Kev blames no forward thinking

[Vass38]

After reading the herald suns article this morning where Sheedy blames a lot of our current problems on lack of forward structure, i have to say I agree.
In 2009 we lost or moved on Lloyd, Lucas, McPhee & Lovett, A fair bit of fire power there. Add to this the fact that Knights hasnt played Neagle or M.Williams, with the later now struggling with injury.
Our top goal scorer now is Zaharakis, who is a great young player - but cant be expected to fill the shoes of some of his predecessors. We is ably supported by Monfries & Davey, but apart from them - who else do we really have that is an out an out goal kicker???

Sheedy went on further to say that whilst he supports Knights he is suprised he got the job ahead of the likes of Harvey, Hardwick, M.Williams and co. Have to say I agree with him there also.

I really hope Knights bites the bullet and continues to play Neagle (who else do we have). Gumby starts to get more consistant - improve his kicking and have more of an impact on games, and Hurley also can do more. These guys are young and need to be given time to develop, but let them play, keep them forward and hopefully they can start to gel and form a potent form line that other sides fear like in the days of Lloydy & Lucas.

Comon Bombers!!!

[DapperDon]

If what is said is true in that article, in that we didn't wait an extra week to talk to Bomber about coaching us then my head will just about explode.

Where's Longy, fill us in if you can.

[Ben the Gooner]

Sheeds is in no place to talk about lack of forward thinking.

FFS, as much as I love him, it's mostly his fault that we're in this situation right now.

[Kong]

If Sheedy were coaching right now, we'd have a forward line of

Tutlan - Lucas - Oakley-Nicholls
Sampi - Lloyd - Salmon

[Seb78]

If Sheedy were coaching right now, we'd have a forward line of

Tutlan - Lucas - Oakley-Nicholls
Sampi - Lloyd - Salmon

They'd probably perform better than our current forward six

[Kong]

You're having a laugh.

[bombzrule]

Sheeds is in no place to talk about lack of forward thinking.

FFS, as much as I love him, it's mostly his fault that we're in this situation right now.


thats rubbish, in his last few years they were only signing sheeds a year at time, of course he had to keep flogging a dead horse, the problems we have now started a long time ago.

[Ben the Gooner]

His last contract was a three year extension.

Like it or not, it's his fault the list is ****ed atm.

[Kong]

Funny to see Sheedy take a swipe at the club for its list management; Knights spent his first two years clearing out the crap that Sheeds had left us with.

He also had a dig at Essendon for losing McPhee for nothing; obviously can't recall the part where McPhee walked out on us after the trade period.

[Pweter]

I find the article quite funny.

To me, no forward thinking at Essendon is picking up players like Zantuck, Alvey, Salmon, Allen, Camporeale, Murphy, Cole etc at the detriment of investing in youth.

[Vass38]

Yes - you must wonder about Sheed's motivation in saying what he said in this article. He does raise some valid points though, and I certainly think Neagle and M.Williams should have been given more of a go earlier in the season. At least Gumby & Hurley seem to be heading in the right direction...

[ManWithNoName]

Yes - you must wonder about Sheed's motivation in saying what he said in this article. He does raise some valid points though, and I certainly think Neagle and M.Williams should have been given more of a go earlier in the season. At least Gumby & Hurley seem to be heading in the right direction...
FFS...Williams was injured.

[Vass38]

FFS...Williams was injured.

Im talkin earlier in the season when he was playing at Bendigo. And if he was injured or carrying an injury than why the big secret? Why not come out and let people know so supporters aren't wondering...?? I distinctly remeber several threads here wondering why he wasnt being picked or played and now people are saying he was injured...Pretty sure he played a few games at Bendigo and kicked a few goals but for whatever reason was not selected and I dont think it was just injury

[essendongirl]

thats rubbish, in his last few years they were only signing sheeds a year at time, of course he had to keep flogging a dead horse, the problems we have now started a long time ago.


how long ago??? because im pretty sure before knights we had the same coach for 27 years!! in his last few years as coach Sheedy did more positive work for the AFL than for the Essendon Football Club, reflected in our position on the ladder! the problem is with the list that knights inherited from sheedy and how he has managed it over the past couple of years. Essendon has no A grade middle aged players, sure we have youth and we have fletch but wheres the developed 25 year olds in the prime of their careers who should have been drafted under the reign of kevin sheedy!

[daffo]

This was a point that I brought up at the end of last year. We could NOT afford to lose Lloyd, Lucas, McPhee and Lovett. They were four of our top six goal scorers in 2009. Neagle (played 2 games this year) and Monfries were the other two.

At this stage it looks as though Zaka will win our top goal scoring with a mere 25-30 goals at best.
Does anyone know the last time Essendon had a top goal scorer below 30 goals???? (i think) 1929.
You can't say that wasn't expected...

[stander]

The pot shots from the old fox don't surprise, after all, in his own words, "EFC was a good client of mine". He's doing anything he can to get his hands on Joe Daniher, even it means publicly ridiculing the Dons. The funny part is that Sheeds will go down as winning only 21 games in his last three seasons and Knights (apparently an incompetent coach) has already topped him. And Bradley is an interesting one- Sheeds will be also be remembered for transforming a promising number 7 draft pick into arguably the worst player ever to wear red and black.

[The House]

Sheeds is in no place to talk about lack of forward thinking.

FFS, as much as I love him, it's mostly his fault that we're in this situation right now.

Spot ****ing on Ben!

Sheedy is the last person on the planet to criticise a senior afl coach for lack of forward thinking....he left our list in a shambles.

.....Knights has only had 2 national drafts ever so i'm not sure how much forward planning he could have done.

Sheedy and Aker are the biggest jokes in modern footy....all they do is put forward outrages points of view to get a reaction, and often aren't really sure what they're on about.

Anyone a regular reader of Sheedy's articles?
Commonplace for him to have 2 or 3 of his facts mixed up (i.e. wrong).

Forever grateful for '81-'03, but Sheeds you senile old fool, all you've done since is deminish the ledgend that is Sheedy by talking nonsence.

[The Great Barry Besanko]

I find the article quite funny.

To me, no forward thinking at Essendon is picking up players like Zantuck, Alvey, Salmon, Allen, Camporeale, Murphy, Cole etc at the detriment of investing in youth.

Spot on. Forward thinking my arse Sheeds.

[Ben the Gooner]

07 was a Knights draft as well, The House.

[yodellinhank]

If Sheedy were coaching right now, we'd have a forward line of

Tutlan - Lucas - Oakley-Nicholls
Sampi - Lloyd - Salmon

Maybe. I found it interesting in another thread somebody posted Sheedy's 2010 team that he wrote back in 2007.

B: Lee, Dick, Reimars
HB: Slattery, Ryder, Nash
C: Hislop, Watson, Dempsey
HF: Lovett, Johns, Davey
F: Gumbelton, Neagle, Dyson
R: Laycock, Winderlich, Jetta
Int: Houli, Hocking, Lonergan, Chartres, McKinnon


The interesting part, I found, was that if you take out the oddballs and replace them with a couple of our draft picks since then, and of course Kepler Bradley:


B: Hooker, Pears, Reimars
HB: Slattery, Ryder, Nash
C: Hislop, Watson, Dempsey
HF: Lovett, Hurley, Davey
F: Gumbelton, Neagle, Dyson
R: Laycock, Winderlich, Jetta
Int: Houli, Hocking, Lonergan, Zaharakis, Bradley

I think the interesting thing is that his team has no McVeigh, Fletcher, or Hille. I think, if Knighter intends on building our next premiership, it would be good to see the future planning beyond our senior players.

Fletcher and Hille especially have had much to do with the limited successes we have had this season. Much of the criticism of Sheedy's last season is that it was only half decent due to the senior players still on the list. Yet the same criticism can be thrown at Knights now.

[djrossie]

These three players Hurley Zaharakis and Melksham are all foward thinking players so from the recruiting point of view things are going quite well. However the gameplan and execution not so much. :cool:

Having said that the worst course of action to take is what Sheedy took where he recruited players who are over the hill. That leaves your club in ruins for years.

[yodellinhank]

I find the article quite funny.

To me, no forward thinking at Essendon is picking up players like Zantuck, Alvey, Salmon, Allen, Camporeale, Murphy, Cole etc at the detriment of investing in youth.

And this is the paradigm that frustrates the hell out of me. Who are these Youth players he was supposed to invest in? Oh that's right, the fictitious gun right under our noses that nobody else picked...

Zantuck: Pick 6 in the PSD '04. Dammit, we missed out on Elijah Ware, Matthew Smith, Leigh Ryswyk. The next 3 players chosen in PSD/Rookie drafts. Certainly came back to haunt us those...

Alvey: Part of a trade for Jacobs. A cherry on top of a trade we had to make. A trade we had to make possibly because of a 5 year Mercuri contract reportedly signed by Jackson without consultation with the football dept. Actually a young player when we got him.

Allen: We traded pick 57 in 03. Carlton took Ricky Mott. Boy are our faces red.

Camporeale: 4 in the 05 PSD. Overlooked the likes of Matthew White, Ben Fixter, Cameron Thurley. The crows picked up Porplyzia the pick before our next, they have a habit of good late picks. Wonder how much they spent on recruitment during the same period?

Murphy: In a trade which typifies how badly we did during this era, we lost the great Cory McGrath who went on to have such a fantastic career.

Cole: Collingwood obtained champion footballer Ryan Cook with the pick we spent on the Cole trade. Cleve Hughes, Wayde Mills, Garick Ibbotson, Dylan Addison and Matt Riggio all taken around that mark before Ben McKinley got selected.

Salmon: Taken the draft after we had played in a Grand Final, and our number 1 ruckman retired.

Not all that stupid when you think about it really.

