titan_uranus

I did pump up Geelong's tyres earlier, but the clear knock on them under Scott strengthened last night. In the 2017-2020 period, Geelong has played 11 finals for a 4-7 record. Richmond, in the same period, has played 12 finals for a 10-2 record (and three flags, obviously). In each of Richmond's premiership winning seasons, they've beaten Geelong (2017 QF, 2019 PF, 2020 GF). Things could have looked so different to the Richmond "dynasty" and Geelong's Dangerwood era if even one of those three Richmond-Geelong finals went the other way.

To be fair, whilst I don't agree with @DeeSpencer's overall view, the argument against taking Brown is clear and deserves consideration. It will either see us go into 2021 with Brown, Weideman and Jackson in our forward line, or with one of Weideman and Jackson not playing. If the former, can that forward line work? It's taller than both Geelong's and Richmond's (for example), and with the added risk that Brown, Weideman and Fritsch aren't good with pressure. If the latter, is that beneficial to our overall development? What's the point in taking Brown if we then can't/don't play Weideman? Or worse, it stifles Jackson's development? IMO, it will result in the former: we'll play Brown as the stay-at-home forward with Weideman and Jackson roaming further up. Jackson's agility mean he's not a true tall anyway, and I think Weideman will be better when he's released from the pressure of being our only tall marking option. The impetus on the FD is to ensure that Brown, Weideman and Fritsch are all chasing, defending and tackling when we don't have the ball. I'd rather us back ourselves in to see those players improve their defensive/pressure games than assume they'll never improve. But dismissing the argument against as simply "Brown kicks goals, we need goals, therefore we need Brown" is a bit shallow. It's a fair question to ask and debate to have.

Yes I agree. Fair. They're doing it in a 16-18 team era where the league is striving for equalisation at every turn, though.

Geelong has won 10+ games every year since 2003. They've only missed the finals twice in that period (2006 with 10.5 wins, and 2015 with 11.5 wins). They've won three flags in the last 14 seasons, could be four tonight. And they've made the preliminary final weekend 10 times in the last 14 seasons. All of that to me represents very strong performance. Yes, they've struggled in finals since the 2011 flag (a 6-12 record heading into tonight), and if they lose tonight they'll have won zero flags in the last nine seasons despite finishing in the top 4 six times. IMO, all that says to me is that they were a mark or two below becoming possibly the greatest team in the history of the game over a 14-season stretch.

If he stays, our plan has to be to use him as a mid/forward. He's not a defender and I don't want to see us try to continue pushing that square peg into that round hole. I don't think our midfield depth is so amazing that we can afford to let Harmes go. I also think Harmes is an upgrade on most of the small/mid forwards we played this year. Finally, I think we can think outside the box a bit in terms of using him as a defensive midfielder. I reckon there's a way to start him at centre bounces in the forward 6 but to have him push up after the opening bounce to follow someone. 6-6-6 only constrains that opening bounce, not the rest of the play, and I'm sure I recall Collingwood using Greenwood in a similar way.

Whilst Preuss and 23 for 9, or Preuss and TMac for 9 might not work, adding in our 2021 first rounder tips it the other way. I know we may want to ship TMac off, but this is too much out for not enough back.

That happened after 2019 right? Which was his third consecutive season kicking 60+ goals? Playing for a club that didn't exactly have other stars (so where else was their minimum salary cap going to go)?

They don't cheat. They're just very good at what they do. They have a significant advantage in terms of lifestyle/cost of living, they're culturally ingrained in the Western Districts which is a footy-rich area and known for developing good talent, and they've developed a culture within the club (led significantly by Joel Selwood) by which players accept lower salaries than what the market would otherwise give them to keep the team together. To assist with that strategy, they target established A-graders from other clubs, often weaker clubs, who want to taste success. Players like Dangerfield, Steven, now Cameron, all spent years at weaker clubs getting paid plenty (thanks to the minimum salary cap requirement) but not winning. Having banked plenty of cash, Geelong sells them a lifestyle and success, but not money. They take it because they're comfortable living off, say, $400,000 instead of $600,000 (I mean, it's not like $400,000 is not a comfortable living wage). Coupled with a good drafting and development program which sees them get decent kids in the door with whatever picks they've got, and then building those kids up with good coaching and leadership (there's Selwood again), they're able to maintain their performance level.

