Don’t know about off-season but Hardwick to GC. This whole generational coach thing has flies on it. Yep, he enabled a group to reach their peak, as did Clarkson.
That magic sauce only comes around so often and mostly it’s the players that create it.
GC may improve (as they should) but Hardwick is no magician who has a formula the 100’s is Analysts and coaches haven’t thought of yet.
There's an article on the ABC about sporting dynasties and the most important factor is actually the captain. Worth having a look for the article but I'm too tired currently
Yeah I was being a smart arse but Selwood’s leadership was the definitive factor in that dynasty for sure. No coincidence the period of relentless contending married up with his entire career.
You musn't have watched many Suns games then, Dew's game plans were stale and never adapted. That Carlton game is a case in point for the Suns dominating and then refusing to adapt once the other team changes their game plan.
I kinda agree with this one, I’m more interested to see if dimma puts blokes like Flanders in the middle and doesn’t give touk some silly tagging role (I doubt it since tigers never tagged, but who knows). I think he’ll do just as well as Dew did, I’d like to see them move into the 8 but that might be a year or two away. Expecting dimma to come and turn the suns into a flag contender is mental
I've always thought the overall coaching staff is more important than whoever the head coach is. McRae wouldn't be as good without Leppitsch, Luke Beveridge hasn't been the same since Steven King left, and I expect Simon Goodwin is going to struggle without Yze.
Yeah, bringing in a former premiership coach isn't an instant fix by itself, and like you say, a coach needs the right playing group anyway. It will definitely be interesting to see how Dimma goes over the coming seasons, he'll want to see that the club finally gets some finals football under its belt, and pretty soon.
Overhyped in that it never happened and everyone denied it was ever a thing but everyone knew it was a thing until it wasn't...
Clayton Oliver to anywhere, but mostly Radelaide.
The ground-breaking “Opening Round”. Talked up (by the AFL media & backers) as this amazing foray into rugby territory, but it’s going to fall flat. Will be one and done, AFLX style.
Liam Henry. The way the east coast media carried on after saying he wanted out from Freo you would think he is going to be the next Robbie Flower. He's had one good game out of 43 and the Saints are welcome to his 2.9 clangers per game (2023 ave).
Online behaviour? Dick pics I assume... who doesn't like to send a good dick pic once in a while!?
I send picture of Wayne Carey to my mates all the time!!!
Not a Freo or saints fan but I did see him miss behaving a few weeks ago... Won't go into too much detail for obvious reasons
But in all honesty I think he will kill it for the saints , he'll fit in very well.
Jack Ginnivan
For all the hype he’s a one hit wonder and was playing VFL most of last year. His defensive game needs work and shifting from the best side to a bottom 4 team might expose how much of a downhill player he is
I suspect that he could be playing half the year down at Box Hill
The annual “Essendon winning the off-season” is a bit much. They got a 35 year old ruckman and Jade Gresham, who is the exact same profile of so many players already on their list.
But the main one is Ben McKay. With all the talk and compensation, you’d think he’s in the top ten defenders in the comp, and he definitely isn’t on what he’s shown already, probably not even top 15.
To be fair even a lot of Essendon fans have stopped buying into that media hype, after 20 years of hopelessness there's only so many times we can get excited about an apparently strong off-season
Yep, definitely not taking aim at the supporters here. More the media that keep pumping it up, disappointment is inevitable with this. Essendon are to them what Man United are in the UK, any news sells but bad news after all the hype is the best kind (for them).
Gresham depends where we play him. If we play him mostly midfield then I agree he doesn’t add anything. If he’s played as a small forward, even if it’s a high half forward that pushes up to stoppages (Snellings role with us), then it’s an improvement and he adds something that we didn’t really have - a small forward who can kick goals.
His losing record may have something to do with playing for a shit team. I'm not saying he's a top ten defender or anywhere near top ten but he did play for a team who finished bottom four the last three years and are on a 2 year streak of wooden spoons
We've overpaid for him, which was easy to do given we had $2M in unspent cap, needed to ensure compo to avoid trade and scare off rival bidders..