[Pweter]

And this is the paradigm that frustrates the hell out of me. Who are these Youth players he was supposed to invest in? Oh that's right, the fictitious gun right under our noses that nobody else picked...

Zantuck: Pick 6 in the PSD '04. Dammit, we missed out on Elijah Ware, Matthew Smith, Leigh Ryswyk. The next 3 players chosen in PSD/Rookie drafts. Certainly came back to haunt us those...

Alvey: Part of a trade for Jacobs. A cherry on top of a trade we had to make. A trade we had to make possibly because of a 5 year Mercuri contract reportedly signed by Jackson without consultation with the football dept. Actually a young player when we got him.

Allen: We traded pick 57 in 03. Carlton took Ricky Mott. Boy are our faces red.

Camporeale: 4 in the 05 PSD. Overlooked the likes of Matthew White, Ben Fixter, Cameron Thurley. The crows picked up Porplyzia the pick before our next, they have a habit of good late picks. Wonder how much they spent on recruitment during the same period?

Murphy: In a trade which typifies how badly we did during this era, we lost the great Cory McGrath who went on to have such a fantastic career.

Cole: Collingwood obtained champion footballer Ryan Cook with the pick we spent on the Cole trade. Cleve Hughes, Wayde Mills, Garick Ibbotson, Dylan Addison and Matt Riggio all taken around that mark before Ben McKinley got selected.

Salmon: Taken the draft after we had played in a Grand Final, and our number 1 ruckman retired.

Not all that stupid when you think about it really.

Saying we would've picked player X because the club we traded the pick for got player X is a ridiculous concept. We've had some handy players come off the rookie list and get drafted late, who's to say we wouldn't have unearthed another 1 or 2? We'll never know.

Yes drafting is something of a gamble and our drafting around this period was ordinary, but we would've given ourselves a better chance for the long term. All Sheedy did was cover a shark bite with a bandaid which saw us limp to a couple of 1st round finals exits and then proceed nowhere.

[yodellinhank]

Sheeds is in no place to talk about lack of forward thinking.

FFS, as much as I love him, it's mostly his fault that we're in this situation right now.

Probably not as much as some people are blaming him for, BTG ;)

Was it Sheedy's fault that the club breached the salary cap, losing valuable draft picks?

Sheeds then had his hands tied with re signings due to the Mercuri deal. According to Sheedy, that decision was never run passed the football department.

There was also salary cap pressure, due to the fact the club took a punt on veterens list rulings which never came into place. This gamble also came from board level, according to Robert Shaw.

So, you have an exodus of players. You also have no picks or late picks to replace them with. And a board that seemed to have a tight fist when it came to football dept spending.

Sheedy is criticised for picking recycled players over gambling on youth. Yet requests to spend money on recruiting young talent, at least in the case of Marty Clarke, went unheeded.

Looking at that hypothetical team, I'd say Sheedy still believed we would still be in a rebuilding phase and Jackson expected success much earlier. Similar to the rumor re Hardwick V Knights. And wasn't it Jackson who put in place the "policy" of winning a flag every seven years?

We had drafting stuff ups and odd ball project players throughout Sheedy's career. But ultimately, he got results. I just don't see how the same people who call for less criticism of our club as it stands now, can pot former club legends and our history.

[The House]

07 was a Knights draft as well, The House.

right you are....same point remains....way too early for the majority of the drafted players to make a call saying Knights has failed in his forward planning.

'tis just typical Sheedy making big calls without substance to remain relevant in the weekly media.....shouldn't need the attention at his age, but clearly does.

[Ben the Gooner]

No question there were huge problems with the football department and lack of funding thereof.

However, the point remains that we wasted 5-6 drafts under Sheedy (who had a big say in recruiting) and are currently suffering for it.

Results are a lot better once Dodoro had control.

[WeAreEssendon]

Probably not as much as some people are blaming him for, BTG ;)

Was it Sheedy's fault that the club breached the salary cap, losing valuable draft picks?

Sheeds then had his hands tied with re signings due to the Mercuri deal. According to Sheedy, that decision was never run passed the football department.

There was also salary cap pressure, due to the fact the club took a punt on veterens list rulings which never came into place. This gamble also came from board level, according to Robert Shaw.

So, you have an exodus of players. You also have no picks or late picks to replace them with. And a board that seemed to have a tight fist when it came to football dept spending.

Sheedy is criticised for picking recycled players over gambling on youth. Yet requests to spend money on recruiting young talent, at least in the case of Marty Clarke, went unheeded.

Looking at that hypothetical team, I'd say Sheedy still believed we would still be in a rebuilding phase and Jackson expected success much earlier. Similar to the rumor re Hardwick V Knights. And wasn't it Jackson who put in place the "policy" of winning a flag every seven years?

We had drafting stuff ups and odd ball project players throughout Sheedy's career. But ultimately, he got results. I just don't see how the same people who call for less criticism of our club as it stands now, can pot former club legends and our history.

Beautifully said. :thumbsu:

Easiest cop out is to blame Sheeds on the mess now and completely ignore the drafting of Skipworth, Williams, Atkinson.

I'd be happy as a pig in shit if Sheeds was still hear because we'd have Cyril running around the next 10 years and I'd pay good money to see the kid tear it up in the red and black.

No matter how many oddball things Sheeds did he was still ruthless when a big decision was to be made. He is on record as saying he would have tried to get Judd by trading Lloyd. Sheeds was ready to make deep cuts again. He knew what needed to be fixed. Knights has pussy footed around for 3 years and it's like we are starting all over again from this week. Another 3 years, stick with us we'll come good.. we hope, we think.. hopefully we have the right processess.. we have powerpoint presentations.

Sick to my guts that a successful club champion who ticked every box possible box except for bloody powerpoint did not get the job. I don't know how Knights can come across well in an interview when every time he speaks in the media it is damn cringeworthy.

Muppets the lot of em.

[yodellinhank]

Saying we would've picked player X because the club we traded the pick for got player X is a ridiculous concept. We've had some handy players come off the rookie list and get drafted late, who's to say we wouldn't have unearthed another 1 or 2? We'll never know.

Yes drafting is something of a gamble and our drafting around this period was ordinary, but we would've given ourselves a better chance for the long term. All Sheedy did was cover a shark bite with a bandaid which saw us limp to a couple of 1st round finals exits and then proceed nowhere.

Its why i tried to include many of the options, to try to provide the common school of where everyone believed players to be at. People point out the recycled guys we took, they never mention the late picks we took who didn't make it.

The truth is we did invest in the draft. We took players like Austin Lucy, Paul Thomas, Cory McGrath, Jordan Bannister, Darren Walsh, Sam Hunt, Marc Bullen, the list goes on of blokes who weren't up to it. Blokes we didn't miss Sellwood or Rioli for. Just guys who were taken with the picks we had available.

Yet the decision to recruit the Mal Michaels of this world is criticised because they could actually get games?

[TheGodDelusion]

Does anyone know the last time Essendon had a top goal scorer below 30 goals???? (i think) 1929.

1921. Been plenty of years where it's been in the low 30's though. Even last year Lloyd won it with 35.

That said, this year we've kicked 189 goals for the season compared with 303 last year. At this rate we'll be 25 odd goals off last years total, about half of which comes down to being slightly less accurate in 2010.

[TheGodDelusion]

Yet the decision to recruit the Mal Michaels of this world is criticised because they could actually get games?

More the likes of Campo, Zantuck, Murphy et al. Perhaps there were young guys who he could have played instead of these...

[The House]

And this is the paradigm that frustrates the hell out of me. Who are these Youth players he was supposed to invest in? Oh that's right, the fictitious gun right under our noses that nobody else picked...

Zantuck: Pick 6 in the PSD '04. Dammit, we missed out on Elijah Ware, Matthew Smith, Leigh Ryswyk. The next 3 players chosen in PSD/Rookie drafts. Certainly came back to haunt us those...

Alvey: Part of a trade for Jacobs. A cherry on top of a trade we had to make. A trade we had to make possibly because of a 5 year Mercuri contract reportedly signed by Jackson without consultation with the football dept. Actually a young player when we got him.

Allen: We traded pick 57 in 03. Carlton took Ricky Mott. Boy are our faces red.

Camporeale: 4 in the 05 PSD. Overlooked the likes of Matthew White, Ben Fixter, Cameron Thurley. The crows picked up Porplyzia the pick before our next, they have a habit of good late picks. Wonder how much they spent on recruitment during the same period?

Murphy: In a trade which typifies how badly we did during this era, we lost the great Cory McGrath who went on to have such a fantastic career.

Cole: Collingwood obtained champion footballer Ryan Cook with the pick we spent on the Cole trade. Cleve Hughes, Wayde Mills, Garick Ibbotson, Dylan Addison and Matt Riggio all taken around that mark before Ben McKinley got selected.

Salmon: Taken the draft after we had played in a Grand Final, and our number 1 ruckman retired.

Not all that stupid when you think about it really.

I think you're missing the whole point....

.....we would have
a) recruited more young players with potential and
b) been playing and develoing younger players that were already on the list.

Instead he picked a bunch of older players to get him to another contract. For him to talk about FORWARD THINKING after he did this was hypocritical, yet not out of character.

[yodellinhank]

No question there were huge problems with the football department and lack of funding thereof.

However, the point remains that we wasted 5-6 drafts under Sheedy (who had a big say in recruiting) and are currently suffering for it.

Results are a lot better once Dodoro had control.

The draft was also way more speculative back in the day, IMO. And to be honest, I'm happy with the vast majority of the drafting we have done. Think we only really wasted 1996. And look how that turned out.


You get bad picks in good drafts, good picks in bad drafts and intangibles such as Ramanauskas, it makes it bloody hard. Especially that last one.

[WeAreEssendon]

I think you're missing the whole point....

