List Mgmt. Contract, Trade & Draftee Discussion, 2023: Picks 1,20,34,39,53 ,58

[Keys]

Link to contract status of all players

The Contracts Thread

Updated (20/3/24) the status of all contracts for people’s reference : Overall List - 44 Players : Main List(37), Rookie List(5), Cat B(2) Contracted until the end of 2027 (2) : Tom Barrass (8/10/95) - Signed a 5 year extension (2023,2024,2025,2026,2027) on an existing contract set to...

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Link to Lore ’s excellent draft order thread that is updated to reflect current ladder positions

2023 Provisional AFL Draft Order (updated live throughout the season)

Every trade as it happens!

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[Avalor]

It does with me. We still need some seniority around. I don't think NN will be back, Bung will go too.

The lads love him... If he lasts that long, keep him in that role. (I like him as the spitter)

Boots playing 12 is better than Gaff playing all

Never has a truer word been spoken.

 

[Cuzz09]

Should we look at an older backup ruckman , workhorse, Giles/Mumford type this draft with a late pick?

Someone on their last shot at it just needing an opportunity. To help back up BW/Barnett

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[Nuke Fremantle]

I reckon Shuey and Hurn will play on in 2024



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As appalled as I am by that prospect, I'd say that given the recent quality of decision making by the club you may be right.

 

[WCErevival]

Should we look at an older backup ruckman , workhorse, Giles/Mumford type this draft with a late pick?

Someone on their last shot at it just needing an opportunity. To help back up BW/Barnett

On SM-S908E using BigFooty.com mobile app

Naitanui will need an opportunity in 2024

 

[Convocation]

"If" doing a lot of work in this post....

That is the purpose of the IF, its hypothetical......

 

[Farang83150]

Should we look at an older backup ruckman , workhorse, Giles/Mumford type this draft with a late pick?

Someone on their last shot at it just needing an opportunity. To help back up BW/Barnett

On SM-S908E using BigFooty.com mobile app

Would be just our luck, drop a late pick on a journeyman ruck then Nata comes out and plays every game in 2024!

 

[Cuzz09]

Would be just our luck, drop a late pick on a journeyman ruck then Nata comes out and plays every game in 2024!

Try and beat Murphy's law.

Cover all bases

Was just a thought.

Guess if NN breaks down over pre season we can rookie someone?

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[Convocation]

Theres nothing to indicate this'll happen.

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That's why its a hypothetical..... Life would be tough living with some on this forum

 

[SumaGodCoach]

Have we tried Darling to the midfield?

Finally a Brander replacement I can get behind.

 

[Goroyals22]

As appalled as I am by that prospect, I'd say that given the recent quality of decision making by the club you may be right.

Well we know no one would tell them they can’t because of feelings


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[paran]

Not going to lie. I’ve retained an increasingly forlorn hope that we’d see Naitanui return. Still do to be honest

But it’s really hard to argue against what Mark Duffield has written here

A decision doesn’t definitively need to made for a few months yet when Nic’s chances of a full recovery will be clearer but as pointed out, what purpose does another year serve even if he can get back

Perhaps it’s time to fully lean into the rebuild and only retain those players who are both durable and capable

But I still keep that glimmer of hope, no matter how small




It’s time for Nic Naitanui to retire.
And the West Coast hierarchy need to take back control of their football club.

That starts with chief executive Trevor Nisbett. It flows onto coach Adam Simpson, who has no choice given he is in the spotlight and the crosshairs of critics whether he likes it or not.

But between those two, the first item of business needs to be talking to Naitanui. If he doesn’t want to retire, he needs to be convinced that he should, contract or no contract.

The Eagles have developed a bad habit of zigging when zagging would have been better. And, just as problematic, they have become indecisive and meek when ruthlessness is the quality that would serve them better when trying to run an AFL club.

The constant fudging of the likely return date from Naitanui’s chronic Achilles tendon issue is just one example of the club being unable to make a hard call on how it runs its business. But it is the example that needs to become the tipping point; the watershed moment that changes the way the Eagles go about it.

