Western Bulldogs Limbo Club

[TempleKelvington]

Oscar can't kick, has little composure and is really slow at accelerating. Dees only took him to try and get Tom to stay.
I kind of like his old fashioned defending but would rather Roberts than him as turnovers kill teams.
There is no one else as KPD to take. Now if you say, we should have taken a CHF, well they are too undeveloped and thus are available in rookie draft. Really hope we get 2, not just 1!

I think you are right here. There is a knock on his kicking. So who knows he could be a great pick up, but I wasn't totally sold on him becuase of the kicking, he was among the best remaining for sure, but I'm not upset we didn't pull the trigger.

Mate I don't watch the juniors if you say Oscar is no good well so be it, I guess. But every year there are good KPPs unearthed with later picks - why couldn't Simon find one this year?
Only time will tell if Simon is right and the KPDs are all crap past P25. Of course by the time we know, it'll be too late.

I think we had to still address the outside mids, so I think they went for the best player rather than just balance for the sake of it. So like you say we have to see how that works out, we may well have missed a KP gem. But I reckon the strategy/thinking is fine.

I find it hilarious that people seem to think Hamling, another Geelong delistee will be our saviour.. how many times to do we have to go to that well before people realise its dry? (Moles, Djerkurra, etc, etc)

You are having a bit each way here, earlier you wanted him to take a punt on a KP and when he did with Hamling you critise it.

I have no idea if Hamling is better than Mcdonald, but we got Hamling without risking a draft pick, perhaps less speculative in that he's been in the system 3 years and so has some development in him. Don't mind that thinking.

I think the writing was on the wall very early that we got what we think was the best KP defenders available to us before the draft, we were never going to draft McDonald or Keitel or any of the fringe KP players this draft (in hindsight). I feel that had Lever/Durdin/Marchbank/Goddard, the real top line KP defenders slipped to us we would have pulled the trigger for sure. Again don't mid that line of thinking.

I think we have all skipped ahead too soon without having seen what we do with the rookie list. I would be surprised if we don't take a punt with a KP player or 2 on the rookie list and again would not be surprised if they went for another more mature option rather than a 18 year old and or draft the best 18 year old who has the skills just needs time and the rookie list is ideal for them. But not if we think they don't meet the standards we need just to meet a list balance quota.

 

[fronkalicious]

Guess who's really well equipped to take on hawkins and cloke?? Almost no one. North have an all australian full back in Thompson and he couldn't get near hawkins in the finals when tomahawk got rolling. And some are filthy dalrymple didn't try and pluck one in the 40s?? Genius.

Gold Coast want to run with Dixon, wright, day and lynch in their forward 50? Good luck to them. Won't get far doing that.

Hawthorn just went back to back with roughie (193cm) and a resting ruckman (hale) as their key forwards.

Madness to overreact to a draft like this. Mindless stuff

 

[yebiga]

Guess who's really well equipped to take on hawkins and cloke?? Almost no one. North have an all australian full back in Thompson and he couldn't get near hawkins in the finals when tomahawk got rolling. And some are filthy dalrymple didn't try and pluck one in the 40s?? Genius.

Gold Coast want to run with Dixon, wright, day and lynch in their forward 50? Good luck to them. Won't get far doing that.

Hawthorn just went back to back with roughie (193cm) and a resting ruckman (hale) as their key forwards.

Madness to overreact to a draft like this. Mindless stuff

Lake was then Harris, was plucked at pick 70! Imagine

 

[stefoid]

Mate I don't watch the juniors if you say Oscar is no good well so be it, I guess. But every year there are good KPPs unearthed with later picks - why couldn't Simon find one this year?

Only time will tell if Simon is right and the KPDs are all crap past P25. Of course by the time we know, it'll be too late.

FWIW, I (and probably everyone on the board) would have been screaming to the heavens if we hadn't taken a keypo with pick 6.

