Our veteran quandary

[The Black and White Lion]

Perversely we actually need to pick the young guy when there’s a 50-50 call. Too often we picked the experienced guy in 2024 through the first 3 rounds and after the bye

[Brown26]

I think the older guys are ok to keep for three reasons - the first being we don't have a massive draft hand this year. Even if we get two high draft picks for noble and our first rounder for next year (which is unlikely) we can't replace 9 30 + year olds with 2 picks.
We have a chance to rectify that next year, if we keep our first pick, trade in another, maybe score a couple of second rounders here or there, but this year, no.

Secondly, you can't buy experience off the field. This doesn't mean social media posts and going to the Tavern pre game (if it did, I'd be on an AFL list for sure!) but training standards, leadership group, mentors etc. If I were an 18 yo Dane Swan, who would I train with? Ben johnson's not there, maybe Pendlebury, Sidebottom, Crisp? Without those guys, Swanny isn't a brownlow medalist and maybe we don't win with 2010 granny.

Thirdly, these guys might still be good! When I heard Noble wanted out, I was sad for a few seconds, then reality set in and this is not a bad outcome for us. Demaita can come in HBF, we get some currency from Noble, maybe so we can trade into the first round, maybe a player. Pendles or Sidey can play off the HBF, and maybe Ed Allan can come into their spot, or if we get the next Jack Crisp in a trade for Noble, into the midfield.

The veterans aren't just the product of how long they can play for, but also training standards, role players etc. I would think we could play all our veterans in a winning team / season if other factors align.
And also I would say there probably aren't any other better players to pick at this stage. So go one more year and re assess - if we finish 17th with 2 top 20 draft picks and rebuilding, sure, scrap them all. No one can play forever, so even if we go high again some will go, but some might stay given that we wont be able to replace them all with first round picks or good players.
I would love to train with Sidebottom and Crisp and Pendlebury and Elliot - put yourself in Dan Houston's shoes or Harry McKay or Harrison Jones's shoes - sometimes the value of the player is not measure in kicks and handballs.

- Ben

[qldmagpie67]

P4S
Right now I agree if there in best 23 they play if not they don’t
But considering we seem to be chasing bigger body mids where do you envisage we play Pendles or Sidey if we land Peatling and either Hobbs or Davies ?
We hand Mitchell JDG Crisp Nick Allan who are all mids add 2 more and we have a great rotation and some depth

[piffdog]

We couldnt have retired Howe or Cox easily, given they had or had triggered contract extensions. Were never going to pension off Pendles and despite looking a touch slower at times, Sidey is still probably one of our top smartest players. I dont think you flick that out lightly.

Dangerfield and Zorko seem to be going around alright. I think there is probably more merit in more experienced players in what is becoming a tighter and tighter competition. Short of drafting more Nick Daicos's or getting the spoon and/or losing free agents and getting compo, I think experience is actually a significant competitive advantage that others can't copy.

The challenge is how do we ensure we get to September in the top 4, with those older guys primed to maximise on the advantage we have with their experience? This is something Geelong has done (with an equaly very old list) and we obviously didn't do that this year.

[qldmagpie67]

Our issue is for too long we’ve traded our future draft picks (namely 1st round picks) and haven’t gone to the draft and restocked on decent youth
Look at Geelong each year for the past 15 years they’ve managed to play in 22 finals games which is basically one and a half finals per year.
Conversely they’ve managed to also bring in top end free agents (Dangerfield Cameron) as well as protecting there draft hand to keep bringing in some future stars (Holmes Neale Dempsey Bruhn Henry Clark Humpries Mannagh all since 2020)
They’re the standard bearer for good planning and management
Right now we are entering a phase of compromised drafts ahead so we need to restock our shelves now with players who are going to be our next crop of 200+ gamers
Maybe this means some short term pain and some tough decisions

Hyperthetically if we can bring in a player like Peatling and maybe Hobbs do we explore trading JDG (not advocating it just throwing out a option)
As much as I admire him as a match winner he’s becoming injury prone but he still has great currency if we decided to do so.
Maybe it’s players like IQ or Hill we look to move on to bring in draft picks
I just think we need to start the process now and not wait another year based on the fact we will have at least 5 veterans going at the end of 2025 and we need players in now getting ready to be able to fill some voids come 2026
I understand the romance of fairytale endings and record setting but this shouldn’t be the priority of the club moving forward if needs to be about assembling the team to challenge for our next flag

[Pies4shaw]

^ Or, you know, we could keep the handful of good younger players we have, instead of trading them for magic beans.

