With some luck we will be very competitive in '08

[Tiger74]

This trade period was a real balls up with the club missing opportunities to address the deficiencies and so will remain stone mother-less last for years to come. I am almost convinced that Wallace and Miller are a bad combination and will lead us from the forrest into the mire, past the trees.

How depressed you must be in real life DHN. It's all bleak and mire for you, eh?

Remind me how we could address our deficiencies in the trade period AND still retain our draft picks? Ruckman? Wood went for 14, Moran we had a swipe at but didn't get because we'd committed to Morton, Jolly re-signed, Warnock was never going to leave, King is too old, Richards is too duddy. Inside midfielders? Bolton is old and injury prone and would've cost us too much, Johnstone similar, Davies (from Pies) is unproven, some guy called Judd went as well...can't think of any others that were available and/or decent. Defenders and forwards? Scratching my head at that as well...Grima, Brennan, Playfair, Gardiner...but mostly PSD fodder or complete duds.

And don't give me the old "oh but we could've traded player x for a high draft pick"...by your logic, there are NO players that are worth high draft picks, certainly not ones Richmond would be prepared to lose. And had we thrown ourselves at a higher profile player (ie Judd), you'd be on here whinging about having lost all our draft picks. There's no pleasing some people.

Skilled players? Yes there WERE some available and we got two of them. Fancy that.

And we still have 2 top twenty draft picks, which will get us a skilled midfielder and a decent tall, or even two decent talls.

Stop playing amateur Nostradamus and predicting the sky will fall and wait until next year, when performance will determine how successful this trade period was. But don't lash the club for not addressing our deficiencies when it was clearly not feasible for us to do so in this trade period.

well put sky captain!

 

[Col.E.Kurtz]

You need to add 'we will still be last in clearances, tackles, 1%ers and contested possessions' to the cons list.

didn't we perform better in clearances in the last 5 games or so?

 

[IrockZ]

Thanks for thread BurnleyBoy; timely conversation starter. ...but

Basically, youve added the two new trade recruits to the 2007 Woodenspoon line up and thats it. Ok Symonds and Coughlan will be back, but then someone else will get injured to balance that out. So in summary I dont see how the addition of two good-average players transform what is a terrible team with limited talent into a 'competitive' team. We won 3 games with 20 of the 22 players listed.

Yeah because second, third and forth year players (who make up more than half our side) never improve. :

not at richmond they do

 

[Yellow n Black!]

You can also throw into the potential con list a rapidly aging Matthew Richardson with no obvious ready-made replacement. Declining output, increased susceptibility to injury - both are inevitable for a 33-year-old playing league football - it's just a question of when

*smile*...

Id put him in the goal square... push Richo up the ground and rotate him through the bench!

 

[GoodOne]

Foley's gonna get hammered week after week next year and will struggle to have the same (big) impact he had this year.

Is he? Got next week's tattslotto numbers too?

 

[IrockZ]

its not about predicting the future mate, its about what happened in the last 6 rounds

foley got sat on with the best tag and it was essentially stop foley and you stop richmond

unless he gets help he will be getting the same attention and will be very hard to get the same numbers as he did this year

 

[Disco08]

didn't we perform better in clearances in the last 5 games or so?

Yeah the games against Geelong and Collingwood we did better.

 

[Willo]

Agree wholeheartedly with Skybeau, give up high picks for what= complaints we wasted them
trade picks up=with what, give up our better players= backwards...not many clubs wanted our "ordinary"players
did well to get 2 skilled players and keep 2 top 20 picks+
lets see whats available in psd
GM isn't going to play all his cards in the open, still need to have some strategy up his sleeve
but I forgot he's damned if he does do something and damned if he doesn't
No quick fix from where we've been, yeah I know 25 years will be brought up, but since GM been here change of coaches/Board etc may dictate different agendas and priorities
We need everyone on the same page

 

[Disco08]

but I forgot he's damned if he does do something and damned if he doesn't

I doubt anyone would be complaining if we still had all our top 20 picks.

 

[Ruthless Tigers ?]