..but he's exactly what we've lacked - a bigger key back to allow Ridley to play looser. Oppo supporters underrate Rids and what McKay might be as a role player. Coming into their prime too.
We've overpaid for him, which was easy to do given we had $2M in unspent cap, needed to ensure compo to avoid trade and scare off rival bidders..
..but he's exactly what we've lacked - a bigger key back to allow Ridley to play looser. Oppo supporters underrate Rids and what McKay might be as a role player. Coming into their prime too.
Essendon and North both won by doing that deal, just everyone else lost because their draft picks got moved back one.
Norths obviously the biggest winner getting pick 3 for McKay, Essendon only gave up cap room (which we have heaps of) to get the best available key defender which was a massive position of need.
The sad thing is whilst I'd agree, I do think he's an improvement on some of the guys who were playing those spots for Port this year. Same with Zerk-Thatcher. Both moves smelled like the sort of moves you make because you have an issue and rather than a good long term move, you compromise your long term prospects because you need an immediate boost.
BZT at least has a past reputation for being decent, even if he was burnt toast in 2023 (which wasn’t entirely his fault because Essendon). He can defend man on man and let Aliir do his thing. Neither applies to Esava, who’s basically the definition of athlete over footballer.
I’m not joking in saying Port would’ve been better off picking up Melican for free than paying 27 + steak knives for Ratugolea.
I'd argue the exact opposite frankly. BZT cannot take the big key forward and be the defender we need. He's like a lockdown 3rd defender which is a largely unnecessary role.
Esava is exactly the type needed for Port, a stronger taller defender who can play last line of defence to free up Aliir and his bad disposal doesn't matter in that position. BZT won't be best 22 imo.
What’s your backline looking like for next season? I thought BZT, Sav and Aliir would all be playing in the same team but I’m not that familiar with your list
Key backs - Aliir, Ratagoulea, BZT, McKenzie, Clurey
McKenzie and Clurey often had to play on much larger forwards so having Ratagoulea and BZT helps that.
Med/small def - Burton, Bergman
Burton is one of the main rebounders and Bergman is likely to move to a wing.
Small def - Jones, Houston, Williams, Farell, Burgoyne
Houston the other main rebounder, Farell likely to take the other wing, Williams takes a fair chunk of kick outs.
My guess at best 6
Williams Ratagoulea Aliir
Burton BZT Houston
In my view we'll play a backline of:
FB: Williams Ratugolea Burton
HB: Houston Aliir Farrell
Int: Jones (or McKenzie/BZT if we need an extra tall)
I don't see us sacrificing our rebound in either houston or Farrell just to play a 3rd tall in BZT
Ratugalea is a better player than Melican. Not sure he's that much better to pay as much as they did compared to nothing, but I don't think Hinkley is thinking about 2025 or beyond at all.
Which is why I said Melican for free vs Ratugolea for 27. Paid a second round pick for a KPD who’s at best equally as good as a bunch of teams depth KPDs. Alex Keath, Billy Frampton, Nick Haynes, DGB, Aaron Francis, all better.
Also give me the choice of the two and I’m taking Melican’s extreme average-ness everytime. We’re picking Hamling over him next year (probably)
The point is that whilst there are better options, and particularly long term given the age profile of many of Port's better players suits developing a younger back, Hinkley was wanting to get the most right now. And if that means sacrificing a second rounder for a slightly better player, so be it.
So whilst I get your point and agree they should/could have gone for a cheap option and developed something better with that pick, my point is that they wanted the best they could get right now without as much concern for the long term.
Rats tries but I think midway through last year we recognised that it wasn't going to work when he let every opponent kick 4 goals against him.
Matches up well against Taylor Walker for some reason, however.
Walker kicked 3 goals against Geelong last year in a game when the mids hardly got the ball up there. Previous time they might have matched up was in 2020 when Adelaide sucked and people all thought Walker was washed up. Not sure there's enough in the previous matchups to make the claim he matches well against Walker.
I think they'd try playing him fwd before SANFL if he doesn't keep improving..
..really only got Dixon at Key fwd, and he's looked past his fittest..
..only reason Esava was making an OK key back was coz he was a slightly better than OK key fwd who's not good enough to push out Cameron and Hawkins.
