I'd much prefer to use our later picks on small slow flankers with limited football talent, we need to get back to basics.
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The Blair "Which?" Project
- Thread starter Tony Braxton-Hicks
- Start date
If we ended up with say 3, 9, 17, 26, 28......anything around that mark.... that should be our next premiership midfield. To do it Bakes and probably another have to go. We haven't been in this position before though EVER, rebuilding through drafts after a TRIPLE FLAG era, I just hope the club gets it's head right.
Yeah I think thats what we'd be looking for. I like to look at our younger players and where they fit onto a teamsheet. This is my current under 27 team with those that have pretty much earnt their way into a starting lineup. I have retained Balta forward for this lineup even though I think he's better suited in defence.
Aside from the below players, we have 22 others under 27 years of age that we need to know if they can play.
B ???? Young ?????
HB DRioli Gibcus Baker (depends if he stays obviously)
C Ross ???? ????
HF ???? Balta ????
F Mansell ???? ?????
R ?????? Taranto Bolton
I/C Graham
So quite a few spots, 9 question marks in there. Clearly this years draft appears to be midfielder heavy (which is good for us, need a jump in quality there) so its those positions around it that we need filling.
Backs
I have the 2 talls as Young and Gibcus (3 if we move Balta back), 2 hbs in Dan Rioli and Baker (though we have mentioned we might be able to get up the order here), so we are missing a couple of mids / intercept defenders and a half back or 2. Can Brown, Banks, Tresize, Bauer, Smith nail down these spots? They all have talent, so we need to get them in and see. If they come on, then it goes a long way to shoring our defensive structure up for the next 5-7 years. I think we will retain Miller on the list as cover on small wages.
Rucks
I'd probably have had Ryan in there before the GC game so I'm probably going against what I'd normally do and adjusting off 1 game, but with Ryan, Hayes-Brown and Colina the only rucks on our list, we probably don't have a guaranteed ruck to come in hence the Naismith signing. Hopefully Ryan comes on or we will need to fill this with a trade
Forwards
The biggest concern for me. I only have Balta as a HF and Mansell as a forward pocket. Campbell if we keeps performing as he did at the weekend will join those 2. Of the others on our list I think our smalls have talent, we have Cumbo, Coulthard, MRJ, Sonsie (as a HHF), Clarke and Green so we have those sort of roles. Taller stocks are harder to place, hopefully Fawcett comes on, we really need him to, as we only really have he and Kosi to play those roles.
Midfield
We have Taranto, Bolton and Graham on the list (assuming Graham doesn't leave as a FA which is possible, if he does I think we will get a decent pick for him, maybe a 2nd or end of 2nd at worst you'd think). Can Dow (big doubts), MRJ, Sonsie, Green and McAuliffe step up. I have high hopes for McAuliffe and Sonsie (maybe playing as a HHF rather than pure mid), but this is definitely an area we should be hitting hard at the draft / trade table this year. I reckon someone will drop out of Norths group in the midfield so I'd keep an eye on Philips and Powell as I think it might be 1 of these 2, and then draft mids with most of the rest.
If things go well for us, maybe our under 27 team by the end of the year (current ages), could appear something more like this:
B Tresize Young Brown
HB DRioli Gibcus Smith
C Ross Philips Clarke
HF Sonsie Balta Cumberland
F Mansell ????? Campbell
R ????? Taranto Bolton
I/C Graham, McAuliffe, 1st Pick 2024, 2nd Pick 2024
Good post, but a little surprised you havn't found reason to fire a shot on behalf of recently listed M Lefau, especially as you recognise our shortage of KPP's.
Balta with his mobility I think you have correctly identified as likely to play at half forward, this at least while Lynch remains available.
Lefau at 25 has some very good skills and is relentless in his attack.
Can't or won't be stopped and for that reason I think he is one of the most interesting players we have recruited in a very long time.
With Balta to stay forward, it won't surprise if ML is turned into a back.
I also expect McAuliffe and Trezise to shine, (and share your high hopes for the rest).
why was he offered 3 years? seems unnecessary, 2 would have been the logical starting point.
He takes 2 years to warm up.
He wasn't going to get a contract at hawthorn and we forked out the 125k for 3 yrs
If they haven't played a game I didn't really show them in a potential best 22 under 27, so Lefau is upside to that. Whatever we get out of Lefau IMO is a massive bonus.