Sorry Sky but I cannot see us being competitive for some time. The kids need time to develop and I support their endeavours. I stand by what I belive as you do. I dont expect you to agree with me however I still think deficiences are not being covered adequately and this seems to be acceptable. As for being depressed nuh...its all part of being a Richmond Supporter.

Will the sky fall....gee if I could tell you I would.....

 

[Tango]

the way i se it is we have the following:

1 x undersided but effectuve tall defender = Thursfeild (top teams have 3)
1 x undersized but effective ruck coming off serious health and injury = Simmons (top teams have 3)
2 x genuine in and under mids with class but one is coming off 2 knee recos = Cogs & Foley (top teams have 4)
1 x genuine tall fwd who is aging and inconsistent = Richo (top teams have 2)
2 x genuine classy small fwds = brown & deledio (top teams have 2)

many, many skinny or small flankers
very very hard to buod a side around that structure

by my count we are short inthe following:

2 x tall defenders
2 x rucks
2 x inside mids
1 x tall fwd

we have traded for none of the above
there are none of the above available at pick 2 ND unless you take a lesser player to fill a need
there are none available in the PSD

lets face it, we are middle of the table next year at best if all goes well and no injuries

 

[Disco08]

Not to mention good sides actually have depth at these positions too.

 

[GoodOne]

its not about predicting the future mate, its about what happened in the last 6 rounds

foley got sat on with the best tag and it was essentially stop foley and you stop richmond

unless he gets help he will be getting the same attention and will be very hard to get the same numbers as he did this year

Oh the last 6 games? You mean like the 35 possessions against Geelong and the 27 possession game against Collingwood. Don't know which last 6 games you were watching. He did taper off last couple of games, but you could just as easily attribute that to a long season for a relatively inexperienced young player.

As for stopping Foley, stopping Richmond? We won two of the three games we won all season in the last 6 games, so if Foley played badly in the last 6 games, then its obviously not stop Foley, stop Richmond is it?

I agree that he will get more attention next year, but I think he has the class to make the extra step to beat the tighter tag. You are right in saying that the more help he gets the better, but your argument is that he will not be as good next year as this year. I question how you can be so sure.

 

[Griff]

Next year we get back three of our genuinely elite players: Simmo, Brown and Cogs. Even if only two of them fire, it will make a difference to the effectiveness of the rest of the team.

The serious kids will all have big pre-seasons--like Foley last year. He has shown them what's possible

A lot will depend on how Tambling, Deledio, Raines, Edwards, Jackson (I'm a huge fan now), Thursfield and McGuane (who I like) develop over the pre-season. And what the coaches do with Polak. And whether or not King is able to take another step up.

I know the doomsayers were all proved right this year, but I expected something better. We are not in the downward spiral of the dogs, Melbourne, Essendon. They will be in the bottom 4 I reckon; and who knows about Adelaide, St Kilda, Sydney who all look weaker coming into 2008.

The interesting thing about 2007 was that we had fewer real beltings than 2006 and 2005, even though we only won three. The kids weren't good enough to win, but they were better at keeping the opposition honest.

Next year? Maybe not finals, but I'm EXCITED.

 

[IrockZ]

its not about predicting the future mate, its about what happened in the last 6 rounds

foley got sat on with the best tag and it was essentially stop foley and you stop richmond

unless he gets help he will be getting the same attention and will be very hard to get the same numbers as he did this year

Oh the last 6 games? You mean like the 35 possessions against Geelong and the 27 possession game against Collingwood. Don't know which last 6 games you were watching. He did taper off last couple of games, but you could just as easily attribute that to a long season for a relatively inexperienced young player.

As for stopping Foley, stopping Richmond? We won two of the three games we won all season in the last 6 games, so if Foley played badly in the last 6 games, then its obviously not stop Foley, stop Richmond is it?

I agree that he will get more attention next year, but I think he has the class to make the extra step to beat the tighter tag. You are right in saying that the more help he gets the better, but your argument is that he will not be as good next year as this year. I question how you can be so sure.

the geelong game when he had 30 until half time and then ling sat on him in the 2nd half and foley only had 5 stats?

or the 27 against a collingwood outfit who doesnt have a recognized tagger?

i was more talking about the sydney, eagles, saints etc matches when he copped the heavy tags and didnt get much help