List Mgmt. 2025 List Management Discussion - Part V

[Hubnester]

2025 List Management Discussion - Part 5

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
​

 

[Gavinmitchell11]

The team is starting to take if we can nab a Cadman, Callaghan, Butters level of star in the next couple of years we’ll be all set for a tilt I reckon.

 

[FraserGehrigsHair]

I wonder why we loaded up in the 2027 draft, we have Rowan MacKenzie (Cam's brother) as an NGA next year, so points would've been better for 2026?

Maybe some strategy for Tasmania draft??? In 2027 Tasmania have picks 5, 7, 11 and 13 which they have to trade for players or picks. Could be loading up early on points for pick swaps is considered advantageous somehow? But I can’t say I really understand it as I imagine Tasmania would be after established players rather than splitting high picks for 3rd and 4th rounders.

 

[Diehard Saint]

If we can only keep one of Ari Monty or Zac who would you keep.
Monty links attacking strings all across the ground and pops up for the odd goal. A true warrior.
Zac is our best clearance player on his day.
Ari is a one trick pony and not a great defender.
Funnily enough I’d pick Ari. Could be an absolute weapon off a wing with further development and fitness.

Think I’d go Byrnes.
Fit, hardworking role player. Very good depth which every team needs.
Ari hasn’t shown much - potential only ( yes I know he’s young but you need to be able to do more than just kick.)
Jones’ time is up, sadly for him.

 

[Significant]

If we can only keep one of Ari Monty or Zac who would you keep.
Monty links attacking strings all across the ground and pops up for the odd goal. A true warrior.
Zac is our best clearance player on his day.
Ari is a one trick pony and not a great defender.
Funnily enough I’d pick Ari. Could be an absolute weapon off a wing with further development and fitness.

We are only going to be able to hold them to the rookie list, so I'd prefer to keep Ari as the wildcard and see how he may continue to develop.

 

[Diehard Saint]

Oh, whats that Carl, we were juggling list spots?!?! When it came to our decision-making around Aleer?

What?

That is BRAND NEW INFORMATION!

You do know you’re a pain n the ar*e, right?

They are NEVER going to say that once we landed JSOS for nothing ( which was something that came up late and took us all by surprise) we didn’t need or want him. Especially after Ross went specifically to go and watch him play - obviously wasn’t at all impressed.

Just let it go FFS.

 

[phantom13]

SEN graded us an A minus (Swans, Giants, Suns, Lions all got an A of some description).

Effectively said were better all over the field but potentially impacted relationships with the Aleer handling.

Pretty fair assesment IMO.

 

[nikkig98]

SEN graded us an A minus (Swans, Giants, Suns, Lions all got an A of some description).

Effectively said were better all over the field but potentially impacted relationships with the Aleer handling.

Pretty fair assesment IMO.

Yeah i can cop that. i expected the club to come out and give an explanation or make a move that justified it a bit better

 

[Train12]

How good is that ladies and gents!!
We improve our list, whilst;
Cats
Hawks
Pies
Who all played finals in 2025 did not.
Dogs didn’t add to their backline!

We need Adelaide luck with our injury list this pre season and im genuinely excited!!

Cats and pies I recon are close to falling off the cliff..
Mackie’s ego got in the way of them getting a missing piece..funny thing was - we all thought it would be the reason as well.

 

[Joffaboy]

People worried about the 2027 3rd rounders...

Nothing is static. If we need points for next year's NGA, we can trade them into 2026.

But only if we have List spots. Can you get on to that for us and post the results? Preferably in CAPS.

 

[gringo2011]

RTB made a comment at a function early this year that Collard will play 2 games or 200 games..

I reckon that's a pretty fair summary. He really feels like he's all or nothing from the outside. The talent is there and it will just be the amount of application he can put in now.

 

[billings2paddy]

Classic Geelong arrogance.

He had 10 days to offer that pick and give use time to negotiate picks around that F1. But he waited until the last minute just expecting us to give in.

It's the painfully obvious Mack attack negotiation strategy

 

[akaifu]

RTB made a comment at a function early this year that Collard will play 2 games or 200 games..

Hopefully Liam Ryan can make it 200

 

[ARCHIE66]

Ryan will be just as good as an inclusion as the other three. He’s a great player just playing in a shit team. Expect him to win games for us.

 

[Sully111]

Oh, whats that Carl, we were juggling list spots?!?! When it came to our decision-making around Aleer?

What?

That is BRAND NEW INFORMATION!

 

[Klaatu]

Yeah i can cop that. i expected the club to come out and give an explanation or make a move that justified it a bit better

I suppose a club just can't come out and say he's no good we don't rate him any more imagine the turmoil that would cause.

If they want clubs to be honest then you need to be prepared to hear something you wont like.

 

[MordySaint]

I'm so happy that we did not yield to Geelong and accept a trade for Roma.

They seem to expect to get they want, this time he's not for sale.

We will be reaping the benefits from a tandem tall man team next year. The longer the game goes the more important tall men get.

Roma is a beast, with TDK in the side it will be like we were with Ryder in the side ... and that's a whole lot taller, a whole lot stronger and a whole lot better.

 

[Rogue Warrior]

SEN graded us an A minus (Swans, Giants, Suns, Lions all got an A of some description).

Effectively said were better all over the field but potentially impacted relationships with the Aleer handling.

Pretty fair assesment IMO.

The giants have chained a $700k x 5 year ball to their ankle with Oliver. A leopard doesn’t change his spots. If Sydney have a no dickhead policy. They giants have the opposite. Good luck

 

[The Punter]

If we can only keep one of Ari Monty or Zac who would you keep.
Monty links attacking strings all across the ground and pops up for the odd goal. A true warrior.
Zac is our best clearance player on his day.
Ari is a one trick pony and not a great defender.
Funnily enough I’d pick Ari. Could be an absolute weapon off a wing with further development and fitness.

