Rumour GFC 2024 Player Trading, Drafting FA, Rumours and Wish lists Pt 1

[Kobe Gryant]

Imo the Pies were a weaker Premiership side that the Tigers 3 and that's saying something. The standard is ordinary now and it takes a good injury run and a bit of luck to win it.

We can surprise next year.

Completely agree. Same goes for Brisbane too IMO.

It might be unpopular, but I actually don't think either were much better, if at all, than they were in 2022.

They just didn't run into a dominant Geelong side, and a Sydney team that got on a very good hot streak themselves.

During the off-season, I tend to watch old games for a bit of a footy fix, and you can see how far the game has fallen so quickly.

Even just a decade or so ago, like 2011 for instance. Geelong, Collingwood & Hawthorn all would have been worthy premiers in any of the last 12 seasons.

We hardly have 1 worthy team like that these days, let alone 3.

We simply don't have the talent pathways to support 18 professional football clubs, let alone 19, and eventually 20 after that.

There just isn't enough quality footballers per capita to support that, and it's why we're seeing clubs experiment more than ever with category b selections and alternative access to talent.

With a growth in our population and the advancement of those pathways, it'll eventually sort itself out, but that's still going to take 10-20 years.

 

[Oisin_the_Goat]

You gonna cop heat for mentioning Clohesy here.

Apart from him, I'd just about agree on the others.

Hopefully Hardie cracks in after his first pre season

 

[dudusmaximus]

Completely agree. Same goes for Brisbane too IMO.

It might be unpopular, but I actually don't think either were much better, if at all, than they were in 2022.

They just didn't run into a dominant Geelong side, and a Sydney team that got on a very good hot streak themselves.

During the off-season, I tend to watch old games for a bit of a footy fix, and you can see how far the game has fallen so quickly.

Even just a decade or so ago, like 2011 for instance. Geelong, Collingwood & Hawthorn all would have been worthy premiers in any of the last 12 seasons.

We hardly have 1 worthy team like that these days, let alone 3.

We simply don't have the talent pathways to support 18 professional football clubs, let alone 19, and eventually 20 after that.

There just isn't enough quality footballers per capita to support that, and it's why we're seeing clubs experiment more than ever with category b selections and alternative access to talent.

With a growth in our population and the advancement of those pathways, it'll eventually sort itself out, but that's still going to take 10-20 years.

Nowadays, with some other teams ..

The focus is more on runners (notice I don't use the broader term "athletes") than footballers. Like fattening pigs for the slaughter (no offence intended), runners are now "primed" on the bench and "cut loose" until they run out of steam.

It is just numbers at each contest (swarming). Notice how the ball just keeps pinging from one end to the other.

There's no tactics or classic gameplay (only run and gun). Survival of the fittest. This is not a sustainable play-style (as the Doggies found out after 2016) and relies heavily on luck with injuries. I'll say it now.. No repeat for the Pies!

Wins are more "luck" than "strategy". The coaches in those teams might as well be massaging players at the interchange.

 

[year of the cat]

According to that article, our list is ranked in the bottom third.
Our odds are about 17 to 1 for next years premiership

Most supporters think their team will play well.
The fact is our younger players, on exposed form, are ordinary.

Our trend is downwards.





.

I tend to think that’s correct. Unless our older group find the fountain of youth and avoid injury and a decline in form then it’s hard to see us competing with the top teams. And that’s ok. We are in a phase of transition at the moment.

We need to do another 2-3 years of list building and be patient with the maturation of our youngsters before we hopefully see a climb back up.

Off the back of a weaker draw and having our home ground advantage we may slip into the eight if everything goes right, but I doubt we will do any real damage.

 

[Ricky Vaughn]

Not unreasonable, based on this year, but I have a feeling Parfitt will surprise.

He’s interesting. Every year he was trending upward until 2023. He needs to prove that was the anomaly. If he even gets back to 2022 form there’s a role for him.

 

[Pure_Ownage]

Probably unfair to speculate but if I was to guess who leaves our list at the end of next season it would be - Stanley, Hawkins, Tuohy (all retired), Hardie, Foster, Clohesy, Parfitt (all delisted).

Clohesy is highly rated and i think will stay. The others are fairly likely with the 3 retirements plus hardie foster and parf will find another home as FA.
I also think murdoch goes unless he gets games and dempsey will push rohan out so he will retire, and i think its bews last year as well hes ooc and declining. Kolo is also ooc but our lack of kpds will save him.
I think danger and duncan are also some chance to retire if they get more injuries next year.

I can easily see us turning over 10 players next year so we will need to hit the FA market hard to fill gaps.

 

[year of the cat]

Clohesy is highly rated and i think will stay. The others are fairly likely with the 3 retirements plus hardie foster and parf will find another home as FA.
I also think murdoch goes unless he gets games and dempsey will push rohan out so he will retire, and i think its bews last year as well hes ooc and declining. Kolo is also ooc but our lack of kpds will save him.
I think danger and duncan are also some chance to retire if they get more injuries next year.

