Rating the 2022 Trade Period - After 7.30pm Wednesday Night

[Bulldog Joe]

Re: Rating the 2022 Trade Period - After 7.30pm Wednesday Night

Terrible off season.

We overestimated our list and where we sat in the scheme of things which resulted in overpaying for Lobb and getting unders for Dunkley. This sits firmly with Sam Power and Chris Grant.

Frankly it reminds me of our off season in 2016 after the flag.

Power needs to deliver during this trade period. For mine delivering does not mean getting players in but either trading up in the draft and not overpaying for Croft if we head done that path.

No future draft picks should be on offer, we need to minimise our risk and not back us onfield to deliver.

I do not accept the over estimated our list, I am of the belief that we have simply underperformed.
We could not finish off games and I see that as a coaching issue.
I also believe the loss of Dunkley and even Hunter was a coaching issue.
Would love to know if we had anyone have serious chat with Dunkley from outside the coaching panel.

[jazzadogs]

Re: Rating the 2022 Trade Period - After 7.30pm Wednesday Night

.

My great fear is that we still think we're a shot at the flag next year, and will end up making the same mistakes.

I hope the club does think we're a shot at the flag. We finished 9th! Gws went from 16th to a prelim.

It doesn't take much to change, especially when we clearly underperformed. Lift output from the existing list, add some youth, cut the dead wood - why shouldn't the internal expectation be a flag?

[Bulldog4life]

Re: Rating the 2022 Trade Period - After 7.30pm Wednesday Night

I do not accept the over estimated our list, I am of the belief that we have simply underperformed.
We could not finish off games and I see that as a coaching issue.
I also believe the loss of Dunkley and even Hunter was a coaching issue.
Would love to know if we had anyone have serious chat with Dunkley from outside the coaching panel.

Or fitness?

[azabob]

Re: Rating the 2022 Trade Period - After 7.30pm Wednesday Night

Devils advocate on what basis have we clearly under performed?

We’ve finished in the 7-9 range of the ladder in 2015, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23.

[lemmon]

Re: Rating the 2022 Trade Period - After 7.30pm Wednesday Night

Agree on this. If a contracted player asks to leave they should be traded.

Absolutely - I think we need to start looking at it in the same way that soccer teams do. You can't let a player enter the last 12 months of their deal because you're going to lose them for nothing. You simply need to sell/trade while you still have some leverage, ie. a contract. Freo were able to extract maximum value for Lobb for that exact reason - we've targetted a guy who still has time on his deal and we've paid through the nose for a pretty mediocre role player.

I get that we got an extra few seasons from Dunkley, but at the end of the day we didn't win anything, he didn't really want to be here and we lost two years of midfield time that could've gone into Bailey Smith.

If a player wants out, then get them out the door and invest in people who want to be here. The whole 'sending a message' argument doesn't stack up because at the end of the day, players will still walk when their contract is up.

[Grantysghost]

Re: Rating the 2022 Trade Period - After 7.30pm Wednesday Night

Absolutely - I think we need to start looking at it in the same way that soccer teams do. You can't let a player enter the last 12 months of their deal because you're going to lose them for nothing. You simply need to sell/trade while you still have some leverage, ie. a contract. Freo were able to extract maximum value for Lobb for that exact reason - we've targetted a guy who still has time on his deal and we've paid through the nose for a pretty mediocre role player.

I get that we got an extra few seasons from Dunkley, but at the end of the day we didn't win anything, he didn't really want to be here and we lost two years of midfield time that could've gone into Bailey Smith.

If a player wants out, then get them out the door and invest in people who want to be here. The whole 'sending a message' argument doesn't stack up because at the end of the day, players will still walk when their contract is up.

Yep if they're not going to commit a year out, start looking at moving them on.

[Scorlibo]

Re: Rating the 2022 Trade Period - After 7.30pm Wednesday Night

I hope the club does think we're a shot at the flag. We finished 9th! Gws went from 16th to a prelim.

It doesn't take much to change, especially when we clearly underperformed. Lift output from the existing list, add some youth, cut the dead wood - why shouldn't the internal expectation be a flag?

I think you can have some realism with internal expectations while still carrying an attitude of not putting a ceiling on what can be achieved. Is it possible for us to win a flag next year? Yes. Should that be our ambition? Absolutely. But the same goes for 2025, 26, 27 etc. So which year or time period do we optimise for with list management and football department decisions? My view is that it's not next year, and probably not 2025 either.