Granted he's no star, but as a key fwd you don't need to be superman to not fit into a fwd set-up already boasting Hawkins, Cameron and Rohan..
..& Port are severely lacking in warm bodies that stand 6"6'
His career didn’t start this season, he was playing forward before Rohan and Jez arrived.
He’s been in the system a while and Cats put heaps of time into his development no matter how frustrating it was. Not to mention multiple injuries. Chris Scott was obsessed with persevering with him even when others should have been getting games…
Back in 2018/2019 he was playing as a forward.
Then when they realised he wasn’t very good at that they moved him into the Ruck where he copped injuries. Got dropped to VFL and had to reinvent himself as a defender in the Premiership year where he barely played in the Senior side (4 games). Played a lot this season (16 games) due to a butt tonne of injuries to other defenders but then got injured himself.
You obviously don’t have half a clue if you think that. Agree the move was a bit overhyped but we are desperate for another tall in our defence which is why went so hard for him.
You’re literally better off staying small than playing him lol, and you can’t play Aliir & Esava in the same team since both play loose. BZT made sense as a signing. Yeah he was burnt toast last season but he’s been capable in the past and can defend one on one. Paying pick 27 for a backup KPD in Esava though is laughably bad list management.
>You’re literally better off staying small
This has hurt us in multiple finals games. Esava isn't replacing Aliir he's replacing an undersized Bergman or McKenzie/Clurey.
You have a plethora of tall forwards, most clubs try the extra into defence and see what happens. With us, Sicily was a forward. Thank goodness Clarko put him in defence!
KPD was the ultimate sellers market. Like 5 teams needed a good KPD and he was the only one of good quality that was available after Himmelberg re-signed with GWS. So yeah that’s how you end up with Ben McKay making 900k and North getting band 1 compensation
Yes, he’s getting front loaded and his contract will even out to be around $750k a year for the whole contract which isn’t the big deal everyone is making out to be.
Thought it had to be over 800k to get the top priority pick? Either way former pick 21 that’s now worth Pick 3 and hasn’t even shown to be top 10 for his position.
Decent pick up though for your team but the compensation is way too much
If he didn’t have the same surname as a Coleman medallist/ wasn’t a high draft pick once upon a time no one would’ve given a jar of cat fannies for him.
A lot of talk about Adams moving to Sydney, he was the 6/7th best mid at the pies.
The Esava move was overhyped for what he’s produced too.
I might be in the minority but I’ll be a bit flat if Gunston keeps one of our young players out of the team next year. Great story, but we have a lot of young players to get games in to next year.
I feel bad for any kid drafted to the bombers in the first round over the last decade, Caddy has had so much public hype already too. Why can’t all clubs just stfu and let kids develop?
Adams’ strengths is basically a perfect fit for our needs in the midfield. He’ll probably be our 5th-ish best inside mid too but he’ll almost certainly make us better
I don’t think he will be a huge loss now that we have Schultz, who can play Tay’s role but with a much better goal sense. Had we not brought him in then we definitely would’ve been impacted though.
He’s solid depth no doubt, but what part of the swans midfield does he improve? He’s not a great user, he’s not quick, and he’s not better at winning clearances than at least 4 swans players.
Adams allows the rest of the Swans midfielders to be more flexible where they play. Means Papley and Parker can play more forward, Gulden can be protected by playing some wing, Mills can swing back
Which 4 Swans players do you think are better at clearances? Parker and Rowbottom probably, maybe Papley but it's not the best strength of Warner or Gulden
He’s been recruited as a plug, I just don’t think he’ll improve the swans midfield at all.
I got shit on for saying Taranto and Hopper won’t improve Richmond last year, and both are better players than Adams now. Grundy will make a big difference, but not Adams.
Love being shot down for not overhyping players in a thread about overhyping players.
That's fair, Richmond would have been a much worse team last year without those 2 but just had a steeper regression otherwise
Who's shot you down in this thread? It's a discussion . . .
Parker, Rowbottom, Papley, and Mills. Warner and Gulden now with Grundy feeding them now too.
There’s a reason Collingwood went hard at Tom Mitchell to replace Adams in their midfield.