I can easily see us turning over 10 players next year so we will need to hit the FA market hard to fill gaps.

If Rohan retires then perhaps that saves one of the youngsters from being delisted for at least a further year. Rohan was terrific in 2022. Was his best year of footy in his career. This year was a disaster like a number. If he has a similar experience with injury again it’s probably time to hang up the boots. We’ll see.

Kolo is the football equivalent of a cockroach. He will be around next year even if he’s been deplorable all season. I’d hope his position may be taken by Murdoch.

 

[CatToTheFuture]

If Rohan retires then perhaps that saves one of the youngsters from being delisted for at least a further year. Rohan was terrific in 2022. Was his best year of footy in his career. This year was a disaster like a number. If he has a similar experience with injury again it’s probably time to hang up the boots. We’ll see.

Kolo is the football equivalent of a cockroach. He will be around next year even if he’s been deplorable all season. I’d hope his position may be taken by Murdoch.

His injury run in 2022 wasn't ideal either.

 

[CatToTheFuture]

Clohesy is highly rated and i think will stay. The others are fairly likely with the 3 retirements plus hardie foster and parf will find another home as FA.
I also think murdoch goes unless he gets games and dempsey will push rohan out so he will retire, and i think its bews last year as well hes ooc and declining. Kolo is also ooc but our lack of kpds will save him.
I think danger and duncan are also some chance to retire if they get more injuries next year.

I can easily see us turning over 10 players next year so we will need to hit the FA market hard to fill gaps.

Yeah we seem to have a bit of key depth so Murdoch would be under the pump.

Clohesy on the other hand played a quarter and got involved. He has a bit of work to do but barring disaster can't see him being delisted on current trajectory

 

[BORIS332]

Probably unfair to speculate but if I was to guess who leaves our list at the end of next season it would be - Stanley, Hawkins, Tuohy (all retired), Hardie, Foster, Clohesy, Parfitt (all delisted).

Would be harsh to cut a KPF (Foster) after only two seasons on the list. Especially after his first year was interrupted by injury.

 

[year of the cat]

Would be harsh to cut a KPF (Foster) after only two seasons on the list. Especially after his first year was interrupted by injury.

I agree, but list changes have to be made and in the harsh world of AFL, if you don’t make some headway over the first couple of years as a lower draft pick your papers are invariably stamped.

 

[BORIS332]

From SEN1116 FB Page... Ranking team's young talent.

Not that it means much... but they got us 14th.

From -, we've ranked the young cores of every AFL clubs
Which club has the best under 24s? Did we get it right?
RANKINGS LINK HERE: Ranking the young cores of all 18 AFL clubs in 2024

It probably makes a fair bit of sense for that age range. Re below, since the 2017 draft (national and rookie) we've had the fewest games played from our draftees. This would likely be a combination of not having great draft picks, along with having a very experienced best 23 and it being difficult for debutants to break in.

 

[GeelongFTW]

I tend to think that’s correct. Unless our older group find the fountain of youth and avoid injury and a decline in form then it’s hard to see us competing with the top teams. And that’s ok. We are in a phase of transition at the moment.

We need to do another 2-3 years of list building and be patient with the maturation of our youngsters before we hopefully see a climb back up.

Off the back of a weaker draw and having our home ground advantage we may slip into the eight if everything goes right, but I doubt we will do any real damage.

Well if anyone has defy gravity it'll be our old geezers. We have some freaks in there so if we can scape top 4 somehow anything possible.

 

[year of the cat]

Well if anyone has defy gravity it'll be our old geezers. We have some freaks in there so if we can scape top 4 somehow anything possible.

If we can facilitate a good start to the season unlike the one just gone that allows us to rest our older brigade then who knows? But that’s being pretty optimistic. They will be 2 years older than when we won the flag with the oldest team fielded in history.

 

[GeelongFTW]

If we can facilitate a good start to the season unlike the one just gone that allows us to rest our older brigade then who knows? But that’s being pretty optimistic. They will be 2 years older than when we won the flag with the oldest team fielded in history.

Well tbf Collingwood and other top teams aren't exactly spring chickens either. Their vets are in just as much danger of a drop off as ours.

 

[Warhorse]

From SEN1116 FB Page... Ranking team's young talent.

Not that it means much... but they got us 14th.

From -, we've ranked the young cores of every AFL clubs
Which club has the best under 24s? Did we get it right?
RANKINGS LINK HERE: Ranking the young cores of all 18 AFL clubs in 2024

I can't see how Collingwood can be so high. Have to be brain dead to believe Collingwood has better youngsters than North Melbourne

 

[Footy Smarts]

It probably makes a fair bit of sense for that age range. Re below, since the 2017 draft (national and rookie) we've had the fewest games played from our draftees. This would likely be a combination of not having great draft picks, along with having a very experienced best 23 and it being difficult for debutants to break in.

View attachment 1863858

That must only include players we originally took in those drafts that remain on our list. For us that's very misleading.

