Now the dust has settled.

[Drake Huggins]

I know we're mainly disappointed with what happened in the trade period, and things probably weren't helped with Dal's assessment of our position. It's never good to hear someone as articulate and analytical make comments like that as he is a genuine in the know, working at the club part-time and of course being close mates with Joey and Roo. If anyone would know, Dal would. Then again, he's paid to comment and I feel he felt the need to say something heartfelt, rather than give us more cliches and the usual beige commentary most of the other pundits indulge in.

Having said that, I want to take a moment to examine exactly what happened and what the possible ramifications are. In an earlier post, I expressed a view that I hoped the club would be aggressive, but not reckless. I think it's safe to say they fulfilled at least half of the brief. Personally, I'm glad we kept 7 & 8. It is our best chance of getting elite talent in the place since the famous 2001 draft, that saw us snag 5 excellent players. When you look at Richmond's best, they've come via the draft. The same can be said for the cats in the noughties and the Hawks built their dynasty around a couple of productive drafts. The finishing touches were added later through clever trading and top-ups. In fairness, the club did state it would focus on taking our picks to the draft, so I presume any trade offers would have involved later picks and players we felt were dispensable. The down side of this approach is that more patience is required (I know we're sick of hearing that), but this approach is more likely to pay off in the long run.

What we also need to acknowledge is that clubs who acquired players have, in some instances, paid way over the odds in a desperate grab for their targets. Adelaide with Gibbs, Gold Coast for Weller and Melbourne for Lever. All have offered up valuable first round picks, with the Demons and Adelaide giving up two! Essendon did well, but have traded themselves out of the early stages of this draft, so they'll need plenty of luck to do well with their later picks. Bulldogs and Schache. High risk, high reward, but the way most of the clubs avoided him rings alarm bells. Smith has crook knees, Motflop and Watts are flakey and not exactly what we wanted. Fremantle is one club that did well, but have also lost players. It's way too early for Carlscum to celebrate. They did well to get two first rounders for Gibbs, but they've lost one of their best and Lobbe, Lang and Kennedy are hardly A graders.

Yesterday about 2.00 p.m. I must admit I felt a bit like the kid at Xmas whose stocking has bugger all in it, while the others are ripping open their presents. I'm happy to delay my gratification a little longer because there is a bigger potential pay off coming. In the end, once Fyfe, Martin, and Kelly were all off the table, I was happy to keep 7 & 8. Apart from Stringer, who comes with ropes attached, not just strings is the only talent that could be described as elite, amongst the leftovers. The only worrying thing may be that players seem to prefer other destinations. It could also be that we didn't want them badly enough to get into a serious trade situation. I'm told our offers for Tomlinson ad Haynes were Dildoro like. Nowhere near enough for what was required. That tells me we were far from desperate to acquire them. The other thing that didn't help us was our terrible end to the season which undid a lot of the achievements and progress that were made up to round 16. As stated here many times, money and success are the bait you need. We have plenty of the former and not enough of the other. A reasonable 2018 will resolve that. I reckon we'll spend like drunken sailors next year. I don't think we missed out on much. I hope the recruiters get it right. Fingers crossed. A watershed moment is coming.

[skeptic]

Very good summary IMO and I agree wholeheartedly

[saynta]

Good post and well said DH. I got rubbished by a long time poster for saying something similar but not as eloquently.

[thejiggingsaint]

First class post you've put up there DH! Kudos!

[saynta]

First class post you've put up there DH! Kudos!

plus one.

[degruch]

I thought there'd be more available during the trade period, but most exciting talent was sewn up a few weeks before, with a lot of action being instigated in last years trade period. Weller was the only notable shock, but given a few clubs had given it a shot last year, I guess it was only really the late timing that was surprising.

So given movement of some of the big names didn't shake up as many 3 club trades for us to benefit from as I thought they might, I'm glad we are where we are. Trading up the draft would have been good, and it was reportedly on the cards with a number of clubs approaching us, I can only assume didn't happen because we'd be worse off.

