Are we in a full rebuild?

[mike123]

http://www.afl.com.au/news/2014-10-22/pies-set-to-surprise-a-few

I'm with Bucks, I think we'll surprise a few this year and catch a few teams off guard.

Top 4 finish whilst rebuilding at the same time.

 

[Vinnie Vegas]

After this year, we will have had 7 first round picks in the last 3 years... If we are rebuilding then we're certainly doing a damn fine job of it.

 

[jmac70]

Buckley didn't say rebuild but directly inferred it.
But it looks like the club is admitting it's in a rebuild.
I also felt this quote interesting.

That's funny.

 

[HFF]

We are in a building phase whether it's full rebuild or not.

We have stockpiled first rounders for departing players. However, we needed to add some experienced players- we cannot afford to let guys like Cloke, Pendles, Sidebottom, Reid and Swan run around getting smashed week in week out.

 

[jmac70]

The OP sounds like we are planning on flying to the moon.

 

[THATSGOLD]

Who have we actually traded that is actually playing well for their new club? How many were committed to us? Maybe heater.

You just go so overboard. Do you expect anyone to take you seriously?

We have nothing to do with their development at another club.

 

[THATSGOLD]

Which one of the players that have left have proven the club wrong?

Correct, Ceglar is the only one to improve.

I'll take Grundy and Witts thanks.

We have no control on how they develop. What was wrong with the form of Wellingham and Shaw when they left?
Daisy was a star could still get back to that.
Beams is a star.
Dawes was a gun until Buckley put him in the ruck.
All in all that team was brilliant, 3/4 of it should still be there and we should've just topped up the bloke that retired.

 

[Old Spice]

We have no control on how they develop. What was wrong with the form of Wellingham and Shaw when they left?
Daisy was a star could still get back to that.
Beams is a star.
Dawes was a gun until Buckley put him in the ruck.
All in all that team was brilliant, 3/4 of it should still be there and we should've just topped up the bloke that retired.

Come one mate, we've already been through this. You thought Dawes was average when we had him and you always put a gloss on players we can't get or no longer have and run down the others. Just give it a rest before you become more cartoony than you already are.

 

[Pie_fan92]

We have no control on how they develop. What was wrong with the form of Wellingham and Shaw when they left?
Daisy was a star could still get back to that.
Beams is a star.
Dawes was a gun until Buckley put him in the ruck.
All in all that team was brilliant, 3/4 of it should still be there and we should've just topped up the bloke that retired.

Daisy couldn't give a stuff about the club mate. He's the guy that went surfing instead of putting 100% into doing his rehab.
Dawes was not a gun. He was an honest battler. Puts in a s**t season, we tell him that he'll have to earn his spot the following year. He packs his bags and leaves.
Wellingham has done zero at the eagles. Has been inconsistent his entire career.
Shaw was good. But seriously, watch the EF against port again. His brain fades cost us that game and unfortunately he had a very bad temper when the going got tough.
Beams, well it sucks that he has left. He is probably the only player that I'm spewing about. But what can you do? he didn't want to hang around and that will be his loss.

Collingwood will win a premiership before any of those guys that left will. They will be the ones thinking "I should of just put in the hard yards".
Grateful for their services during their time at the club but its time for everyone to move on.

 

[domin8tors]

Buckley didn't say rebuild but directly inferred it.
But it looks like the club is admitting it's in a rebuild.
I also felt this quote interesting.

the club has not denied that we are in a mini rebuild phase over the last 2 years, what he is saying is that despite the fact we are in a rebuild phase we don't expect to drop off. given our first half of 2014 we were sitting in the top 4. the only reason that it dropped off was the balance shifted to much with experienced injured players out. like Him or not our drop in form correlated with the loss of the Hard body and leadership of Nick Maxwell. he played the first half of the year and if people recall he was in line for a AA call up.

 

[domin8tors]

Pretty much. Which is a concern given we were the youngest premier in almost 30 years only 4 seasons ago.

yes but we had depth with senior players which we don't have at the moment. you forget that we had guys like, lockyer, Fraser, Presti, Leon who didn't play in the 2nd final, Obree, Medhurst

 

[Adz]

Obviously we are in rebuild mode.

