Nicky Dal recruit of the year

[Austinnn]

Dal for Billy and Delaney - pretty sure that we will win that overall. Short term loss for long term benefits

Correct. Nice signature too!

[SainterK]

He wanted to go...

Just played it better than the other two.

[Johnny Favier]

I think a lot of people overlook one of the most important things to come out of Dal leaving, aside from bringing in a big defender and getting a lower draft pick , it's also freed up vital salary cap space.

[axcellence]

Dal for Billy and Delaney - pretty sure that we will win that overall. Short term loss for long term benefits

Correct. Nice signature too!

Thanks.. I should credit the movie / graphic novel source for the signature - V for Vendetta

[mr six o'clock]

my only regret losing dal is i reckon he will play at least five more years .

Possibly more , it would be great to have another 300 game player at the club .

[BigMart]

Goddard, Ball and Da will all play 100 games at their new clubs... Not bad eh

Macca will play more

[plugger66]

Goddard, Ball and Da will all play 100 games at their new clubs... Not bad eh

Macca will play more

I must ask you this and hope you will answer. Would our club be closer to bottoming out if all those guys were playing? Would we make the finals if all those guys were playing? And how do you keep guys if they want to leave when thee is now FA? Would you have paid BJ what he wanted to keep him?

[BigMart]

1) No we wouldn't be, but I don't want StK to bottom out. I think 'bottoming out' is
1/ not required for success
2/ not a guarantee for success

2)If they were playing... At reasonable strength... Hard to say

B: Gilbert........ Maguire...... Geary
HB: Roberton ..Fisher....... .. Webster/Newnes
C: Ray ......... Armitage....... Dal Santo
HF: Ball ....... Riewoldt ....... Montagna
F: Schnieder...... Stanley ...... Lynch
Foll: MaCEvoy..... Goddard.... Steven
Int
Hayes.... Jones ..... Dunstan
Sub
Ross

That side would be competitive

3) hard to keep them I suppose... But I am not sure we tried that hard in all cases, with some we just rolled over. Including the coach.
IMO all were at pains to leave.

I'll look at each individually
1/ Ball... I do believe Ball loved the club, but not how he was being treated. Ross was not a fan of his game and wanted one more spreader as opposed to a clearance mid. Ball was getting overs, but the 1M that Lovett received should IMO have been put to Ball. And instead of Lyon discarding him, he should had worked with him. In hindsight, even with a knee reco Ball has been a very good player at Coll... No reason why he could not have been at StK
2/ Goddard. Hard to compete with 800k would never have paid that. But the baulk from what I understand was the length of his contract at StK, more than the price. I would certainly have given him 5 as he deserved it, and will play 5 at Essendon. He should have been Captain last year and this.
3/ I'll go Mac next as he should have been the skipper following BJ. He was traded to get a top 20 pick and an upgrade (poor compensation IMO) this was done because having him or not made little difference as we already were rebuilding. We got Longer for 25 which overcompensated for losing Ben.
4/ dal, not sure even after he left was convinced he did the right thing... Like Ball and BJ. Now he is as happy as a pig in .... Which is sad. I don't reckon money had a great deal to do with his decision. The fact Ross, BJ, Ball, Kosi, Milne had gone and we were heading south and he was getting tagged as our most damaging mid.... In a crap side weekly did.

Fundamental question
How can a better side afford to pay a player more than a bad side?

Do I reckon we should have kept them?
No, but we should of tried harder IMO I don't think any of the decisions were easy for those players... We seemed to be resigned to the fact it was over?

Pelchin IMO wanted them gone... And wanted to build a new team of his own.

GWS and GC are the problem there....

