Opinion Which outcome is better long term?

[StiffArm]

So at the half way point of the season, and depending on whether you are a glass half full or half empty sort of person, we are either a bit of luck (and 3 close games) away from challenging for top 4, or a mentally fragile team that may well finish bottom 4.

A big question is whether it is better to fight for a finals berth and get some September experience into our young list, or whether dropping everyone over 28 and playing the kids in order to get a bottom 4 finish and the high draft picks that come with that.

Keeping in mind that if we are to get Kelly at the end of this year our first round pick is as good as gone... And the potential academy and F/S picks in 2018...

And is a mid table finish just missing finals a much worse outcome to the alternatives? Interested in your thoughts!
Select a number (1 to 3) and a letter (a or b).

 

[Boomerfan99]

win the flag.

 

[Groin guru]

Play the kids that deserve to play.

If Cunnington is injured let him rest and give someone else a go.

If Goldy is low on form drop him for Preuss and bring Maj in for Waite. If Thompson isn't a part of next years plan bring in Durdin or Nielson.

Play Mountford.

Those changes will still make us competitive.

 

[Orange Peanut]

Play the kids that deserve to play.

If Cunnington is injured let him rest and give someone else a go.

If Goldy is low on form drop him for Preuss and bring Maj in for Waite. If Thompson isn't a part of next years plan bring in Durdin or Nielson.

Play Mountford.

Those changes will still make us competitive.

Yep this. I'll still be hoping we make finals. 9-12 finish only sucks if we play out of form or injured seniors ahead of available youngsters.

 

[Dodecahedron]

Win. Look at the faces of the Carlton players, coaches and fans last night when they beat GWS. And they are lower than us. No substitute for winning.

Just drop players who deserve to be dropped. That all the fans have ever asked for.

There are literally 4 finals spots up for grabs. It's so even that there's no guarantee that an average performance in the second half will even result in bottom 4. And vice versa; it is just so even that a low number of wins may still squeak us in.

 

[Gasometer]

Play finals.

Nothing better than visiting Adelaide.

 

[Hojuman]

Play finals.

Nothing better than visiting Adelaide.

Or western Sydney.

 

[GarnerSmash]

Yep this. I'll still be hoping we make finals. 9-12 finish only sucks if we play out of form or injured seniors ahead of available youngsters.

Worst case scenario IMO but it is a balancing act. It's likely with the way that the season is going that if we do miss finals we won't know that until the last two or three rounds.

 

[Snake_Baker]

Pick 1 or 2 alone get's us Kelly.

 

[Le Grille]

Play finals.

Nothing better than visiting Adelaide.

Correct

 

[Snake_Baker]

Beat the scum, play some kids, qualify blokes for the VFL finals.

 

[Gasometer]

Surprisingly there is no Sack Scotts option.

 

[shinboner magic]

Win. Look at the faces of the Carlton players, coaches and fans last insight when they beat GWS. And they are lower than us. No substitute for winning.

Just drop players who deserve to be dropped. That all the fans have ever asked for.

There are literally 4 finals spots still up for grabs. It's so even that there's no gurantee that an average performance in the second half will even result in bottom 4. And vice versa; it is just so even that a low number of wins may still squeak us in.

That's my thinking - blues/dees tanked for so long that it took them a long time to learn how to win again.
It's against ethos to play to lose - we give it out all every single time.

But we should be playing mountford( needs a shorter nickname ), preuss and others to get games into them.

 

[Groucho]

win the flag.

Yes,I'd like this one please

 

[shimaburnsgrieg]

It will be interesting to see which way Scott/MC decide to go now - they have clearly been following 1) until now.

Personally I would go to between 2 and 3 from here - i.e. where youngsters have shown enough promise then bring them in and give then 3-4 games - even if it means we don't necessarily field our 'best 22' week in week out. I wouldn't support full blown 3.

For me that means Pruess plays this week - with or without Goldie; Mountford gets a run and Daw/Neilson/Durdin/Anderson/Hibberd are one more really good VFL performance away from being promoted. I don't see Larkey/McKay/J Williams getting a game this year nor do i see a spot for Swallow or Thomas anymore.

If Wright/Jacobs get fit and play well in the two's then they get promoted like anyone else.

Players who get dropped to fit these guys in should be based purely on form and structure - and no one should be excluded from being dropped in the second half of the year.

My gut feeling is that Scott/MC will continue to follow 1 pretty much till the end of the season even if we are looking like finishing bottom 4-6.

 

[naturally north]

This thread has come out of the blue Bloody great idea though.

So I crunched some numbers and worked out since 2000 we have an average H&A finish of 8.5 . That tells me we have probably overachieved and have been coached quite well. Also our recruiting has been near as good as we could have hoped for. Yes we haven't had much of a chance to snare an AA gun.

It is funny how we collectively bemoan some on our list for their middling performances when our picks for 17 years have been middling at best. Lets call a career ten years for arguments sake. Since 2007 we have had 3 top ten picks. 9, 5 & 8.

I would think finishing this season in the bottom four would make it easier to get a deal done with GWS for Kelly or get a highly regarded youngster. I stand by the belief we feel we can't afford to bottom out and that is backed by our average season finishes. The club has got this well wrong imo.

For those that worry we might become a Melbourne- not a chance, we need a quick bottom out before climbing back up the ladder. A top 5 pick in 2017, another top 5 pick in 2018, might allow us to get TT with a second plus...

3 top 5 picks in two season- that normally takes us ten years.Imagine the excitement that would generate amongst our fans.

So for the rest of this season and in the back of my mind our current 7 wins from our last 25 odd games , i would....

Omit any senior player not travelling well, play the likes of Durdin, Preuss, Nielson, Daw and Mountford. I cannot see any value in playing Waite who turns 35 in Feb.

Goldy or Preuss I would trade at seasons end, would look at a couple of others depending on how successful we are in poaching players from elsewhere.


My take on it anyway.

Go ya *en hardest

 

[shimaburnsgrieg]

NN there is no doubt we didn't want to bottom out after the whole move to Gold Coast episode - we wanted to be competitive and i think the club got it right there.

One area i think we could have improved on (and still can) is trading to improve our top end position pre draft.

We were quite proud of the 'taking our first 3 draft picks each year' approach but as we all note the starting pick was generally quite poor.

I didn't see any talk of us trying to improve our position similar to what say Geelong, Swans and others did.

What I would like to see going forward is when we finish higher up the ladder that we look to trade up in the first round by offloading senior players that are on the periphery - e.g. if we are starting at pick 14 lets package up our first with a player to get to pick 8 or two players to get to pick 4.

I know its not easy to do (and maybe we did try so please say so if we did) but I think we need to help ourselves when we have a long run of poor first picks - the best way to do that is to try and trade up by taking a risk and offloading a player (s) as required.

 

[ripperpart]

win multiple flags

 

[shniko11]

Play the kids but still field close to the best 22.

Not interested in draft picks or finishing position.

 

[darko]

Play finals.

Nothing better than visiting Adelaide.

Perth?

 

[Gasometer]

Perth?

No.

 

[darko]

No.

Ok.

 

[Scallop Industry Thug]

Finishing 9-10 is the absolute worst case scenario.

 

[darko]

Finishing 9-10 is the absolute worst case scenario.

Yeah never go full Richmond.

 

[kool kangas]

Play our best team possible , including the kids who deserve it and let our ladder position sort itself out.....