British XV's - 2015 Discussion Thread

[LF]

Don't think I'll have too many changes.

Lewis Taylor to M/F, Travis Varcoe to D/M or D/F, Taylor Hunt to D/M maybe off the top of my head. Couldn't be too many others.

Not even sure those are certainties.

Lewis Taylor probs won't be mid/fwd going off the heat maps he will either be mid or mid/def

Squizzy seems to play mostly fwd/mid in the games? Could the heat maps be skewed due to the ball always being down Brisbanes defensive end?

[JBs-Hawks]

I dont like giving priority picks, maybe they would be more competitive if they drafted one of experienced guns available instead of James Aish.

[Rids]

I dont like giving priority picks, maybe they would be more competitive if they drafted one of experienced guns available instead of James Aish.

I am unsure what this means sorry. "Drafted one of the more experienced guns instead of Aish?"

Nostra and I only took over the team this season and had no part of the drafting of Aish.

[Spite]

I dont like giving priority picks, maybe they would be more competitive if they drafted one of experienced guns available instead of James Aish.

I am unsure what this means sorry. "Drafted one of the more experienced guns instead of Aish?"

Nostra and I only took over the team this season and had no part of the drafting of Aish.

I think he means the special draft where two teams folded and players like Lewis and Aish were available and Nails took Aish.
Not your fault mate!

[Pkbaldy]

I've got a small idea on how to close the gap between the 'stacked' teams and the teams that're really behind instead of handing out priority picks which won't help them out for a few years. I know A LOT of people won't agree with this.

Where the top 2 teams (overall score) done a mercy trade to the bottom team (Giants), giving them well rated player each to the Giants in return they get a compensation pick for the draft, to try and even out the competition. I know it's mostly a bad idea because these teams have done great to trade and recruit all these good players, but it's probably the best way to even up the competition.

Eg. Werewolves give up Patrick Cripps to Giants for compensation pick (1-3), and Hawks give up Jake Lloyd to the Giants for compensation pick (5-10). Difference in picked based on Cripps being a better scorer than Lloyd.

The only reason I am suggesting this is that I had no fear in playing the Giants and knew no matter how low my players scored I'd still smash them, and i'm in the bottom half of the Comp. I don't think it'll be the end of the world for the top 2 scoring teams to hand out a handy player for a compensation pick, and it adds a bit more grunt to the bottom team. Because I don't see anyone wanting to rebuild so no one will be willing to lose good players for draft picks.

[Rids]

I didn't want to get involved in the priority pick conversation as I thought it would be best for others to discuss and decide. But I have changed my mind as I think the thoughts should be shared so people can make an educated decision.

Nostra and I knew what we were getting into when we took over the Giants. While the team is a fair distance away from being competitive at this point in time, we will be continuing on with the rebuild with our already started 'youth policy' from last season. The problem we have at the moment is depth of quality players. Just this week we lost Adams for 2 weeks and David Swallow for the remainder of the year. This means we have effectively lost our vice captain and emergency vice captain straight up. Yes injuries and suspensions happen but other teams have a little depth to cover them when they arise. And most teams have to try and decide between multiple players on a weekly basis who should be captain and vice captain. We have one choice most weeks in Brad Ebert lol.

We both knew this would be a 3 year rebuild to get the team to a point where we are comfortable. What we don't want though is to force others to trade with us etc. This will happen as usual process. We haven't had too many issues previously with trading in the other comps. We won't have any issue again here I believe.

I think the priority pick is required for us to speed up the process. The more young talent we can acquire, the more likely people will want to trade with us for some of it. As people have been saying, and quite rightly so, no-one will want to trade us a decent player for picks. But what might happen is that people will be more than willing to trade with us in the near future for one of these talented draftees eg: Brayshaw, De Goey that we drafted last year.

I will try and let others chat and decide without trying to influence the decision one way or the other.

[Memphistopheles]

I don't think you can have one rule for the Giants and a different one for us.

We're both in as bad a predicament this season - we have barely a starting XV every week to play which is our problem. Similar to the Giants. We've played games with 12, 13 and 14 players on a regular basis.

When everyone does play we can look good but that's been a rare commodity this season.

As Rids has said below - long term both clubs are going to turn out all right.

Why do I know that? Because Rids, Nostra, myself and Grinpowderdiah (who we see occasionally on the forums) know what we are doing as coaches and are improving the lists.

You can see that in what I've done since I took over the Steines whose list was arguably even worse than the Giants one when we first took I over.

Seriously look at the below list of players they had. They had one, just one actual premium midfielder in Kieren Jack. I don't know how the list got this bad but, it was woeful.

