Some parallels with Aaron Vandenberg. Got is chance on an AFL list relatively late. Dynamic on his day but plagued with unlucky injuries. Depending on who we get in the door this trade period he'll either see out the remaining 12 months of his contract or be paid out early, probably to retire from this level of the game.

10 hours ago, VoiceOfReason said:

Poor trade, low value, bad trainer. Hopefully not still on our list.

What are your reasons for saying this?

Genuine question

8 hours ago, Left Foot Snap said:

Shane will be up against it. Achilles injuries are hard to come back from, especially for a player of his type. For that reason I don't hold a great deal of confidence in him going forward.

Thankyou.. summed up succinctly.

The reality is that our FA recruiting since the flag has been putrid, for one reason or the other.

Unless McAdam can play 20 games next season and becomes an x-factor to get us into contention, it will feel just like many of the previous trades we did over the last 4 years.

A side note on the McAdam trade, if I recall correctly it was for a future (2024) second round draft pick, and it would already have been known that draft was going to be wildly compromised (first pick for round 2 was pick 29!) and wasn't looking very strong either.

In itself I think it was another very low cost trade for a player we had reasonabke hopes for as we tried to find that 'bottom 6 but AFL grade' depth we needed, and the attacking diversity we desperately needed.

But when it sits side by side with the Nibbler trade you just have to feel screwed. The only way that works in our favour would be if Nibbler's contract was -massively- back ended, and enabled us to front-end a couple of other contracts which now might make it possible to get a good trade value for them.

Regardless, it's not McAdam's fault and there's only upside to him having a great 2026 and pressing on to only retire after our 2028 premiership.

I would like to see him given the chance he didn't get last year sounds like he has put in the effort.

3 hours ago, Ghostwriter said:

What are your reasons for saying this?

Genuine question

This was a well known trait of his from the Crows.

He wasn't one of the better trainers going around.

He has the talent to play the game, Im not doubting that at all. I've seen him at full flight.

He might have turned a corner at Melb in terms of training standards and encountered bad luck whilst on our list.

Unfortunately i don’t think he has the body for the rigours of AFL Football.

Happy to be proven wrong but we got hood winked in this particular trade.

Edited September 22, 2025Sep 22 by YesitwasaWin4theAges

1 hour ago, Little Goffy said:

A side note on the McAdam trade, if I recall correctly it was for a future (2024) second round draft pick, and it would already have been known that draft was going to be wildly compromised (first pick for round 2 was pick 29!) and wasn't looking very strong either.

In itself I think it was another very low cost trade for a player we had reasonabke hopes for as we tried to find that 'bottom 6 but AFL grade' depth we needed, and the attacking diversity we desperately needed.

They were enough warning signs with our finish to 23 - straight sets for the second year, Clarry off the rails, key forwards a mess that our future second rounder should’ve been valued as a middle of the ladder or possibly worse pick.

Regardless of draft quality or how butchered it is by academies that’s not a pick you should give for McAdam. Thats a pick that’s part of building the cake of a team for a player who was only ever going to be the cream!

We even gave up actual picks (even if 3rd rounders) for Hunter, Billings and Fullarton and two picks for Sharp! Why?

Tim Lamb seems desperate to be the most liked list manager. He’ll be on the way to the most liked unemployed list manager.

Heath and Derksen. 4th round picks at best.

Time for Tim to step aside and let some fresh perspective in

1 hour ago, YesitwasaWin4theAges said:

This was a well known trait of his from the Crows.

He wasn't one of the better trainers going around.

He has the talent to play the game, Im not doubting that at all. I've seen him at full flight.

He might have turned a corner at Melb in terms of training standards and encountered bad luck whilst on our list.

Unfortunately i don’t think he has the body for the rigours of AFL Football.

Happy to be proven wrong but we got hood winked in this particular trade.

You didn’t mention Adelaide. You said… “Bad trainer” I assumed you meant “is a bad trainer” and not “was a bad trainer”

17 minutes ago, Ghostwriter said:

You didn’t mention Adelaide. You said… “Bad trainer” I assumed you meant “is a bad trainer” and not “was a bad trainer”

He certainly wasn't training poorly before he was injured but the club has asked that he improves his conditioning prior to returning this time around.

Edited September 22, 2025Sep 22 by Dannyz

1 hour ago, DeeSpencer said:

Thats a pick that’s part of building the cake of a team for a player who was only ever going to be the cream!

A very good point colourfully made.

5 hours ago, DeeSpencer said:

We even gave up actual picks (even if 3rd rounders) for Hunter, Billings and Fullarton and two picks for Sharp! Why?

Tim Lamb seems desperate to be the most liked list manager. He’ll be on the way to the most liked unemployed list manager.

