Subject to getting through our main training session, we have eight players named on an extended bench. At the risk of offending sentimentalists, the only one of that eight whose form doesn’t really warrant selection is Doc … but he may have trained the house down this week.
The bottom line is that it’s likely that there will be three players who are stiff not to make the final 23. Then there’s the likes of Pitto, Lemmey, Boyd, Charleson, Binns and Evans, whose VFL form must have pleased the MC, and the Camporeale twins, Moir, O’Farrell and Wilson aren’t far off.
I suspect that a few other clubs would love to have our depth.
Take off the navy glasses DJC. Half of those players won't be on the list in a year or 2, their form is far from AFL level form.
A top up player can be good value at the right price and right availability. Doesn't have to be best 22.
How many more top up players do you want ??
Fantasia Haynes Lord Boyd White Cincotta Evans Cottrell O'Keeffe Duffy Monahan
11 players out of 45, that's 25% of our playing list that are top up options (i.e. undrafted & untraded for).
Not sure your figures are exactly accurate, but that is besides the point. A top up player can be traded for, and drafted, so your logic is wrong anyway.
Let me put it this way.... Monaghan Duffy Okeefe Lemmey B. Camporeale L. Camporeale Smith White O'Farrell Wilson Charleson Carroll
If you want to extend that out to 5 games or less, you can also include.... Moir Binns Lord
That is 15 players on our list who have played 5 games or less......1/3rd of our list. You need to pick 23 players each week. On our list, we have 45 players.
So if you were to exclude the 15 kids mentioned above, that means you have a total of 30 players to pick from with AFL experience.....before you get injuries. Of course, that includes some names like, Evans, Fantasia...and you've lost Newman for the year.
You are now down to 27 AFL players to choose from and a bunch of essentially untried kids..
How many injuries do you reckon we have on any given week? How many players have we got left to choose from now??
....and people wonder why we started 0-4 when we had average of about 10 players over that time.
We currently have too many kids and not enough senior ready players.
Thankfully, Lucas Camporeale, Matt Carroll and Will White have exceeded all expectations thus far and Cooper Lord appears to have taken it up a notch as well. We all hope Jagga will be a gun. That still leaves 11 players who are giant question marks at this stage.
Many here never miss a anything negative about Mr Trump yet are very quiet on our ex Dictator lying premier. Hmm. Funny that
Last article is about his mrs and not his governing.
Second article doesn't link.
First article is about how he 'used powers' without 'medical advice'.......or at least before medical advice had come through officiall channels.
It does NOT say what he did went against medical advice, nor does it say what he did was wrong. Its all about the timing of it. Technically, he may have jumped the gun before official channels confirmed proper course of action. Alternatively, if he took too long to act, he would've been criticised for that as well.
Seems like perfect timing to release this kind of mud-slinging stuff right before election.
Time to move on people, this is from 5 years ago now!
I don't know why this pre-match thread has been turned into a List Management but anyways ............
For the record, I have never read so many offbeat theories in my life.
On top of that, we are not in the "depth" business !!
If you want depth, then you create it by bringing in better credentialled players into the top half/third of the list thereby forcing players on the fringe (who may be getting a game) further down the pecking order.
And lastly .......... "best 22" means absolute jacksh1t, look at Norths best 22, they can't even blow out a candle.
If you want to be a genine contender, then you need to create a "competitive 22" that is the equivalent of (or better than) the top 6-8 clubs.
Being in the best 22 players on a craphole list means nothing and never will, it's a bottom of the barrel mentality.
We have a competitive 22. We don't have a competitive 32. We need to add depth. You can do that by bringing in a 22 player and pushing one out or you can do that by bringing in a player that can do a role when required. O.Holland/Boyd/Cincotta/Fogarty are examples of that....they won't be in everyones best 22, but when they are called upon to perform at AFL level, they don't look out of place and we don't suffer.
Kids come through and push best 22 players out when they are ready - Look at Docherty.
Not every trade needs to improve your best 22, it just needs to improve your list, because having a completly fit best 22 is a fantasy that is unacheivable.
Nobody is saying dont try and get the most talented players you can, but you don't simply do it at the detriment of your long term stability requiring you to have a fire sale to fit everyone else under the cap.
I think Lucifer has that wrong. Sometimes you find a depth option and bring them in at a discount. Mitch Morton for the Swans rings a bell. He played 12 games for the Swans in two years including 3 finals, one a winning grand final.
I think having hard and fast rules around list management is a way to result in poor list management.
Particularly once the compromised drafts begin. If you can bring in an older player or a broken player and they fire up for you at the right time, then provided you aren't relying on it its fine.
Correct.
If you bring in players who will be best 22, you pay them best 22 prices. If someone gets pushed out of your best 22, they were already on best 22 prices. Thats a quick and easy way to screw over your salary cap.
It doesn't matter what you play for any particular player, just that you get good value for them.
A rookie is the cheapest of the lot, but if he is never going to play a game then he becomes a list clogger and not good value. A brownlow medalist who costs you 2mil dollars is not good value because he takes too much away from the cap and away from other players, forcing them to leave. A top up player can be good value at the right price and right availability. Doesn't have to be best 22. Look at Fogarty or Boyd....both cost us next to nothing, both can do a job at AFL level. Both are borderline best 22-best 28. Both good value.