Again - correlation but not causation. Our biggest weakness in 2018 was our inability to stop sides scoring when they got through our forward press. That was in large part because the individuals we had back there weren't that good (i.e. Oscar and Frost). Our improved form in 2018 wasn't because we put Oscar and Frost down back, it was because we improved so much around the ball and in our forward line that we hid our weakness (remember, our losses to St Kilda and Sydney in that second half of the year were where our back half was exposed and we didn't score enough from the inside 50s we generated). Oscar has been a limited footballer his entire career. He doesn't deserve much of the name-calling he gets on here and other sites but that doesn't mean we shouldn't discuss his limitations as a footballer. As I've said before, he has no physicality, still gets moved off the ball easily, and struggles to get involved offensively with any impact.

The no pressure argument is true based on previous form. Is the solution to assume that can't change, or is it to implore Weideman and Fritsch to add defensive pressure/chasing/tackling to their games?

I've always thought Hannan has what it takes to make it as a fast medium forward - marking height but pace to go with it. Just never seemed to be able to develop consistency - felt like he'd play a good game or two but then disappear for a game or two. We've got too many mid-sized forwards on our list so this isn't the end of the world. If he makes it at the Dogs, good on him.

I liked Weideman's 2020 but I don't think he can do it alone and I don't think he can do it with Jackson as the only other tall marking option in the forward line in 2021. Jackson's young and inexperienced. He's supremely talented, but we need to be challenging next year, not in 3-5 years. The remaining issues you've raised are no certainties of happening: there's no guarantee we keep any pick we'd spend on Brown and get a "10 year player to add to the team", and there's no guarantee if we hold salary cap space that we bring in anyone better than Brown. The real argument against taking Brown isn't any of that, it's whether we can be a successful side with a forward line of Brown, Weideman, Jackson, Fritsch and two others. For the reasons many have previously articulated in this thread, I think we can. I accept it's no guarantee, but I don't accept it's a necessary failure.

As the posts after yours show, this isn't a good argument. Their list screamed anything other than "top 4 and four-year dynasty" in 2016, but all of the following were on their 2016 list: Vlastuin, Grimes, Martin, Riewoldt, Cotchin, Edwards, Astbury, Houli, Rioli, Rance, Lambert, McIntosh, Broad, Short, Castagna and Soldo). The majority of that group are a win away from becoming triple premiership players. At the time they also had Deledio, Ellis, Grigg, Townsend and Butler - all 2017 premiership players bar Deledio. That list had taken them to three years of finals but no wins (2013-15) followed by a shocker of a 2016. That's a mid-table four-year run. A bit like what we've had (2017, 2018 and 2020 were all mid-table finishes, with 2018 buoyed by the two finals wins, and 2019 being a disastrous shocker). We've seen enough from the core of our list to suggest we've got what it takes. We've been thereabouts for four years, like they were. We've got obvious talent, like they did. We've shown glimpses, like they did. None of this is to suggest we're guarantees to make it, it's just to dispel the notion that our list definitely isn't good enough. I don't buy that argument.

Toumpas' hype pre-draft was all about his skill. So, for example, Knightmare (a well-known draft analyser) said this about him: "Skill level excellent by both hand and foot, has that combination of hurt factor with the penetrating kick he has and clean ball use that will make him a big time weapon". Footy Almanac said: "He uses the ball by hand and foot excellent, can play inside and outside, while his poise and endurance are superb". It appears your analysis here is based on hindsight, which is precisely what should be avoided when discussing drafting decisions.

Bills, Packers, Chiefs

Chill out. Adelaide finished last and has only made four changes so far. Sydney finished bottom 4 and has only made five changes. GWS finished below us, just 3 changes so far. The Dogs barely above us, just 1 change. Also, it's not a race or a competition and is literally irrelevant.

Also advocates taking Wines over Toumpas, which is also somewhat inconsistent with "take the footballer over the athlete". HFF is a good old hindsight hero.

I know you're joking, but I fear you'll entice someone to do this. I mean, it happens already from time to time anyway.

It's a pathetic story. How easy is it, 9 years after the fact, to say "oh yeah I wanted to pick him but someone else said I couldn't"? It's a rubbish, unverifiable claim. The implication in your post is that we stuffed up more than any other club because we "passed him over for three spuds". As has been said, every other club passed on him numerous times just like we did. It doesn't matter what Prendergast says 9 years later he was thinking. And even if it were true, it still doesn't matter because the recruiters at 17 other clubs clearly didn't think much differently.

