Managed to recover nicely to 71 with 60 points in the second half. Jackson only scored 10 after half time to cook any flexibility and Lester’s late sub means I’ll have to take 54 from Haynes.
Will need my mids to go big again this week
Mid Season Review
The Draft
It hasn’t blossomed as well as I’d hoped. Three players I’d drafted have been delisted (Stocker, Martyn and Bowey), my first four picks (Jamarra, Pedlar, Maginess and Cook) have only played two games in total and my best scoring draft picks have been Wicks and Wilkie. Short term, it has been a crippled my chances of winning. I’m still willing to be patient with the draft picks though.
The Season
It can be summed up in one word. Injuries. Dependable scorers (Marshall, Viney, Anderson, Bonner, Haynes and Elliott) have missed extended periods of time this year. Draftees Brayden Cook, Pedlar and Jamarra have had setbacks through the year. Bewley has barely gotten two WAFL games under his belt. On top of that, the early Queensland lockdown affected my Gold Coast players (Fiorini, Sharp and Atkins) where they missed up to 3 weeks of valuable practise games and fitness.
The drafting strategy as well as the injuries contributed to the lack of scorers weekly as well as some very tough scores to take.
The positives were Ben Keays stepping up and becoming a premium scorer and the round 8 win against Alber Goodthur.
Free Agency
It’s been tough filling in gaps. Amongst it all, I think I’ve found a few players worth being patient with. Boyd Woodcock, Ned Reeves and Ryan Byrnes all look like good prospects. Long term I think I’ll regret not being patient with Tristan Xerri, but i think Reeves is a good replacement. Steven Motlop was a solid pickup early who has faded as the season has progressed.
Trade Period
In → Will Drew, 2 x 1st round picks, 2 x 2nd round picks, 3rd round, 4th round, 6th round pick + 2 x 7th round pick
Out → Ben Keays, Nic Newman, Nick Haynes, Jamie Elliott, David Swallow, Nathan Wilson, Steven Motlop, 7th round pick + 9th round pick
The plan was obviously to hit the next draft as heavily as possible. I did give up two premium scorers (Keays + Newman) a decent defender struggling for form (Haynes) and a decent midfield scorer (Swallow), but I think I got pretty good value for all four players. Elliott, Wilson and Motlop didn’t quite fit into our future plans so getting something back from those trades were worthwhile.
Will Drew wasn’t really a target. I’m not sure if he becomes the DTer he was showing at SANFL level a few years back, but I’m willing to give him some time to develop.
I go into the next trade period with 3 1st round picks, 3 second round picks, 2 4th round picks, a 5th round pick + 6 following picks. That should give me some decent currency to either trade up the draft or take a chance on trading some young talent back into the club.
This is the most aggressive trade period I’ve ever had and I think I handled the discussions amongst all parties pretty well to get trades done and to maximise the value of each trade.
Outlook for the rest of the year
I’m obviously targeting a win against saladin. Realistically, that’s probably my best chance to win for the rest of the year. However, I will have to do that with my two best scorers of the year on the LTI list. I should get Viney back and hopefully by then I have Firorini, Atkins and a few rookies getting some consistent games.
Keeper Outlook
I think I’m content with the remaining older players I have at the club. Marshall, Allen, Viney, Anderson, Luke Ryan and Bonner should be able to hit their peak in the coming years whilst hopefully a ground swell of youngsters push the team to be competitive in the coming few years. Wicks and Wilkie will also be held onto in the short term. I’m willing to be patient with Pedlar, Jamarra, Woodcock, Byrnes, Drew, Trew and Cook. The rest of the keepers will be out of all the youngsters on my list. At this point, I doubt Atkins, Fiorini and Bewley will make it onto the keepers list.
Long term strategy
The team has evolved quite a fair bit in the last three years. I only have 2 players on my list who were here before 2018 and that’s Viney and Ryan. By targeting the last draft and the next draft heavily and being patient, I’m hoping that I don’t need to trade away some of my veteran players and that the younger players grow into a good scorers by the end of 2022 around the time my veterans have either hit their peak or just past their peak and have a few more years of high level scoring to go. I’m pretty committed to that plan, then I’ll reassess and see if I target another draft heavily or begin improving on my weaknesses and target certain positions for a finals push in 2023/24.