[qldmagpie67]

^ Or, you know, we could keep the handful of good younger players we have, instead of trading them for magic beans.

I wasn’t advocating trading the names I used I was making the point we need to start our rebuild now and not wait another 12 months

[qldmagpie67]

I’ll wait until the trade period is over but right now we’ve messed up.
Wright was adamant we needed to start our phase of the veterans at the end of 2023 but we bulked. The 2 reasons he walked away from the club was firstly they wanted him to take on a more shared role in list management which he didn’t want to do. It was basically decision by committee which honestly is a dumb idea when you have his level of experience and secondly the clubs reluctance to follow the original plan of phasing out veterans.
He worked hard fixing our cap mess (created by previous football department and Eddie namely the Grundy deal) whilst still assembling a list that won a premiership.
He had a forward thinking plan of a 3/4 year phase out of veterans which was originally agreed upon but for whatever reason now doesn’t exist.
We enter 2025 with the oldest list and the oldest starting 22.
History tells us lists needs refreshing each year to remain competitive but we won’t be adding anyone from the draft who would likely change our chances in 2025 given our draft capital at the moment.
Sooner or later we have a couple big pills to swallow in terms of veteran departures
Come the end of 2025 Cox Howe won’t go on for sure. It’s unlikely Sidey will go on and Mitchell is 1 serious injury from being done. Pendles is likely 50/50 to go on after 2025 as well
So we will likely lose 4 or possibly 6 veterans in one go.
The next 6/8 weeks will tell if we made a mistake by handing over our list management to a inexperienced team led by Leppa instead of trusting the experienced Wright

[RudeBoy]

Sadly, your analysis seems spot on QM67.

I still can't fathom how we managed to piss off and then lose Wright, who was so instrumental in turning our team's fortunes around and landing us a flag. One thing's for sure, Kelly had better get our house in order pronto, or we could very well enter a period of decline and mediocrity.

[piffdog]

Fun look back on the biggest draft/trade busts in history... Fortunately the Pies dont feature too heavily. There are also some live opportunities for us to rise up the "best" draft hands in history (currently we feature at #6 with our 2014 haul).

Note: I dont really agree with the methodology (average games played by the players drafted/traded) - but I think we can all agree that a 300 game journeyman is typically of more value over their career than a better player who manages 80 games...

https://www.draftguru.com.au/draft-seasons/worst

[LaurieHolden]

Our issue is for too long we’ve traded our future draft picks (namely 1st round picks) and haven’t gone to the draft and restocked on decent youth

@qldmagpie67 I'm calling bullshit on that one. You really need to re-visit some facts before another drive-by shooting on this well-worn path.
Visit https://www.draftguru.com.au/clubs/collingwood

How far back do we need to go?

• We ''traded" #14 in 2002 for Shane Woewodin
  We ''traded" #14 in 2007 Cameron Wood
  We ''traded" #14 in 2009 for Jolly

They're well out of the current list build timeline.

• We traded 2015#7 + 2016#R1 for Adam Treloar (show me where you were on record bemoaning that one)
  We traded 2018#18 + 2019#R1 for Dayne Beams (given your post history on Beams, you weren't doing that)

So that's 4 in the last decade.

