I’m pretty sure Harmes has retired.
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In my opinion the only answer to this question is “no one”. Just get a good coach.
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I’m not too worried about trigger clauses.
Most players are looking for an extra year on top of the trigger. With Crisp, it’s more whether he wants to be part of the next Pies premiership, join another club or go be the teacher.
Our problem will be very few would go for the teacher option. Especially if they still have an opportunity at achieving the first two.
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I know the thread title is “who to poach?” But this is the list of our players who are over 25 years of age; including our supposed leaders:
Andy McGrath
Darcy Parish
Kyle Langford
Zach Merrett
Jade Gresham
Jordan Ridley
Peter Wright
Mason Redman
Ben McKay
Matt Guelfi
Brayden Fiorini
Lachie Blakiston
Will Setterfield
Of those players the only one I’m keeping right now is Peter Wright and possibly McGrath and/or Blakiston. The rest for me are cannon fodder which really shows how we are severely lacking some senior leadership here.
I listened to the Sash podcast this morning and Rob made an interesting point about the likes of Langford and Redman and Parish who all signed long term deals to stay at this club probably with promises that we would top up and contend in the next few years. Then the club backflip and Scott now saying publicly that the club made a conscious decision to go to the draft probably has these players feeling they have been led up the garden path/lied to/betrayed (whatever…) and so they are effectively just playing for their paychecks now and feel they don’t owe anything to the club; including sacrificing their own games to help our next generation of players along.
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i’d be looking for some blokes that fit your age and position profile, but have strong personalities and are among the vfl/sanfl/wafl
i wouldn’t care if they’re below afl standard, we’re losing anyway and will continue to do so. the problem we need to solve in the next 18 months is attitude/endeavour/grit/presence/whatever name you want to give it
so in the absence of being able to recruit a fkn unicorn or three that fits everything we need, prioritise for personality first over everything else.
-edit- glue guys. joe ingles types.
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The problem with those glue guy type of players is that you can’t tell the ‘on field value’. We’ve seen it with Guelfi, we’re seeing that with Blakiston and we’ll get there with Fiorini. In the past we had Howlett and Hocking. In the end, they are plodders in a crap team. I think it’s clear Rosa is drafting juniors with a lean towards players with attitude, endeavour, etc so we’ll naturally filter out the pre-Rosa players and I think once that gets to greater than 50% of the players on the field weekly, that’ll grow and spike into our first jump up the ladder. But that may take another two drafts to achieve.
I think the answer is somewhere in the middle. You have to get some experienced players who can help with the habits and get some experience VFL players who just want it more and also hang on to one or two of our current oldies. Their ceilings won’t be great (which is where fan sentiment will have it’s place) and there’ll be weekly ‘why the fark are we pumping games into [insert player name here] when we’ve got a kid rotting away in VFL’ but the club will get through all that noise. It doesn’t matter what is said at press conferences, that noise is a constant stream for 95% of the fan’s teams in the league.
But the main point of my post (which has probably been lost a bit) is not that there aren’t options. But it’s whether the players want to actually take on that kind of teaching role. Are they just ‘taking a pay check’ whilst the opportunity is there? We’ve seen that too. And I wouldn’t be surprised if we have a similar list as what I have that we’re targeting, but the reality may just be that we can’t attract them and we have to lean towards someone who doesn’t match those attributes but is closest to them (like Melbourne did with Jack Steele).
For us, the important thing that must happen is that we handle Brad Scott respectfully and we also handle any players who want to leave respectfully as well. We can’t be airing our dirty laundry out with it all because no veteran will put up their hands for the role in that kind of environment. Don’t confuse it with we must hold on to players and coach. It just needs to be handled respectfully and professionally.
Basically, we cannot have a repeat of the Rutten sacking and the board upheaval occurring. I’m sure back then we had a great list of players we were trying to court, but because of the situation we were stuck with Weideman and Setterfield. In the end, how you deal with the situation at hand will directly affect what you can get back in to the club.
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If you are looking at players towards the end of their career (ie 28+ YO) who will set standards at training and onfield, I would consider:
Tom Papley (Sydney). Has been member of leadership group and sets training standards for teammates.
Luke Ryan Freo. Known as a defensive general at Freo. Still a bit of footy in him.
Tom Atkins From Geelong. Still playing at the top of his game. Would show Essendon players how to tackle and how to make it stick. Awarded best clubman 4 years running.
Jordon Butts (Adel) - I just like the name
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From the outside looking in there’s no one on that list who I would say has follow me leaderahip qualities .
Would you say any of them other then Merrett have stood up and made a statement to get the team over the line when the heat was on,
That’s the issue every team needs one of them we don’t have him.
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Vlaustin is a great shout.
But the reasons we would want him would be the same reasons that Richmond would be very reluctant to let him leave.
Perhaps Broad as a temu version.
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see that’s where i think you’d get more out of a “lifetime” state player vs someone extending their current run. being quite explicit about why they’re being called up, their success is your success. there’s no underlying secondary aim for the player that could lead to complacency.
basically my main point is i’d rather farrow/robey/sharp/clarke etc playing with dom brew instead of darcy parish. might not win a final by 2028, but could probably successfully sack constantinople
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Dyson Sharp disagrees, he lead SA to a under 18 carnival win.
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I completely agree. They would be ideal. Assuming we have a new coach.
Toby Greene is a terrible idea. He’s a great player, but we need and on-field standard-setter and leader, and that’s not Toby.
Jack Crisp maybe.
BIG BOY BLADWIN
I’m sure sharp and Robey will be leaders but reply was in reply to our current group of senior leaders
My GWS academy mate when at the game the other week pointed out sharp and robey… he even texted when robey got the rising star .
Our senior core have sucked for years and those are the ones that need to be moved on
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Of those players I think 5 will be gone; Gresham, Guelfi and Setterfield are all out of contract at the end of the season with Ridley and Merrett strong chances to be traded.
Our leadership experience in senior players dwindles evermore and we will be reliant on McGrath, Fiorini, Redman, Langford and Wright from the senior core. Parish and McKay show nothing in this space and Blakiston is looking more like a half capable journeyman!
After this season we will need to start adding one of Durham or Caldwell to this group and maybe a Dyson Sharp to see if we can short circuit some change here. Looking for someone to fill this black hole from another club just feels like a search for the Holy Grail!
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Pay Pendlebury 3.5 mill next year to play.
Yes, I’ve upped my initial offer to turn his head.
He decides if he wants to play on the year after on modified games interchanged with assisting in the box.
A coaching role is organized once retired.
Sidearse can take his sh*t smartalec grin and fk off !
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Redman, Langford, Parish are not the senior players or leaders we need. We need some of Crisp, Rampe, Howe, Bailey, Neal. People who have been at successful clubs and know what it looks like. No more ■■■■ leadership or journeymen.
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Jye Menzie from Tassie.
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