Our list management team have built a team of mainly average players, and despite indicating that good disposal skills would addressed, the club has on average taken players with only so-so disposal skills.
Individually you can take many of our players and say yes he can be a first 22 player. But as a group we lack ball skills, we lack footy smarts and in particular lack that in the midfield engine room. As a group we have a lot of average players. Importantly our list management team having been losing elites and very good players way faster than they are being replaced and have not yet gained one elite player (yes Billings and Carlisle are threatening).
That individual rating has probably in recent years had many of us rating our list higher than we should have.
So this coming draft and trade period will probably make or break us as we have way too many depth players, and way too few genuinely good players, let alone elites (which based on this years delivered form we have none of).
OUT: With Roo and most likely Joey both gone that is a step down in quality.
THE 2017 WALLFLOWERS:
Our list is so dire that if two of the following "spectators" in terms of 2017 senior football do not step up to be capable good regulars then even gaining Kelly will do little.
Paddy
Freeman
Goddard. And the games that he did play I am not sure he was exhibiting the athleticism that a modern key position player needs
One could add Armo. However most lists always seem to have a player or two out.
And that we need our wallflowers to bloom just to become reasonable makes me very, very nervous.
Now yes we have some youngsters that may get better, and should get better. ie Billings, Gresham, Steele. But all clubs do, and we just seem to have less very good young talent than we should and moreso for a club that has been rebuilding as long as we have been. And yes if Billings and Gresham can both improve their goal conversion rate that will help
![Wink :wink:](./images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
Our 2017 First Pick: Will it land Kelly ? And certainty there, and with the players that may possibly move clubs is there anyone apart from him and Martin (who will stay a Tiger) that would make an appreciable difference in 2018? I think not.
If Kelly does not choose us, then with the Hawks and us both not likely finish bottom 6 we will not have access to cream of the 2017 kids. Yes we may get two reasonable picks, but a list lacking top end talent like ours that is not likely to be enough, and in 2018 will make little difference.
LIST MANAGEMENT TEAM:
The Saints have been beating the drum for a while about creating a huge war-chest to land some guns and that this was all part of the plan fora flag by 2020. Well the time is now, and unless a genuinely good gun or two is landed in this trade period I genuinely fear for the competitive future of the Saints over the next several seasons. So hopefully Bains and Co can deliver on all the hype. If not then the rebuild will in essence have to start again.
Without landing a gun out too this year then Bain and Co have to be marked as failing. Even if Kelly is gained they are still under-performing. At first it was looking promising. However way too many players cannot get past the promising stage, the maybe stage, the potential stage. Rising star nominations are few. Young players to come in and look good are few.
Now no list management team gets all their picks right. However our current team seem to have no capacity to acquire players where some are elite. The continued strategy of swapping for more players and picks has also not been fruitful. YES it has acquired lots of handy or depth players, but while quantity has been there quality has not. Now it was ok to build depth for a while, but you will never be a Top 4 Team without a pool of Top End Talent, and that we now desperately lack. Picking up average players will at the end of the day only deliver an average team at best.
Moreso when they have been lucky to get both Robbo and Membrey. And with Bruce remember he was taken as a key defender where he was only so so, before becoming a quite good key forward (who if he did not have the yips when on the run within 20m of goal would be rated more highly).
What makes our position more dire is that we let players like BJ and Dal go on the promise of the future being more important than the then present. Our compensation from that has gained us little.
So this coming draft and trade period is as I see it make or break time for Bain and Elshaugh and through them the Saints. They need to nail it AND offield we need to get our wallflowers into the seniors in 2018 and have them playing well.
Will it be Heaven or Hell in 2018? I think that by end of November we will have a good idea.