We are in a precarious position IMO and was laughed at for suggesting this last year

[gringo]

1) No we wouldn't be, but I don't want StK to bottom out. I think 'bottoming out' is
1/ not required for success
2/ not a guarantee for success

2)If they were playing... At reasonable strength... Hard to say

B: Gilbert........ Maguire...... Geary
HB: Roberton ..Fisher....... .. Webster/Newnes
C: Ray ......... Armitage....... Dal Santo
HF: Ball ....... Riewoldt ....... Montagna
F: Schnieder...... Stanley ...... Lynch
Foll: MaCEvoy..... Goddard.... Steven
Int
Hayes.... Jones ..... Dunstan
Sub
Ross

That side would be competitive

3) hard to keep them I suppose... But I am not sure we tried that hard in all cases, with some we just rolled over. Including the coach.
IMO all were at pains to leave.

I'll look at each individually
1/ Ball... I do believe Ball loved the club, but not how he was being treated. Ross was not a fan of his game and wanted one more spreader as opposed to a clearance mid. Ball was getting overs, but the 1M that Lovett received should IMO have been put to Ball. And instead of Lyon discarding him, he should had worked with him. In hindsight, even with a knee reco Ball has been a very good player at Coll... No reason why he could not have been at StK
2/ Goddard. Hard to compete with 800k would never have paid that. But the baulk from what I understand was the length of his contract at StK, more than the price. I would certainly have given him 5 as he deserved it, and will play 5 at Essendon. He should have been Captain last year and this.
3/ I'll go Mac next as he should have been the skipper following BJ. He was traded to get a top 20 pick and an upgrade (poor compensation IMO) this was done because having him or not made little difference as we already were rebuilding. We got Longer for 25 which overcompensated for losing Ben.
4/ dal, not sure even after he left was convinced he did the right thing... Like Ball and BJ. Now he is as happy as a pig in .... Which is sad. I don't reckon money had a great deal to do with his decision. The fact Ross, BJ, Ball, Kosi, Milne had gone and we were heading south and he was getting tagged as our most damaging mid.... In a crap side weekly did.

Fundamental question
How can a better side afford to pay a player more than a bad side?

Do I reckon we should have kept them?
No, but we should of tried harder IMO I don't think any of the decisions were easy for those players... We seemed to be resigned to the fact it was over?

Pelchin IMO wanted them gone... And wanted to build a new team of his own.

GWS and GC are the problem there....

We are in a precarious position IMO and was laughed at for suggesting this last year

I actually think we should have traded Ball out. He was surplus to requirements with Lenny in the team and for a guy who got substantially over paid for an injury riddled player he should have tried to help the club get a better value. Geelong and Sydney might seem to transition better through eras but the end will come for Geelong soon as they retire out their over 30s. They have better recruiting than us but they might be in for longer pain by staying up but not quite being good enough to win another flag. Sometimes better to go back to the well than lick from a puddle.

[stinger]

my only regret losing dal is i reckon he will play at least five more years .

Possibly more , it would be great to have another 300 game player at the club .

add to that north recognise the other valuable commodities dal has brought to their club.....something posters on here...welll ..some of them have apparenrly chosen to overlook.....don't believe me???......read the article...

[stinger]

Goddard, Ball and Da will all play 100 games at their new clubs... Not bad eh

Macca will play more

the first three break my heart each time i see them star in enemy clothing........big boy...not so much.....

[stinger]

1) No we wouldn't be, but I don't want StK to bottom out. I think 'bottoming out' is
1/ not required for success
2/ not a guarantee for success

2)If they were playing... At reasonable strength... Hard to say

B: Gilbert........ Maguire...... Geary
HB: Roberton ..Fisher....... .. Webster/Newnes
C: Ray ......... Armitage....... Dal Santo
HF: Ball ....... Riewoldt ....... Montagna
F: Schnieder...... Stanley ...... Lynch
Foll: MaCEvoy..... Goddard.... Steven
Int
Hayes.... Jones ..... Dunstan
Sub
Ross

That side would be competitive

3) hard to keep them I suppose... But I am not sure we tried that hard in all cases, with some we just rolled over. Including the coach.
IMO all were at pains to leave.