.....we would have
a) recruited more young players with potential and
b) been playing and develoing younger players that were already on the list.

Instead he picked a bunch of older players to get him to another contract. For him to talk about FORWARD THINKING after he did this was hypocritical, yet not out of character.

What you're actually saying is you wanted Sheeds to do a Melbourne or Carlton or Richmond and finish bottom 4 for a sustained period of time so we can accumulate top 10 draft picks.

It's not the philosophy of the current coach or the current administration and it's not the philosophy of any club worth their salt.

[yodellinhank]

I think you're missing the whole point....

.....we would have
a) recruited more young players with potential and
b) been playing and develoing younger players that were already on the list.

Instead he picked a bunch of older players to get him to another contract. For him to talk about FORWARD THINKING after he did this was hypocritical, yet not out of character.

a) players who didn't make it as youngsters at other clubs, or players who went bush and played in some local league in obscurity?

b) The younger players, who were also taken with late picks thanks to both our ladder position and draft penalties, were no good. Thats the issue.

We drafted Paul Salmon. We traded for Matthew Allan. This was to the detriment of who, Lauchlan McKinnon, Tristan Cartledge?

You honestly believe that the club didn't look at the players available, and say to themselves "You know what, I doubt any of these kids can make it". ??

It's just too easy to say we should have took a punt on kids, and not put forward any names of people we missed. Add Joe Bloggs, Jimmy Green and Tim Smith to the already extensive list of players who didn't make it.

[HyperAgressiveDonk]

Sheeds is in no place to talk about lack of forward thinking.

FFS, as much as I love him, it's mostly his fault that we're in this situation right now.

Exactly, Sheedy is more to blame for anyone for this mess. Matty Knights has been made a scapegoat by a lot of Essendon supporters in my opinion. If Essendon get rid of him, it will create more instability and have a negative impact of the Culture of the Essendon footy club.

Sacking Matty Knights isn't going to fix the fact that Stanton is a perennial underachiever, or Ryder can't take the next step and become an A grader. A Large part is up to the players at the end of the day

[Kong]

Think we only really wasted 1996. And look how that turned out.2001?

It still cuts me up.

[The House]

What you're actually saying is you wanted Sheeds to do a Melbourne or Carlton or Richmond and finish bottom 4 for a sustained period of time so we can accumulate top 10 draft picks.

It's not the philosophy of the current coach or the current administration and it's not the philosophy of any club worth their salt.

No, what i'm saying is Sheeds did that for his last 3 years without even having a youth policy.We were bottom 4 for his last 3 years right???

It hurt our club badly over a long period of time.

Thus, for Sheedy to be taking pot shots at a guy who's been at the helme for only 2 and a half years for a lack of forward planning is hypocritical, and i suspect as usual, designed to direct much needed attention apon himself.

[yodellinhank]

Exactly, Sheedy is more to blame for anyone for this mess. Matty Knights has been made a scapegoat by a lot of Essendon supporters in my opinion. If Essendon get rid of him, it will create more instability and have a negative impact of the Culture of the Essendon footy club.

Sacking Matty Knights isn't going to fix the fact that Stanton is a perennial underachiever, or Ryder can't take the next step and become an A grader. A Large part is up to the players at the end of the day

Can't agree with this, given the way the list has been handled since Sheedy left. Knights/the club has had 3 post-seasons since then to make drastic changes to the list and the game plan.

The game style has changed, the list not much at all.

We took 6 picks in 07, 5 in 08 (one recycled), and 5 in 09 (one forced upon us by McPhee). Hardly looks like the changes that have gone on at Richmond. If the inherited list was no good, then maybe we should've seen more action.

Time for Knights to take ownership of the list. You cite Stanton as an underachiever and Ryder as not taking the next step, so if thats the case, you trade those players. You don't re-sign them. Not that I'd agree with that, but I don't believe it can't be used as an excuse for Knights.

[The House]

a) players who didn't make it as youngsters at other clubs, or players who went bush and played in some local league in obscurity?

b) The younger players, who were also taken with late picks thanks to both our ladder position and draft penalties, were no good. Thats the issue.

We drafted Paul Salmon. We traded for Matthew Allan. This was to the detriment of who, Lauchlan McKinnon, Tristan Cartledge?

You honestly believe that the club didn't look at the players available, and say to themselves "You know what, I doubt any of these kids can make it". ??

It's just too easy to say we should have took a punt on kids, and not put forward any names of people we missed. Add Joe Bloggs, Jimmy Green and Tim Smith to the already extensive list of players who didn't make it.

As i've said, we were consistantly a bottom 4 side at the end under Sheeds, WITHOUT a youth policy.

You dont seem to understand that considering we were terrible due to SHEEDY'S FPRWARD PLANNING, there is nothing to be gained by playing old players, and plenty of potential gain by trying out youth.

You're argument is based purely on the 2 things....

1. the assumption that we wouldn't have picked any good young-uns with the available spots Sheedy clogged up with busted old players (most of whome clearly didn't work, and were never going to long term)
2. the young players on the list wouldn't have benifited from having more senior opportunities.

Even if you were somehow correct on point 2, the fact remains we would have discovered that some of our younger selections weren't up to it earlier than we did, as they would have been playing earlier.....therefore we would have also drafted their replacements earlier and been back on track earlier.

No matter which way you look at it, Sheedy's lack of forward planning has left our list with a lot of years of repair to get back on track....all on the back of years of bottom 4 action under him anyways.

As much as anything that makes his claim of Knights lacking forward planning, simply laughable.

[WeAreEssendon]

No, what i'm saying is Sheeds did that for his last 3 years without even having a youth policy.We were bottom 4 for his last 3 years right???

It hurt our club badly over a long period of time.

Thus, for Sheedy to be taking pot shots at a guy who's been at the helme for only 2 and a half years for a lack of forward planning is hypocritical, and i suspect as usual, designed to direct much needed attention apon himself.

And he played a lot of kids when they weren't injured. Dempsey for one. Monfries was in straight away. Slattery, Ryder, Jetta, Davey, Houli etc, etc.

Absolutely no difference to what is happening today with the likes of Welsh, McVeigh. It's only injuries that have forced Knights hand to play the kids. In Knights first year he put out very experienced sides until we got smacked with injuries. Where was his plan to play the kids then?

Why didn't he go that way from day 1? Where's this clear vision he claims to have?

[The House]

And he played a lot of kids when they weren't injured. Dempsey for one. Monfries was in straight away. Slattery, Ryder, Jetta, Davey, Houli etc, etc.

Absolutely no difference to what is happening today with the likes of Welsh, McVeigh. It's only injuries that have forced Knights hand to play the kids. In Knights first year he put out very experienced sides until we got smacked with injuries. Where was his plan to play the kids then?

Why didn't he go that way from day 1? Where's this clear vision he claims to have?

You can't turn over half a list in one draft....

How many players did Knights turn over in year 1, 2 &3 if anyone can find the stat???

I'd be very surprised if he hasn't turned over somewhere in the vacinity of 24 out of the 38 senior players Sheedy left him in 3 seasons, which if i'm right proves my point on just how much work was needed on the list.

[yodellinhank]

As i've said, we were consistantly a bottom 4 side at the end under Sheeds, WITHOUT a youth policy.

So consistent that it happened twice. One of those with 8 wins. We sat in 8th spot the week after Sheedy got sacked.
You dont seem to understand that considering we were terrible due to SHEEDY'S FPRWARD PLANNING, there is nothing to be gained by playing old players, and plenty of potential gain by trying out youth.


You don't seem to understand that players don't come out of thin air and must be obtained through the draft.
You're argument is based purely on the 2 things....

1. the assumption that we wouldn't have picked any good young-uns with the available spots Sheedy clogged up with busted old players (most of whome clearly didn't work, and were never going to long term)

I'll give you the tip. We missed Swan, Medhurst or Miller amongst 13 or so players who didn't make it, for Paul Salmon. We drafted Salmon to replace a retiring ruckman the year we finished 27pts away from a premiership. That aside, there was SFA out there we obviously missed.

2. the young players on the list wouldn't have benifited from having more senior opportunities.

And yet didn't make it at other clubs?

Even if you were somehow correct on point 2, the fact remains we would have discovered that some of our younger selections weren't up to it earlier than we did, as they would have been playing earlier.....therefore we would have also drafted their replacements earlier and been back on track earlier.

Ah, I see. Tanking.

No matter which way you look at it, Sheedy's lack of forward planning has left our list with a lot of years of repair to get back on track....all on the back of years of bottom 4 action under him anyways.

Or his realism and inability to invent people who simply did not exist.

As much as anything that makes his claim of Knights lacking forward planning, simply laughable.

You seem pretty angry with Sheeds. You must be angry with Knights: Recycled duds (Hayden Skipworth, Mark Williams), Perceived favorites (Atko) and supposed young "guns" who can't get opportunities (Houli), players who aren't played in position (Myers), projects that never worked (J Williams)....

[WeAreEssendon]

You can't turn over half a list in one draft....

How many players did Knights turn over in year 1, 2 &3 if anyone can find the stat???

I'd be very surprised if he hasn't turned over somewhere in the vacinity of 24 out of the 38 senior players Sheedy left him in 3 seasons, which if i'm right proves my point on just how much work was needed on the list.

In 05 Sheeds drafted - Ryder, Dempsey, Neagle, Lonergan, Lucy and traded for Cole. Heath Hocking was picked up as a rookie.

In 06 Sheeds drafted - Gumbleton, Jetta, Hislop, Davey, Reimers, Houli. He gave up Solomon to get more draft picks.

Knights has done similar numbers to the above. No anymore by any stretch and if you look at last year with only taking 4 in the draft then we were a bit conservative.

[yodellinhank]

You can't turn over half a list in one draft....


