We're in for a world of hurt either way. I would cut bait with guys like Oliver, Petty, Fritsch and take what we can get for them and clear out the deadwood/list cloggers (about a quarter of our list guys like Laurie, Woey, McAdam, Fullarton, Sharp, Verrall, Billings etc) and go for a massive revamp with a new coach.

16 minutes ago, seventyfour said:

Why not play them all?

Imagine Collingwood with De Goey and Petracca rotating with each other from forward to midfield. Nightmare stuff.

De Goey can kick too like Pendles and Sidebottom.

20 hours ago, Adam The God said:

We create more than enough shots to win.

And your argument is our kicking inside 50 is bad, so get rid of our best kick inside 50?

Spargo is statistically our best kick inside 50.

Spargo gets 2 kicks a game and neither travel further than 30m and never kicks goals himself.

He is not the answer.

The outcome of the club’s off season review was that we have a list capable of playing finals and that all their efforts would be towards realising this outcome

Well this will now be back to back years not playing finals, so by our own assessment we’ve failed to realise the potential of our list

I don’t blame the club for thinking this way - it’s clear our best footy matches it with the best in the comp

But we continually seem to make the same mistakes week after week and I just don’t know how that changes without significant change to either our coaching or playing list

I don’t want to be the new St Kilda - stuck in no man’s land year after year - so the club needs to use this opportunity to reevaluate where this list is at and make changes accordingly

I’m not going to name names, but will point out that at the end of 2020, Collingwood traded Treloar and Stephens

Then at the end of 2022 they traded Grundy

They were torched for it at the time - two of those players were A grade fan favourites - but look what it enabled them to do in subsequent years

If the club genuinely believes that we can get back to finals with the improvement of this current list, well, good luck to them, but if not someone needs to start making the kind of tough decisions we’ve been avoiding for years now

And after the past few weeks, I know which way I’d be leaning…

Edited Sunday at 22:564 days by demoncat

1 minute ago, Gorgoroth said:

Spargo gets 2 kicks a game and neither travel further than 30m and never kicks goals himself.

He is not the answer.

Not only that, he doesn't punish sides on the scoreboard. Hes a small forward who opposition teams barely put any attention into because they know he isn't going to cause any damage or chaos.

For the 9 games he's played this year he has only kicked just the one goal.

I thought we would delist at a minimum but after the Port debacle. Things have to change.

Out : Billings, Melksham, McDonlad, Fullerton, Hore, Kentfield, Sestan, Woewodin, Brown, Culley, Henderson and Spargo.

At a minimum we must go for Lord. We desperately need a key forward it's the missing piece.

We've taken something like ten draft picks in the past four years, of which only six have been in the top 35. I'm guessing both of those numbers compare unfavourably to every other side in the competition, but particularly in the context of facing consecutive bottom four finishes.

That is simply a disgraceful failure to turn over a rapidly ageing and increasingly shallow list. Jason Taylor has shown himself to be a good judge of talent when he is given the opportunity to find it, but Tim Lamb has denied him this.

We've [censored] away countless draft picks trying to be clever, eg trading away multiple picks to move up slightly for the Tholstrup selection in 2023. I'm okay with bringing our 2025 pick forward to take Lindsay last year, but overall we gave up far too much to do so.

Now we have reached crisis point with no first round pick and only one selection in the top 50 at present.

In an ideal world we would delist 8-10 players this year and the same next year, but realistically we'll be unlikely to move on more than 4-5 in each.

Therefore we should look forward to contract extensions for the likes of Salem, Spargo, Hore McAdam and Melksham so that they can continue to flaunt their mediocrity for further seasons.

27 minutes ago, demoncat said:

The outcome of the club’s off season review was that we have a list capable of playing finals and that all their efforts would be towards realising this outcome

Well this will now be back to back years not playing finals, so by our own assessment we’ve failed to realise the potential of our list

I find this fascinating. Clearly Petracca had the same opinion when he blew up at the end of last year: we're far too good to be finishing 14th.