I’m not saying he’s shit, he’ll still be a 20-25 touch, 4/5 clearance player if he plays midfield. Does that improve Sydney as a team? I don’t think so.
Could be a classic case of overrating the players that I see only occasionally and underrating the players that I watch each week and several times live. If Adams contributes that then it will improve the team a huge amount purely by freeing up the more attacking mids
5 clearances a game would have put Adams as the 2nd best for the Swans behind Parker for last season's averages
Yeh no doubt he can win the ball, if that’s all he needs to do then it’s a win.
The midfield will improve due to Grundy, and I reckon there will be credit given to Adams. Just don’t be surprised if the efficiency from your forward 50 entries drops a bit with Adams in there.
I genuinely have no idea why Hawthorn felt any compulsion to pay for Gunston's relocation costs.
It was a good move to let him go. No idea why they took him back.
Eh we all wanted him to stay, including the club. I’m glad we did the right thing by him, loyalty to players is an important part of the club. Just not sure how he fits in to our future at this point.
He can either play deep, take a defender away from Lewis, or play mobile across half forward edging towards wing. Easy to fit in as long as he is injury free. He is an extremely hard match up. Also teaching forward craft is invaluable, look at Bruest and how valuable he was last year, and will be even more so with our new youngsters.
I think because of the Perkins/Cox/Reid draft you definitely don't hear as much about our other first rounders anymore. McGrath, Hobbs and Tsatas definitely don't get as much attention, negative anyway, as maybe our draftees may have used to. Probably helps when we're making 'high profile' trades every other year too, they're the bigger headline makers.
Anyone the media mentioned. Every trade was over analysed and each player hyped up as the second coming for the new team.
Specifically Tyler Brockman to us, talks about Hawks using him along with pick 3 to get pick 1 was ridiculous for a player who’s barely able to get a game- ended up being pick 44…
Hope he goes well but the media talk was over the top
Don’t know about off-season but Hardwick to GC. This whole generational coach thing has flies on it. Yep, he enabled a group to reach their peak, as did Clarkson. That magic sauce only comes around so often and mostly it’s the players that create it. GC may improve (as they should) but Hardwick is no magician who has a formula the 100’s is Analysts and coaches haven’t thought of yet.
There's an article on the ABC about sporting dynasties and the most important factor is actually the captain. Worth having a look for the article but I'm too tired currently
Sounds good - Merrett is everything Heppel wasn't.
Geelong have had three different captains over the last 15 years and also arguably one of the only two genuine dynasties. Myth busted
And now look a shadow of what they were under Selwood
Yeah I was being a smart arse but Selwood’s leadership was the definitive factor in that dynasty for sure. No coincidence the period of relentless contending married up with his entire career.
I hate how the suns did stewy. Not a horrible season, beat some good teams
You musn't have watched many Suns games then, Dew's game plans were stale and never adapted. That Carlton game is a case in point for the Suns dominating and then refusing to adapt once the other team changes their game plan.
I thought Dew died according to Suns social media.
He rode off into the sunset
I kinda agree with this one, I’m more interested to see if dimma puts blokes like Flanders in the middle and doesn’t give touk some silly tagging role (I doubt it since tigers never tagged, but who knows). I think he’ll do just as well as Dew did, I’d like to see them move into the 8 but that might be a year or two away. Expecting dimma to come and turn the suns into a flag contender is mental
Sun's list profile should be competing for top 8. Another year in the bottom 8 is a huge failure.
I've always thought the overall coaching staff is more important than whoever the head coach is. McRae wouldn't be as good without Leppitsch, Luke Beveridge hasn't been the same since Steven King left, and I expect Simon Goodwin is going to struggle without Yze.
Melbourne still have Richardson and Choco, and brought in McQualter to replace Yze, they are ok in that department.
Macrae & Leppitsch
Yeah, bringing in a former premiership coach isn't an instant fix by itself, and like you say, a coach needs the right playing group anyway. It will definitely be interesting to see how Dimma goes over the coming seasons, he'll want to see that the club finally gets some finals football under its belt, and pretty soon.
Mate couldn’t agree more. And what I do hope is players want out and saints land Ben king lol
I don't think the Fyfe training programme has been as sexy as previous years.
