McLean for Gysberts - worth it?

[Nasher 33,068]

What advice was that?

Always sand with the grain?

Don't eat the yellow snow?

[agent_orange 0]

How Gysberts goes is irrelevant to this debate. The pick 11 has around a 50% chance of becoming an good player and a small chance of becoming elite and a significant chance of not making it. The footy department said that those sort of odds is good enough for a Mclean trade. Judging their decision depends on how McLean performs and nothing else.

(As an aside this rubbish about McLean wanting to leave so let him go is rubbish. We had first pick in the PSD if we wanted to keep brock we would have. If we thought he was better than pick 11 then we should have kept him)

To my mind the trade is a failure if McLean get one top 5 Best and Fairest finish in 2013 - 2015. You could argue that the trade is a failure if McLean is playing regular footy in 2014 but if he gets a top 5 finish when we are challenging for a flag then we made a mistake. IF we transported a top 5 player into either stkilda or WB then Geelong would not have won the Grand Final. So if Mclean is top 5 in those years then we stuffed up.

For the record I am with Freak. I reckon Carlton got a great deal and McLean will be top ten at Carlton for the next five years which is way better than what you can realistically expect from a pick 11. The fev debacle mucked Carlton up so they may not benefit with a premiership from the trade but if Fev was there then he might have got them over the line in a GF.

Anyway McLeans performance will tell us whether the trade works. The next two years is irrelevant it is how his body holds up and allows him to contribute post 2013 that is the measuring stick that the trade needs to be measured on.

Mclean will by crying when we are holding the preimership up for our fifth consecutive time.

[Tatu 416]

Mcleans of field antics, may have lessned his value to the club.

Brock is a great player, and will do well at the Blues.

But he is a real nob! and a bad influnce on the young group.

MFC have done well, to get pick 11....

[DirtyDees DDC 171]

Gysberts could be the wild card of the draft. I think they picked him to play a number of different roles at the club. He could be an 'inside' footballer who sneaks forward and scores goals. He could also be a run-with player who hurts clubs on the rebound with his disposal. He may be a more flexible long term prospect than McLean.

He looks too thin to play AFL at the moment, but if scully and trengove can hold down senior positions then the club may push Gysberts up for selection at some stage this year. The club wants to develop a core of young players who team together for 50-60 games over 3-4 years.

Tim Harrington said they looked at the amount of games teams played to be successful such as the Cats. Geelong had a stack of great recruits between 1999 and 2001 (Ablett, Scarlett, Chapman, Johnson, Corey etc. )

They finished 9th in 2002, coming from 12th with 9 wins in 2001 and 6th with 12 wins in 2000.

The following years they finished 9th with 12 wins in 2002;

12th with 7 wins in 2003,

4th with 15 wins in 2004 and

6th with 12 wins in 2005.

They took 3 years from the 2001 draft to put together a side good enough to finish in the top 4. It took them 6 years to win a premiership. They even made the finals in 2000, indicating they had a fairly good core of players when the Abletts and Scarletts arrived. We are coming off 3 years at the bottom of the ladder so it may take us a little longer to achieve the same results.

[Eastie Boyz 0]

Geelong never bottomed out though, so theoretically their influx of players won't be of as high quality as yours.

They did draft bloody well though . . .

[45HG 1,539]

Father-son selections didn't hurt them either

[Don24 103]

To be honest, I think history proved the Woewodin trade to be a bad one for the MFC. It's easy to forget but the club suffered horribly after that trade - both on and off field. 2003 was a bloody debacle, particularly given we were minutes away from a preliminary final in 2002 (but for injuries and loads of bad luck). I therefore had high hopes for 2003 - but the club then shot itself by trading Woewodin (which caused all sorts of issues with many players and supporters) and then letting Powell go for nothing. And we were actually in our window at this point in time.

As a result, we had a leadership vacuum for years. Bell hasn't really dominated. Woey enjoyed one excellent season for the Pies, one reasonable one, and was shizen one. Most fundamentally though, the club took a big hit in an intangible, though hugely important, way. And it didn't present a tougher image as a result, just an incompetent one.

Hence, I can't agree with this call.

This is a ridiculous post. Get your facts straight. This is a trade that was 100% vindicated. Firstly woewodin had one decent season with collingwood and then hardly played again, so clearly he was almost finished as a footballer. The primary reason for trading him though was to clear cap space and i have talked to officials who made the trade about this in the past. We were struggling to fit everyone in the cap and they believed that Woewodin and Powell were never going to be starting midfielders in a premiership team. Powell was too slow and getting on, he was let go because we could only afford to offer James McDonald or Powell a decent contract and both were out of contract. They rated McDonald higher which surprised me at the time but has obviously since been vindicated. So clearing Powell and Woey were crucial in keeping McDonald at the club and both players never had a significant impact after leaving us.