Heath and Derksen. 4th round picks at best.

i think this needs to be put into some sort of perspective. which is we knew how many list spots we had available and we had surplus of picks to spots, therefore we were willing to trade 2 picks (for lions academy points) for one player as we would have passed on the latter pick anyway. likewise why we trade multiple picks for one higher up the order pick, and i like us moving future picks forward as you can always move the ones the next year forward etc etc endlessly forever now

5 hours ago, DeeSpencer said:

They were enough warning signs with our finish to 23 - straight sets for the second year, Clarry off the rails, key forwards a mess that our future second rounder should’ve been valued as a middle of the ladder or possibly worse pick.

I think this is rewriting history a bit, or actually a lot. At the end of 2023, to my recollection Clary was not off the rails at all. We had had bad luck with injuries to key forwards but there were real promising signs with Petty and JVR. so, I disagree with your reasoning.

PS I don't know how the underlining got in this post, but I don't know how to remove it.

6 hours ago, Demon Disciple said:

Time for Tim to step aside and let some fresh perspective in

Why do people have such trouble understanding that the List Manager's primary job is contracts, salaries and navigating the salary cap and list long-term.

Lamb does NOT recruit players. That's primarily Taylor's job, in collaboration with the List Management Committee. Lamb is heavily involved in recruiting once players have been identified (Taylor and co.) as it's his responsibility to do the deals, set up the contracts etc.

Some people need to have somebody to blame for everything and it's convenient to make Tim the sacrificial Lamb.

1 hour ago, Turner said:

i think this needs to be put into some sort of perspective. which is we knew how many list spots we had available and we had surplus of picks to spots, therefore we were willing to trade 2 picks (for lions academy points) for one player as we would have passed on the latter pick anyway. likewise why we trade multiple picks for one higher up the order pick, and i like us moving future picks forward as you can always move the ones the next year forward etc etc endlessly forever now

We haven’t had a strong enough list to have a surplus of picks, it’s easy to say you don’t have list spots if you junk up the list. Of our delistings only Sestan and perhaps Verrall should’ve been on the list to begin with.

1 hour ago, Ollie fan said:

I think this is rewriting history a bit, or actually a lot. At the end of 2023, to my recollection Clary was not off the rails at all. We had had bad luck with injuries to key forwards but there were real promising signs with Petty and JVR. so, I disagree with your reasoning.

Claz was way off the rails.

Key forwards I guess there was hope but nothing like a prime Ben Brown.

I guess you could say there was promise of another top 8 finish but we weren’t tipped to win the flag after the 23 finals.

9 minutes ago, DeeSpencer said:

We haven’t had a strong enough list to have a surplus of picks, it’s easy to say you don’t have list spots if you junk up the list. Of our delistings only Sestan and perhaps Verrall should’ve been on the list to begin with.

i agree with you there, but im saying we had a full list meaning we had excess picks, not necessary that our list was filled with better players meaning we made the right decision to throw away picks, at the very least we should have been pumping them back into the next season and then redeciding then

13 hours ago, Rab D Nesbitt said:

Some parallels with Aaron Vandenberg. Got is chance on an AFL list relatively late. Dynamic on his day but plagued with unlucky injuries. Depending on who we get in the door this trade period he'll either see out the remaining 12 months of his contract or be paid out early, probably to retire from this level of the game.

I mean this respectfully but Vanders did play a lot of games and did compete and did some great things, McAdams hasnt had a chance to show what he can do but in the games he did play he didnt seem a big kick, didnt seem fast and seemed too slight. Id like to be proven wrong and was hoping for x factor.

14 hours ago, Rab D Nesbitt said:

Some parallels with Aaron Vandenberg. Got is chance on an AFL list relatively late. Dynamic on his day but plagued with unlucky injuries. Depending on who we get in the door this trade period he'll either see out the remaining 12 months of his contract or be paid out early, probably to retire from this level of the game.

Just to address the last part of your post:

As I understand it, McAdam remains on our books unless he is traded. Yes he can retire but he doesn't create a list spot nor would he get anything like his full payment.

Happy to be corrected.

I feel that Melbourne sometimes recruits like the movie “Moneyball”.

We seem to feel the need to recruit and then end up with a broken bodied player like Mcadam who has been one of our worst trades I can remember.

Fingers crossed he gets his body right and has a go this year. Either way I am positive he gets delisted owing to age and injury.

Hope our decisions are better this coming trade season.

The 2023 trade period is not aging well for us. For the moves we made and the moves we didn't make.

17 minutes ago, layzie said:

The 2023 trade period is not aging well for us. For the moves we made and the moves we didn't make.

💯 being a smaller club you have to get everything near perfect 90-95% of the time.

Time to start getting things right with SK,PG and SS at the helm.

Edited September 23, 2025Sep 23 by YesitwasaWin4theAges

On 22/09/2025 at 13:50, Dannyz said:

He certainly wasn't training poorly before he was injured but the club has asked that he improves his conditioning prior to returning this time around.

Out of an abundance of curiousity (to overcome my own ignorance), is conditioning something that the club helps the player build? Or does a player seek out their own advisers to do so, while recovering?