Roast List Management: 2004 - 2012

[ManWithNoName]

Get Adrian Dodoro and his cronies the * out of this football club.

Below is a list of all the players who have come to the club since the end of 2004, the year we last won a final. For fairness' sake I've omitted the last two draft/trade periods. Now, you may disagree with my sentiments of course. But I've gone through and rated each pick into three categories: Decent, Iffy, Failure. We've had 54 players join our club between 2004 and 2012. Here's how I've ranked them:

Decent: Angus Monfries, Paddy Ryder, Courtenay Dempsey, Alwyn Davey, Mal Michael, David Myers, Cale Hooker, Tom Bellchambers, Michael Hurley, David Zaharakis, Jake Melksham, Jake Carlisle, Travis Colyer, Dyson Heppell, Michael Hibberd, Brendon Goddard, Joe Daniher.

Iffy: Henry Slattery, Jay Neagle, Sam Lonergan, Leroy Jetta, Tayte Pears, Kyle Hardingham, Alex Browne, Jackson Merrett, Martin Gleeson, Nick Kommer, Will Hams.

Failure: Andrew Lee, Paul Thomas, Ty Zantuck, Richard Cole, Austin Lucy, Scott Camporeale, Chris Heffernan, Scott Gumbleton, Tom Hislop, Bachar Houli, Kyle Reimers, Darcy Daniher, John Williams, Brent Prismall, Michael Still, Tyson Slattery, Hayden Skipworth, Mark Williams, Anthony Long, Ariel Steinberg, Luke Davis, Michael Ross, Elliot Kavanagh, Nick O'Brien, Jason Ashby, Dylan Van Unen.

So, from 54 players joining the main list between 2004 and 2012, my assesments have us at 17 players who were decent or better, 11 players who were Iffy, and 26 players who were failures. So, from 9 draft/trade periods we're averaging less than 2 decent players a year. That's ******* pathetic. That's not acceptable in any way shape or form, especially given the stability in the list management area. Coaches have to share a portion of the blame of course, but the recruiting staff at our club are clearly an embarrassment.

I even looked at the rookie draft over the same period. From 32 rookie selections there are FOUR players who turned out to be something: Heath Hocking, Ben Howlett, Stewart Crameri and Mark Baguley. Four from THIRTY TWO selections. The rookie draft is a bit of a gamble but I'd be fairly certain we'd be right down the bottom of the list for clubs getting success from it.

If you want to include the rookie list in the same rankings above the numbers becomes 21 decent players from 86 selections. That is an abject failure.

Below is the list I compiled of our draft/trade periods, if you want to do your own rankings. Players in italics were rookie selections:

2004

· Angus Monfries

· Andrew Lee

· Henry Slattery

· Paul Thomas

· Ty Zantuck

· Ryan Bain

· Ben Jolley

2005

· Richard Cole

· Paddy Ryder

· Courtenay Dempsey

· Jay Neagle (F/S)

· Sam Lonergan

· Austin Lucy

· Scott Camporeale

· Chris Heffernan

· Lachlan McKinnon

· Heath Hocking

· Matthew Firman

· Tim O’Keefe

2006

· Scott Gumbleton

· Leroy Jetta

· Tom Hislop

· Alwyn Davey

· Bachar Houli

· Kyle Reimers

· Mal Michael

· Dean Dick

· Danny Chartres

· Adam Ramanauskas

2007

· David Myers

· Tayte Pears

· Darcy Daniher (F/S)

· Cale Hooker

· John Williams

· Tom Bellchambers

· Rhys Magin

· Jarrod Atkinson


2008

· Brent Prismall

· Michael Hurley

· David Zaharakis

· Michael Still

· Tyson Slattery

· Hayden Skipworth

· Bryce Carroll

· Thomas German

· Christian Bock

· Kade Klemke

· Michael Quinn

2009

· Mark Williams

· Jake Melksham

· Jake Carlisle

· Travis Colyer

· Anthony Long

· Kyle Hardingham

· Taite Silverlock

· Ben Howlett

· Stewart Crameri

· Marcus Marigliani

· John Williams

2010

· Dyson Heppell

· Ariel Steinberg

· Alex Browne

· Luke Davis

· Michael Ross

· Michael Hibberd

· Josh Jenkins

· Jay Neagle (rookied)

· Tyson Slattery (rookied)

· James Webster

2011

· Elliot Kavanagh

· Jackson Merrett

· Nick O’Brien

· Lachie Dalgleish

· Cory Dell’Olio

· Mark Baguley

· Hal Hunter

· Brendan Lee

· Anthony Long (rookied)

2012

· Brendon Goddard

· Joe Daniher (F/S)

· Jason Ashby

· Dylan Van Unen

· Martin Gleeson

· Nick Kommer

· Will Hams

· Ariel Steinberg (rookied)

2013

· Kurt Aylett

· Shane Edwards

· Paul Chapman

· Zach Merrett

· Orazio Fantasia

· Fraser Thurlow

· Patrick Ambrose

· Johnny Rayner

2014

· James Gwiilt

· Jonathan Giles

· Adam Cooney

· Kyle Langford

· Jayden Laverde

· Shaun McKernan

· Kurt Aylett (rookied)

· Jake Long

· Conor Mckenna

 

[ManWithNoName]

I spent far too long on this thread for it to get no replies.