Players from the 2017-2018 draft weight highest in that group because they've had the most time to play games. But Kelly and Clark left us so we don't get any credit for the 80 combined games they played for us.

We also traded in young players like O Henry and Bruhn rather than take draft picks. We could do this because we received a lot of draft capital trading out Kelly and Clark. But again we don't get any credit for Henry or Bruhn's games. We also don't get credit for Stengle cause he was was a delisted free agent rather than taken in the draft. Or Mullin as a category B.

So overall our recruitment has been far better over this period than that table suggests.

 

[moond0g]

It's almost as if I put the word 'hypothetical' in there for a reason.

You seem to love shooting down others posts, and then contribute no alternative posts with any work or research, other than the pessimistic viewpoint of the post you're critiquing.

It's a hypothetical predicting 2-4 years into the future. Check out some oppo boards and try doing it for every other club, and I think you'll find we've invested in that area more than most, which is cause for optimism.

That's ok if you feel that way. I just think everyone (including me) is biased in the way they think about their own side, particularly young and unproven players, and it's perhaps worth thinking about how you would judge another club on the same criteria. Regression to the mean get's everyone, eventually. And perhaps I work with numbers too much to be blindly optimistic about things too far in the future.

That said, the comp seems quite even, so I think you could make the case for at least half a dozen sides next year (including us) with a bit of luck. And I think we have a decent group of 18-22yo, which should help us improve in the next 5 years. But realistically with so many >30yo players that will retire in that time, a lot of our fortune will depend on who we can get in as free agents/trades.

 

[GeelongFTW]

That's ok if you feel that way. I just think everyone (including me) is biased in the way they think about their own side, particularly young and unproven players, and it's perhaps worth thinking about how you would judge another club on the same criteria. Regression to the mean get's everyone, eventually. And perhaps I work with numbers too much to be blindly optimistic about things too far in the future.

That said, the comp seems quite even, so I think you could make the case for at least half a dozen sides next year (including us) with a bit of luck. And I think we have a decent group of 18-22yo, which should help us improve in the next 5 years. But realistically with so many >30yo players that will retire in that time, a lot of our fortune will depend on who we can get in as free agents/trades.

Cadman and Reid to Geelong you reckon?

 

[BORIS332]

That must only include players we originally took in those drafts that remain on our list. For us that's very misleading.

Players from the 2017-2018 draft weight highest in that group because they've had the most time to play games. But Kelly and Clark left us so we don't get any credit for the 80 combined games they played for us.

We also traded in young players like O Henry and Bruhn rather than take draft picks. We could do this because we received a lot of draft capital trading out Kelly and Clark. But again we don't get any credit for Henry or Bruhn's games. We also don't get credit for Stengle cause he was was a delisted free agent rather than taken in the draft. Or Mullin as a category B.

So overall our recruitment has been far better over this period than that table suggests.

You've made some incorrect assumptions. The graph shows all players taken in those drafts, their games are attributed to the club they're currently with. That's why the x-axis title is "current club".

For us this includes O.Henry and Bruhn. It doesn't include Stengle because he wasn't drafted in the 2017-2022 range, he was taken in 2016 and is 25.

 

[Footy Smarts]

You've made some incorrect assumptions. The graph shows all players taken in those drafts, their games are attributed to the club they're currently with. That's why the x-axis title is "current club".

For us this includes O.Henry and Bruhn. It doesn't include Stengle because he wasn't drafted in the 2017-2022 range, he was taken in 2016 and is 25.

But then it's not enough games.

Atkins, Miers, Close, Holmes, Bruhn, O Henry and SDK takes us to 477 games already without even including the younger players.

 

[Hamingja]

With a growth in our population and the advancement of those pathways, it'll eventually sort itself out, but that's still going to take 10-20 years.

Not so sure about that. The growth in our population is from migrants, and migrant families having kids.

The African community has taken to the game, and is probably quite highly overrepresented in the AFL based upon numbers in the community.

Most of the population growth though is from the sub continent and east Asia and there is practically zero players coming through from those communities and there never has been because sport is a very low priority culturally for them.

 

[BORIS332]

But then it's not enough games.

Atkins, Miers, Close, Holmes, Bruhn, O Henry and SDK takes us to 477 games already without even including the younger players.

Not sure how that happened, but the result is largely the same:



FYI, our players include:

 

[Oisin_the_Goat]

Cadman and Reid to Geelong you reckon?

Someone told me this rumours true

 

[Footy Smarts]

Not sure how that happened, but the result is largely the same:

View attachment 1863964

FYI, our players include:

View attachment 1863966

Fair enough.

The biggest issue is using games played for young players. It makes older players that just make the cutoff appear way more valuable than young players because they've had the opportunity to play more games. So Paddy Dow (76 games) is rated a better pick than anyone picked in the last 3 drafts (Daicos, Sheezel, Amiss, etc).

Trading Kelly and Clark means we've got very little left in the 2017-18 drafts and much more in 2020. Then SDK who looks great from 2019 only played 1 game in his first 2 years again artificially lowering the games played compared to the quality of player.