So we've the Guru of recruiters in Jason Taylor and I see him as the person to kick-start things again

We might lose a player or 2 in this off-season and contending for a flag next year or even 2026 might be a bit of a stretch but 2027?  Finals in 2026 is an absolute probability if we recruit well 

We've still got a core group* of players who have a lot of experience and talent and a number of our younger players such as Rivers, McVee, Windsor, JVR and maybe Turner & Tholstrup have really come on

So let JT work his magic at the draft as we might be able to manoeuvre ourselves into have a raft of picks to replenish the list.  On the pick #5 thread I made a case that we could end up with 6 picks inside the top 30

(That's with the picks we might get back for Petracca if he goes)

And that's without factoring in what we might get back for Kozzie if he departs (I don't believe he will leave though)

As for the state of the club, we've probably got a few issues that need to get sorted out but it's not all doom & gloom.  The current pile on has a lot of hearsay attached

From a FD point of view and from an actual talent point of view, we can easily march forward

*Our core group consists of Gawn,  Viney,  May,  Lever,  Rivers,  Petty,  Fritsch,  Kozzie,  JVR,  Salem,  Langdon,  McVee,  Oliver,  T-Mac,  Bowey,  Melksham & Chandler

Add in our up and comers and a raft of talent from the upcoming draft, and we're up and running again

I'm confident that we will bounce back 

except when you don't

1 minute ago, chook fowler said:

except when you don't

You give up too easily

13 minutes ago, Macca said:

So we've the Guru of recruiters in Jason Taylor and I see him as the person to kick-start things again

We might lose a player or 2 in this off-season and contending for a flag next year or even 2026 might be a bit of a stretch but 2027?  Finals in 2026 is an absolute probability if we recruit well 

We've still got a core group* of players who have a lot of experience and talent and a number of our younger players such as Rivers, McVee, Windsor, JVR and maybe Turner & Tholstrup have really come on

So let JT work his magic at the draft as we might be able to manoeuvre ourselves into have a raft of picks to replenish the list.  On the pick #5 thread I made a case that we could end up with 6 picks inside the top 30

(That's with the picks we might get back for Petracca if he goes)

And that's without factoring in what we might get back for Kozzie if he departs (I don't believe he will leave though)

As for the state of the club, we've probably got a few issues that need to get sorted out but it's not all doom & gloom.  The current pile on has a lot of hearsay attached

From a FD point of view and from an actual talent point of view, we can easily march forward

*Our core group consists of Gawn,  Viney,  May,  Lever,  Rivers,  Petty,  Fritsch,  Kozzie,  JVR,  Salem,  Langdon,  McVee,  Oliver,  T-Mac,  Bowey,  Melksham & Chandler

Add in our up and comers and a raft of talent from the upcoming draft, and we're up and running again

I'm confident that we will bounce back 

Good to see not everyone wants to burn the joint down! Post of the week. 

It's always amazing how winning just sees all the negative news disappear. 

You make some good points Macca about our core group and young players coming through.

Right now however I'm so torn between going all out for another flag/s for 25/26/27 or do we just go all in for a big rebuild and start fresh for 2027 onwards.  We know that we have some wonderful players in Max/May/Viney/Trac (hopefully) who can really own and dominate September action.  So why would we bother wasting there remaining years on a rebuild?

I've been one of the few that was in for the Dan Houston trade (admittedly never for the price of two first rounders) thinking that bringing in another gun player, plus a fit and firing Clarry along with Trac staying and getting fit, would see us straight back to pushing for a top 4 finish.

I get where you're coming from saying it's not doom and gloom if players mentioned in other threads do leave however.  We'll be able to inject new talent into the squad.  The old saying around 'a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush' always rings in my mind when trading players for picks however. 

The only thoughts I have around hitting the draft again is we never know how they will come on against players potentially leaving who we know are exceptional quality.  I'm happy for us to hit the draft with our high end first rounder/s (say under pick 12's) but use the remaining for trading in some existing talent.

 

2 minutes ago, Deeko2 said:

It's always amazing how winning just sees all the negative news disappear. 

You make some good points Macca about our core group and young players coming through.

Right now however I'm so torn between going all out for another flag/s for 25/26/27 or do we just go all in for a big rebuild and start fresh for 2027 onwards.  We know that we have some wonderful players in Max/May/Viney/Trac (hopefully) who can really own and dominate September action.  So why would we bother wasting there remaining years on a rebuild?