Then those that can't be part of your subjective 'history'' are as follows ~

• Traded up to #4 to match National Draft pick 2021#4 Nick Daicos
  Traded #2024R1 for Lachie Schultz

"restock on decent youth"

The reality is over past 22 years that delivered 2 flags and 4 runners-up, we haven't had sufficient 1st round picks to even allow this to be debated.
We missed 7 finals campaigns over that period so our ability to organically via the draft has been heavily diluted.
If the discussion then moves into what are nothing more than speculative R2 picks and beyond, well you'd need to go back to that ^table to see how many drafted players actually make 100 games / a career.

[piffdog]

We’ve also made a prelim 10 times in about 20 years.

I’m not so sold on some of Geelong’s picks (Bruhn, Bose??)

Anyway. We’ll see.

[qldmagpie67]

Laurie I think your misunderstanding what I mean
Firstly I wasn’t talking about going back 2 decades I was talking recent past
The Treloar trade whilst I wasn’t critical I did comment I hope he’s worth it. Playing him out of position nearly his entire career here I doubt we saw the best of him looking at his form line the past season or 2
The second Beams trade in hindsight was a mistake. But at the time Beams was coming off 2 seasons (2017/18) of averaging nearly 30 touches and a goal a game. He gained 35 Brownlow votes (had top 10 finishes both years) a 5th place finish in the coaches votes and 2 top 2 finishes in the Lions B&F. He was playing good footy
In his 9 games before injury in 2019 he was still averaging 25 touches
So the justification for trading 2 x 1st round picks given the trade value of other players moving wasnt overs really at the time (remember the Lions also ate a big chunk of his salary for 2019 & 2020 so that’s a factor)
The Nick D trade up was always going to happen. Not only was his the son of a favourite player he was also extremely highly touted.
Pick 14 for Schulz looks overs right now but his career here is still young

Now the point I maybe missed I should have added was we are entering a period of compromised drafts so stocking up now so we aren’t having a bare cupboard come the entry of the Tassie team makes perfect sense.
Time will tell as I said but mark my words if we fall down the table now (due to the veterans falling off a cliff or all retiring at the same time leaving a massive gulf) and there is no bounce and we enter the compromised draft period without young players (in the 30-70 game range) coming through the supporters on these pages will burn the place down
Let’s see what the next 6/8 weeks bring us then revisit where we are

[LaurieHolden]

^@qldmagpie67 all you're doing is projecting well picked over aspects of our list and backing over old ground.
Just because a group of players is about to leave doesn't automatically equal a performance cliff.
Yes we need youth, but we need balance more. At the moment it's tilted to age, two years out it'll look different again.
The 2027 Tassie Draft haul issue is well flagged.
You haven't offered a viable solution. Put that into one concise paragraph.

First thing is to concede we haven't had and don't have multi-year 1st round / top 10 currency to have shaped a list from the ground up. (Carlton, Hawthorn, North, St.Kilda)

If you summarise, you apparently want to trade to get draft capital.
But without bottoming out or trading out players in order to do that we simply haven't had the ability to get top 10 picks and reset the list with 'youth'.

Every year, the Draft is a speculative venture of x18 'informed' list management decisions across the competition. With the extra teams it's been getting harder each decade.

There's been some great names put forward in the Trade thread, but it'll involve letting go our F1 or good quality surplus position player in order to land one. And I suspect the same will happen next year to plug the holes our veterans will leave.

What we've been able to do with the list via trade to keep us in contention has been remarkable. Not perfect, but it'll evolve again, let it breath. But if we're ever to get multiple top10 picks, it'll be a period where we'll have 3 or more years in the doldrums.
We might then be able to end this Premiership drought...

Harrumph!

[Charlie Oneeye]

There is always a need consider the constraints/priorities we had in any draft year when assessing any draft decision. What was the salary cap, the state of the list, and the future projection at the time?

And no doubt we screw up, but I reckon it comes with the territory.. all clubs seem to have the same story.

There is no place in the world where it all goes without mistakes. are we making more mistakes than the average club?

Do we measure our finals appearances as the true measure of drafting performance over a 10 or 20 year period ?