I think someone mentioned it previously in this thread. I just watch the game again, and FM if Weiters didn't have his legs taken from under him by a Judo move very late in the 3rd qtr. How the hell can that be allowed. Using Judo to take players legs from under them will cause serious knee injuries galore if it's allowed to creep into our game.
More worried about popping a shoulder when you put your arm out to stop yourself headbutting the turf. Double so because you've got a bloke on your back riding you down.
Needs to be highlighted and stopped now. Should've been called for tripping because that's exactly what it was.
Do not underestimate the power of belief, which brings confidence, which brings improved performance.
I remember all too well sitting at the 'G in Round 14, 2023, We were 13th on the ladder with 4 wins, and playing the Suns. At quarter time, we were 10 points behind and looking as sick as ever.
Then, someone somewhere flicked a switch. We kicked 9 in the second quarter and had a nice 'flat-track' win.
Then we pumped the Hawks, which was also a flat-track win in 2023, having kicked the first 8 goals of the game..
We all know what happened from there, with an ounce of luck we could have pinched the flag.
I was at that game too and it certainly was flicking a switch. It came out of nowhere and lasted basically the rest of the year.
Wasn't until the port game that I really believed it was anything sustainable.
Not quite sure how or why it happened, but it may have happened again...we just need more time to confirm.
Biggest issue we have is the potential long term loss of Weitering and how we expect to replace him.
He might also be more reliable than others in kicking to the advantage of his teammates.
Also allows us to be more flexible with Cripps. Can let him go forward a bit more often where he can be dangerous. He'll likely go there more and more as he gets older.
Kennedy should've been made to be a 3rd tall forward who can back up the midfield. Swap with cripps so we always have a 3rd tall marking target and a tough inside mid between them. Leave Hewett as a full time mid.
Could've worked with all of them, but Kennedy drew the short straw.
Even the least objective supporter should be able to see that our rebuild started with the weitering draft. Thats at worst 9 years ago, but given where we were coming from and the lack of success at the draft table, we are likely doing mini rebuild 3.0 since then now.
Correct.
Sos started the rebuild and nailed our spine jn 1 draft. We've been trying to flesh out the rest of it so long, we're getting towards the end of the spines careers.
There's a piece of vision floating around (that I can't find now, but I'm sure will pop up again) of Weitering and Saad on the bench. Weitering says something to Saad who gives him a "really, WTF" look. Weitering then covers his mouth, possibly clued enough to know there may be cameras on them, and says something else.
It may be nothing, it may be the winner of the first race at Randwick today, or he may have been talking about an early diagnosis of any injury.
Wait and see.
Saw him reach for his hamstring in the 4th before the big spoil landing and the incident with the trainers being waived off field.
Reckon he was touching butt quite high up, so that's usually not a great indication. Could have been a Corky. Fell pretty hard spoiling in the next contest.
Replay shows knee on knee on the marking contest.
From the angle it happened I don't think it's structural ligament damage, but it's hard to diagnose something from the couch and a couple 5 second replays.
I did see the conversation on the bench between Saad and weitering....it did peak my curiosity though.
Not surprised with the win, or the margin. Relieved though.
The difference the last couple of weeks make when you can actually pick a side. Before that we weren't picking a side, we were playing whoever was fit. Big difference.
Really happy that we are finally seeing a few kids coming through at once.
Will white is exceeding all expectations and simultaneously ending evans' career. Cooper Lord is playing like a veteran. Matt Carroll brings some much needing composure and excellent kicking skills. Even young durdin and motlop are finding their feet now they have a decent preseason. Ollie hollands has forced his way into the best 22 after looking shaky for a while. Who would've thought those blokes would be keeping someone like docherty out of the side??
Opposition wasn't great, but going into half time, you had to wonder if it was going to happen again. It didn't.
The media and Clarkson will have Norf amped up and I expect them to smash us early before easing up and letting us back in late for a 2-3 goal win to Norf.
Looking back 6 months and there was not a question on if we would win or not. Instead the question was by how much.
Since then it's basically been injuries that has hurt us. But it seems the biggest issue has been the hit to the confirldence of the supporter base.
I don't see how we can lose this game if we pick a half decent side and remain half fit throughout the game.
Then of course there's the MC factor. Sentimental, conservative and hopeful selections to abound.
This is the thing that matters.
Over the past 5 years or so, the amount of games we've lost at the selection table I'd suggest is larger than the amount of games we've lost in the coaches box.
That was the rumour going around at the time. It was sold as.... If you are not going to take my advice and do what you wanna do anyway, then why am I here? And he left.
Again unconfirmed rumour, but yes not a good look if true.
But we know from Russell’s own comments that he wasn’t responsible for rehab/player availability. The medical staff were calling the shots, and that’s how it should be.
Yes, we heard his comments. At the.tkme I picked holes in them.
As I said it was a rumour. Thus can't be verified.
I can't recall everything that was said on the matter nor.my comments rebutting them exactly. However, when does a player turn from not being injured to being fully fit? Does he have any say jn that period? That is ultimately where we fell down. If he doesn't (which is a grey area) is that because he tried to overstep and butted isn't rehab areas? There are large holes in his comments that can very much lay blame at his feet. His comments do not prove innocence....if you believe them at all. Remember liddle never told sos who to pick either.....if you listen to his comments on the matter.