[asiu]

u paint a picture of mainly disappointedness /empty chrissy stocking / patience as a negative
with a sink of the slipper into the Pelican again.

that post seems all a bit 'wolf in sheeps clothing' to me
given that keeping 7 + 8 was your preferred position

just sharing my reaction to the interesting read

[Drake Huggins]

The pelican is history and no, I'm not a fan. Didn't mention him here, asiu, so are you referring to another post? As I said, my initial disappointment was largely tempered by a bit of reflection and that no club really killed it. Freo got a gift though, didn't they? Had we missed out on Kelly to Norf, I would've done a Terry Wallet and fair dinkum spewed. Otherwise, I reckon as long as we nail our picks, we'll have done well. Patience, in this case, is definitely not a negative. I think, all things considered, they did the right thing. And they did repeatedly say they were determined to take 7 & 8 to the draft unless a godfather offer came along. None did. Now damn the torpedoes! Full steam ahead!

[Sainter_Dad]

Good summation - but not enough references to potatoes.

[spert]

Good discussion. I agree that some of our performances just looked really bad and not of a club on the rise. If I liken this to a business situation, an executive would see Essendon as a destination to further his career where the future is looking very bright and exciting compared to the Saints where basically we appeared not to have our act together, and it seems not fighting hard enough to attract talent. But that's just my opinion.

[takeaway]

I can't fathom the idea that some believe we are not able to attract players, one of the reasons being our performances late in the season. Moving interstate for players needs a bit of thought, but generally for the right deal players will go to any AFL club.
Dusty almost went to North, and their immediate prospects are not great. We are a young team and our performances this year IMO had no bearing on the desire of players to come to us.

We missed the 3 big fish, but so did every other team.

Tomlinson was happy to come, and GWS did hesitate for a while, but we placed a premium on picks 7 & 8 (rightly so - for mids) and did not offer enough to sway them.
Haynes still wants to come, and may in the future.
Had a late go at Smith, but we were not really keen, and there is nothing to suggest he would not have come to Saints.

Most of the others, Motlop, Watts, etc we did not pursue, probably because they did not fill a need and would have taken the spot of a developing youngster, which I believe should be our main priority at the moment. We need elite talent, not older B graders, and we will
have another go at the bigger pool of FA next year and trades, still with plenty of $$$. We have 7 & 8 this year, may get a gun.

We have attracted plenty in recent years in Carlisle, Steele, Rice (chose us over Carlton), etc, and I don't see why that would not continue, even for the bigger fish.

[fugazi]

I can't fathom the idea that some believe we are not able to attract players, one of the reasons being our performances late in the season. Moving interstate for players needs a bit of thought, but generally for the right deal players will go to any AFL club.
Dusty almost went to North, and their immediate prospects are not great. We are a young team and our performances this year IMO had no bearing on the desire of players to come to us.

We missed the 3 big fish, but so did every other team.

Tomlinson was happy to come, and GWS did hesitate for a while, but we placed a premium on picks 7 & 8 (rightly so - for mids) and did not offer enough to sway them.
Haynes still wants to come, and may in the future.
Had a late go at Smith, but we were not really keen, and there is nothing to suggest he would not have come to Saints.

Most of the others, Motlop, Watts, etc we did not pursue, probably because they did not fill a need and would have taken the spot of a developing youngster, which I believe should be our main priority at the moment. We need elite talent, not older B graders, and we will
have another go at the bigger pool of FA next year and trades, still with plenty of $$$. We have 7 & 8 this year, may get a gun.

We have attracted plenty in recent years in Carlisle, Steele, Rice (chose us over Carlton), etc, and I don't see why that would not continue, even for the bigger fish.

Fair points made bere. It may be more of a negative emotional bias that gives the impression

However the sooner we move back to Moorabin the better.
Can you imagine touring the facilities in Seaford and then think about going to that arctic wind tunnel of a place.... compare with Punt Rd or Optus Park etc etc...would make a significant difference to these Millenials being traded and drafted.