But think about this, everybody who knows says this was a deep and even draft out to the third round - i.e. quality players to be found. - all the good key positions went in the first round. Zero key positions went until halfway through the third round at 50+. i.e. everybody who had a clue didn't rate the keypos that were left as part of the 'quality' band. Oscar McDonald being associated with us was clearly just another case of big-footy group think where some phantom dude has no idea who will go at pick 26 so he selects someone tall for us.

 

[Mutt]

You've repeated this a number of times - what is your source for this?

Mathematically, the difference between picks diminishes the later you pick in the draft, hence the theory that you take best available early on, and later in the draft you weight needs more highly (yes I know you disagree with it).

I don't have a source but you will note that on more than one occasion I have said we can only speculate what Dalrymple's rationale is. Stick to the topic - your trying to score semantic points is getting tedious.

 

[stefoid]

Lake was then Harris, was plucked at pick 70! Imagine

Clayton plucked an endless number of tall spuds with his late picks.

 

[Mofra]

I don't have a source but you will note that on more than one occasion I have said we can only speculate what Dalrymple's rationale is. Stick to the topic - your trying to score semantic points is getting tedious.

How is asking you to back up a big claim "semantics"?

You can relax, I'll stick to debating mature posters from now on.

 

[Mofra]

I think we have all skipped ahead too soon without having seen what we do with the rookie list. I would be surprised if we don't take a punt with a KP player or 2 on the rookie list and again would not be surprised if they went for another more mature option rather than a 18 year old and or draft the best 18 year old who has the skills just needs time and the rookie list is ideal for them. But not if we think they don't meet the standards we need just to meet a list balance quota.

From an overall list management point of view I hope we do - most teams have depth ion every position on the ground, we're maxed out with the players who are remotely mature enough to play in a key defensive post and history suggests you need to draft an excess in every position as not every kid on the list will make it.
If there is an over-abundance of one type however it does create frustration that kids are playing AFL-standard footy but not able to get a game because of players in front of them. Occasionally that works in our favour (I'm really happy we got Biggs) but I don't want it happening the other way.

 

[Mofra]

It does seem to be trending up slowly, but seems to me that quality trumps an extra few cms. The quality defenders seem to be able to concede 3 or 4 cms without an issue.

Cordy will be able to play on quite a few key forwards in his time if he is good enough - hogan, mcartin, tomlinson - these types of players.

I'd like to hope so, but given he has Cordy genetics filling out may be an issue - Hogan will be a monster, McCartin too and Tomlinson plays a high-forward role and normally attracts the 3rd or 4th tallest defender. Hamling looks quite skinny after three years in an elite system too.

Recruiters do take notice of genetics - Macrae's dad is a classic athletic shape by all accounts so there was no issue in taking him, knowing he'll put on the required weight. Stringer's power to weight ratio was tested prior to the draft and it was (in Dal's words) "off the charts".

 

[Mutt]

How is asking you to back up a big claim "semantics"?

You can relax, I'll stick to debating mature posters from now on.

I'm not making a "big claim" by speculating that Dalrymple doesn't rate the tall defenders taken late in the draft. There are numerous possible explanations for us not drafting a tall late in the draft (aside from Cordy) and I was discussing the rationale I thought was the most likely explanation. I said that I was speculating and didn't know what Dalrymple's thinking was and didn't make any "claim".

So now I'm too immature to have a discussion with you? Really?

 

[BEaston]

Forget the fact that people are hellbent on defending a legitimate and logical criticism about our draft this year. What is actually hilarious is that people are actually arguing that our tall stocks are in good shape!!! Wowsers

 

[Mofra]

Someone should tell that to Gibson and Morris then.

We're not talking 10-15 cm here we are talking barely 5. Fletcher Roberts is 196cm and will be 100 kgs (eventually), Michael Talia is 195cm and 90+kg, then we have Hamling at 194cm, and Cordy at 192 (and still growing). With Roughy waiting in the wings. I see no huge need for another developing tall defender. I'd like another forward though.
Again ******* hilarious.

Gibson rarely takes the biggest opposition forward - he tends to take faster leading forwards and uses timing to peel off his opponent at the right times (Lake can do this too - we all remember him being the only true gorilla backman in our back 6 for a number of years given Williams' injury history).

