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List Mgmt. 2025 List Management Discussion

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I'll be annoyed if that's the case since he's coming to his time of opportunity here, but if he really wants to go, then we should let him.
I can't think of a side in which he would be a walk-up start first ruck. ALTHOUGH maybe Port Adelaide which is also where he is from...

He is 23yo as of September which is a pretty normal time to start getting games regularly as a ruck.

If we want to keep him you would think we would be saying to him - 2026 our plan is you as forward/ruck, it's your spot to lose. And if we get an injury to our main ruck, that will be your spot. Surely that is more appealing than going to Port at the moment.

Incidentally i would not assume Day retires this year, depending on the end to his season and how many games he plays. He is an excellent fit for us albeit not much a goalkicker. You would think he would play on even if we say you are back up - it's not as if Smith has been reliable on the injury front. If he is on bare minimum $250k that's a better wage than post footy!
 
Maybe a ruck or F/R suddenly becomes available in the yearly ruck merry go round. This could even include Fort.
Could be someone waiting in the wings and just got pushed back further or just lost their number 1 or 2 spot.

In this case it may not costs us much be it draft capital or a Lions VFL player looking for better opportunities.

Players that come to mind that may jump at a new opportunity and OOC:
2025: Robertson, Tunstill, McKenna, Reville, Beecken
2026: Smith, Ryan, McLachlan, Marshall, Fort.
 
Saints will have 3-4 players(Rowell/De Koning/Aleer/Oliver) on 2 Million per season and then stock up the rest of their list with Retzlaff, Dalziell, Watts, Hammelmann, Bartlett, Bell, Pask, Uosis types... sure fire recipe for success.
Woking well for the Blue at the moment. What could go wrong?
 
If we don't get Oscar Allen, Tom Lynch UFA for a year or two on minimal money if he desires the chance of another flag over rebuilding at the Tigers?
 

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If you believe that Rowell "took the interest from St Kilda seriously," then I have a very exciting investment opportunity in a bridge to talk to you about!
Maybe one day St Kilda, you can be a real club too!
 
My view is always:

VFL club - **** em
Interstate - support over vfl
Northern club - actively want them to do well just not against the Lions
I used to feel for the smaller Melbourne clubs because I felt they always got preyed on and screwed to a degree in the history of the comp, but over the last decade or so they've largely proven themselves obnoxious or self-centred to such a degree that they've cured me of that.
 
Maybe a ruck or F/R suddenly becomes available in the yearly ruck merry go round. This could even include Fort.
Could be someone waiting in the wings and just got pushed back further or just lost their number 1 or 2 spot.

In this case it may not costs us much be it draft capital or a Lions VFL player looking for better opportunities.

Players that come to mind that may jump at a new opportunity and OOC:
2025: Robertson, Tunstill, McKenna, Reville, Beecken
2026: Smith, Ryan, McLachlan, Marshall, Fort.
I don't think we would've signed the OOC Fort earlier this year if he was thinking about going elsewhere.
Realistically, if we're bringing in Allen + a new #1 ruck, we need at least 4 or 5 list spots to cater for 3 open draft spots + draft picks. Which will either happen through retirement, i.e. Oscar & McKenna, or VFL boys going elsewhere like Dev Rob and Tunstill.
 
I think if we obtain both, the changes are pretty straightforward:
  • Allen in for Day. Day is a clear stop gap option, even if he doesn't retire at the end of the year he is best deployed like Gardiner and others are very useful depth.
  • Draper in for Fort. The club is signaling they have massive questions over all three of our ruck options:
    • Will Oscar be able to play at any standard consistently again?
    • Is Fort more than just a useful backup? Evidence shows that's how we've got him pegged and have for years.
    • Will Smith stay healthy and will he transition successfully to seniors? I suspect there's a reason our interest in Draper really started getting flagged after Smith went down again...
The club is all about maximising our premiership window and minimising the risk of being uncompetitive - Draper helps reduce that risk substantially.

The big risk is Smith decides to leave - but we can't be precious about the makeup of the team over someone who's played a handful of games in four years.