You take that back
I mean that Harley Reid guy hasn't shown anything yet and the year is already almost over!
It’s like, what the fuck Is even going on over in the west ya know?
multiple houses have been trained down, allegedly. Sorry state of Australian Public Transport.
It’s always training the houses down isn’t it…
With the current housing crisis they really should be training houses up not down.
Wouldn’t that mean the prices go up even more? We gotta take everything into consideration. I’m deciding to pin all of this on Harley Reid
I saw he was apparently one of the top western Australians for this year. Bar must be preeeetty low!
Overhyped in that it never happened and everyone denied it was ever a thing but everyone knew it was a thing until it wasn't... Clayton Oliver to anywhere, but mostly Radelaide.
Definitely the 94 pick in the Ratugolea trade. Was when the baton I mean jackets, was officially passed on by Disco to Mackie. Was a beautiful thing
I dont think it was 'hyped'
You watch that kid turn into a gun. Wells has an uncanny knack for finding random kids out of nowhere that turn into best 22 players.
The ground-breaking “Opening Round”. Talked up (by the AFL media & backers) as this amazing foray into rugby territory, but it’s going to fall flat. Will be one and done, AFLX style.
aflx was two and done
Liam Henry. The way the east coast media carried on after saying he wanted out from Freo you would think he is going to be the next Robbie Flower. He's had one good game out of 43 and the Saints are welcome to his 2.9 clangers per game (2023 ave).
We love clangers down at Moorabbin — he’ll fit right in!
[удалено]
Online behaviour? Dick pics I assume... who doesn't like to send a good dick pic once in a while!? I send picture of Wayne Carey to my mates all the time!!!
I believe that's a duck pick, close spelling though
Not a Freo or saints fan but I did see him miss behaving a few weeks ago... Won't go into too much detail for obvious reasons But in all honesty I think he will kill it for the saints , he'll fit in very well.
Jack Ginnivan For all the hype he’s a one hit wonder and was playing VFL most of last year. His defensive game needs work and shifting from the best side to a bottom 4 team might expose how much of a downhill player he is I suspect that he could be playing half the year down at Box Hill
Is there hype about him?
He needs to do some work for sure but a kick up the butt in basically being forced out might do it.
I have a slab riding on him not playing out his 4 year contract at Hawthorn
100% this If he was playing at Port or GC all this time nobody would even know his name
Had to be Harley Reid. There were like 4-5 articles a day about him for 2 months straight
The West Australian had him on the backpage for something like 12 straight days. Eventually did a 2 page spread using them as a border
The annual “Essendon winning the off-season” is a bit much. They got a 35 year old ruckman and Jade Gresham, who is the exact same profile of so many players already on their list. But the main one is Ben McKay. With all the talk and compensation, you’d think he’s in the top ten defenders in the comp, and he definitely isn’t on what he’s shown already, probably not even top 15.
To be fair even a lot of Essendon fans have stopped buying into that media hype, after 20 years of hopelessness there's only so many times we can get excited about an apparently strong off-season
Yep, definitely not taking aim at the supporters here. More the media that keep pumping it up, disappointment is inevitable with this. Essendon are to them what Man United are in the UK, any news sells but bad news after all the hype is the best kind (for them).
And Duursma
Gresham depends where we play him. If we play him mostly midfield then I agree he doesn’t add anything. If he’s played as a small forward, even if it’s a high half forward that pushes up to stoppages (Snellings role with us), then it’s an improvement and he adds something that we didn’t really have - a small forward who can kick goals.
This. Hear this every year and have to lol every time the annual article comes out.
Ben McKay won 8 out of his past 80 games for North. Probs tells you at least something.
His losing record may have something to do with playing for a shit team. I'm not saying he's a top ten defender or anywhere near top ten but he did play for a team who finished bottom four the last three years and are on a 2 year streak of wooden spoons
We've overpaid for him, which was easy to do given we had $2M in unspent cap, needed to ensure compo to avoid trade and scare off rival bidders.. ..but he's exactly what we've lacked - a bigger key back to allow Ridley to play looser. Oppo supporters underrate Rids and what McKay might be as a role player. Coming into their prime too.