 

[quotemokc]

Ok so you have made this list. Fine.

But how does it compare to other teams? I am not asking you to do a summation of other teams, but most of the time recruiters have just as much success/failure as all other recruiters.

• I would still consider Kav and Ashby as iffy

 

[ManWithNoName]

Ok so you have made this list. Fine.

But how does it compare to other teams? I am not asking you to do a summation of other teams, but most of the time recruiters have just as much success/failure as all other recruiters.

• I would still consider Kav and Ashby as iffy

I just opened the 2004 AFL Draft page again and started going through it for Hawthorn to begin a comparison.

First three names: Roughead, Franklin, Lewis.

I then closed the window.

 

[Ashton Agar]

I would still consider Kav and Ashby as iffy

Yeah how are Kav and Ashby failures when Will Hams is iffy?
MWNN you might be taking into account where they were taken, but you shouldn't seeing as you are purely assessing the quality of the players brought into the club.

 

[FlyingV]

geez, 2011 killed us. Those boys should be hitting their straps now and really contributing, look what Ellis provides Richmond, tom Mitchell for Syd, or Docherty for now Carlton. It looks like We fired three blanks with Kav, Merrett and Moose.

 

[frenchfri12]

Mal Michael Decent?
Gumbleton Failure?

W
T
F
?

 

[ManWithNoName]

Mal Michael Decent?
Gumbleton Failure?

W
T
F
?

Michael was decent in that he played the role he needed to. He served a purpose.

 

[frenchfri12]

Did I ever mention actually watching him play?

 

[quotemokc]

I just opened the 2004 AFL Draft page again and started going through it for Hawthorn to begin a comparison.

First three names: Roughead, Franklin, Lewis.

I then closed the window.

3 picks in the top 10 can be handy

But look at Carlton and Melbourne with their top end picks, not always the road to retribution

 

[Bunk Moreland]

Average 2 decent players a year?

How does that compare with others?

I think Dodoro needs to be moved on, but not really because he's been that bad. We just need a fresh set of eyes.

 

[BrunoV]

The only reason you look pre 2007 is to make a point that is not supported by the job done by the contemporary set up.

Bullshit thread!

 

[ManWithNoName]

The only reason you look pre 2007 is to make a point that is not supported by the job done by the contemporary set up.

Bullshit thread!

No I chose 2004, as I said, because it's when we were last half decent.

 

[BrunoV]

No I chose 2004, as I said, because it's when we were last half decent.

And I'm saying it is irrelevant in a 'sack dodoro thread'.

 

[Kakkle]

You could do this for every single club, and it'll look fairly similar.

 

[Bunk Moreland]

I think our drafting has been quite decent. My major issue with our list management is it's soft. That's resulted in a glut of players now who really, by rights, shouldn't be on the list.

We're talking guys who over the past 3, 4, even 5 years, have not played more than a handful of senior games. If they haven't claimed a senior spot now, they're never going to. And it's not as if we're talking young rucks or KPPs who you need to be patient with. We need to be more active in turning over mediocre talent in the hope to find some better talent.

It's why I advocate a clean-out of list management. I started a thread on it weeks ago. We need a fresh set of eyes that isn't emotionally invested in this list and can make calls purely on output.

Drafting and list management are two very different things. I think our drafting has been ok. Our list management however, all over the place and not producing results.

 

[Gumby2Hurley]

The 2006 draft hurts me to this day. 5 flops, 3 of them being top 20 draft picks while the one decent player is yellow and black.

 

[Summer Nights]

Any drafting assessment is meaningless without reviewing what players were available in the draft at the points where our picks were. Front memory this sort of discussion has been done a few times on this board and the results were that more often than not, most other players on or after our pick numbers didn't make it at afl level with other teams. Therefore we've done mostly okay with the picks we've had.

The ones that piss me off the most are Melksham and Zaka. They're at the age where we need them to be firing but they just don't have big enough hearts.

 

[ManWithNoName]

Alright maybe I went the wrong route.

Don't look at it as drafting the wrong players. Look at it as why is our player development so terrible? You can include players like Houli and Jenkins in that. Why were they spuds for us but go elsewhere and rip it up?

 

[Pweter]

Alright maybe I went the wrong route.

Don't look at it as drafting the wrong players. Look at it as why is our player development so terrible? You can include players like Houli and Jenkins in that. Why were they spuds for us but go elsewhere and rip it up?