I have italicised all the complete spuds who we've since gotten rid of and bolded the good players.

Staines Steins team after the 2013 season and draft periods.

Kieren Jack
Tendai Mzungu
Ryan O'Keefe
Ivan Maric
Hamish Hartlett
Jaryd Cachia
Kurt Tippett
Nathan Grima
Mitchell Clark
Lewis Jetta
Ryan Crowley
Jack Crisp
Marty Clarke
Josh Jenkins
Nathan Bock
Sam Naismith
Alex Greenwood
Rhys Stanley
Jamie Elliott
Lee Spurr
Ricky Henderson
Ben Rutten
Lewis Roberts-Thomson
Beau Maister
Tom Lonergan
Jesse Hogan
Jed Anderson
Brodie Martin
Tim Mohr
Jason Johannisen
Harry Cunningham
Dean Terlich
Kristian Jaksch
Matthew Spangher
Mitchell Brown
Daniel Nicholson
Josh Kelly
Nathan Gordon
Malcolm Karpany
Brandon Jack
Louis Herbert
Angus Graham
Ciaran Byrne
Luke Reynolds
Max King

Now take a look at our list. It's much improved with almost no utter spuds on the list and some actual decent talent.

The reason it isn't any better than it is already is simple - we didn't have anyone who had any trade currency when I first took over. Except K Jack but if i'd traded him we wouldn't have a captain and would be even worse off.

So we've had to relying on drafting to get our talent in. No-one was going to trade us for the guys listed in italics above.

In bold are the players I think could develop in to premium options or are premos already

Nick Vlastuin
Ricky Henderson
Nathan Grima
Lee Spurr
Elliott Yeo
Kristian Jaksch
Zak Jones
Angus Litherland
Matt Dick
Brayden Maynard
Matt Spangher
Ciaran Byrne
Michael Manteit
Kieran Jack
Jack Redden
George Horlin-Smith
Tendai Mzungu
Josh Kelly
Marcus Bontempelli
Christian Petracca
Viv Michie
Jed Anderson
Alex Woodward
Daniel Robinson
Alec Waterman
Lloyd Perris
Jake Barrett
Jarrad Jansen
Mark Jamar
Brodie Grundy
Jake Spencer
Max Gawn
Sam Naismith
Max King
Adam Tomlinson
Mitch Clark
Lachie Hunter
Josh Jenkins
Jamie Elliott
Jesse Hogan
Rhys Stanley
Max Duffy
Kyle Langford
Taylor Garner
Josh Clayton

Looking at this list though there's even more work to do this off season.

Grima, Spangher, Jamar, Mzungu, Michie, Naismith, King, Garner and Clayton are all guys who could be cut to make way for more talent. There's another tier of limited players who could be pushed out should we get some better players on board.

I think one more priority pick (even end of first round) would complete the rebuild and set us on a path to better days and I think the Giants need time like we did to do the same.

Because, looking at their side - what commodities do they have to trade? They have hardly any old guys to trade for talent and if they trade the good kids they'll never get good.

I think the priority pick system is the best way to go about helping teams rebuild but, you have to realise it will take a good four seasons in my opinion for us to see the results.

Th best thing to do really is not let teams trade away all their talent so we have teams in this predicament again.

[Nige]

Just because I got curious looking at the list Memph just posted, I thought I'd look at the Liverpool list when I took over around this time in 2013 (the team went on to finish last that season).

1   Dyson Heppell
2   Todd Goldstein
3   Harley Bennell
4   Shaun Grigg
5   Bachar Houli
6   Adam Treloar
7   Daniel Nicholson
8   Brent Harvey
9   Brent Reilly
10   Scott D. Thompson
11   Michael Walters
12   Clancee Pearce
13   Travis Varcoe
14   Mitch Duncan
15   Sam Wright
16   Michael Firrito
17   Graham Johncock
18   James Polkinghorne
19   Jarrod Witts
20   Kieran Harper
21   Andrew Collins
22   Jake Spencer
23   Marley Williams
24   Jack Redfern
25   Alex Browne
26   Levi Casboult
27   Derick Wanganeen
28   Matt Dea
29   Jacob Townsend
30   Jordan Kelly
31   Matt Thomas
32   Martin Gleeson
33   Mitchell Wilkins
34   Brad Dick
35   Mitch Hallahan
36   Nathan Brown
37   Jordan Schroder
38   Tim Golds
39   Nathan Hrovat
40   Josh Saunders
41   Rory Atkins
42   Dylan Van Unen
43   Matthew Arnot
44   Cameron Eardley
45   Sam Naismith

Bolded players are ones still on our list, which is now a top 4 side. 17 of the 45, more than I thought I had kept tbh.

