List Mgmt. 2025 List Management Discussion - Part 3

[Hubnester]

2025 List Management Discussion - Part 3

Now that our season is over, and news is starting to break - it's time for a fresh thread.

This thread is to discuss all things list management - trades, draft, free agency, delistings and more.
As we are now officially in our off-season, we'll be wanting to keep this thread more strictly on-topic than the previous iterations.
Be respectful. You are allowed to disagree with someone - but play the ball, not the man. Repeat offenders will have their posting rights revoked.

Thanks to Lore once again for this incredibly useful spreadsheet.

2025 KEY DATES
Free Agency Period: Friday, October 3rd - Friday, October 10th
Trade Period: Monday, October 6th - Wednesday, October 15th
AFL Draft: Wednesday, November 19th - Thursday, November 20th

See Also:
2025 Year in Review Rumours & Confirmed Movements 2025 Draft Discussion
​

 

[Falchoon]

I think I see our situation as both more optimistic and pessimistic.

Caminiti did show some promise down back this year but he still has a ton of work to do before he's anywhere near a serviceable key defender, if he ever makes it at that level at all. From what I remember the coaches have even made comments they would prefer him as a forward, so bringing in some talented cover in that position makes us stronger.

Keeler looks OK. He's shown flashes of being at the level, but based on this season I think if we are being completely honest he's more likely to be out of the league in two years than looking at signing a four year deal.

Dodson has had a fantastic run of VFL form and I hope it continues, but we don't have anywhere near enough knowledge about him to inform a list strategy. In all likelihood he will be hitting his straps when Marshall is at the end, so I'm really not worried about that for now.

As for the other young guys we've brought in, I'm actually happy the club isn't just assuming they will all be guns like we did when we hate the ill-fated Saints Future Fest a decade ago. I was extremely bullish about a number of players having stacks of talent, including:

• Billings
• Clark
• Coffield
• Roberton
• Weller
• Gresham
• Goddard
• Dunstan
• Newnes
• Bruce

and the list almost certainly goes on, but I'm not so much of a masochist I'm going to look back at some of my earlier posts on this forum!

I hope that Wilson, Travaglia, Pou etc all come on and reach the heights we think they will, but if we are being realistic about it we simply haven't seen it yet and basing our recruiting on "potential" instead of reality is a disaster waiting to happen. If they turn out like the last crop did we don't move at all, and we can't expect Nas to stick around as the sole shining light if that does happen.

If we end up with a salary cap squeeze because we so shoot up the ladder, great! That will be the first "good problem" we've had since 2012.

is this where we get to say our 'I told you so' credentials ?








I still have my doubts on Phillipou. (tweener)

 

[Joffaboy]

Anyone getting tired of winning?

Only as good as your last game, which we lost.

 

[SnapShotHiggins]

He's like if Snags was faster and could sit on shoulders. He turns absolute shit entries into goals too. Can play some contested ball stuff when needed and come up with the play. People will love him IMO. X factor and a bit of class about him. Reinvigorated and in a better side he should look a lot better too.

Agree but not many small forwards have Higgo’s footy IQ and since he’s fixed up his goal kicking he has become a real valuable and important-member of the team . BTW Really happy flyin Ryan is coming takes some pressure off Snags , all the very good teams have 2 or 3 smalls players & who can Impact the scoreboard so if one is shut down there are other options e.g Geelong Adelaide Collingwood

 

[westernsainter]

is this where we get to say our 'I told you so' credentials ?

View attachment 2411420

View attachment 2411419


View attachment 2411415

I still have my doubts on Phillipou. (tweener)

I'll give you the first two but by 2021 I think we all felt that way about Dunstan

 

[RBW_007]

Their coach is hopeless.

Mouthing "We're ****ing shit" in the coaches box probably doesn't help player morale.

 

[SnapShotHiggins]

He's like if Snags was faster and could sit on shoulders. He turns absolute shit entries into goals too. Can play some contested ball stuff when needed and come up with the play. People will love him IMO. X factor and a bit of class about him. Reinvigorated and in a better side he should look a lot better too.

One of Higgo’s main attributes is his footy IQ and very importantly he’s fixed up his goal kicking really starting to be impactful on the scoreboard so if flyin Ryan comes on board it can only be a big plus youll find all the very good teams have two or three smalls who are capable of scoreboard pressure e.g. Adelaide Geelong Collingwood & they can pop up when one of them has a hard defensive tag !

