List Mgmt. Matthew Clarke Drafting Record at Richmond...

[Meteoric Rise]

Yes, Lynch is a massive issue.
Walking out AA/elite small forwards like Wombat and Butler was the other massive one.
Can't blame drafters for that. Higgins left us of course. Stengle-Butler-Higgins rotating around Lynch would have been formidable.

But trying to find your Lefau types is the heart of the problem, and your pick 77 Reece McKenzies etc. though that's going back further. Take it back to 2004 draft if you like. Alway the mid or HBF, never the KPF.

We are obsessed with diamond in the rough KPF, when it has never happened for us!

We paid for Jack Riewoldt, and it was transformational, just can't think of another time we spent real draft value on a KPF?

Vickery pick 8
Mcbean pick 33
Post? pick 26
Griffiths pick 19
Elton Pick 26
Coleman-Jones pick 20
Balta? pick 25
Fawcett pick 43

The club has had loads of cracks at it with picks in the first 2 rounds, that is up to 8 in the last 16 drafts I think. The only other top 10 picks in that period were spent on:

Cotchin, Martin, Conca, Vlastuin, Gibcus.

You can't criticise the club for not trying. And for a long time they just were not going to target KPF's with high picks because they had 4-5-6 rd 1 & 2 KPF's on the list through a longish period.

 

[PetterdHoisted]

Vickery pick 8
Mcbean pick 33
Post? pick 26
Griffiths pick 19
Elton Pick 26
Coleman-Jones pick 20
Balta? pick 25
Fawcett pick 43

The club has had loads of cracks at it with picks in the first 2 rounds, that is up to 8 in the last 16 drafts I think. The only other top 10 picks in that period were spent on:

Cotchin, Martin, Conca, Vlastuin, Gibcus.

You can't criticise the club for not trying. And for a long time they just were not going to target KPF's with high picks because they had 4-5-6 rd 1 & 2 KPF's on the list through a longish period.

CCJ and Vickery were rucks I believe?
Balta I thought was well and truly considered a KPD
Elton Ruck/FWD?

Ben Griffiths for sure a genuine KPF. Astbury was a lead-up forward too.

Astbury is the model, pick the KPF, if it goes wrong, make them a 3x premiership defender!

 

[tigs2010]

Forget the other clubs as it's easy to overrate ours and underrate others.

I'd be interested to see how he stacks up with FJ

 

[Moppey]

Isnt List Management Blair Hartleys domain.
Mathew Clarke was head of recruiting which mostly entails looking at junior recruits.
Juniors come from mainly two areas Rookie drafts and the nd.

I think people are confusing the roles.

I have had this debate many a time and im not going to get embroiled again. My time is too valuable to get caught up in the nonsense.

But my opinion for what it is worth is Clarke's record is poor.

That is taking into consideration of where our picks have been.
Simply ask how many, a very good , b good , and c average grade players did he bring to the club.

Even the 2021 crop is a tad early to judge but so far i would only pencil Gibcus in as a potential a grade player and Brown as being confident of him being a afl player the rest can still go either way.

He must have been involved in 60 odd picks in his time. Imo he found just 1 A grade player in Bolton way back in 2016.

As for the lack of talls being taken and that goes for mids as well was it his call or the list manager.
Personally i think its a bit of both.

As for talls look at the list at the end of 2016. We had 16 talls. We cut 4 Chaplin Vickery, McBean, and McKenzie. and bought in one pick 72 Ryan Garthwaite. We did trade for Nankervis.

2018 we had just 13 on the list, 2019 we had 13 again having taken Lynch in free agency.
2020 just 13 still.
Given where we taking most talls it was poor management. We were not even using rookie picks instead delisting talls and then using the rookie list to keep em around. By now our good talls were getting old.
2021 still only 13 on the list.
2022 it actually dropped to 12
2023 it rose to 14 kpps on the list mainly because of 6 rookies and recruiting old man Tarrant.
2024 we finally got it back to 2016 level with 16. But the make up of talls was mostly rookie and late nd picks what are the odds. It had nearly everyone calling for talls with good picks this off season despite the adequate numbers. Everyone could see we needed to try to get our hands on better quality.