I'll look at each individually
1/ Ball... I do believe Ball loved the club, but not how he was being treated. Ross was not a fan of his game and wanted one more spreader as opposed to a clearance mid. Ball was getting overs, but the 1M that Lovett received should IMO have been put to Ball. And instead of Lyon discarding him, he should had worked with him. In hindsight, even with a knee reco Ball has been a very good player at Coll... No reason why he could not have been at StK
2/ Goddard. Hard to compete with 800k would never have paid that. But the baulk from what I understand was the length of his contract at StK, more than the price. I would certainly have given him 5 as he deserved it, and will play 5 at Essendon. He should have been Captain last year and this.
3/ I'll go Mac next as he should have been the skipper following BJ. He was traded to get a top 20 pick and an upgrade (poor compensation IMO) this was done because having him or not made little difference as we already were rebuilding. We got Longer for 25 which overcompensated for losing Ben.
4/ dal, not sure even after he left was convinced he did the right thing... Like Ball and BJ. Now he is as happy as a pig in .... Which is sad. I don't reckon money had a great deal to do with his decision. The fact Ross, BJ, Ball, Kosi, Milne had gone and we were heading south and he was getting tagged as our most damaging mid.... In a crap side weekly did.

Fundamental question
How can a better side afford to pay a player more than a bad side?

Do I reckon we should have kept them?
No, but we should of tried harder IMO I don't think any of the decisions were easy for those players... We seemed to be resigned to the fact it was over?

Pelchin IMO wanted them gone... And wanted to build a new team of his own.

GWS and GC are the problem there....

We are in a precarious position IMO and was laughed at for suggesting this last year

good sensible post...imho...

[st_Trav_ofWA]

you are prob right BM that Pelchen wanted these players out (although Ball was before Pelchens time) ...
the way i see it is :

when Pelchen took over his role he knew in the next 5-6 years the club were going to see the exit of the core group who took the club so close to the ultimate success the guys like BJ Dal Roo Lenny Milne Kosi Fisher Joey Schnides ... there were ways to go about this we could let them play out their careers with us and be a lower mid ladder team (from 11th to 7th) for a while and then go through the list rebuild or we could move on those with the most value outside of the club and start the early stages of the rebuild right now .. BJ and Dal provided the most value to other clubs... lets be honest Milne Schnides and Kosi would not get anything at trade.. Roo was/is the face of the club so his value on our brand is worth more internally then what we would get by letting him move club... Fisher i reckon was shopped around but the interest wasnt that good and i reckon if the offer came up Joey would be avalable ....

i think in the eyes or Pelchen it matters little how the team perform now .. its all about getting the players in the door , also working on the whole player payment squeeze that we have had we will be in a good position to poach a big name once we have done the rebuild

[BigMart]

Personally Trav.

I think Pelchin is playing Russian Roulette with the club. I'm not convinced at all by what he's done. The club has been extremely unsuccessful since he walked through the door.

By not caring about results, it will put us to the sword financially. Geelong and us where in similar list modes in 2008/2009 they have stayed up, by developing and retaining and still recruiting from outside.
IMO we got desperate, Milera, Maister, Saad, Lee were confusing decisions.

[plugger66]

1) No we wouldn't be, but I don't want StK to bottom out. I think 'bottoming out' is
1/ not required for success
2/ not a guarantee for success

2)If they were playing... At reasonable strength... Hard to say

B: Gilbert........ Maguire...... Geary
HB: Roberton ..Fisher....... .. Webster/Newnes
C: Ray ......... Armitage....... Dal Santo
HF: Ball ....... Riewoldt ....... Montagna
F: Schnieder...... Stanley ...... Lynch
Foll: MaCEvoy..... Goddard.... Steven
Int
Hayes.... Jones ..... Dunstan
Sub
Ross

That side would be competitive

3) hard to keep them I suppose... But I am not sure we tried that hard in all cases, with some we just rolled over. Including the coach.
IMO all were at pains to leave.