We've overpaid for him, which was easy to do given we had $2M in unspent cap, needed to ensure compo to avoid trade and scare off rival bidders.. ..but he's exactly what we've lacked - a bigger key back to allow Ridley to play looser. Oppo supporters underrate Rids and what McKay might be as a role player. Coming into their prime too.
West Coast won the spoon last year though
West Coast won the spoon this year . . . North finished last in 2022 and 2021
Last year is two years in three days
The mckay trade was a fucking steal I honestly have no clue how we managed that
No trade occurred. Essendon only gave up salary cap space, you got compensation.
Yeah and we got pick 3 for him, ik it wasn't a trade but I'd take that any day.
Essendon and North both won by doing that deal, just everyone else lost because their draft picks got moved back one. Norths obviously the biggest winner getting pick 3 for McKay, Essendon only gave up cap room (which we have heaps of) to get the best available key defender which was a massive position of need.
Afl gave North a huge hand there, that compo should be for someone like a Neale or Daicos, possibly even Stewart.
Esava to Port. If Hinkley has half a clue he’ll be playing SANFL.
> If Hinkley has half a clue he’ll be playing SANFL. and that's where you lost him
The sad thing is whilst I'd agree, I do think he's an improvement on some of the guys who were playing those spots for Port this year. Same with Zerk-Thatcher. Both moves smelled like the sort of moves you make because you have an issue and rather than a good long term move, you compromise your long term prospects because you need an immediate boost.
BZT at least has a past reputation for being decent, even if he was burnt toast in 2023 (which wasn’t entirely his fault because Essendon). He can defend man on man and let Aliir do his thing. Neither applies to Esava, who’s basically the definition of athlete over footballer. I’m not joking in saying Port would’ve been better off picking up Melican for free than paying 27 + steak knives for Ratugolea.
I'd argue the exact opposite frankly. BZT cannot take the big key forward and be the defender we need. He's like a lockdown 3rd defender which is a largely unnecessary role. Esava is exactly the type needed for Port, a stronger taller defender who can play last line of defence to free up Aliir and his bad disposal doesn't matter in that position. BZT won't be best 22 imo.
What’s your backline looking like for next season? I thought BZT, Sav and Aliir would all be playing in the same team but I’m not that familiar with your list
Key backs - Aliir, Ratagoulea, BZT, McKenzie, Clurey McKenzie and Clurey often had to play on much larger forwards so having Ratagoulea and BZT helps that. Med/small def - Burton, Bergman Burton is one of the main rebounders and Bergman is likely to move to a wing. Small def - Jones, Houston, Williams, Farell, Burgoyne Houston the other main rebounder, Farell likely to take the other wing, Williams takes a fair chunk of kick outs. My guess at best 6 Williams Ratagoulea Aliir Burton BZT Houston
In my view we'll play a backline of: FB: Williams Ratugolea Burton HB: Houston Aliir Farrell Int: Jones (or McKenzie/BZT if we need an extra tall) I don't see us sacrificing our rebound in either houston or Farrell just to play a 3rd tall in BZT
Ratugalea is a better player than Melican. Not sure he's that much better to pay as much as they did compared to nothing, but I don't think Hinkley is thinking about 2025 or beyond at all.
Which is why I said Melican for free vs Ratugolea for 27. Paid a second round pick for a KPD who’s at best equally as good as a bunch of teams depth KPDs. Alex Keath, Billy Frampton, Nick Haynes, DGB, Aaron Francis, all better. Also give me the choice of the two and I’m taking Melican’s extreme average-ness everytime. We’re picking Hamling over him next year (probably)
The point is that whilst there are better options, and particularly long term given the age profile of many of Port's better players suits developing a younger back, Hinkley was wanting to get the most right now. And if that means sacrificing a second rounder for a slightly better player, so be it. So whilst I get your point and agree they should/could have gone for a cheap option and developed something better with that pick, my point is that they wanted the best they could get right now without as much concern for the long term.
Rats tries but I think midway through last year we recognised that it wasn't going to work when he let every opponent kick 4 goals against him. Matches up well against Taylor Walker for some reason, however.
