The Footy Boss: An in-depth look at all aspects of Collingwood
Collingwood had a quieter trade period in 2025 and farewelled some ageing veterans. Ex-Carlton footy boss Brad Lloyd dives into their challenging list management task.
With the oldest list in the competition in 2025, Collingwood faces an interesting balance on how to farewell their veteran players the right way and stay in the top eight.
Having sat in many exit interviews over the years, this is the delicate balance on how to handle the intense conversations the right way, plus how the Pies may have dived deep into some potential recruits this off-season.
A RESPECTFUL GOODBYE
One of the most challenging jobs for a coach and football department is working out how to exit senior players.
Tom Mitchell is a Brownlow medallist and a premiership player who has had an outstanding career so it’s a tough situation to have a player of that ilk waiting through the trade period and not getting on the list.
Mason Cox, also, has a remarkable story having been brought out from America by the AFL and former Pies recruiter Derek Hine and recruited into Collingwood.
He may get an opportunity with the need for ruckmen out there.
Retiring or delisting champion players is always a hard discussion and needs to be done in a respectful and transparent way. These chats are best done really delicately to make sure the player gets to go out on their terms and relationships are maintained.
Tom and Mason seem like a couple of players who may want to continue on their careers but it needs to be an open conversation so everyone feels that they have all the information they need.
Exit meetings are important times for a list management committee, they are a brutal few days unfortunately with how they roll out.
Normally the season finishes over the weekend, the players get a day or two off to have their end of season celebration and recover, and then they will be coming in for exit meeting which traditionally go on a Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
Every club does it slightly differently but players will normally come into the club and have a team meeting and catch up with the high performance team about their off-season program.
They will sit down with the coach and list management team for a debrief and then will also check in with the wellbeing team.
When you are delisting a player at this time, they are tough conversations. It is best to get to it really quickly in the meeting.
Ideally the player sees it coming and there are no surprises. I suspect that once the player is told they are going to be delisted that they don’t take in a lot more from the conversation, due to the gravity and sometimes shock at officially receiving this news.
Usually, a player has a feel in the back-end of the contract that they are playing for their futures and you will try to have some conversations with the player and their manager so they have some awareness of what is to come.
It is a challenging time for the players but also the club staff to deliver the message given you have forged strong relationships along the way.
It is intense. The season ends and you have to move really quickly so everyone knows where they are headed into the future.
The wellbeing check-in after this meeting is the most critical piece, to ensure the player is supported at this confronting time for them.
I noted that Mitchell has said in interviews since leaving Collingwood that he told coach Craig McRae he was someone he will always look up to as a mentor and he was “the best coach I’ve ever had”.
That shows that not only did Tom take his delisting well but clearly the conversation has been had in a respectful way, for their relationship to still be in tact at this level.
Collingwood has plenty of players in the older-bracket that will be coming to an end in coming years.
I’ve always had a philosophy that the champions or the high-end players, their careers last longer because they have more wriggle room to drop a few per cent and still play good football.
At Collingwood, they have stars over 30 like Scott Pendlebury, Jeremy Howe, Steele Sidebottom, Jamie Elliott, Jack Crisp, they are all still very good AFL players.
Players at that level have some wriggle room on their performance, as opposed to a role-type player who is squeezing every ounce out of their talent. Those players can’t afford to lose a few per cent on their performance because that will mean they struggle at the top level.
Collingwood have had some high-end players who have played for a very long time and it feels like they are starting to move on the 30 pluses with Mitchell, Cox and Will Hoskin-Elliott departing the club.
There was a lot said in the days following Collingwood’s best-and-fairest win for Darcy Cameron and Darcy himself acknowledged he is an unexpected best and fairest winner and a humble Copeland Trophy winner. I don’t think Darcy would have been too fussed with all the noise about the best-and-fairest voting system.
Darcy was overlooked in three drafts and he himself thought he would be someone who could support an established ruckman like Brodie Grundy and get a dozen or so AFL games in and return to WA as a happy man.
He has built great confidence over his career and has been an inspiration for state league players. I remember seeing him play WAFL footy and now he is a Copeland Trophy winner and a very well respected Collingwood player.
DOING DUE DILIGENCE
Collingwood’s list management team did mention Clayton Oliver early in the trade period and said they would do their due diligence given there is a position of need there with him.
A term that was used a lot in the trade period, ‘due diligence’ with players of that ilk normally looks like reference checks and conversations around the industry and working with the player’s management.
There is the contractual situation and how an actual trade would work but there is also the referencing and seeing if the player will fit into the environment.
Club recruiting and list management teams set a real benchmark across any organisation with their due diligence. That can include psych testing and some of the most accurate references you can get are from past assistant coaches or high performance managers who have worked with that athlete.
Often you go to those people who have moved on from the club so you can have a real honest conversation with them.
Ideally the psych profiling matches up and supports what you think you know of the player and the references. If not, you must investigate further.
In the end you are not always going to recruit the perfect player on and off the field but the main thing is to know exactly what you are getting. One of the skills for the list manager is to communicate back to the coach and the football department so there are no surprises so everyone knows what they dealing with.
