Are we attractive enough yet? A destination club?

[FrediKanoute]

Re: Are we attractive enough yet? A destination club?

I'm with you on this.

Free Agents soak up salary cap and we need to spend ours wisely.

I do favour a targetted approach that got us Keath and Bruce, but as soon as they are looking for the highest bidder our job is to merely force up the price for the eventual winner of a bidding war.

Thinking of big name moves in the free agency era:

Scully/O'Meara/Patton/Mitchell/Wingrave to the Hawks - haven't really worked
Stringer to the Bombers - reckon they wished the package got lost in the post
Cameron/Dangerfield/Dahlhaus to Geelong - 2/3's not bad

I am sure there are more, but players moving on big money I can really only see that Geelong have made it work for them.

[Twodogs]

Re: Are we attractive enough yet? A destination club?

We threw a heap at (money, years and full court press with Bevo, Bonts & Power)

Wingard who wanted Hawthorn.
Impey who wanted Hawthorn.
Jack Martin who wanted Carlton.
Nankervis who wanted Richmond.

That’s off the top of my head who rejected us post Premiership.


For other clubs:

Hawthorn: Mitchell, O’Meara, Wingard, Impey
Richmond: Lynch, Prestia, Nankervis, Caddy
Woods: Howe, WHE, Mayne, Adams,*
Essendon: (basketcase) Stringer, Smith, Saad (from GCS), Caldwell, Shiel
Carlton: Martin, Saad, Williams, McGovern, several GWS
Geelong: Tuohy, Higgins, Cameron, Dahl, Isaac Smith, Rohan, Dangerfield


The broader point being I’m hoping that unlike after the premiership when we were getting rejected by players who chose clubs on the way down, this time the way we are playing opens up a few more players minds to anything Sam Power might have left with their manager to think about.

*And Trealor ironically!

TBH Trealor is the only one of the players who went to Collingwood that I would have been interested in. Especially the motivated, content, hard running model of Trealor we ended up with. If he had come straight from GWS who's to say he wouldn't have been a complacent well paid type with nothing to prove?


I would have loved to have gotten Alir Alir last preseason. His mix between playing man on man and as an interceptor would have been perfect for us.

[FrediKanoute]

Re: Are we attractive enough yet? A destination club?

I would have loved to have gotten Alir Alir last preseason. His mix between playing man on man and as an interceptor would have been perfect for us.

I just don't see it with Alir Alir. I admit he is better at Port than he was at Sydney, but for all his physical prowess (and it is impressive), he lacks footy nouse

[Ghost Dog]

Re: Are we attractive enough yet? A destination club?

Because I used to work with Sudanese folk, I have been following his footy a bit.
I have to agree with this statement. He needs a Matt Scarlett to work with him.

[Twodogs]

Re: Are we attractive enough yet? A destination club?

I just don't see it with Alir Alir. I admit he is better at Port than he was at Sydney, but for all his physical prowess (and it is impressive), he lacks footy nouse

I've long been a fan. I've been banging on about getting him across since 2016 at least.



I just think that he would thrive in our defensive set up. The old "see ball, punch ball" position that I have in mind for him doesn't require a lot of footy smarts just some height and strength at the contest which he has plenty of and being aware of where the boundary line is. He could take the bigger opposition forward-he would have been ideal to shuffle across onto Lynch when he got going against us. I watch his game v us too and he came close to being the difference between the sides in the first half. I reckon that if hhe was playing for us that night then Port wouldn't have gotten within 7-8 goals of us.

[1eyedog]

Re: Are we attractive enough yet? A destination club?

He's had good games but he's not great one on one. Good interceptor and in that regard he has good spatial awareness and timing but I honestly don't see him being a massive upgrade on Lewy Young to be honest. He's certainly more advanced though.

I thought Astro towelled him up against us.

[Happy Days]

Re: Are we attractive enough yet? A destination club?

Yeah I think I said it in the game day thread but Aliir is a great interceptor but poor actual defender. He’s so keen to intercept that he loses contact with his man way too easily and it means he often gets done in by forwards who have strong leading patterns like Naughts.

There’s definitely a world where a team can play to his strengths and make him an incredibly good and dangerous weapon (like the Dees have done with Lever) but Port are relying on him to do too much.