I'll look at each individually
1/ Ball... I do believe Ball loved the club, but not how he was being treated. Ross was not a fan of his game and wanted one more spreader as opposed to a clearance mid. Ball was getting overs, but the 1M that Lovett received should IMO have been put to Ball. And instead of Lyon discarding him, he should had worked with him. In hindsight, even with a knee reco Ball has been a very good player at Coll... No reason why he could not have been at StK
2/ Goddard. Hard to compete with 800k would never have paid that. But the baulk from what I understand was the length of his contract at StK, more than the price. I would certainly have given him 5 as he deserved it, and will play 5 at Essendon. He should have been Captain last year and this.
3/ I'll go Mac next as he should have been the skipper following BJ. He was traded to get a top 20 pick and an upgrade (poor compensation IMO) this was done because having him or not made little difference as we already were rebuilding. We got Longer for 25 which overcompensated for losing Ben.
4/ dal, not sure even after he left was convinced he did the right thing... Like Ball and BJ. Now he is as happy as a pig in .... Which is sad. I don't reckon money had a great deal to do with his decision. The fact Ross, BJ, Ball, Kosi, Milne had gone and we were heading south and he was getting tagged as our most damaging mid.... In a crap side weekly did.

Fundamental question
How can a better side afford to pay a player more than a bad side?

Do I reckon we should have kept them?
No, but we should of tried harder IMO I don't think any of the decisions were easy for those players... We seemed to be resigned to the fact it was over?

Pelchin IMO wanted them gone... And wanted to build a new team of his own.

GWS and GC are the problem there....

We are in a precarious position IMO and was laughed at for suggesting this last year

Havent you picked some players we got for those players that left. That side would finish about 10th IMO but be on the slide and would reach the bottom for another 3 or 4 years so IMO we have done the right thing. And there is no proof that we could have kept the players however we tried. its all guess work to say one way or another. And i am confused by your comment that we should not have kept them but should have tried harder to keep them. Seems like you are in both camps and are playing it very safe. As for your comment how can a better side afford to pay more than a poor side. i think we were better than two sides and worse than 2 so im unsure i get that and I also dont think Dal and ben left anyway because we couldnt afford them. matter of fact im sure of that so that question doesnt make sense.

[BigMart]

??

Didn't understand some of that...

No I didn't select any players we got as a direct result of them leaving? Jack Newnes or Jimmy Webster at 42. Thing is if we didn't have pick 37 and other teams overlooked Newnes, we definitely would have taken him instead of Webster... Which is why I selected one or the other

Simple point
I would have preferred to have kept them... But not paid the price.
But they should/could have been locked away far earlier
Would have definitely not let Ball go for Zero

Which lists were we better than
Ball to Collingwood they were a side of equal ability 2008-2010
BJ to Ess who were a much better list
Dal to North ... A better list by double
Mac to Hawthorn ... Don't compare

BTW
8-10th probably a fair assessment of that team and yes on the slide probably... But who knows.
But ATM
Were are 16-18 on the slide
Just because we are bottoming out, doesn't mean we will draft any better, develop any better, or rise any faster
When are Geelong going to slide

If I had a good list as we did in 2008-10
I would transition the list by means of replacing a few every year.... And just keep the momentum going....
Feed them through the bottom continuously and the top will take care of itself
We went stagnant and it hurt in the end

Now it's baby out with the bath water time....

We did that in 2000/2001... It nearly worked.... But we had priority picks and we were the benefactors of two freak drafts

we didn't have teams like GC, GWS, Port competing with us .... Really Just Geelong

[BigMart]

Example

Would have tried to lock away BJ earlier as Carlton has done with Gibbs... Giving more security than money. Coll were able to lock away Cloke, GC are about to sign Gary... Clubs can retain. Often they only lose if they want to.

Buddy and Gary were extreme example.

He wanted a 5 year deal, we refused it? I honestly think he was the symbol that represented a full rebuild.

