Trade target discussion (merged thread)

[liz]

Regarding the Mills discussion he won't be taken pick 1 or 2, 3 maybe a possibility even if he is bid on in the top two we will match it its not every year you have the chance to get player of this quality into your club and swans won't risk him joining a Victorian club and he may end up staying.
Bruest Issac Smith Langford Suckling are NSW boys aswell doubt they'll come back

While I agree with you regarding Mills and homesickness (as I've already posted), those Hawks players' circumstances are very different to Mills'. Langford is playing for his father's club, one he almost certainly supported growing up. I don't know where Suckling hails from originally but he finished school in Melbourne and had a strong preference to stay there. The Swans offered him a spot on the rookie list (via the old NSW rookie draft concessions) but he turned it down. Smith was playing VFL in Ballarat when he was drafted as a 21 year old. The fact he might have been born marginally north of the border doesn't make him a local Sydney boy.

Bruest, who is the closest thing to a miss by the Swans on that list, isn't from Sydney either. He's a Riverina boy who grew up supporting North. He wouldn't have any particular ties to the Swans, other than the fact he played some reserves games with us.

[6'2, 220, 4.53]

I said it should be a discussion point at the end of 2016.

JPK is pushing into his late 20s. The Swans have had JPKs best years.

How many more of these seasons is he going to produce?

We have Parker, Mitchell and Heeney who are young inside midfield studs. We have potential inside midfield studs to come in Mills and Dunkley.

Why not execute a trade to get some brilliant currency at the trade table either for points, picks or other players. That's not to mention the money saved.

When will Australian sport get over it's obsession of club legends? Players are club assets to be deployed in the best future interest of the organisation.

[WauchopeAnalyst]

JPK would only go to Hawthorn. No other suitors allowed.

[undy]

I said it should be a discussion point at the end of 2016.

JPK is pushing into his late 20s. The Swans have had JPKs best years.

How many more of these seasons is he going to produce?

We have Parker, Mitchell and Heeney who are young inside midfield studs. We have potential inside midfield studs to come in Mills and Dunkley.

Why not execute a trade to get some brilliant currency at the trade table either for points, picks or other players. That's not to mention the money saved.

When will Australian sport get over it's obsession of club legends? Players are club assets to be deployed in the best future interest of the organisation.

When they completely lose their way and their integrity.

The fad for remodeling every aspect of society around some (notional) model of corporate behaviour is idiotic and simplistic in the extreme.

[liz]

Players are club assets to be deployed in the best future interest of the organisation.

No they are not. They are young men, with lives and families, employed by a club to play sport, who build relationships with team mates, provide leadership to younger players coming through, and engage with fans and the broader communities.

[MattW]

I said it should be a discussion point at the end of 2016.

JPK is pushing into his late 20s. The Swans have had JPKs best years.

How many more of these seasons is he going to produce?

We have Parker, Mitchell and Heeney who are young inside midfield studs. We have potential inside midfield studs to come in Mills and Dunkley.

Why not execute a trade to get some brilliant currency at the trade table either for points, picks or other players. That's not to mention the money saved.

When will Australian sport get over it's obsession of club legends? Players are club assets to be deployed in the best future interest of the organisation.

This is a cold-blooded view, which I cannot relate to at all. You evidently view the players - humans - as assets, assessing worth by outputs.

You've assessed incorrectly anyway - both in the sense of Joey's output and the best interests of the organisation.

In terms of output, Joey has just had another dominant year - there was no sign that his physical capacity or ambition have tapered at all. If anything, the opposite. He was stiff to miss an All Australian berth, and I reckon he'll be driven to get that spot and another premiership next year. Your assessment that the Swans have 'had his best years' is wrong, in my opinion.

In terms of worth and interests of the organisation, it seems to me that sporting (and professional) success is built on loyalty, commitment, and affection for the people you work with and the organisation itself. Joey is an inspirational player - twice club champion and three-times best finals player. He seems to be a lovely and well-liked guy, has indicated an intention to play out his career at the Swans, and has just started a family. He'll be planning his life here in Sydney. We love cheering him as a Swans player who has contributed what he has and I am sure the players love playing with him. If he was traded out for the sake of a couple of high picks given his contribution to the club so far, players and supporters would be wondering what kind of club this is and whether they want to play here/support it.

[rojo]

+1

[Ludwig]

I think banking on a homesick Mills wanting to return in two years is folly. He comes across as a highly intelligent, professional young man, and once he is set at which ever club he lands at, there is every chance he will settle down there. Sure, in time, an increased percentage of players originating from NSW might balance out the "returning home" factor but I don't think you can rely on it for a specific player.

Matching a bid for Mills - or not - has to be made on a dispassionate assessment of assembling a list. Is he worth whatever pick is bid for him, based on the current and future make-up of the list, other recruitment needs, and who the alternatives are. None of us can make this assessment. We need to rely on Beatson and his team to make the assessments unemotionally. I have every confidence he will, and that the club will allow him to, without any undue pressure to recruit the local boy, regardless of cost.

No doubt he will take into the account the relative strengths of the list, and the areas we need to recruit to fill not just this year but in the next couple of years too. The reality is that, while top quality players are highly valuable, regardless of position, mid-paced inside midfielders probably should be our lowest recruitment priority at the moment, given the state of the list. It's a shame, in some ways, that both Dunkley and Mills fall into this category.