The issue is significantly more complex than even a full analysis on here could properly grapple. FA exists to give the players rights they deserve. The issue isn't FA, it's the way the league implements it. Equalisation and movement of players are separate and largely inconsistent goals. FA is a blight on equalisation. But the league needs FA, as much as it wants equalisation. It's how FA is integrated into the league that matters. Issues to consider include the salary cap minimum (good players at bad clubs fuel up on big contracts until their FA year hits, then walk to a stronger club to take a pay cut to taste success), the impact of bringing in players (should a club be penalised for taking a free agent and, if so, should the penalty depend on ladder position), the trigger point for when FA kicks in (is 8 years too long)? There are a lot of issues and, true to the AFL's form, the current system is a bit too haphazard.

We're not currently entertaining that thought, as far as the reports go at least. But if Jetta asks the club for a trade because Collingwood or some other club are offering him a bigger deal and/or a promise of game time when we can't give him that, are we really going to say no?

The pay cut thing isn't universally true. Franklin got a massive contract to go to Sydney, for example. I think the bigger issue is players coming from weaker clubs (e.g. not necessarily Franklin leaving Hawthorn). Weaker clubs have to pay the minimum salary cap. Which means they have to spend big money on their good players. Cameron's been at GWS since the start. He's presumably been well paid for many of those years where GWS were tripe. If that's right, and he's already cashed up, it's no longer about money, it's about success. Ditto Lynch. The minimum aspect to the salary cap makes sense, and provides equalisation in some respects, but this is an example of it providing the opposite.

Throwing what away? We effectively moved our first round pick this year into last year to take Pickett who, as you say, will be a good player no doubt. What's your concern with that? Rather than draft good players we should hold onto draft picks (last year) and hope that in 12 months time (i.e. now) we'd be able to throw them at other players?

I was a part of that. Mainly because you posted it without evidence/reasoning, and as @Axis of Bob has said, it's very easy to take a set of limited facts (which is all we get as supporters most of the time) and project your own spin on things. I get the sense from your recent posting that your view is generally a pessimistic one. That's fine, and understandable given our recent history, but that doesn't mean it's accurate or fair, nor does it mean the converse is untrue. As to May, I've done a search for the news around that time. I can see the media saying Collingwood was going to get him, which evidently was incorrect. I can also see an article suggesting Collingwood were refusing to pay two first round picks for him. Query if it was correct given the previous article, but at any rate we ended up paying one pick, not two (and we got KK back). So, as far as I can tell, there's not a great deal of evidence to suggest we only got May because we paid more than Collingwood. As to Tomlinson, I can't find anything which reports that St Kilda pulled out of the race, all I can find is suggestions Tomlinson chose us. Now, that doesn't mean St Kilda didn't pull out of the race, but it's hard to say, and hard to know why, if true. Lever might be highly paid, but I'm not sure paying players highly is all that big of a disaster. One of the clubs you cited in your previous post as a comparison is Carlton, who forked out insane figures to get Jack Martin in the door (completely unwarranted figures IMO). They're doing it again with Williams and Saad. So we're not the only club who pays high figures to attract the players we want to prise out of other clubs. Ultimately, over the last three off-seasons we've brought in Lever, May, Tomlinson and Langdon. I am happy to stand behind those four names as being strong acquisitions (accepting that the jury's out on Tomlinson), and all that whilst we've continued to draft (bringing in Jackson, Pickett, Rivers, Sparrow, Fritsch and Petty over the same three years). Having said all of this, I don't think we're a "destination club". I just don't think it's that big of a deal.

Would love to see GWS match the contract, if they can afford to do so, and force Geelong to trade for him. Never seems to happen though. It is what it is. Geelong's offering is different to all of the Melbourne clubs. I would prefer an AFL where this didn't happen, but most of the time the FAs go to clubs after they've already become successful. Geelong was nowhere in the mid-2000s but since 2007 have been managed well (both on and off field) and have developed a culture of sustained success. It might all end when Selwood, Hawkins, Taylor, Ablett and Dangerfield go in the next 1-4 years, but before then, they're going to keep challenging, and whilst they're challenging their unique lifestyle offering will continue to be a selling point. They have broken records for the age of the side they've fielded this year. Their list does have other younger players though: not currently playing are Atkins, Cockatoo, Parsons, Narkle, Z Guthrie, Ratugolea, Close, Fogarty, Constable and Jarvis (all of whom have debuted at AFL level and are all 25 and under). Question is, how many will they keep (there's been talk around Cockatoo, Narkle and Constable leaving) and are they any good? Hard to know given they don't get regular games.