Hawks have a number of talls developing or able to step in as well - and they just paid a truckload for Frawley as a FA.

Hopefully Bevo can organize our defensive 6 into a unit that helps each other, although the process may be painful - Eade settled the back 6 in the first season as coach even when it placed players under pressure as it taught them how to work for each other. The optimist in me suspects Bevo will help us gel in the same way.

 

[BRWB]

You are having a bit each way here, earlier you wanted him to take a punt on a KP and when he did with Hamling you critise it.

No not really, picking up another club's delistee is not the same as drafting one. Picking Hamling is much higher risk and against the odds of success than drafting one, noting that as many have pointed out, picking up another club's delistees rarely ends well. And yes Markovic was another delistee hence the mention of his name (so was Austin). You don't even have to have looked at Hamling, to know that that the odds of him becoming an AFL standard player, let alone a good one, are minimal. But you never know he could be the next Tom Harley...

Well its been an interesting debate with some folks (Mr Christo, and a small handful of others). But gee there seems to be lot of dismissive, downright rude and insulting behaviour from a number of others (not you TK) when they see some criticism of the club they consider to be wrong. Don't have the time or the inclination to keep going with it as it seems pretty circular and really we won't know for a few years.

Time will tell, and FWIW I hope the people saying everything is fine and Simon has done a great job at addressing our needs in a well rounded and balanced fashion and that Simon's approach shouldn't be questioned, are right. Just don't see it though.

 

[Mutt]

Forget the fact that people are hellbent on defending a legitimate and logical criticism about our draft this year. What is actually hilarious is that people are actually arguing that our tall stocks are in good shape!!! Wowsers

I'm not defending our recruiting strategy, rather I'm offering a possible explanation as to why we didn't select a tall defender other than Cordy in the draft.

I too am concerned about the quality of our key defensive stocks and have been for several years, although I take a little comfort from the thoughts on Joel Hamling of the WOOF poster MJP (who many of you would know has a coaching role in one of the U18 state champs teams)...

"Hamling will be awesome. Hard worker, athletic, 3 years in the system with Geelong..."

 

[LondonBulldog]

This thread is going around in circles now.
Blind Freddy can see we have too many players 182cm and under fighting for limited spots, maybe 3 or 4 at the most available.
Let’s just hope they target some key defenders in the rookie draft. If we get injuries to the few talls we have we are in serious trouble and its our own fault.
Said it at the time and will say it again: Drafting 4 recycled players in Goodes/Lower/Young/Stevens would come back to haunt us. Risk 1 recycled player, 2 at the most each year not 4. The rest you take punts on kids.

 

[BRWB]

This was posted elsewhere but sums up my concerns regarding Simon and his capacity to draft tall quite well...

There is a lot of talk on here about us recruiting KP players in the rookie draft. It is interesting to look at Dalrymples history re: KP players in his drafts (first one in 2009). I'll use over 192cm as a benchmark (so Zaine Cordy is not considered a KPP).

2009 - Lukas Markovic, James Mulligan (rookie upgrade), Eddie Prato (rookie)
2010 - Tom Hill, Zephaniah Skinner, Ed Barlow (rookie)
2011 - Michael Talia, Fletcher Roberts (pre-season), Tom Campbell (rookie), Jack Redpath (rookie), Mark Austin (rookie)
2012 - Nil
2013 - Nil
2014 - Nil (atm)

Analysis
- No KPP's last 3 years (next week ...?)
- Only 4 KPP's taken in the last 6 national drafts ... Talia at 39 the lowest pick (and he slipped from memory)
- Of the 11 KPP's drafted by Dalrymple, 4 remain on the list
- Redpath and Campbell were the result of inside knowledge from Shannon Grant/Macca re: Bendigo Bombers

I'll leave others to draw out conclusions ...

