Roast WHAT I WANT TO SEE FROM A WELL COACHED PORT SIDE THAT KEN HINKLEY HAS FAILED TO SHOW US

How will Janus twist this?


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Sep 26, 2012
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Sounds similar to Port 2011/12, change coach - then semi final.

What wasn’t similar was the commitment the players made to each other. It happened in the 2006 off season for Geelong. It happened this preseason for Port.

The fact that we are top five in 4 out of the 5 premiership statistics according to Champion Data without guys like Dixon, Wines and Hartlett making a meaningful contribution to the year should give people cause for optimism.
Footy in 2019 is very different to footy in 2014. A lot of clubs make mistakes by trying to copy last year’s premier, or even the premier of two or three years ago. Ken’s passion for defensive forwards seems like an attempt to copy Richmond’s 2017 side.
There’s no point in playing 2017 footy (let alone 2014 footy) with our side, because we don’t have a 2017 (or 2014) side.
The best sides in 2019 so far - Geelong & Collingwood - play very differently to Richmond. Note, for instance, that neither of them are that great with clearances or contested ball, but this makes them no less effective.
The premiership coach in each of the past few years seems to have found a game plan that’s different to how they’ve played previously, but which suits their team’s strengths and weaknesses perfectly. The middle teams seem to try to copy one of the recent premiers, but the game has moved past them.
And yes, it helps to have a full list.
Good observation and post.
 
Dean Gore was meaningless steak knives in that trade, but we've traded averagely because we weren't willing to move on players while they had value.

Despite that, we also leveraged our position as an exciting up and coming side to add considerable quality to our list. I think you'd agree that our list is better than it was in 2014.

You said we haven't been consistent or successful because we've had to turn over 15 of our best 22. So has everyone else, and the current flag favourites have turned over more.

It's not a reasonable excuse, it's another garbage excuse.

Yeah, they've done a great job of refreshing their list. This is their best 23:

Ablett - 35 (traded in)
Taylor - 32
Selwood - 31
Hawkins - 30

Tuohy - 29 (traded in)
Henderson - 29 (traded in)
Smith - 29 (traded in)
Dangerfield - 29 (traded in)
Stanley - 28 (traded in)
Blicavs - 28
Rohan - 28 (traded in)
Duncan - 28
Menegola - 27
Guthrie - 26

Dahlhaus - 26 (traded in)
Stewart - 26
Kelly - 24
Atkins - 23
Kolodjashnij - 23
O'Connor - 22
Ratugolea - 20
Miers- 20
Clark - 18

Geelong didn't change their best 22 for any reason other than they wanted to try and squeeze another premiership out of the guys in bold. Notice how every one around them was traded in, either as an FA or through a trade? That's why.

That's your 'current flag favourites' that have turned over more. 16 of their best 23 are over 26 years of age.

In case you were wondering, our best 22 has 12...but two of them haven't played a game this year (Dixon and Hartlett) and Watts is out for awhile.
 
The 2006 Geelong review saw them bring in a new fitness head - Dean Robinson, whose methods leave open a lot of doubt how above board they were, and appointed for the first time a Footy Ops Manager - Neil Balme, to take stuff away from Thompson. We haven't made those sort of 2 fundamental preseason changes. Its the same old in those 2 departments.

Dixon and Hartlett have missed all 11 games

Big expectations and we stuffed up
Brisbane - Wines rushed back, Watts out - we choked when it counted (Gray, Ebert, Burton, Lycett, Jonas, Wines all played)
Richmond - we choked again doing the same basic mistakes as the last 5 seasons (no changes)

Collingwood, Crows, Hawks yes lots of players missing but we dont show up in the 1st quarter when expectations are high we would compete and spend the rest of the game playing catch up and fail miserably apart from a 10 minute run in the last quarter against the crows because the coach finally wakes up we need a decent forward structure not Hoff as our KPF.

Stats have fooled us before. 2017 we belted the middle class and cellar dwellers and the stats said we were great or very good in a lot of areas but when we played the top sides The HPN guys in 2017 picked it up and said you can't trust Port because our stats are biased by our results against the bottom sides. They re-stratified the stats into top 8 and bottom 10 sides, they showed we were poor against the top 8 and you and Forza said that was crap, but they were right. Stats fooled us at 11-4 last year.

