Won't happen. Clubs have learnt from the price paid for Mclean, Fevola and Lovett in the one trade period.
If you say so.
I would strongly consider giving up a pick in the mid teens for Dal Santo if I was a club looking like being right in the premiership mix over the next couple of years and needed someone with his elite skills, decision making, extensive finals/GF experience and poise, just to top them off.
One example might be Collingwood, if Thomas happens to leave for a big offer from somewhere else. If that then leaves Collingwood with say picks 13 and 14, I could see them prepared to trade 14 for Dal, given that they already have a number of good "kids" and look like getting Moore very cheaply next year. Basically a straight swap with Thomas. Not ideal, with Dal that bit older, but I think they could live with it, especially if Daisy's ankle doesn't improve.
Essendon another club that may be very, very interested. Watson, Goddard, Stanton, Heppell, Zaharkis, Dal Santo, etc looks like a very nice midfield to me, especially when combined with their strong ruck division and outstanding "KPP" stocks.
As someone else said, Dal has hardly missed a game through injury in his whole career and doesn't get by with speed, so he could just keep on cruising around for another 3-4 more years without it being any great surprise.
He won't be the age Lenny Hayes and Milne are this year for 4 more years, for instance. He came 2nd in the Brownlow just two seasons ago when were still a reasonably strong team and I could definitely see him getting back into really good form again over the next couple of years, if he was at a really strong team, particularly if it was a team where someone else was getting the no.1 tag. We saw how well he went early the other night on Judd, before they put a tag on him because he was going so well.
Just because someone reaches 30yo doesn't necessarily mean they are going to go downhill immediately. Lenny Hayes has won two B&F's and come top 10 in the Brownlow after the age of 30, Milne has made his first two AA teams at the ages of 31 and 32 and I'm sure you've noticed how Riewoldt is going this year, at the age of 30. These are just a few examples from my club alone in the past 4 years, so I wouldn't go assuming that Dal is going to suddenly become incapable of playing very high quality footy, just because he reaches some arbitrary age. But that's just me.
You obviously have a crystal ball though to say with such certainty that it won't happen, so I guess we'll just see. I'm not saying it will, or won't happen, because I'm all out of crystal balls at the moment, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if it did, is all I'm saying. If he lifts his game for the rest of the year I probably wouldn't want it to happen, anyway, at least not for just a pick that we were going to use in the draft. If it was for a pick that we were then going to on-trade to a team like like Melbourne, for Frawley, for instance, with someone else thrown in on our end, then I would be a lot more open to it though.
What have these players done to be rated so highly as shut down defenders?
For starters, who mentioned the term "shut-down"?
Secondly, all those five you had in bold there except for Simpkin (who played almost every game for us last year and was generally very good, but seems to have a case of the "2nd year blues" this year, on top of the lack of spots keeping him out, especially with Roberton doing so well) is currently a fixture in our starting 22, with all also being 25yo or younger and hence likely to improve, so when you add them to the likes of Fisher, Gwilt, Gilbert, Dempster, you will probably realise that we will have too many for the 5 spots left,
IF we have gotten someone like a Brown or Frawley at the end of the year.
If the younger ones are in the team already and holding their own and improving, as they are, then it is likely that we are going to want to keep them in the team next year as well, rather than have them pushed back to the VFL, where their development may stall, so we may consider trading one of the more experienced group out, for that reason, amongst other reasons.
If it was all about today for us then we wouldn't do anything like that, but we are also looking to the future and as such may do a trade that will benefit us more down the track than in the short term, or that will strengthen another area of the ground where we don't have as many strong options. Just as I think your club ought to do with your collection of "rucks" and "forward/rucks" (Kruezer, Hampson, Warnock, Rowe, Casboult and maybe Mitchell, who is the same sort of height). In both cases, it's just too much for the one position/area, IMO.