[jazzadogs]

Re: Rating the 2022 Trade Period - After 7.30pm Wednesday Night

I think you can have some realism with internal expectations while still carrying an attitude of not putting a ceiling on what can be achieved. Is it possible for us to win a flag next year? Yes. Should that be our ambition? Absolutely. But the same goes for 2025, 26, 27 etc. So which year or time period do we optimise for with list management and football department decisions? My view is that it's not next year, and probably not 2025 either.

I think prime Bont means we should be actively chasing a flag. AA ruck English. Previous all Australians in Daniel, Dale, Macrae. One or two more years of Libba, Treloar, Liam Jones, JJ. Get more from developing Marra, Baz, Richards, JOD. Aim for Naughtons first year of 50+ goals. Lobb, Weightman both clearly AFL quality.

That top portion of our list needs to be utilised. You can't look at Collingwood's list and tell me they are clearly better - they just have a well executed plan which maximises their strengths. We have weaknesses to fill, but our issue is mindset, not talent - and that can be changed.

[Bumper Bulldogs]

Re: Rating the 2022 Trade Period - After 7.30pm Wednesday Night

I think prime Bont means we should be actively chasing a flag. AA ruck English. Previous all Australians in Daniel, Dale, Macrae. One or two more years of Libba, Treloar, Liam Jones, JJ. Get more from developing Marra, Baz, Richards, JOD. Aim for Naughtons first year of 50+ goals. Lobb, Weightman both clearly AFL quality.

That top portion of our list needs to be utilised. You can't look at Collingwood's list and tell me they are clearly better - they just have a well executed plan which maximises their strengths. We have weaknesses to fill, but our issue is mindset, not talent - and that can be changed.

Compared to Collingwood. They made hard decisions a f a years ago with quality players. They had a hard edge and run all day. I don’t thing we have been as good in these three areas. We should be but from the outside looking in. They have been more professional than us unfortunately

[Go_Dogs]

Re: Rating the 2022 Trade Period - After 7.30pm Wednesday Night

Compared to Collingwood. They made hard decisions a f a years ago with quality players. They had a hard edge and run all day. I don’t thing we have been as good in these three areas. We should be but from the outside looking in. They have been more professional than us unfortunately

Their point of difference is having so many players capable of kicking goals (and they kick some amazing goals under pressure) and somehow having the resolve to never drop a close game. I think mindset, strategy and fitness all play key parts. You create your own luck too.

Is their list better than ours? Hard to say. They’ve got a lot of players who’d be borderline 22 with us, but their side is much better than the sum of its parts and these players go from middling to players who are solid to elite.

[bulldogtragic]

Re: Rating the 2022 Trade Period - After 7.30pm Wednesday Night

Their point of difference is having so many players capable of kicking goals (and they kick some amazing goals under pressure) and somehow having the resolve to never drop a close game. I think mindset, strategy and fitness all play key parts. You create your own luck too.

Is their list better than ours? Hard to say. They?ve got a lot of players who?d be borderline 22 with us, but their side is much better than the sum of its parts and these players go from middling to players who are solid to elite.

They had our pay 2/3 of your salary cap to a few strategy and abandoned it (Adz, Grundy, Stevenson, Phillips etc) and do more on field with less as they?re still paying out some of those wages.

But we are determined to stick to it ($1M Bonts, any ruck/Tim, Naughton/struggles to kick bags, and then $700,000 or so likely on JUH, Lobb, Baz, Adz, Macrae etc). Bevo laments why we don?t have depth. It?s because we are doing what Collingwood were doing before they imploded. Paying a huge amount of cap to too few and having no depth in the 22 and a coach that couldn?t make that work. To be fair, how can you when you?re paying so much for a handful or so of players. You can then only afford McNeil, Baker, Poulter, VDM etc.

I mean everyone said Collingwood was nuts signing a ruck to a long term $1M deal and they were right. They forced him out not soon after and are paying 30% of his wage. But we are different, we will pay our ruck up to $1.3M long term and the results will be much different.

Yes Collingwood seem better coached, seem to have a better game plan and are stronger mentally. Yes our top end talent is probably better. But because they NOW spread their cap around their 22 has superior depth. Compare our last picked 4-6 compared to theirs and it?s probably no contest. But at least we will have resigned ours, locked them in for new marketing and hit the trade period looking for game changers like Coffield & Teakle.

I just don?t see following the strategy Collingwood spectacularly abandoned somehow working out different for us. But no doubt we will keep doing what we?ve been doing and the results will change because of an assistant coach shake up.