You reckon we can do a Geelong and win the flag, then we beat Geelong, Freo in Perth, Adelaide in their showdown, GWS, Sydney, Essendon and Richmond at the G - no more excuses.

Ken has to go bloody try some dumplings, dim sims, noodles, sweet and sour pork, Peking duck, spicy spring rolls etc and get off the toasted ham, cheese and tomato sandwiches . Try something new and filling not the same boring ****.

Need Dixon up and running. He's the key.
 

El_Scorcho

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Yeah, they've done a great job of refreshing their list. This is their best 23:

Ablett - 35 (traded in)
Taylor - 32
Selwood - 31
Hawkins - 30

Tuohy - 29 (traded in)
Henderson - 29 (traded in)
Smith - 29 (traded in)
Dangerfield - 29 (traded in)
Stanley - 28 (traded in)
Blicavs - 28
Rohan - 28 (traded in)
Duncan - 28
Menegola - 27
Guthrie - 26

Dahlhaus - 26 (traded in)
Stewart - 26
Kelly - 24
Atkins - 23
Kolodjashnij - 23
O'Connor - 22
Ratugolea - 20
Miers- 20
Clark - 18

Geelong didn't change their best 22 for any reason other than they wanted to try and squeeze another premiership out of the guys in bold. Notice how every one around them was traded in, either as an FA or through a trade? That's why.

That's your 'current flag favourites' that have turned over more. 16 of their best 23 are over 26 years of age.

In case you were wondering, our best 22 has 12...but two of them haven't played a game this year (Dixon and Hartlett) and Watts is out for awhile.

Firstly, you've changed the goalposts here. You've said that good football was beyond reasonable expectation because we turned over too much of the list. Clearly that isn't the case because other teams have done it and managed to play at a high level of football.

Secondly, what are you even saying here? How is Geelong bringing in the likes of Tuohy, Smith and Henderson any different to us bringing in Watts, Rockliff and Motlop? We were clearly also trying to squeeze a premiership out of the Boak/Gray list, and traded heavily to top up and improve our list, including trading out older guys for younger guys.

We could easily have more 26+ players on our list if we elected to retain the likes of Young, Trengove, Polec, Pittard, Butcher, Hombsch and Wingard (who will be 26 in August) instead of moving them on. Alternatively we could have moved them on earlier and received better trades for them.

Our list balance doesn't suggest any improvement in this area either, because like Geelong, we have 4 guys who are 30+ and will move off of the list as the guys in the 22-25 age bracket move into that magical 26+ age bracket you've defined.
 

Amarula

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I'm not convinced that having Ollie & Charlie back will guarantee that we'll get better. There's a big risk they'll make us worse.

I'm concerned about Ollie's poor disposal, in the same way that I think Jack Viney's poor disposal made Melbourne worse against Collingwood. So, more turnovers, more wrong-footing of our defence, more missed clutch goals.

And with Charlie back, we're more likely to forget other avenues to goal and bomb-it-to-Charlie. We become more predictable and easier to stifle.

I was surprised to find yesterday at the QB match that May can't seem to play anywhere other than FB. So this gave Collingwood the chance to create one mismatch by having de Grey or Stevenson opposed to him, and another mismatch by playing Mason Cox further up the ground, where he was opposed to Wagner or Lever most of the game, and at one stage by Salem. So they always had a very good bomb-it-to-Cox option with every attack. However, they used it sparingly, and really varied their avenues to goal, which made it extremely difficult for the defence to know how the ball was going to come in, and made their attack much more potent & dangerous.

This is the right way to use a tall forward. But we'll go the other way and become far too Charlie-centric, like we did last year, when I vaguely remember a stat that after Buddy, big Dix was the next most frequent forward target in the AFL, way above whoever was third, but with a far worse outcome. Because from memory he was also high on the list for the frequency of dropping marks after getting both hands to the ball.

Or maybe Ollie's worked real hard on his disposal and Charlie on holding on to his marks (which I strongly doubt, because neither seem to consider it a problem)
 

AwwThatsApples

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To be fair Ken said most of the stuff he needed to on FAA.

He was very pleased with Housten and Howard moving up the ground and wants to take caution with our injuries.