Totally and whole heartedly agree.

How many players did Knights turn over in year 1, 2 &3 if anyone can find the stat???

I'd be very surprised if he hasn't turned over somewhere in the vacinity of 24 out of the 38 senior players Sheedy left him in 3 seasons, which if i'm right proves my point on just how much work was needed on the list.

2007: Ins - Myers, Pears, Daniher, Hooker, Bellchambers, Williams = 6

2008: Ins - Hurley, Zaharakis, Still, Slattery, Skipworth = 5

2009: Ins - Melksham, Carlisle, Colyer, Long, Hardingham = 5

16 players. Also, keep in mind that includes Hird, Lloyd, Lucas, Ramanauskas, J Johnson, Peverill, Mal Michael retirements.

Bradley, Hislop, Mark Johnson and Andrew Lovett are the "Sheedy" players he has offloaded/cut that I can think of off the top of my head. Its not as if he has stepped in, said "Sheedy's list is no good" and done a total rebuild...

[HFF_07]

So..

2007 OUTS:

Retired: James Hird
Mark Bolton
Chris Heffernan
Scott Camporeale

Delisted:
Mark Johnson
Keplar Bradley
Richard Cole
Lachlan McKinnon

Listings:
Adam Ramanauskas (Rookie List Upgrade)
Heath Hocking (Rookie List Upgrade)
Darcy Daniher (Father Son Draftee - Pick 39)

2008 OUTS:

Retired:
Adam Ramanauskas
Jason Johnson
Mal Michael

Delisted:
Damian Peverill
Andrew Lee
Courtenay Johns
Tom Hislop
Dean Dick
Danny Chartess

Listings:
Jarrod Atkinson: (Rookie List Upgrade)
[Pick 39 - Traded for Brent Prismall]

2009 Outs:
Retirees: Matthew Lloyd
Scott Lucas
Hayden Skipworth

Delisted:

John Williams
Bryce Carroll
Thomas German
Kade Klemke
Rhys Magin

So there are the players in the time that Knights has been in charge has seen fall to the wayside..

Interesting a few of the names their really..

[Kong]

So there are the players in the time that Knights has been in charge has seen fall to the wayside..

Interesting a few of the names their really..There's not one name on that list that I would want playing for us now.

Well, Hird, obviously.

[yodellinhank]

Another way of looking at it, is to take last weeks team...

Dyson, Hooker, Hocking
McVeigh, Welsh, Reimers
Jetta, Watson, Dempsey
Stanton, Hurley, Monfries
Davey, Neagle, Zaharakis

Ryder, Winderlich, Lonergan

Colyer, Lovett-Murray, Howlett, Bellchambers

Pears out injured...

[The House]

fellas...firstly there's no anger towards sheedy from me.
i've said many times i am eternally grateful to sheeds for the success he brought us.

and my opinion of knights is in no way related to sheedy.

the point is, sheedy was a very ordinary forward planner in his latter years as he not only recruited an unusually high number of recycled players with an usually low success rate, but he persevered far too long with spuds like henneman, bolton, mcalister, johns, bradley etc.

it's not really a point i intend to argue any further, however it is as clear as day that sheeds lost his edge in his last few years, and clearly left knights a list in which most of it's quality players where past their best......

......this is by very definition hypocritical, and unfortunately consistant with the manner in which sheedy has conducted himself in the media over the last few years....
.....he needs to pull his head in before his opinions become viewed as nothing more than akermanis like, desperate headline grabs, spoken purely to remain relevant.

[The Great Barry Besanko]

And this is the paradigm that frustrates the hell out of me. Who are these Youth players he was supposed to invest in? Oh that's right, the fictitious gun right under our noses that nobody else picked...

Zantuck: Pick 6 in the PSD '04. Dammit, we missed out on Elijah Ware, Matthew Smith, Leigh Ryswyk. The next 3 players chosen in PSD/Rookie drafts. Certainly came back to haunt us those...

Alvey: Part of a trade for Jacobs. A cherry on top of a trade we had to make. A trade we had to make possibly because of a 5 year Mercuri contract reportedly signed by Jackson without consultation with the football dept. Actually a young player when we got him.

Allen: We traded pick 57 in 03. Carlton took Ricky Mott. Boy are our faces red.

Camporeale: 4 in the 05 PSD. Overlooked the likes of Matthew White, Ben Fixter, Cameron Thurley. The crows picked up Porplyzia the pick before our next, they have a habit of good late picks. Wonder how much they spent on recruitment during the same period?

Murphy: In a trade which typifies how badly we did during this era, we lost the great Cory McGrath who went on to have such a fantastic career.

Cole: Collingwood obtained champion footballer Ryan Cook with the pick we spent on the Cole trade. Cleve Hughes, Wayde Mills, Garick Ibbotson, Dylan Addison and Matt Riggio all taken around that mark before Ben McKinley got selected.

Salmon: Taken the draft after we had played in a Grand Final, and our number 1 ruckman retired.

Not all that stupid when you think about it really.

You can't just compare with the draft choice a club took next or with our lost pick. You have no idea who our recruiters would have picked up. Who was available on the rookie lists?, full remaining picks? is what you need to look at. We could have plucked another Lovett. Lost opportunities of experience for younger players.
(btw you mention Ibbotson for the Cole trade, we would have been rapt with that).

Salmon, Murphy, Allan, Zantuck they were never going to win us a flag. Mal Michael was just a filler to keep us competitive and for Sheeds to hang on for his job. We just didn't have the team when these guys were brought in. What was the point of just being a slightly competitive middle of the road team? These decisions were not about creating our next premiership team.

Let's not even mention the ridiculous faith he had in guys like Henneman, Johns, Bolton towards the end, bringing back Heffernan after an average stint at Melbourne.

I was a fan of Sheeds but he lost the plot last few years.

[Bomber57]

Love reading all the blame game that's going on for the current position we fine ourselves in, why don't we blame the federal labor government for it, what is needed is hard decision to be made, but at EFC no one has the balls to do that so we will just keep going around in circles and falling behind everyone else until someone turns on the lights.

[yodellinhank]

You can't just compare with the draft choice a club took next or with our lost pick. You have no idea who our recruiters would have picked up. Who was available on the rookie lists?, full remaining picks? is what you need to look at. We could have plucked another Lovett. Lost opportunities of experience for younger players.
(btw you mention Ibbotson for the Cole trade, we would have been rapt with that).

The way I look at it, is a take into account all players taken between the pick we took and the next one we had available. I believe it to be a sound method. We didn't miss out on Dane Swan for Shane Harvey, for example. We could have taken Swan instead of Reynolds or O'Keefe, he wasn't "missed" until we took Salmon and he was no longer available. It is also plausible to beleive that players taken around the same area would have generally been considered. Players that lasted another 20odd picks however, it is ridiculous to suggest in hindsight "could" have been taken.

I actually do look at the rookie drafts, pre season drafts and every pick in the national draft in between the picks we take. Don't dismiss the opinion that our picks were reasonable under the circumstances and then not provide an example.

We could have picked another Lovett. In which draft and for what player? We did try to pick players in rookie drafts. They were no good. Don't blame Mal Michael. Blame Dean Dick and Danny Chartres. Out of the entire 2007 rookie draft, the player pool it is reasonable to assume where overlooked in favour of Michael, the only two players I'd like on our list are Wellingham and Harbrow. That's 2 players out of a pool of 64 and using 20-20 hindsight. 2 players, and 62 other potential spuds.

It's just far too easy to presume there was some kid we clearly overlooked that would have bettered our situation and not provide an example.

Salmon, Murphy, Allan, Zantuck they were never going to win us a flag. Mal Michael was just a filler to keep us competitive and for Sheeds to hang on for his job. We just didn't have the team when these guys were brought in. What was the point of just being a slightly competitive middle of the road team? These decisions were not about creating our next premiership team.

Salmon was taken the year after a ruckman retired and we lost a grand final. Hardly a stupid decision given Sheedy may not have believed a 20 year old ruckman in Hille would be able to take over the duties of the bloke who left. It's ridiculous to suggest that the season after losing a grand final we should have thrown out all hope of winning the next and started playing the kids. Absolutely ridiculous.

Let's not even mention the ridiculous faith he had in guys like Henneman, Johns, Bolton towards the end, bringing back Heffernan after an average stint at Melbourne.

I was a fan of Sheeds but he lost the plot last few years.

We were delisting players as it was. Hence the amount of late round/pre season draft picks we took. Hence the number of those guys that subsequently needed de listing. Then have supporters criticise the fact that we haven't de listed more and picked up some gun with 6th and 7th round picks in the draft?

FFS Heffernan was the last player taken in 05. Going through the entire rookie draft of 60 players only gives me the names Alan Toovey, Heath Hocking, Daniel Hughes, Matt Priddis, Stephen Gillham, Ben McGlynn and Keiran Jack.

You're telling me our club is stuffed because we overlooked Alan Toovey?

[vast]

If sheeds was so concerned about losing Bradley as a forward why did he consistently play him in defence every time then drop after 2 bad games, only to bring him back after 5 weeks and play him in defence again, when it was obvious to everyone that he just wasnt a defender.

Im glad he wasnt around to offer McPhee a three year deal, coz we would be stuck with him playing the shocking football he has shown this year.
Good decision by the club not to offer more than 2 years and not there fault he walked out after we could organise a trade.

Maybe sheeds did have pressure on him to not drop down the ladder and have the chance to fully rebuild, but from 02-05 we had many young players that I feel he or the club did not give a decent chance to during that time. I remember guys like bullen, richards, haynes would never play more than 2 games in a row. I know that doesnt mean they would have been any good but maybe we could have developed one or two very good players.

