Sharp Axes

[JanLorMill]

Re: Sharp Axes

The way I look at it in 2023 and 2024 we have landed two players rated as first rounders. Sanders at the pointy end of 2023 draft and Croft more at the back end of the first round in the same draft.
Then if Smith or English were to go we can strengthen our draft hand in 2024. If they stay we've got a pretty good list.
Bringing in Sanders and moving up the order to do so seems okay from my perspective. He will be 12 months ahead of any early draft pick we take later this year.

I know its hindsight but Croft went pick 15 and we would have had a valid pick before that.
I hope Sanders is better than Koltyn Tholstrup (GC traded that pick) and who ever Gold Coast pick up this year.

[lemmon]

Re: Sharp Axes

I know its hindsight but Croft went pick 15 and we would have had a valid pick before that.
I hope Sanders is better than Koltyn Tholstrup (GC traded that pick) and who ever Gold Coast pick up this year.

A few of us were very into Darcy Wilson who'd look fantastic for us at the moment and has a lot of things we're desperate for.

[Hotdog60]

Re: Sharp Axes

Are the coaches too nice. Bevo loves his players and could he be the good cop but we are missing the bad cop.
This is going down the Monty path and I think we need an assistant coach that the players are scare of. One that doesn't sugar coat a players performance.
This is purely from the outside looking in.

[hujsh]

Re: Sharp Axes

I know its hindsight but Croft went pick 15 and we would have had a valid pick before that.
I hope Sanders is better than Koltyn Tholstrup (GC traded that pick) and who ever Gold Coast pick up this year.

If we had that pick someone would surely make us spend it. The calculation seems to have been that pick gets used on Croft regardless so do you trade a future first and whatever the next pick was (23?) for Sanders/pick 6?

It still of course does matter how good Sanders ends up (and how shit we are this year) when assessing that trade.

[bulldogtragic]

Re: Sharp Axes

I know its hindsight but Croft went pick 15 and we would have had a valid pick before that.
I hope Sanders is better than Koltyn Tholstrup (GC traded that pick) and who ever Gold Coast pick up this year.

Not to be pedantic. (They paid 1/3 if Croft) Plus gave us the pick for Freijah and circa Pick 50 this year.

My view was in the nuance. If we played finals then the points differential means the end justifies the means. If we hand them Pick 7 or so, then the payment is overly generous.

If Freijah turns into a player with Sanders, plus securing Croft and what at Pick 50, it’s not a complete bust by any means. The issue we face now is if we want to rebuild having traded like a top six aspirant, then we are in a tight spot which was the risk we took. Smith for something with an F1 doesn’t help. Although we could trade both F1 to get into the late firsts this year and/or let English go.

It’s on our draft guys to make the trade guys look ok on the trade. Then on the trade guys to work out how we bring in talent, as if English goes we can’t bring in FA at the risk of downgrading Tim’s compo. I’m looking forward to the trade season as a nerd. I’m fearing what it might actually look like as a die hard though. KWW comments today make it sounds like things are on track, so maybe we just need to tinker more to get success… if we change tact, then we might not be chasing certain players to help the rebuild. Who knows?!?!!

[JanLorMill]

Re: Sharp Axes

If we had that pick someone would surely make us spend it. The calculation seems to have been that pick gets used on Croft regardless so do you trade a future first and whatever the next pick was (23?) for Sanders/pick 6?

It still of course does matter how good Sanders ends up (and how shit we are this year) when assessing that trade.

Maybe. It’s still a big price considering it’s likely a top 10 this year now.

[hujsh]

Re: Sharp Axes

Maybe. It’s still a big price considering it’s likely a top 10 this year now.

I don't think anyone is arguing with that. Hell I even said here once it went down that it's a real concern our future first could be very similar to the pick we're trading for. The only thing that changed was I thought maybe we'd made some changes to address way we played end of last year. If anything that formline has continued pretty uninterrupted.

[Warrnambulldog]

Re: Sharp Axes

I get that people are saying that maybe the players and the list arent as good as what people are saying. The issue with that is; Lobb, Harmes etc when they joined, they all speak of when they first spoke to Bevo and he convinced them to come. The same players that are letting Bevo down (not just saying the above),are the ones he had a big part in hand picking.

Kinda crazy but I feel his match committee decisions this year have been saner than normal. I dont know about you guys but Im still scarred by the faith he had in the likes of McComb when no one else rightfully did. I like Bevo, he is intelligent but I feel he outsmarts himself by trying to be smarter than everyone else. This evolution the club speaks of, is it just another revolving door of recycled players around our stars who are being wasted? We have had a gutful of this rinse and repeat of disappointment hence the sharpened axes

[The Adelaide Connection]

Re: Sharp Axes

OK - fair enough.

