List Mgmt. Squad reduction
- Thread starter ImperialPurple
- Start date
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Are you actually serious?
Firstly Neale doesn’t play the same role as Pearce - not even close. No one else in our 2013 side could’ve played Pearce’s role to the same standard except Hill who was playing virtually the same role on the opposite side of the field anyway.
Secondly Neale wasn’t half the player he was now in 2013 and was easily the worst midfielder in the side at the time if you aren’t completely blinded by what the said players did after 2013.
We lost the Grand Final because our bottom six which very much included Lachie Neale wasn’t nearly good enough. Premiership teams can afford players like Ballantyne, Mayne and Pearce (yes, he wasn’t nearly bottom six in 2013) to absolutely sh*t the bed on Grand Final day and still play well as a side. Unfortunately De Boer, Clarke, Sutcliffe, Suban, Dawson and an inexperienced Spurr and Neale (who were far better players later on) were just too rubbish to compete with Hawthorn who had no one at that standard.
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Big thumbs up to this. I firmly believe and have seen it work. Teams should draft BPA, Best player available, not for need. There a lots of NFL teams that have drafted based on need, missed the mark, and have been average for a long time. Ex: chicago bears and Minnesota Vikings and Raiders just to name a few.
Packers drafted Aaron Rodgers when they had a healthy future hall of fame QB on the roster in Brett Favre. Talking heads said they didn’t need a QB and some fans cried and whined. Worked out well imo. There are countless other examples where some lineman was drafted and Pack had 8 on the roster. Three go down with injuries and the kid comes in and crushes it. This has been partly why the Pack have been competitive for so long (and had two back to back hall of famers at QB.
)Freo need some more firepower at FF and prob a ruck in the draft but if BPA is another inside mid, you draft him. Who doesn’t need another Fyfe, Pendles, Cripps, etc..?
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Couldn’t agree more with this. Look back at old draft orders from a few years ago, you would always draft the best player available if doing that. Never reach for a certain positional need. We should have taken Grundy instead of Simpson in 2012 for example. If we kept picking the best available every time we will build a very decent list in due course. To be fair, since 2015 we have generally done that. Tucker is now looking a great pick at 27 in that particular draft.Big thumbs up to this. I firmly believe and have seen it work. Teams should draft BPA, Best player available, not for need. There a lots of NFL teams that have drafted based on need, missed the mark, and have been average for a long time. Ex: chicago bears and Minnesota Vikings and Raiders just to name a few.
Packers drafted Aaron Rodgers when they had a healthy future hall of fame QB on the roster in Brett Favre. Talking heads said they didn’t need a QB and some fans cried and whined. Worked out well imo. There are countless other examples where some lineman was drafted and Pack had 8 on the roster. Three go down with injuries and the kid comes in and crushes it. This has been partly why the Pack have been competitive for so long (and had two back to back hall of famers at QB.)
Freo need some more firepower at FF and prob a ruck in the draft but if BPA is another inside mid, you draft him. Who doesn’t need another Fyfe, Pendles, Cripps, etc..?
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2014 was the turning point.
Weller at 13, Blakely in the 30’s and Langdon in the 50’s. 2015 was a shallow draft but Tucker a good pick up at 27 and Ballic not unreasonable at 38 then went mature age. The ND’s of 2016, 17, 18 and 19 seem reasonable for us as well.
2012 and 2013 we really drafted for needs; Simpson, Tanner Smith, Max Duffy in 2012 and Apeness in 2013 and we picked up Alex Pearce at 37.
In 2013 we ponied up pick 37 for Yeo to push West Coast to offer 28. We should have then offered pick 18 or whatever it was we used on Apeness for Yeo and got some change back from Brisbane. Instead we added the late Col Sylvia via FA.
2012 was a very shallow draft but we had an opportunity to pick up Grundy but instead chose Simpson.
Imagine having Yeo, Grundy and Alex Pearce to show for 2012-13 instead of just Alex Pearce. This and nothing to show for 2010 is the reason we bottomed out in 2016.
To be fair on Colin Sylvia he probably had nothing to do with us not trading for Yeo.
The decision not to trade for Yeo was most likely made after years of ignoring key position prospects at the draft to the point where we were so desperate not using both our first rounder and second rounder on a key position players seemed unthinkable. Scott Gumbleton was another desperate decision. Sylvia was a free hit bar salary cap - wrong player, right idea imo.
Earlier mistakes led to more mistakes basically. That’s not an excuse but probably explains some of the decisions made.
All valid points but the biggest stuff up is still not picking Darling. His understanding with
Kennedy, could of been the same with Pav.
The local talent that should of been selected, more intel appeared to be average at best.
History now dictates we had one chance at a GF, and the squad was close.
After that loss we needed to improve, change, and some tough decisions sought.
Let's hope under the new regime they have learned from previous mistakes, and build
a dynasty of success rather than a one off.
Yep it was a stuff up. The eagles drafted well in 2010 and picked up Gaff and Darling from an otherwise fairly ordinary draft. To build a dynasty we need to be be picking up a minimum of two players from each draft that go on to become best 22 players that play 100 games plus. Luke Parker went at pick 40 in that draft too. We ended up with no one of note from our 4 or 5 picks. In fact, when you look back at all the players picked after the selection of Nat Fyfe in 2009 at pick 20, up until the 2014 draft where we selected lachie Weller, connor blakely and Ed Langdon, there weren’t many hits.
- Barlow in the 2010 rookie draft
- Dylan Robertson at pick 49 in 2009 (but we delisted him for nothing in 2012 and he went on to make the all Australian 40 in 2017 - typical dockery decision!)