 

[TempleKelvington]

No not really, picking up another club's delistee is not the same as drafting one. Picking Hamling is much higher risk and against the odds of success than drafting one, noting that as many have pointed out, picking up another club's delistees rarely ends well. And yes Markovic was another delistee hence the mention of his name (so was Austin). You don't even have to have looked at Hamling, to know that that the odds of him becoming an AFL standard player, let alone a good one, are minimal. But you never know he could be the next Tom Harley...

Well its been an interesting debate with some folks (Mr Christo, and a small handful of others). But gee there seems to be lot of dismissive, downright rude and insulting behaviour from a number of others (not you TK) when they see some criticism of the club they consider to be wrong. Don't have the time or the inclination to keep going with it as it seems pretty circular and really we won't know for a few years.

Time will tell, and FWIW I hope the people saying everything is fine and Simon has done a great job at addressing our needs in a well rounded and balanced fashion and that Simon's approach shouldn't be questioned, are right. Just don't see it though.

I think Hamling is low risk because the cost in minimal to us. 3 years of development in him already, still untried at senior level so it's not like he's had a 20 games and didn't cut it.

I am not saying I agree with all the picks. I actually like a lot of other players before the ones we chose. In fact my amateur spotting netted me just 2 players, one I rated highly but really didn't think we have the balls to pull the trigger on in Daniel and the other Webb. Although I had him behind at least 6 I think, but still on my radar. I wanted Menadue the most.

I thought we'd grab a tall, just made sense, but I wasn't sold on any of them really and found myself reaching for players to balance it. But I reckon the club didn't want to reach and I don't mind that. Time will tell if they got it right. But they did get in the right type of player.....we need skilled, versatile players with an outside game including Biggs we got 6 of them, even if only 3 make it it will be a good draft.

I'm not sure we got the right players, we got the right type though and their methodology/thinking made sense to me.....that's all I'm saying.

 

[BRWB]

I think Hamling is low risk because the cost in minimal to us. 3 years of development in him already, still untried at senior level so it's not like he's had a 20 games and didn't cut it.

I am not saying I agree with all the picks. I actually like a lot of other players before the ones we chose. In fact my amateur spotting netted me just 2 players, one I rated highly but really didn't think we have the balls to pull the trigger on in Daniel and the other Webb. Although I had him behind at least 6 I think, but still on my radar. I wanted Menadue the most.

I thought we'd grab a tall, just made sense, but I wasn't sold on any of them really and found myself reaching for players to balance it. But I reckon the club didn't want to reach and I don't mind that. Time will tell if they got it right. But they did get in the right type of player.....we need skilled, versatile players with an outside game including Biggs we got 6 of them, even if only 3 make it it will be a good draft.

I'm not sure we got the right players, we got the right type though and their methodology/thinking made sense to me.....that's all I'm saying.

Cool I get that the club didn't rate the remaining talls.

Whether the club is right in that view is a different question. And whether the club deserves faith in their assessment of talls is another question again.

Whether the club has done well in its list management regarding talls and overall list balance age and height wise, is again another question.

Whether the club should have gone for some taller mids and utilities rather than exclusively 186cm and under players is another question again.

 

[go you pups]

I will put another 2 cents in.

I think it is unfair that Hamling has been labeled a "Geelong Dud." Considering Taylor, Mackie, Rivers and Lonergan have played regularly makes it hard for a kid to come in, I can only recall Thurlow being given an opportunity when Rivers was injured in 2013 (Im pretty sure). With the amount of competition ahead of him it was unlikely he'd get a chance until 2016/17 when maybe Lonergan/Rivers declines or if 2 of these guys get injured.

You take his 3 years of development and hope he is at a similar standard to Talia and Roberts. Yes we need more KPP depth I'm disappointed we didn't take one in the ND, hopefully Dalrymple can pluck a Josh Jenkins or Jeremy McGovern type from the RD (recent decent prospects taken in the RD.) If Dalrymple overlooks KPPs in the RD well I expect this thread to grow at a rate of 20 pages per day if a mod doesn't close it down.

 

[TempleKelvington]

Cool I get that the club didn't rate the remaining talls.

