List Mgmt. 2025 List Management Discussion - Part IV

[Hubnester]

2025 List Management Discussion - Part 4

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
​

 

[beside the seaside]

They’re gonna be good everywhere but the place they actually need to fix, their midfield is absolute garbage and got completely exposed in the grand final

I don't see how they get both deals done. Assuming they use one first for Marshall, the 2027 firsts are worthless given its the Tassie draft.

 

[Tommy Wigs]

Mate, can we cut the adversarial shit? We both barrack for the same team and want the St Kilda football club to succeed.

I'm throwing out the scenario of TDK getting injured because it's happened in every season of his football career. Odds are that he will not play 20 games next year.

Dodson is incredibly talented but he is a baby at this point. I think in a year or two he'll be capable of playing a support role and after that he should be ready to be the main man.

Fair enough if you don't think we'll be contending in the next couple of years. I thought the same until we abandoned the steady rebuild for what seems to me like an all-out assault on a flag in the next few years.

Yep, no one goes in with this bare a ruck cupboard.

 

[austinnn]

Neddy!!!! Begin the memes!

View attachment 2446024

Next year’s cheer squad.

 

[Sully111]

So you don't think there's any point in a team having a competent backup ruckman?

Ro wants to go to Geelong

As he apparently did last year

I don't see there's any point in blaming the club for that.

Let's just see how it plays out.

 

[thekizzler]

Mate, can we cut the adversarial shit? We both barrack for the same team and want the St Kilda football club to succeed.

I'm throwing out the scenario of TDK getting injured because it's happened in every season of his football career. Odds are that he will not play 20 games next year.

Dodson is incredibly talented but he is a baby at this point. I think in a year or two he'll be capable of playing a support role and after that he should be ready to be the main man.

Fair enough if you don't think we'll be contending in the next couple of years. I thought the same until we abandoned the steady rebuild for what seems to me like an all-out assault on a flag in the next few years.

How many players played every game for the Saints in the season just gone?

You make it sound like TDK is injury prone - when he actually probably gets 1-2 injuries a season like most players.

You are just speculating over a scenario that's almost been invented in your head.

Sorry mate - but that's the truth.

Let's entertain your fantasy for a sec...

We aren't able to get someone decent in when they are going to be discarded in two years anyway?

We also don't want to get someone in to deny Dodson development minutes and possibly force him to leave the club?

You can throw out as many scenarios as you want, but when you support them with poor knowledge of what the club is doing, information claimed as facts when it is not and literal bed wetting over a scenario that hasn't happened, then you are going to get the responses you have got - not even just from myself.

It's almost impossible to sustain having two quality ruckman on your list - as one is always getting less opportunities than the other. If TDK gets injured, we have plenty of options to get us through and hopefully that would mean fast-tracking development in a couple of players too.

You are not even an old man shouting at a cloud, you're a 'Mad-Saint-Guy' shouting at nothing.

 

[kick it lace out]

The thing that Marshall needs to consider is that playing in a team with two genuine ruckmen will prolong his career. We’ve seen the wear and tear on his body over the last few years and this year in particular he seemed to be playing under duress. A longer career = more money to set himself up post footy.

 

[Sully111]

They’re gonna be good everywhere but the place they actually need to fix, their midfield is absolute garbage and got completely exposed in the grand final

Yep

Smith is overrated af

 

[tassiesaint2024]

Agree. To me he should be worth 2 Geelong 1sts given they will be good next year so 2 picks around 20. but Rowan has nominated them after we recruited someone to his position. I think there will be some level of goodwill to Ro for his time at the club (just hopefully not too much). Same deal for Steele.

Said it numerous times, but happy for Ro to move on. Good luck to him.
Re goodwill though? Na bugger that. Play hard ball and get as much as we can from them. Stuff the Cats.

 

[Sully111]

Just got me some Kentucky fried pidgeon
Ten tenders ten bucks campaigners
Driving home, happened to see....
Howard Street

Its a sign

Took the girlfriend out for lunch today. Offered her that KFC deal... said 5 each... woohoo

She wouldn't go for it

High Maintenance chicks man

I guess it was for her birthday but still.

 

[PoppedCorn]

We have dodson keeler hammer titanic amd now aleer who can jump 800 foot ffs

We will be fine
We survived every other year with shit rucks

 

[PoppedCorn]

Took the girlfriend out for lunch today. Offered her that KFC deal... said 5 each... woohoo

She wouldn't go for it

High maintanenece chicks man

I guess it was for her birthday but still.

Dump
Shes no good

 

[SaintsofSteel]

It's definitely a weakness of the list as it stands, so I hope they have some magic plan to address it. But realistically it's hard to have a great backup ruck - some players are just irreplaceable (as we saw with Max this year). I don't think Dodson will be that much worse than Heath would have been, but yeah ideally we'll get an experienced body like Goldstein.

We would be better off giving Heath another couple of years. At least we know he is still improving Goldstein was cooked 2 years ago. The other option would be to throw Dodson in and grab another young ruckman at the draft. If we challenge next year we just hope we don't lose TDK for any length of time.

Carrying fill in ruckman for just in case scenarios is completely the wrong list strategy in my view. We are better off getting games into kids with a future and getting them up to speed.

 

[thekizzler]

We have dodson keeler hammer titanic amd now aleer who can jump 800 foot ffs

We will be fine
We survived every other year with shit rucks

Also, if we are really desperate, Silvagni can play ruck minutes.