If only the rest of our trading and drafting was as successful.

[Ron Burgundy 8,584]

I'll give you some facts. I spoke to Neale Daniher about Powell following our woeful fourth quarter capitulation to the Swans at the SCG in 2003 (I think it was round 5).

Daniher said to me that Powell was busted and that his OP would likely re-emerge and that is why the MFC let him go to the Saints in the PSD on a three year deal. Daniher said Powell wouldn't get through his 3 year deal and that the Saints would regret the deal. I think the facts ultimately proved otherwise. I'm pretty sure Powell finished third in the Saints B&F in 2003 and was a bloody good "free" pick up for the club. We missed him greatly during that period.

As to Junior, the club wished to resign Yze (as Carlton were desperate to sign him) along with a couple of other players (including possibly TJ whom I think the Pies were after). Junior was well down on the MFC's list of priorities, and the club concentrated on re-signing the other key players before working out Junior's contract. I actually think the club even told Junior this. Junior's contract also had nothing to do with Powell's. To suggest that it now did is complete revisionism.

And yes, Woewodin's contact was about pay. Everyone knows that, but thanks for the heads up on it. This negotiation also had nothing to do with whether he'd still be on our list in 2010. Clearly. But thanks for the heads up on that too. The damage was in him not being on our in the period 2003-05. The upside in that was said to be Daniel Bell. In my opinion, I don't think we got the deal the club said it had brokered at the time.

[Sir Why You Little 34,581]

Woewodin sadly was physically not strong enough to play top line footy in september.

He gave his all no doubt and i loved his ticker, but his contract was too much for what he was worth.

Sadly Woey went missing a lot in september,the right call was made. on the other hand......

Stephen Powell was someone who i think we should have retained. Sure he was slow, but he was tough & could stand his ground.

[Footynut 302]

Woewodin sadly was physically not strong enough to play top line footy in september.

He gave his all no doubt and i loved his ticker, but his contract was too much for what he was worth.

Sadly Woey went missing a lot in september,the right call was made. on the other hand......

Stephen Powell was someone who i think we should have retained. Sure he was slow, but he was tough & could stand his ground.

Based on this I always believed we should have traded big for Yze at the time. He still had some to give but we could have landed something better. I used to hate Yze's manager everytime it was up for recontract he would threaten to leave for more dough and then the year after a contract extension he would drop back off. Remember those headlines about Yze wanting out.

Melbournes list management at the time was extremely poor given we really overpaid for players like Woey, Yze, TJ when they never really delivered at the top level. How we ever got to the situation of giving away Powell and paying someone to take Woey off us was really poor.

But hey its all easy in hindsight...hope we get it right this time!!

[DirtyDees DDC 171]

Geelong never bottomed out though, so theoretically their influx of players won't be of as high quality as yours.

They did draft bloody well though . . .

They also drafted a lot of players. 8 in the national draft of 2001, and 7 in 1999. Not all of them worked out, such as Spriggs at 15, Bray at 17, plus Foster and Gardner at 23.

They were very lucky with injuries too. 16 players featured in each of the last 3 grand finals.

Edited January 4, 2010 by DirtyDees DDC

[Eastie Boyz 0]

Yes. Drafting is very much a numbers game.

Spriggs was flying until he did his knee.

They key with their drafting was that they all came in at roughly the same time, then they introduced a couple of guys like Ottens and Mooney to fill a couple of 'needs' in their line up

[RalphiusMaximus 5,993]

FCS people a bloke's height is one of a myriad of factors that determine his overall worth. I continue to be completely staggered at how much people crap on over 1 centimetre here and there, when was the last time you looked at a ruler, if you reckon 1 centimetre is important you have rocks in your heads. Now look at 10 cm, that's about the difference between Jones and Gysberts big bloody whoop how much advantage is that really in 120 minutes of football, it might mean there is one or two marking contests for the entire day where Gysberts has a slight advantage and that's it

I'd like to address this from my admittedly limited experience of the game. I am not a good footballer. It's not my sport. I have at best mediocre skills and I'm too slow off the mark. I do however have very fast hands and I know how to use my size. I am 184cm, which put me slightly taller than the majority of opponents I faced. When playing in high school I found that my size was a huge asset. I could play on guys who were faster, more skilled and all round better players and hold my own because I had reach and weight on my side. The better players would still leave me for dead, but I found that a few extra cm was a surprisingly effective equaliser for me.

