Trade Targets

Hopefully tonight’s game dispelled any calls to get Miles

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Teams are rebuilding all the time & the only thing that actually makes a full rebuild is the quality of the players picked or traded in. We’ve had a full rebuild, again, but once again the quality of the kids isn’t good enough to look like we’ve fully rebuilt. Imagine right now we were top 4 with Langford, Laverde, Redman, Morgan, Parish, Francis, Long, Ridley, Begley & Mutch all in the best 22 - that would look like a full rebuild. We’ve drafted enough kids to rebuild a dozen times but we’ve never really nailed a period of a few years to have a group develop together.

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or given them opportunities over players that haven’t really proven much for the last 5 years.

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I don’t understand this.
Every team has drafted a similar amount of players of the same time period. If anything, we’ve drafted less. How can the number of draftees have anything to do with full list rebuilds?

There’s some merit in that but really Langford is the only guy on that list I would say definitely hasn’t been given the opportunities I think he’s deserved.

I’m saying that the amount of recent draftees you have in your best 22 determines if you have rebuilt. The notion that gets thrown around here a lot is that we’ve never had a rebuild. The reality is we’ve not had a successful rebuild. The difference is the quality of the kids or trades. You’ll find that with the exception of the draft penalty years we’ve had as many if not more than many other sides people class as having rebuilt. My point is that we’ve had enough draft picks just haven’t had that period where we draft & trade well enough to see a a new look side not only be fielded but playing well. Its only called a “full rebuild” when its a successful change of personnel.

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I still don’t get you, but that might just be me. Every team drafts in a similar amount. Some have more success some years than others. I see a ‘full-rebuild’ as when a team releases it still-tradable players to make way for a new age-group. If you’re not purposefully trading out, then you are not rebuilding - you’re just trying to make do with what’s coming in. That’s just normal list evolution, isn’t it?

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We’ve had that forced upon us with the saga. We’ve traded more best 22 players than anyone bar maybe GWS in the last few years (Ryder, Crameri, Pig, Melksham). What I’m saying is that people here have continually stated “EFC never rebuilds” but we have rebuilt the list but just not successfully. The quote from IceTemple was “A full rebuild is turning over half your list, not one or two players.” We’ve done that as much as anyone.

I say that all the time but i guess it depends on what you believe the definition of a rebuild is.

Imo a rebuild is when you trade away good senior players while they still have several good years left to bring in kids along with delisting average to dud players and bring in kids.

In other words you are sacrificing any chance you have of currently playing finals for hopefully future success.

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Personally a rebuild for mine has to be a large turnover of players over say 2-4 years. There are different ways to do that but I don’t think its not a rebuild if you have a heap of players retire as opposed to being traded or delisted. I think people only talk about a rebuild once its been a successful rebuild which is why there is the perception that EFC hasn’t ever rebuilt. IF we had of nailed the 14-16 drafts & had all or at least most of those guys now playing in a side near the top of the ladder then I believe the narrative would be all about our full rebuild post Jobe, Stants etc. Instead we have had limited success from those drafts so the perception is that we haven’t rebuilt.

Post 2001 we traded out 5 premiership players over the next 2 drafts plus had about the same retire. That should have been a rebuild & in terms of numbers it was. Why its not regarded as a rebuild is because we drafted shockingly bad & therefore didn’t have the kids coming in making any real impact. This is also why many only focus on the couple of top up players we picked up in Sheedy’s last few years & somehow forget that we drafted heavily in those years just poorly.

Post the Sheedy era, I’d argue we’ve never really been in a position where we could say we were a finals quality list but we’re going to sacrifice that in the hope of a future flag. We’ve never had a list that had excess talent & even when we did have bigger cracks at the draft we failed to capitalise. 2006 for example was supposed to be the draft we rebuilt from (much like Geelong built a huge foundations from their 99 & 01 drafts & like Hawthorn did from the 04 draft) but again we drafted poorly & didn’t get that base to build on.

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Won’t be getting Miles. Was spoken to & passed over last year. The same deficiencies are still there.

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This is the key point IMO & why I get so frustrated by the club continually going back to the likes of Myers.

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So in other words you agreed with me but just wanted to argue anyway.

In my mind it is as follows

We didn’t rebuild Sheedy/post Sheedy which meant Watson lead teams didn’t have enough talent.

We did rebuild post saga with the two jakes/Ryder and Hibbered being traded out.

Wether the recent rebuild is sufficient time will tell.

Where did I argue with you?

So what do you believe we did post saga that we didn’t do previously? Again we traded out 5 Premiership players & had another 5 retire within 2 years of our last GF, thats a fair rebuild for mine in terms of numbers. I think the reason why we didn’t have the talent in Jobe’s years was simply the quality of drafting & the ability to develop our draftees into quality players.

Is 29 players drafted in four years a significant turn over. This doesn’t include players traded in. Thats us from 2014 to now. I agree with you for what’s it’s worth. We have rebuilt. It’s just we didn’t draft enough guns.

I honestly think the idea of a rebuild is a fallacy. It’s all about how well you draft.

I think the likes of the swans have showed how you “rebuild”. They keep adding players to their list even with rookie selections that just keep making the grade. Who of any great consequence have they recently traded out for the sake of a rebuild? Adding the likes of Rampe, Parker, Papley etc through late picks is a great help. I actually don’t think it’s productive to get rid of a large quantity of players in one hit. I think we’ve turned over around 30 players since 2014 which is around 7 per season, that’s quite high. I’d say the difference is that we’ve lost some A grade talent and not replenished it. Ryder & Carlisle are quality key position players that don’t grow on trees, Hibberd was AA quality last season. We’ve got Z Merrett in who’s A grade but who else? Certainly no key position players with high end potential. We have used our rookie list poorly IMO. Outside of Walla & category B McKenna, we’ve had little come via that pathway for a number of years, instead we’ve used it to downgrade players like Eades, McKernan etc. while the swans produce Ronke (who was available as a cat b rookie to us), Cunningham, Newman etc who’ve all been handy players off the rookie list. We need to get more creative IMO. Wouldn’t have been against recruiting a Schloithe or Grigg for instance but we hang onto J Merrett, Long, Myers (and Morgan too had he not jumped ship) etc after a number of years of showing they won’t make the grade.

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Thats what I’m saying, we’ve rebuilt the list numerous times over BUT you only seem to be credited with a rebuild if you turnover your list to a successful team. We have had a similar story in terms of draft numbers for the last 20 years but again its the fact that far too many of those draftees haven’t become quality senior players.

There’s a perception that we should have traded out the few quality players we’ve had for more picks but my view has always been that quantity of draft picks hasn’t been the issue. Handing Dodoro extra picks over the last 20 years doesn’t equal a better list then or now.

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I still don’t call that a ‘rebuild’. It is great list management and evolution. For mine, a rebuild requires ‘tearing down to build again’. If there’s no ‘tearing down’ - there’s nothing to rebuild - you’re just maintaining.

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