Whether the club is right in that view is a different question. And whether the club deserves faith in their assessment of talls is another question again.

Whether the club has done well in its list management regarding talls and overall list balance age and height wise, is again another question.

Whether the club should have gone for some taller mids and utilities rather than exclusively 186cm and under players is another question again.

yep exactly.....they will live and die by it, but they knew what they were doing, who they wanted, they didn't hesitate. The rest is judgement and opinion like you say and we'll be wiser in 3 years or so.

 

[lachy]

You've repeated this a number of times - what is your source for this?

Mathematically, the difference between picks diminishes the later you pick in the draft, hence the theory that you take best available early on, and later in the draft you weight needs more highly (yes I know you disagree with it).

This thread is going around in circles now.
Blind Freddy can see we have too many players 182cm and under fighting for limited spots, maybe 3 or 4 at the most available.
Let’s just hope they target some key defenders in the rookie draft. If we get injuries to the few talls we have we are in serious trouble and its our own fault.
Said it at the time and will say it again: Drafting 4 recycled players in Goodes/Lower/Young/Stevens would come back to haunt us. Risk 1 recycled player, 2 at the most each year not 4. The rest you take punts on kids.

Yet we keep doing the same thing and expect a different result, insanity.

The main point of this thread is not a direct criticism of any players picked, I hope they all make it. However, statistically just as many smalls do not make it as talls after the third round in percentage terms. A balanced list requires 8 to 10 talls who are not rucks to cover injuries and also to ensure consistent development of a spine. Our list is unbalanced and 4 ball carriers and 1 development KPP in the draft would have allowed us to have a more balanced rookie draft. Now we need to draft at least 2 KPP's.

For those saying Dalrymples performance is superior to Claytons to this point, these were Claytons draftees at the same stage:

Giansiracusa
Gilbee
Hargrave
Hahn
Murphy
Cross
Boyd
Lake
Cooney
Griffen
Minson
Morris

Note: no father son picks though no compromised drafts by 2 either.

 

[BRWB]

I will put another 2 cents in.

I think it is unfair that Hamling has been labeled a "Geelong Dud." Considering Taylor, Mackie, Rivers and Lonergan have played regularly makes it hard for a kid to come in, I can only recall Thurlow being given an opportunity when Rivers was injured in 2013 (Im pretty sure). With the amount of competition ahead of him it was unlikely he'd get a chance until 2016/17 when maybe Lonergan/Rivers declines or if 2 of these guys get injured.

I haven't labelled Hamling a dud that would be grossly unfair, particularly given I haven't seen him play!

It's just unlikely that he will make it given the lack of success delistees have elsewhere (particularly Geelong's).

I also recall people saying how tough it was for Djerkurra and Moles to force their way in to a great Geelong mid group and that with a few years of Geelong's development they would be great pickups. Sadly it just usually doesn't work out that way.

FWIW I hope Hamling is the exception.

 

[Mutt]

Cool I get that the club didn't rate the remaining talls.

Whether the club is right in that view is a different question. And whether the club deserves faith in their assessment of talls is another question again.

Whether the club has done well in its list management regarding talls and overall list balance age and height wise, is again another question.

Whether the club should have gone for some taller mids and utilities rather than exclusively 186cm and under players is another question again.

I think I can agree with all of this ^. There are many unknowns and matters of conjecture and opinion is this discussion.

 

[MrChristo]

In the end, BRWB, we agree on one thing...

...that this is going round and round in circles, and it's probably time we let go of the bone...

But one last crack...

The woe-is-me crowd continue to scream about the sky falling, but none have yet to offer up any obvious mistakes (again, 2009 aside).

For every Brian Harris/Lake there are 3-4 Tom Hills. [Just like for every 3-4 Markovic's (as per your example) there's a Ceglar who someone has lost patience with.]

Lake himself played 1 game in his first year (2002). 14 all up by the end of his 2nd...Both Talia and Campbell have played more than that in their first 2 seasons...(and Lake realistically didn't ever come across as an above average [yet still under-sized in some people's mind... ] player until 2006. Fair?