Is Clarke responsible for this neglect or does blame lie elsewhere or should it be a shared blame.

How do you even fit the above into a conversation about draft picks good or bad. long odds or short odds.

Given we had so few talls the ones we had needed to be taken with good picks.we did not do this
Given where most talls were taken we needed to really load up on them. we did neither.

At the very least a combination of both ways to do it.

i can say one thing in Clarke's time we sure took our share of smalls and it was to the detriment of talls imo.
We did this imo because it is actually easier to find smalls who will give something back even if its only borderline afl level something back . Talls well you have to be all in and be prepared for the total busts that are going to come.Thats a balancing act in itself.

 

[Barnzy]

Picks in the first 3 rounds of the NAB AFL Draft spent on defenders who are not key defenders during Clarke's period in charge of recruiting(from 21 picks overall):

2016 Nil
2017 Nil
2018 Nil
2019 Nil
2020 Nil
2021 17 Brown
2022 49 Smith
2023 Nil

Who are all the half back flankers he wasted picks on?


Picks in first 3 rounds broken down by player type:

Key Forward 43 Fawcett
Key Defender 25 Balta, 54 Nyuon, 9 Gibcus,
Ruck 40 Ryan,
Ruck Forward 20 Coleman-Jones
Inside Mid 20 Collier-Dawkins, 21 Dow, 44 Martyn, 40 McAuliffe
Wing 34 Naish, 43 Ross, 46 Ralphsmith, 29 Banks,
Medium Forward 53 Graham, 17 Higgins, 43 Cumberland, 52 Rioli Jnr, 30 Clarke, 55 Green
Medium Defender 17 Brown, 49 Smith
Mid-Forward 29 Bolton, 28 Sonsie

Looking back that I wonder if Clarke had much of say in Bo Allen. I reckon he loves him.

Another athletic traits midfielder that didn't find the ball enough in the juniors for such an early selection. Rings a bell.

Oh well. Not our problem now.

 

[We are back baby!]

There is a big chance that Matt Clarke has bombed this draft too

1.All the Duursma's up until this point have been a big disappointment compared to their junior form line and I expect the same from Willem.

2. Willem definitely doesn't bring hardness and if I was drafting him would have paired him with Dyson Sharp so he and Harley had someone giving them the ball so they could use their strengths.

2. CDT is a unicorn ... and even though girls love them ... apparently they don't exist ... just like the position that Cooper fits on an AFL team ... he is not a ruckman, can't win a tap to save his life, but he can run so he is a midfielder, right? (though he is not combative so he is an outside midfielder) but he can be a forward? how is his contested marking? so he ain't going to be a key forward

So despite being 200cm he is like an outside midfielder or a running half forward ... at this point Clarke has used pick 2 on a big wing ... I think he compares well to Blicavs at his age in terms of being an outstanding athlete with unknown position at the AFl level but he went at pick 54 in the 2012 Rookie draft.

3. What the hell was the bid on Harry Dean? Carlton had already traded pick 9 and 11 in a clear move that they would match this bid. If they were going to make this move they needed to keep it under wraps so that it ate up picks 9 and 11 and moved up their late first round pick. After Carlton had traded out of their picks the strategic play would have been not to make a bid, making the Blues look like fools

4. If they were after Beau Addinsal why did they not bid on Patterson instead at 3 making it impossible for the Suns to take all their Academy players, rather than trading a F2, to move up one pick to fail in their attempt to get the Suns boys anyway. Clearly no-one checked whether Clarke had taken VCE maths before giving him his position at West Coast.