I've been one of the few that was in for the Dan Houston trade (admittedly never for the price of two first rounders) thinking that bringing in another gun player, plus a fit and firing Clarry along with Trac staying and getting fit, would see us straight back to pushing for a top 4 finish.

I get where you're coming from saying it's not doom and gloom if players mentioned in other threads do leave however.  We'll be able to inject new talent into the squad.  The old saying around 'a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush' always rings in my mind when trading players for picks however. 

The only thoughts I have around hitting the draft again is we never know how they will come on against players potentially leaving who we know are exceptional quality.  I'm happy for us to hit the draft with our high end first rounder/s (say under pick 12's) but use the remaining for trading in some existing talent.

 

The crux of my argument is Jason Taylor

Apart from Weideman he does not draft busts.  He has got the Midas touch 

He's the best in the business ... 12 years and one bust.  That is exceptional

So I say rebuild through the draft and back this bloke in.  All the way

And I'm a draft cynic with a belief system that drafting is somewhat flawed 

But not for Taylor.  He puts my argument to bed

On the pick #5 thread I make a case that we can have 6 picks in the top 30.  It's entirely possible

So 6 talented youngsters with maybe only 1 bust?  That's a great percentage play

There's a lot to suggest that trading quality players actually works out better for the club trading the players.

Freo now have one of the strongest lists in the comp and one that will contest for the next 6+ years.
Despite losing a dual brownlow medalist (neale), THREE of the best wingers in the comp (brad hill, langdon & acres), cerra, lobb (their leading goal scorer at the time), schultz (their best small fwd at the time) & henry.

Jason Taylor is in a league of his own and if we do get picks a bunch of picks for players, it's not going to be the end of the world. Go dees

 

Edited August 29, 2024Aug 29 by Deez Man

27 minutes ago, Macca said:

So we've the Guru of recruiters in Jason Taylor and I see him as the person to kick-start things again

We might lose a player or 2 in this off-season and contending for a flag next year or even 2026 might be a bit of a stretch but 2027?  Finals in 2026 is an absolute probability if we recruit well 

We've still got a core group* of players who have a lot of experience and talent and a number of our younger players such as Rivers, McVee, Windsor, JVR and maybe Turner & Tholstrup have really come on

So let JT work his magic at the draft as we might be able to manoeuvre ourselves into have a raft of picks to replenish the list.  On the pick #5 thread I made a case that we could end up with 6 picks inside the top 30

(That's with the picks we might get back for Petracca if he goes)

And that's without factoring in what we might get back for Kozzie if he departs (I don't believe he will leave though)

As for the state of the club, we've probably got a few issues that need to get sorted out but it's not all doom & gloom.  The current pile on has a lot of hearsay attached

From a FD point of view and from an actual talent point of view, we can easily march forward

*Our core group consists of Gawn,  Viney,  May,  Lever,  Rivers,  Petty,  Fritsch,  Kozzie,  JVR,  Salem,  Langdon,  McVee,  Oliver,  T-Mac,  Bowey,  Melksham & Chandler

Add in our up and comers and a raft of talent from the upcoming draft, and we're up and running again

I'm confident that we will bounce back 

I’m with you but I’m not sure the team, recruitment team or footy department is. 
Richardsons comments about needing to get older not younger at a bit of an alarm bell for me. 
Our aging stars are not going to want to put the cue in the rack while they finish their careers. Will goody survive long enough to see even a mini rebuild through?

Will our recruitment team put their hands up and say they have made too many mistakes over the past 3 years and start a rebuild?
 

If Trac stays do you think he will be happy to hear we are going to the draft to build for the future not the now?

Like I said I’m with you in that it’s time to go to the draft hard. I think JT is the one good edge we have over other teams. 
I wouldn’t trade out our F1st though. It could be a very good pick. 
 

As an example if we could get Essendon's pick 8, 28 and F1st for Trac and 38$42-

I’d take use 5, 8 and 25 at the draft( perhaps spitting 8) use the others for some mature players.
Then next year we would have 2 first rounders and our two future first to go all out and try to bring in a couple of guns like Butters, MacAndrew and Callaghan. 

