Trading - Thinking outside the square

[Trojan Pies]

I'm becoming concerned about the Collingwood brains trust regarding its inability to identify and target quality players that would fill a need of our club. Some examples are below:

I sent Geoff Walsh an email a few years back when Brent Reilly had an injury riddled year and was out of contract and favour at the Crows pleading with him to consider trading for Brent Reilly. The guy is a class act and I have rated him since his first year.

I also sent an thesis to Geoff last year regarding Brent Prismall saying that he is a star in the making and worth a up to a first round pick. The fact that Essendon got him for pick 39 also p!ssed me off. He has alredy become an extremely good midfielder for the Bombers with a well rounded arsenal of in-an-under, run and skill. He had an excellent season on the back of ZERO preseason and played his first contested game of footy at VFL in round 9. Imagine what he's going to be like after a full preseason. A MASSIVE OVERSIGHT BY THE PIES. If it was a concern about his knee then why did we draft Chris Dawes a few years earlier when he had the same injury at pick 28?

FINALLY - if we turned down a swap for Brad Dick for Luke Ball (The Age) this is one of the worst decisions I can ever remember. Brad Dick is not, and will never be, a finals footballer. He is possibly the skinniest AFL player in the league and can't handle the crash and bash and intensity of finals footy. Malthouse himself has stated that he will likely not put on much more weight than he currently carries. Don't get me wrong, I love the kid and they way he can lift our team like no other player but I just can't see him being able to compete in the cauldron of a final let alone a Grand Final. His best games this year were against West Coast, Port Adelaide and Melbourne...not exactly strong competition.

I hope to god that they have someone constantly scouring this forum for ideas on trades because there are actually a lot of innovative, clever and well thought out trade options posted by Collingwood supporters. I worry that the brains trust is almost too close to the picture and get hung up on a particular trade and miss other options as a consequence.

The list of hard nuts, which we could use, on the market this year includes: Jamie McNamara, Josh Kennedy (possibly could have been for pick 30), Shane Tuck, Brent Reilly - all should be considered to varying degrees.

Feel free to post either other missed opportunities, potential trades or generally just vent some of your frustration (as I have)...

 

[Quicky]

I'd wait until this arvo to see if we actually land Ball. I get the feeling that we are a very strong chance. I can see the clubs reluctance to trade Dick. He is important to the team as he allows Davis, Didak and Thomas more midfield time, his defensive pressure is excellent and his enthusiasm lifts the team. Also since Bennell left we don't have many true crumbers (people will argue with me here). I think we will be trying to trade someone like Goldsack as we have adequate cover in his position and he is still a quality player with currency. Trading Dick would also give the Saints a leg up that i'd prefer to avoid if possible.

On Prismall I think the club was right in their decision. I was all for getting Prismall too last year but in retrospect i'm very happy with getting Beams who looks like he will be a better player in the long run. We were clever to trade into a strong draft by getting another third rounder. I remember thinking the same thing about Reilly as well but can't remember the outcome of that draft period or even whether Adelaide we willing to part with him.

I think this year we have made the right decision to trade out of the draft and get some mature players to fix our deficiencies before the compromised draft - simply because some very good quality players have become available at reasonable trade offs. If we get Ball I think we will have done extremely well out of this trade period. Although without high picks I have concerns over the long term future of our forward line - although i'm perhaps being too pessimistic.

It'll be interesting what other trades we complete today and whether we get Ball or not.