[takeaway]

Agree, Moorabbin move will help

[Saintly Passion]

Great post Drake

[Drake Huggins]

I can't fathom the idea that some believe we are not able to attract players, one of the reasons being our performances late in the season. Moving interstate for players needs a bit of thought, but generally for the right deal players will go to any AFL club.
Dusty almost went to North, and their immediate prospects are not great. We are a young team and our performances this year IMO had no bearing on the desire of players to come to us.

We missed the 3 big fish, but so did every other team.

Tomlinson was happy to come, and GWS did hesitate for a while, but we placed a premium on picks 7 & 8 (rightly so - for mids) and did not offer enough to sway them.
Haynes still wants to come, and may in the future.
Had a late go at Smith, but we were not really keen, and there is nothing to suggest he would not have come to Saints.

Most of the others, Motlop, Watts, etc we did not pursue, probably because they did not fill a need and would have taken the spot of a developing youngster, which I believe should be our main priority at the moment. We need elite talent, not older B graders, and we will
have another go at the bigger pool of FA next year and trades, still with plenty of $$$. We have 7 & 8 this year, may get a gun.

We have attracted plenty in recent years in Carlisle, Steele, Rice (chose us over Carlton), etc, and I don't see why that would not continue, even for the bigger fish.

We seem to be in furious agreement, takeaway. We won't have any trouble attracting anyone we want and make a serious offer for. I think part of the reason we were disappointed was that we've traded quite well in the recent past. We've certainly traded better than we've drafted. Hopefully this year we reverse that! There simply wasn't enough on offer to make us ditch our strategy this year. Onto the draft!

[Gershwin]

And we got Logan Austin. Looks a very likely type.

[takeaway]

I can't fathom the idea that some believe we are not able to attract players, one of the reasons being our performances late in the season. Moving interstate for players needs a bit of thought, but generally for the right deal players will go to any AFL club.
Dusty almost went to North, and their immediate prospects are not great. We are a young team and our performances this year IMO had no bearing on the desire of players to come to us.

We missed the 3 big fish, but so did every other team.

Tomlinson was happy to come, and GWS did hesitate for a while, but we placed a premium on picks 7 & 8 (rightly so - for mids) and did not offer enough to sway them.
Haynes still wants to come, and may in the future.
Had a late go at Smith, but we were not really keen, and there is nothing to suggest he would not have come to Saints.

Most of the others, Motlop, Watts, etc we did not pursue, probably because they did not fill a need and would have taken the spot of a developing youngster, which I believe should be our main priority at the moment. We need elite talent, not older B graders, and we will
have another go at the bigger pool of FA next year and trades, still with plenty of $$$. We have 7 & 8 this year, may get a gun.

We have attracted plenty in recent years in Carlisle, Steele, Rice (chose us over Carlton), etc, and I don't see why that would not continue, even for the bigger fish.

We seem to be in furious agreement, takeaway. We won't have any trouble attracting anyone we want and make a serious offer for. I think part of the reason we were disappointed was that we've traded quite well in the recent past. We've certainly traded better than we've drafted. Hopefully this year we reverse that! There simply wasn't enough on offer to make us ditch our strategy this year. Onto the draft!

Yes, especially when we are at Moorabbin over the next few years we should be on a pretty level footing with other clubs in being able to attract players, and hopefully some will actually sign on. Won't be easy though with the elite players. I have no problems with our drafting over the last four years, imo has been very good.

[Drake Huggins]

Hard to disagree. If McCartin, Goddard and McKenzie come good, we'll be able to boast a solid four-year block. 2012 remains a nightmare, the legacy of the Pelican's genius. Fortunately, Ameet and the trout have managed to rescue something from the setback of 2012. If our number one comes good, Hugh realises his potential and MacKenzie delivers on the promise he showed in the preseason of 2017, we'll be looking good. 2016 wasn't great, but it's too early to tell and there is the pay it forwards aspect into 2017. I hope they deliver.