List Analysis - August 2018

[bulldogsthru&thru]

Dickson signed a new contract, so he is not finished yet.

No he’s not, but back in August it certainly appeared that way, and this list is an opinion peice rather than fact. I still have doubts that his body can hold up and I think the club must as well if we are indeed after Sam lloyd.

[bornadog]

No he’s not, but back in August it certainly appeared that way, and this list is an opinion peice rather than fact. I still have doubts that his body can hold up and I think the club must as well if we are indeed after Sam lloyd.

I don't understand your logic. What is your definition of finished

[bulldogsthru&thru]

I don't understand your logic. What is your definition of finished

From the OP

Finished = Has either retired or don't see them getting back on the park or to potential due to injury

At Tory’s age, I just can’t see him being able to string enough games together to be the force he used to be. Ok he had that great game against north but then only lasted one more before succumbing to injury yet again

[GVGjr]

Assuming that we lose both Campbell and Roughead do we need to look at adding another ruckman during the trade period?
English will be our number one ruckman but I'm not convinced he can play a full season, Trengove will be the back-up but what if we need him in the backline and of course Boyd and even Schache will also be used. I think we will still need another option.

Thoughts?

[bulldogtragic]

Assuming that we lose both Campbell and Roughead do we need to look at adding another ruckman during the trade period?
English will be our number one ruckman but I'm not convinced he can play a full season, Trengove will be the back-up but what if we need him in the backline and of course Boyd and even Schache will also be used. I think we will still need another option.

Thoughts?

Yep. But Bevo doesn't seem to rate them, so there's little point in getting an expensive one. But there needs to be some depth in my opinion.

[GVGjr]

Yep. But Bevo doesn't seem to rate them, so there's little point in getting an expensive one. But there needs to be some depth in my opinion.

Perhaps we need a versatile tall that could also play in some other positions.
We could look at two options, a Zac Clarke type for a season or two until English is a bit stronger or a younger type from the state league or current draft class that could fill in for a few games at a pinch but taking a longer term view.
Is there even a slim chance we keep Roughead?

[bulldogtragic]

Perhaps we need a versatile tall that could also play in some other positions.
We could look at two options, a Zac Clarke type for a season or two until English is a bit stronger or a younger type from the state league or current draft class that could fill in for a few games at a pinch but taking a longer term view.

Yep. It depends on the rookie list strategy we will go with a little bit. Whether a young or state league ruckman is of more interest to us, so I'd have them on the rookie list. Or whether we have something like pick 100+ after the trade period, and we would prefer to fill that spot with a FA or DFA ruckman like Clarke rather than use the live pick.

Moving on Roughy & Campbell has stocks very thin. Bevo states publicly Boyd will be a gun KPF in the next couple of years - then he needs to play a lot more time there. If something happens to Morris or Adams injury wise, and/or Adams and Roberts get traded out, then we may need the experience of Trengove back for a chunk of the year when injuries hit, despite our conservative management of players. Then it's English and hopefully he stays fit. So we need to hedge with some ruck depth. It's just what type of ruck and on what list. I'm happy with either strategy as per above.

[Scraggers]

Given our dramatic drop-off from 2016 and the big names being thrown around this trade period, is it imperative that we draft a big name in Wingard or Sheils et cetera? Not only for our 2019 line-up but also for membership? In my opinion, losing a crowd favourite in Dahlhouse and seen to being weak during trade period could be detrimental to our membership and attendance in 2019 and beyond.

[Nuggety Back Pocket]

Assuming that we lose both Campbell and Roughead do we need to look at adding another ruckman during the trade period?
English will be our number one ruckman but I'm not convinced he can play a full season, Trengove will be the back-up but what if we need him in the backline and of course Boyd and even Schache will also be used. I think we will still need another option.

Thoughts?

English and Trengrove as a back up appeals as our best ruck combination. I would be inclined to retain Roughead as a back up ruck man. Boyd has failed to impress as a ruck man and still lacks the necessary skills to become a key forward. We still need a quality midfielder to match the superior mid fielders that was on show in the GF on Saturday.

[The Bulldogs Bite]

Will be interesting to see how we juggle our list from an age demographic over the next 12 months.

Years left:
- Morris (1)
- Matthew Suckling (1-2)
- Liam Picken (1)
- Tory Dickson (1)
- Jordan Roughead (0?)
- Fletcher Roberts (0-1)
- Marcus Adams (0?)
- Tom Campbell (0?)
- Luke Dahlhaus (gone)
- Shane Biggs (gone)
- Jack Redpath (gone)
- Clay Smith (gone)

That's a really big chunk of a senior group. Whilst a couple are fringe (Roberts and Campbell) I think it's highly unlikely anyone from this list will be playing in 2020.

We probably need to keep Adams and Roughead unless we can find ready made replacements.

It reiterates to me that we need to pick up a few senior heads (Lloyd makes sense from this perspective) from other clubs as well as via state leagues.

If we are not careful and we trade out all of Dahl/Roughy/Adams, delist Roberts/Campbell and lose Morris/Dickson/Picken next year our list is criminally young.

[ledge]

Will be interesting to see how we juggle our list from an age demographic over the next 12 months.