...so for all this (correct!) talk about development times, 4 bigs (all drafted in 2011, which people seem hell bent on ignoring completely ) and just now coming into the period where they could only have fairly been expected to reach AFL standard.

I've already shown earlier that body for body we have an extremely comparable list in terms of size down back as Hawthorn.

But people continue to focus on the quality rather than the raw numbers.

Forget the fact that people are hellbent on defending a legitimate and logical criticism about our draft this year. What is actually hilarious is that people are actually arguing that our tall stocks are in good shape!!! Wowsers

Sorry, but it's this exact type of thing that I'm talking about. It's simply a wrong perception.

1) We can argue all day about the quality of our talls, but either way, drafting a speculative high draft pick this year certainly wouldn't have helped straight away. Not even for another 3 or 4 years...if at all.
As others have said, I'm positive we would have grabbed Goddard had he slipped that little bit further...but taking long term projects for the sake of it is a real stretch.

2) Again, as a direct comparison to 3 other teams (I got a bit sick of it after that tbh)...[I'm not counting genuine midfielders...Like Pendlebury, or Bonts etc.]

Hawthorn have 12 players on their senior list 190cm or taller. (One of them is Birchill who for these purposes I don't think counts. He just happens to be tall for a Robert Murphy-type. It also includes Sam Grimley and some kid called Kaiden Brand who I've never heard of.)
Either way, that's the whole list.
Defenders? Their GF winning team had Lake and Spangher (both 195)...Gibson and Stratton, both 189cm. And Birchill @ 193 if we're being literal.

TWO 'Key' defenders over 190cm!!!! Against that Sydney forward-line!!!!!

West Coast have 11 (again, total.) In round 23 last year, in a big win at GC, they had just 3 defenders over 190cm.

Collingwood have 10 total. That includes Darcy Moore.

We have 9 not counting Crameri, who is 189cm. (Or, in fact Zaine...so guess what, that's 10!!)

Your "logical criticism" of this draft seems to be based on some hysteria that we don't have enough talls, so lets grab 1 or 2, no matter how undeveloped , or even untalented (relatively speaking of course) they might be.

It's not based on fact. Actually the opposite, it's completely untrue and anything but "logical".


Anyway, seems a few on here have no interest in listening to the facts (let alone spending any time doing some actual research themselves.

So fine. We're a team of short people, we never draft talls, and the end of the world is nigh...


"2012 - Nil
2013 - Nil
2014 - Nil (atm)
Analysis
- No KPP's last 3 years (next week ...?)"

One last time, you (or someone else) go look, and tell me who we "should" have gotten and when...

 

[BRWB]

In the end, BRWB, we agree on one thing...

...that this is going round and round in circles, and it's probably time we let go of the bone...


For every Brian Harris/Lake there are 3-4 Tom Hills. [Just like for every 3-4 Markovic's (as per your example) there's a Ceglar who someone has lost patience with.]

Lake himself played 1 game in his first year (2002). 14 all up by the end of his 2nd...Both Talia and Campbell have played more than that in their first 2 seasons...(and Lake realistically didn't ever come across as an above average [yet still under-sized in some people's mind... ] player until 2006. Fair?

...so for all this (correct!) talk about development times, 4 bigs (all drafted in 2011, which people seem hell bent on ignoring completely ) and just now coming into the period where they could only have fairly been expected to reach AFL standard.

.

Mate I'm with you on the circularity..but your Brian Lake example is a bit skewed.

The players keeping Brian out of our backline in 2002 included Croft, Hargrave and Kretiuk
Mark Austin has been keeping Talia and Fletch out.....

As to the rest, well we have a basic philosophical difference. I say its the list management team's job to build a balanced list with competent players on every line. If after five years Simon hasn't achieved this and there are still glaring deficiencies, then perhaps he should be criticised.

You seem to be saying that well 09 excepted, its been impossible for our recruiters to find a KPP in the last five years. We just don't buy each other's view on this. Thanks for the debate, I'm sure we both hope it works out.