But are we?

For one, lots of players peaked between 2021 and 2023. That's nothing to be ashamed of, but it's something to take seriously. We seem to be in strict denial about it.

For another, the list is extremely thin. We traded away several handy depth players after the flag. I think there were good reasons for most of them. But what we replaced them with old C- and D-graders and then persisted with them in the 22 as if we might be able to magically wring out some kind of 2015 form from each of them. Grundy wasn't a D-grader, but his was definitely the worst and most wasteful acquisition of them all.

41 minutes ago, demoncat said:

I don’t want to be the new St Kilda - stuck in no man’s land year after year - so the club needs to use this opportunity to reevaluate where this list is at and make changes accordingly

I’m not going to name names, but will point out that at the end of 2020, Collingwood traded Treloar and Stephens

Then at the end of 2022 they traded Grundy

I totally agree. St Kilda is the absolute worst place you want your list to be. We're at risk of that for sure, although I think very good drafting of players in the top 20 makes it less likely.

Collingwood in 2020 is such a fascinating case. I thought they were insane at the time for trading Treloar. They weren't well compensated (they received a middle pick in the first round of the COVID draft and used it on Ollie Henry) but obviously cleared a lot of cap space and knew that even if he was good at the Dogs, which he has been, they could comfortably replace him.

Stephenson looked like a strange one at the time, but was a sensible trade in hindsight. They knew he had peaked in his first year. It looked tough, but it was just clear-eyed list management.

Grundy was very good trading. As with Treloar, they could comfortably replace him and use the cap space to improve their list elsewhere. It's sad that he was pushed out of a club he wanted to be at, but that's what happens when you get paid a fortune and don't live up to it.

The whole thing looked like a disaster when they finished 17th the next year, but the decisions (if not the treatment of Treloar) were vindicated in 2022 and 2023.

I'm all for making tough decisions about player we know are not as good as everyone thinks. I'm even open to making a Treloar call. The question I'd have is are we confident we can replace them with anything like the success of Collingwood.

2 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Does Oliver still have currency?

I honestly don’t know, he has to perform against his salary so it makes it harder for us to move him, let alone get the majority of his salary of our books or even remotely get any pick of value.

When I think currency with him it’s if he can repair his reputation enough so that we can shift 75% of his salary. Pretty sad place to be in.

I have been thinking about the management of our list lately and the laser focus of Viney, Roos, and Mahoney on tough ball winners and defensive stalwarts set us up well for the 2021 flag but the over commitment to that is what we are straining over now. We don’t seem capable of picking the right kid or pro with forward instincts or with requisite skills and decision making behind the ball (McVee was a rookie pick). Perhaps XL and Windsor belay the last point but our forward line really struggles beyond Pickett, Melksham, and Chandler for consistent and empathetic forward movement and nous.

51 minutes ago, rpfc said:

I have been thinking about the management of our list lately and the laser focus of Viney, Roos, and Mahoney on tough ball winners and defensive stalwarts set us up well for the 2021 flag but the over commitment to that is what we are straining over now. We don’t seem capable of picking the right kid or pro with forward instincts or with requisite skills and decision making behind the ball (McVee was a rookie pick). Perhaps XL and Windsor belay the last point but our forward line really struggles beyond Pickett, Melksham, and Chandler for consistent and empathetic forward movement and nous.

I do wonder how much our poor ball use from the midfield prevents our forwards from leading up at the ball carrier.

If I were a forward, I'd be leading up at Kozzy, Bowey, Salem, Langford and Lindsay. That's about it.

The rest of them wildly kick to the disadvantage of the forwards. Viney was back to his worst again yesterday. Like Rounds 2-5.

Compare Langford's kick on top of the head of a Port defender, which allowed Turner(?] to have the sit was brilliant.

