I mean, the answer is we have as many picks as we have list spots. That’s how the draft works. It’s not a real question.
And there’ll be all the “but what are we going to do, take pick 100?”. Yes. A month after the draft, all the “you can’t take pick 100” people will be creaming themselves over some SSP prospect who we could have already drafted. Then six months later in the midseason draft people will be falling over themselves inventing trade scenarios so we can get our hands on a better midseason draft pick to get a guy who’s played maybe a dozen more games than he has right now who we could have already drafted.
You’re more than welcome to like or dislike it as an option but it’s not complicated.
I’ve been thinking about this and the Kako situation does make things a bit awkward but we just cannot afford to not his this draft hard (ie we can afford to only take 2 players). First, it sounds like a good group of players. Second, we need some serious turnover of players.
I reckon we need still be looking to move on guys like Shiel etc for draft capital this year. Get as many picks in the second and third round as we can and accept that the best of them will be absorbed by Kako. Obviously if we could get another pick ahead of Kako then that would be optimal but I suspect that will be difficult.
I get so tired of the idea that real list management is keeping players who definitely aren’t up to it because it would be crazy to go draft someone who probably won’t be up to it. I swear there are people who’d find themselves in a position where they need a six to win the game and they’d just take the safe single because they don’t want to look stupid getting out.
If you want to stretch the analogy, I’d say Essendon absolutely thinks they need 12 off the last over with 2 middle order batsmen at the crease. Except really they’re two bowlers who can swing a bit being called all rounders because there’s no depth in the squad, and the club doesn’t hold with this new fangled Duckworth-Lewis-Stern nonsense, if average run rate was good enough in the 90s, it should be good enough now. So they’re chasing 12 while everyone else in the league knows they need 26.
Surely you don’t believe that Dodoro makes these decisions is isolation. He would have been given some indication from Scott as to the priority for keeping Massimo on the list.
As WD said Massimo was on a radio interview half way through the year he basically said
He like Essendon
It got to the end of the year and he didn’t have a contract
Hawks came calling and he liked what they had to say and they offered a contract
Essendon offered him a contract but by that time he had decided to go Hawks
Would have happily stayed at Essendon is Hawks hadn’t come knocking.
We have 2 live picks in this draft (as well as a whole set of low ■■■■■ picks from round 5); 9 and 29. It’s a weak hand in a strong draft. Let’s say we get a 3rd rounder from St Kilda for Shiel (pick 46). It’s still not a great draft hand!
I think we may have to trade our future 1st to a club who has a mature list and is looking to simply top up for a premiership run or a club whose strategy is to rebuild across several drafts and has too much staked in this draft. Let’s say Sydney (pick 18 and 19 this year) are happy to give both of these up for our future 1st and pick 29 giving us 9, 18, 19 and 46. That already looks a bit better but still limits our list turnover.
Rosa, Vozzo and Scott are going to have to get creative in the next four weeks for sure. I suspect they will be conservative though…sigh.
Why would we trade a future top 3 pick in 2026? We need to trade players like Parish, Shiel, Redman and build from there. No trading future picks. We really need them
I’m trying to be realistic. We are not living in a world where Parish or Redman are getting traded when they literally re-signed this year on long term deals. I don’t know about next year’s draft but by all accounts this is a deep draft so trading out of next years to get multiple picks in this year allows us to delist more detritus this year; at least 9-10 players.
We can’t sell out a future asset for a sugar hit in this draft. We’ll probably need to draft 2 players at best (a KPF & Kako) meaning aligning picks to cover the Kako bid & go into finding a gem or 2 out no where. We are decent at that. Durham, Mass, Martin (I am hoping i can add El-Hawli onto that list)
Next years group look ok too and there is every chance we finish lower next year and would be trading away a top 4 pick.
If we want more picks this year then we should be moving blokes like McGrath and Parish on and get what we can for them
I think my concern is our list management team do not have much to play with this off season resulting in conservative moves which will not shift the needle enough. I hope I am wrong and they are brave enough to trade players out. Shiel has done everything possible these last few weeks to elevate his price. Do we sacrifice a Hobbs, Jones, Wright etc. to get more draft capital? I’d love for us to do this because it’s very clear the current playing list lacks the necessary skills and competitiveness required.
I wouldn’t be moving McGrath tbh. We really don’t have any other options to replace him (which is a problem in itself) and I don’t think any pick we get for him is going to out-weigh the cost of replacement.
Parish however, we have stack of other options in the midfield (some which need more exposure) and could get good currency to address other areas of the ground.
I don’t think they will either unfortunately because the club is ran by a bunch of cowards who are scared of change. They are happy for us just to crawl along in endless mediocrity.
It’s what happens when you have weak leadership at any organisation
I understand the arguments in favour of a more radical change, but I’m definitely not a fan of trading future first round picks for a team that has every chance to end up in the bottom half again. That seems like a weird/desperate choice to me, unless the deal is just too good to say no to.