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
​

 

[Grav]

Got this in my feed on FB today… don’t know who Llama 4 is, but whoever he is, I don’t think he’s a Saints supporter. Brett Ratten

Brett Ratten

Age

54

Ht

184cm

Wt

88kg

Pos.

Mid

Career

Season

Last 5

D

22.4

5star

K

12.1

4star

HB

10.3

5star

M

2.9

3star

T

3.0

5star

No current season stats available

D

26.4

5star

K

13.8

5star

HB

12.6

5star

M

3.4

4star

T

1.6

4star

FFS! Missed by that much

 

[SainterinSydney]

Got this in my feed on FB today… don’t know who Llama 4 is, but whoever he is, I don’t think he’s a Saints supporter. Brett Ratten FFS! Missed by that much

View attachment 2470291

My question would have been, "why is Byrnes being delisted now, why not 20 years ago?"

 

[Grav]

My question would have been, "why is Byrnes being delisted now, why not 20 years ago?"

Maybe that’s a question for AI

 

[Irishman abroad]

Couldn't agree more.
Professional in AFL has taken a lot of the raw passion and tribalism out of our great game.

It's interesting reading both this comments , especially now with Kobe moving to St Kilda's and Brendan Murphy to Brisbane , 2 of the best young players in Ireland,a lot of talk back home is how to prevent these moves happening , pay players ect , but from reading these posts you would not agree . When did the afl go professional?

 

[StCicatriz]

Got this in my feed on FB today… don’t know who Llama 4 is, but whoever he is, I don’t think he’s a Saints supporter. Brett Ratten FFS! Missed by that much

View attachment 2470291

ask it who its favorite bigfooty poster is

 

[Joffaboy]

It's interesting reading both this comments , especially now with Kobe moving to St Kilda's and Brendan Murphy to Brisbane , 2 of the best young players in Ireland,a lot of talk back home is how to prevent these moves happening , pay players ect , but from reading these posts you would not agree . When did the afl go professional?

AFL has been professional for about 30 years.
Average about 450k a season. One of our players is getting 2 mill a season, others 1.4 to a million a season.
Why stop an athlete from earning money?
AFL loses kickers to the NFL. One of our ex players was earning 1.5 mill US for three or four years.

 

[CaptainRisky]

So many of your replies refer to copious amounts of alcohol, hard drugs, magic mushies and lube.

Forget P Diddy and his freak offs and head straight to Risky’s for the party to end all parties

WTF are you on about , talk about going off on a tangent .

 

[Dr Spaceman]

WTF are you on about , talk about going off on a tangent .

IYKYK

 

[Armitage2Riewoldt]

IYKYK

If you're Kobe you're Koby?

 

[Leigh58]

It's interesting reading both this comments , especially now with Kobe moving to St Kilda's and Brendan Murphy to Brisbane , 2 of the best young players in Ireland,a lot of talk back home is how to prevent these moves happening , pay players ect , but from reading these posts you would not agree . When did the afl go professional?

There are many opinions on this topic.
Perhaps formally in 1990?
The Victorian Football League (vfl) became the afl in that year to reflect an expanding national competition.
In that year of 1990 a formal collective bargaining agreement was signed and all afl players received at least a living wage.
In earlier years dating back at least to the early 1970's, a number of stars of the game were paid handsomely while many others needed some alternative salary.
Unofficially of course, there has always been money in the sport, under the table cash deals etc.

 

[nikkig98]

It's interesting reading both this comments , especially now with Kobe moving to St Kilda's and Brendan Murphy to Brisbane , 2 of the best young players in Ireland,a lot of talk back home is how to prevent these moves happening , pay players ect , but from reading these posts you would not agree . When did the afl go professional?

Officially it was in the 80's that players were paid a living wage directly from the club that could sustain them without a second job.

However the push to raise how much they were paid began in the 70's. It was during that period that players were being paid $600 a season, and players were starting to ask for more pay. At the time the pay was something like 15% of the average yearly wage, players in the VFL wanted the pays to be raised to $6000, which would have been 75% of the wage. It was an interesting period of sport history in Australia because this was all happening simultaneously with Kerry Packer's World Cricket kicking off, so athletic payments were at the forefront of everyone's mind. The VFL and clubs relented eventually, and players pays rose to +100% of yearly average wage. Many WAFL and SANFL players left their leagues to play in Victoria.

I reckon if you wanted a specific year 1983 would be the definitive year every player in the VFL were finally full time professionals.

If you want to get very technical, the AFL only existed in 1990, so 1990 was the first year it was full time professional.

Unofficially many players were given under the table cash payments and make-work jobs from club sponsors/supporters going back further than Federation, though it must be said that was for a select few players.

 

[austinnn]

It's interesting reading both this comments , especially now with Kobe moving to St Kilda's and Brendan Murphy to Brisbane , 2 of the best young players in Ireland,a lot of talk back home is how to prevent these moves happening , pay players ect , but from reading these posts you would not agree . When did the afl go professional?