4 minutes ago, Colm said:

I’m with you but I’m not sure the team, recruitment team or footy department is. 
Richardsons comments about needing to get older not younger at a bit of an alarm bell for me. 
Our aging stars are not going to want to put the cue in the rack while they finish their careers. Will goody survive long enough to see even a mini rebuild through?

Will our recruitment team put their hands up and say they have made too many mistakes over the past 3 years and start a rebuild?
 

If Trac stays do you think he will be happy to hear we are going to the draft to build for the future not the now?

Like I said I’m with you in that it’s time to go to the draft hard. I think JT is the one good edge we have over other teams. 
I wouldn’t trade out our F1st though. It could be a very good pick. 
 

As an example if we could get Essendon's pick 8, 28 and F1st for Trac and 38$42-

I’d take use 5, 8 and 25 at the draft( perhaps spitting 8) use the others for some mature players.
Then next year we would have 2 first rounders and our two future first to go all out and try to bring in a couple of guns like Butters, MacAndrew and Callaghan. 

Excellent post

Losing quality midfielders means we have to rebuild the midfield

Anc the cheapest way is to go to the draft

I read the topic headline and immediately thought of this

 

 

 

13 hours ago, Fromgotowoewodin said:

Good to see not everyone wants to burn the joint down! Post of the week. 

Good stuff.

Note: More time spent in threads like this, less time spent in threads where people howl into the wind about what the president said. 

Sell high

Completely agree @Macca. We have a raft of senior and emerging players that can carry us forward.

With pick 5, we can get a very good player for our midfield. If we can leverage our future 1st into another first rounder this year, there's a chance we get two top 20 picks, so two young mids to add to the emerging core.

If Trac and Koz go we'll be able to have multiple bites of the cherry this year with JT and feed these guys into Chocco's development program.

If we get the off field stuff right, we can reset the list prior to Tassie muddying the draft and remain competitive over the next 2 or so years, before we can absolutely attack a flag.

If we can get a top 10 pick and another in the late teens for Trac I’d trust JT to find 2 good players for us.

players will come and go. Things never as good or bad as they seem. As long as we have JT we’ll be right. 

49 minutes ago, Adam The God said:

Completely agree @Macca. We have a raft of senior and emerging players that can carry us forward.

With pick 5, we can get a very good player for our midfield. If we can leverage our future 1st into another first rounder this year, there's a chance we get two top 20 picks, so two young mids to add to the emerging core.

If Trac and Koz go we'll be able to have multiple bites of the cherry this year with JT and feed these guys into Chocco's development program.

If we get the off field stuff right, we can reset the list prior to Tassie muddying the draft and remain competitive over the next 2 or so years, before we can absolutely attack a flag.

We've got a few at the club copping a bit of heat right now, but not (arguably) our most valuable asset ... Jason Taylor

So, no matter who might leave, what we get back in return (draft picks) can be placed in the hands of JT and away we go

It's even possible that we could end up with a couple of picks (this year) that we could swap for picks for next year's off-season (factoring in if 2 high profile players end up leaving)

So the thrust of my argument doesn't focus on the issues the club might have but more so a present and future talent point of view

The actual football side of things

My mantra has always been X amount of good players equals X amount of wins (roundabout)

I formed that view in the 70's & 80's when we didn't have many good players yet a number of other clubs did have lots of good players

They won and we lost.  It's as simple as that. 

So get talented!!

The backroom stuff can be seen as more of a distraction that needs to be sorted out

Meanwhile, we keep building a winning list

22 hours ago, Macca said:

You give up too easily

Please tell me more.

31 minutes ago, Little Goffy said:

Please tell me more.

Of course we can contend again but I wasn't talking like I am (now) in early 2013 as our player talent levels and everything else about the club stunk to high heaven (back then)

In fact, I was calling for a total clean out back then and got shouted down, left, right and centre

Not long after the AFL stepped and soon after PJ took over and the rest is history

Different circumstances but this time we've got a way out of the mire

So if you want to focus on the football side of things, which is the thrust of this thread, then we can continue to build a top class list with JT as our strongest asset

Or, people can throw their hands up in the air and give up.  

Edited August 29, 2024Aug 29 by Macca

10 minutes ago, Macca said:

Of course we can contend again but I wasn't talking like I am now in early 2013 as our player talent levels and everything else about the club stunk to high heaven (back then)

In fact, I was calling for a total clean out back then and got shouted down, left, right and centre

Not long after the AFL stepped and soon after PJ took over and the rest is history

Different circumstances but this time we've got a way out of the mire

So if you want to focus on the football side of things, which is the thrust of this thread, then we can continue to build a top class list with JT as our strongest asset

Or, people can throw their hands uo in the air and give up.  