 

[Shinrisker]

Key Forward 43 Fawcett
Key Defender 25 Balta, 54 Nyuon, 9 Gibcus,
Ruck 40 Ryan,
Ruck Forward 20 Coleman-Jones
Inside Mid 20 Collier-Dawkins, 21 Dow, 44 Martyn, 40 McAuliffe
Wing 34 Naish, 43 Ross, 46 Ralphsmith, 29 Banks,
Medium Forward 53 Graham, 17 Higgins, 43 Cumberland, 52 Rioli Jnr, 30 Clarke, 55 Green
Medium Defender 17 Brown, 49 Smith
Mid-Forward 29 Bolton, 28 Sonsie

Blue = excellent - 2
Green = Acceptable/good - 3
Amber/Orange = unproven/OK - 12
Red = Bomb - 7

I expect McAuliffe and Gibcus (if no longer injury-plagued) to go to the green. But how many of the amber ones will end up in the red category? Doesn’t really look promising right now.

All this shows is that Matt Clarke was a middling recruiter at best tbh. He didn’t take our KPF stock seriously and completely bombed when tasked with addressing our midfield shortages. That alone is enough to move him on.

Look at GWS’ drafting history in the first three rounds for comparison (round - player)

Academy picks = (A). I will still highlight them, but you can ignore them.

2016
1 - Tim Taranto
1 - Will Setterfield (A)
1 - Harry Perryman (A)
1 - Isaac Cumming (A)

2017
1 - Aiden Bonar
2 - Brent Daniels
2 - Sam Taylor

2018
1 - Jye Caldwell
1 - Jackson Hately
1 - Xavier O’Halloran
2 - Bobby Hill
2 - Kieren Briggs (A)

2019
1 - Lachlan Ash
1 - Tom Green (A)
3 - Jake Riccardi

2020
1 - Tanner Bruhn
1 - Conor Stone
1 - Ryan Angwin

2021
1 - Finn Callaghan
1 - Leek Aleer
3 - Josh Fahey? I don’t really know him

2022
1 - Aaron Cadman
1 - Harry Rowston (A)
1 - Darcy Jones
2 - Max Gruzewski
2 - Toby McMullin

2023
1 - Phoenix Gothard
1 - James Leake
2 - Joseph Fonti

And I’m probably marking some of these
picks harshly (e.g., Tanner Bruhn). Matt Clarke’s drafting does not compare (even outside of the academy picks). Not to mention, GWS also got some good players outside of the first three rounds like Peatling and Idun. But I’m not including them here.

Yes, I know that not many teams in the league compare to GWS when it comes to drafting, and yes, I know that GWS had a lot of high-end picks + academy picks, but they don’t often waste their high-end picks as you can see above. We’ve bombed more first-round picks with the limited amount we had than they did.

That is who we should be comparing ourselves to. Matt Clarke was definitely not good enough to get us drafting like this.

You did leave off Miller-green, Stengle- blue Baker- blue, Pickett- green. And if Brown is green Rioli and Banks should be green as well, Graham arguably blue. He's not great but he added some good supporting pieces to our premiership without any top 10 picks, whereas Giants has plenty.

 

[We are back baby!]

You did leave off Miller-green, Stengle- blue Baker- blue, Pickett- green. And if Brown is green Rioli and Banks should be green as well, Graham arguably blue. He's not great but he added some good supporting pieces to our premiership without any top 10 picks, whereas Giants has plenty.

Stengle and Markov both premiership players ... he has nailed some picks but also completely bombed entire drafts ... I feel that we have gone back to drafting players with a high floor in the first round since Clarke's departure., a strategy that FJ and Hartley used to great success to create our last dynasty

 

[Danog]

There is a big chance that Matt Clarke has bombed this draft too

1.All the Duursma's up until this point have been a big disappointment compared to their junior form line and I expect the same from Willem.

2. Willem definitely doesn't bring hardness and if I was drafting him would have paired him with Dyson Sharp so he and Harley had someone giving them the ball so they could use their strengths.

