Rumour GFC 2025 Player Trading, Drafting FA, Rumours and Wish lists Pt 1

[standupand]

I still don’t see how we could get the Reid deal done at the end of 2025.

And the ‘West Coast will take what they’re offered’ BS won’t work for a contracted player

Look at from their pov. You either hold on to a player for 1 extra year when you know he doesn't want to be there and you're not a realistic chance at a flag, or you take an offer of a decent array of draft picks in one of the last of the uncompromised drafts for a while, while you're in the thick of a serious rebuild.

 

[supahoops]

not really man, he shown similar to what knevitt, clohesy, mullin, etc and dont think anyone here excited about those guys. They can be good AFL players but no one calling sportsbet about AA odds for those guys.

Ha! Can remember James Kelly struggling to hit a 15 metre target in the reserves, plenty of our stars from that era running around in the magoos. Excited by Mullin, Clohesy shows a bit and Knevitt could develop into something yet. So yeah I’m excited in that your bottom six will win you a flag as much as your top six, some of us should just chill a bit for mine.

 

[Kobe Gryant]

No he wouldn't. We need to rebuild a whole midfield.

Yeah, ridiculous to say he'd end up in the VFL.

Looking two years into the future, the only guaranteed members of our midfield are Holmes, Smith, and Dempsey, and one of those guys is outside only at this point of his career.

Everybody else is either cooked (Guth, Bruhn) likely retired (PFD, Blitz) or the jury is well and truly still out (Clark, Knevitt, Ted). Atkins has his own grey area.

Reid or Butters are zero chance of keeping Worpel out if we were to land two of those names.

Those recruits would be the ones keeping the others out.

 

[cats_09]

Im all for worpel if it costs us nothing more than a 2nd or 3rd pick.

Would walk into our midfield

He's a RFA - Hawthorn may be happy enough to take the compensation pick on offer

 

[FishGutz]

Let's be real though, we don't hold all the cards on Reid/Butters. As much as we wish it was, the reality is it's not our decision.

You get Worpel this year, and like Smith, you incrementally improve the midfield year on year.

2026 is where Butters or Reid come in, when they're actually going to be allowed to leave.

All things things going to plan, that's a 3 year midfield rebuild that takes us from a bottom 4 midfield in 2023, to what we'd expect to be a top 4 group in 2027.

The defence looks set long-term, so if needed, you look for the best key forward on the market by then, and we're looking at flags while Tassie sucks up all avenues to improvement.

Obviously we try to win the flag every year, but there's a long term plan too.

Yeah I don’t disagree if we miss out on Reid/Rowell/Butters this year. Worpel comes in and is an improvement for sure. But I disagree that Reid will be able to come in 2026. We are having a full fledged swing at him this year and I believe it can happen. It changes the whole landscape for us if we pull it off.

Reid
Holmes
Smith
Atkins
Worpel?

I can live with that.

 

[FishGutz]

If Reid happens (this year or next), we won't have anything left for Butters except to a) try and push his value up beyond a Port match or b) hope that having nothing means Port takes whatever compo pick they get AND there are no alternatives for him (e.g. if he was OK going to the Bulldogs and they had the trade collateral).

The belief is if we don’t have the pieces to force a trade, Port will take the compo. The matching of a RFA has only been triggered twice. Both times for us when we’ve had assets. The belief is a club won’t match if the other club doesn’t have assets, which were better than the compo…

Keeping a player against his will isn’t something most clubs will want to do and creates a flow on effect of issues for players. If players feel like a club has the potential to hold them hostage then player managers will be very, very reluctant to deal with said clubs. It’s the proverbial shooting yourself in the foot. It’s a delicate industry where players have too much power now.

 

[Warhorse]

Worpel would be my number 1 target. Immediately improves our team and won't cost draft capital

 

[moond0g]

It’s not easy to add muscle weight unless you want a Dean Rioli running around

Aerobic capacity is fairly responsive to training though, unless he's just a non-responder.

I know he's been injured a bit since he got here, but I would have thought his running capacity would have increased more than it has so far.

 

[Oisin_the_Goat]

Yeah I don’t disagree if we miss out on Reid/Rowell/Butters this year. Worpel comes in and is an improvement for sure. But I disagree that Reid will be able to come in 2026. We are having a full fledged swing at him this year and I believe it can happen. It changes the whole landscape for us if we pull it off.