This is not just something that has an impact at schoolboy level. At the start of the decade we saw the effect of Leigh Matthews' "Bigger Bodies" policy. He wanted his midfielders to be bigger than everyone else so that they could brutalise them in close. His star midfield was able to monster opponents, could break tackles and get the ball out while being tackled because they were bigger and stronger. Extra height equates to extra weight, making you harder to tackle and harder to move off the ball. You hit with more force so your tackles and bumps are more damaging. Three premierships in a row is hard to argue with.

Getting back to Gysberts, I think the overriding factor in his selection was not that he was markedly better than other options at that pick but that he has played with Scully regularly and they already have a good understanding of each others' game. Likewise I think that the club was thrilled with Tapscott falling to 18, not just because of his game, but because of his ties to Trengove. The team-building aspects are simply another aspect of their value to the club. We've been repeatedly told that they want these kids to bond and grow together so that they gel as a cohesive unit. How good is it that the bonding is already well under way before they get to the club?

[Eastie Boyz 0]

I think the Dees picking Gysberts because he's played with Scully is drawing a VERY long bow.

Why not just pick all Dandenong Stingray players?

[Don24 103]

I'll give you some facts. I spoke to Neale Daniher about Powell following our woeful fourth quarter capitulation to the Swans at the SCG in 2003 (I think it was round 5).

Daniher said to me that Powell was busted and that his OP would likely re-emerge and that is why the MFC let him go to the Saints in the PSD on a three year deal. Daniher said Powell wouldn't get through his 3 year deal and that the Saints would regret the deal. I think the facts ultimately proved otherwise. I'm pretty sure Powell finished third in the Saints B&F in 2003 and was a bloody good "free" pick up for the club. We missed him greatly during that period.

As to Junior, the club wished to resign Yze (as Carlton were desperate to sign him) along with a couple of other players (including possibly TJ whom I think the Pies were after). Junior was well down on the MFC's list of priorities, and the club concentrated on re-signing the other key players before working out Junior's contract. I actually think the club even told Junior this. Junior's contract also had nothing to do with Powell's. To suggest that it now did is complete revisionism.

And yes, Woewodin's contact was about pay. Everyone knows that, but thanks for the heads up on it. This negotiation also had nothing to do with whether he'd still be on our list in 2010. Clearly. But thanks for the heads up on that too. The damage was in him not being on our in the period 2003-05. The upside in that was said to be Daniel Bell. In my opinion, I don't think we got the deal the club said it had brokered at the time.

I assume not all of this is directed at me because i never gave heads up about pay or whether hed be on our list, i was just explaining the situation to you. I dont claim to be a know it all, just in this situation as ive had a lot to do with those responsible for the trade.

Il say it again, demons could not sign Junior and Powell, Junior was rated higher which is a fact. Powell was rated poorly because he was too slow to be a premiership midfielder (yes, mainly because of the effect of his OP) This was proven correct. You were incorrect in saying Powell saw out his contract. He stayed on the list for the length of his contract, and my brother who worked at saints and is friends with Powell (again: not trying to sound like a know it all but just close to this situation) said to me after Powells second season with them, we often talked about him as i loved him at the dees, anyway it was common knowledge around St Kilda that his body was shot and he was just on the list because of his contract. Not sure how many games he played in his final year, but he was always joked about as the guy running on the spot or the guy who runs backwards that how wrecked he was. So once again a correct decision made because you can not say Powell was more valuable after leaving the dees than J Mac was. And that was the choice the dees had to sign, could only afford one of them. That is fact.

By the way, we did not miss Powell, he was slow and useless 14 months after we traded him so what did we miss?

With woewodin, we shedded money off the Cap, traded a fading star past his prime with only1-2 decent years of footy left for a first round pick and some cap relief. Just because the draft pick didnt come off doesnt mean it wasnt still a good trade. You can blame the recruiting manager for the draft selection, but we didnt trade Woey for Bell, we traded him for cap space and a chance to pick a talented youngster.

Get your facts straight buddy.

[Ron Burgundy 8,584]

I don't accept all you say as 'fact' simply because you either say so or because you know someone's brother's cousin. We missed Powell in that period. Let's call that a matter of opinion.

But I'll give one fact, Don24 - you're not my buddy.

[Keyser Söze 0]

I don't accept all you say as 'fact' simply because you either say so or because you know someone's brother's cousin. We missed Powell in that period. Let's call that a matter of opinion.

But I'll give one fact, Don24 - you're not my buddy.

I think we missed the player that Powell had been, but not the one he was to be, following his departure (not for 3 years at least)

Edited January 5, 2010 by Keyser Söze

[Don24 103]

I think we missed the player that Powell had been, but not the one he was to be following his departure (not for 3 years at least)

VERY well said!

And Ron Burgandy haha you such a loser, you honestly think i want or need you as my buddy? or is that just you way of sticking out your chest and standing your ground? I guess its easier to just make a stupid too cool comment like that rather than admit you were wrong....