With some of your acquisitions it is not just about the player you are bringing in but the environment you have currently got and whether the player will thrive in it and if the environment can cope with a specific type of person
It’s important you can have really honest debates. Coaches are coaches for a reason, they are glass half-full on players and if there is talent there, the coaches often think they can add to the team on-field, but the list manager’s role is to weigh up all the information and make a decision that is best for the list.
They look at the contract and what it would take to bring them in from a trade point of view and they are looking at the alternatives because there might be another player who is a better option.
For whatever reason Oliver didn’t work out and he went to GWS.
They also did the work on Steven May but chose not to go down that path as well.
Jy Simpkin was also chased by Collingwood but given the high price North Melbourne put on its captain, the deal fell through as the Pies protected their future draft assets.
LIST OVERVIEW
List changes – In:Jack Buller (Sydney)
Out:Brody Mihocek (Melbourne), Will Hoskin-Elliott (retired), Mason Cox, Charlie Dean, Ash Johnson, Fin Macrae, Oleg Markov, Tom Mitchell (delisted)
List gaps
Jack Silvagni is a player the club and coach Craig McRae acknowledged they had some discussions with this year before he chose to move to St Kilda.
Collingwood acknowledged the key back spot is something they are keeping an eye on, as well as midfield support after looking at Oliver and Simpkin. As a list manager and list management committee you need to know what your immediate needs are and what your medium to long term needs are.
Succession planning is really important for a football club.
They’ve acknowledged they need to find a solution for their key backs but also they see it as more of a medium to long term need. The Pies have Reef McInnes coming back from a knee who they hope will play a role there in 2026.
The Pies brought in Jack Buller from Sydney. It is a bit of a swap with Brody Mihocek, who moved to Melbourne. Buller is a competitive player who gives a good honest contest. Collingwood only gave up a future third round pick for him and got a fourth with Buller, so it was a low-cost trade.
List strengths
The Pies still have a long list of quality players, as shown by the amount of A and B grades on the team. Working through their list, what stood out to me is they still bat very deep for high end talent and if all of those players are available, they will continue to be hard to beat.
Draft hand – 39, 45, 56, 61, 77
Collingwood chose not to go ahead with nominating Tom McGuane as a father-son for the national draft.
That can be a challenging decision to make. Tom has been going well and tested well at the combine.
You bring potential father-sons in to the club from a young age and pour a heap of development into them but you also have to keep expectations in check because you are not going to be able to go ahead with every single player.
Collingwood would have seen where the player fit in their draft order and made a decision based on that.
I think they have done the right thing by communicating early and giving Tom the opportunity to look elsewhere.
Tom is a talented young player and being overlooked doesn't mean he wont have a bright future in the game, he will now get the chance to explore other options.
Salary cap
A new bar has been set with some of the offers getting around for star players. It does make me think about players like Nick Daicos, who are the best players in the competition, but may have been jumped with their contracts with the deals being offered across the league.
Other clubs are making approaches to these star players with big deals. The industry and the competition has to make a decision on whether a new TPP bar has been set by these big contracts.
It has sort of anchored what the new top price is but some clubs may ignore that anchor and reframe what to pay a star player.
Some of the contracts that have been handed out in recent weeks won’t be sustainable.
Free agency is also a consideration for clubs, sometimes clubs are prepared to make a bigger offer for a free agent because they are not having to trade to acquire the player.
Last year Collingwood put a lot of draft and TPP capital to get Dan Houston and Harry Perryman, Houston as a major trade and Perryman as a free agent.
The Pies were quieter this trade period.
You can’t stay up forever in regards to trades and spending, clubs will have gone big one year and may go quiet the next because they have to regroup, not having the picks to trade, or the ability financially to keep luring free agents.
HIGH PERFORMANCE CHECK-IN
It’s clear that the Pies have plenty of veterans on their list and will want to carefully manage them to make sure they are firing come September.
High performance managers are very aware of all the player’s bodies and will have had plenty of experience working with older players.
But it is not like players are de-loading and doing that much less work in their 30s these days, given players in general play deeper into their careers.
In terms of training they participate in most of training to stay sharp like everyone else.
Often older players need an in-season mental break from the grind of AFL football more so than a physical break. Older players have been in the system for a long time, they often have young families, so there might be times when they are given an extra day off to have a bit more of a mental freshen up. I am yet to come across an older player that has not benefited from this a couple of times a season.
THE COACH’S BOX
Collingwood has had a fair bit of movement with their coaches in particular with development. Josh Fraser has gone to Carlton, Andy Otten has finished up. Forwards assistant Scott Selwood has decided to step away from the club.
Tyson Goldsack has come back to the club from Port Adelaide to join Craig McRae’s team.
The Pies are currently advertising for a new head of development, which has become an important role at clubs.
Collingwood was heavily linked to Daniel Giansiracusa when he departed Essendon, but he chose to join Hawthorn as its new development head.
FRONT OFFICE
One under-the-radar departure from the Pies this off-season is Anthony Soitsis. He is a highly-rated data and analytics figure and has just been poached to join Carlton.
This shows just how competitive the industry is getting, not just with coaching staff or players but also in the office staff as well.
Originally published as The Footy Boss: An in-depth look at all aspects of Collingwood
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