For me this comes back to list management. We seem to retain players who are borderline best 22 for too long, hence denying kids a chance in the seniors. Houli wasn't a spud but had some serious chinks in his armour that have been corrected by continued exposure at the top level. Jenkins wasn't close when he was with us, but he had potential.

One that really annoys me is Paul Thomas, he was never given a decent chance. In one week, dropped for the next 4 type scenario. I may be biased as I've seen him absolutely flourish at Centrals over the years but he had plenty to offer in the manner that Spurr is at Freo (though Thomas would've forced his way into our midfield eventually).

 

[Loonerty]

Why were they spuds for us but go elsewhere and rip it up?

Jenkins wasn't really a spud for us, he was on the rookie list when we had Hille, Ryder and Bellchambers on the senior list.

Adelaide offered him a senior spot, and us a 10 pick upgrade and we took it.

 

[BrunoV]

Alright maybe I went the wrong route.

Don't look at it as drafting the wrong players. Look at it as why is our player development so terrible? You can include players like Houli and Jenkins in that. Why were they spuds for us but go elsewhere and rip it up?

Was assuming that you were aware of the change in structure for the 2007 season as far as list management and recruiting were concerned.

Dodoro was basically the recruiting department and the list management team on his own to this point. For the 2007 draft Merve Keane was brought in to head up recruiting with Dodoro overseeing the whole list management process.


Redo the numbers from 2007 to 2012 because that's the group of players we taken most of our best 22 from. They have not done a lot wrong since 2007 in terms of getting players into the club, there have certain been some bad choices but there has been some inspired selection too. The error has been the way in which the players are being managed.


The major problem with the threads that assess recruiting performances is that they assume that just because a player was available with a certain pick in a draft that there was an obvious choice to recruit that player at that time. If you go down the 'how did we miss Luke Parker' path then our recruiters have to get the credit of selecting players like Zac Merrett, Carlisle, Hooker, Gleeson and Hibberd who were steals.


A real issue that I have with the process (I don't know if it is recruiting or something that is going wrong with development) and something that I was previously trying to explain away as though it was part of a long term strategy is the complete lack of physicality of so many of our younger players. How can St Kilda's crop of younger young players be that much more physically developed than our guys? I do worry about the focus on players who lack physicality (be it strength and power, speed or endurance).


The biggest problem we have had for two years now is that it's been far too difficult for young guys who are performing well at VFL level to get games in the side. For a side that has been as mediocre as we have been during that period it's hardly justifiable and it has become particularly frustrating this year. When they have been getting games they are being played out of position and very few players have been given an extended run.

Dalgleish, for example, has not regained his form following a knee injury in arctic conditions at Sandi in round 1 this year when his performances in the NAB challenge and his attributes more than justified a delayed start to the season for one of the mediocre best 22 players who had not even done a proper pre-season.

It's a particularly sickening feeling that we ran out one of the worst sides, in terms of structure and personnel, to take the field in the last 18 months of footy (league wide) got belted by 110 points with the reserves getting smashed by Williamstown the day before. We keep waiting too long to play young players.

 

[DapperJong]

I spent far too long on this thread for it to get no replies.

Hard to add much. Nice job.

 

[NoIdea]

For me this comes back to list management. We seem to retain players who are borderline best 22 for too long, hence denying kids a chance in the seniors.

Hird made the comment a couple of weeks ago (in response to questioning about why under-performing players were still in the side) that statistically speaking, you struggle to win games when you have seven or more players with less than 50 games under their belt in the side. St Kilda had eight that I could see, and for those that may not have heard the result, beat us by 110 points. The Bulldogs had 11 players with less than 50 games, and are looking at playing finals.

While there will always be permutations regarding draft positions/selections that give excuses to the recruiters, the fact is we haven't developed our list as well as other teams. Have a look at how many of the drafts in the past 5 years or so that Hawthorn/Geelong/Sydney have had high draft picks, and then look at the young players they've introduced successfully into a successful team.

I would argue that we have a cultural problem of rewarding underachievers, which has led to a distinct lack of depth in our list through lack of competition for spots.

 

[Bunk Moreland]

Alright maybe I went the wrong route.

Don't look at it as drafting the wrong players. Look at it as why is our player development so terrible? You can include players like Houli and Jenkins in that. Why were they spuds for us but go elsewhere and rip it up?

Jenkins wasn't a spud, had only just started playing footy. We had a lot of rucks at the time in front of him.

Houli was simply a cockup. We continually played him as a midfielder. He's not a mid and never has been. He doesn't have the tank and can't win his own ball. He could outrun blokes in the VFL, then we'd play him, he'd inevitably not make the step up, and we'd drop him after one or two games.

With his skill set a HBF is his role, Richmond to their credit knew this and targeted him as such.