What did we get for him?
Tom Hickey....
And some poorly managed cap space.

That actually should be the talking point... And the answer to my fundamental question.

Why was our SC managed so poorly in that period.

[dragit]

BM, how do we look in 2016 when that entire side has retired and we have no young players with experience on the list? Much worse than our current state by a mile.

No Billings, Dunstan, acres, hickey, longer, Lee, wright, White, Markworth, Saunders, Delaney...

We basically had that side in 2011 & we looked completely shot, old & slow, plus our salary cap would not accommodate all of those players going forward.

[st_Trav_ofWA]

Personally Trav.

I think Pelchin is playing Russian Roulette with the club. I'm not convinced at all by what he's done. The club has been extremely unsuccessful since he walked through the door.

By not caring about results, it will put us to the sword financially. Geelong and us where in similar list modes in 2008/2009 they have stayed up, by developing and retaining and still recruiting from outside.
IMO we got desperate, Milera, Maister, Saad, Lee were confusing decisions.

he may well be .... it could very well be a case of in 10 years time we rue the decision of letting Pelch build the team ... but the fact remains we need to build the team one way or another so if you are going to roll the dice you may as well stay to see what they come up with rather than walk away when it looks a bit ugly ...

the club has been unsuccessful since he walked in ... the thing is it was always going to be in this period we had our run at the flag starting in 2004 from that point we topped up took short fixes and band aid actions to stay in the hunt until 2011... thats a long period where we were focused on the now not the in three years time ... by the time we woke up to the fact our young team of stars was now becoming an old team of former stars .. you mention Geelong the thing with geelong was that even through their dominance they were constantly filtering players through they cut hero's like King for youth (although the guy they cut King for turned out to be a dud) in the mean time we were picking up these guys with no future for the club other than the right now need ...

those confusing decisions you talk about ..

Milera and Saad cost us next to nothing we traded pick 20 for them both and pick 25 basically turning one speculative pick on a player who could be anything into three speculative picks who could be anything .. it was spreading the risk of that pick onto three prospects ...

Maister now it is also worth noting the background of this pick - we had lost Dawson we had put all our eggs into the Mitch Brown trade that didnt happen we needed a big body Beau had experiance at AFL level as a backman , he had come off two highly successful WAFL seasons by the time pick 68 came round in the draft looking at what was left to pick from the club to a punt on him

Tom Lee now this at the moment looks to be a strange one but again lets look at the background of this - Lee had been drafted by the Crows as a teen and was a very good talent with some issues around his maturity he was delisted and sent back to WA .. in that time he started to realise what he was throwing away and knuckld down to be one of the most exciting players in the WAFL .. he looked like he was living up to the potential the Crows had originally seen in him... again like the Milera and Saad trade we turned one speculative player pick (albeit a pretty good pick) into 3...

its easy to sit back and say "well Geelong havent bottomed out" but we are not Geelong so lets stop trying to compair our selves with them they have had a very very good run with factors such as Father son picks , dedicated favourable home ground stadium deal and above all a good pinch of good luck ..

[plugger66]

Example

Would have tried to lock away BJ earlier as Carlton has done with Gibbs... Giving more security than money. Coll were able to lock away Cloke, GC are about to sign Gary... Clubs can retain. Often they only lose if they want to.

Buddy and Gary were extreme example.

He wanted a 5 year deal, we refused it? I honestly think he was the symbol that represented a full rebuild.

What did we get for him?
Tom Hickey....
And some poorly managed cap space.

That actually should be the talking point... And the answer to my fundamental question.

Why was our SC managed so poorly in that period.

Well i doubt any club is going to get huge value for players taken under FA. Its just luck of where you finish that year. If you finish first the maximum you can get is pick 19 and if you finish last you can get pick 2. we got what we got for BJ because they are the rules. And I totally agree with the club on not giving him 5 years. His form at that stage didnt warrant 5 years and to be honest he wouldnt be any good to us when we finally get back up and running IMO. As for the SC i think we faced what a few clubs face when you dont reach the top. Players take pay cuts when they win flags as a group but I cant think of groups taking pay cuts when you finish second.

