Toast Simon Dalrymple

[Dogs_r_barking]

He needs more love I think. After making the dreadful mistake with Howard, he has really pulled some gems out of the drafts. Dalhous as a rookie is my personal favourite. Stringer MacCrae and the Bont were inspired choices.

 

[womble54]

He's outrageous. The SAS of the recruiting world. Diving into the thick of it, taking on all comers, defying the odds and taking the riskier path with every selection and with total conviction This man holds no sense of self doubt. Whether the pick turns into Howard/Fuller or Bont/Stringer I'm sure he believes retrospectively he made the smart pick ever time and he mostly did. One thing for sure is you should burn the phantom drafts because our maverick beautiful magnificent nutjob of a recruiter will go on his own little journey very time. And he's mostly right. So he's smarter than all of us and thank god he is! Well done Simon - take a well deserved bow!

 

[Norm De Guerre]

Footballers first. Look at last years draft crop for evidence of the fact that he places a huge emphasis on traditional skills.

Even an apparent bust like Fuller bears testimony to his recruitment philosophies.

 

[Clay]

Fills me with confidence to see a first year kid come in and look like a seasoned veteran in his first two games. Hat off to Simon.

 

[zucvv]

From now on, every new kid walking into our club and knows he will make it because he is picked by DALRYMPLE!

 

[the dog's kennel]

The non-pick of Ben Brown still rankles me. And we all know about Christian Howard.

But Dalrymple has earned plenty of credits, I reckon. And those two are starting to look like outliers.

Besides the worst recruiting decision for the Dogs of the last ten years has nothing to do with Dalrymple - it was the trade of our first round compo pick at the end of 2010 for Justin Sherman. Worst Dogs-related call I can remember, and we pay for that one every year.

Good on you, Dalrymple. Keep up the good work!

 

[Leezorr]

Every Recruiter will have some misses, Dayrymple seems to get more right than wrong, and when he had high picks he has nailed them, thats the best thing, you miss with top 10 picks you end up going nowhere. 3 speculative pick with Macrea, Stringer and Bonts and in hindsight they are all stellar picks.

 

[Tommycash]

A master recruiter. He and our list manager (Macca right?) are just firing at the moment.

 

[Cudi]

How long before some club like Carlton or Richmond makes a massive play for him??

 

[100action]

The non-pick of Ben Brown still rankles me. And we all know about Christian Howard.

But Dalrymple has earned plenty of credits, I reckon. And those two are starting to look like outliers.

Besides the worst recruiting decision for the Dogs of the last ten years has nothing to do with Dalrymple - it was the trade of our first round compo pick at the end of 2010 for Justin Sherman. Worst Dogs-related call I can remember, and we pay for that one every year.

Good on you, Dalrymple. Keep up the good work!

It wasnt a bad trade at the time

Sherman was relatively young and had a few good years including a 30 goal season averaging about 20 disposals as a fwd/mid. Had a few other decent season as well.

A bad trade would be a first rounder or to that effect for Chris Dawes who delivered garbage during the pies' best year with Cloke taking the best key defender and has continued to be garbage.

 

[Mofra]

He needs more love I think. After making the dreadful mistake with Howard, he has really pulled some gems out of the drafts. Dalhous as a rookie is my personal favourite. Stringer MacCrae and the Bont were inspired choices.

Dal was a part time recruiter during that year.
He's been full time since then and has selected Macrae, Stringer & Bonti as first rounders - two bolters and one "risky" selection due to Stinger's leg injury.
Big fan.

 

[the dog's kennel]

It wasnt a bad trade at the time

Sherman was relatively young and had a few good years including a 30 goal season averaging about 20 disposals as a fwd/mid. Had a few other decent season as well.

A bad trade would be a first rounder or to that effect for Chris Dawes who delivered garbage during the pies' best year with Cloke taking the best key defender and has continued to be garbage.

Haha, I will pay your Chris Dawes call. But even at the time I thought the Sherman trade was insane. We were clearly past our window and beginning our trip down the ladder. Everyone knew that the GC/GWS draft concessions were about to bear down on us. That deferrable Rd 1 pick was gold. And we spent it on a player who was a frontrunner of the highest order, and was never ever going to survive the rebuild.

In 2011, I at least partly had it in for Eade cause I (perhaps unfairly) blamed him for that trade. It made me yebiga-style furious.

 

[Unnamed1]

Haha, I will pay your Chris Dawes call. But even at the time I thought the Sherman trade was insane. We were clearly past our window and beginning our trip down the ladder. Everyone knew that the GC/GWS draft concessions were about to bear down on us. That deferrable Rd 1 pick was gold. And we spent it on a player who was a frontrunner of the highest order, and was never ever going to survive the rebuild.

In 2011, I at least partly had it in for Eade cause I (perhaps unfairly) blamed him for that trade. It made me yebiga-style furious.

