AFL Rich 100: The Secret List Manager reveals the key to building a premiership list

Jake Stringer’s management wants one thing. The Bombers want something else. Who will blink first in this year’s most important contract negotiations?

What is Jake Stringer’s next deal worth? Picture: Getty Images

Essendon faces an interesting dilemma when it sits down with Jake Stringer’s manager to discuss a new deal beyond this season.

Stringer’s management will likely want to negotiate the explosive midfielder/forward’s earning capacity based on his best individual efforts from 2021, rather than what he has produced as a package across the past three or four seasons.

But the Bombers must be mindful to look at the overall picture of what Stringer might deliver as a collective on any new contract rather than individual moments of brilliance like those he produced against Hawthorn in Launceston a few weeks ago.

Potential versus performance is one of the most difficult things for AFL list managers to negotiate.

Get it right and the club’s list will strike the ideal balance, which as history tells us is essential for team success.

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Jake Stringer is out of contract at the end of the season. Picture: Getty Images

Get it wrong and it can really come back to bite – not just for one season, but for the duration of the player’s contract. That one contract could cause reverberations across the whole playing list as it constrains your salary cap, future recruiting and even other players’ development.

Don’t get me wrong, every club needs players like Jake Stringer.

But you have to make it happen at the right price, on the right terms, knowing he may only produce his best on four or five occasions a season rather than week-in and week-out.

I’ve always maintained that building a premiership list is like preparing the perfect dinner.

You need to put the various ingredients together and have them ready to serve at the same time.

It’s not easy, but if you look at the teams who have tasted success, it is crucial to striking that delicate balance.

Importantly, the ingredients need to be varied. It’s not just about the prime cut of beef or scalloped potatoes.

You need a mix of veterans who bring both knowledge and experience, the players who have the resilience to withstand the constant rigours of AFL football.

You also need the high-end 26-to-28-year-olds who are at the peak of their physical powers, those who provide the brilliance of a Stringer and exude confidence and control.

Add a dash of the younger core, the under-23 players who have come through the AFL draft and generally take time to mature, unless they are generational stars like Chris Judd, Joel Selwood or Cyril Rioli.

Mix together and bring to the boil.

Players like Stringer, those who can take your breath away in a single moment but who might only do that in a handful of games each year, should never be the basis of your playing list, even though they have a place and you do need them.

They are the spice on the steak, the crust on the pie or the cream on the cake, adding a wonderful flavour that any good meal, or team, needs.

But you should be wary not to overpay them or think they will produce those sensational performances on a weekly basis. Put simply, they won’t.

Stringer is a star at his best. At times, he can be the difference between winning and losing.

Still, the Bombers must resist the temptation to romanticise about his soaring peaks when it comes to the negotiating table, and ensure they get the right value for money.

Try to get the deal done, but not at all costs.

Zac Williams joined the Blues on big money. Picture: Michael Klein

Carlton erred with its offer to entice Zac Williams out of Greater Western Sydney late last year, and it looks like paying a big price for this in more ways than one.

The Blues made Williams one of the three highest-paid players at the club, but in his first half a season of a six-year deal he has shown he is well short of justifying that spend.

They may have added someone with exceptional natural ability, but he won’t provide the consistent level of performance expected of such a salaried player.

I believe the foundation of a successful playing list should be the players who are consistent performers, whose level between their peaks and troughs are minimal.

The question that any list manager, and by extension any club, needs to ask themselves is whether they are building a list to be competitive or genuinely building a list to win premierships (one, two, maybe more).

Make no mistake, there is a distinct difference.

Playing finals is well and good. But only the brave and professionally administered clubs will commit to patiently building towards a flag – without taking shortcuts, and by staying the course, even when the heat is on.

A longer, strategic approach to the player list is more likely to lead to sustained success.

If clubs try to roll everything into one or two years, or gastronomically gorge on just the meat and potatoes, it simply won’t work. Short-term decisions can have serious long-term consequences.

Richmond built a dynasty through outstanding recruiting. Picture: Getty Images

Too often, clubs are seduced by rhetorical terms like “high performance” or “best practice”. Invariably, these themes are used to promote one’s ego when the proof is in the pudding.

It’s no coincidence that the four teams who have achieved football dynasties this century – Brisbane, Geelong, Hawthorn and Richmond – have built success with that strategy.

So, who has built their list in a strategic manner, or effectively prepared the right ingredients to have a chance of sustained success now?

Melbourne looks the most obvious one, even more so than the Western Bulldogs.

The Demons have patiently built their list over a six or seven-year period, adding subtle new flavours, and it looks to be coming to the boil at just the right time.

The Demons haven’t won a flag since 1964 but seem ready to end the drought, if not this year, then in the near future.

Brisbane is the other club that has prepared the right ingredients to enjoy success. They have got a strong mix of talent after some careful and considered list building.

If either the Lions or the Demons hold the trophy aloft this year, it will be further evidence that a longer, more strategic approach to building a player list beats those trying to take fanciful shortcuts.

Originally published as AFL Rich 100: The Secret List Manager reveals the key to building a premiership list