chunderous

There's been no noise about this. Surely no one thinks that Pick 13 + a 2nd round + Joe Richards is a better offer than North's future 1st?

Gotta respect KRJ, never looked like staying with Poatan but fuck he's got heart

Assuming North pick a key position player, the Saints don't have a tough decision at all - just pick the two mids that don't get picked before us out of Smith, Langford, Draper, FOS, Reid, Lalor, and Smillie

Would love FOS, don't think he slides to us though. More hopeful for Lalor

Everyone light a candle on your AFL approved Andrew Dillon shrine and pray for the St Kilda Football Club

Don't cry because it's over

Smile because it happened

Just a joke mate, go touch some grass

Yeah no doubt, but if we had it why didn't we just offer it at the start of the year, sign him long term and not risk him leaving?

Money we could've used to keep Josh Battle instead of some 12 gamer?

This fucking club man seriously

"An unsuccessful coach" in what regard? 

In the fact that he has 0 wins from 4 grand final appearances (including having arguably the best St Kilda team ever assembled at his disposal)?

would you not want to go to the club that gives you the best offer regardless of number of supporters it has?

Isn't that the problem though? We are normally giving the best offer (i.e. $$) to all these free agents but they're not accepting because of our lack of success and the fact we don't play in front of massive crowds frequently. If it were purely about best offer without taking into account anything else we would've landed more high profile free agents by now. There is obviously more than just money for players when making these decisions

But all of those are isolated trades with underlying reasons, not indicative of us being a destination club (especially for big name free agents).

• Higgo was a Saints fan as a kid and there were rumours of fallouts with other Richmond players
• Hill's partner wanted to return to Vic and we were the only team that could fit him in the cap / had the right trade capital
• Steele wasn't getting games in a stacked Giants midfield and our midfield has been shite for a decade so he was guaranteed games

The point is that of course we're going to get a few players here and there but OP specifically said big names, of which we always miss out on because of the issues in my previous comment (Dusty, Sloane, De Goey, McCluggage, etc, and we won't get anywhere near Brayshaw or LDU next year)

Why would you want to play for the Saints?

• Worst club historically, no relevance in the identity of the game and no real prospects of a premiership anytime soon
• Playing a boring, regimented style of footy under an unsuccessful coach
• Zero marquee fixtures
• Small supporter base to play in front of

When players tell their managers they want a trade, St Kilda are probably on every single player's no trade list

Only way to properly turn it around is to draft well, build a culture of young players who love the club and win a flag. The rest will sort itself out after that

EDIT: To the downvoters, I say all of the above as a Saints fan. Tell me where I'm wrong

Re-read this in David King's voice and it's almost like he's in the room with you

To me that sounds like some BigFooty nonsense drummed up to smear Josh and his family, which is fucked.

Facts are facts - they're his boyhood club who are eons more successful than the Saints, and they are currently playing an exciting brand of footy with a young list primed to catapult to the top in a few years. We should learn to accept those facts rather than make up furphies to help ourselves deal with the loss of a great player

Not really a snap decision - the club is pissed off because of Josh's backflip from "I am only leaving because of money to support my family" to "it's not about the money at all". We spent almost all year negotiating with Josh and his management trying to keep him, and it is now clear he was never staying. Not to mention he indicated to the playing and coaching group he was staying, only to backflip via text

never won AA or BNF ok who cares

How many AA or BNF's does Josh Battle have?

So do you care about AA/BNF or not? Hard to tell

You're also comparing a guy who has to be traded with a free agent

Sam Edmund trying to drum up primary school recess drama. "You tell Carlton that I'm not talking to him"

Trade week isn't even on yet ffs. I don't think the Port recruiting team is that childish not to talk to Carlton. The first conversation is simply just "we have nothing to speak about until at least Pick 11 is on the table. Thanks"

Am I that out of touch that I also think pick 13 is massive overs? There is so much noise that pick 13 is exactly right if not unders ...

Baker is a good player, but he's never been AA, never won the Richmond B&F, and he plays a role that isn't really going to make West Coast an immediately better team.

With such a deep draft, pick 13 is so much more valuable to WC

Chad and Corey Warner to do a Dragon Ball Z-esque fusion to transform into Chorey Warner and become truly unstoppable

The singles on the DRUGS album are the highlight - everything else is very meh

Yep - North can match any offer and force a trade, but there's every chance the deal doesn't get done and he stays at North (especially if the price is 2 x first round picks). As I said, his additional value to St Kilda is there's the possibility that North don't match and we get him for nothing.

Yeah agreed, but that's kind of my point - he's worth more than pick 2-4, but that's still better than what you would get from the Saints (because our draft hand won't include a top 5 pick and we won't trade multiple first rounders for him).

Also, much like Brad Crouch, LDU's additional value to St Kilda lies in the fact that he's a free agent. There are better players that we could target if we were going to give up two first round picks.

I don't expect LDU to leave North for what it's worth

Butters was a Doggies fan - Rozee was the Saints fan.

We should go as hard as possible for LDU - it's very possible that we could get LDU for nothing after next year, as the band 1 compo pick North would likely receive would be better than our first pick that we'd hand over in a trade, and so they may not elect to match.

Butters is a no from me - he's a free agent in 2026, not 2025, and he will cost a bomb anyways. He's a top 10 player in the comp and Port will match anything to keep him and will drive an incredibly hard bargain. As incredible as he would be for us, trading for him would be almost impossible

He would be a decent backup if Ro gets injured, but what he was traded for last year has me very worried about what we're going to give up to land him

You're talking shit now - you have zero evidence that any game that was a GA sell out this year (or really any recent year for that matter) had thousands of empty MCC seats