Group think was that Hobbs would be gone and we would get someone like Wanganeen-Milera or Sinn.
Rumour was Tigers were tossing up between Hobbs and Josh Gibcus.
If we didnt select Hobbs who was the option we should have taken?
Maybe Darcy wilmot - had speed and was a rebounding defender. It also was the draft /trade period year after we lost Saad. Hind had done pretty well there.
Richmond probably offered 17 and 28 for our pick.
so would have missed Wilmot, but could have got Kai Lohmann or Jesse Motlop as a small forward and Soligo.
I genuinely donât think we had planned what to do if Hobbs was still there.
The club are pretty tight lipped given how much noise there generally is at the time of year. Given weâre going to have a lot of lost spots, weâll almost certainly bring in some players via trade and FA.
Itâs blatantly obvious who the leak was at the club.
Cumming didnât crack into the side regularly till 2021, the giants list was stacked. Duursma on the other hand played a lot of games from year one and has been injured chronically the past few years.
In addition, cumming steps straight back in off the back of an injury to a high level, duursma struggles to get going again after each injury.
The thing i didnât like about the duursma trade was the idiocy in getting rid of a good kick in Massimo, then having to put a good kick in Martin to defence coz we had no good kicks.
Then trading in a winger, coz Martin wouldnât be on the wing anymore and giving port extra than a straight swap despite them being the ones that initiated the zerk Thatcher interest.
They promised the world to zerk, they werenât gonna back outta the deal. Plus a guy thatâs never on the park is worth more than a tall defender they really want and need? So now we have no pick after 28 in the draft to match a kako bid.
I donât mind duursma as a player in the rare times he isnât injured or fresh off an injury, itâs the way the whole thing was done that was stupid.
Also on cumming, he has only had one bad year of injuries so hopefully itâs just a blip, when you get to 3 or 4 bad years itâs a pattern thatâs very hard to correct (Like Xavier). The other thing is, there is no trade outlay, heâd be basically free and he adds to an area we desperately need class users in (plus experience with the two retirements).
You see 20 games as an Essendon supporter and think âoh, yeah, pretty much played the full seasonâ but playing 20 games as a GWS player meant that he (Cumming) still missed 6 matches with soft tissue injuries in 2023 to compound whatâs happened this year. It was a calf injury last year. Quad and hammy issues this season.
You need to seperate trading Duursma IN and losing Mass.
Truth is we need them both.
The Hawks saw what we should have seenâŚto play Massimo on a wing where his overhead and defending deficiencies wouldnât be shown up, and more importantly to play him every week.
Youâve talked me around on Cumming.
Genuinely surprised he played that many games 3 years running.
Hopefully '24 is a one off as you say.
We absolutely need some replacements in that back half with some maturity and footskills.
Iâd like Perryman as well who is at a reasonable age bracket.
If we let LAV, Stringer and Goldstein go, we actually get quite young if all we bring in are kids from the Draft.
I could understand Port wanting more for Duursma.
He would universally have been considered a better player than Zerk.
The combination of some injuries to Duursma and Zerk being a KP player should have brought their relative values back to even.
Zerk finishing the season so poorly didnt help, but i certainly see your point.
We should have played tougher.
Ultimately we knew McKay was coming IN so we got Zerk to his preferred destination.
Hobbs has more than enough exposed form to provide me with confidence that he is worthy of a first round pick. I think itâs criminal the way we played him this year and will significantly regret if he decides to jump ship.
