Originally Posted by
bloodspirit
What is intriguing me a bit at the moment is what we do by way of trade (or free agency) in the trade period later this year. Stepping back to look with a bigger picture view there are two things that strike me:
1. The age profile of our list is fairly skewed. We have a handful of veterans, some of whom will be retiring (Kizza, Macca) and one of whom has already retired (Reg), and a lot of youth. If our young cohort move through together they will potentially create a very strong team but it might be hard to keep them all within the salary cap if they are peaking at around about the same time. This is one reason that it is important to have a spread of ages through the list. Another is that it would be useful to have the more mature minds and bodies guiding and leading the less experienced.
2. Courtesy of the skewed age profile and our offloading of some big money earners and the impending retirements of some more, we have money to spend. This seems to be true even despite the fact that in the next two years Buddy will be on the biggest money of his contract (perhaps as much as $3.5m over the next two seasons?).
What this suggests to me is that we will be in the market for one or more players and potentially even a 'big fish'. If we do go after a big fish, what type of player do we want? It seems to me with Buddy and Reid now and Blakey and McCartin for the future, we are well served for key forwards. We have Rampe, Aliir & Melican, so we have adequate KPDs although we could use some more depth in this position and could certainly benefit from a superstar KPD if one were available. We have also invested heavily in understudy rucks and barring the availability of Grundy or Gawn we are probably not going to chase someone marginally better than Sinclair and Naismith. Our young players have a lot of pace and we are probably ok for rebounding defenders and the like. The most obvious needs are in the midfield.
The biggest fish in the pool would be Coniglio and he is a midfielder who excels inside and outside the contest and who scores goals to boot. Could we go after him? He is due to turn 26 years old later this year, which works well for us. Also, he is from WA so doesn't have any particularly strong pull to Melbourne. But why would he leave GWS and come to us? The only reason could be if he felt unwelcome there (and the opposite is almost certainly the case) or a much better financial offer. Given that I imagine he would much prefer to achieve success with the teammates he has been playing with for years, and right now the Giants are closer to success than us, it's hard to see him joining us but we should definitely be asking the question. There is also the bonus that I think he is a free agent and we wouldn't have to give up picks for him so it is worth paying a lot to get him if we can afford it. I reckon we must have more cap room than the Giants'.
Failing that, the question exercising my mind is, who should we chase? Who can we get? Two teams with highly talented midfields who are underperforming and who might have disaffected players are the Demons and the Bulldogs. Could we get one of them? Could we entice them by selling ourselves as having more upside or getting out of the bubble? Their players include: Hunter, Macrae, Bontempelli, Brayshaw, Oliver, Petracca, Viney and more besides. All of them are probably contracted. Would any of them be gettable?
Another club with an abundance of quality mids and who might have salary cap issues is Collingwood. The obvious target there is Brayden Sier and hopefully we are doing due diligence on him. 191 cm, 88 kg, 21 years old and not currently getting a game. Given he is not in their best 22 so he is by far the most attainable and fits a need for us.
Geelong is another club with an abundance of talent and who might be having salary cap issues such that we could lure a player away. Particularly if they succeed in hanging on to Tim Kelly. Who might we target? Brandan Parfitt looks promising but it's hard to imagine the at Geelong would be willing to let him go. Beyond that I don't know their list well enough.
Finally, are their players we want at Carlton or North (or St Kilda or Essendon) who might be ready to jump off a sinking ship? It's unclear what will happen at these clubs but they haven't had success recently, there are big question marks over the coaches and it is not apparent that things are going to improve their in the near future.
What do people reckon? Who might we go for? Or do we just keep drafting youth and let our youth get experience and give up the minimum we have to as they ripen? Does my analysis make sense?
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