Unfortunately, Housten will not be able to play in the midfield once we get both Wines and Rockliff back, without even mentioning Drew. We simply have too many big bodied midfielders to squeeze in Housten. If his skills can surpass Drew and SPP on a frequent basis, then I'd say there's plenty of room for him. I think all of us know including Ken that Housten will potentially work very well as a midfielder, but we just can't fit him in. We need to slowly build Housten up until someone is finally ready to hang their boots and open the door for him, but this may still be a few years away.
 

B0ydmental

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See? You can do it. I agree with everything you’ve said. It all starts from the mentality of the players, and that is a reflection of the coach.

Just got two questions. Why could the defenders push up the ground against West Coast in Perth if Ken can’t motivate them? And why were there still people calling for players to be dropped replaced after that game?

For mine, that game showed me how we wanted to play.
Well I'm late to this party but what exception' post minor contribution to that is that Hinckley using Westhoff as his floating men defence was what enabled every other team to Double Team Dixon and our forward structure and is one reason that killed us

Plus Jen was arrogant, picked wrong players, wouldn't play players in the obvious positions, multiple game plans in a short period of time, most all players going backwards eccetera
 

B0ydmental

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Quick question, did Butters make you write this thread?

I truly do not want to contemplate what Butters has made her contemplate or what Butters has made her do for that matter.

I'm still traumatised by the Avatar from years ago with the top hat and Cane.

Dark era that
 
Sep 26, 2012
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To be fair Ken said most of the stuff he needed to on FAA.

He was very pleased with Housten and Howard moving up the ground and wants to take caution with our injuries.

Unfortunately, Housten will not be able to play in the midfield once we get both Wines and Rockliff back, without even mentioning Drew. We simply have too many big bodied midfielders to squeeze in Housten. If his skills can surpass Drew and SPP on a frequent basis, then I'd say there's plenty of room for him. I think all of us know including Ken that Housten will potentially work very well as a midfielder, but we just can't fit him in. We need to slowly build Housten up until someone is finally ready to hang their boots and open the door for him, but this may still be a few years away.
Houston was very good in the middle, I thnk we will see him there some time in the future.
 

portly

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We seem to have a bipolar coaching panel.
One part pushes us to take the game on, such as against WCE and Dees, where we won by sticking to "brave footy".
The other part pushes us to go into our shells and play defensively, such as playing two underperforming forwards in defensive roles in showdown, and trying to shut up shop in last quarters resulting in handing over the momentum to the other team.

There is no question that we look better when we take the game on.
The only question is: which of our coaches are responsible for each of these parts?

My guess/opinion is that Ken's natural preference is to push the defensive button, especially when things stack up to increase the difficulty - injuries, or tough opponents, or bad conditions, or super-important match. Ken has the final decision, and sometimes the other coaches are able to persuade him to play an attacking game-style, and sometimes they can't.

Shanghai was strange - we picked a very defensive team stacked with HBFs, but by the time the match came around and Saints had their problems with illness & injury, we actually played a very attacking game with Houston in midfield and pushing Bonner further up the ground. My guess/opinion: Ken had control of team selection and went uber-defensive being daunted by the importance of the game to our Shanghai push, but because of the Saints problems the other coaches were able to talk him in to the attacking changes.

That's only my impression, but since he traded in Watts & Motlop last year to help our i50 entries and played them as defensive forwards, I can't come up with a better explanation.
Agree on most of that, and am intrigued to see the selections and game style against Fremantle.

Anything could happen, even half backs replacing forwards. More than 9, why not! And then play an attacking style, though this is unlikely against Freo.

Nothing would surprise.
 
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Firstly, you've changed the goalposts here.
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Granny Duurs is Lovely

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And with Charlie back, we're more likely to forget other avenues to goal and bomb-it-to-Charlie. We become more predictable and easier to stifle.

I've seen this sort of talk a lot on here, but isn't this just associating the old game style with a player? Just because Charlie hasn't played since last year, doesnt mean we automatically go back to playing the same way we used to when he's in the team.

Like this year we finally have some actual crumbing forwards that arent Robbie Gray. Look at last week, we had Farrell, Butters and Rozee getting front and centre and cleaning up ground balls in our forward 50. Even times where we took the mark like when Ryder grabbed Hoff's terrible shot at goal we had a player front and centre ready to mop up.