He was even doing the same thing to jobe, even after jobe pulled his finger out. Mark Bolton was the worst footballer I have ever seen, in any league, but was undroppable under sheedy for over 3 years.

Love ya sheeds, always will, but move on mate, as the club is trying too.

[The Great Barry Besanko]

The way I look at it, is a take into account all players taken between the pick we took and the next one we had available. I believe it to be a sound method. We didn't miss out on Dane Swan for Shane Harvey, for example. We could have taken Swan instead of Reynolds or O'Keefe, he wasn't "missed" until we took Salmon and he was no longer available. It is also plausible to beleive that players taken around the same area would have generally been considered. Players that lasted another 20odd picks however, it is ridiculous to suggest in hindsight "could" have been taken.

I actually do look at the rookie drafts, pre season drafts and every pick in the national draft in between the picks we take. Don't dismiss the opinion that our picks were reasonable under the circumstances and then not provide an example.

We could have picked another Lovett. In which draft and for what player? We did try to pick players in rookie drafts. They were no good. Don't blame Mal Michael. Blame Dean Dick and Danny Chartres. Out of the entire 2007 rookie draft, the player pool it is reasonable to assume where overlooked in favour of Michael, the only two players I'd like on our list are Wellingham and Harbrow. That's 2 players out of a pool of 64 and using 20-20 hindsight. 2 players, and 62 other potential spuds.

It's just far too easy to presume there was some kid we clearly overlooked that would have bettered our situation and not provide an example.



Salmon was taken the year after a ruckman retired and we lost a grand final. Hardly a stupid decision given Sheedy may not have believed a 20 year old ruckman in Hille would be able to take over the duties of the bloke who left. It's ridiculous to suggest that the season after losing a grand final we should have thrown out all hope of winning the next and started playing the kids. Absolutely ridiculous.



We were delisting players as it was. Hence the amount of late round/pre season draft picks we took. Hence the number of those guys that subsequently needed de listing. Then have supporters criticise the fact that we haven't de listed more and picked up some gun with 6th and 7th round picks in the draft?

FFS Heffernan was the last player taken in 05. Going through the entire rookie draft of 60 players only gives me the names Alan Toovey, Heath Hocking, Daniel Hughes, Matt Priddis, Stephen Gillham, Ben McGlynn and Keiran Jack.

You're telling me our club is stuffed because we overlooked Alan Toovey?

Not at all. I'm just saying Kev shouldn't take pot shots re forward thinking. You're right, we may not have picked anyone better than those hacks we recruited. But the bottom line is that those hacks gave us absolutely nothing. Zero chance of gaining anything going forward.

Take into account 5 out of those 60 rookies would have been a good selection. I would have rather have taken a 12-1 shot.

A team has a better chance trying youngsters. Look at Geelong, look at Hawthorn.

[windyhill]

Just typical sheedy, you could just about count on one finger the times he ever said " I may have been wrong on that one" The most infuriating man in football.

[Mumbo Jumbo]

2001?

It still cuts me up.

Just had a look over that draft. Brian Lake (Harris) went at 71. Wow. Best late pick since Hird?

Of a really strong draft pool, we unluckily grabbed S.Harvey, J.Reynolds, S.O'Keefe, Welsh, Salmon, McAlister and Pass. The latter was a good one, though.

[Longy413]

If what is said is true in that article, in that we didn't wait an extra week to talk to Bomber about coaching us then my head will just about explode.

Where's Longy, fill us in if you can.

From what I understand, everyone had to go through "the process"

Bomber had commitments that stopped him from being able to do so.
That wasn't thought to be reasonable and Bomber had to enter the same process as everyone else.

He also had a dig at Essendon for losing McPhee for nothing; obviously can't recall the part where McPhee walked out on us after the trade period.

We knew before then that he was going to walk if he didn't get three years.
We tried to call his bluff, it failed.

Thus, for Sheedy to be taking pot shots at a guy who's been at the helme for only 2 and a half years for a lack of forward planning is hypocritical, and i suspect as usual, designed to direct much needed attention apon himself.

I won't discount for a second that Knights has had a mess to clean up, but I think it is unfair to say Sheeds had no forward planning.

In 2000, 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2006, five of Sheeds' last seven drafts, he traded (forced or otherwise) to improve our draft position.

He also acquired young players via trade. Cupido, Cole, Alvey and McPhee.
Obviously only McPhee worked, Cupido did for about 20 games.
These guys were 20-22. The same age that we drafted Hardingham at, the same age as Barlow. Lovett and Davey.

We drafted some senior guys, that in hindsight were mistakes and I think the biggest mistake Sheedy made was that he didn't believe a team needed to go backwards to go forwards. He believed you could rebuild from the 8 and when we added McPhee and Cupido to the mix, along with Lovett we actually did look like we might have done a reasonable job of it.

We topped up and made more finals and at the time I thought that was fantastic, I reckon we all did. We all relished the fact that we at Essendon don't believe in bottoming out and that we could return to the top by staying in the mix. None of us, including Sheeds wanted to face the reality of having to go back to the bottom and draft with top picks. Eventually, a lack of early picks came back to hurt us.

We had pick 9 in 1999 (McVeigh).
Following that, our first picks were 40 (salary cap penalties), 17, 18, 6 (traded for) and 14. We didn't have a lot of access to elite talent. When we did, Ryder, Gumbleton, I reckon we did alright.

Sheeds left us in a mess, but I think it is unfair to blame a lack of forward thinking on that. We did draft some top up players, but in the end they account for 5-6 of 50 picks in National/Preseason drafts since 2000. We still drafted a hell of a lot of young players.

We made bad drafting mistakes, we had some bad luck, we didn't have access to early picks, we had salary cap penalties, we didn't spend enough on recruiting...but we did draft a shitload of young players.

It was time for Sheeds to go, we needed to start again and as the man at the top, he should be the one to fall on his sword for not having a great list at the end of 2007, not withstanding the number of premiership players that retired in the years previous.

But lets look beyond the 5 or so mature players that Sheeds drafted and recognise that he also drafted a lot of good young talent and that he isn't the only one to blame. He'd asked for more recruiting resources, but he also needed to realise that we needed to bottom out at some stage.

I wonder how we would have taken it, had it happened back in 2002/2003.

[Knight Ryders]

I think the points being made are all very valid and have made for some good reading.

A couple of things I'm thinking is:
*You can go through draft pick by draft pick, but Sheedy's ideaology of the latter part of his career was not healthy for the list or the club. It screamed of a bloke trying to save his job.

*Knights is not sure who is in our best 22. Who is genuinely first picked atm? Our group is very even from around 7-35 - he needs to sit down and work out who is genuinely a player that is good enough to be in a top 2-3 side. Some experience is still required, but pick them wisely. Hille and Fletcher are non-negotiable if fit and willing. This is the forward thinking required.

[The House]

From what I understand, everyone had to go through "the process"

Bomber had commitments that stopped him from being able to do so.
That wasn't thought to be reasonable and Bomber had to enter the same process as everyone else.



We knew before then that he was going to walk if he didn't get three years.
We tried to call his bluff, it failed.



I won't discount for a second that Knights has had a mess to clean up, but I think it is unfair to say Sheeds had no forward planning.

In 2000, 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2006, five of Sheeds' last seven drafts, he traded (forced or otherwise) to improve our draft position.

He also acquired young players via trade. Cupido, Cole, Alvey and McPhee.
Obviously only McPhee worked, Cupido did for about 20 games.
These guys were 20-22. The same age that we drafted Hardingham at, the same age as Barlow. Lovett and Davey.

We drafted some senior guys, that in hindsight were mistakes and I think the biggest mistake Sheedy made was that he didn't believe a team needed to go backwards to go forwards. He believed you could rebuild from the 8 and when we added McPhee and Cupido to the mix, along with Lovett we actually did look like we might have done a reasonable job of it.

We topped up and made more finals and at the time I thought that was fantastic, I reckon we all did. We all relished the fact that we at Essendon don't believe in bottoming out and that we could return to the top by staying in the mix. None of us, including Sheeds wanted to face the reality of having to go back to the bottom and draft with top picks. Eventually, a lack of early picks came back to hurt us.

We had pick 9 in 1999 (McVeigh).
Following that, our first picks were 40 (salary cap penalties), 17, 18, 6 (traded for) and 14. We didn't have a lot of access to elite talent. When we did, Ryder, Gumbleton, I reckon we did alright.

Sheeds left us in a mess, but I think it is unfair to blame a lack of forward thinking on that. We did draft some top up players, but in the end they account for 5-6 of 50 picks in National/Preseason drafts since 2000. We still drafted a hell of a lot of young players.

We made bad drafting mistakes, we had some bad luck, we didn't have access to early picks, we had salary cap penalties, we didn't spend enough on recruiting...but we did draft a shitload of young players.

It was time for Sheeds to go, we needed to start again and as the man at the top, he should be the one to fall on his sword for not having a great list at the end of 2007, not withstanding the number of premiership players that retired in the years previous.

But lets look beyond the 5 or so mature players that Sheeds drafted and recognise that he also drafted a lot of good young talent and that he isn't the only one to blame. He'd asked for more recruiting resources, but he also needed to realise that we needed to bottom out at some stage.

I wonder how we would have taken it, had it happened back in 2002/2003.

i didn't say sheedy had no forward planning.

i said in his latter years sheedy showed very poor forward planning, and it is not only hypocritical for him to take pot shots at knights, but also comes off desperate for attention [hence my aker comparison].

....and the worst part is, it's happening all too regularly these days, and he's losing credibility fast.

[Longy413]

*You can go through draft pick by draft pick, but Sheedy's ideaology of the latter part of his career was not healthy for the list or the club. It screamed of a bloke trying to save his job.

You're probably right, but I think it also screamed of an Essendon culture of not accepting that we had to go backwards to go forward.

