What Does Our Future Look Like?

[10571z]

Its a really exciting time at collingwood and we are traveling well this year. We have high hopes of going back to back.

What does the future look like though. After following collingwood all my life it has never looked better. We have an amazing group of players who are mostly relatively young.

So how long can we stay around the top. Could this be a dynasty? Who will be our core for year to come? What do we need to do to stay at the top? Who will be the next captain?

Personally im really excited. with players like

Pendlebury 23
Thomas 24
Wellingham 22
Sidebottom 20
Dawes 23
Obrien 24
Cloke 24
Shaw 25
Blair 21
Beam 21
brown 22

Fasolo 19?

Plus many others its amazing how young our list is. Even swan,didak, ball should have at least another 4 in him.

I think we need to pick up a good ruckman however we do it as jolly is 29. We lacked that during many years.

As long as buckely keeps us on top and we can manage to pick up some good players we could keep this going for quite a while

 

[shawthing09]

The afl system isn't designed for teams to stay 'up' for long periods of time. We do have the advantage of 'peaking' whilst the expansion is happening making it harder for other sides to catch up.

It will be interesting to see how it goes. History says that often sides going as good as us have players who go unexposed due to the strength of the side and others around them and really struggle to pull their weight when the going gets tough.

The biggest question we will face in the near future is how will we go after Jolly and how will we go keeping the list together. Interesting but promising times at the moment at pie land.

 

[Lockyer24]

Its a really exciting time at collingwood and we are traveling well this year. We have high hopes of going back to back.

What does the future look like though. After following collingwood all my life it has never looked better. We have an amazing group of players who are mostly relatively young.

So how long can we stay around the top. Could this be a dynasty? Who will be our core for year to come? What do we need to do to stay at the top? Who will be the next captain?

Personally im really excited. with players like

Pendlebury 23
Thomas 24
Wellingham 22
Sidebottom 20
Dawes 23
Obrien 24
Cloke 24
Shaw 25
Blair 21
Beam 21
brown 22

Fasolo 19?

Plus many others its amazing how young our list is. Even swan,didak, ball should have at least another 4 in him.

I think we need to pick up a good ruckman however we do it as jolly is 29. We lacked that during many years.

As long as buckely keeps us on top and we can manage to pick up some good players we could keep this going for quite a while

Our 21-25 bracket is awesome, people talk about 2-3 year windows, I think we have the chance to do a Man Utd and have more like a 7-8 year period of 3-4 flags hopefully. We have been saying this is what we want to be.

We do need to keep the talent production line going though, as I've said before I'd veto trading away our first pick for the next 2 drafts. I don't like loading up on mature players when you are at the top, I think it should be a balanced continual approach that all age brackets at the club are strong.

As for the ruck, I feel confident we will either pinch another good ruck in a few years again, or Wood will step up, or even better Witts will live up to the hype. Fir the first time in a while I think we will have some luck in this position.

 

[jc37]

the players that will need replacing over the next 4 years will be
Tarrant, Jolly, Johnson, Davis, Brown L, Maxwell, Didak and krakouer.

That still leaves us with a good core as stated above provided we can hang onto those players.

One things the pies have worked well along with hawthorn is the NSW scheme where you can get freebies.
At this stage Young, Witts, Carracher and Hartley are all potential freebies and dont take the spot of another player on the list.Reed has been ok and GWS may see some value in him as part of a trade.
Elijah Edwards is exciting and haggerty,Hillman both possible prospects.

Than we have the free irishmen Peter Cribben who has started well and Caolan Mooney who sounds great (they never say we have picked up a dud though).

Than we have two exciting father and son prospects that we can likely get above value for. James Stewart in 2012 and Darcy Moore in 2013 both Key Position players. Add Jackson Starcevich to this who might be also a handy player.

What many people dont realise is that the Pies have since 2007 (when we just missed the granny) and at present are actually rebuilding our list. Think of the following players gone since that miss. Clement, Wakelin, Burns, Lonie, Prestigiacomo, Clarke, Cox, Obree, Shaw R, Lockyer, Rocca, Rusling, Medhurst, Buckley, Anthony, Lockyer, Fraser etc prob add dick. That is a lot of talent that has been replaced.

I think for the long term it could be worth trading for a quality 17 year old if possible to add to the current rebuild and help us stay up for a sustained period. 10 plus years.

The future looks reasonably bright enough to have the potential to do this but Melbourne and the Gold Coast and others are coming with exciting young talent.

It is an exciting time for being a Pies supporter.

 

[shawthing09]

We are not re-building at the moment you just have to look at our trading away of draft picks for mature players to see that.