Years left:
- Morris (1)
- Matthew Suckling (1-2)
- Liam Picken (1)
- Tory Dickson (1)
- Jordan Roughead (0?)
- Fletcher Roberts (0-1)
- Marcus Adams (0?)
- Tom Campbell (0?)
- Luke Dahlhaus (gone)
- Shane Biggs (gone)
- Jack Redpath (gone)
- Clay Smith (gone)

That's a really big chunk of a senior group. Whilst a couple are fringe (Roberts and Campbell) I think it's highly unlikely anyone from this list will be playing in 2020.

We probably need to keep Adams and Roughead unless we can find ready made replacements.

It reiterates to me that we need to pick up a few senior heads (Lloyd makes sense from this perspective) from other clubs as well as via state leagues.

If we are not careful and we trade out all of Dahl/Roughy/Adams, delist Roberts/Campbell and lose Morris/Dickson/Picken next year our list is criminally young.

Is it ? In two years time the Bont , Daniels, Cordy, Dunkley English, Naughton, Gowers etc will be In their prime.

[GVGjr]

Will be interesting to see how we juggle our list from an age demographic over the next 12 months.

Years left:
- Morris (1)
- Matthew Suckling (1-2)
- Liam Picken (1)
- Tory Dickson (1)
- Jordan Roughead (0?)
- Fletcher Roberts (0-1)
- Marcus Adams (0?)
- Tom Campbell (0?)
- Luke Dahlhaus (gone)
- Shane Biggs (gone)
- Jack Redpath (gone)
- Clay Smith (gone)

That's a really big chunk of a senior group. Whilst a couple are fringe (Roberts and Campbell) I think it's highly unlikely anyone from this list will be playing in 2020.

We probably need to keep Adams and Roughead unless we can find ready made replacements.

It reiterates to me that we need to pick up a few senior heads (Lloyd makes sense from this perspective) from other clubs as well as via state leagues.

If we are not careful and we trade out all of Dahl/Roughy/Adams, delist Roberts/Campbell and lose Morris/Dickson/Picken next year our list is criminally young.

Great observation TBB. The next 2 years are very important for us from a list management position. Good decisions need to be made. I'd hate to think in 2 years time we are explaining losses because of our inexperienced list like many did this year.

There are a few ways of looking at our list:
Draft and trade to address the the lack of experience by bringing in players like Wingard and Lloyd aiming for a quick bounce
Draft and trade for players with some experience that just need another season or two much like we did with Schache
Mine the state leagues for players with some experience
Do a bit of a combination of younger and older players

The concern for me though with the names you have mentioned is we don't appear to be prepared to cut into the list deep enough to make sure we have the right players to cover the likely retirements and delistings over the next 2 years

Sam Power has plenty of work to do

[hujsh]

So as things currently stand we're set to lose Dahl and possibly Adams (maybe Roughead) and are likely to get one or two Richmond VFL forwards.

Not great on paper. One upside is our good performances at the end of the year were all without Dahl or Adams (with the exception of Dahl vs Geelong)

[Ozza]

As long as we sign up the Bont on a long term deal, we can deal with the rest.

[bulldogsthru&thru]

There has been a lot of discussion on WOOF regarding the state of our list. Some on here are optimistic, others not so much so i thought it'd be worthwhile to discuss where we see our list sits given performance to date.

Of course this is very subjective, but i have given my breakdown below. The categories are:

A graders = This player is elite
Rate = I rate this player either currently of with a view to the future
Don't rate = I either never rated this player or don't rate them going forward
Jury's still out = Can be one of two things. Either haven't seen enough of them to know one way or the other OR they are a player who has previously played at a high level but is no longer playing to that level for unknown reasons and the jury is still out as to whether they will recapture that form. A good comparison is Biggs and Dahlhaus. I put Biggs in the don't rate category as i don't see him getting back to 2016 form and he didn't have enough runs on the board to suggest he's capable of finding form. Dahl on the other hand has played at a higher level for longer so i see him as someone who could eventually recapture that form.
Finished = Has either retired or don't see them getting back on the park or to potential due to injury

A Graders
Marcus Bontempelli
Jack Macrae

Rate
Aaron Naughton
Bailey Williams
Billy Gowers
Caleb Daniel
Dale Morris
Easton Wood
Ed Richards
Hayden Crozier
Josh Dunkley
Josh Schache
Lachie Hunter
Liam Picken
Matthew Suckling
Mitch Wallis
Patrick Lipinski
Tim English
Toby McLean
Zaine Cordy
Jason Johannisen

Don't rate
Fletcher Roberts
Jordan Roughead
Kieran Collins
Lin Jong
Lukas Webb
Mitch Honeychurch
Nathan Mullenger-McHugh
Roarke Smith
Shane Biggs
Tom Campbell

Jury's still out
Bailey Dale
Brad Lynch
Callum Porter
Fergus Greene
Lewis Young
Luke Dahlhaus
Marcus Adams
Tom Boyd
Tom Liberatore
Jackson Trengove

Finished
Clay Smith
Jack Redpath
Tory Dickson

So out of 44 players, I:

Rate: 20
Don't Rate: 11
Jury's still out: 10
Finished: 3

So i am happy with 45% of our list. Questions marks remain over 23% of our list and i don't rate a quarter of our list. Interestingly of the players i don't rate, half of them are talls.

I'm bullish of our younger players but we clearly have a lot of players who are potential A graders but have question marks over their future. I think the list is in decent shape and can be turned around pretty quickly....provided the players can actually stay on the park. But it's not as bleak as some make out.

OP updated with departures of Rough and Adams.

We've cut from the right categories, but i would have liked us to be a little more ruthless in that don't rate category.