We have forced Jolly and Didak into retirement, Shaw got traded for a young player and we didn't bother matching the offer for Dale Thomas. I have never seen a team turnover so many players in a space of 4 years after winning the flag.

We are in rebuild mode but we are doing it wrong. We brought in Lynch (spud but gone now), Young (spud) and now we got Varcoe who is not the player you would bring in when rebuilding the team. None of those players are going to make any team a contender and none of those players are players you would bring in to the club when rebuilding either.

Ah well, we shall wait and see how this all pans out in the next few years.

You're gonna have to change your avatar, mate.

 

[Unknown Identity]

We have the luxury of rebuilding while still remaining a chance to play finals.. Not many clubs can say that.

Injury profile will play a large part whether we can finish in the 8, injury free list will see us finish 6-8th..

If we have another injury stricken year like this one we will finish 11-13th.

 

[domin8tors]

Of course we are. We've traded out half a premiership team for kids.

5 players is half the team is it ? so if we mean team as in the 22 on the day then we only trade 23% not 50%. if we mean the collective of 40 players then we traded 11%. and Had we kept dawes and wellingham at the time someone else would have gotten squeezed out perhaps cloke, pendles or Reid. and then then you would be having a sook about that.

 

[domin8tors]

We are in a building phase whether it's full rebuild or not.

We have stockpiled first rounders for departing players. However, we needed to add some experienced players- we cannot afford to let guys like Cloke, Pendles, Sidebottom, Reid and Swan run around getting smashed week in week out.

Hawks are by definition doing a mini rebuild. why do people think they brought in Frawley... To replace Lake. all teams rebuild

 

[Pie_fan92]

Hawks are by definition doing a mini rebuild. why do people think they brought in Frawley... To replace Lake. all teams rebuild

Yeah but once Mitchell and Hodge go things will be a lot harder for them

 

[DNine]

yes but we had depth with senior players which we don't have at the moment. you forget that we had guys like, lockyer, Fraser, Presti, Leon who didn't play in the 2nd final, Obree, Medhurst

Good point. We always look back on the premiership side, and consider what we had. But these players you mention, are the players that got us through the season, and the young ones came in and won the finals because they were fresh.

This way gives us an insight as to what went so horribly wrong this year. You can't put a side out there all year that is young, and expect to get through all of it and be fresh and fit enough at the end, to be able to finish the job.

Fascinating intricate game we follow. It is true when they say it is a marathon not a sprint.

What goes against this idea, is Port this year. A young profile, a seeming serious drop off, and they came back and almost beat Hawthorn, but that is almost.

It takes trickery in a way I believe. At times when we hear a player is carrying niggles into a game, we play them anyway. I think we need to be smarter than that. Playing guys not 100% fit, is asking for trouble. Yet every year, we see it again and again.

We need to spread the load WIDE. We need to use almost all our players. Toward the end of the year, we had to, we were forced to. And although the replacements might not of been ideal, we did alright. We were only blown away with a few games this year. Bombers, West Coast, Lions and Hawks are the ones etched into my memory. But some of these were with three injured players on the bench, but at the end of the day, we looked terrible, and it was ONE game, it was only FOUR points.

We need to work harder with floored opponents. We need to use our best players against them. We need to forget about testing ourselves against the best sides. Forget it. We are not going to win in the Home and Away against these teams, so why injure our best players against them, so we can get fairly close, and then lose to a Bulldogs team, or a Gold Coast team, because we are spent trying.

Where did the Suns finish, where did West Coast finish, Where did the Lions finish? There are three wins right there. If we all knew that we are testing against the lesser lights, we could virtually go down without a fight against the stronger teams, and not panick internally. But more importantly don't wreck out best against them.

I think we need to do things differently. While others are resting players against the worst, we should rest them against the best. I have never known it to go that way for any side, but I have seen a lot of sides fail doing it the traditional way.

Perhaps we need to set up a bit like our premiership side. We have some awesome young kids, that can do what Port did. But we need to protect them.

There are some players that are seasoned and flawed out there, that can play a role for us, to rotate with our young kids, and get us in. Once we are in, it starts again.