I don't think it should be Jones, although I suspect it will be as he represents the safest bet for 2026.

Byrnes cops some unfair criticism but considering the depth we now possess, it would be surprising if he stayed and moved someone out of the way to be a contributor to a St Kilda finals team.

Schoenmaker has the potential upside, but he has one discernable AFL level skill, and that doesn't cut it. And we just added more 190cm+ defenders.

So I guess I'd keep Byrnes.

 

[The Punter]

The giants have chained a $700k x 5 year ball to their ankle with Oliver. A leopard doesn’t change his spots. If Sydney have a no dickhead policy. They giants have the opposite. Good luck

By the end of the deal he'll be on AFL average salary. He's now off off off broadway. If it'll ever work, Oliver will work at GWS.

He'll look awful in that jumper BTW.

 

[akaifu]

 

[gringo2011]

As you know I have a completely different view of the 2019 trades. Our list was so lacking in experience that we would have ended up looking like WCE or North in results and club morale and culture. This would have made it impossible to do what we have done over the past few years.
We still have four on the list after 6 years although Jones should be delisted this year. It was a good result to keep the team somewhat competitive, and probably helped us get Lyon back and allow us for the current tilt.

BUT....

It was never going to get us top four and you are correct with Toce. Not sure if he was the one who identified Wilkie who was a 2019 rookie (forgotten when the talk of the 5 trades take place) but he got us Sharman after he went to SA to scout the SANFL during covid and probably was instrumental in NAZ, Pou and Keeler as well really started this current process.

After the appalling drafting from 2012 onwards we needed the reset in 2019 to stay competitive, and then the four year plan of hitting the draft culminating in this trade period.

I am still of the view we need another outside star recruit to compliment the hoped for internal growth of players to be able to compete. I have a terrible feeling the AFL has created an absolute monster in the two fake Queensland clubs and our window will be smashed by these to unfairly stacked teams.

I don't think we were ever Northing it and dragged out the mediocrity cycle much longer than it needed to be. We moved on a lot of GOPs for more GOPs.


You can't have too many stars but realistically the down side of paying so much for guys like Nas and TDK is that it will really limit our ability to pay huge money to anyone else in the future. If a few kids step up we will need it to cover them staying. We really need Wilson, Windhager, Owens, King types to step up level now.

Nas looks absolute elite and Hall won't be far behind him IMO. Sinclair and Wilkie are A grade and King should be if fit. Snags not far off either. Ryan on his day is and Flanders is 12 month off having had an elite season. A bit of injury luck and some momentum off the new recruits and we could really surge.

 

[phantom13]

Yeah i can cop that. i expected the club to come out and give an explanation or make a move that justified it a bit better

i think they either needed to adress it immediately or not at all.

All they could/would have said would have been "we tried, couldnt reach an agreement, we wish Leek all the best" so it wouldnt matter much

I reckon that's a pretty fair summary. He really feels like he's all or nothing from the outside. The talent is there and it will just be the amount of application he can put in now.

Application and opportunity. I maintain small forward is the toughest spot on the ground and he hasnt had much chance with a decent tall to play off.

Its more likely it never comes together but i can hope. An electric truly game changing small forward is showtime stuff.

The giants have chained a $700k x 5 year ball to their ankle with Oliver. A leopard doesn’t change his spots. If Sydney have a no dickhead policy. They giants have the opposite. Good luck

I probably tend to agree (and the rumours around Clarry were eye watering) but weve seen players turn stuff around to a degree.

Swanny would have been lucky to play 5 games if people didnt persist with him. Clarry is a talent and will compliment that midfield and GWS seem to have gotten Hogan and Stringer on the straight and narrow enough (albeit matress guts Jake cant stay fit)

 

[dougiemac]

Don’t take on the Gubbster!

The Gubbenator!

 

[phantom13]

I don't think we were ever Northing it and dragged out the mediocrity cycle much longer than it needed to be. We moved on a lot of GOPs for more GOPs.


You can't have too many stars but realistically the down side of paying so much for guys like Nas and TDK is that it will really limit our ability to pay huge money to anyone else in the future. If a few kids step up we will need it to cover them staying. We really need Wilson, Windhager, Owens, King types to step up level now.

Nas looks absolute elite and Hall won't be far behind him IMO. Sinclair and Wilkie are A grade and King should be if fit. Snags not far off either. Ryan on his day is and Flanders is 12 month off having had an elite season. A bit of injury luck and some momentum off the new recruits and we could really surge.

On potential Wilson, Boxshall, Garcia, Windy, Tauru could all come on like a freight train in the next year or two.

Not all of them will but its exciting none the less.

 

[Joffaboy]

I suppose a club just can't come out and say he's no good we don't rate him any more imagine the turmoil that would cause.

If they want clubs to be honest then you need to be prepared to hear something you wont like.

Lets face it, circumstances changed once we landed JSOS.

The excuse of not agreeing with GWS, was just that, an excuse.

In the washup we made a mistake in committing to Aleer. the fact that we rectified that mistake would detract from the media pile on as Dilena described it.

Well we cop that on the chin as a result of a mistake, too bad, Aleer is contracted, we move on. As far as mistakes go, it is small beer in comparison to McCartin, Nettlefield losing Lyon, Richardson, re signing Ratten then sacking him 6 months later etc etc etc.

In the big scheme
TDK
JSOS
Ryan
Flanders

re siging
NAZ
Wilkie
WIndhager

keeping
Marshall

If at the beginning say the NAZ resigning that we would do the above but cope some flak for not taking Aleer, I would take that and run.