Recap the full interview with GM of Football Brady Rawlings from SEN on Monday.
You’re up to your eyeball in offers, Brady, which I love because it gives us a lot of things to talk about. Can you take us through Adelaide’s offer, firstly, for your pick one in the draft, and was it an easy decision to knock it back?
BR: Obviously when you’ve got pick one, and the draft this year has a couple of guys at the top end of extreme talent, clubs are going to come for it. There’s been a few offers for that pick, and once you get to this point of the year you can attribute a pick to a player now, and it becomes even more valuable. We listen to every offer that comes our way but it’s going to take a lot of currency to get this one.
We’ve read, and people have told me it’s not as good as it sounds. Their (the Crows') pick four, their future first round pick next year, and you’d think they finish bottom four, so it’s another top five pick, and Melbourne’s first round pick, but they wanted something back. Was it too good to be true and is it not as good as it sounds?
BR: I won’t go into the details of exactly what it was, but clearly there was things going back their way as well. As I said we listen to any offer that comes our way, that’s our duty, but when you strip it back and compare it to the player we believe we’re going to get in at that pick, it was a bit short. I’m sure there’ll be more that come for the pick, I’m just not sure if anyone’s going to have the currency to get it done.
That’s the case right up until draft night, and even on draft night. Are you putting a deadline on receiving offers, or is there a prospect someone could get really desperate up until draft night?
BR: With the live trading you can trade on the night, and you can trade picks all the way up until draft night. The next two days isn’t the deadline for receiving offers for a pick, but it certainly is if there was a player involved. It’s until Wednesday night where players can be involved. In terms of just pick swaps, it’s probably going to be hard with a pick swap to get something done for pick one.
I read over the weekend that you met on Zoom with Jason Horne-Francis. Can you tell us how that went?
BR: The guys went through a standard interview like they do with all the players. The last few weeks there have been a lot of interviews done with our recruiting team. With players who are at school we use the school holiday period, and with players in finals it’s obviously been a pretty busy schedule for a fair few. You try and marry up when the whole family can be involved and the recruiting team can be involved, it does take a bit of organisation, but they caught up with Jason and his family and everything went really well. There’s not too many more impressive kids around than Jason.
You must be resolute in the fact, and you never know, that he wouldn’t eventually want to go home, particularly with the offers you’ve refuted for him. How difficult is that to assess a players character and the likelihood they can move states and stick around for 10-12 years?
BR: As you said it’s hard to assess. We’ll back ourselves in with anyone we bring in from any state that they’ll come in, they’ll be developed, they’ll be cared for, and hopefully be excited by the talent we’ve put in around them, and hopefully success comes in the near future that once you get a player in your club and you love the players you play with and you love the club, there’s no reason for you to leave. That’s the plan with everyone we bring in from interstate. Obviously we did it with Tom Powell last year and he extended. We’ll back ourselves in that anyone we bring in from interstate, they’re going to buy into our culture and love the place and hopefully get some success in the future.
I love the acquisition of Callum Coleman-Jones, how far out did you identify him as a player of interest?
BR: We tracked him all year, we identified that position a fair while out. Someone who can ruck past 'Goldy' (Todd Goldstein) and someone who can go forward and take a clunk which he showed pretty well this year as well, especially against the Crows that day up in Sydney. We’ve been tracking him all year, obviously known him for a long time coming through Sturt and playing for SA, captain of his state, so we’ve known Callum for a long time. We identified him from a fair way out and he’s just in the right age bracket for us as well. He comes in with four years of development into him, and hopefully he can play a lot of footy with the likes of 'LDU' (Luke Davies-Uniacke), Tarryn (Thomas), Tom Powell, Will Phillips and Jy Simpkin in that midfield. We think we can have a pretty good midfield in the future.
You just rattle those names off, and that’s elite really. Your priority has been midfield, even Will Phillips. Now you’ve got Callum Coleman-Jones and your midfield set, are there any areas of your list that are a little bit weaker and you’d like to address in the next couple of days and leading up to the draft?
BR: Probably not in the next couple of days. From a player acquisition point of view, we’ve got Callum in. We did sniff around a couple of other small-forwards in the lead-up to the trade period but we’re in a position too where we need to keep bringing in the young talent through the draft, and we don’t want to compromise that. With pick one or pick 20, we want to bring in a couple of quality youngsters there and keep our future line as well. If there was anything around that was a later pick for a small-forward type we would have a look at it, but I think we’re pretty comfortable with what we’ve done so far and we’ll take our picks to the draft.
Any interest in Bobby Hill?
BR: Bobby is a very quality young small forward, no doubt about that. Probably with where we’re at with bringing some youth through the draft that’s probably going to be our priority, so whoever does get Bobby whether he stays or goes somewhere else is going to get a very good player, but we’ll probably use our draft picks.
Trent Dumont is a player who hasn’t been offered a contract yet. Has there been a decision made with Trent, and has there been any interest in him?
BR: We’ve got a few players who are wait and see at this point, and it’s unfortunate for that group of players. It’s happening at most clubs at the moment where you end up having a group of players you can’t quite commit to yet, and Trent’s in that boat. We’ll see what happens in the next couple of days, work out our list spots going into the draft, and make some decisions on those players in the not too distant future. At the moment, it’s still wait and see for Trent and a couple of others.
Tristan Xerri is contracted and has requested a trade to St Kilda. Is that accurate, and how are those negotiations looking?
BR: First of all it is accurate. We signed Tristan for a couple of years, so he’s got one more year to go. Given he’s in contract he’s very much a required player for us. We played him for half the year this year and he was a dominant player in the VFL. I think he was 20 votes ahead in our VFL best and fairest before he started playing AFL. He’s come along really well. He’s a competitive ruck who follow up and ground level, stands down the line and takes a grab. We’ve got no real interest in moving Tristan at all, but he has requested a trade. It would have to take something very attractive for us to even consider a move.
What’s your philosophy on that? I like that and I think GWS should do the same with Bobby Hill, I think it’s a bit unfair to say you want to go to Victoria, but only nominate one club and that is Essendon. It’s not dissimilar to Tristan really. Are you open to saying ‘I understand you want to go to a new home, but you’re contracted, we’re going to keep you and we’ll discuss it in 12 months time’?
BR: I had a good chat with Tristan around this. When a player requests a trade he’s got an offer somewhere else and he’d prefer to go there, so you do need to consider it. At the end of the day when they’re contracted and we value them very highly, we’re not going to be letting them go for nothing. If it’s valuable for us we’ll help him get to where he wants to get to, if it’s not then he’ll start pre-season with us on 22nd of November and we’ll carry on business as usual.
Are you comfortable with your ruck stocks? ‘Goldy’ must be 34, and what a player he’s been. You picked Jacob Edwards in the mid-season draft, you’ve extended his contract, and you’ve got Callum Coleman-Jones. Would you be comfortable if you went in with just those three next year?
BR: We’ll go in with three rucks that can play on any weekend. Obviously Jacob’s just completed school this year and he’s very light. We’re very excited about what he’ll bring in the future, but probably can’t count on him playing AFL in the ruck. We’ll take in three rucks you could select on any given round. We’ve also got Charlie Comben coming through who’ll play purely as a forward at this stage, but he definitely can ruck as a second ruck a little bit at VFL level, he’s another one that can go through there. We’re pretty comfortable with that and obviously it depends on whether Tristan stays or goes. If he wants to go we’d probably have to look at another ruck, but at this stage we’re counting him in.