A pleasure talking to you as always my dear friend.

[rpfc 27,500]

If its any consolation, you all look like hobos fighting over a wheel of imaginary cheese...

Can't spell. Edited.

Edited January 5, 2010 by rpfc

[Ron Burgundy 8,584]

No Don. Just keeping it to the facts.

[Ron Burgundy 8,584]

VERY well said!

And Ron Burgandy haha you such a loser, you honestly think i want or need you as my buddy? or is that just you way of sticking out your chest and standing your ground? I guess its easier to just make a stupid too cool comment like that rather than admit you were wrong....

A pleasure talking to you as always my dear friend.

These decisions need to be seen in the context of the time. Quite obviously, all players get too old to play at an elite level at same point. If this wasn't the case, Robbie Flower would still be on the list. It also doesn't mean you shed experienced players towards the end of their careers if you need them for a couple more years.

Hence, in trying to keep it to the facts, I reiterate the following:

1. We were a kick away from a preliminary final in 2002 - and, but for injuries and bad luck, we would've been in at least the preliminary final that year. Fact.

2. In 2002, we beat the Lions at the Gabba and West Coast at Subiaco that same year. We had a bloody good team and many pundits predicted a top 4 finish in 2003. This team could run. Fact.

3. Most of our experienced players were at their peak. Fact. They were also a tight knit group.

4. We then traded Woewodin to Collingwood on salary terms not exactly favourable to us. We also did it in a way that it p1ssed off the player group and many supporters. And we needed support. Fact.

5. List management is something the club controls. We were not good at it. Fact.

6. 2003 was a complete debacle. Fact.

7. Despite our performances in 2002 (and 2000), in the middle of the horror year that was 2003 the club suddenly stated that we were "rebuilding". The benefits of that "rebuilding" year never eventuated. We continued to rely on the same group of experienced players, and even lost the one really promising midfielder we had - Scott Thompson. Fact.

8. Meanwhile, Woewodin had a very good year in 2003. Collingwood nearly won the flag. We finished 14th, having won only 5 games. Woewodin then finished second in the Pies' B&F in 2004. Facts.

9. Powell also had a good couple of years, including finishing third in St Kilda's B&F in 2003. The Saints had a talented young list and finished 11th that year - their highest finish since 1998.

10. We got pick 14 in exchange for Woewodin. According to some reports, we also agreed to pay $320,000 of his salary in the first year. Whatever the amount, the fact is we paid a lot.

11. We picked up Daniel Bell with pick 14. Fact. It is my opinion that Bell hasn't lived up to the initial expectations. Relatively uncontroversial opinion.

12. Furthermore, Woewodin, despite some of his failings, was a fitness freak and a great clubman. He was a top influence on the youth coming through. We lost this. Instantly.

13. We got nothing for Powell. Nothing at all.

14. Our midfield, which accounted for some awesome wins in 2002, suddenly looked young, weak and inexperienced. It did nothing in 2003. Fundamentally, it lacked heart. Fact.

15. 2003 was a complete write off. It didn't need to be. Looking back, I fail to see the benefits of these decisions.

Conclusion

In light of the above facts, I cannot see how these decisions benefitted the club. To the contrary, I think they really harmed us at a crucial time.

But then again, I can't understand why they refuse to teach evolutionary science in schools in Kansas.

My conclusion is that many people are incapable of dispassionate, clear and logical thought. So I just shrug my shoulders.

But at least I've done my best here. I've tried to keep it to the facts.

Don, surprise me with yet another of your adolescent "hahaha lol" responses.

[Axis of Bob 10,250]

I only read a couple of those "Facts"before I got frustrated. I personally don't care about this petty debate one way or another and won't bother arguing the merits of either side.

But one thing that does annoy me is people calling their opinions 'fact'. It does show me why so many people form such stupid opinions - because they don't know what a fact is!!

Edited January 5, 2010 by Axis of Bob

[Carn dees 108]

........should be a fine young player that gysberts. lol

Edited January 5, 2010 by Carn dees

[H_T 2,941]

"consolation"....continue

[drdrake 3,038]

I cant wait for the season to start so threads like this disappear. Just on the Powell/Woey situation IMO our players and coaching staff got ahead of themselves after 2000, good AFL players started wanting more, our players played well with each other but the end of the day poor TPP management put the club in a position to get rid of these two.

On the thread topic, who knows, I all know is Mclean has been running on the spot for the past 3 years, will he show more at Carlton yes he wil because he will be the in a very good midfield unit, but I thought that about Trav when he went to Brisbane and he is still running on the spot.

Gysberts is a player with talent and potential, like Grimes we can not put the Mclean would have been better tag on this guy until he is 5 years into his AFL future and then it counts for nothing anyway.