TOPIC:

smokey wrote:

smokey wrote: Yes Mr AFL, Tanner did show quite a bit in his 17 games of colts and ressies during 2014. Averaged 19 disposals and 5 marks per goal. Tidy stats. He does have some upside and another to watch if he steps up.

I meant per game NOT per goal.

Thought as much smokey haha. Preseason recommences tomorrow, hopefully a full squad on the track and some new recruits to be announced in the coming weeks.

Mr AFL wrote:

smokey wrote:

smokey wrote: Yes Mr AFL, Tanner did show quite a bit in his 17 games of colts and ressies during 2014. Averaged 19 disposals and 5 marks per goal. Tidy stats. He does have some upside and another to watch if he steps up.

I meant per game NOT per goal.

Thought as much smokey haha. Preseason recommences tomorrow, hopefully a full squad on the track and some new recruits to be announced in the coming weeks.

Reckon most of the "top recruits" would have been signed by there clubs by now.
Im not holding out to much hope in getting a couple of experienced KP's into the club at this stage of January.

Best we can probably hope for are the "no name" type recruits from other Wafl club ressies teams,Ammos or the bush leagues.

Our spine appears (after many many years) to still be our achilles heel.
Im strugging to name one with the players we have that would at least be competitive!

30plusyeardrought wrote: Reckon most of the "top recruits" would have been signed by there clubs by now.
Im not holding out to much hope in getting a couple of experienced KP's into the club at this stage of January.

Best we can probably hope for are the "no name" type recruits from other Wafl club ressies teams,Ammos or the bush leagues.

Our spine appears (after many many years) to still be our achilles heel.
Im strugging to name one with the players we have that would at least be competitive!

Agree that it is highly unlikely that we will sign anyone of note at this stage. However still have some slight hope that one or two surprises might eventuate. Hopefully that's sooner rather than later.

There's a couple of players from the VFL that don't look to have signed up at any clubs yet for 2015. Xavier Murphy and Luke Andrews are a couple of midfielders formerly of Box Hill while Nick Riddle is disciplined key defender with good closing speed formerly of Collingwood.

Mr AFL wrote: There's a couple of players from the VFL that don't look to have signed up at any clubs yet for 2015. Xavier Murphy and Luke Andrews are a couple of midfielders formerly of Box Hill while Nick Riddle is disciplined key defender with good closing speed formerly of Collingwood.

Mr AFL, it can always be difficult to recruit from interstate. I know some clubs do it well but perhaps they have greater resources than Perth have eg Subi.

Interstate recruits will want varying deals to get them here. Sure some will get themselves here and settle into life in Perth without huge demands. Others will want relocation costs and other incentives as well as a reasonable salary.

Probably the best recruit we had in recent times other than Bevan was Chris Bossong who I believe made extraordinary demands on the club and eventually walked out.

In 2013 we got Sketcher and Risol and I have no idea what sort of deals were involved but we got value out of both. It would IMO be difficult to again find two recruits of their calibre and get them over here.

Three or four quality recruits probably wouldn't be enough anyway considering who we've lost from last season.

smokey wrote:

Mr AFL wrote: There's a couple of players from the VFL that don't look to have signed up at any clubs yet for 2015. Xavier Murphy and Luke Andrews are a couple of midfielders formerly of Box Hill while Nick Riddle is disciplined key defender with good closing speed formerly of Collingwood.

Mr AFL, it can always be difficult to recruit from interstate. I know some clubs do it well but perhaps they have greater resources than Perth have eg Subi.

Interstate recruits will want varying deals to get them here. Sure some will get themselves here and settle into life in Perth without huge demands. Others will want relocation costs and other incentives as well as a reasonable salary.

Probably the best recruit we had in recent times other than Bevan was Chris Bossong who I believe made extraordinary demands on the club and eventually walked out.

In 2013 we got Sketcher and Risol and I have no idea what sort of deals were involved but we got value out of both. It would IMO be difficult to again find two recruits of their calibre and get them over here.

Agree that getting interstate recruits can be costly with all the factors you mentioned above however in some rare cases it does work out. We got pretty good service out of Bassong for most of his time at the club. It was only towards the end of his time when I think circumstances changed and he ended up at South Fremantle.

Overall we haven't really had a lot of success with recruiting/development of players from within our own backyard and interstate.

PN you are probably right that three or four quality players will not be enough to cover what we have lost and improve on 2014. With the amount of holes in the team I can understand and see why the club is going with the 'moneyball' approach, or at least that's what I am calling it.

It would appear that they are trying to fill as many positions as possible while also staying under the salary and points cap. Include that with some of the younger players that have been spoken about on the previous page or two getting more experience in 2015, a new fitness regime and hopefully a better run with injuries and I guess the club will be hoping that the team will be more competitive in 2015 and hopefully having a better year than they did last year.

JKT also put some pretty big demands on coming back to us after the AFL & if my memory serves me correct we didnt get a great deal out of him once returning either injuries or otherwise

I'd say our best interstate recruit in recent times was Ross Young. Bossong was good early, as was JKT. I don't think Bossong has many friends left at the club, which is sad since he spent a fair bit of time there.

I agree that we will have to develop improvement from within. I'm pretty sure we will see development from those colts/reserves guys who are young and had some exposure to league last year.

Also, improvement will come from having Tropiano for the whole season and (hopefully) a fit Hodge. Heard good things about Hug on the training track and he could step up to be a regular this year. Hoping for something similar from Keast and Lynch. There are one or two unknowns where we could also see some improvement, like Dean Dick. An injury free Mitch Morton would be welcome. ES has stated that he's not interested in recruiting guys who can't play league, so I assume that the recruits we do have all can or have the potential to play league.

What happened to all this money you guys were spruking about to recruit?

Jeez swans are on the bones of their ass and can still field a finals side.