2025 List Management Thread

[Bornadog]

Maybe but I really don't want to lose Sanders.
Is Butts any good or has he been inflated due to our desperation?

Smacks of desperation by - supporters

Sanders stays, he is a second year player taken in the top ten and has shown some great ability.

[josie]

Smacks of desperation by - supporters

Sanders stays, he is a second year player taken in the top ten and has shown some great ability.

Agree BAD.

Only caveat for me would be if Butters & Port are willing to trade this year for the round 1 pick we’d gain for Sanders plus I presume two other first round selections AND Sanders wants to move to Adelaide. Extremely unlikely on so many fronts. I do hope Sanders extends though and I think Club would have opened those discussions already. I was really impressed by Sanders ability to read the play and be in right spots before his form drop in his last few games. To me it was almost Sidebottom like and he is one of my fave non doggies players.

I would like him to show a bit more tenacity when he doesn’t have the ball , however I think Sanders would be well aware of where he and club seek improvement.

[The Bulldogs Bite]

I have a similar sentiment. I'm struggling to find a different path than we have traveled though.
Any suggestions?

I feel like our long term defensive strategy is a massive fail.

It's a tough one.

The body of work from our list management team over the past 4-5 years has been underwhelming. We've got a generational player (Bont) surrounded by plenty of good pieces, yet we have been nothing more than a middling team.

We lose quality players for various reasons and we target bargain basement recruits.

Without bothering to delve into specifics, in a pure results based business, we either aren't aggressive enough or we just haven't been able to improve the list enough. Either way, it's a fail.

I agree our long term defensive strategy has been awful. Continually short sighted and now we're paying for it. Both in terms of on field strategy and personnel. The last part of 2024 was paper over the cracks - we kept back patting ourselves about being top 2 defensively for a VERY small sample, ignoring the fact it all rested on key pieces on the edge of the cliff in Jones and Duryea.

I don't know much about Regan. His interviews sound OK, but he keeps alluding to not adding magnets for the sake of it. That's fine .... But can we stop pretending our list can't be improved? If it's so good, why haven't we won and played in finals outside of 2/11 years? I just don't buy it. Regan has mentioned we want to add top talent, well there's a problem, we never attract it. So what's the alternative? The draft? No wonder we're being left behind.

In terms of what's the answer, it's whatever we aren't doing. What we've done for a sustained period of time has not worked. We have too much faith in our 15-22 players, we are passive either by a failure to attract talent or a refusal to be more aggressive in this space, and something needs to change.

We trade players at their lowest (Lipinski, Dunkley, Smith, Jamarra) when we had chances to trade all of them at least a year earlier for a better return. We largely ignored areas of concern (small forwards, ruck, small defender - until now, key defenders).

I find it frustrating that the only thing we're good at is treading water.

For the now, I expect us to go after some cheap coverage (i.e. Frost) which we just absolutely have to do. He's at least strong, can run and defend - or could previously anyway.

Rant over!

[jeemak]

We're one of only six teams to play in a grand final in the past five grand finals (33% of teams). That's after rebuilding post being one of only three grand final winners of the five years previous out of eight overall participants. One of seven premiership winners in ten years (39% of teams have won one).

Not sure how that's middling or being left behind (though I agree this rebuild is looking a little shakier than I'd like), and while I get the frustration I think much of it comes from forgetting how bloody hard it is to be good with the structural inequities in the competition.

TBB - I agree that we aren't as good as we should be at incrementally improving our list and I don't know if we have enough resourcing scouring the competition, the lower leagues and anywhere else talent might be found to do that.

[Grantysghost]

It's a tough one.

The body of work from our list management team over the past 4-5 years has been underwhelming. We've got a generational player (Bont) surrounded by plenty of good pieces, yet we have been nothing more than a middling team.

We lose quality players for various reasons and we target bargain basement recruits.

Without bothering to delve into specifics, in a pure results based business, we either aren't aggressive enough or we just haven't been able to improve the list enough. Either way, it's a fail.

I agree our long term defensive strategy has been awful. Continually short sighted and now we're paying for it. Both in terms of on field strategy and personnel. The last part of 2024 was paper over the cracks - we kept back patting ourselves about being top 2 defensively for a VERY small sample, ignoring the fact it all rested on key pieces on the edge of the cliff in Jones and Duryea.

