TOPIC:

Freezin wrote:

anchorman wrote: Another who wants to go North is Andrew Swallow.

You mean David Swallow Anchor?...Andrew has played over 200 games for North....

If I'm not mistaken I think anchor means Andrew wants to head north to play with his brother David.

He left it to the last moment didn't he, I would think he will go this year, no point keeping him here for a year if his heart isn't in it. Will need to get adequate compensation for him. Not sure who or what that would be just yet. These things have a way of opening up other oportunities.

maybe Freo should shorten the offer down to 2 years and up the $ and see what happens.

Possibly make Weller play out this year and if Lynch hasn't sign try and throw Weller + picks into a deal to get to get Lynch to the Dockers. We can only but dream

This isn't looking good for either local AFL mobs last few years, its becoming increasingly obvious that the big fish cant be lured over here and other fish want to head home.

Couldn't Freo do a straight swap for Matera plus insist on a late second or early third round draft pick to be included in the deal as well?

We (being the Dockers) haven't been able to bring in a non WA big name but both clubs seem to based their new recruiting plan around bring WA boys home which seems to be smart. Player contracts don't seem to hold much cread anymore so players do the dictating instead of the clubs

Instead of trying to lure them back why don't the Dockers or the Eagles for that matter try drafting the WA players first.

anchorman wrote: Not as simple as that.
You have to be in the position to be able to select them.

Yes that may be true with the early draft picks but we have been in positions to take many West Australians.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing as they say and yes you never know how a player will turn out but if you have a look back we have had plenty of chances to draft WA Players.

Out of the ones that came back for this season only McCarthy was the only one that we couldn't get. All of Hamling, Kersten and Hill were able to be taken.

My point is though that yes we do have local WA players on our list but I don't think that our recruiting department has a very high success rate when it comes to selecting players with draft picks who are either from WA or elsewhere. By drafting a WA player you also have a reduced risk of the player wanting to leave. Not saying this won't happen but compare it to Balic and Weller the risk would be far less.

Does the recruiting and football department do enough homework on WA based players?

It has been mentioned before that Ross doesn't really rate the WA talent system.