As a general observation on our academy production line - and it is early days yet - it seems to be doing reasonably well in identifying and attracting medium sized midfielders but there's not been a huge amount of variety on show. I am not referring just to those good enough to be in draft contention, but even those at the next level down, the group who have got chances to play with the NEAFL team. There are a couple of tall players the club has nominated this year, but they are far from assured of a spot on even the rookie list. Sure, they take longer to develop, so 18 year old talls are less likely to be thrust into the NEAFL than their smaller counterparts. But when you compare to Brisbane, who have found Hipwood and Andrews (and a few at a level down), our academy output looks pretty homogeneous. The academies are about development programmes, but they are also about trying to improve AFL's ability to compete with the other major sporting codes for the best talent, and helping to retain that within an AFL development path. I can't believe there is less tall athletic talent in Sydney's zone than in Brisbane's (or GWS') but the Swans don't yet seem to be doing as well to attract and/or retain and/or develop that talent.

I agree that we should make a dispassionate assessment of the cost and value of any player drafted, regardless of being an academy player or not, but I don't think it's folly to orchestrate a return home for a player that has been in the Swans organisation for quite a long time. A prearranged return home should be one of the factors comprising the total assessment of any bid. If not, we are just letting those who have been shafting us for years get away with yet another shafting. We have to show we can play the same game or we can end up like Brisbane. They were once at the top of the heap as well before Eddie McGuire got his claws into them. I realise that there is some considerable risk in such a strategy, but should be considered nonetheless.

I think it's just a matter of chance that the really good players coming out of our academy have been predominantly midfielders, Abe Davis being the one exception that comes to mind. I haven't been too impressed by the KPPs on display this year from the academy. Behaeg looks the best of the lot. Beatson has done a very good job of late identifying talent far down the draft order. Hopefully he has at least one good KP prospect in mind for this year because we won't have any high draft picks to use.

If we did let Mills pass to a bidder and kept our pick 14 there's a reasonable chance that KPD Kieran Collins would be available. He's likely to go somewhere in the teens. I noticed that Callum Twomey has him ranked at 19. I was very impressed with his play in the the championships. He would make a great replacement for Reg. That's one reason I would hold onto pick 14. We (the fans) are not going to be privy to the kind of inside information about players' plans and desires, but I would be very tempted to let Mills go if he were 'committed' to coming back to the Swans in principle and hope to get another player (Collins perhaps) with pick 14. If we know that Dunkley will nominate us, then we can take him with our later picks.

We always seem to be the good guys in these deals. I'd like to see us play the game better, especially knowing the forces that have been plotting our downfall have manipulated the game to our disadvantage.

[6'2, 220, 4.53]

I'm aware that players are human and my views can be perceived as cold.

What I cannot tolerate is players holding all the power. Cam McCarthy decides he is homesick and people say "okay mate let's get you home".

There are professional sporting organisations around the World that would laugh at Cam McCarty and he would be flipping burgers at McDonald's within a year if he brought his current attitude to training.

It's time for the clubs to regain the power, stop indulging players and focus on doing all they can to win premierships. If that means doing deals that involve club legends then so be it.

It can never be forgotten that the Hawks became a better football team after Buddy left.

[0918330512]

JPK is pushing into his late 20s. The Swans have had JPKs best years.

Correction. Based on current form, we are still enjoying his best years.

How many more of these seasons is he going to produce?

With your 20/20 crystal ball, when is his vein of form going to run out? When should we have traded Goodsey? Micky O? Paul Kelly? Bob Skilton?

We have released beloved players to other clubs in the past, but usually because they have wanted the trade, not often because they the are shown the door for the best coin.

We have Parker, Mitchell and Heeney who are young inside midfield studs. We have potential inside midfield studs to come in Mills and Dunkley.

Hahaha you ... sorry Matt80 ... wanted Mitchell traded out only a couple of seasons ago ... ironic that someone who was touted as not going to fit into our side, is now the future of the Swans' midfield, and should squeeze out a current midfield stud in JPK

When will Australian sport get over it's obsession of club legends? Players are club assets to be deployed in the best future interest of the organisation.

Wait for it Matt, here's some more irony, you want "Australian sport (to) get over it's obsession of club legends", yet the "potential inside midfield studs to come in Dunkley" can only really join us because of the father/son rule, in place to perpetuate the obsession of club legends by Australia's great game

Why not execute a trade to get some brilliant currency at the trade table either for points, picks or other players. That's not to mention the money saved.

Why not? Because sometimes our great game, our great club, is about more than points, picks & money. I wonder if NFL/NBA/MLB fans (funny how they're referred to as "fans" & not supporters) really understand ....

[Levii3]

Why not? Because sometimes our great game, our great club, is about more than points, picks & money. I wonder if NFL/NBA/MLB fans (funny how they're referred to as "fans" & not supporters) really understand ....

+1

[Auntie.Gerald]

i dumb it down to if you can pick up a top 5 player that you rate massively and will be a serious weapon for our team for 10 years plus........well pick him...........its not like our round 1 and 2 picks of late i.e. last 3 or 4 years are ground breaking

i say pick mills no matter