Last year we were relying on Sam Gray, Motlop, Johnson etc to play this role when they weren't suited to it. We relied so heavily on Dixon clunking it because we were s**t at mopping up the ground balls he created - instead we let the opposition take the ball and tried to force a stoppage from that as we could actually score from stoppages. Anyone good enough to get away from the pressure could stop us scoring almost completely because we couldn't mark it and we couldnt turn a forward contest into a goal.

The key thing with Dixon is that he has the running power. He needs to be able to get to contests and fly for the ball. As long as he's fit enough to run and create an option/contest is all we need with this team. It's why Howard looks so good forward, he runs he creates and he flies for everything he gets a sniff at.

You guys can be negative Nancy's all you want, but I'm excited for Dixon to get back
 
Sep 26, 2012
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I've seen this sort of talk a lot on here, but isn't this just associating the old game style with a player? Just because Charlie hasn't played since last year, doesnt mean we automatically go back to playing the same way we used to when he's in the team.

Like this year we finally have some actual crumbing forwards that arent Robbie Gray. Look at last week, we had Farrell, Butters and Rozee getting front and centre and cleaning up ground balls in our forward 50. Even times where we took the mark like when Ryder grabbed Hoff's terrible shot at goal we had a player front and centre ready to mop up.

Last year we were relying on Sam Gray, Motlop, Johnson etc to play this role when they weren't suited to it. We relied so heavily on Dixon clunking it because we were **** at mopping up the ground balls he created - instead we let the opposition take the ball and tried to force a stoppage from that as we could actually score from stoppages. Anyone good enough to get away from the pressure could stop us scoring almost completely because we couldn't mark it and we couldnt turn a forward contest into a goal.

The key thing with Dixon is that he has the running power. He needs to be able to get to contests and fly for the ball. As long as he's fit enough to run and create an option/contest is all we need with this team. It's why Howard looks so good forward, he runs he creates and he flies for everything he gets a sniff at.

You guys can be negative Nancy's all you want, but I'm excited for Dixon to get back
Welcome, a spirited post. :)
 
Firstly, you've changed the goalposts here. You've said that good football was beyond reasonable expectation because we turned over too much of the list. Clearly that isn't the case because other teams have done it and managed to play at a high level of football.

What you start with has a huge bearing on what you can do. You're the one who brought up Geelong as if it proves some point about list turnover. I'm saying that you can't judge a list that had won a premiership the same way as a list that had finished bottom four for the past two seasons. How are they in any way similar?

Our list wasn't good enough to win anything. To be successful everything had to go perfect. When players in our best 22 got injured, we had to bring in the likes of Aaron Young and Jake Neade. We couldn't even make finals after adding Ryder to a team that had played in a prelim final - which is eerily similar to how Melbourne is going this year. The players drank their own bathwater and acted as if the next year they were going to just make it.

Secondly, what are you even saying here? How is Geelong bringing in the likes of Tuohy, Smith and Henderson any different to us bringing in Watts, Rockliff and Motlop? We were clearly also trying to squeeze a premiership out of the Boak/Gray list, and traded heavily to top up and improve our list, including trading out older guys for younger guys.

It's not different, except for the fact that two of the players we traded for (Dixon and Watts) haven't been available this year - and if they were, we'd probably be in the same position as Geelong (who have had their best 22 on the park for most of the season). What is different is the base the list is starting from. I don't know why this is so difficult to understand. If our list was good enough, why was it bottom four in 2012? Why did we have to bring in the likes of Stevenson, Heath, Hombsch and Neade in the 2013 off season? Why is it that every time we had injuries to the best 22, the team would struggle? This is a list depth issue. When Geelong brought in those players, they were adding them to players who were already on their list who had gotten experience through playing games. Some of them even won premierships.

Our experience went into...

We could easily have more 26+ players on our list if we elected to retain the likes of Young, Trengove, Polec, Pittard, Butcher, Hombsch and Wingard (who will be 26 in August) instead of moving them on. Alternatively we could have moved them on earlier and received better trades for them.

We couldn't move them on because we didn't have the depth necessary to replace them. It's all well and good to say trade them out, but there's no point unless you've got someone better to fill the hole. I'd rather have $100 in my wallet than $10, but I'd rather have $10 than no money at all.