Edit: and to be clear, I love Smith and really want to see him in the seniors. But if we start pussyfooting around because of that, we're going to be like a few of dysfunctional Victorian clubs where the inmates are running the asylum.
 
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Maybe one day St Kilda, you can be a real club too!

It is SO much more insulting than them having been reported as interested, but rejected prior to the re-signing.

Just casually throwing in 'oh yeah, the saints were definitely in on him, and TOTALLY a real option when all the talk had been Collingwood, Geelong, Dogs.'
 
I'm one that has given James Herd a second chance.

Then I've always thought the 2 clubs involved were lied to by Dank and what was in the supplements. Let's not forget the Cronulla Sharks in the NRL also had the same issue and their coach Shane Flanagan seems to have served no lingering hate from supporters and went back to being a head coach now at St George.

The biggest difference between Herd and Flanagan was how the clubs and the leagues handled the situation once found out. I just think both coaches agreed to something, trusting, or not thinking, or not demanding chemical testing of the substance. Once found out it was taken from their hands by the Public Relations people, the club Hierarchy, the League Administrators and so on and that's where the difference was. Herd was the scape goat he was a deer in the headlights, Flanagan was supported that a coach did not have the knowledge, nor the people under them to decide on such risky strategies, for Flanagan a mistake was a mistake and lets move on.

Just my view - Dank was some piece of work, he was trying to make the big bucks selling a 'snake oil'.

For mine, Dank tried to outsmart ASADA by being purposely evasive on "Thymosin" when discussing it with them. There was this too: https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/danks-stunning-admission-20140613-zs7ea.html

Scuttlebutt was that there were indications they took other PED's, but TB4 was the strongest case to prosecute, so they zeroed in on that.

Not sure about Flanagan, but Hird did himself no favours by delaying the process, engaging the courts to seek stays or injunctions (under the premise of no "procedural fairness" for the players), and otherwise seemingly not being interested in accepting at least some of the blame.
 

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Totally agree, IMO 99.99% of players would have trusted club staff in regards to what they were taking. What player would go out on their own and demand a sample to take to an independent lab for testing.

I did to a point, until I'd read that they'd purposedly not disclosed to the post-game ASADA testers the injection regime they'd been undertaking at the direction of Dank.

That in itself is a breach of the code (as far as I'm aware).

My ongoing gripe about the whole saga is that Essendon ended up with the #1 pick (thankfully they stuffed it up), because they cheated. Wrong.
 
If we bring in Allen and Draper and Gallop and Smith overtake them and we win a flag is that not still a win? If we bring them in and the other two don't overtake them and we win a flag is that also a win? If we don't bring them in and we don't win a flag will we be thinking we should have brought them in. If we bring them in and the other two don't overtake them and we still don't win a flag then at least we tried. I don't see the downside unless there are better options to bring in which there doesn't appear to be too many.
 
I know I’ll probably get shot down but what I have seen from Logan’s general field play I reckon he could roll thru the midfield in the coming years. He has exceptional vision, skill and hardness. This could allow Ty to also play in the same team with timed rotations.
Logan will soon be getting the best defender....thats the next test for him.
 
I think Hipwood likes to be involved in the play more and the more he touches the footy the better we play.

I don’t actually see Gardiner as a swingman. He is not a great forward. Yes he can be thrown each end but he is a backman.
Hipwood has been (& has been for a few seasons now) a stop gap type of player. Wherever the team needs him is where he heads regardless of whether he likes it or not. In many eye's of the inner sanctum he is the ultimate team player but funny how often he consistently cops it from all sides when he doesn't live up to the hype expected of him.
One of the first picked and given pretty important roles every game.
 
I can't think of a side in which he would be a walk-up start first ruck. ALTHOUGH maybe Port Adelaide which is also where he is from...

He is 23yo as of September which is a pretty normal time to start getting games regularly as a ruck.

If we want to keep him you would think we would be saying to him - 2026 our plan is you as forward/ruck, it's your spot to lose. And if we get an injury to our main ruck, that will be your spot. Surely that is more appealing than going to Port at the moment.