Finally, since you asked, Simpkin did numerous good "shut-down" jobs last year, including on the much bigger Jarryd Roughead and Patty Ryder, off the top of my head, Jarryn Geary came 6th in our B&F last year playing down back and of course in the last two weeks has done terrific tagging jobs in the midfield on Sidebottom (who he kept to 10 touches) and then Murphy (17 touches). Wright has been doing terrific jobs down back since he came into the team, including on Andrew Krakouer last week and he was also good on Betts and/or Garlett when he was on them on Monday and we've been so happy with how he's been going back there that it freed up Geary to move into the midfield and Rhys Stanley is clearly just learning the caper, but has done terrific jobs on Sam Reid, Jeremy Cameron and Johnno Patton, as well as being good in couple of our other games back there. The likes of Barry Hall and Paul Roos amongst others have also been lauding some of his play back there in the early rounds of this season and believe he is well worth sticking with back there. I don't think many are suggesting that he's suited to the likes of Travis Cloke though, and that is why we are so keen to get someone who is better suited to playing on the big, strong, 105kg+ "gorillas".
I'm not suggesting for a second that that group, or Roberton (who has been a bit of a revelation for us this year) are currently as good as the likes of Fisher, Gwilt, Gilbert or Dempster, but they are at the very least holding their own in the seniors and all improving. Just as Fisher (who didn't debut until he was 22), Gwilt (who didn't cement his spot till he was about 24) and Dempster (who didn't debut until he was 21) were at those sort of ages. So it would be a shame to have to send any/many of them back to the VFL next year, for as long as the next couple of years, because there aren't enough spots, when they are already doing a good enough job in the seniors this year and are likely to improve further with more games in the AFL.
Every club can reel off potential players on paper. You're really jumping the gun with your rating of these players and Spencer White.
That is your opinion and you are entitled to it, just as I am of mine, I would have thought.
I'm sure there were many who would have said the same when I was similarly excited by a young Adam Goodes, for instance, after I saw him play for the first time in the U18's GF in 1997 and was hoping like hell that we would draft him with our first pick and would probably have taken him with a top 5 pick if I had to, off just that one game. Yet every club went on to overlook him in that draft and he ended up going at 43, which left me stunned and incredibly disappointed. I'm quite happy with how I jumped the gun on that one, in hindsight.
Then there was the time I was literally laughed at when I walked into the TAB in Oakleigh when I was 18, in 1997 and plonked $500 (at a time I didn't have a job) down on the register for St Kilda to make the 8 that year (after we hadn't played finals since 1992) and was told by whoever took my money that I "had just thrown away $500", only for us to go on to finish the H&A rounds on top of the ladder and go on to make the GF.
So maybe this will be another one that I get right like those ones and numerous others, or maybe it won't, like likewise plenty of others. Again, I don't have a crystal ball to say for sure, but usually when someone has me this excited and confident they go on to have a good or very good (or even better) career, all things being equal.
The level of excitement that Spencer has created in a short time at St Kilda (particularly from those that regularly/consistently watch the VFL games and are able to compare him to others who have come through the club in recent years) is something that we probably haven't seen from someone that young at the club in a very long time.
196cm, with elite speed for his height (enabling him to lead strongly from the goalsquare, or to run back towards goal when he gets up the ground), a real confidence to use it (I'd rather someone have the confidence to back themselves, than to have to coax it out of them, as we have with Stanley), a huge leap and also very strong hands overhead, meaning plenty of overhead marks and a habit of kicking goals. What's not to like, especially when he's hit the ground running for us?
What I do know for sure is that in my experience, if someone comes to our club and starts doing really well from pretty much the get-go and has the sort of attributes required, they usually tend to go on and have a very good career with us, with most of the exceptions being those that had their careers derailed by serious injury, so I have every reason to be very confident of White, in particular, if he stays fit.
I was one of very few on our board who said that they would be happy with us taking him with one of our mid 20's picks last year, prior to the draft, yet even I was expecting very little from him anywhere this year, especially when he had such an interrupted preseason and wasn't able to bulk up much, if at all, so the fact that he's hit the ground running and done some seriously impressive things at senior level in the VFL already (including having 8 shots for goal in his last game, while Kosi is only managing to have a few, despite his size and experience) just has me even more confident that he has a very good chance/likelihood to make it in a pretty big way,
all things being equal.
I wouldn't write off Carlton or Hawthorn looking for a ready made defender such as Mitch Brown. We clearly need another mature defender who can cover for Jamison. Schoenmakers will be coming back from a knee reco, so the Hawks might look at him too.
I wouldn't either. Nor would I write off him staying at West Coast, hence the second word in that post being
"IF", which is a word I tend to use to suggest a hypothetical situation, for the sake of discussion. Anything can happen, that's what makes life so exciting!