Wingard should have been an elite starting midfielder but will never be one (notice how he's had four soft tissue injuries at Hawthorn?) because he doesn't put in the extra effort to be professional. It's because he had that potential that we tried to give him the maximum amount of opportunity.

Polec was another player who didn't want to put the effort in until it was contract time. He thinks that because he's got superstar money that he's now on the same level as Robbie Gray, when he's something like ten levels below him in terms of his professionalism.

Hombsch couldn't be traded until Howard was up to speed as a defender.

Trengove went on the outer as a defender in 2016 when Bassett arrived at the club. He's the defender type that is being phased out of the game - a lock down defender who doesn't really have the athleticism to push up the ground, more suited to shutting out an opponent than creating play. No one would have given us anything for him because of that fact.

Pittard had his best year in 2016 and was a free agent in 2017. If we had let him walk we probably would have ended up with a middling pick in a draft that we didn't rate at all (hence why we traded out of it).

Butcher...are you serious? He got delisted and noone picked him up even as a rookie. No one rated him. If he was any good, we would have kept him.

Our list balance doesn't suggest any improvement in this area either, because like Geelong, we have 4 guys who are 30+ and will move off of the list as the guys in the 22-25 age bracket move into that magical 26+ age bracket you've defined.

Every team has guys who are 30+. Players don't spontaneously combust when they reach 30. As players drop off the list, they are replaced by 3 or 4 new draftees - hence why every team gets a first, second and third round pick. When you're having to pick into round five and six to fill your list each year...that's when it's a problem.
 
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I've seen this sort of talk a lot on here, but isn't this just associating the old game style with a player? Just because Charlie hasn't played since last year, doesnt mean we automatically go back to playing the same way we used to when he's in the team.

Like this year we finally have some actual crumbing forwards that arent Robbie Gray. Look at last week, we had Farrell, Butters and Rozee getting front and centre and cleaning up ground balls in our forward 50. Even times where we took the mark like when Ryder grabbed Hoff's terrible shot at goal we had a player front and centre ready to mop up.

Last year we were relying on Sam Gray, Motlop, Johnson etc to play this role when they weren't suited to it. We relied so heavily on Dixon clunking it because we were **** at mopping up the ground balls he created - instead we let the opposition take the ball and tried to force a stoppage from that as we could actually score from stoppages. Anyone good enough to get away from the pressure could stop us scoring almost completely because we couldn't mark it and we couldnt turn a forward contest into a goal.

The key thing with Dixon is that he has the running power. He needs to be able to get to contests and fly for the ball. As long as he's fit enough to run and create an option/contest is all we need with this team. It's why Howard looks so good forward, he runs he creates and he flies for everything he gets a sniff at.

You guys can be negative Nancy's all you want, but I'm excited for Dixon to get back
Have you met Ken Hinckley?

His record of going back to the well speaks for itself.

On SM-G960F using BigFooty.com mobile app
 

Harlott

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I've seen this sort of talk a lot on here, but isn't this just associating the old game style with a player? Just because Charlie hasn't played since last year, doesnt mean we automatically go back to playing the same way we used to when he's in the team.

Like this year we finally have some actual crumbing forwards that arent Robbie Gray. Look at last week, we had Farrell, Butters and Rozee getting front and centre and cleaning up ground balls in our forward 50. Even times where we took the mark like when Ryder grabbed Hoff's terrible shot at goal we had a player front and centre ready to mop up.

Last year we were relying on Sam Gray, Motlop, Johnson etc to play this role when they weren't suited to it. We relied so heavily on Dixon clunking it because we were **** at mopping up the ground balls he created - instead we let the opposition take the ball and tried to force a stoppage from that as we could actually score from stoppages. Anyone good enough to get away from the pressure could stop us scoring almost completely because we couldn't mark it and we couldnt turn a forward contest into a goal.

The key thing with Dixon is that he has the running power. He needs to be able to get to contests and fly for the ball. As long as he's fit enough to run and create an option/contest is all we need with this team. It's why Howard looks so good forward, he runs he creates and he flies for everything he gets a sniff at.