I don't know much about Regan. His interviews sound OK, but he keeps alluding to not adding magnets for the sake of it. That's fine .... But can we stop pretending our list can't be improved? If it's so good, why haven't we won and played in finals outside of 2/11 years? I just don't buy it. Regan has mentioned we want to add top talent, well there's a problem, we never attract it. So what's the alternative? The draft? No wonder we're being left behind.

In terms of what's the answer, it's whatever we aren't doing. What we've done for a sustained period of time has not worked. We have too much faith in our 15-22 players, we are passive either by a failure to attract talent or a refusal to be more aggressive in this space, and something needs to change.

We trade players at their lowest (Lipinski, Dunkley, Smith, Jamarra) when we had chances to trade all of them at least a year earlier for a better return. We largely ignored areas of concern (small forwards, ruck, small defender - until now, key defenders).

I find it frustrating that the only thing we're good at is treading water.

For the now, I expect us to go after some cheap coverage (i.e. Frost) which we just absolutely have to do. He's at least strong, can run and defend - or could previously anyway.

Rant over!

Great post mate I agree with a lot of it.

To think that a hail Mary in Lobb back there is a lynch pin to the entire defence is frightening.

What was the plan for the last five years? I get Buss, JOD and Cleary . Good start. But really thin and we need a lot more.

I'm with MJP when he says we need better defenders not just better key defenders. Hopefully there's a long term plan in place currently. Not filled with confidence though.

[The Bulldogs Bite]

We're one of only six teams to play in a grand final in the past five grand finals. That's after rebuilding post being one of only three grand final winners of the five years previous out of eight overall participants. One of seven premiership winners in ten years.

Not sure how that's middling or being left behind (though I agree this rebuild is looking a little shakier than I'd like), and while I get the frustration I think much of it comes from forgetting how bloody hard it is to be good with the structural inequities in the competition.

TBB - I agree that we aren't as good as we should be at incrementally improving our list and I don't know if we have enough resourcing scouring the competition, the lower leagues and anywhere else talent might be found to do that.

You're right that they are bloody hard to get into and even harder to win, which is why you need to keep giving yourself a chance. To win finals in only 2/11 years is really poor. Those two out of the box years were great - even if we fumbled 2021 in the final weeks of the H&A season which may have cost us in the end - but why is it we seem to have to keep rebuilding every few years? In any case, the credits for those 2 years should be long gone.

The structural issues with the AFEL I'll give you. It's widening too. I admire St. Kilda for not just accepting it, even if I don't think their strategy works. But they're not accepting of fate, which is more than I can say for us.

My concern isn't so much that we aren't winning cups. I get it, bloody hard to do. My concern is that we keep repeating our mistakes or inactivity and relying on 'improvement within', and getting the same results again and again. The reality is we are a breeding ground for the more successful clubs, so what are we doing to counter it?

If we're gonna fail, can we fail being proactive? Can we fail being innovative? Can we fail being different? We are just so predictable and boring in our pursuit of excellence that I feel like if I went to sleep and woke up in 4 years we'd be having the same conversations we are now because, well, we were having these conversations 2-3 years ago too...

[The Bulldogs Bite]

I'm with MJP when he says we need better defenders not just better key defenders. Hopefully there's a long term plan in place currently. Not filled with confidence though.

Yep, it's been such a big issue. I've banged on about it long enough but who of our defenders can actually defend?

I mean I like Lobb but he isn't 'defend first'. JOD shows promise but needs a GPS because he gets lost too often. Dale, Bramble, JJ are attack first. Cleary is somewhere in the middle.

There's nobody I would rely on to win a contest to save my life. Dramatic, but in the big moments - and we've seen the likes of Morris and Boyd and Picken in the past - we just have nobody in that end of the ground.

Sedat has asked the question of who do we have equivalent of Hardwick from Hawthorn and it's spot on. Nobody.

Budarick sounds like a good addition but we need much more than that.

My fear was that the club were going to trap themselves into thinking 'we aren't far off' because of our close losses this year. That fear hasn't been dispelled by what Regan has been talking about in recent weeks.

[GVGjr]

Would Sellwood be our Hardwick type player? The Bulldogs Bite

Obviously not tested at this stage.

[jeemak]

You're right that they are bloody hard to get into and even harder to win, which is why you need to keep giving yourself a chance. To win finals in only 2/11 years is really poor. Those two out of the box years were great - even if we fumbled 2021 in the final weeks of the H&A season which may have cost us in the end - but why is it we seem to have to keep rebuilding every few years? In any case, the credits for those 2 years should be long gone.

The structural issues with the AFEL I'll give you. It's widening too. I admire St. Kilda for not just accepting it, even if I don't think their strategy works. But they're not accepting of fate, which is more than I can say for us.