I think we can turn things round, but I agree with you, @Howard_Grimes , we need to make some bold and aggressive trades.

4 hours ago, Gorgoroth said:

Spargo gets 2 kicks a game and neither travel further than 30m and never kicks goals himself.

He is not the answer.

Same from me, Spargo is not the answer and don't know if we can still use him effectively. Realistically he can only play at HF.

I would expect a bold move to be made this year at trade. I don't necessarily want to but as many have said, the list is in danger of ending up in St Kilda no mans land.

A tough call needs to be made and I'm not sure exactly who that should be, it all depends on currency but the real talk to fans is whether you're more concerned about success or having one club players. Successful clubs are constantly looking through the windshield and not the rear view mirror.

On 16/06/2025 at 08:55, demoncat said:

The outcome of the club’s off season review was that we have a list capable of playing finals and that all their efforts would be towards realising this outcome

Well this will now be back to back years not playing finals, so by our own assessment we’ve failed to realise the potential of our list

I don’t blame the club for thinking this way - it’s clear our best footy matches it with the best in the comp

But we continually seem to make the same mistakes week after week and I just don’t know how that changes without significant change to either our coaching or playing list

I don’t want to be the new St Kilda - stuck in no man’s land year after year - so the club needs to use this opportunity to reevaluate where this list is at and make changes accordingly

I’m not going to name names, but will point out that at the end of 2020, Collingwood traded Treloar and Stephens

Then at the end of 2022 they traded Grundy

They were torched for it at the time - two of those players were A grade fan favourites - but look what it enabled them to do in subsequent years

If the club genuinely believes that we can get back to finals with the improvement of this current list, well, good luck to them, but if not someone needs to start making the kind of tough decisions we’ve been avoiding for years now

And after the past few weeks, I know which way I’d be leaning…

This is it. The club admitted we underperformed last year. Reaffirmed finals as the expectation and argued that the changes we made would take us there. We are now more than half way through the year and sit at 5-9. The chances of us catching fire on the run home seem miniscule right now.

So does the club say they missed the mark with their expectations? Or do they admit that we have failed to get the most out of ourselves?

23 hours ago, Adam The God said:

I do wonder how much our poor ball use from the midfield prevents our forwards from leading up at the ball carrier.

If I were a forward, I'd be leading up at Kozzy, Bowey, Salem, Langford and Lindsay. That's about it.

The rest of them wildly kick to the disadvantage of the forwards. Viney was back to his worst again yesterday. Like Rounds 2-5.

Compare Langford's kick on top of the head of a Port defender, which allowed Turner(?] to have the sit was brilliant.

I think we can turn things round, but I agree with you, @Howard_Grimes , we need to make some bold and aggressive trades.

I'm sort of confused by this reasoning. If the forwards don't trust the mids and the mids don't know how to kick it to the forwards then it speaks to a complete systemic disfunction on the field and essentially players going into self-preservation mode. We don't make excuses like that in other areas of the ground. Going against the team rules with regards to positioning or decision making is the kind of thing that gets players dragged or dropped.

Don't rate Buckley's analysis overly highly most of the time... but I thought some of his comments on us with Whately yesterday were interesting. It's easy to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

He mentioned that we've come a long way in changing our game style but still need to work on the last part (ie ensuring its engrained to not dump kick forward when we're under pressure). This means we might have to cop getting tackled and holding the ball in the defensive 50 from time to time. But reduces the long kicks down the line / turnovers as we're no longer setup for that.

This season has been very disappointing - but in some respects I can see some similarities with 2020 when after a terrible start (we were altering our gamestyle then too), for much of the season we were one of the most compeditive teams but fell short (partcularly due to poor performances against Freo and Sydney in Cairns).