Whether it was to save his skin, or just poor recognition of where the game was going, he had to go for it. But I do wonder how we would have accepted a philosophy back in 2002 that saw us miss the finals for three or four years to be back at the top. I guess in the end, all he did was delay the inevitable, unfortunately the game penalises you for being successful and we were too proud, too stubborn or too naive (maybe all three) to recognise it.

Hille and Fletcher are non-negotiable if fit and willing. This is the forward thinking required.

Speaking forward thinking, we copped a lot of shit for making Hille captain a few years ago. It seemed to progress his leadership and his footy.

[Longy413]

i said in his latter years sheedy showed very poor forward planning

In his last two years, he drafted five first year players in each national draft.
Plus got Hocking.

Knights has taken four players in each of his three national drafts.

Sheedy took Campo, Michael and Heff.
Knights has added Skipworth and Williams. And redrafted Rama.

Their drafting strategies, don't look a whole lot different.

I think Sheeds showed a lot of forward planning in his last two years, it was the years before that where we lacked it. Poor strategy, lack of access to picks, lack of resources and poor drafting in general.

....and the worst part is, it's happening all too regularly these days, and he's losing credibility fast.

Really? I think he's done very well to steer clear of talking about Essendon.
I wonder whether these comments would have even come about if we didn't have the 2000 reunion.

[Ben the Gooner]

I think the biggest issue with Sheeds is early picks being wasted on guys like James Davies (next pick: Kerr) and Shane Harvey (next pick: Gram). Obviously I don't know how much was Dodoro and how much was Sheedy, but given the former's record since Sheedy stopped being involved, I'm inclined to blame Sheeds.

The recycled players are a side-effect if you like. Instead of pumping 20 games into Harvey, realising he was shit then playing Alvey, we could have pumped 20 games into Gram, realised he was good, then kept playing him.

[Longy413]

Davies was a bad pick, we took him from high school and overstated his physical attributes in leiu of his football attributes.

Kerr was a surprise to go as high as he did, he wasn't highly rated at all. Davies v Kerr is an unfair and unrealistic comparison. West Coast obviously saw something that no other team did. It was a draft that was full of hits and misses.

Not sure we can consider pick 17 a high pick, 5 of the top 11 were out and out failures.
And another two are on the cusp of being failures. We shouldn't have drafted Davies, we should have let him go to later on, but we could have ended up with Ries, Hadley or Ablett and not been a whole lot better off.

Forget Kerr, we were never going to take him. We did consider Kane Cornes, but wrote him off because of the go home factor. We were still burnt by Wanganeen and thought Kane would run home to SA.


I still maintain Shane Harvey was the right pick.
In 2001 we missed Bewick, Harvey was the replacement. He was a huge talent and we identified two players we wanted. Kelly and Harvey.

Kelly went the pick before us and we took Harvey. Harvey was the player we needed and he started like a house on fire. We had a player.
Except he was a flog, he was lazy and he didn't want to be at EFC, despite him telling us several times otherwise. He thought it was his given right to walk up to NMFC and play with his brother. Little wonder he's now playing local footy.

Sometimes things don't work out, again I wouldn't consider 18 a high pick. Davies was a bad selection, Harvey wasn't. He was just one that didn't work out. We could have taken Gram, of course. But we could also have taken Elstone.

[Ben the Gooner]

I wasn't comparing Kerr or Gram to Davies or Harvey. I was making a point about the talent still there. Kane Cornes, Drew Petrie, Mark Coughlan all went before we picked Teddy up in the Davies draft. Matt Maguire, Steve Johnson, LRT all went between Harvey and Joel Reynolds.

Obviously there's plenty of misses amongst those hits, but it's the fact that we consistently missed across those drafts and had very few hits (Welsh is the only one still on the list) that hurts.

I'm not going to comment on who was the right pick at the time, because I was more interested in trading Pokemon cards than trading players at that age.:cool:

[The House]

In his last two years, he drafted five first year players in each national draft.
Plus got Hocking.

Knights has taken four players in each of his three national drafts.

Sheedy took Campo, Michael and Heff.
Knights has added Skipworth and Williams. And redrafted Rama.

Their drafting strategies, don't look a whole lot different.

I think Sheeds showed a lot of forward planning in his last two years, it was the years before that where we lacked it. Poor strategy, lack of access to picks, lack of resources and poor drafting in general.



Really? I think he's done very well to steer clear of talking about Essendon.
I wonder whether these comments would have even come about if we didn't have the 2000 reunion.

By his latter years i'm referring to his last 6 or so years....and again i didn't say NO forward planning, i said POOR forward planning. Big difference.

Also please be aware that forward planning isn't just drafting some young players....it's also very much about who you are giving opportunities to.

[stander]

We knew before then that he was going to walk if he didn't get three years.
We tried to call his bluff, it failed.

Some would suggest McPhee was quite agreeable to a two year deal with the Dons before they all went away, but shifty Harvs got in his ear later on with a juicy 3 and he walked out, leaving EFC with nothing. Can't see any bluffing there.

[TheDon35]

That's great, Sheeds can blame no 'Forward' thinking because that's the only area he put any thought into.

A more scathing article could be written about 'Sheedy lacks 'Midfield' thinking' as we did not unearth 1 A grade midfielder in the last 10 years of his coaching stint. (Maybe harsh on Jobe.

Let me be clear if I haven't already been. I don't rate Knights and don't believe he's the man for the job. But, for Sheedy to come out and use loosing Keppler Bradley as a poor list management decision is a disgrace. Sheeds, what was poor list management was drafting bradley with a top 10 pick.

It's also a cheap effort in self promotion given that the forward line was the only area he did look at in his later years albeit with questionable success:

Lonergan - C - D Grader
Gumbleton - Still unknown as a #2 selection from a supposed super draft
Davey - Poor mans David Rodan
Jetta - C grader that hasn't come on.
Reimers - C grader that hasn't come on.
Neagle - C grader that hasn't come on.
Bradley - C grader that didn't perform.
Monfries - C - B grader
Andrew Lee - Recruited as tall forward - Dud.
Richard Cole - Dud

Hardly makes for good reading.

[Kong]

While I pretty much agree with what you've said...Davey - Poor mans David RodanHow?

They're not similar at all, apart from skin tone, and even then it's not the same.

[TheDon35]

While I pretty much agree with what you've said...How?

They're not similar at all, apart from skin tone, and even then it's not the same.


Ummmm...

Ultra quick of the mark, slick in traffic, very low to the ground, very small, excellent peripheral movement, both swing onto the left.... do you want me to go on?

[yodellinhank]

That's great, Sheeds can blame no 'Forward' thinking because that's the only area he put any thought into.

A more scathing article could be written about 'Sheedy lacks 'Midfield' thinking' as we did not unearth 1 A grade midfielder in the last 10 years of his coaching stint. (Maybe harsh on Jobe.

Point out to me where these A grade mids where lurking that he could've got? Ben raised Gram before, not exactly A grade but a quality player. But it took him 2 clubs for somebody to find this potential.

et me be clear if I haven't already been. I don't rate Knights and don't believe he's the man for the job. But, for Sheedy to come out and use loosing Keppler Bradley as a poor list management decision is a disgrace. Sheeds, what was poor list management was drafting bradley with a top 10 pick.

You need to get over the pick number. Pick 6 in 2003 is not equal to pick 6 in 2001, or 08. A pick is only as good as the players available at the time. The list of players taken after Keplar and before our next pick (Stanton):

Kane Tenace
Raphael Clarke
David Trotter
Ryley Dunn
Beau Waters
Ryan Murphy

In a perfect world, Waters? The story I've always heard was that Sheedy overruled on the wishes to take Kane Tenace in order to pick Bradley.

Bradley is actually getting a game at Freo, and playing OK. Tenace?

[Kong]

Ummmm...

Ultra quick of the mark, slick in traffic, very low to the ground, very small, excellent peripheral movement, both swing onto the left.... do you want me to go on?lol yes. Absolutely go on.

If you think they're similar types of players, you're having a laugh.

[TheDon35]

lol yes. Absolutely go on.

If you think they're similar types of players, you're having a laugh.

Similar players no. Similar skills / strengths. Absolutely. Davey is more one dimensional in that he can't go into the middle. Sorry if that's difficult for you to understand.

[Kong]

Rodan's also near-impossible to tackle and wins many a hard ball. He's a rare player of brute strength and explosive speed.

Davey has only the latter.

I would've thought Alwyn was a poor man's Aaron, if anything.

[TheDon35]

Point out to me where these A grade mids where lurking that he could've got? Ben raised Gram before, not exactly A grade but a quality player. But it took him 2 clubs for somebody to find this potential.



You need to get over the pick number. Pick 6 in 2003 is not equal to pick 6 in 2001, or 08. A pick is only as good as the players available at the time. The list of players taken after Keplar and before our next pick (Stanton):

Kane Tenace
Raphael Clarke
David Trotter
Ryley Dunn
Beau Waters
Ryan Murphy

In a perfect world, Waters? The story I've always heard was that Sheedy overruled on the wishes to take Kane Tenace in order to pick Bradley.

Bradley is actually getting a game at Freo, and playing OK. Tenace?

To your first point. The following class midfielders were all available to Essendon at the time of their picks:

1997:

Luke Power
Nick Stevens
Simon Black
Adam Goodes

1999:

Lindsay Gilby
Ryan O'Keefe
Cameron Bruce

2000

Kerr
Cornes
Coughlan

2001

Gram
Montagna

2006

Boak
Selwood


These are just the class players. There's plenty more in there. The decision to trade out picks in '99 proved pretty costly given that it cost us crack at a couple of relatively handy players in Chapman and Ling...

Re your second point, Bradley is merely an example of our drafting of that period of time which was shocking.

