successful rather than work hard to earn it. I am not sure Crazy Vossy is the answer, but there is something wrong with the club, they are making sweeping changes so perhaps the future will be different. They have a lot to work with but it is a bit of a concern given where they are at.
Maybe Carlton aren’t paying massive overs to every recruit they’ve convinced to come on board?

But I guess that doesn’t fit your narrative that clubs that are average on field can’t be somewhat of an attractive destination.

Must break your heart watching players reject North’s war chest every year.
 
Jun 4, 2013
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I advocated for this before Melbourne won the flag and I’m still advocating for it.

First round of the draft is based on premiership drought.

Therefore:

1. St Kilda
2. Freo (entered 1995)
3. Carlton
4. Adelaide
5. North
6. Essendon
7. Brisbane
8. Port
9. Collingwood
10. GC (entered 2011)
11. Geelong
12. GWS (entered 2012)
13. Sydney
14. Hawthorn
15. Dogs
16. West Coast
17. Richmond
18. Melbourne

Or alternatively finals drought.
So every year St Kilda gets the first pick until they finally win a flag?
 
Maybe Carlton aren’t paying massive overs to every recruit they’ve convinced to come on board?

I wouldn't expect most were paid a lot other than Thomas and Williams, you can generally get a good idea based on the compensation. When it comes to unrestricted free agents, the clubs that receive the offer tend to leak the information as they aren't required to keep that information private.

But I guess that doesn’t fit your narrative that clubs that are average on field can’t be somewhat of an attractive destination.

No, my narrative was a bad combination of bad trading and bad free agency which leaves clubs in limbo, I used Carlton and St Kilda as examples of that. You know, everyone getting sacked at the club kind of reinforces that "narrative".

Must break your heart watching players reject North’s war chest every year.

Not at all, I was quite public about not wanting us to overpay Kelly, because as soon as you are paying someone a fortune and it is public knowledge, it is going to put a lot of pressure on the club to find money for stars coming out of contract, like imagine you were a half decent Blues player and you are watching Williams running around sucking it up and then the club telling you they only have 600k for you. That is going to create bad blood.

We made terrible decisions in the past, like getting Polec for the kind of money we offered, it wasn't free agency, but was still a s**t deal based on a s**t idea, thankfully everyone associated with that was fired. It is early days on Corr, I think we paid too much but GWS only got a 2nd round compensation for a key defender who was playing good footy when he decided to leave and was playing well up until he got injured.

I think it is fine targeting a player that is hard to find, like key position player or experiment with someone on the cheap, ie when we got Higgins it was a cheap investment and it worked out well in the end. I'd sav even Waite was a great success because his bang for what it cost was great, I just wished we got him earlier, he wasted the bulk of his career at Carlton. I think paying enough for Williams to trigger a band one compensation, so he is in the top 5% of paid players, for a guy who is a back flank who wanted to be a midfielder... was just a shocking call.

Outside of Kelly the only other free agents we considered were Martin and Gaff. Gaff and Martin decided not to pursue free agency, all three we chased said if they had chosen to leave their club they would have joined us. I don't really have a problem with that. I think it was more important for my club to build from the ground up though, I don't think getting in free agents is going to change your fate if you don't execute the basics well enough as a club and develop well enough. I think that is the flaw of the clubs that look at Free Agency to compensate for their inability to get the team going on their own steam first.

You would want to have faith that players believe they are going to your club because they can foresee having success there, not just because you are dumb enough to overpay them.
 
Think it's fair to say Paddy was a bad pick, even if he's had nothing but bad luck. Petracca was the clear standout. Then they got spooked.

With the benefit of hindsight, sure. I just don't want to say it was a s**t call because of his injury issues. I am clear on my own philosophy, been consistent with it and I recognise I would pass some really good KPPs by focusing early picks on mids. I just think it would be better off getting a higher probability of landing a quality player than rolling the dice on it and I think our new list managers are on the same page as me, which is why they went for Phillips instead of McDonald or DGB, both of whom I thought were great prospects. Physically speaking, it is a lot harder on KPP to develop, they tend to put on a lot more weight and sometimes their bodies can't handle the stress, ie snappy Patton. Kid was talented, but... washed out. There are a lot of good KPP that just physically give out a lot more so than mids.

The talent from best to worst never follows the order the players were drafted, and the very best player in a given year has rarely ever been the top pick or close to the top pick. The value that comes from having a top end pick is it gives you a much higher probability of getting an A grade player, so it is a risk averse position imo, why would you counter that with a more speculative selection that is has a much higher probability of failing. if you planned to be down on the bottom for a long time, sure, roll the dice. If you want to get out of there ASAP then you want to land some quality and you want to have a midfield that can go with anyone.