 

[SnapShotHiggins]

One of Higgo’s main attributes is his footy IQ and very importantly he’s fixed up his goal kicking really starting to be impactful on the scoreboard so if flyin Ryan comes on board it can only be a big plus youll find all the very good teams have two or three smalls who are capable of scoreboard pressure e.g. Adelaide Geelong Collingwood & they can pop up when one of them has a hard defensive tag !

+ best snapshot in the AFL. He’s added that to his artillery both sides of the body are real credit to him.

 

[nikkig98]

I think this is the new St Kilda strategy going forward. Just target and don't worry about pissing off people.

Agreed, as Bassat said, if it backfires and we are going to die, we are going to die with our boots on and not be scared to have a go

 

[tassiesaint2024]

I'm gonna zag here.

Had a great time with Essendon fans in the stands at our game, especially compared to Carlton fans (definitely the worst).

They've been ground down and humbled over time.

We are often accused of being behind the times in Tassie.

Can confirm, in this instance, that’s definitely the case. The ones down here are insufferable.

 

[Minga]

whole ass team has a contract year in 2027 and we win the flag, gotta be the strat

 

[Yawkey way]

He's like if Snags was faster and could sit on shoulders. He turns absolute shit entries into goals too. Can play some contested ball stuff when needed and come up with the play. People will love him IMO. X factor and a bit of class about him. Reinvigorated and in a better side he should look a lot better too.

Bums on seats doesn’t hurt either.

 

[Leap of Faith]

That premiership was six years ago.

He's almost 29 and hasn't had a good season since 2021. He kicked 100 goals in his first four seasons and 58 in the next four.

This.

 

[aussierulesrules]

Ross has said he thinks the OOC 2027 cohort can lead a side to contention

If that’s the case then we should be able to back them (and a Flanders and say SOSOS) in to improve enough next year for us to become a more appealing proposition to guys who are better than Aleer/Ryan types, so that we can spend our money on them instead.

That's all you need in terms of explanation

With all due respect, I think for myself and call things as I see them.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from life it’s that even bonafide “experts” in a field will disagree on how to go about things, so there’s no such thing as “so-and-so says x is the way to go about things, so therefore that’s an indisputable fact”.

If you 'wait and see' for 12 months, that's half the window eliminated...for what benefit? If the kids regress then we're screwed anyway

I’ve said what I see the benefit being. Instead of putting big road-blocks in front of a bunch of our most talented kids- especially the ones who are coming into their 3rd or 4th years- we keep backing them in and getting game time into them which

A: Significantly increases the likelihood of them continuing to improve (eg Keeler was significantly better with each return to the seniors this year- that almost certainly doesn’t happen if he’d been in the VFL all year)
B: We have more of an idea of what we really need to throw our cash at, before committing lots of money to it.

And if the “kids regress” then we probably don’t have the foundations we’d need to build a premiership list on anyway, so getting a whole lot of Aleer/Ryan types on top of them isn’t going to get us anywhere near a flag. Like when we got a big influx 5-6 years ago. Who got us up to 6th, with a maxed cap.

We're also no guarantee to land any of the 2026 free agents. We can't take this TDK scenario for granted - he stays if his club didn't screw up their salary cap that hard

If you’re suggesting that there won’t be other great opportunities to recruit someone when we offer them $600K PA more than their own club thinks they’re worth then I’d disagree with that. Especially if we’re a better team than we were this year.

And the next one might fit more of a need than ruck is for us. Our ruck stocks would already be the envy of lots of clubs.

Also we need to spend some of this cap this year I believe so that money would also go down the drain

All that would be required would be some creative accounting. Like paying Nas $3mil next year. And again, I’m NOT saying don’t spend any of it on blokes this year.

I’m all for Flanders (as he’s young and has A-grade potential) and as I keep saying would be ok with SOSOS, as we don’t have to trade for him, or commit to him for too long.

Anyway, none of what any of us here thinks matters, so we’ve just got to cross our fingers and hope this works.

 

[SainterinSydney]

Geez Purple is a toad of a man

IF it was Plugger in the '90s and Buddy in the '10s ... THEN

Sliding Doors is at the pointy end of the 2025 season .. and Damo's still got plenty on his mind

www.afl.com.au

 

[aussierulesrules]

Is everyone else having a whole lot of trouble posting on here, and finding it a massive pain in the ass lately?

