Round 13 Talking Points, analysis, reaction, results, wrap, highlights, pick purchasing, Western Bulldogs problems, Luke Beveridge coaching mistakes

With trade talk heating up across the AFL, a radical proposal is gaining momentum to allow draft picks to be sold.

Plus the Bulldogs’ big Beveridge problem returns, the happy Hawks get revenge but with a caveat, and Sydney’s late pain.

The big issues from Round 13 of the 2023 AFL season analysed in Talking Points!

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RADICAL FOURTH TRADE CURRENCY THAT COULD FAST-TRACK REBUILDS

AFL clubs at the moment can use three different currencies during the trade period: Players, draft picks and points.

But a fourth radical method is quickly gaining traction and support among AFL clubs – a method dual premiership Kangaroo David King believes will only aid the AFL’s equalisation ideal.

It’s been dubbed ‘pick purchasing’ – a proposed trade currency that would allow a club to use its salary cap space to buy draft selections from other teams.

The concept has gathered momentum in recent years amid several ‘salary dump’ trades being struck between teams. These deals have seemed heavily lopsided, but the club taking on the player central to the trade has taken on a portion of their salary, which isn’t reflected in the public paperwork.

This occurred last year when Gold Coast traded top-10 draftee Jack Bowes and its natural first-round selection (Pick 7) to Geelong, with only a future third-round pick going back to the Suns.

While it looked the Cats had gotten away with murder, they’d also agreed to take on much of Bowes’ salary, ultimately flattening his contract across a longer period.

But the benefit of buying/selling picks as opposed to taking on/dumping salaries is that players wouldn’t necessarily have to be involved in deals, therefore making it a cleaner process.

Salary dumps can only be done by trades at this stage. But on Friday night it was put to King by Herald Sun reporter Jon Ralph that North Melbourne should have the ability to offer $200,000 to Port Adelaide and let free agent defender Ben McKay go to the Power – the club that has “significant” interest in him, according to Ralph – to guarantee a first-round pick as part of compensation.

“You should be able to bracket the player and some salary sacrifice from your club to the other to bump it up to an elite pick, because that is one way of getting equalisation back into the mix,” King told Fox Footy.

Asked if it’s something the AFL should consider bringing in, King said: “100 per cent because the top clubs don’t use that. They can’t really use that mechanism. It’s only those down the bottom six or seven.”

Essendon coach Brad Scott, the former AFL football operations boss, last month said he was a “huge proponent” of a pick purchasing system, claiming it’d help lower-ranked clubs bounce back quickly.

For example, a team like West Coast, North Melbourne or Hawthorn could use any free salary cap space to buy an early draft pick from a rival club to select a player near the top of the draft class that would help accelerate a rebuild.

“It makes sense,” Scott said.

“If you look at the situation when you’re down the bottom, how do you get more first-round picks in? It’s very difficult when you don’t have players to trade.

“You see the clubs that bounce really quickly, it’s the ability to get multiple early picks and get them in succession.

“Anything that opens up the market I think is a good thing.”

‘PUTTING DIESEL IN A FERRARI’: ‘LOST’ DOGS COACH’S CONSTANT ERRORS BACK TO BITE

A three-game losing streak has pumped the brakes on the Western Bulldogs’ top-four aspirations – and their coach is being accused of driving them in the wrong direction.

While the frequent defence of Luke Beveridge is that he has taken the Bulldogs to two grand finals, across the larger sample of the home and away season, he has not been anywhere near as successful.

Despite the 2016 premiership and 2021 appearance in the decider, the Dogs have never finished in the top four under Beveridge; his home and away winning percentage is eighth-best among active coaches.

This either suggests in the week-to-week coaching battles of the season, he struggles, or that the Bulldogs’ two unlikely runs to grand finals from outside the top four are making his resume much stronger than it should be; after all, the finals are a much smaller sample than the home and away season.

Once again it’s Beveridge’s questionable selection moves that have him under the spotlight, after making four changes for Friday night’s loss to Port Adelaide.

That included a complete revamp of his defence, with Ryan Gardner and Tim O’Brien dropped for Alex Keath and Josh Bruce, along with James O’Donnell moving into the back six.