I only included Smith and McAuliffe because of what the club has said about them. I actually really like a lot of our younger players to potentially play roles, and play them well, its just we don't have the potential superstars on our list, and thats why IMO people say we have no youth. Ie. they say you've lost Cotch / Jack etc and within the next few years you'll lose Lynch, Prestia and Martin for example. We don't have anyone not established in our team that can replace them and we probably shouldn't. They were drated at Picks 2, 13, 6, 11 and 4 and we haven't really had those picks. We got Taranto with a pick in that range which is fine, but I think thats what the upcoming draft for.
Chances of getting a player as good as Baker are 50/50 at best, even if it’s a top 20 pick. No way we should be trading out our vice captain just to enter the draft roulette.
It depends. As a half back I agree with you but we have various other players that could play that role. He doesn't play the forward role as well, I would expect we should be able to get an actual forward / midfielder with a top 20 pick that will hopefully be better, or we could use that pick to get is into the top 10.
There are options and whilst I love Bakes, I don't think he's indispensable.
Freo have 3 1st rounders.
They're are shiit as us and will finish under us.
So pick 4,5 or 6 for Baker you cannot turn down.
Maybe the Hawks up'd their offer to 2 years and we wanted to prise him away. 3 years is generous, although I'm sure it's not on big money.
With both Yze and Newman having coached him and we didn't do research? Sometimes I wonder where you get your ideas.
Interesting.
First if they actually rated him they appear to have lost confidence in that judgement pretty quickly.
Maybe 3 tall forwards didn’t fit in with their plans but given the likely fragility of Lynch returning after 12 months, and Grimes, who has had an interrupted pre season and appeared last week to be well below what we have come to expect, u would have thought maybe a slot on the bench (for Kosy) might have been in order. But no and out he goes.
Add to that 1) he has great difficulty getting the ball and
2) when he does his limit seems to be a kick of 40 meters.
Can’t imagine that either Yze or Newman,
gave glowing reports.
Instead it seems more likely that after the poor performance of our forward line last season it was decided that the only available course was to get in a forward with some experience.
We failed to get Himmelburg and alarmingly the choice slid back very quickly to one between Kosy (… and … Chol).
Koschitzke seems to have been recruited as an insurance policy in the case of another Lynchless season (God forbid)... Maybe he can be swung back and become a servicable utility? We barely paid for him so to view him as a solution to the future is optimistic at best... I'd day he's a big body in the VFL mainly.
The talk of trading Baker is deeply concerning, his commitment and football habits are needed here for our future, as much as freo or WC... I hope he buys a house in Melbourne and stays at Tigerland.
Lynch's fitness is the fulcrum for our list's strength, when he plays our side wins more than losses despite the lack of draft picks/recent retirements/speculative trades. Lynch is a generational talent so doomsdaying on the list management without regard to injury concerns in our senior leading players feels unfair... Surely planning was for Lynch to lead the forward line, Dusty and Shai to cause havoc but "the reality is" he (they) haven't been on the park.
I get that Blair, Dimma and whoever else wanted to strengthen the midfield while these players were still close to prime... had to role that dice... would have loved the players GWS kept but Taranto and Hopper were those available.
If Lynch stays fit, week by week our midfield and list will look better, especially when the opposition has momentum. His contest holds a run of goals like that from the Sun's to five or six not 12.
Let's give the list some breathing space its not even round one!
The talk of trading Baker is deeply concerning, his commitment and football habits are needed here for our future, as much as freo or WC... I hope he buys a house in Melbourne and stays at Tigerland.
Lynch's fitness is the fulcrum for our list's strength, when he plays our side wins more than losses despite the lack of draft picks/recent retirements/speculative trades. Lynch is a generational talent so doomsdaying on the list management without regard to injury concerns in our senior leading players feels unfair... Surely planning was for Lynch to lead the forward line, Dusty and Shai to cause havoc but "the reality is" he (they) haven't been on the park.
I get that Blair, Dimma and whoever else wanted to strengthen the midfield while these players were still close to prime... had to role that dice... would have loved the players GWS kept but Taranto and Hopper were those available.
If Lynch stays fit, week by week our midfield and list will look better, especially when the opposition has momentum. His contest holds a run of goals like that from the Sun's to five or six not 12.
Let's give the list some breathing space its not even round one!
We have forgotten what a team with lynch looks like. It doesn’t have marlion pickett and/or a hamstrung not doing training getting injections for game day mid 30 year old Riewoldt being they key focal point.