The King brothers, Naughton, H McKay, Oscar Allen, Luke Jackson. Obviously there's risk but there's enough reason to draft a tall early.

For sure, I think the Dogs got Naughton with pick 9 or so and it was many years after they had got the vast majority of their mids. Similarly, you picked up Jackson in 2019 after that shocker of a season, you got Petracca and Brayshaw in 2014 and Oliver in 2015 I think. They were already progressing well before you took Jackson. As good a player as Jackson is, if you didn't have Oliver or Petracca then I don't think getting Jackson would have resulted in the happy ending this year, you would have needed a gun inside mid like Rowell or Serong that went in the same year.

For a club that is starting from scratch, I think nailing the midfield first should be the priority. Like I think after JHF we will have a strong enough midfield group so from next year onwards you can probably go ham on KPPs. Next year's pool looks to be pretty healthy with KPP too.

Are the Saints condemned for the middle of the road - time will tell. You'd love them to have 1 more gun mid but you can find gun mids unexpectedly just as Jack Steele has gone from ok to good to very good and even great.

Steele had a very good year, they lack the consistency within the group at present. Their good was very good, their bad was very bad though. I just think if they hit the draft a bit harder for a few more years and traded a lot less, didn't chase guys like Couch, Hannebery, Carlisle, Ryder, etc then imagine getting 2 or 3 more high class mids into that side who had some time to gel together and then adding someone like Max King into the mix. atm he has to deal with the potatoes being kicked to him, so he has a lot on his plate that he has to deal with. Saints could have been where Melbourne was this year if they sorted their midfield first imo. Now, can they fix enough of the problems before they lose too many mature players?

Clubs can turn things around pretty quickly, if they are honest to themselves where the club is at and what needs to be done to get to where they want to be.

But they've been willing to get fair dinkum about making sure they are at least middle of the road and hopefully better. That demands respect.

I think everyone tries to win, I also think the quality of the draft pool has been improving, even despite covid problems, we got someone like Powell with pick 14, it would have been a pretty good outcome if he was our first pick and there were a number of good prospects to choose from at 14. So I think you can get a better calibre of player than you could even 5-10 years ago, so there really isn't a reason to tank. Sure, you would rather have a Horne-Francis or Callaghan than someone being taken 10 picks later, but I think you can get access elite talent anywhere in the first round. Teams that are on or near the bottom have either had a horror run of injuries/form or they have been run into the ground, sometimes a mix of both.

It wouldn't bother me if we didn't get anything better than pick 10 for some time into the future because we have over a period of time now got access to enough early picks, we just need to develop them well. The teams that are legitimately s**t and have been run into the ground it is less about more access to the elite pool of the talent, the issue is going to be that it will take many years to develop the second tier and depth players that sides need to move up the ladder. A lot of their depth gets picked off via free agency. Like Tarrant would have been handy for us for a couple of years, don't blame him for going, but the compensation is going to be garbage and that is another position we have to manufacture. If you are only getting 2 or 3 decent picks a year, there are only so many holes you can attempt to plug.

That's the core issue with suggesting drastic changes to help teams rebuild faster. Teams can rebuild faster if they're willing to give up picks and not hoard them. Especially if they aren't chasing home run trades but are willing to take on guys who are a bit older or a bit less fashionable.

I don't think you need change to help teams rise quicker, we need to change to help prevent the natural decline of top teams. I think free agency should be part of the trade period in so far that a player can become a free agent and all clubs get to bid on that player and the club chosen by the player has the right to match the highest bid with a discount. I don't think clubs should get players for free, it should come out of their draft points and the club who loses the player get the draft points equal to the winning bid.

It would remove the bullshit compensation system where the AFL creates picks out of their arse, and removes clubs getting access to top end talent for nothing other than TPP space. The draft has to be the mechanism which distributes talent in a lopsided manner favouring the weakest teams, free agency as it is distorts that from happening.

Melbourne hoarded picks for the years - got nowhere. Melbourne gave up picks for Dom Tyson, Sam Frost, Bernie Vince, Jake Melksham all who helped speed the journey up but didn't make the Premiership side. Obviously we kept the top picks for Oliver (actually traded up for him), Petracca, Salem and got a bonus pick for Brayshaw (who's really not that good and could've been drafted with pick 20 not pick 3) but we still gave up multiple good 2nd round picks and even did the Kelly for Salem trade and risked pick 2 for pick 9.