“He looked a little bit confused, and lost, and even bemused on Friday night,” Kane Cornes said on the Sunday Footy Show.

“It’s like he’s got this great, shiny sports car and he doesn’t even know what petrol to put in it … he’s got everything that he needs. It’s a Ferrari but he’s putting diesel instead of high-powered fuel into it.

“It’s always ‘oh, he doesn’t have key position players’. You get (Liam) Jones who’s been extraordinary for them, you get (Rory) Lobb, they’ve topped up with this group. He’s got everything that he needs but he can’t come up with a formula and a defensive structure.

“There’s no way they should have re-signed him when they did (before the season).

“Can you imagine if Sam Mitchell or Ross Lyon had this list, what they’d produce?”

O’Donnell’s selection is particularly puzzling – though a trademark Beveridge move.

The third-generation VFL-AFL player was signed as a category B rookie, after spending the last few years in cricket, in April 2023 and just five weeks later was playing at senior level.

The 20-year-old has not been impressive in his five career matches, with hauls of four, four, 10, six and five disposals. Yet despite his inexperience and poor performance, he has not only held his spot, but been moved from the forward line into defence while still trying to learn how to be a professional footballer.

“Every Thursday night I’m just bemused by selection. What’s he gonna do this week? That’s what frustrates me about it,” Essendon great Matthew Lloyd said.

“The players are there, but all players ask for is confidence in the role they’ve been given. The amount of different players that roll through this back line – so Gardner and O’Brien get dropped, and Bruce and Keath come in.

“Bruce and Keath were awful on the weekend; Bruce, how he was selected to play on Charlie Dixon, looked uncomfortable. How O’Donnell was picked to play in that back line when he was forward the week before.

“How Lobb’s picked on a wing, then he’s forward the next week. Why’s Macrae on a half-forward flank when he’s always been a great wing and a midfielder?

“There’s too many things that Luke does that I don’t think gives players confidence in themselves. The players are there, but why does he need to try and reinvent the wheel? Which confuses the Dogs. They’ve got too many things he throws up that are confusing.”

So while the Dogs have some genuine All-Australian contenders this year like Tim English and Marcus Bontempelli, their constant changes seem to leave too many passengers – perhaps because players are often trying new roles they’re unsuited for.

Friday night was a prime example; young forward Arthur Jones had zero disposals yet, on the AFL Player Ratings, had a greater impact than four of his teammates – Bruce, O’Donnell, sub Oskar Baker and Anthony Scott.

You can’t win games of footy like that.

HAWKS HIT BACK AT ‘TANKER W*NKERS’… BUT THERE’S STILL A TRUTH TO IT

There’s nothing fans love more than saying the rest of the footy world was wrong about their team. And Hawthorn fans are getting plenty of chances.

The Hawks’ third win in four games was their best yet, coming back to beat premiership contender Brisbane by 25 points – remarkably, their fourth consecutive win over the Lions, in a period where Chris Fagan’s side has been contending for the top four every year.

And the most exciting part of it all was how the Hawks’ youth drove the win. Connor Macdonald (20 years old) played his best AFL game; Jai Newcombe (21) continued his elevation into genuine A-grade contention, as did Mitch Lewis (24); ruck Lloyd Meek (25) was best-on-ground according to the AFL Player Ratings, Will Day (22) had another excellent outing… we could go on.

All of this prompted a chorus of support for the Hawks’ future, especially after all of those claims the club was tanking pre-season.

Veteran newsreader (and Hawks fan) Stephen Quartermain said “those tanker w…kers can get stuffed”; ex-Hawk Jack Fitzpatrick claimed the club was “closer to a flag than three quarters of the competition”.

Of course, it’s worth noting a week ago, Hawthorn was down by 96 points against Port Adelaide, in one of the most pitiful performances of the season. So it’s not as if they’re consistent; but that’s what you get with youth.

But we do have one question; how many people actually said Hawthorn were tanking before, and after the opening two rounds of, the season (when they were a really bad 0-2)?

Veteran journalist Damian Barrett described their list decisions, which included trading out a Brownlow medallist in Tom Mitchell, as “a form of tanking”.

It would seem to be a pretty natural assumption that a team making the moves the Hawks made was looking to get younger. We know as a rule, younger teams and players are worse.