Basically turned the list around in 18 months.  8)

[Spite]

Memph makes a good point.

They are still ahead by about a year though.

Once again, not having a starting XV shouldn't be taken into consideration for priority picks. Hedgies have played with 13 and 14 players many times this year due to a backline consisting of duff, seeds, savage, golby and bruce. It only takes a trade and rookie draft pick to get a starting XV from this point on for all teams.

I think Giants should get a priority pick after Steins first pick and the Steins get a priority pick at the end of round 1 as they're a year ahead in development.

Thoughts?

[Nige]

I think Giants should get a priority pick after Steins first pick and the Steins get a priority pick at the end of round 1 as they're a year ahead in development.

Nailed it.

Not having an XV is easily fixed. It was a problem for Liverpool in 2013 so I worked on that in the 2013/2014 offseason and then again in the 2014/2015 one to make sure that never happened again.

It's basically why I like to acquire playing depth, so I never find myself in that scenario.

[LF]

That was my problem last year really crap depth that never ever go any games plus injuries caused us to play OOP's towards the end of the season ruining any chance we had in finals so we took the first step in addressing the problem area's and have managed to field a full team every week even with injuries.
Taking even one of the lower scoring players but who is a lock 22 for depth is a good idea,we traded a late pick for Schoey(has actually been fairly solid this year) to have the extra depth down back

[Nige]

That was my problem last year really crap depth that never ever go any games plus injuries caused us to play OOP's towards the end of the season ruining any chance we had in finals so we took the first step in addressing the problem area's and have managed to field a full team every week even with injuries.
Taking even one of the lower scoring players but who is a lock 22 for depth is a good idea,we traded a late pick for Schoey(has actually been fairly solid this year) to have the extra depth down back

Yep, even used the draft to get guys like Rory Thompson and Ben Stratton who play weekly but hopefully never have to start.  :P

[Rids]

Our problem is more the top end than depth. We don't have many players that people will want to trade for to be honest. It is why we are going with the youth policy. Try and build some top end talent. There will be a lot of deadwood cut again from the Giants list this season again. Replacing average with average or fringe with fringe will take time for the team to become competitive.

The better youth we get in now, the better chance of people wanting to trade with us over the next year or 2.


Here is our list:

DEFENDERS
Garrick Ibottson (Freo), Cam O'Shea (Port), Andrejs Everitt (Carl), Brendan Whitecross (Hawks), S. Colquhoun (Port), E. Mackenzie (WCE), D. McStay (Bris), D. Astbury (Ric), M. Watson (Carl), J. Kelly (Adel), T. Logan (Port), H. Wigg (Adel), J. McGuiness (Bris), D. McKenzie (Saints)

MIDS
Brad Ebert (Port), David Swallow (GC), James Aish (Bris), Reece Conca (Rich), Angus Brayshaw (Melb), William Langford (Hawks), G. Hewett (Syd), A. Riley (Melb), J. De Goey (Coll), C. Ellis (Rich), B. Boekhorst (Carl), D. Lang (Geel), W. Hartung (Hawks), N. Krakoeur (Port)

RUCKS
Matthew Leueunberger (Bris), B. Longer (Saints)

FORWARDS
Rhys Palmer (GWS), Danny Stanley (GC), Ricky Petterd (Rich), Taylor Adams (Coll), T. Boyd (WB), D. Ellard (Carl), C. Knights (Rich), T. Vickery (Rich), M. Close (Bris), T. Dickson (WB), J. Grant (WB), D. Butler (Rich), J. Hall (GC), M. Newman (WCE), J. Saunders (Saints)


You can see that we have the depth types covered eg: Grant, Dickson, Vickery, Tom Boyd, McStay to name a few. But have a look at the top end talent.


Let's play a game. Who is your top 5 players from the above list?

Mine are - Ebert, Adams, Swallow and then maybe Brayshaw who is a first year player.

[JBs-Hawks]

Can we make it so the priority pick must be traded for someone over the age of 21?

[Ringo]

It would be up to Rids as to whether he trades or not.  The real issue though is will any teams be willing to trade a reasonable player for the priority pick. Speaking of Breakers no way am I going to Trade Lewis, Selwood or Picken for example who are the type of players the Giants would want.

At the moment the draft order for first round would be and I agree with Spites Idea would be:

1. Giants
2. Steins
3. Giants
4. Dragons
5. Bunnies
6. Hedgehogs
7. Magic
8. Leeches
9. Cruisers
10. Owls
11. Breakers
12. Hurricanes
13. Badgers
14. Hoods
15. Rams
16. Hawks
17. Werewolves
18. Steins