Oh, I'm thoroughly in the 'things can definitely be turned around with work not drama' camp right beside you.

My reaction was in the more general sense because I find the 'winner winner' and 'you give up too easily' culture really obnoxious.

In fact, related to that, as a personal favour could @Demonland please add 'gumption' to the blocked words list. Gives me the skin-crawling horrors.

Thanks, @Macca, for the topic and its OP and the responses on topic.

Tongue in cheek (I think)...

I hope JT isn't worrying about his brand.

 

6 minutes ago, Little Goffy said:

Oh, I'm thoroughly in the 'things can definitely be turned around with work not drama' camp right beside you.

My reaction was in the more general sense because I find the 'winner winner' and 'you give up too easily' culture really obnoxious.

In fact, related to that, as a personal favour could @Demonland please add 'gumption' to the blocked words list. Gives me the skin-crawling horrors.

Well I was talking to someone who just completely dismissed the crux of my argument.  Quite literally, their comment was about just giving up

Clubs can win big despite having issues running through a club

Not ideal, but In fact, the FD & players can just get on with it and stay focused.  

Ok, the thread topic might look a bit over-the-top but the content can show that a club can stay strong and still win

Of course, I'm not for a minute saying that the club doesn't have a few issues.  I'm no company man

But on the football side of things, we can build and contend again

On 29/08/2024 at 10:17, Macca said:

*Our core group consists of Gawn,  Viney,  May,  Lever,  Rivers,  Petty,  Fritsch,  Kozzie,  JVR,  Salem,  Langdon,  McVee,  Oliver,  T-Mac,  Bowey,  Melksham & Chandler

So 5 veterans who are all near to the end. Only 1 of which is still an elite player. 2 don’t even have contracts and there has to be some doubt on T Mc.

4 in italics to me are completely unknown factors going forward. Seems more likely than not that Kozzie won’t be a long term demon. I’ve made my thoughts well known on Fritsch. Both he and Salem don’t seem to have the athleticism or drive to compete every week. And Oliver enough said.

Tracc is the center piece. He goes for draft picks without any high level prime aged players coming back and this whole era is just about over.

We can rebuild from a position of strength with good leaders and emerging talent, but it’s a struggle to get anywhere near the 8 with no clear strengths in any line of the ground unless May, Gawn and Viney turn back time.

Edited August 30, 2024Aug 30 by DeeSpencer

Just now, DeeSpencer said:

So 5 veterans who are all near to the end. Only 1 of which is still an elite player. 2 don’t even have contracts and there has to be some doubt on T Mc.

4 in italics to me are completely unknown factors going forward. Seems more likely than not that Kozzie won’t be a long term demon. I’ve made my thoughts well known on Fritsch. Both he and Salem don’t seem to have the athleticism or drive to compete every week. And Oliver enough said.

Tracc is the center piece. He goes for draft picks without any high level prime aged players coming back and this whole era is just about over.

 

You are a self confessed pessimist and true to form, your miserable prognostications come to the fore again

I don't agree

2 hours ago, Adam The God said:

Completely agree @Macca. We have a raft of senior and emerging players that can carry us forward.

With pick 5, we can get a very good player for our midfield. If we can leverage our future 1st into another first rounder this year, there's a chance we get two top 20 picks, so two young mids to add to the emerging core.

If Trac and Koz go we'll be able to have multiple bites of the cherry this year with JT and feed these guys into Chocco's development program.

If we get the off field stuff right, we can reset the list prior to Tassie muddying the draft and remain competitive over the next 2 or so years, before we can absolutely attack a flag.

Losing talent can easily be turned into a positive and as you said, Tassie are going to swallow up a majority of picks from when (2027?  2028?)

So by default, we get to strike early and set ourselves up for at least 5 years (that's if we get a raft of picks in the 1st & 2nd round)

So if players want to go, go.  We drive a hard bargain so as to at least break even on trades and thus, replenish

And we've got Jason Taylor

Although we aren't really looking, a number of other club's head recruiters wouldn't have anywhere near the strike rate that JT has

So yeah, I'm hanging my hat on draftees & JT but I feel like I'm backing Winx or Black Caviar!!