this is one that hurts me. i picked him up as an FA a few years back and the only reason he didn’t make the keepers list cut was because at the time he was only a F. that was very short sighted of me because the R was only ever just around the corner, oh well
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Yeah, it was pretty evident at Sandy that if/when he got a chance at senior level it would be in a dual role.
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Keen to hear peoples different hits and misses of players they either drafted, traded (in or out), got via FA or used a keeper selection on.
For me:
Hits:
Draft
Chris Mayne (Pick 165) - 13th best B in comp this season
Tom Hickey (Pick 36) - 8th (points)/11th (ave) best R in comp this season
Misses
Retained Keepers
Levi Casboult - I don’t remember what my rationale for this was. But it was clearly flawed.
Callum Ah Chee - went backwards as a scorer after showing glimpses last season.
Draft
Reece Conca (Pick 35) - my first pick in the draft…oof
David Zaharakis (Pick 39) - a victim of our improved team performance and young stars
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From this year?
Misses:
Pick 169: Caleb Marchbank: not a big investment , but after carrying him for injury riddled years and few games, why on earth did I think that would change! Then he popped an ACL
Pick 121:. Josh Treacy. Young, first year key forwards are renowned FF gold. Not. Stupid pick, though iirc I thought he might be an emergency ruck option.
Francis Evans and Robbie Tarrant are harder to evaluate. Evans looked ok on debut, then did the syndesmosis. Tarrant had cancerous growths on the kidneys and didn’t play until late. Unforseen circumstances but ultimately not part of our success.
Hits:
I can’t really list any of them as outright hits specifically for 2021. No one really ripped the comp open with huge scoring. But I was hunting for multiple players in years 2/3/4 who we’re likely to play and who had future growth. Kosi Pickett, Dylan Moore and to a lesser extent Tom Cole all provided good coverage at times. The first two in particular are almost certainly keepers. Sam Berry showed a bit and was then converted into Birchall for the Flag tilt. These boys all played their roles whilst Steele, Zerrett etc did the heavy lifting.
Keepers:
Rory Atkins had a shocking year. We kept him thinking a rebound to scoring at GC was likely. Gave us nothing all year.
Jack Bytel and Sam Flanders were overall a bit average, but both showed glimpses. Bytel probably would have been a Premiership player if I hadn’t been sidetracked on Friday night building a deck!
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My group was very hit and miss.
Given the picks I had (none inside top 100) I actually drafted extremely well. Tom McDonald (pick 119) was a big win and had a few other good depth players. My issue with my drafting and free agency was my decision making on who to hold and who to delist. I actually drafted two of the best rookies for the season very late in the draft in Jeremy Sharp (pick 162) and Lachie Bramble (pick 168) and then cut them before they played in the 2nd half of the year. So I think that’s something for me to work on, but I do like to be active in the FA market so it’s a balance to be made.
I’d say I made some pretty ordinary decisions with my final 20. Stef Martin, Buddy and Murphy were just too many fringe 18 scorers who were over 30 years old. Buddy was good, the other two really really awful. Probably the other main thing I’ll be trying to fix. Will take a few more developing types in my 20 next year in all likelihood.
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Yeah, Sharp and Bramble were excellent picks.
Was Cutler a keeper? If so, an incredible long range selection. I never would have predicted his recent scoring.
Nah he was a FA. Can’t tell even though it appears to have clicked for his actual game whether he will be any good in fantasy or not. He did only have a couple of good fantasy games, just so happened to be the semi and gf.
That said he was a good scorer as a junior and in his early career at the Lions. I certainly had him early on at the Lions before trading him (maybe to redbull’s side)
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I had Cutler on my list for about 4 years until this preseason. He was an easy cut on the basis I thought he was no where near Essendon’s best 22. Scoring was never an issue.
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He was a really odd pick-up for Gold Coast given Dew’s philosophy. He gifted Lyons to the Lions for free, won’t play Brodie and Fiorini also fell out of favour in part, due to a lack of two-way running, yet they sign Atkins to a long-term deal who Nicks dropped because of his apathy towards defensive running.
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i think my 2 biggest misses have been failing to retain Hind this year (traded him out for 51 (sam wicks) and a pick swap iirc) and failing to retain Rohan Marshal a few years back
the trade that has been the biggest winner for me was porbably Dawson for a 3rd round pick before he broke out. can’t remeber who that trade was with.
bailey smith was probably the best performed early round selection i’ve landed but i traded him out last year to set up a run at winning it. looks like higgens might finaly be coming good but traded him out this year for the same reason
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Oh, if we expand it to previous years I’ve stacks of bad decisions, lol.
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Not sure on trade period dates etc, but a reminder that all coaches need to make sure to trim their lists to 30 players now that the season is done. UF is still open so you can do it on there atm.
Keep in mind that you can carry an LTI player onto your keeper list next year, but if you draft or trade for one, they won’t be eligible.
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Congrats on the win @saladin.
I thought I should mention that I won’t be continuing on next year. Hopefully the next coach doesn’t need to be replaced mid season unlike some previous ones.
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What is this in reference to? I’ve obviously missed something here…
A couple of former 1st year coaches went MIA early in their first year and I offered to take over their sides. I’ve coached 2 different teams in the last 3-4 years.
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Dear fellow BBFFL#2 coaches,
I’ll be following @Vandrs’ lead and hanging up the boots, following ten unsuccessful and frankly embarrassing - but nonetheless very enjoyable - seasons in this league. With my job’s peak workload coming at the same time as the draft, and a little CBH on the way, I’ve reluctantly made the decision that I won’t have time to do the comp justice next year.
I’ve made some great decisions (picking up Nat Fyfe with my first pick in the initial draft), and some bad ones (literally every decision after that), but hopefully the list is in a strong enough position for someone who knows what they’re doing to take it a step further and finally win that wooden spoon.
I’d like to thank everyone for making this comp so much fun, particularly @redbull for his enlightening stats and tireless leadership, and @TrevorBix for being my biggest supporter and helping me with uni geology homework (that really happened, back in 2014. What a nerd)
I’ll probably be a regular visitor to these threads and may well be back at some stage, but it’s farewell for now.
CBH
By the way, open to doing in-depth draft reviews for others next year, noting they will be extremely unflattering:
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You’ll be missed CBH. With a bit more luck, you could easily have won a title.
Is this the time to consolidate the league from 18 teams to 16?
That would help to promote free agent activity mid-season as the quality of people on the waiver list should dramatically increase. I think it would also help to strengthen some of the weaker sides with a mini-draft of players from the two vacant teams.
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Good food for thought on a 16 team comp. Happy to hear how other coaches feel about the suggestion.
Well played CBH
On the 16 teams I believe I’d be against
Was hoping to trade surplus players for picks (since got hardly any left), and if two teams of players into the pool that are mini drafted for the lesser teams wouldn’t help my cause
I expect no one will care about my self inflicted plight however!
I’d be for keeper numbers increasing however.
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Sorry to see you go, CBH . Thanks for being a long term part of the league, and all the effort that goes with it.
Interesting idea about 16 teams. I’ll give it some thought.
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