Reid
Holmes
Smith
Atkins
Worpel?

I can live with that.

TDK, Butters, Reid, Smith, Holmes, Atkins, Worpel could be a fairly serviceable midfield.

On our forwards and regarding JUH - Folks here are writing off Neale a bit too much. All we really need him to do is bring the ball to ground a bit more for the crumbers and kick a couple snags himself. He'll get there.

Then if that doesn't go to plan we have a few giant players down back we can throw forward. Especially now that COS is dominating.

Bulldogs have the recruiting priorities right IMO. Stack the midfield first.

 

[FishGutz]

Judging by responses, I think people are missing the point with Reid… We are going for him this year. I can’t emphasise that enough. We believe we can make it work and appease West Coast with a trade in 2025.

Also, I think a lot of people are assuming we just walk to top four. I sure hope we do. I hope we win it all. But we look one injury to an elite player away from tumbling down the ladder.

Our pick this year might be a lot more attractive than next year’s. We will wait and see.

Regardless, if Reid nominates us, his management gets behind the move… what leverage do West Coast have besides the contract? Is it smart to keep a young kid who is underperforming on your list for one more year and face the same issues? The picks we offer a year later might be worse. They might be affected from Tasmania as well, which will be on Eagle’s minds. And the rot in culture of having your poster boy
mope around the club and all the negative media attention it brings with it will be toxic.

Imagine Reid comes back even more underdone and “fat”. His attitude is worse again and goes out playing bad football. Young guys playing with him knows he won’t be there at year’s end. I don’t see what good that brings for anybody.

Does it mean we hold all the cards? No. Still a contract as stated but I just don’t know if I were in Eagles position how I would feel about it.

Now if they were competing like we were when we kept TK to honour his contract, I think everyone understands. But this is chalk and cheese.

This is a club who is putting out one of the worst 22 players in history, week in and week out and they know the situation could become increasingly volatile and they could hold on for one more year to take less. It’s a huge gamble.

And having said all this I still respect that moving someone like Reid is a massive deal but it’s not unprecedented.

JHF is a prime example of a similar situation.

 

[Hinkley29]

Id say he would get close to a million at Geelong, especially how much the salary cap..
Let's say 300 g difference, how much money does a person need to live on, especially the more tax you get taken

That is not how life works.

Especially notfor highly competitive, highly driven people.

 

[FishGutz]

Also… I had to emphasise. If Geelong didn’t believe we could land Reid this year, we wouldn’t be chasing him this year. There’s a belief it can happen. And I feel backed in by Twomey reporting the same as me.

They wouldn’t waste their energy on something they don’t think could pay off. This gives me great confidence in itself.

 

[foxdog50]

McClure is full of s*** but this one could be true. For the first time i think he suits our needs

He would suit the Bruhn role on our team for next year.. it be a huge upgrade on Bruhn

 

[moond0g]

It's a weird paradigm in footy, how we just hold onto draft position for so long. It doesn't really happen elsewhere in the world.

Ben Hobbs, Deven Robertson, Cooper Stephens, Hunter Clark, Finn Macrae, Jackon Hately, Neil Erasmus... Jhye Clark.

People add these guys in packages as if it makes a difference, when you could argue it's actually a detraction.

Would you rather the guy you know probably can't play AFL level footy? or a late pick that probably won't get you a great player, but you also don't know for sure.

Guess it depends on the draft quality, but the devil you don't know, is probably better than the one you do in these cases.

Talls are probably the exception, where you genuinely can just come good at age 26 for some reason.

It's a good point. But we also draft players pretty young compared to the US for example. So there's a bit more unknown and clubs probably still think they can extract some value from a 19 or 20yo who hasn't reached their ceiling yet. We're not immune to it either, we gave up a first rounder for Josh Caddy who was a a honest contributor but never a star. Bruhn is currently looking like he could be the same.

But I agree that Clark is worth basically nothing in a trade.

 

[Stab Pass]

Another post fudging “where a player is at” based off games.

Again, compare age as well. Why are you ignoring seasons in a professional full time AFL club? Neale is currently into his 4th afl season. At the same age and year in the system JUH kicked 43 goals.