My concern isn't so much that we aren't winning cups. I get it, bloody hard to do. My concern is that we keep repeating our mistakes or inactivity and relying on 'improvement within', and getting the same results again and again. The reality is we are a breeding ground for the more successful clubs, so what are we doing to counter it?

If we're gonna fail, can we fail being proactive? Can we fail being innovative? Can we fail being different? We are just so predictable and boring in our pursuit of excellence that I feel like if I went to sleep and woke up in 4 years we'd be having the same conversations we are now because, well, we were having these conversations 2-3 years ago too...

I'm on record as believing our coaching hasn't nearly been as bad as some think it has, while our list management hasn't nearly been as good over the last ten years. We've never had an even balance of quality all over the ground, rather, a concentration of stars and/or high quality players in one or two parts at most (recently) or just one (the midfield in the past) and that's severely reduced the levers our coaches can pull to get more success.

I do like that we seem to have a consistent strategy that we stick to rather than being reactive and all over the shop. Perhaps I want us to be more responsive and a little more aggressive when it's clear there's an opportunity to more rapidly improve upon our strategy. We just seem to be a little conservative or not urgent enough.

[The Bulldogs Bite]

Would Sellwood be our Hardwick type player? The Bulldogs Bite

Obviously not tested at this stage.

Good question. I've only seen him play 3 times - all of which were the VFL finals.

He has some nice qualities, some of his acts of desperation were encouraging. He's courageous in the air but I liked a few of his efforts at ground level.

I'm not as bullish on him as some others, but that's only because I've only seen him 3 times. There's some promise but I need to see more before I could be confident that he can make the step up.

[GVGjr]

We need to look at this trade and draft period a little bit different to most other years.
What I mean is that after drafting 5 players at last years National Draft we also selected 2 players at the mid season draft.
Those two players are the selections we might have otherwise used in the 3rd and 4th rounds in the this draft.
Basically we got a jump start and have had a few months to work with Sellwood and Walker and they gained finals and GF experiences at the VFL level.

If you look at this when we only draft 2 or maybe 3 players this year remember that Sellwood and Walker fill in those missing spots.

[Aidan7557]

We need to look at this trade and draft period a little bit different to most other years.
What I mean is that after drafting 5 players at last years National Draft we also selected 2 players at the mid season draft.
Those two players are the selections we might have otherwise used in the 3rd and 4th rounds in the this draft.
Basically we got a jump start and have had a few months to work with Sellwood and Walker and they gained finals and GF experiences at the VFL level.

If you look at this when we only draft 2 or maybe 3 players this year remember that Sellwood and Walker fill in those missing spots.

I think people are fine with our draft strategy overall. I think the frustration is coming from the trade period especially when comparing ourselves to the other top teams. Seems like that key back won't be filled and if it isn't, will put lots of eyes on list management and the coaches next year and fairly enough imo. We know our weakness and haVE the off season to address so the internal improvement would want to be drastic if no talent comes in. Also would be hoping guys like Butts, May etc have poor seasons, just imagine if Butts had an all aus type of year, I think that would be enough for some supporters.

[Willow18]

Ballard being a free agent next year, he’s 10x the player Butts is

[Willow18]

We need to look at this trade and draft period a little bit different to most other years.
What I mean is that after drafting 5 players at last years National Draft we also selected 2 players at the mid season draft.
Those two players are the selections we might have otherwise used in the 3rd and 4th rounds in the this draft.
Basically we got a jump start and have had a few months to work with Sellwood and Walker and they gained finals and GF experiences at the VFL level.

If you look at this when we only draft 2 or maybe 3 players this year remember that Sellwood and Walker fill in those missing spots.

A very quick age bracket of our squad:

18-23: (17)
O’Donnell, Busslinger, Freijah, Darcy, Sanders, Hynes, Croft
Cleary, Sellwood, Jaques, Kennedy, Gallagher, Poulter, Dolan, Walker, Jones, Smith

24-29: (17)
Dale, Budarick, Williams, Davidson, Naughton, Kennedy, Weightman, West, English, Richards, Bramble
Gardner, Coffield, Baker, Vandermeer, McNeil, Garcia

30+: (6)
Lobb, Bontempelli, Liberatore, Treloar
Harmes, Johannisen

Makes sense to only bring on 2-3 kids as they nearly make up half the squad already!

[The Bulldogs Bite]

I can't believe Bont is 30. I'm not ready for that.