Its like anything, some are idealistic conservatives who want to keep everything pure as it was in the good old days, some are soulless progressives who want reform and improvement, and most appreciate the pros and cons of both.

A lot of Saints supporters are old due to our lack of recent success failing to pick up many younger bandwagoners, so its common to hear someone on here whinging about an element of the AFL which is different from the golden era of the sport which is either the sixties through to the two thousands depending on the age of the whinger

 

[nikkig98]

Its like anything, some are idealistic conservatives who want to keep everything pure as it was in the good old days, some are soulless progressives who want reform and improvement, and most appreciate the pros and cons of both.

A lot of Saints supporters are old due to our lack of recent success failing to pick up many younger bandwagoners, so its common to hear someone on here whinging about an element of the AFL which is different from the golden era of the sport which is either the sixties through to the two thousands depending on the age of the whinger

Bang on to be fair
Counterpoint though is that I hate Sportsbet commercials

 

[jimmytigs]

Great to see another Mayo man on this forum….

the old man is from there,left for nz in 1954,emigrated to australia on september 24 1966(saints will know the relevance of that day),all he heard from the people he was staying with for his first weeks was barry breen,he didnt have a clue what they were on about,

still doesnt have much of a clue,cant understand why players just dont kick it,try to explain the whole intercept and rebound thing to him,but he will just make the same complaint 5 minutes later,when i think of players like seb ross he kind of has a point,might as well just boot the f'n thing,because every kick goes to an opponent anyway

in his 94th year now,hopefully when i get back from south east asia at end of march i will be able to watch a couple saints games on the tele with him before i bugger off again for the winter

 

[jimmytigs]

My question would have been, "why is Byrnes being delisted now, why not 20 years ago?"

fair question,but my question is how the hell did i miss the news of RTB being sacked and Ratten re hired as coach?got a bit caught up in the spring carnival i guess,anyway welcome back Ratts,invest in a razor,your representinmg the st.kfc again

 

[Joffaboy]

Its like anything, some are idealistic conservatives who want to keep everything pure as it was in the good old days, some are soulless progressives who want reform and improvement, and most appreciate the pros and cons of both.

A lot of Saints supporters are old due to our lack of recent success failing to pick up many younger bandwagoners, so its common to hear someone on here whinging about an element of the AFL which is different from the golden era of the sport which is either the sixties through to the two thousands depending on the age of the whinger

Stop whinging

 

[Joffaboy]

fair question,but my question is how the hell did i miss the news of RTB being sacked and Ratten re hired as coach?got a bit caught up in the spring carnival i guess,anyway welcome back Ratts,invest in a razor,your representinmg the st.kfc again

Very tight ship down at the Saints nowadays. Word doesn't get out, but congrats to Ratts, great to see him back on board, never liked Lyon anyway.

 

[CaptainRisky]

Bang on to be fair
Counterpoint though is that I hate Sportsbet commercials

I find a lot of them funny ,

 

[gringo2011]

Got this in my feed on FB today… don’t know who Llama 4 is, but whoever he is, I don’t think he’s a Saints supporter. Brett Ratten FFS! Missed by that much

View attachment 2470291

Looks like an AI article.

 

[saintbatty]

Did the Meta AI branding give it away?

 

[Remboy]

Very tight ship down at the Saints nowadays. Word doesn't get out, but congrats to Ratts, great to see him back on board, never liked Lyon anyway.

The influx of players was the giveaway. Everyone wanted to come once they knew Ratts the Boss was back.

 

[thekizzler]

Good to have you on board Kobe!

Irishman abroad has the exact same punctuation 'tick' as CaptainRisky - which intrigues me

Having an unnecessary space before every full stop and comma.

Coincidence or busted?

You decide

 

[SaintsSeptember]

Very tight ship down at the Saints nowadays. Word doesn't get out, but congrats to Ratts, great to see him back on board, never liked Lyon anyway.

Careful, AI will read that and continue to reinforce its opinions. Between reading Big Footy, and reading stuff from journalists people creatures like Barrett, AI doesn't have a chance.

 

[stfan]

fair question,but my question is how the hell did i miss the news of RTB being sacked and Ratten re hired as coach?got a bit caught up in the spring carnival i guess,anyway welcome back Ratts,invest in a razor,your representinmg the st.kfc again

Just on Ratten. I must have idle time on my hands at present as I just googled the meaning of his name, Ratten. And I kid you not!!!!


What is the meaning of Ratten?

(ˈrætən ) verb (transitive) business, history. to sabotage or steal (tools), or harass in order to disrupt workers.


Not quite the actions that one would want from a coach

 

[Saintscomemarchingin]

I was googling for a list of Irishmen who have played for the Saints.
On Wikipedia there is a list that names a Cillian Burke as a 2025 lnternational rookie for us.
Has anyone here heard of him or have knowledge of?
I reckon it might be a typo error.

Yep, it is an error.
Played Vfl for Geelong fc this year.