- crozier at pick 20 in 2011 wasnt a disaster I guess
- Neale at 58 obviously a gun
2012 draft a total write off with no success stories
- Alex Pearse in 2013 at pick 37, still only played about 50 games though... (other picks were all busts).
We just need another strong draft this year and we will be well set up as I really believe we have improved a lot from 2014 -2020 in terms of draft decisions.
Joel Western looks a gem, and if we can get the 2 best available kids along side him in 2020 (An added bonus if those kids are from WA, mindful that the eagles are traded out of this years draft till the second round and so we’ll likely have 2 picks before them) we will be well stacked on our list with talented young players.
Overall I agree with you.
In regards to Roberton, he got his girlfriend pregnant and they request to be traded back to Victoria for family support.
No Victoria club wanted to trade for him. So out of compassion we cut him and allowed him to go home.
The Victorian clubs are the ones who made a bad decision not to trade for him.
In a strange way we as a club probably got more out of Sheridan than Crozier. Sheridan was handy until the team fell off a cliff.
Taberner can only be considered a success story from 2012, especially considering the pick.
Ultimately the list looks a lot better if we could’ve kept a few players that decided to go and/or a few that were cut too early due largely to the performance of the side (and the rebuild that followed).
The injury Gods haven't been kind to us at all, and it's why I get nervous when kids in the draft with clouds are
associated with Freo.
It must be pretty rare to draft 2 kids with heart conditions?
But you then add Apeness, and then trading for Hogan, and you start to wonder if it's a coincidence or are we trying too
hard to be clever?
WC on the other hand seem to take the players that are less of a risk, and back their development, process.
I mentioned that nothing to show for 2010 was a big factor in us falling off the cliff in 2016. I wasn’t going to rehash old ground. Eagles timed their Poor year in 2010 perfectly giving them pick 3 in a compromised draft. We could have selected Cripps at 24, Darling at 26, Howe at 33 or as you say Parker at 40. In fact most of the pre-draft talk on Freo were Reece Conca and Jamie Cripps. We got unlucky with Pitt who could have been solid. The other pick in the 40’s for Mitchie was an issue because we couldn’t get anything of substance from Collingwood for Tarrant. Wasn’t much of note picked up after 40. So we needed to get more creative with the Tarrant trade and get a pick in the top 40 involving a third club.
2010 aside from Mzungu and a late pick for Griffin was a terrible all round. Picked up Jack Anthony PSD which may have influenced our decision on not selecting Darling and I’m still confused about the selection of Pitt instead of Jamie Cripps. I was expecting Cripps name to be called at pick 20.
2010-2013 was was beyond bad and a reason farewelling Brad Lloyd and Chris Bond wasn’t a bad thing. Terrible trade/drafting in 2010, as well as drafting for needs in 2012/13. Then there was the royal trade stuff up that was Mitch Clarke in 2011. In hindsight we dodged a bullet but who knows how it would have turned out.
I remember reading something at the time about Pitt. I'm pretty sure we said something like we recruited the best kick available at our pick because we felt we needed extra skills.
Pitt wasn’t terrible he was just a left field pick - something our recruiters are known for. Pitt had nice skills and in his first game vs Brisbane showed some nice side step and evasiveness. If I remember correctly played 10 games in his first season but WAFL and injuries impacted his second season in 2012.
In 2013 after 1 round of WAFL with 26 possessions he had to retire due to a heartbeat irregularity.
I won’t argue that Darling, Cripps, Howe and Parker weren’t better but we lucked out.
I think the trading in that period of 2010-13 was as bad if not worse:
- not getting better trade (ie a pick between 30-40) for Tarrant in 2010 and somewhat connected selecting Jack Anthony in PSD.
- Playing hardball on trade negotiations for Mitch Clark in 2011 and then missing out altogether.
- Not trading at all in 2012 for what was a shallow draft.
- Not offering 2013 1st rounder to Brisbane for Yeo and some change. We prob burnt the trade bridge with Brisbane in our horrible 2011 trade negotiations for Mitch Clark.
2014 onwards much better and I have much greater confidence in Walls. Time will tell with Peter Bell but he can’t be worse than Bond.
I’m pretty happy with the drafting since 2014, though giving away our first for Harley Bennell in 2015 and also picking Harley Balic were both bad errors, but other than that it’s been pretty good. Can’t expect too much from late picks. I’m very bullish about our 2019 draft haul, and just hope the rookies like butters and pina get a reasonable opportunity to show what they can do as well as the high picks, given the current unique circumstances. The only major error in hindsight over recent years was ignoring Sydney Stack in 2018. I do accept his “issues” may have meant that if he stayed in Perth he might not have turned out like he has so far at Richmond, but a rookie pick was surely a small price to pay for that gamble? High risk, high reward??
The additions of Acres and Aish could both be underrated too at the moment. Aish was touted as a number 2 pick before that draft and supposedly one of the best players from SA in generations. Acres also showed flashes of brilliance at the saints and is coming to an age where he should get more consistent. They will both be solid best 22 players over the next few years with good attitudes too to build that culture. They are also both only 24 yet it’s important to remember and so their best footy should be ahead of them.
The additions of Acres and Aish could both be underrated too at the moment. Aish was touted as a number 2 pick before that draft and supposedly one of the best players from SA in generations. Acres also showed flashes of brilliance at the saints and is coming to an age where he should get more consistent. They will both be solid best 22 players over the next few years with good attitudes too to build that culture. They are also both only 24 yet it’s important to remember and so their best footy should be ahead of them.