Mitch Robinson is my number one. Yes he is a pain in the arse, but get him. He would take a lot of heat off our younger kids. If he does poorly off field, so what, we delist him at years end. If he strikes players, and misses a couple of weeks, so what, we are in full rotation anyway.

Clinton Jones, Taylor Hunt, Brock McLean. There are others that could be role players. But of course you can't recruit all these players, and have a rotation like I am thinking. But you can draft a player in Hudson's spot, and rookie list players that will not be ready this year. Ramsey, Oxley, Marsh, all could be rookied. Of course you would need to give them some guarantees, but I think in the AFL you need to be smart, you need to spread the load throughout the marathon, and not try to have people run the whole way.

I think soon, gone will be the day that players play 25 games for the season. You need to get deep, and everyone needs to play 15-17 games for the full season. Fresh players with little niggles will win games of football, not spent flawless players who have just run a marathon.

 

[Cousin of Daicos]

yes but we had depth with senior players which we don't have at the moment. you forget that we had guys like, lockyer, Fraser, Presti, Leon who didn't play in the 2nd final, Obree, Medhurst

Fair point

 

[PieBeast]

Hawks are by definition doing a mini rebuild. why do people think they brought in Frawley... To replace Lake. all teams rebuild

Rebuild my arse.

Thats called making the strongest side in the league even stronger.

 

[Horaceg]

I don't think it is a rebuild but we made some changes for the future. Should we have kept Jolly one more year to bring on Witts and Grundy, possibly, they could have benefitted. I said "let him go" at the time because I believe and still do that we will have the best ruck combination in time, hopefully it starts this year. Didak wasn't getting a game and was breaking down (one of my Favourites) but the reality is that time catches up. Shaw was a mess on and off the field, we punted his brother Rhys and that was a possible mistake. Daisy left for money, Beams wanted to go home, sounds like a combination of a few things, Harry is just a dead set worry and we will miss on game day. I am glad Dawes left, he was frustrating and hated watching him. I thought Wellingham was going to be the next big thing before he left but has done nothing since.

This year will be a good one, I think we needed to change tack from 2010-2011, the game has changed and we need to adapt, it changes every year and unless you are in front of it you get left behind. You just keeping changing parts of the whole until what you started with no longer exists but the stripes stay the same, the colours stay the same and the intent should stay the same. The game is simple, score more than the opposition.

 

[Pie_fan92]

Rebuild my arse.

Thats called making the strongest side in the league even stronger.

We got Tarrant and Krakouer after winning a premiership. As did Sydney when they got Tippet. It happens...

 

[Knightmare]

Full rebuild would be what the Dogs are doing.. trading Cooney and Griffen.

What we're doing is considered a retool. Just injecting some new youth and moving on some of the old pieces, while still mostly as best we can maintain our core group.

Not that doing either is fun. But it's the process we are going through in any case.

 

[HFF]

Hawks are by definition doing a mini rebuild. why do people think they brought in Frawley... To replace Lake. all teams rebuild

When you are the best team in the competition and you add more quality to your list it isn't a rebuild, it's improving the list to remain at the top.

Completely different to us at the moment who are bringing in many first round draft choices and a sprinkle of B graders at best to try and remain competitive.

 

[jonbe54]

When you are the best team in the competition and you add more quality to your list it isn't a rebuild, it's improving the list to remain at the top.

Completely different to us at the moment who are bringing in many first round draft choices and a sprinkle of B graders at best to try and remain competitive.

I see that as a superficial assessment, on the surface it holds up but looking a bit deeper shows its flaws.

We have had the most incredible run of injuries and illnesses to top line players and key recruits stretching back to the second half of the '11 season.

It's superficial to state that a list isn't competitive when it's been constantly decimated.

Agree on the Hawks but I'll wait until we can get something remotely resembling our A side on the field before jumping off the cliff in disappointment.

 

[PieBeast]

We got Tarrant and Krakouer after winning a premiership. As did Sydney when they got Tippet. It happens...

Yeah it does but it isn't called rebuild.

Hawthorn's and our situations are completely incomparable.