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I’m pretty sure CB shopped him to everyone!
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I’m sure he shopped around a few others to a lot of people. He’s good to trade with because all options are on the table. And he doesn’t get annoyed with the ‘nah, I’ll pass’ response.
The first and second round picks were the main part of the trade and there was another trade that I preferred for Keays without as many picks, but couldn’t quite get it sorted out.
Moving forwards, I’ll probably treat trade period the same way as I did this time. Use it as a bidding process to begin with. Post that discussions are occurring on certain players, allow others to offer whatever they are willing to offer and work with the one I think is most beneficial.
The one thing I couldn’t keep up with was researching some of the players that were on offer. I was working from home during the week so I had no time to look deeply into a player that has never been on my radar. Weekends weren’t overly easier either.
Anyway…
With all the traded away players I have to fill the voids with FAs. Depending on whether they can be relied upon to be selected week to week, I may run close to the limit of FA changes I can do.
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It’s gonna be a scorched earth affair.
Our home ground is looking a little 2nd hand, but We’re digging in. We’ll be ready.
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Cheers mate.
You’re good to trade with also. I love how you don’t get sooky when you receive offers you don’t like, we just keep exploring options and we came to an agreement that benefited both parties. I was stunned there weren’t more trades completed from other coaches. For all the “when is trade period?” talk there was only 1 trade completed that didn’t involve either myself or Blummers, and that was for a 10th round pick.
What are your thoughts on Riley Bonner? I have him in the other league, have been interested in his progression. Do you think he’s a viable long term option? That hamstring early year really killed his momentum that he built pre-season.
You don’t shop your players around? 
I never hide the fact I shop all my players around, if you aren’t improving you’re going backwards. Will Drew was a talented mid that I didn’t have time to develop with my side, I thought I’d get value out of him and try and boost my premiership chances. I think he’ll be a very good player, just needs to work on his outside game. His tackling is first class already at just 22. He’s the prefect fit for a rebuilding side.
On my other trades I’m happy to add Keays, hopefully he can maintain this form to the end of the year. I didn’t like losing Silvagni but I wanted to get back into the first few rounds of the draft, and so I wanted Motlop in to cover his scoring loss.
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I’m not as bullish on Bonner as I was a few years back.
His SANFL was really positive and he was scoring pretty consistently as well. But he was playing wing. His first few games at senior level were very good.
Then he stagnated and now probably regressed a bit, but his role isn’t as free flowing so he’s pretty much had to be more defensive minded to stay in the team.
I don’t see Port building around him and I don’t think he’s that kind of player. He’d probably end up being an Andrew Mackie type scorer. A slightly better than average defender in a very good defensive team.
I’m far more confident Luke Ryan becomes a premium defender because the Freo backline is built around him.
Im even more confident Wilkie surpasses Bonner. I see Wilkie as scoring similar to Zach Tuohy. It’s just whether or not he gets a decent team around him that allows them to have a bit more freedom.
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Got a bad feeling about this week with so many locked in handy scores for Dunners, Higgins has already exceeded his score from last week before QT
I’m lucky Dunlop’s mids were poor today, keeping me in it - Elliott the next player to have a worldie performance, close to 70 at HT
Elliott isn’t actually on you.
He joins a long list of players who seem to play better elsewhere than at my club.
I’m sure he’ll play every game the rest of the season.
I don’t think I’ve had more than 5 games in a row from him in the 5 or so years I’ve had him.
Need him to slow down in the second half that’s for sure, or for Quaynor to stop dropping marks and giving away frees and catch up!
Prestia injured again FFS, would love to have my best side once this year
I think Parish more than makes up for him!
Tough night for @Allblack with McGrath & Zaharakis injured, and Zorko suspended for 1 game.
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More so the bye weeks, everyone getting injured or putting in their worst of the year, will take 130 from parish next week though…
Hard to go from a zero in the ruck, picking up Chol, then barracking against him.
Straight up garbage week for my lot.
Are bye players locked into their positions from the start of this round? Have been trying to shuffle a few around, and thought they might be locked during live games. Still can’t move them now there are no games currently underway.
I thought you cannot make changes after the Saturday 1pm game.
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Correct. I think.