2. CDT is a unicorn ... and even though girls love them ... apparently they don't exist ... just like the position that Cooper fits on an AFL team ... he is not a ruckman, can't win a tap to save his life, but he can run so he is a midfielder, right? (though he is not combative so he is an outside midfielder) but he can be a forward? how is his contested marking? so he ain't going to be a key forward

So despite being 200cm he is like an outside midfielder or a running half forward ... at this point Clarke has used pick 2 on a big wing ... I think he compares well to Blicavs at his age in terms of being an outstanding athlete with unknown position at the AFl level but he went at pick 54 in the 2012 Rookie draft.

3. What the hell was the bid on Harry Dean? Carlton had already traded pick 9 and 11 in a clear move that they would match this bid. If they were going to make this move they needed to keep it under wraps so that it ate up picks 9 and 11 and moved up their late first round pick. After Carlton had traded out of their picks the strategic play would have been not to make a bid, making the Blues look like fools

4. If they were after Beau Addinsal why did they not bid on Patterson instead at 3 making it impossible for the Suns to take all their Academy players, rather than trading a F2, to move up one pick to fail in their attempt to get the Suns boys anyway. Clearly no-one checked whether Clarke had taken VCE maths before giving him his position at West Coast.

This is the main one I have issue with. Just dumb by them.

 

[Meteoric Rise]

There is a big chance that Matt Clarke has bombed this draft too

1.All the Duursma's up until this point have been a big disappointment compared to their junior form line and I expect the same from Willem.

2. Willem definitely doesn't bring hardness and if I was drafting him would have paired him with Dyson Sharp so he and Harley had someone giving them the ball so they could use their strengths.

2. CDT is a unicorn ... and even though girls love them ... apparently they don't exist ... just like the position that Cooper fits on an AFL team ... he is not a ruckman, can't win a tap to save his life, but he can run so he is a midfielder, right? (though he is not combative so he is an outside midfielder) but he can be a forward? how is his contested marking? so he ain't going to be a key forward

So despite being 200cm he is like an outside midfielder or a running half forward ... at this point Clarke has used pick 2 on a big wing ... I think he compares well to Blicavs at his age in terms of being an outstanding athlete with unknown position at the AFl level but he went at pick 54 in the 2012 Rookie draft.

3. What the hell was the bid on Harry Dean? Carlton had already traded pick 9 and 11 in a clear move that they would match this bid. If they were going to make this move they needed to keep it under wraps so that it ate up picks 9 and 11 and moved up their late first round pick. After Carlton had traded out of their picks the strategic play would have been not to make a bid, making the Blues look like fools

4. If they were after Beau Addinsal why did they not bid on Patterson instead at 3 making it impossible for the Suns to take all their Academy players, rather than trading a F2, to move up one pick to fail in their attempt to get the Suns boys anyway. Clearly no-one checked whether Clarke had taken VCE maths before giving him his position at West Coast.

3. Have you considered Eagles rated Dean at number 3 in the draft? Or that they may have wanted the Blues to trade back because that wiped out several later picks in the 20's which elevated two Eagles picks in the 30's? Or that making the Blues look like fools was zero benefit to the Eagles, but could possibly be detrimental in future relations?

4. And similarly, making Gold Coast use a lot of later picks to match bids may have somehow suited the Eagles re their picks in the 30's? Or that they didn't rate Patterson at 3 for their list, and didn't want to run the risk of burning a top 3 pick on him? Or that Eagles may have known they were unlikely to get either of the Suns players they bid on, but were happy to trade up anyway to ensure they got Josh Lindsay?

 

[Daka]

Stengle and Markov both premiership players ... he has nailed some picks but also completely bombed entire drafts ... I feel that we have gone back to drafting players with a high floor in the first round since Clarke's departure., a strategy that FJ and Hartley used to great success to create our last dynasty

To be fair when Clarke was in charge, we never truly had high picks.

he is really hard to judge off his drafting he did pluck some rookies that went on to have successful careers.

 

[We are back baby!]

3. Have you considered Eagles rated Dean at number 3 in the draft? Or that they may have wanted the Blues to trade back because that wiped out several later picks in the 20's which elevated two Eagles picks in the 30's? Or that making the Blues look like fools was zero benefit to the Eagles, but could possibly be detrimental in future relations?