You guys can be negative Nancy's all you want, but I'm excited for Dixon to get back
If Dixon had the game Howard had in China there would be much windmilling. Howard got to contests and took marks. Not saying he's gonna do that all the time but it was very promising. I really hope everyone's excitement at Dixon's imminent return is justified but My memory of him taking multiple marks in a game has faded....
 

El_Scorcho

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Let's unpack this idea that Geelong's healthier starting position in 2014 meant that they were always going to be in a healthier position come 2019. While it certainly helps to be a destination club, it's difficult to sustain because you can't cash in on retiring greats, and if you spend a decade at the top of the league, you don't get great draft picks to replenish your list.

We're talking about trades and free agents here, so let's look at their acquisitions outside the draft as well as noteable player losses from 2014-2019. I'll hide it in spoiler tags because it's long.

2014 acquisitions:

Sam Blease (FA)
Mitch Clark (traded for Travis Varcoe)
Rhys Stanley (traded for pick 21 with 60 going back)

2014 noteable losses:

Travis Varcoe (for Clark)
Taylor Hunt (delisted)
Allen Christiansen (traded for pick 21)

2015 acquisitions:

Scott Selwood (FA)
Patrick Dangerfield (Traded for pick 9, 28 and Dean Gore)
Lachie Henderson (Traded for a 2016 1st rounder)
Zac Smith (Traded for picks 49 and 53)

2015 noteable losses:

Jared Rivers (retired)
Matthew Stokes (delisted)
James Kelly (delisted)
Steve Johnson (traded for a 5th round pick)
Dawson Simpson (FA)
Josh Walker (traded with Jarrad Jansen for a 3rd round pick)

2016 acquisitions:

Aaron Black (traded for pick 92)
Zach Tuohy (+Carlton's 2nd rounder for Billie Smedts and Geelong's 1st)

2016 noteable losses:

Corey Enright (retired)
Jimmy Bartel (retired)
Mitch Clark (delisted)
Billie Smedts (in the Tuohy deal)
Josh Caddy (traded for pick 24 and a shuffling of 3rd rounders)
Nathan Vardy (traded for pick 72)

2017 acquisitions:

Gary Ablett (+ pick 24 for pick 19 and a 2018 2nd rounder)

2017 noteable losses:

Steven Motlop (FA)
Andrew Mackie (retired)
Tom Lonergan (retired)
Darcy Lang (traded for pick 44)

2018 acquisitions:

Luke Dalhaus (FA)
Gary Rohan (traded for pick 62)

2018 noteable losses:

Jordan Murdoch (FA)
Daniel Menzel (FA)
Lincoln McCarthy (traded for a 3rd rounder and a shuffle of later picks)
Jackson Thurlow (traded for pick 70)
George Horlin-Smith (traded for pick 59)

In 2014 they've effectively traded Christiansen for Stanley and lost Varcoe for Clark, who didn't play much.

In 2015 they got an amazing deal for Dangerfield and brought in Henderson, but had 4 stars move on to retirement or pre-retirement spots.

In 2016 they swapped Tuohy for Smedts, great trade. They lost Caddy for pick 24. They then lost 2 all time greats to retirement.

In 2017 they got an amazing deal for Ablett, but he's not getting any younger. They lost another 2 premiership players to retirement and Motlop to us.

In 2018 they landed Dalhaus and traded in Rohan for nothing, and lost a series of 2nd and 3rd tier players for not much.


So yes, they brought in some reasonable talent, but they also lost several future Hall of Famers to retirement, and they spent most of their time finishing in the top 4, so they didn't bring in any really high draft picks either. It's not playstation trading, you can't get huge value for your depth, and they clearly haven't here.

Geelong have stayed at the top because they're a strong club with elite standards, a strong system and can develop players to play in that system effectively.

For all the bleating about Frampton and Marshall not being consistently good enough to keep their places, they've managed to play Ratugolea for 10 games this season, and he's only gotten to double figure possessions twice. They realise how important his development is and they're putting games into him while we drop our developing KPFs at first opportunity every time. That commitment to development is why Geelong have depth. They don't piss away dozens of games to players with low ceilings who will never be best 22 AFL footballers.

If we'd committed to development, John Butcher would be a solid but unspectacular 150+ gamer who could have played a target man KPF role so that we weren't so brutally exposed with Dixon out. Instead we went in with an aging resting ruckman and inexperienced kids.
 
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