[Go_Dogs]

Re: Rating the 2022 Trade Period - After 7.30pm Wednesday Night

I hear what you’re saying BT, but I’m not sure I completely buy it. If anything because of the amount of salary they’re contributing to players no longer there, they probably have more middling players on the same or less as ours. They’ve just managed to turn those players (through development? Game plan? Fitness? Others? All of the above?) into consistent contributors.

They’ve had some salary cap pressure and have shed a number of players to help alleviate it, and they’ve got lucky in some ways eg De Goey where behavioural issues probably gave them some leverage to pay unders. Mitchell they got on the cheap. Pendlebury and Sidebottom may not quite command what they did at the height of their powers but are still important cogs. A lot of former rookies or undrafted/retread or later picks who are contributors (McCreary, Noble, Markov etc).

Moore would be incredibly well paid. Diacos bros will be (in time). Cox and Cameron wouldn’t be “cheap” but I suppose they are relative to what English is purportedly after.

Maybe it’s a bit chicken or the egg, however my hypothesis is they’ve got more middling players (similar to the types of names you mentioned for us) who don’t command massive salary and have got them humming. Rather than them having splashed a lot of cash on this tier of player which is generating a far superior result.

Edit: one important addition, is they draft and trade exceptionally well too for need. Identifying key AFL standard attributes they need to bringing them in. Talent identification and understanding of how it complements their list and strategy is exceptional.

[bulldogtragic]

Re: Rating the 2022 Trade Period - After 7.30pm Wednesday Night

I hear what you’re saying BT, but I’m not sure I completely buy it. If anything because of the amount of salary they’re contributing to players no longer there, they probably have more middling players on the same or less as ours. They’ve just managed to turn those players (through development? Game plan? Fitness? Others? All of the above?) into consistent contributors.

They’ve had some salary cap pressure and have shed a number of players to help alleviate it, and they’ve got lucky in some ways eg De Goey where behavioural issues probably gave them some leverage to pay unders. Mitchell they got on the cheap. Pendlebury and Sidebottom may not quite command what they did at the height of their powers but are still important cogs. A lot of former rookies or undrafted/retread or later picks who are contributors (McCreary, Noble, Markov etc).

Moore would be incredibly well paid. Diacos bros will be (in time). Cox and Cameron wouldn’t be “cheap” but I suppose they are relative to what English is purportedly after.

Maybe it’s a bit chicken or the egg, however my hypothesis is they’ve got more middling players (similar to the types of names you mentioned for us) who don’t command massive salary and have got them humming. Rather than them having splashed a lot of cash on this tier of player which is generating a far superior result.

Edit: one important addition, is they draft and trade exceptionally well too for need. Identifying key AFL standard attributes they need to bringing them in. Talent identification and understanding of how it complements their list and strategy is exceptional.

I think we in somewhat agreeance. They freed up their cap so they could afford to retain their then fringe players like Cox & Elliott. So they could afford to round out with Bobby Hill, McStay, Mitchell, Frampton, Lipinski etc.

There’s no way keeping all their guns on top dollar that they can bring in a range of role players and re-sign their existing ones. Yes they still have well paid players, but not like how they were set up. This is how we are set up and will be so, even more so, soon. Which is why we are gunning for Coffield & Teakle.

[bulldogsthru&thru]

Re: Rating the 2022 Trade Period - After 7.30pm Wednesday Night

It's kind of crazy that nearly all the premiers since us in 2016 have basically mimicked our gamestyle yet we can hardly do it now.

[Danjul]

Re: Rating the 2022 Trade Period - After 7.30pm Wednesday Night

Devils advocate on what basis have we clearly under performed?

We?ve finished in the 7-9 range of the ladder in 2015, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23.

There is only one year missing in that 2017 - 2023 sequence.

Why would that be? Did we recruit 22 fantastic 1 year players?

No! It was the same players who got the team to top of the ladder in round 20 in 2021 that failed both before and after.

And 7th is a fail. For decades it was necessary to finish In the top third of the competition to participate in finals. It was extended to approximately half to allow a couple of extra tv hours, not to reward quality.

So if a team is capable of being a ladder leader it?s underperforming at 7th.

2021 was the only year we did something different in the game plan. Kept it simple and logical. Instead of running around bragging about being average the leadership should go out and steal a better game plan- I think Collingwood?s could be a good start (although we killed them in 2022 by accidentally resurrecting a memory from the good year).