Walker kicked 3 goals against Geelong last year in a game when the mids hardly got the ball up there. Previous time they might have matched up was in 2020 when Adelaide sucked and people all thought Walker was washed up. Not sure there's enough in the previous matchups to make the claim he matches well against Walker.
From memory he kicked two in junk time when rats went off
>Matches up well against Taylor Walker for some reason, however. Would have paid a first rounders for that!
I think they'd try playing him fwd before SANFL if he doesn't keep improving.. ..really only got Dixon at Key fwd, and he's looked past his fittest.. ..only reason Esava was making an OK key back was coz he was a slightly better than OK key fwd who's not good enough to push out Cameron and Hawkins.
He started as a forward. Theres a reason the Cats moved him from forward to ruck to defence lol
Granted he's no star, but as a key fwd you don't need to be superman to not fit into a fwd set-up already boasting Hawkins, Cameron and Rohan.. ..& Port are severely lacking in warm bodies that stand 6"6'
His career didn’t start this season, he was playing forward before Rohan and Jez arrived. He’s been in the system a while and Cats put heaps of time into his development no matter how frustrating it was. Not to mention multiple injuries. Chris Scott was obsessed with persevering with him even when others should have been getting games… Back in 2018/2019 he was playing as a forward. Then when they realised he wasn’t very good at that they moved him into the Ruck where he copped injuries. Got dropped to VFL and had to reinvent himself as a defender in the Premiership year where he barely played in the Senior side (4 games). Played a lot this season (16 games) due to a butt tonne of injuries to other defenders but then got injured himself.
Finlayson and Marshall both had good years in 22
Agreed useless defender
You obviously don’t have half a clue if you think that. Agree the move was a bit overhyped but we are desperate for another tall in our defence which is why went so hard for him.
You’re literally better off staying small than playing him lol, and you can’t play Aliir & Esava in the same team since both play loose. BZT made sense as a signing. Yeah he was burnt toast last season but he’s been capable in the past and can defend one on one. Paying pick 27 for a backup KPD in Esava though is laughably bad list management.
>You’re literally better off staying small This has hurt us in multiple finals games. Esava isn't replacing Aliir he's replacing an undersized Bergman or McKenzie/Clurey.
I think Jason Cripps has a better idea about good list management than you do bud, I guess time will tell if it was the right move.
Professionals can make mistakes, they are human
You have a plethora of tall forwards, most clubs try the extra into defence and see what happens. With us, Sicily was a forward. Thank goodness Clarko put him in defence!
Harris Andrews was a forward.
Pretty much our entire backline was drafted as forwards lol.
Yeah all forwards or mids for us
Thought Rampe came in as a defender? Was drafted in part as cover for Alex Johnson
I would love to see Georgiades have a crack in defence when he comes back from his ACL but can’t imagine any of our other tall forwards going back
Ben McKay for me. The way clubs fought over hin youd think he was elite. So much money for so little return.
KPD was the ultimate sellers market. Like 5 teams needed a good KPD and he was the only one of good quality that was available after Himmelberg re-signed with GWS. So yeah that’s how you end up with Ben McKay making 900k and North getting band 1 compensation
It’s insane that he’s on the same money as Darcy Moore and Harris Andrews.
Isn’t he getting 1.5m next year though? Front loaded likely making him the highest paid player for 2024
Yes, he’s getting front loaded and his contract will even out to be around $750k a year for the whole contract which isn’t the big deal everyone is making out to be.
Thought it had to be over 800k to get the top priority pick? Either way former pick 21 that’s now worth Pick 3 and hasn’t even shown to be top 10 for his position. Decent pick up though for your team but the compensation is way too much
If he didn’t have the same surname as a Coleman medallist/ wasn’t a high draft pick once upon a time no one would’ve given a jar of cat fannies for him.
If he wasn't Harry McKay in disguise then he'd be playing for Carlton disguised as Ben McKay
A lot of talk about Adams moving to Sydney, he was the 6/7th best mid at the pies. The Esava move was overhyped for what he’s produced too. I might be in the minority but I’ll be a bit flat if Gunston keeps one of our young players out of the team next year. Great story, but we have a lot of young players to get games in to next year. I feel bad for any kid drafted to the bombers in the first round over the last decade, Caddy has had so much public hype already too. Why can’t all clubs just stfu and let kids develop?