Obviously there's still a bit to go and a lot of question marks over a number of players - particualrly regarding whether they can get back to their best. It's never as good / bad as you think it is etc. It may be the best thing for the long term if we see the back half of this season as part of the pre-season for 2026. Who do we need to develop more - can we fast track this by playing them in other positions, who has currency that is not adding value to us next year / going forward etc

I think somewhat controversially that after Picketts big contract extension (which I think is a good decision) that one of Petracca or Oliver MUST be traded. The AFL Salary cap is around $17.7 million so having 3 players account for nearly $4 million dollars of your salary cap for a team that has a high likelihood for bottom 4 is worrying. Not to mention a huge reduction in form, fitness and effort by Oliver, and incredibly poor attitude, body language and effort from Petracca (even after returning from a traumatic injury, the attitude and body language he is giving must be cancerous in the club rooms.) While these are premiership players, and it would hurt to trade them, it may be required to trade ONE of these players in the sake of avoiding bottoming out, which is where we are headed if no changes are made. Albeit moving one of these two would be the most complicated trades in history. I'm leaning towards Petracca due to likely having more trade value, if a team came to us and was willing to pay draft picks, and take most of his salary (we would likely have to pay part of it aka Grundy) we should seriously consider it. Petracca has still shown signs this year of being worth that contract amount. For Oliver to leave, he would have to take a massive paycut, which I don't see happening. If we wanted Luke Jackson back (yes please) he is on approximately 900,000 a year. This trade would be very difficult thanks to salary cap restrictions if we kept both Petracca and Oliver. There must be a turnover of players, and one of Ollie Lord, Callum Brown or even a Aaron Cadman as a dream target must be chased by us in order to help fix our forward issues. There also must be a midfield turnover as well, which can be activated by an aggressive and needed move in farewelling Oliver or Petracca.

10 minutes ago, KoltTheRam said:

I think somewhat controversially that after Picketts big contract extension (which I think is a good decision) that one of Petracca or Oliver MUST be traded. The AFL Salary cap is around $17.7 million so having 3 players account for nearly $4 million dollars of your salary cap for a team that has a high likelihood for bottom 4 is worrying. Not to mention a huge reduction in form, fitness and effort by Oliver, and incredibly poor attitude, body language and effort from Petracca (even after returning from a traumatic injury, the attitude and body language he is giving must be cancerous in the club rooms.) While these are premiership players, and it would hurt to trade them, it may be required to trade ONE of these players in the sake of avoiding bottoming out, which is where we are headed if no changes are made. Albeit moving one of these two would be the most complicated trades in history. I'm leaning towards Petracca due to likely having more trade value, if a team came to us and was willing to pay draft picks, and take most of his salary (we would likely have to pay part of it aka Grundy) we should seriously consider it. Petracca has still shown signs this year of being worth that contract amount. For Oliver to leave, he would have to take a massive paycut, which I don't see happening. If we wanted Luke Jackson back (yes please) he is on approximately 900,000 a year. This trade would be very difficult thanks to salary cap restrictions if we kept both Petracca and Oliver. There must be a turnover of players, and one of Ollie Lord, Callum Brown or even a Aaron Cadman as a dream target must be chased by us in order to help fix our forward issues. There also must be a midfield turnover as well, which can be activated by an aggressive and needed move in farewelling Oliver or Petracca.

Agree and have said much the same.

It's also about evolving your list and sometimes these kinds of decisions are actually the right ones as opposed to keeping everyone together cause we 'love them.'

I also think we did incredibly well to win a flag and that some of the talk around 'dynasty' and that we should have won multiple flags with the group is a furphy given how much the game has changed and constantly changes year upon year. I think that view gave many false hope that we were going to be a Hawthorn or even Richmond. The same problems existed throughout that 21' season.

I'd keep trac over Oliver though. Ultimately, he is the more professional of the two, has leadership qualities, can play multiple positions and this year is just an easing back in year given what he went through so I'm not going hard on his form, which aside from last week has actually been pretty good.

Oliver on the other hand has been a liability defensively for the last two years, still has issues that he's not over that have a big influence on his week to week and day to day training and then output. List balance, cohesion, connectedness and some fresh air for both parties imv.