4. And similarly, making Gold Coast use a lot of later picks to match bids may have somehow suited the Eagles re their picks in the 30's? Or that they didn't rate Patterson at 3 for their list, and didn't want to run the risk of burning a top 3 pick on him? Or that Eagles may have known they were unlikely to get either of the Suns players they bid on, but were happy to trade up anyway to ensure they got Josh Lindsay?

If your best argument is that Lindsay was worth a 1st and F2 clearly Matt Clarke is Meteoric Rise

 

[Yze does it]

Stengle and Markov both premiership players ... he has nailed some picks but also completely bombed entire drafts ... I feel that we have gone back to drafting players with a high floor in the first round since Clarke's departure., a strategy that FJ and Hartley used to great success to create our last dynasty

Flag winners at their 3rd club. 5 years after leaving. Stengle coke problems through his career.
Caddy won flags for us a his 3rd

Butler injury and form loss dropped to RFC VFL 2018. went OK at the aints. Higgins can play but wanted out. Chol just depth ruck at punt road. behind JR and Lynch Suns and Hawks saw him as a KPF. CCJ swapped for Tarrant.

Best available ~ well built Kmac2 and Fawcett were a welcome change to Dow, RCD, Ryan skinny bodies. Lalor the same.

class of 25 seems to be ready to go too.

 

[We are back baby!]

Flag winners at their 3rd club. 5 years after leaving. Stengle coke problems through his career.
Caddy won flags for us a his 3rd

Butler injury and form loss dropped to RFC VFL 2018. went OK at the aints. Higgins can play but wanted out. Chol just depth ruck at punt road. behind JR and Lynch Suns and Hawks saw him as a KPF. CCJ swapped for Tarrant.

Best available ~ well built Kmac2 and Fawcett were a welcome change to Dow, RCD, Ryan skinny bodies. Lalor the same.

class of 25 seems to be ready to go too.

Can anyone confirm if this is Josh?

 

[ShereKhan]

If your best argument is that Lindsay was worth a 1st and F2 clearly Matt Clarke is Meteoric Rise

Yeah...seemed to be a complete sh*t show from the Eagles on draft night - but maybe I'm being overly critical as I haven't dug too deep into any Eagles forums.

Can people confirm what is fact and what was fiction from the night:

1. If Eagles bid on Patterson at #3 or even #4, GC would not have been able to match Addinsall?

2. Eagles traded out a F2 to go up 1 x spot, to bid on Addinsall only to have the bid matched. So they then take Lindsay. Hawks were next....with Amon, Impey, Di Ambrosio amongst others, surely they weren't taking Lindsay..??

So did Eagles give the Saints F2 for literally nothing, thus spending a first and second on Lindsay?

3. They didn't match for Banfield or Evans. Was this because they had no list spots left? Did they expect them to get through to the rookie draft, or do they miscalculate points/picks?

So I honestly don't know what's fact or fiction. But if indeed they could've got Addinsall, Banfield and Evans by being a little smarter, and also kept their F2 in the process, then it's a balls-up of epic proportions on the 1 x night their list mgt team are expected to excel.

 

[Meteoric Rise]

If your best argument is that Lindsay was worth a 1st and F2 clearly Matt Clarke is Meteoric Rise

You don't think he is worth picks 19 in a weak draft and about 35-40 next year? Eagles obviously differed from you. There again, with some of your reasoning, it is little shock that professional list managers and recruiters would differ from your position. These are not exactly premium picks, but you may not have noticed that. There was also another deal between the two clubs that may have been linked to this one, but I guess you missed that as well.

 

[Meteoric Rise]

Yeah...seemed to be a complete sh*t show from the Eagles on draft night - but maybe I'm being overly critical as I haven't dug too deep into any Eagles forums.