Are you happy with our recruiting between '97 and 2006?

[TheDon35]

Rodan's also near-impossible to tackle and wins many a hard ball. He's a rare player of brute strength and explosive speed.

Davey has only the latter.

I would've thought Alwyn was a poor man's Aaron, if anything.

Ok, if that's how you want to look at it then fair enough.

Probably a little of the track with regard to the overall posts theme.

[Kong]

Yeah fair enough.

[yodellinhank]

To your first point. The following class midfielders were all available to Essendon at the time of their picks:

1997:

Luke Power: Mistake
Nick Stevens: Happy with Solomon
Simon Black: Would have been handy, but Solomon was a big part of 2000
Adam Goodes: A diamond in the rough. One name out of about 40 duds

1999:

Lindsay Gilby: Instead of Hille. Would definately have needed Kepler then.
Ryan O'Keefe: See above
Cameron Bruce: Would we have won the flag in 2000 without Barnes? (And Hille!)

2000

Kerr: Ouch
Cornes: Ouch
Coughlan:Not as ouch, but still. James Davies a massive mistake, given the amount of talent we passed on. At the time, other clubs supposedly thought we pulled a swifty and there was claims of draft tampering.

2001

Gram: A tribute to St Kilda's trading and development. Did nothing for the club who drafted him
Montagna: Also Sam Mitchell

2006

Boak:
Selwood: Here's hoping, Gumby


These are just the class players. There's plenty more in there. The decision to trade out picks in '99 proved pretty costly given that it cost us crack at a couple of relatively handy players in Chapman and Ling...

The picks weren't all traded out. We were excluded from the first 2 rounds due to salary cap breaches that occurred 1991-94. We traded out Andrew Ukovic and actually upgraded pick 48 to pick 40 for Jonathon Robran I believe. Chappy and Ling taken 31 and 38 respectively.

Re your second point, Bradley is merely an example of our drafting of that period of time which was shocking.

My point was that everyone else after us, with the exception of West Coast, took a dud player until we got Stanton. Did Geelong, St Kilda, North and Freo (twice) stuff up their drafting, or was it just a weak pool? Thats nearly a third of the competition...

Are you happy with our recruiting between '97 and 2006?

Some answers in bold.

It's regrettable that we weren't able to get better players from 97-03. We finished high on the ladder during these years, and weren't able to make the right trades. The 99 penalties killed us, and what happened to the best talent we drafted during this time (Rama) could not have been foreseen.

There was some bad picks, but also bad luck.

Good to see someone actually put some thought into a post, rather than simply say we did poorly based on no evidence. I appreciate it:thumbsu:

[Longy413]

These are just the class players. There's plenty more in there. The decision to trade out picks in '99 proved pretty costly given that it cost us crack at a couple of relatively handy players in Chapman and Ling...

Those picks we traded out to the AFL who took them off us for breaching the salary cap?

Followed Essendon long?


Re your second point, Bradley is merely an example of our drafting of that period of time which was shocking.

Bradley, at the time was clearly a worthy number 6 pick.
It is a hindsight mistake, not a drafting mistake.

Not one club would have passed on him at six. His first year was also very positive.



Are you happy with our recruiting between '97 and 2006?

1998 was fine.
1999 we got Hille and Rioli. Barnes was a Premiership player. Pass.

2003 we added Stanton, McPhee, Cupido, Lovett, Dyson, NLM. Wasn't too bad.


Few clubs got two players the quality of Watson and Winderlich in 2002. It was a bad draft. Pass. Just.

2005 and 2006 were fine. At the moment.

The rest were pretty average and we should have done better.

You're right in a lack of star talent, but we don't know yet whether that talent will come from 2005-2006 drafts.
I wouldn't write off the whole lot.

[HFF_07]

I think that after the second round, it really starts to come down to hit and miss..


Who would have picked that Cale Hooker would be as good as he is now, coming from a pick 40ish (round their??), in a weak draft when so many other players around him have falled to the wayside..

I think people expect first even second round draft picks to be guns..

This is showing right now with one David Myers..

[Kong]

2003 we added Stanton, McPhee, Cupido, Lovett, Dyson, NLM. Wasn't too bad.McPhee and Cupido were 2002.

[yaco55]

Rodan's also near-impossible to tackle and wins many a hard ball. He's a rare player of brute strength and explosive speed.

Davey has only the latter.

I would've thought Alwyn was a poor man's Aaron, if anything.

Rodan is an interesting case.

Twice the Morrish medallist who was overlooked in his first draft year and picked in the 70's in his second year.

Spent 4 or 5 years at Richmond, was delisted and then selected in the ND by Port Power.

[Longy413]

McPhee and Cupido were 2002.

Yeah sorry, right you are.

Adds a bit of strength to probably the worst draft in the modern game.

Cupido, Harvey and Lovett could have all been elite footballers. What a waste.

[The House]

Some answers in bold.

It's regrettable that we weren't able to get better players from 97-03. We finished high on the ladder during these years, and weren't able to make the right trades. The 99 penalties killed us, and what happened to the best talent we drafted during this time (Rama) could not have been foreseen.

There was some bad picks, but also bad luck.

Good to see someone actually put some thought into a post, rather than simply say we did poorly based on no evidence. I appreciate it:thumbsu:

i've given you plenty of evidence, yet you still fail to understand that sheeds poor drafting was only part of the lack of forward planning.....

,,,,the ridiculous amount of games he put into players that clearly either weren't up to it, or weren't sensible long term choices was very damaging to us long term.
it continually denied many young players an opportunity to develop by playing senior football, in favour of playing bolton, henneman, cole, alvey, allen, mcalister, johns, peverill [for about his last 2 years], murphy, michael, camporeale etc etc etc.....

.....i've done this with little thought of names and i'm sure there are quite a few more eg's that could slot in there....bam, zantuck just popped into my head.

you need to open your thinking to realise the evidence you so crave of sheedy's lack of forward thinking extends far beyond the draft.

it was not simply bad luck that the list sheedy left for knights, was a list in which most of our best players were well past their best...it was bad managemnt......otherwise known as poor forward planning, the very thing sheedy has publicly bagged knights for after just 2.5 years into his role..............starting to see the hypocrisy now...

[Kong]

Yeah sorry, right you are.

Adds a bit of strength to probably the worst draft in the modern game.

Cupido, Harvey and Lovett could have all been elite footballers. What a waste.Cupido would be just about the biggest waste of talent I've seen, at least from our club.

[The House]

Cupido would be just about the biggest waste of talent I've seen, at least from our club.

big hello to dean rioli here too....played some of the best quarters of footy i've ever seen literally, yet never cared enough to bother getting in the condition required to consistently play good afl footy........

[TheDon35]

Those picks we traded out to the AFL who took them off us for breaching the salary cap?

Followed Essendon long?




Bradley, at the time was clearly a worthy number 6 pick.
It is a hindsight mistake, not a drafting mistake.

Not one club would have passed on him at six. His first year was also very positive.

Again, reffer to the original post regarding Sheedy having a crack at our forward list management when his midfield list management was a disaster for ten years.


1998 was fine.
1999 we got Hille and Rioli. Barnes was a Premiership player. Pass.

2003 we added Stanton, McPhee, Cupido, Lovett, Dyson, NLM. Wasn't too bad.


Few clubs got two players the quality of Watson and Winderlich in 2002. It was a bad draft. Pass. Just.

2005 and 2006 were fine. At the moment.

The rest were pretty average and we should have done better.

You're right in a lack of star talent, but we don't know yet whether that talent will come from 2005-2006 drafts.
I wouldn't write off the whole lot.

Pick 33 was traded to Hawthorn for Jonathon Robran... Been following Essendon long? Still could have had Ling. I'm only mentioning the midfielders with refference to my original post so the list could have been alot longer on missed class. Mis read on Chapman.

Again, you're missing the overall point. We weren't the big winner in any draft. Our drafting was ordinary at best for 10 years, subsequently, we find ourselves in this position.

Are you happy with the recruiting post Judkins / pre Sheedy leaving?

Of course you don't write off the whole lot. I haven't. It's just that their have been far far too many misses than hits, subsequently, we've been ordinary for a long time.

[Longy413]

Pick 33 was traded to Hawthorn for Jonathon Robran... Been following Essendon long?

We were banned from the first two rounds of the draft.
We wouldn't have had the pick.

You should also recall, Ling was drafted as a full forward.

Again, you're missing the overall point. We weren't the big winner in any draft. Our drafting was ordinary at best for 10 years, subsequently, we find ourselves in this position.

I'm not missing the point, I said our drafting was bad.

Are you happy with the recruiting post Judkins / pre Sheedy leaving?

I'm happy with 2005 and 2006.
I'm happy to recognise that 1998-2001 our job wasn't made easy for us due to on field success.

I'm happy to look into it a little deeper than to just blame Sheeds. I did say earlier that he is largely responsible and the buck stops with him, but there is a lot more to it than just one man.


Of course you don't write off the whole lot. I haven't. It's just that their have been far far too many misses than hits, subsequently, we've been ordinary for a long time.

Of course, but there are misses because we made the wrong decision (James Davies) and there are hindsight misses that were the right decision at the time (Harvey and Bradley).




One thing a lot of people are missing, is when Sheedy challenged our forward thinking, he wasn't talking about our planning for the future. He challenged our lack of forward structure.

He wasn't having a crack out our drafting or development of young players.
He simply believes that we underestimated the loss of Lloyd, Lucas, McPhee, Lovett and to a lesser extent Skipworth and that we overestimated the impact of Neagle, Gumby, Hurley etc.

The article was about our FORWARD LINE not our FORWARD PLANNING.

[The House]

We were banned from the first two rounds of the draft.
We wouldn't have had the pick.

You should also recall, Ling was drafted as a full forward.