It's a catch 22 as to how we keep going. On the one hand football is unpredictable so when you have a chance like ours you really have to do everything you have to ensure you win it. There is no point drafting 17 year olds to keep us up over a long period and ignoring someone who could of made us better this year then regretting it later because the future is unpredictable. When you're in the zone we are in at the moment every move should be about giving you the best possible chance for that season IMO.

With that said the strength of the side means that A) The chances of a mature age player who is going to improve us are slimmer. B) There is a distinct possibility that some of our fringe guys will want to get more games elsewhere.

 

[Pie eyed]

This.

 

[joefootylover]

I like the way we have brought in Wood, Leroy, Buckley, Jolly, Ball, Tarrant, Krakouer as we phased out Fraser, Medhurst, Lockyer, O'Bree, Rocca, Bucks, Presti, Wakes etc.

Have to think that we freed up significant salary cap thru that process.

Also like the NSW, father son, Irish programs, and the way Maxy has been putting back into the Rookie program, which netted us Bolton.

The final piece of the puzzle is retaining our core list through good management of the cap and incentivizing being at the club with good facilities and good post footy career programs, so far the signs seem good, and with luck free agency will help us rather than hinder us.

Exciting times to be a Pies supporter!

 

[Shutty05]

The best things about that list is that they are the spine, most important players.

FB Brown
CHB Reid
C Pendals & Thomas
CHF Cloke
FF Dawes

add in around those guys the rest and there are a dozen key players that have years to go, allowing the next dozen to be the older guys replaced with younger or Kracker types.

Great spot to be in, just need to keep them together with the $$$ availiable.

 

[Shutty05]

And the fact we got 3/4 of the KPP in 1 draft!!

 

[Jelly Bean]

We are not re-building at the moment you just have to look at our trading away of draft picks for mature players to see that.

It's a catch 22 as to how we keep going. On the one hand football is unpredictable so when you have a chance like ours you really have to do everything you have to ensure you win it. There is no point drafting 17 year olds to keep us up over a long period and ignoring someone who could of made us better this year then regretting it later because the future is unpredictable. When you're in the zone we are in at the moment every move should be about giving you the best possible chance for that season IMO.

With that said the strength of the side means that A) The chances of a mature age player who is going to improve us are slimmer. B) There is a distinct possibility that some of our fringe guys will want to get more games elsewhere.

This. We are in "window extension" phase - which is primary a short term focus (evidenced by the fact that we have traded away 3 of our last 4 first round picks). It wouldn't surprise me if we trade away our first round again this year (I hope we don't) for a player who can make us better next year and the year after.

 

[Dundalis]

We don't have the same talent in the VFL that we did 2 years ago. We haven't really had a first round pick for a while now, which is even more important given we still have another compromised draft to go through.

There are a number of older players that will need replacing over the next few years, the likes of Jolly, Davis, and perhaps Didak.

We will be contenders for at least the next 2 years, but we need to keep the influx of young talent coming through IMO. We aren't as naturally gifted as Brisbane or Geelong were through their periods of dominance, we rely more on hard work and our structures dominating, and as Malthouse said, the dominance we have with our gameplan is not going to last forever.

Others teams will improve over the next 2 years, both with the quality of their players and their structures, so we need to keep improving.

 

[Dundalis]

This. We are in "window extension" phase - which is primary a short term focus (evidenced by the fact that we have traded away 3 of our last 4 first round picks). It wouldn't surprise me if we trade away our first round again this year (I hope we don't) for a player who can make us better next year and the year after.

We don't need to be wasting draft picks when we've got free agency coming in with which to bring players in to boost our team short term.

 

[Drizt]

Securing a genuine ruck replacement for Jolly will be key.

Hopefully Witts will be ready to go by the time Jolly retires.

 

[vjknight]

We do need to keep the talent production line going though, as I've said before I'd veto trading away our first pick for the next 2 drafts. I don't like loading up on mature players when you are at the top, I think it should be a balanced continual approach that all age brackets at the club are strong.

a significant difference last year to this year is we will have at years end a best 22 with all having played 30 games minimum, as opposed to last year where we had several under 20 games. our approach last year was to replace 5 tired 10 year players with 2 new 10 year players who were a lot fresher for personal reasons. so at years end we will have an experienced top class best 22 and can afford to spend time on maturing the kids we all know in the reserves as well as new kids picked up in another compromised draft. and as shown in recent years, their draft number becomes irrelevant if our coaches & conditioning staff turn them into quality players, rather than just relying on the player himself.

we all know that if any team is to keep the interstate marauders at bay (and yes i refer to gold coast cos they have an awesome list that could sweep up every flag in a few years) then COLLINGWOOD is the team to do it.

and imagine vic based fans of other clubs - who do they then barrack for in GF's ?

good times.