We literally have the perfect amount of rucks and options to give Dodson plenty of senior time if he warrants it next season.

 

[Saintscomemarchingin]

thekizzler
We have plenty of options?
We have Tdk & Dodson in your scenario
Keeler, maybe down the track
Caminiti & Owens can pinch hit to rest the big guy, but not ideal.

 

[OxSaint]

I haven’t seen a lot of Ainsworth but when I have watched him I have liked him. He is another forward we can rotate through the middle or play the high extra at stoppage role. It also limits avg to poor ball use to only Owens in the forward half of the ground. No more Butler right foot bananas into the 50

media can carry on that we have just thrown money at anyone available but I am convince we have target players that address weakness’s in our game.

The sheer quantity has been a mix of luck and saved salary cap space that has to be spent regardless.

Really hope we land the Rd 1 Pies game. Will be making the trek down from northwest nsw.

 

[Sully111]

Why would our ruck situation be better if we kept Ro and didn't bring in TDK?

We had Boyd this year but Dodson was just a pup. He's further along now and has played AFL.

Why is the situation we're in so different to what we had this year?

 

[Stan_Darsh72]

Mate, can we cut the adversarial shit? We both barrack for the same team and want the St Kilda football club to succeed.

I'm throwing out the scenario of TDK getting injured because it's happened in every season of his football career. Odds are that he will not play 20 games next year.

Dodson is incredibly talented but he is a baby at this point. I think in a year or two he'll be capable of playing a support role and after that he should be ready to be the main man.

Fair enough if you don't think we'll be contending in the next couple of years. I thought the same until we abandoned the steady rebuild for what seems to me like an all-out assault on a flag in the next few years.

We can always rookie list a mature age ruck.

 

[thekizzler]

thekizzler
We have plenty of options?
We have Tdk & Dodson in your scenario
Keeler, maybe down the track
Caminiti & Owens can pinch hit to rest the big guy, but not ideal.

Every team has a no.1 ruck.

Then most of the no.2's are able deputies that are not good enough to be no.1's.

If they become good enough to be a no.1, they leave or take the no.1 spot and force the former no.1 to leave.

Point is that we don't have the deepest ruck stocks in the league, but that's because the coaching staff clearly rate Dodson.

We have enough options to get by if TDK gets injured - and we certainly don't need to waste any capital either in picks or salary to bring in a ruck.

TDK is our long-term no.1 and Dodson will become a capable no.2 quite quickly it seems. Then we only need warm bodies in case of a disaster because no one has a no.3 ruckman that is any good.

 

[thekizzler]

Why would our ruck situation be better if we kept Ro and didn't bring in TDK?

We had Boyd this year but Dodson was just a pup. He's further along now and has played AFL.

Why is the situation we're in so different to what we had this year?

Because people are bedwetting over Marshall leaving - either actually or subconsciously.

There is also a massive overrating of Max Heath too.

At best, we will bring in another ruck option that costs literally zero but wouldn't surprise me if we don't.

 

[beside the seaside]

Why would our ruck situation be better if we kept Ro and didn't bring in TDK?

We had Boyd this year but Dodson was just a pup. He's further along now and has played AFL.

Why is the situation we're in so different to what we had this year?

Assuming we bring in a backup that is equal to Boyd (not hard) then it will probably be slightly better.

The reason for this is the coaches just don't rate Ro that highly as a ruck. In my opinion the elimination final against GWS when Flynn annhilated Marshall was when Ross started looking around at the ruck situation. We looked at teaming him with Soldo but that fell through. We've obviously had our eyes on TDK for a while.

Dodson should be on a par with Heath next year but he is young. It looks like we lack a decent backup if TDK goes down but Geelong did just make a grand final rucking Blicavs through the finals so I guess there are always other options.

 

[Saints4ever]

Just got me some Kentucky fried pidgeon
Ten tenders ten bucks campaigners
Driving home, happened to see....
Howard Street

Its a sign

how good are the 10 tenders for $10
Nice replacement for the 6 pieces chicken for $10
Mmm KFC back in 10.

 

[thekizzler]

Assuming we bring in a backup that is equal to Boyd (not hard) then it will probably be slightly better.

The reason for this is the coaches just don't rate Ro that highly as a ruck. In my opinion the elimination final against GWS when Flynn annhilated Marshall was when Ross started looking around at the ruck situation. We looked at teaming him with Soldo but that fell through. We've obviously had our eyes on TDK for a while.

Dodson should be on a par with Heath next year but he is young. It looks like we lack a decent backup if TDK goes down but Geelong did just make a grand final rucking Blicavs through the finals so I guess there are always other options.

Hear hear.

It's not like we are in Geelong's situation with two ancient rucks and a key defender rucking.

We have who we believe are going to be the 1,2,3 for the near future.

2 and 3 are just a little shy of being as good as they need to be, but both should be there soon - and maybe could be even better.

It's a good situation we're in.

 

[beside the seaside]

If we are giving up 7 for Flanders will we be getting anything back in that deal? If we have a couple of late firsts maybe we can package them up to move up.

 

[AaronSCHQ]

What do people think the clubs plans will be for match day? Assuming Ro key forward and a bit of ruck duties was the plan… does it mean Keeler plays in that role, or we just go in with 1 ruck?

 

[jwikked]

I'm just gonna come right out and say it. We're all thinking it.

If Rowan leaves to Geelong, it's the ultimate cuck move.