I thought it was pretty much agreed that we wanted to take Croft and therefore the price we had to pay was to trade...I will happily accept the counter argument but to me we didn't give UP a first round pick - we used an EXTRA first round pick this year...

So this year: Sanders and Croft.
Next year: Donuts.

I can live with that.

Falling down the ladder to turn the trade to the advantage of whoever it was? Well...you can't really blame the recruiting/list management team for that.

I think in a weird way we were unlucky that we had to pay the farm for JUH, Darcy and Croft in such a close time frame.

You couldn't not take them, but did it severely compromise our ability to target our most pressing needs and bring in players who would have had an instant impact?

Also, considering all of these high-cost talls coming in was it a mistake to target Busslinger (given talls traditionally take longer to come on)? Hindsight and all of that, but it sounds like he might get whisked away at the end of the year for not much too.

[azabob]

Re: Sharp Axes

Are the coaches too nice. Bevo loves his players and could he be the good cop but we are missing the bad cop.
This is going down the Monty path and I think we need an assistant coach that the players are scare of. One that doesn't sugar coat a players performance.
This is purely from the outside looking in.

A handful of posters have consistently questioned the decision to move Montgomery on.

We have definitely missed him and Graham Lowe.

[kickit2Koly]

Re: Sharp Axes

Are the coaches too nice. Bevo loves his players and could he be the good cop but we are missing the bad cop.
This is going down the Monty path and I think we need an assistant coach that the players are scare of. One that doesn't sugar coat a players performance.
This is purely from the outside looking in.

I'm not sure about the coaches but I think our players are too nice. who are our hard bastards other than Libba and maybe Westy?!

In 16' we had a group that played tough,Libba, Clay smith, Picken, M.Boyd, Morris, Dalhaus, Cordy even Redpath and Wallis when on the field. We don't have that hard edge anymore which is maybe why we struggle to win the close ones.

We seem to lack on field leaders other than Bont.

[GVGjr]

Re: Sharp Axes

A handful of posters have consistently questioned the decision to move Montgomery on.

We have definitely missed him and Graham Lowe.

Did Monty really get moved on? It seemed to be his decision.
From memory there were some other challenges for him that led him to jump early.
I think he left with just about 6 weeks to go in the season.

[azabob]

Re: Sharp Axes

Did Monty really get moved on? It seemed to be his decision.
From memory there were some other challenges for him that led him to jump early.
I think he left with just about 6 weeks to go in the season.

I can't recall if Beveridge or Montgomery said it but the club (I read as Beveridge) and Montgomery had different ideas of where he was heading as a coach.

[Critter]

Re: Sharp Axes

From Caroline Wilson in The Age at that time:

"The Western Bulldogs' strange decision to publicly eject assistant coach Brett Montgomery before the end of the season has left Montgomery in limbo and cast doubt over the so-called August 1 deadline put in place to create transparency between clubs and assistant coaches.

At least for a week.
However, the inner-sanctum mantra at Whitten Oval which dictates that you are either in or out became too strong for Beveridge and his team and saw the assistant encouraged to start looking elsewhere. It was not a good sign that he was not even given the chance to thank the club, after this most recent six-year stint, on its media statement.
Montgomery, the losing candidate when Luke Beveridge was appointed at the end of 2014, was reportedly keen to remain at the club for the finals campaign and that too appeared to be the Bulldogs view."

[Sedat]

Re: Sharp Axes

From Caroline Wilson in The Age at that time:

[FONT="]"The Western Bulldogs' strange decision to publicly eject assistant coach Brett Montgomery before the end of the season has left Montgomery in limbo and cast doubt over the so-called August 1 deadline put in place to create transparency between clubs and assistant coaches.

At least for a week.[/FONT]
[FONT="]However, the inner-sanctum mantra at Whitten Oval which dictates that you are either in or out became too strong for Beveridge and his team and saw the assistant encouraged to start looking elsewhere. It was not a good sign that he was not even given the chance to thank the club, after this most recent six-year stint, on its media statement.[/FONT]
Montgomery, the losing candidate when Luke Beveridge was appointed at the end of 2014, was reportedly keen to remain at the club for the finals campaign and that too appeared to be the Bulldogs view."

Caro was clearly barracking for the swift finals exit and banked all of her chips on that scenario. Such a shame for the low rent trash that we flipped the script and won a glorious premiership.