Melbourne wasn't well run, it took the AFL stepping in and running the show to address the problems. Picks alone don't do anything if you gut the leadership, if you try and play a TAC cup team in the AFL it is going to get pummelled. We haven't just been taking kids, we have been looking at some mature players as well to make sure there is enough leadership and support there for the kids.

At the end of the day, you still need to have those talented kids take the bull by the horns and reach their potential. Sometimes it just doesn't work no matter if you do everything right. As long as the process is sound, that is all you can really do.
 
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North have turned down two top five picks and late first rounder for pick 1 and an early second rounder. That’s as close as they’ll ever come to getting a PP, can’t want one that much.
 

Mr north man

Premiership Player
Mar 12, 2016
3,228
2,631
AFL Club
North Melbourne
still no announcement one way or the other
Wake up NMFC supporters we were NEVER going to get a PRIORITY PICK even if we got on our knees and undid Gils Fly .
It’s about time our supporters woke up the NMFC is the most despised sporting organisation in Australia no one wants us in the AFL the media hate us ,football managers laugh at us and use the NMFC as Guinnee pigs to get better deals for there players .
Plus the rest of the AFL clubs and supporters hate us with a passion.
Maybe the NMFC should lay down and cheat and win potential Tom Scully and Matthew Krauzer cups then make our players take drugs to make them perform better.
It’s time supporters of the NMFC see the reality and realise we can be in the bottom 3 for the next few years and receive nothing in priority picks and the reason for all this as this club said NO to the AFL on moving to the Gold Coast and will be punished for this for a long time to come .
 
Maybe the NMFC should lay down and cheat and win potential Tom Scully and Matthew Krauzer cups then make our players take drugs to make them perform better.
I don't see how it could possibly hurt to try.
 
Wake up NMFC supporters we were NEVER going to get a PRIORITY PICK even if we got on our knees and undid Gils Fly .
It’s about time our supporters woke up the NMFC is the most despised sporting organisation in Australia no one wants us in the AFL the media hate us ,football managers laugh at us and use the NMFC as Guinnee pigs to get better deals for there players .
Plus the rest of the AFL clubs and supporters hate us with a passion.
Maybe the NMFC should lay down and cheat and win potential Tom Scully and Matthew Krauzer cups then make our players take drugs to make them perform better.
It’s time supporters of the NMFC see the reality and realise we can be in the bottom 3 for the next few years and receive nothing in priority picks and the reason for all this as this club said NO to the AFL on moving to the Gold Coast and will be punished for this for a long time to come .
The point is I want an announcement either way
 

blitzer

Norm Smith Medallist
Aug 27, 2006
7,483
8,749
House
AFL Club
Essendon
Wake up NMFC supporters we were NEVER going to get a PRIORITY PICK even if we got on our knees and undid Gils Fly .
It’s about time our supporters woke up the NMFC is the most despised sporting organisation in Australia no one wants us in the AFL the media hate us ,football managers laugh at us and use the NMFC as Guinnee pigs to get better deals for there players .
Plus the rest of the AFL clubs and supporters hate us with a passion.
Maybe the NMFC should lay down and cheat and win potential Tom Scully and Matthew Krauzer cups then make our players take drugs to make them perform better.
It’s time supporters of the NMFC see the reality and realise we can be in the bottom 3 for the next few years and receive nothing in priority picks and the reason for all this as this club said NO to the AFL on moving to the Gold Coast and will be punished for this for a long time to come .

Pretty impressive how much you're playing the victim rather than taking responsibility for improving your club on the same playing field as 16 other teams (ie not Gold Coast who lets face it have their own issues).

North setup this decision when for years they played too many guys well into their 30s and then they got rid of nearly all their senior players and are now crying victim as a direct result of their own list management decisions.

Not to mention many North fans are running with the highly spurious "but we only won x games over 2 years - (don't anybody notice that 2020 was a shortened season skewing the data)..."

Its also piss weak to complain about priority picks from over a decade ago as everyone knows the landscape has changed since that time.
Every club is the victim of changing rules at some points in time. For example Essendon (and Carlton) both missed out on pre first round priority picks in 2006 that would have been awarded the year prior under the old criteria. In 2012 when we drafted Daniher we had to pay a first rounder for him when up to that stage it had all been 3rd rounders for father sons eg Hawkins etc.
I'm sure every club can share similar stories...
 
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