I'm not missing the point, I said our drafting was bad.



I'm happy with 2005 and 2006.
I'm happy to recognise that 1998-2001 our job wasn't made easy for us due to on field success.

I'm happy to look into it a little deeper than to just blame Sheeds. I did say earlier that he is largely responsible and the buck stops with him, but there is a lot more to it than just one man.




Of course, but there are misses because we made the wrong decision (James Davies) and there are hindsight misses that were the right decision at the time (Harvey and Bradley).




One thing a lot of people are missing, is when Sheedy challenged our forward thinking, he wasn't talking about our planning for the future. He challenged our lack of forward structure.

He wasn't having a crack out our drafting or development of young players.
He simply believes that we underestimated the loss of Lloyd, Lucas, McPhee, Lovett and to a lesser extent Skipworth and that we overestimated the impact of Neagle, Gumby, Hurley etc.

The article was about our FORWARD LINE not our FORWARD PLANNING.

wow really???

if sheedy was referring to the forward line and not forward (future) planning, what's with all the debate over the draft and opportunities given to oldies over the last 6 pages???

No one thought it relevant to mention that EVERYONE on this thread was completely mis-interperating what Sheedy was saying until now????

[Longy413]

wow really???

if sheedy was referring to the forward line and not forward (future) planning, what's with all the debate over the draft and opportunities given to oldies over the last 6 pages???

No one thought it relevant to mention that EVERYONE on this thread was completely mis-interperating what Sheedy was saying until now????

It's a worthy debate, but not relevant to the article.

Here's the article, perhaps it might be worth a read -
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/kevin-sheedy-blames-no-forward-thinking/story-e6frf9jf-1225890979870

[The Donners]

I was more interested in trading Pokemon cards than trading players at that age.:cool:

Sometimes these things are better left unsaid. :o

[yodellinhank]

Pick 33 was traded to Hawthorn for Jonathon Robran... Been following Essendon long? Still could have had Ling. I'm only mentioning the midfielders with refference to my original post so the list could have been alot longer on missed class. Mis read on Chapman.

Again, you're missing the overall point. We weren't the big winner in any draft. Our drafting was ordinary at best for 10 years, subsequently, we find ourselves in this position.

Are you happy with the recruiting post Judkins / pre Sheedy leaving?

Of course you don't write off the whole lot. I haven't. It's just that their have been far far too many misses than hits, subsequently, we've been ordinary for a long time.

Pick 33 was a Collingwood pick.

Essendon In: Jonathon Robran, pick 40 Out: Andrew Ukovic, pick 48
Collingwood In: Andrew Ukovic Out: pick 33
Hawthorn In: Pick 33, 48 Out: Jonathon Robran

Edit: And I think there could have been more to it than that. We also took pick 45, which should have been a Doggies pick. The more I look into it, the more convoluted it gets. Freo, Dogs, Melbourne, Pies trading each others picks like nobodies business. It may have been that we got pick 33 and then on traded it, but the pick might have already been part of third party agreements similar to our pick 16 downgrade with Williams this year.

[yodellinhank]

i've given you plenty of evidence, yet you still fail to understand that sheeds poor drafting was only part of the lack of forward planning.....

,,,,the ridiculous amount of games he put into players that clearly either weren't up to it, or weren't sensible long term choices was very damaging to us long term.
it continually denied many young players an opportunity to develop by playing senior football, in favour of playing bolton, henneman, cole, alvey, allen, mcalister, johns, peverill [for about his last 2 years], murphy, michael, camporeale etc etc etc.....

.....i've done this with little thought of names and i'm sure there are quite a few more eg's that could slot in there....bam, zantuck just popped into my head.

you need to open your thinking to realise the evidence you so crave of sheedy's lack of forward thinking extends far beyond the draft.

it was not simply bad luck that the list sheedy left for knights, was a list in which most of our best players were well past their best...it was bad managemnt......otherwise known as poor forward planning, the very thing sheedy has publicly bagged knights for after just 2.5 years into his role..............starting to see the hypocrisy now...

I don't think you have provided any. You have provided much wishful thinking.

Have you considered maybe Michael, Bolton, Henneman etc. got games simply because the young "talent" simply wasn't talented enough? As for Michael, have you considered perhaps drafting a guy with a PSD pick that you beleive can lock down full back, may actually help you take a punt on young midfield talent during the national draft? Perhaps Reimers and Houli where drafted in the knowledge we could plug a hole down back with a mature player?

Go through the names of players who missed out on opportunities due to the guys you have named. I can think of a few:

Jobe Watson: hampered by injury and by his own admission probably wasn't working hard enough.

Ricky Dyson: some argue he is a dud anyway

Robert Forster-Knight: never made it at Port either

Austin Lucy: think he disappeared into obscurity after an injury

Who else, Darren Welsh? Cory McGrath? Jordan Bannister? Help me out. It also pays to keep in mind that some of the guys you listed who "continually denied others an opportunity" are bigger bodied players, who wouldn't have been pushing young gun midfielders out of a spot now, would they? So here's a winner for you maybe: Ted Richards. And I'm not exactly sure he would solve all of our current woes.

Without saying, player x was denied an opportunity and it cost us because y, you have no evidence for argument.

"Instead of drafting spuds we should have developed guns... somehow". Genius. Why didn't they think of that.

[The House]

I still love Sheedy saying he would have traded Lloyd for Judd.
Sorry Sheeds but i'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that you would have been knocked back on that one.....therefore you wanting to trade one of our ledgends is irrelevant because you wouldn't have done it.

[The House]

I don't think you have provided any. You have provided much wishful thinking.

Have you considered maybe Michael, Bolton, Henneman etc. got games simply because the young "talent" simply wasn't talented enough? As for Michael, have you considered perhaps drafting a guy with a PSD pick that you beleive can lock down full back, may actually help you take a punt on young midfield talent during the national draft? Perhaps Reimers and Houli where drafted in the knowledge we could plug a hole down back with a mature player?

Go through the names of players who missed out on opportunities due to the guys you have named. I can think of a few:

Jobe Watson: hampered by injury and by his own admission probably wasn't working hard enough.

Ricky Dyson: some argue he is a dud anyway

Robert Forster-Knight: never made it at Port either

Austin Lucy: think he disappeared into obscurity after an injury

Who else, Darren Welsh? Cory McGrath? Jordan Bannister? Help me out. It also pays to keep in mind that some of the guys you listed who "continually denied others an opportunity" are bigger bodied players, who wouldn't have been pushing young gun midfielders out of a spot now, would they? So here's a winner for you maybe: Ted Richards. And I'm not exactly sure he would solve all of our current woes.

Without saying, player x was denied an opportunity and it cost us because y, you have no evidence for argument.

"Instead of drafting spuds we should have developed guns... somehow". Genius. Why didn't they think of that.

Isn't the point that because all these guys were on the list playing ones, other youngsters were not on the list getting senior games?

Surely even just on the balance of probabilties, if you're brining in yong guys to replace those on the list that clearly won't make it long term, you're going to uncover/develop a certain amount of talent.

If you just keep playing a high number of blokes that clearly won't make it long term instead, then you won't.

Sheedy did the latter.

[yodellinhank]

Isn't the point that because all these guys were on the list playing ones, other youngsters were not on the list getting senior games?

Surely even just on the balance of probabilties, if you're brining in yong guys to replace those on the list that clearly won't make it long term, you're going to uncover/develop a certain amount of talent.

If you just keep playing a high number of blokes that clearly won't make it long term instead, then you won't.

Sheedy did the latter.

Ah. All those anonymous guns that everybody in the league missed, who went on to have amazing careers chasing dollars in the country. If only they weren't just a figment of our imaginations.

[The House]

Ah. All those anonymous guns that everybody in the league missed, who went on to have amazing careers chasing dollars in the country. If only they weren't just a figment of our imaginations.

mate, the point is we'll never know because sheedy was coaching for the now, rather than for the future.

we may have picked up 4 or 5 handy players, we may have developed a couple into very good players....
...maybe we would have brought in a dozen to 15 duds over 5 years and got nothing.....we'll never know [although you seem to be pretty certain there was no talent around....i suspect you may be best buds with Paul the oracle octopus].

[yodellinhank]

mate, the point is we'll never know because sheedy was coaching for the now, rather than for the future.

we may have picked up 4 or 5 handy players, we may have developed a couple into very good players....
...maybe we would have brought in a dozen to 15 duds over 5 years and got nothing.....we'll never know [although you seem to be pretty certain there was no talent around....i suspect you may be best buds with Paul the oracle octopus].

Based on the collective opinions of the 16 AFL clubs, yes I'm pretty certain.

I suspect you not only believe yourself destined to win the the lotto, but that you will stumble across the winning ticket blowing down the street.

[TheGodDelusion]

Ah. All those anonymous guns that everybody in the league missed, who went on to have amazing careers chasing dollars in the country. If only they weren't just a figment of our imaginations.

Fair point. There aren't any players we traded in Sheedy's last yearswho ended up starring at other clubs. Ted Richards is the only recent one, and it's arguable whether that's win/loss or a win/win given the picks we got were used to draft Dempsey and Lonergan.

I will say that there were kids who were in and out of the team more in his reign (Dyson) and didn't get a go (Lonergan). My gut feel is that he was coaching to keep his job, rather than building towards another flag, but that's just an opinion. I still love what the bloke did for the club. 4 flags. 4. That's more than some clubs have in total. Bloody hard things to win.

[Ben the Gooner]

Sometimes these things are better left unsaid. :oHey, I was 9 or 10:o

[Kong]

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y189/matthewbrown/6p5sxzcjk0.gif

[rhysman]

Sheeds had his share of dud trades alright. But one thing is certain - Cyril rioli would currently be an essendon player if he was coaching when that draft was held.