[dragit]

Btw you mention cloke but overlook Shaw x2, Thomas & wellingham.

Ablett, chapman, hunt, Mumford etc

Kennedy, McGlynn, franklin

Sydney have had a million more each year which helps...

[st_Trav_ofWA]

theres a bit of selective memory there BM ... every year there is going to be teams rebuilding its the way the AFL draft system works to be doing the rebuild now when the expansion teams concessions are coming to a close is much better idea ... currently we have the GC Port and Melbourne coming out of their rebuild with GWS and WB not far behind in heading that way ... you have us, Brisbane Carlton in rebuild (although Carlton will try to deny it and may not actually embrace it therefore putting them further behind) .... teams such as Richmond WCE Crows and Collingwood are heading closer to the rebuild and for the moment hovering mid range... Essendon North and Fremantle are in the mode where they think they need to just tweek a few things ... Swans buy their way to stay up ... Hawthorn are going to come down with a thud but hey they will prob have a couple of flags to keep them happy

[BigMart]

Ablett as mentioned... Different category

Hunt and Chapman were not offered another contract.... Mumford was a mistake, by Geelong and squeezed out at Sydney.... But was not in the best 18 ATT

Both Shaws did not leave, they were moved on....

Kennedy, McGlynn were not in the senior team when

Collingwood chose not to offer Thomas a contract.... Ankle problems too risky, Bucks has stated that.

Strange to compare either fringe players or post 30 players to BJ Goddard (26) L.Ball (26) Dal Santo (29) McEvoy (24)
They were all in top 10 players on the list and in their prime?

Sometimes the attempt to defend the club defies logic.

Here's logic

We are 16th... Full rebuild
They (our 2008-2010 contemporaries) are still top 4... Without the players they lost, in contention?
So they did it right
We probably didn't

Geelong were older than us in 2009

[stinger]

you are prob right BM that Pelchen wanted these players out (although Ball was before Pelchens time) ...
the way i see it is :

when Pelchen took over his role he knew in the next 5-6 years the club were going to see the exit of the core group who took the club so close to the ultimate success the guys like BJ Dal Roo Lenny Milne Kosi Fisher Joey Schnides ... there were ways to go about this we could let them play out their careers with us and be a lower mid ladder team (from 11th to 7th) for a while and then go through the list rebuild or we could move on those with the most value outside of the club and start the early stages of the rebuild right now .. BJ and Dal provided the most value to other clubs... lets be honest Milne Schnides and Kosi would not get anything at trade.. Roo was/is the face of the club so his value on our brand is worth more internally then what we would get by letting him move club... Fisher i reckon was shopped around but the interest wasnt that good and i reckon if the offer came up Joey would be avalable ....

i think in the eyes or Pelchen it matters little how the team perform now .. its all about getting the players in the door , also working on the whole player payment squeeze that we have had we will be in a good position to poach a big name once we have done the rebuild

your argument falls over when it is stated to be a fact that more than half a dozen of the players wanted to leave because of our then coach....

oh...doesn't pelchen care about the supporter group of the clubs finances.....of course he does...blows your theories out of the water..imho.....

[BigMart]

Trav

I am not convinced rebuilds take you up, or success means you must come down

Geelong have played finals every year bar 1 since 2003
Sydney have played finals for longer
Hawthorn since 2007 have been a contender

Teams who look for successful periods, like Melbourne Us, Rich, Carl and the dogs to a lesser degree... Tend to put their eggs in a basket for a shot...... And if they don't succeed they slide.....teams who just focus on being competitive every year., are the ones who'll eventually crack it......Guarantee those teams have taken the most recycled players...

My opinion
You never stop rebuilding
And
You never stop being competitive

Geelong, Sydney and Hawthorn are blueprints IMO

They built great teams and kept them great