Scans which ruled Naitanui out for the season lobbed on Wednesday. Just over a week ago, the Eagles could have freed up another list spot for the mid-season draft if the call on Naitanui had been made then, not now.

In fairness, the talent pool in that draft was regarded as shallow. Crosstown rival Fremantle, for example, had just four players on their list they deemed draftable. But West Coast, with a sizeable hole in the middle of their list and a stated policy of being draft focussed this year, will have zigged when they should have zagged again if any player taken in the second round of that mid-season draft turns out to be AFL viable, or if any player who went undrafted bobs up later as an AFL diamond in the rough.

The Eagles were adamant that all of their injured players were expected to play again in 2023 and they wanted them to have the incentive to work hard to get back to playing. Just over a week later, it is confirmed that at least one of them won’t make it back.

The club remains hopelessly wedded to the players from their 2018 premiership group - both the ones that ran out on grand final day and Naitanui and Andrew Gaff, the two remaining mainstays of that group with the misfortune to miss out.

It comes either from an overdeveloped sense of loyalty to great servants, a misguided view that their premiership window is somehow still open (it slammed shut after 2021) or a mix of both.

They pine for them when they are absent. They have reintroduced them prematurely when they have returned from injury - most notably in 2021 when the rot set in for this group. They had rushed stars back from mid-season injury only to see their season collapse with just two wins from their last nine games.

They have recontracted them prematurely when waiting and seeing would have been more prudent, notably when Naitanui received a two-year deal last year when the rest of the footy world wondered why it wasn’t just one.

Jeremy McGovern was contracted for two years just before his serious hamstring injury in round three. There was bad luck in that but there was also a penalty for not waiting a little longer on a 30 year-old.

The Naitanui situation has become symbolic of where the Eagles find themselves.

It is a sad story but West Coast need reminding that the AFL has more unfulfilled dreams than happy endings. Naitanui has been a truly great ruckman. The best centre bounce ruckman of the modern era and possibly of any era. As Geelong’s Chris Scott once ruefully observed after his team got Nic-Natted at a forward fifty stoppage which decided a game a couple of seasons ago: “The trouble with kicking a goal against the Eagles is the ball goes back to the centre.”

But that was then.

The club has told us he has been troubled by this Achilles issue for years. Then, with a knee problem on top of that (his good one, not his bad one), he played just eight times in 2022 - at the age of 32. At least one game - the second derby that year - was played when he shouldn’t have and he was parked for the season immediately after being dominated by Sean Darcy.

At the age of 33, he won’t play at all in 2023 but Simpson says the surgery he will receive will fix his Achilles tendon issue and he should recover to play in 2024 - at the age of 34.

Even if he can be fixed, even if he does play some football next year, what purpose does this serve? Do the Eagles see themselves as contenders? Every game Naitanui plays is a game a younger ruckman like Harry Barnett or a forward ruckman like Jack Williams won’t play.

Condition for even considering him playing further should be NN losing 10-15kgs minimum. Only way the joints look to survive any sort of playing time.

 

[ArdentEagle]

Allen to the backline! Why not?

We really need a bird reaction

 

[ArdentEagle]

Should we look at an older backup ruckman , workhorse, Giles/Mumford type this draft with a late pick?

Someone on their last shot at it just needing an opportunity. To help back up BW/Barnett

On SM-S908E using BigFooty.com mobile app

This is why I want Crossley. One year contract, a chance at redemption. He's got mongrel and is hard.

He'll, he's still young. If he does well then good too.

NN to play pressure forward instead

It's a win/win for all.

Naismith is appealing but injury history a concern given our current predicament.

 

[kane249]

Noah Long to ruck this weekend

 

[bzparkes]

I really rate Naughty. He's a bit younger, him and Allen together would be very hard for the opposition to handle.

Think we should go Edwards in draft and bring in a bruiser like crossley as immediate cover to help BBBW

Fair enough.

Never been much of a Naughton fan myself, far too disappointing in front of goals for me. Not saying he's a bad player by any means, I just think English is a much more consistent, better player, who would immediately improve our ball-winning ability and BBW can play ruck-forward, which give us another tall target that also has impact around stoppages.