Edited Tuesday at 04:533 days by Howard_Grimes

57 minutes ago, Howard_Grimes said:

Agree and have said much the same.

It's also about evolving your list and sometimes these kinds of decisions are actually the right ones as opposed to keeping everyone together cause we 'love them.'

I also think we did incredibly well to win a flag and that some of the talk around 'dynasty' and that we should have won multiple flags with the group is a furphy given how much the game has changed and constantly changes year upon year. I think that view gave many false hope that we were going to be a Hawthorn or even Richmond. The same problems existed throughout that 21' season.

I'd keep trac over Oliver though. Ultimately, he is the more professional of the two, has leadership qualities, can play multiple positions and this year is just an easing back in year given what he went through so I'm not going hard on his form, which aside from last week has actually been pretty good.

Oliver on the other hand has been a liability defensively for the last two years, still has issues that he's not over that have a big influence on his week to week and day to day training and then output. List balance, cohesion, connectedness and some fresh air for both parties imv.

Sadly i agree. Oliver has a battle to get mentally well, get supervisor the role and then improve his disposal.

That’s a big task.

1 hour ago, Howard_Grimes said:

Agree and have said much the same.

It's also about evolving your list and sometimes these kinds of decisions are actually the right ones as opposed to keeping everyone together cause we 'love them.'

I also think we did incredibly well to win a flag and that some of the talk around 'dynasty' and that we should have won multiple flags with the group is a furphy given how much the game has changed and constantly changes year upon year. I think that view gave many false hope that we were going to be a Hawthorn or even Richmond. The same problems existed throughout that 21' season.

I'd keep trac over Oliver though. Ultimately, he is the more professional of the two, has leadership qualities, can play multiple positions and this year is just an easing back in year given what he went through so I'm not going hard on his form, which aside from last week has actually been pretty good.

Oliver on the other hand has been a liability defensively for the last two years, still has issues that he's not over that have a big influence on his week to week and day to day training and then output. List balance, cohesion, connectedness and some fresh air for both parties imv.

A lot of people on here are full of it though. Look how many came on here to gloat when Koz signed and now are nowhere to be seen now that we're talking about the reality of our list. It was their premiership for the year.

Long term deals give security but in an age of free agency they aren't always worth the outlay. People are afraid that we might lose someone for nothing when the truth is the compo pick might be just as good or better than what you'd get in a trade.

The other thing is that they think we'll always be able to get the value of the player at their best. Who honestly saw Oliver's value plummeting when he signed his deal?

I'm sure some happy clapper will be ready to launch at anyone suggesting we trade one of these guys, just wait.

1 hour ago, Bowserpower said:

A lot of people on here are full of it though. Look how many came on here to gloat when Koz signed and now are nowhere to be seen now that we're talking about the reality of our list. It was their premiership for the year.

Long term deals give security but in an age of free agency they aren't always worth the outlay. People are afraid that we might lose someone for nothing when the truth is the compo pick might be just as good or better than what you'd get in a trade.

The other thing is that they think we'll always be able to get the value of the player at their best. Who honestly saw Oliver's value plummeting when he signed his deal?

I'm sure some happy clapper will be ready to launch at anyone suggesting we trade one of these guys, just wait.

I reckon Clarry has to go for his sake and ours. Probably best for both parties.

Clazz has more improvement in him on his current output than Trac does

Trac is a mental midget - luckily he's worth more in a trade!

On 15/06/2025 at 11:27, Roost it far said:

Rivers would get you a late first round pick in a weak draft so we'd instantly be worse off and then we'd double down and trade Spargo for a speculative third round pick and continue to be worse off. Do you even know how drafting and trading works because you ain't showing it.

I'm not against trading anyone but it has to make us better.