Can people confirm what is fact and what was fiction from the night:

1. If Eagles bid on Patterson at #3 or even #4, GC would not have been able to match Addinsall?

2. Eagles traded out a F2 to go up 1 x spot, to bid on Addinsall only to have the bid matched. So they then take Lindsay. Hawks were next....with Amon, Impey, Di Ambrosio amongst others, surely they weren't taking Lindsay..??

So did Eagles give the Saints F2 for literally nothing, thus spending a first and second on Lindsay?

3. They didn't match for Banfield or Evans. Was this because they had no list spots left? Did they expect them to get through to the rookie draft, or do they miscalculate points/picks?

So I honestly don't know what's fact or fiction. But if indeed they could've got Addinsall, Banfield and Evans by being a little smarter, and also kept their F2 in the process, then it's a balls-up of epic proportions on the 1 x night their list mgt team are expected to excel.

1. The Eagles may not have wanted to take the risk on Suns passing on Patterson. You don't mess about with top 3 picks.

2. Eagles traded the F2(probably around pick 35-40) to get ahead of Hawks, who obviously love left footed running flankers and pockets like Lindsay. Addinsall was not the first player they bid on with that pick. They bid first on his stablemate Jai Murray. Then Addinsall. Then obviously Lindsay was the fall back position. It seems unlikely to me Eagles would have traded up a spot just to bid on players they couldn't be confident of recruiting, given they also wouldn't have had any confident knowledge of whether the Hawks were interested in bidding on either player. Much much more likely is Eagles liked Murray and Adinsall and were happy to get either of them if Suns passed, but the combined effect of getting Lindsay before Hawks and exhausting a load of Suns picks to elevate their picks that ended up at 29 & 39 they deemed to be worth more than a pick in the 35-40 range in next years draft.

3. Banfield or Evans they almost certainly didn't want to add to their list in preference to other players they knew would be available. They passed on Evans at 38. Matched Williams at 39. And passed on Banfield at 41. There is only a 10% discount on tied players in this draft. Eagles did what a lot more teams are likely to start doing, just passing on tied players where other clubs bid above where the tied club has them rated. We saw this with 21 Carmichael, 25 Sweid, 32 Prindable, as well as the two Eagles players. But a load of players were matched with pointless picks from 46 onwards.

I don't have any certain idea, but the thought that Eagles have just totally fluffed their lines at the draft in the ways you have outlined seems highly fanciful to me. All clubs would calculate every realistic possibility before the draft and do all sorts of simulations so they can get their risk/reward calculations right according to how they see the value of each pick and each player.

 

[THE_GUN]

If your best argument is that Lindsay was worth a 1st and F2 clearly Matt Clarke is Meteoric Rise

The eagles are idiots
If they had given up #13 + F2 they would have got Carlton's pick #9
Then Bid on the 2 GC boys and take either Sharp or Addinsall which ever suited them rather than take Lindsay

Just idiots

 

[We are back baby!]

1. The Eagles may not have wanted to take the risk on Suns passing on Patterson. You don't mess about with top 3 picks.

2. Eagles traded the F2(probably around pick 35-40) to get ahead of Hawks, who obviously love left footed running flankers and pockets like Lindsay. Addinsall was not the first player they bid on with that pick. They bid first on his stablemate Jai Murray. Then Addinsall. Then obviously Lindsay was the fall back position. It seems unlikely to me Eagles would have traded up a spot just to bid on players they couldn't be confident of recruiting, given they also wouldn't have had any confident knowledge of whether the Hawks were interested in bidding on either player. Much much more likely is Eagles liked Murray and Adinsall and were happy to get either of them if Suns passed, but the combined effect of getting Lindsay before Hawks and exhausting a load of Suns picks to elevate their picks that ended up at 29 & 39 they deemed to be worth more than a pick in the 35-40 range in next years draft.