Why are we pretending development is 100% playing AFL games? That is silly.

They are night and day apart

JUH didn't have Hawk in front of him and he was also the number one pick, so yep, he was going to get games earlier. You can play VFL to it comes out your ears, the learning really starts when you start playing AFL so games played at that level matters. If it didn't then you wouldn't be hearing about "getting games into x" and "they need 50 plus games at senior level before they get any consistency". Regardless, saying he's a bust is just a stupid statement. I look forward to it coming back to haunt you over the next decade.

 

[calder_daddy]

As usual you’re just trying to stir people up.

As if you have a clue about who I speak to. Get back in your hole until you’ve got something productive to add to the discussion.

Pretty sad post really (and horribly misguided)

I hope you have a good day too.
Maybe tomorrow you will also bring something productive and accurate to this discussion

 

[moond0g]

We'll want 2x R1's and Clark.
They'll want 3x R1's and Humphries.

Meet in the middle, probably ends up being 3x R1's and someone like Clark, with a R3 or R2 coming back.

I think a lot would depend on where we finish this year. If we are top 4 again by the end of the year, I can't really seem them agreeing to a trade with us at all because the first rounders would still be in the teens at best. If we fall off a cliff and finish bottom 6, then maybe. But even then I wouldn't be so sure.

 

[cats_09]

 

[Hinkley29]

I still don’t see how we could get the Reid deal done at the end of 2025.

And the ‘West Coast will take what they’re offered’ BS won’t work for a contracted player

It depends how badly the relationship between sours between Harley and the WA media/fans.

It has already started, the backlash in WA against him could get ugly quick. Think back to how quickly the relationship between North and JHF went squiffy. These things tend to snowball at a rapid rate.

 

[MacStradbroke]

With Worpel in, delivery into our forward line would be from Holmes, Smith, Worpel, throw in a little Atkins and Dangerfield…I pray for Shannon Neale being on the end of that service .

 

[foxdog50]

Also… I had to emphasise. If Geelong didn’t believe we could land Reid this year, we wouldn’t be chasing him this year. There’s a belief it can happen. And I feel backed in by Twomey reporting the same as me.

They wouldn’t waste their energy on something they don’t think could pay off. This gives me great confidence in itself.

In your own view.... out of 100 , what do you think the chances Reid will be at Geelong next year?

 

[moond0g]

The major, major issue with blowing big bucks on a ruckman is that renders Edwards and Conway both immediately obsolete if they happen to come good, medically speaking.

This is why I find St Kilda's offer a little baffling. Marshall is a good ruck who would be wasted playing full time as a forward, as would TDK. The saints definitely need another star or two, but why bother wasting your cap on a star that doesn't fill a positional need at all?

In that regard I can at least see the appeal for us. Yes, it may turn out to be a problem if Conway or Edwards come good. But they were both mid range picks who are on minimal money at the moment and have shown very little in the scheme of things. It's not like Marshall who is a known quantity

 

[Strange Cat]

Reid and Worpel would be massive…the ruck issue is still there but hopefully Conway comes good next year unless we get TDK and worpel …but I can not see us landing all three tbh

 

[Spearman]

A Richmond supporter told me Steve Hocking was instrumental in the Kennedy assassination, so we should have someone on standby.

What's Lee Harvey Oswald up to these days? Surely he's available?

That tells me he is an elite problem solver of the highest caliber, and also an expert at not getting caught.

Glad to have him aboard.

 

[Spearman]

This is why I find St Kilda's offer a little baffling. Marshall is a good ruck who would be wasted playing full time as a forward, as would TDK. The saints definitely need another star or two, but why bother wasting your cap on a star that doesn't fill a positional need at all?

In that regard I can at least see the appeal for us. Yes, it may turn out to be a problem if Conway or Edwards come good. But they were both mid range picks who are on minimal money at the moment and have shown very little in the scheme of things. It's not like Marshall who is a known quantity

You have to think that the decision makers are looking at the image of the club first. Like in the movie Draft Day, they may be wanting to make a 'splash' to boost membership. "Action is seen to be taken, confidence restored" sort of thing. Land some big fish, and try make it work on field.
Problems though, are numerous and everywhere.