Incidentally i would not assume Day retires this year, depending on the end to his season and how many games he plays. He is an excellent fit for us albeit not much a goalkicker. You would think he would play on even if we say you are back up - it's not as if Smith has been reliable on the injury front. If he is on bare minimum $250k that's a better wage than post footy!
I'm pretty confident in saying he will play on next year providing he finish's off the year without serious injury.
 
If we don't get Oscar Allen, Tom Lynch UFA for a year or two on minimal money if he desires the chance of another flag over rebuilding at the Tigers?
No thanks. I have too many memories of him being a jackass to our players. I hope he stays far away from us.
 

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No thanks. I have too many memories of him being a jackass to our players. I hope he stays far away from us.
I'm pretty sure if we did get him(which I consider unlikely) the large majority of our supporter group would embrace him.

Similar thoughts were espoused about other players in the past before their arrival eg. Luke Hodge, Mitch Robinson.
 
Speaking of Hird, I also don’t mind the second chance. I mean I couldn’t stand Buckley as a player but absolutely love him in the media, my favourite AFL talking head to listen to.

It’s not about punishing him, I’m happy for him to get on with his life…my question is what is he bringing to the table?

He’s proven himself to be an arrogant, low-integrity a**hole…he’s not a leader or a thinker of the game and has no lovable/popular former player points in the bank

Compare Hird to Wayne Carey - Carey was actually good at analysing the game and being in front of the camera…he showed considerable contrition for his personal problems that mostly harmed himself…yes, his flaws definitely hurt those around him but he didn’t put young people in his care in literal, medical, physical harm’s way in a cynical and large-scale way…and Carey got rissoled in the end because being good on tv wasn’t enough to balance out the damage he did

Now look at Hird…literally, what the heck does offer in the plus column to offset the shadow of the harm he did? he’s sour, sullen, entitled and boring…is his analysis really soooo good that everyone has to suffer through listening to him rehabilitate his persona for largely egotistical reasons?

I say we all need to move on…Hird just needs that ‘moving on’ to be into football obscurity

No one cares James - please just **** off
 
Now look at Hird…literally, what the heck does offer in the plus column to offset the shadow of the harm he did? he’s sour, sullen, entitled and boring…is his analysis really soooo good that everyone has to suffer through listening to him rehabilitate his persona for largely egotistical reasons?

I say we all need to move on…Hird just needs that ‘moving on’ to be into football obscurity

No one cares James - please just **** off
Calm Down Chill Out GIF
 
Now look at Hird…literally, what the heck does offer in the plus column to offset the shadow of the harm he did? he’s sour, sullen, entitled and boring…is his analysis really soooo good that everyone has to suffer through listening to him rehabilitate his persona for largely egotistical reasons?
The only time i’ve seen Hird was last week, in a 2 minute clip of whatever show he’s on. He’d pretty easy to avoid - just turn the telly off for whatever show he’s happens to be on.
 
One of the biggest bugbear of mine is the fixation on height as a be-all-and-end-all for forwards. While it's true that the taller guys will have proportionally longer arms, there's so much more to it than that.

As mentioned, shoulder height, arm length, vertical jump, even finger length all contribute to the pure physical measurables involved at meting the ball at the highest point possible. Then you factor in spatial awareness, stereoscopic acuity.... there's just so much more to it, which is why you can have a guy like Jamie Elliot who plays effectively as a key forward despite being under six foot.

Agree…in a similar vein, this video on S2 athletic cognition is fascinating



Edit: would help if I include the link 😂
 
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One of the biggest bugbear of mine is the fixation on height as a be-all-and-end-all for forwards. While it's true that the taller guys will have proportionally longer arms, there's so much more to it than that.

As mentioned, shoulder height, arm length, vertical jump, even finger length all contribute to the pure physical measurables involved at meting the ball at the highest point possible. Then you factor in spatial awareness, stereoscopic acuity.... there's just so much more to it, which is why you can have a guy like Jamie Elliot who plays effectively as a key forward despite being under six foot.

I disagree about Elliot playing as a key forward. I believe he plays as a marking forward. If you sat the ball on his head 1 on 1 with Sam Taylor he's going to struggle

You need height to counteract flooding and poor ball movement. Like what we say from Day and Hippy against Geelong. I'm not sure Elliot would be able to half as many contests as they did
 

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