3. Banfield or Evans they almost certainly didn't want to add to their list in preference to other players they knew would be available. They passed on Evans at 38. Matched Williams at 39. And passed on Banfield at 41. There is only a 10% discount on tied players in this draft. Eagles did what a lot more teams are likely to start doing, just passing on tied players where other clubs bid above where the tied club has them rated. We saw this with 21 Carmichael, 25 Sweid, 32 Prindable, as well as the two Eagles players. But a load of players were matched with pointless picks from 46 onwards.

I don't have any certain idea, but the thought that Eagles have just totally fluffed their lines at the draft in the ways you have outlined seems highly fanciful to me. All clubs would calculate every realistic possibility before the draft and do all sorts of simulations so they can get their risk/reward calculations right according to how they see the value of each pick and each player.

Thanks Matty ... it is so insightful getting your explanation of how things went down in the Eagles Draft Room

The eagles are idiots
If they had given up #13 + F2 they would have got Carlton's pick #9
Then Bid on the 2 GC boys and take either Sharp or Addinsall which ever suited them rather than take Lindsay

Just idiots

 

[Meteoric Rise]

The eagles are idiots
If they had given up #13 + F2 they would have got Carlton's pick #9
Then Bid on the 2 GC boys and take either Sharp or Addinsall which ever suited them rather than take Lindsay

Just idiots

The Blues wanted points to match bids and essentially got over 1500 back in return for pick 9(worth 1355.) Pick 13 was worth only 1080 points, but even less by the time the Blues would have been matching Dean in the event Eagles didn't bid on him at 3. So no idea why you think the Blues would have accepted that deal. Eagles would have had to give up more from this years draft picks. And they may not have rated the two Suns players they bid on worthy of that.

 

[THE_GUN]

The Blues wanted points to match bids and essentially got over 1500 back in return for pick 9(worth 1355.) Pick 13 was worth only 1080 points, but even less by the time the Blues would have been matching Dean in the event Eagles didn't bid on him at 3. So no idea why you think the Blues would have accepted that deal. Eagles would have had to give up more from this years draft picks. And they may not have rated the two Suns players they bid on worthy of that.

Thats very easy MR

Eagles : Hey blues we really want your #9 and will give you #13 +F2 (stkilda)
Blues : Thats not enough we need points
Eagles : Thats a shame as we intended to bid on the 2 Suns players and then pick up CDT

 

[NZ_Tiger]

Some weird picks on there. CCJ, would of been there much later; Martyn, didn’t have a single afl trait; Dow, bad reach; Ryan, not sure why we picked him in the first place and baffled we extended him.

 

[Meteoric Rise]

Thats very easy MR

Eagles : Hey blues we really want your #9 and will give you #13 +F2 (stkilda)
Blues : Thats not enough we need points
Eagles : Thats a shame as we intended to bid on the 2 Suns players and then pick up CDT

I am pretty sure what Eagles did made sense for them.

We have just lived through a year of people laughing at the Roos for giving up pick 3 for Whitlock and pick 26 only to find now they essentially gave up pick 8(Grlj) for Whitlock and Thredgold, two much needed key position players.

Now people are trying to pick at what the Eagles did in 2025 because they "just could have done x or y instead, and been better off." But people have no idea why they chose the course they did, or whether they attempted to do something differently but couldn't get a taker or what. The notion they missed some tap in opportunity due to not understanding what they were doing is highly fanciful at best.

 

[Meteoric Rise]

Thanks Matty ... it is so insightful getting your explanation of how things went down in the Eagles Draft Room

Sounds pretty easy.

 

[Rich01]

We have just lived through a year of people laughing at the Roos for giving up pick 3 for Whitlock and pick 26 only to find now they essentially gave up pick 8(Grlj) for Whitlock and Thredgold, two much needed key position players.

They didn’t though.
Their final transaction came through as…

2025 first round (pick 8 - Grjl, but they probably would have picked Taylor) and 2026 second round (pick 27/28?) for Dovaston and Whitlock.

Considering they could have got Whitlock for the pick they ponied up for Caleb Daniel last year and Dovaston for their natural second this year and next I don’t think it’s anything they should be celebrating.