Well done to our list management team. The club wins a flag and just after we find ourselves with a restocked list of junior talent. Callum Coleman Jones, Noah Balta, Ben Miller, Patrick Naish, Riley Collier Dawkins, Jackson Ross, Fraser Turner and Luke English are young players yet to debut. On top weve added Tom Lynch and Mav Weller for experience. Its a very good list management effort.
I disagree.
We did add Higgins, Coleman-Jones, Balta, Miller, Naish and Baker last year and they were all okay in my view.
However we saw this year, particularly in the prelim that we need a second ruck, a very tall third defender and more midfield depth after losing a lot over summer (Conca, Miles, C Ellis, Lloyd).
We added the best young key forward in Lynch.
We added Collier-Dawkins, Ross and English to the midfield.
Why didn't we add Roughhead (traded at pick 76 to Collingwood) to add the second ruck and very tall defender at 200cm.
We could have even done a straight swap of Lloyd for Roughead with the Bulldogs (roughly the same picks).
Why, after that, did we not take Fort (204cm ruck) rather than the Menadue duplicate in Turner. Turner at 58, Fort at 65 to Geelong.
Why, after again failing to get that ruck did we not take Sweet (202cm ruck at rookie 23 to Bulldogs) rather than Aarts at 16.
So, at the end, we still don't have that stopgap ruck, tall defender and will still lack midfield depth for a few years yet.
As a sideline to that we could have got Brodie for Miles and C Ellis rather than gifting them to the Suns.
the Menadue one is simple. Menadue has not done a hell of a lot especially when given games at AFL level.
The other outside mids in Grigg probably last yr we need to seriously look at his time left in the game , Ellis who does have some serious faults and McIntosh are both players we should be aiming to do better than.
Imo the Turner selection fits an actual serious list need.
The only place i would have considered a ruckman was with the Aarts pick but you then have to look at whats available.Maybe they just didnt rate what ruckmen were left.
If Nankervis gets hurt we will play Soldo. He will give us a good contest at stoppagesin the ruck. What we will lose is marking around the ground and a contest when the ball hits the ground.
Balta is no ruckman he is a KP utility who imo is more suited to a key defensive post and looks like a likely Rance replacement. Imo Miller is more like Astbury and Garthwaite is our third tall option down the track.These boys all have to prove themselves yet.