Id take a slightly different approach. We need to trade players to get draft capital and then use that draft capital to essentially pay for the gaps we have. Rebuilding from the draft is too costly and runs the risk of becoming the perennial mid table team. We need to identify talent from lists that are in need of getting back into the draft. Suns, Port, Sydney, GWS, Blues have talent and gettable based on various factors. You can forget targeting FA's as they wont come to us because we are not in the window. There are enough contracted players in those clubs that we should absolutely get around. 1-2 right now would be the difference between where we are and playing finals. 3 good choice trades would give us a crack at top 4 and 4 trades would put us back in contention. Now that doesn't happen in 1 year. Aim for some bold movies this off-season and follow up again in 2026 and we are back in it for 2027.

I'd be floating JVR and Rivers to WCE who are in dire need of replenishing their midfield (Tim Kelly and Yeo likely to retire this year) to support Reid and O.Allen who is likely to leave end of year. That is potentially a 2025 1st round and F1st pick in there. Id float Oliver to the Eagles and Bombers and see if they'd be willing to take his cap for a 2nd rounder. Geelong can GAGF - 2 firsts if they want Clarry.

Go hard at several players: Ben King (for [censored] and giggles and to get Pies to give up more); Butters (2 Firsts), Bergman (1st and 2nd). Id also look at Fletcher or Wilmont from Lions (throw some money at them to see if they bite), see if Milera from the Saints would love to work with Kozzy. Brown from GWS is 1st/2nd rounder. There are lots of options.

We just have to super super aggressive. For me the immediate priority is to get 2 established ball users- A half backer and an outside midfielder and displace one of Oliver, Viney or Trac from the midfield by trade THIS YEAR. Rinse and repeat next year for whatever role we need to top up - probably a KPD or KPF based on how Petty, Turner, Jeffo or settle into their respective positions.

2 hours ago, GS_1905 said:

Id take a slightly different approach. We need to trade players to get draft capital and then use that draft capital to essentially pay for the gaps we have. Rebuilding from the draft is too costly and runs the risk of becoming the perennial mid table team. We need to identify talent from lists that are in need of getting back into the draft. Suns, Port, Sydney, GWS, Blues have talent and gettable based on various factors. You can forget targeting FA's as they wont come to us because we are not in the window. There are enough contracted players in those clubs that we should absolutely get around. 1-2 right now would be the difference between where we are and playing finals. 3 good choice trades would give us a crack at top 4 and 4 trades would put us back in contention. Now that doesn't happen in 1 year. Aim for some bold movies this off-season and follow up again in 2026 and we are back in it for 2027.

I'd be floating JVR and Rivers to WCE who are in dire need of replenishing their midfield (Tim Kelly and Yeo likely to retire this year) to support Reid and O.Allen who is likely to leave end of year. That is potentially a 2025 1st round and F1st pick in there. Id float Oliver to the Eagles and Bombers and see if they'd be willing to take his cap for a 2nd rounder. Geelong can GAGF - 2 firsts if they want Clarry.

Go hard at several players: Ben King (for [censored] and giggles and to get Pies to give up more); Butters (2 Firsts), Bergman (1st and 2nd). Id also look at Fletcher or Wilmont from Lions (throw some money at them to see if they bite), see if Milera from the Saints would love to work with Kozzy. Brown from GWS is 1st/2nd rounder. There are lots of options.

We just have to super super aggressive. For me the immediate priority is to get 2 established ball users- A half backer and an outside midfielder and displace one of Oliver, Viney or Trac from the midfield by trade THIS YEAR. Rinse and repeat next year for whatever role we need to top up - probably a KPD or KPF based on how Petty, Turner, Jeffo or settle into their respective positions.

Agreed, we have to be bold. How that pans out will decide next year. I still believe we’re comfortably a top 6 team with the right tweaks.

4 hours ago, adonski said:

Clazz has more improvement in him on his current output than Trac does

Trac is a mental midget - luckily he's worth more in a trade!

That's rubbish