 

[Deplorable trumpster]

I am not really in favour of dropping any decent picks on a stop gap ruckman. I haven't been the biggest fan of BW but he has improved this season. And people say Barnett will be AFL quality in the long run. I would rather they persist with BW for next year and see where it goes. We could try and bring in a journeyman as back up in case BW gets injured but i would want to be coughing up picks under 40 for any stop gaps. We are not in flag mode. No need to waste draft currency on short term solutions to holes in our list.

 

[shooshka]

Should we look at an older backup ruckman , workhorse, Giles/Mumford type this draft with a late pick?

Someone on their last shot at it just needing an opportunity. To help back up BW/Barnett

On SM-S908E using BigFooty.com mobile app

Depends a little/lot on the ND. Apparently stacked with rucks this year.

Ideally we can get one of them, would leave us with BW (#1 ruck), CJ (backup ruck), NN (if miracles happen), Barnett (young but season 2) and a draftee.

That should be plenty with the other proviso’s that we are definitely looking at English and we should also be looking at another tall key fwd (198+ ideally).




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[briztoon]

This is why I want Crossley. One year contract, a chance at redemption. He's got mongrel and is hard.

He'll, he's still young. If he does well then good too.

NN to play pressure forward instead

It's a win/win for all.

Naismith is appealing but injury history a concern given our current predicament.

Crossely, as in the ex GC academy ruck who got booted for cocaine?

 

[JackieMoon33]

If Shuey plays the rest of the season (10 in a row with a bye), and impacts how we know he can/does, is it enough to convince those who want him to retire to play on next year?

No

 

[briztoon]

Bit of talk from the North fans that they will be applying for similar draft concessions to what GC received with Darwin, except asking for priority access to add Tasmanian NGA’s directly to the list, outside the draft. Ryley Sanders (and maybe McKercher) part of their NGA contingent.

 

[Ishmael_]

Fair enough.

Never been much of a Naughton fan myself, far too disappointing in front of goals for me. Not saying he's a bad player by any means, I just think English is a much more consistent, better player, who would immediately improve our ball-winning ability and BBW can play ruck-forward, which give us another tall target that also has impact around stoppages.

I'd go for both as free agents but play Naughton down back.

Then draft a KPF ASAP or spend the capital on a trade for someone like Logan McDonald in a few years if his trajectory is decent.

Ideally, I'd like to pick up Naughton and Taylor as free agents and play Naughton forward, but I agree that he's a bit too unreliable in front of goals for that to work.

 

[bzparkes]

Bit of talk from the North fans that they will be applying for similar draft concessions to what GC received with Darwin, except asking for priority access to add Tasmanian NGA’s directly to the list, outside the draft. Ryley Sanders (and maybe McKercher) part of their NGA contingent.

Lol, they don't even need a PP. They need games into the young blokes for experience, not more picks. It's just greedy at this stage.

 

[Deplorable trumpster]

Bit of talk from the North fans that they will be applying for similar draft concessions to what GC received with Darwin, except asking for priority access to add Tasmanian NGA’s directly to the list, outside the draft. Ryley Sanders (and maybe McKercher) part of their NGA contingent.

Given how long they have been at the bottom racking up very early picks in drafts they should definately not be given anymore help. The draft system itself is enough of an equalising mechanism. It is pretty obvious that it does work over a medium - long term timeframe.

The only time i think there can be argument for PP's or any kind of drafting concessions to clubs would be if a newer franchise in a non - football state gets it's list absolutely raided by other clubs using the "Go home" factor to entice players, as GC and GWS have been smashed by the Victorian club vultures in the past.

 

[Obeanie1]

If Shuey plays the rest of the season (10 in a row with a bye), and impacts how we know he can/does, is it enough to convince those who want him to retire to play on next year?

 

[Obeanie1]

Should we look at an older backup ruckman , workhorse, Giles/Mumford type this draft with a late pick?

Someone on their last shot at it just needing an opportunity. To help back up BW/Barnett

On SM-S908E using BigFooty.com mobile app

Episode VI Return of Lycett