Well we learned from our mistake and held onto the Ward compo and used it wisely. There was a silver lining...

 

[GreyWind]

Here's all the drafts that Dalrymple has been involved in;

2009 National Draft:
15. Christian Howard - Gone
31. Jason Tutt - Carlton
63. Lukas Markovic - Gone
76. Shane Thorne - Gone

Rookie Draft:
19. Brodie Moles - Gone
35. Andrew Hooper - Gone
48. Matthew Panos - Gone
59. Eddie Prato - Gone
68. Patrick Rose - Gone

Rating: 0/10

2010 National Draft:
22. Mitch Wallis - Developing quite nicely (59 games)
41. Tom Liberatore - Gun (77)
74. Jayden Schofield - Gone
88. Zephaniah Skinner - Gone
89. Tom Hill - Gone

Rookie Draft:
22. Luke Dahlhaus - Gun (75)
39. Jason Johannisen - Developing quite nicely (31)
55. Ed Barlow
70. Mitch Hahn

Rating: 8/10

2011 National Draft:
17. Clay Smith - Held back by injury, looks the goods though (32)
39. Michael Talia - Developing at a rapid rate (20)
49. Daniel Pearce - Re-rookied (5)
57. Tory Dickson - Is a key piece on the forward line (38)

Pre-Season Draft:
11. Fletcher Roberts - Jury still out (7)

Rookie Draft:
9. Lin Jong - Developing at a rapid rate (14)
27. Tom Campbell - Jury still out (20)
45. Alex Greenwood - Gone
62. Jack Redpath - Jury still out (4)
76. Mark Austin - Gone

Rating: 6/10 (could easily climb if Smith stays injury free and Roberts, Campbell or Redpath kick on).

2012 National Draft:
5. Jake Stringer - Gun (32)
6. Jackson Macrae - Gun (38)
21. Nathan Hrovat - Potential (21)
49. Lachie Hunter - Potential (23)
50. Joshua Prudden - Injury plagued (Yet to debut)

Rookie Draft:
4. Brett Goodes - Depth (18)

Rating: 8/10 (could easily be his best draft though depending on the careers of Hrovat, Hunter and Prudden).

2013 National Draft:
4. Marcus Bontempelli - Gun (19)
42. Matthew Fuller - Hindsight say Ben Brown
60. Mitch Honeychurch - Potential (7)

Too early to judge.

2014 National Draft:
26. Toby McLean
25. Lukas Webb (2)
39. Declan Hamilton
45. Bailey Dale
46. Caleb Daniel
62. Zaine Cordy

Rookie Draft:
5. Roarke Smith
23. Jordan Kelly
40. Daniel Pearce
57. Brett Goodes

Too early to judge.

Apart from the terrible 2009 Draft it's clear that Dalrymple as been solid to great with the rest of the drafts.
5 blue chip players (in blue)
5 good players (in green)
7 guys with very good potential (in orange)
2 guys that were busts (in red)

From a total of 45 picks (if I've counted correctly and not including the re-rooking of Goodes and Pearce and upgrading rookies).
So from the live 37 picks (not including the 2014 draftees) Dalrymple as a strike rate of 13.5% of a blue chip player, 13.5% of a good player, 19% of potentially good players and most importantly only a 5% in picking a bust.

All in all Dalrymple has been hitting with our high draft picks so far, while finding some diamonds in the rough in later rounds.

I can't be bothered doing the same for Clayton, but from looking at all of his drafts it's plain to see that he found more blue chip players (granted more drafts), but then he had a similar strike rate of drafting a bust with a high pick and then drafting a lot of nothing picks.

 

[Butane]

I wonder how an automated picker would go. For example - sample say 20 pre-draft 'experts' from media and known draft watches and collate a list and then just pick the highest rated available at your pick.

Personally I reckon it would end up with an above average result but rarely in the top 4 which should be your aim.

I always find these discussions on recruiters a bit annoying. Firstly, it's a team effort, never just one guy and if you forget to draft Franklin in one draft you're a dud for life instead of pulling ok picks in really shitty drafts with even shiter draft numbers.

I reckon trading/picking up other AFL players is a big part of being a good judge of talent. That hasn't been great. Marko, Lower, Young etc

Another thing that is CRITICAL to remember in a discussion like this is that it's a competition. You must be compared to other teams. It's fine to say how good was Stringer or Macrae but we missed out on Wines who a lot of people would take over both of them. Sure some wouldn't but we wouldn't be crying if we accidentally got Wines if we didn't already have an invested connection to the other 2 blokes who are coming along nicely.

Just little things like taking Fuller instead of Ben Brown. The matrix of possible outcomes is ridiculous so I find it a hard one to discuss as it's mostly based on emotion.