Like every few minutes the page refreshes (saying there was a problem reloading the page) while you’re in the middle of typing a post, and this box you’re typing in then comes up blank, and that ads keep coming up all over the screen (especially when typing, moving the box you’re typing in all over the place), and regularly when you’re typing, the screen freezes, and it takes like half a minute to type one word?

Are others experiencing this? It’s like being back in the bad old days of dialup. Can take like 3 or 4 times as long as normal to write a post, especially of any length.

It’s becoming intolerable.

 

[Saints4ever]

Is everyone else having a whole lot of trouble posting on here, and finding it a massive pain in the ass lately?

Like every few minutes the page refreshes (saying there was a problem reloading the page) while you’re in the middle of typing a post, and this box you’re typing in then comes up blank, and that ads keep coming up all over the screen (especially when typing, moving the box you’re typing in all over the place), and regularly when you’re typing, the screen freezes, and it takes like half a minute to type one word?

Are others experiencing this? It’s like being back in the bad old days of dialup. Can take like 3 or 4 times as long as normal to write a post, especially of any length.

Yep I’ve experienced this a couple of times.

Typed out 3 or 4 paragraphs then the whole thing disappears.

It’s infuriating

 

[BucketsandBanger]

Why St Kilda's $2 million deal is not a major coup - The Age

When is a coup not a coup?

stories.theage.com.au

Made the mistake of clicking on this link. Apparently it’s embarrassing we have kept NAS the way we have. I tried to listen to this podcast once, I almost fell asleep, Jake Niall and Michael Gleeson are two of the most miserable campaigners that ever existed.

 

[stavro#4]

 

[Yawkey way]

I know a lot of Blues supporters including family. Most are just beaten by it all. They still have a big club fan base but not many are arrogant any more. Even when they were winning they were waiting to fall back down.

Those absolute ferals aren't most of them. I think it's become a way to get yourself noticed now and they do it for clicks.

I don't even find giving them shit enjoyable any more. It's like kicking an emaciated geriatric dog.

It’s lost some zing but I still make the effort.

I made good use of the wins since 2000 table. I asked my son in law why he saw fit to inflict Carlton on my grandson and asked if he’d like to have a rethink. As I pointed out it’s looking like another 10 years in the bottom six.

Gringo they voted to wind us up, some things are unforgivable.

 

[ronnysnodgrass]

Remember when the debate was between him and Tsatas? so much more confidence in our decisions recently. GO SAINTS

 

[Hayes4PM]

Geez Purple is a toad of a man

IF it was Plugger in the '90s and Buddy in the '10s ... THEN

Sliding Doors is at the pointy end of the 2025 season .. and Damo's still got plenty on his mind

www.afl.com.au

keep best player at your club on new deal, sign best available free agent to move to your club, get other players to request a trade to your club

HA! Good luck with morale!


... I shouldn't think it would be too hard but ok thanks Damo.

 

[beside the seaside]

keep best player at your club on new deal, sign best available free agent to move to your club, get other players to request a trade to your club

HA! Good luck with morale!


... I shouldn't think it would be too hard but ok thanks Damo.

That's just such crap from Damo. Not that you'd expect anything else.

 

[aussierulesrules]

Yep I’ve experienced this a couple of times.

Typed out 3 or 4 paragraphs then the whole thing disappears.

It’s infuriating

You know when that happens you just need to refresh the page

And you’ll get most if not all of that lost post you were writing back, but yeah, it’s still a real nuisance.

It was happening about every 10 minutes or something, but now it’s about every 2.

The ads seem to be wreaking havoc.

I ended up writing most of that earlier long post in my notes, then copying and pasting it into here, otherwise it would have taken an eternity to write here.

 

[jwikked]

The ads seem to be wreaking havoc.

u block origin
Remove the space between the u and the b

 

[CaptainRisky]

I keep seeing a bit that dodson is ahead of heath am i missing something heath has a lot better fwd craft, ruck craft, contested marking, and aggression. The only thing he has over heath is accumulation but doesnt impact much with his touches anyway. With the new jumping ruck rule coming I've seen heath jump surprisingly well where as dodson cant jump over a sheet of paper. Am I wrong?

Only on all accounts, you must have been watching the wrong person ,
Fancy calling yourself Draft Guru