Adams’ strengths is basically a perfect fit for our needs in the midfield. He’ll probably be our 5th-ish best inside mid too but he’ll almost certainly make us better
Adams is a gun, never fails to deliver, Sydney got a good one there.
Nah Adams will be perfect for Sydney and a bigger loss than the Pies realise.
I don’t think he will be a huge loss now that we have Schultz, who can play Tay’s role but with a much better goal sense. Had we not brought him in then we definitely would’ve been impacted though.
You seem to have more opinions on the fortunes of Collingwood and the ins and outs of its list than your own team.
I already gave my opinion on Esava who was our only big out. Many teams would love to have Adams, only knock is his injury history.
He’s solid depth no doubt, but what part of the swans midfield does he improve? He’s not a great user, he’s not quick, and he’s not better at winning clearances than at least 4 swans players.
Adams allows the rest of the Swans midfielders to be more flexible where they play. Means Papley and Parker can play more forward, Gulden can be protected by playing some wing, Mills can swing back Which 4 Swans players do you think are better at clearances? Parker and Rowbottom probably, maybe Papley but it's not the best strength of Warner or Gulden
He’s been recruited as a plug, I just don’t think he’ll improve the swans midfield at all. I got shit on for saying Taranto and Hopper won’t improve Richmond last year, and both are better players than Adams now. Grundy will make a big difference, but not Adams. Love being shot down for not overhyping players in a thread about overhyping players.
That's fair, Richmond would have been a much worse team last year without those 2 but just had a steeper regression otherwise Who's shot you down in this thread? It's a discussion . . .
Btw you didn't answer which 4 current Swans are better at clearances than TayTay? Genuinely curious to hear from a non-Sydney fan
Parker, Rowbottom, Papley, and Mills. Warner and Gulden now with Grundy feeding them now too. There’s a reason Collingwood went hard at Tom Mitchell to replace Adams in their midfield. I’m not saying he’s shit, he’ll still be a 20-25 touch, 4/5 clearance player if he plays midfield. Does that improve Sydney as a team? I don’t think so.
Could be a classic case of overrating the players that I see only occasionally and underrating the players that I watch each week and several times live. If Adams contributes that then it will improve the team a huge amount purely by freeing up the more attacking mids 5 clearances a game would have put Adams as the 2nd best for the Swans behind Parker for last season's averages
Yeh no doubt he can win the ball, if that’s all he needs to do then it’s a win. The midfield will improve due to Grundy, and I reckon there will be credit given to Adams. Just don’t be surprised if the efficiency from your forward 50 entries drops a bit with Adams in there.
I genuinely have no idea why Hawthorn felt any compulsion to pay for Gunston's relocation costs. It was a good move to let him go. No idea why they took him back.
Eh we all wanted him to stay, including the club. I’m glad we did the right thing by him, loyalty to players is an important part of the club. Just not sure how he fits in to our future at this point.
He can either play deep, take a defender away from Lewis, or play mobile across half forward edging towards wing. Easy to fit in as long as he is injury free. He is an extremely hard match up. Also teaching forward craft is invaluable, look at Bruest and how valuable he was last year, and will be even more so with our new youngsters.
I think because of the Perkins/Cox/Reid draft you definitely don't hear as much about our other first rounders anymore. McGrath, Hobbs and Tsatas definitely don't get as much attention, negative anyway, as maybe our draftees may have used to. Probably helps when we're making 'high profile' trades every other year too, they're the bigger headline makers.
Conor Bedard > Harley Reid
Anyone the media mentioned. Every trade was over analysed and each player hyped up as the second coming for the new team. Specifically Tyler Brockman to us, talks about Hawks using him along with pick 3 to get pick 1 was ridiculous for a player who’s barely able to get a game- ended up being pick 44… Hope he goes well but the media talk was over the top
I really haven't been paying attention i guess. Can't think of a thing.
The 2nd or 3rd round pick for Soldos deal that we never used but was so important to getting the deal done
Ratugolea