 

[Mutt]

I wonder how an automated picker would go. For example - sample say 20 pre-draft 'experts' from media and known draft watches and collate a list and then just pick the highest rated available at your pick.

Personally I reckon it would end up with an above average result but rarely in the top 4 which should be your aim.

I always find these discussions on recruiters a bit annoying. Firstly, it's a team effort, never just one guy and if you forget to draft Franklin in one draft you're a dud for life instead of pulling ok picks in really shitty drafts with even shiter draft numbers.

I reckon trading/picking up other AFL players is a big part of being a good judge of talent. That hasn't been great. Marko, Lower, Young etc

Another thing that is CRITICAL to remember in a discussion like this is that it's a competition. You must be compared to other teams. It's fine to say how good was Stringer or Macrae but we missed out on Wines who a lot of people would take over both of them. Sure some wouldn't but we wouldn't be crying if we accidentally got Wines if we didn't already have an invested connection to the other 2 blokes who are coming along nicely.

Just little things like taking Fuller instead of Ben Brown. The matrix of possible outcomes is ridiculous so I find it a hard one to discuss as it's mostly based on emotion.

All good points Butane. Keeping your good players, especially the right players and moving on the right players is also an under appreciated talent and is a very important determinant of club performance. We historically has been poor at it but JMac appears to have arrested that somewhat with the re-signing of much of our young talent.

 

[Dogs Rule]

Like a fine wine, I think he's getting better as the years go on.

 

[paul scholes]

To be fair to him though he wasn't full time in 2009 and the results showed.
They've put together a recruiting team and made him full time, and hence better results . They've also put development coaches and our own VFL team, which has made a big difference .

 

[dogwatch]

Recruiting is an arcane art in the AFL. Surprising perhaps, since so much of a club's success depends on getting consistently good results at the draft.

There's a lot written about the recruits themselves and how some of them came to prominence either as underagers or mature agers. There are dozens of phantom drafts every October. But I haven't read any really good insights into how one club (or one head recruiter) goes about their craft. Maybe Emma Quayle has written something? Or maybe the problem is that it is too rapidly evolving a field because it's so competitive? (Meaning that by the time you publish a book the tactical game and the resources applied have moved to another level.)

It would be good to see an insiders account, say if Dalrymple retired and wrote a memoir on his days as a recruiter. It could be quite revealing how they call on resources (both professional and voluntary), what constraints or expectations are put on them by the coach, how they approach the combine and other ways of conducting their due diligence, how they hide their "smokeys" (eg Prudden or Redpath), whether there is much espionage and intelligence gathering from other clubs, how they resolve internal differences of opinion and work out a final draft preference list, and finally how they deal with contingencies on draft night.

I reckon that'd be a great read.

 

[Dogsman16]

Well we learned from our mistake and held onto the Ward compo and used it wisely. There was a silver lining...

Imagine if he kept it. Jack Darling went one pick after that priority. My gosh 2010 could have been an epic haul.

Dal has been brilliant, we could probably pencil in Webb at the very least a potential b grade player (if not higher) due to what he has shown already. 16 disposals at 94% and don't even get me started about his ball use.

 

[_shifty_]

Here's all the drafts that Dalrymple has been involved in;



2010 National Draft:
22. Mitch Wallis - Developing quite nicely (59 games)
41. Tom Liberatore - Gun (77)
74. Jayden Schofield - Gone
88. Zephaniah Skinner - Gone
89. Tom Hill - Gone

Rookie Draft:
22. Luke Dahlhaus - Gun (75)
39. Jason Johannisen - Developing quite nicely (31)
55. Ed Barlow
70. Mitch Hahn

Rating: 8/10
.

I'd say Schofield was a really good pick as well, he showed a lot more than you expect from a late round first year player, and you can't fault Dalyrmple at all for Schofield quitting.

 

[GreyWind]

I'd say Schofield was a really good pick as well, he showed a lot more than you expect from a late round first year player, and you can't fault Dalyrmple at all for Schofield quitting.

I don't hold that on Dalyrmple at all, it looked like a great pick until Schofield quit. As it was it was pick 74 in the draft, very hard to find quality players that low in any draft and it nearly looked to be a hit.

As it was we nailed it with Dahl and JJ in the rookie draft later on.

 

[_Mike_]

IMO Talia is going to be a blue.. He doesnt panic, has good vision and can handle pressure.. Another Glen Jackovich type CHB

 

[Dogsman16]

IMO Talia is going to be a blue.. He doesnt panic, has good vision and can handle pressure.. Another Glen Jackovich type CHB

I think he can be a really good CHB for us so I agree with that. Need to lock him away asap. He's now our number 1 defender, we just cannot afford to lose him.

 

[Hrovat24]

Don't think you can judge dalrymple for a few years when we are playing finals , see who he can recruit then , so far his best draft years have been with top ten picks