The Herald Sun’s Mark Robinson wrote in the pre-season about a number of teams which looked to be building for the future – and a shot at presumptive No.1 pick Harley Reid -rather than the present.

“In rounds 21, 22 and 23, the Bombers play West Coast, North Melbourne and the Giants. If the Bombers, for instance, were 17th or 18th on the ladder at round 20, would they really want to win their next three matches?” Robinson asked.

“We’re not accusing Essendon, or any team, of potentially tanking, especially not ahead of the first game of the season. But as the year unfolds, list management wears different hats.

“North is already playing kids, West Coast needs multiple draft bonanzas and so does St Kilda and the Hawks. If the hat fits…”

All of this seems entirely reasonable, even with the added context of Hawthorn’s recent performances.

Hawks coach Sam Mitchell, when asked about whether the club was tanking – which only a few people really argued, and certainly no-one in the context of ‘trying purposefully to lose on game day’ – said it was about giving chances to young players.

“We got together as a list-management committee … and we decided, ‘How can we build this club back to premiership success? What can we do to get there?’,” he said on Footy Classified after Round 2.

“The most viable option for us was to try and get young players together, to get a good list of young players and build them together.

“We’ve had two rough games and we haven’t played to the top of our capabilities, but we’re going to win some games of footy this year.”

“If we had’ve kept Jaeger and Tom it means that Will Day is not playing in the midfield. It means young (Cam) Mackenzie is not playing in the midfield because he’s going to be pushed out into some other position.”

Is it possible that everyone is right?

Mitchell is right. The team got younger on purpose, and it has given their kids opportunities – and on occasion, this has paid off earlier than expected.

The analysts who said the Hawks were trying to get younger are right. It was clearly their strategy. The assumption was they would be a bad team because of it, and, well… the Hawks are 16th on the ladder. They’re certainly not good.

It is completely understandable to predict that a team getting purposefully younger is going to be worse, but the way some Hawks fans have reacted, you’d think it was the worst thing ever written.

Broadly this goes to an unfortunate trend where fans seem to take criticism of their club as an insult, rather than an attempt to analyse and explain what is happening. It’s the same mistake fans make when they hear commentators getting excited about a team coming back and assume they’re ‘biased’ – no, they’re just calling the game and building hype.

Nobody hates your team. Let’s all just calm down a bit.

SWANS LEFT TO RUE CRITICAL 50-METRE CALLS

Sydney certainly had its chances to beat St Kilda on Thursday night, but a pair of controversial late 50-metre penalties proved unfortunately critical.

Two Saints goals came from the costly calls, made against Sydney’s Errol Gulden and Angus Sheldrick in the fourth quarter, which left fans fuming at the SCG.

In Gulden’s case, he was told to stand by the umpire, then with a blown whistle told the mark was “back here”, and then barely a second later – as Gulden was starting to move backwards – called to the 50, which seemed an incredibly tight and unfair ruling.

In Sheldrick’s case, he ran from behind the Saints player who marked the ball right on the boundary line and manned the mark.

“They came in critical times. I mean, the umpire can only pay them where he sees them – we thought there were quite a few decisions that could have gone either way,” Hawthorn great Jason Dunstall said on Fox Footy.

“Clearly Gulden doesn’t hear the umpire and he’s about to call him back and then says, no, you’ve had long enough, 50 metres. And you can see the look of shock on Gulden’s face; he just stopped dead, he goes what, I didn’t hear anything? He thought he was standing the mark, so maybe a little bit unlucky.

“This one (Sheldrick), he really had to go out to the side, come infield and then go around before he stood the mark.

“We’ve seen a lot of times this year where players have been given license to walk up and man the marks. But again, you can only pay them when you see them the umpires, and most importantly, what St Kilda did do was take advantage of them.”

A popular Twitter account, claimed to be run by an accredited umpire, declared the Gulden incident was a “woefully umpired passage”.

Swans coach John Longmire was left to rue his side’s ill-discipline.

“There was five goals from free kicks. I think we had 11 free kicks against in the first quarter … it’s extraordinary numbers,” he said in his press conference.

“Two 50-metre penalties in the last quarter, pretty key moments of the game, so that was very costly.”