Analysis Critical analysis of our current position.

[TheHoneyBadger]

Apart from Bont McRae and Stringer what has he done well mate ?

I think he has nailed 3 picks in 24 or more IMO and that's not counting this year into that equation.

I agree time will tell how it ends but at the moment I'm not exactly rapt with what he has done

I think he deserves more credit for selecting Bontempelli, Macrae and Stringer. For a variety of reasons, none were really home-run talents going into the draft. Now they're 3 of the most impressive young players in the league.

2009 was horrendous, but as far as I know he wasn't working in that position full time. I'll exclude 2010 because I don't think a parallel universe exists in which we weren't selecting Wallis and Libba.

Since then, he's been reasonably impressive, I thought. Clay Smith and Michael Talia have only really been impeded by injury and poor management respectively, the jury is still out on Daniel Pearce and whatever you think of him, Dickson was a good pick at the time - mature body & just kicks goals.

2012 was excellent. Stringer, Macrae, Hrovat (braces self) and Hunter all look like quality long term players, and we'll wait and see with Prudden.

2013 was hit and miss. Bontempelli, massive hit. Fuller, has had awful injuries but looks meh. Honeychurch was ridiculously good value at 60. I'll give it a year or so before commenting on the 2014 draft, but I was a bit disappointed that they didn't attempt to balance out the list.

It's still so early on, really - Clay Smith, Talia, Dickson, Hrovat, Hunter, Prudden & Honeychurch could all be playing consistent senior football come season's end. I'd suggest a few names among that group would already be locks if not for injury/other circumstances.

He's in a difficult position - we expect a lot of his picks because of the youth-oriented approach we've taken in the last couple of years. Players we've written off or pigeonholed as ordinary at best could yet have impressive careers.

Having said all that, I totally understand where you're coming from - he's far from set the world on fire, and there's every chance many of these guys just don't work out. Hopefully for our sake, that's not the case.

 

[Mattdougie]

I think he deserves more credit for selecting Bontempelli, Macrae and Stringer. For a variety of reasons, none were really home-run talents going into the draft. Now they're 3 of the most impressive young players in the league.

2009 was horrendous, but as far as I know he wasn't working in that position full time. I'll exclude 2010 because I don't think a parallel universe exists in which we weren't selecting Wallis and Libba.

Since then, he's been reasonably impressive, I thought. Clay Smith and Michael Talia have only really been impeded by injury and poor management respectively, the jury is still out on Daniel Pearce and whatever you think of him, Dickson was a good pick at the time - mature body & just kicks goals.

2012 was excellent. Stringer, Macrae, Hrovat (braces self) and Hunter all look like quality long term players, and we'll wait and see with Prudden.

2013 was hit and miss. Bontempelli, massive hit. Fuller, has had awful injuries but looks meh. Honeychurch was ridiculously good value at 60. I'll give it a year or so before commenting on the 2014 draft, but I was a bit disappointed that they didn't attempt to balance out the list.

It's still so early on, really - Clay Smith, Talia, Dickson, Hrovat, Hunter, Prudden & Honeychurch could all be playing consistent senior football come season's end. I'd suggest a few names among that group would already be locks if not for injury/other circumstances.

He's in a difficult position - we expect a lot of his picks because of the youth-oriented approach we've taken in the last couple of years. Players we've written off or pigeonholed as ordinary at best could yet have impressive careers.

Having said all that, I totally understand where you're coming from - he's far from set the world on fire, and there's every chance many of these guys just don't work out. Hopefully for our sake, that's not the case.

My biggest issue with him is this "best available" cr@p.

Hawthorn take the player that they most need that is agailable at that spot and I think they have Cleary been the best drafters in the last ten years.

There late picks at times are random but other than that they take the player they need no garbage "best available" because the while thing is a lottery and they gamble of players they need not players that might be good and we will somehow got into out team.

 

[ducksonthepond]

Yet - and not so much me but Professor has been posting the same line for the past couple of years and predicted our clubs downfall. Might be time to start listening to people's views that don't appear on the official Western Bulldogs Twitter account.

Feel free to ask any of the senior players over the past 3 year what they thought of McCartney's plan too. Both the ones that have left and remained. They weren't prepared to accept mediocrity.

Are you for real Butane, which senior payers?
The Professor now has a Phd in "CODS WOLLOP" and by your recent posts you seem to be in your final year

 

[ducksonthepond]

It's all well and good to bash the club's philosophy in 'blowing it up' but nobody has, as yet, suggested a feasible alternative. It seems the general gist of the argument is, "We shouldn't have rebuilt, we should have.........." That's as far as the posts I've read on the topic have gone. Those that argue against making our list younger in the "McCartney years" are philosophically correct, I agree. Making your list younger is not a recipe for current success - what every side should be striving for. In practice, though, the shoddiest of shoddy list management backed us into a corner and made our position a difficult one.

In order to illustrate this I managed to track down our list from when McCartney took over in the back end of 2011.



Before McCartney had any input on the list at all, Hall, Hahn and Hudson* retired. Stack (poor player) and Schofield (personal reasons) were delisted. Josh Hill (who was very average) was traded after a mutual agreement to part ways. Of what remained, Djerkurra, Hill, Hooper, Howard, Markovic, Moles, Mulligan, Reid, Sherman, Skinner, Veszpremi, Barlow, Panos and Prato were never up to it or never wanted it enough. Addison was an average player. We're still waiting, years later, for Cordy to do something. Ditto Jones and Tutt. Roughead and Johannisen took a few years to fire. Williams, Cooney, Higgins and Wood had persistent injury troubles. That's 30 of those 44 players that were of little use to us before McCartney came to the club. You can't even name a best 22 without including a below average player.

Compounding this is the age situation. Of those not spoken about above, eight players were over the age of 28. One of these was Morris who didn't play a game the next year. Hargrave was well past his best and played only 12 games. Ditto Gilbee, who only played four. So, for starters, there's no way you can justify McCartney dragging us down between the end of 2011 and the start of 2012. Who the hell, from that list, was going to win us games?

My question is simple: how do you turn a list, with well over 50% of the players on it just about useless to us, into a competitive unit? How do you turn that list into one that competes for a flag in the short-term?

In principle I agree that these sorts of rebuilds should never be attempted - you should always be seeking to contend every year. But this only works if you manage the list appropriately over time, and draft well. During Eade's reign, we did neither. The list was in an atrocious state and we were hamstrung by it.

I don't agree with all elements of the rebuild - I believe we've gone too young, I don't believe we've been putting our best team out on the park and I don't think we did enough to add quality middle-aged players to our list during our rebuild - but the options that were available to us were few.

Great post Dannnnnnnnnnnnnn.

I agree with all elements of our rebuild - and I believe we've gone about it the right way, we are building a culture now that the cancer has just about been flushed. but as you said the options that were available to us were few.

 

[Proffessor]

Great post Dannnnnnnnnnnnnn.

I agree with all elements of our rebuild - and I believe we've gone about it the right way, we are building a culture now that the cancer has just about been flushed. but as you said the options that were available to us were few.

If you agree with all elements of the rebuild, then what cancer are you referring to?
Surely you can't be referring to our culture pre-McCartney as cancerous, can you?

You seem a little confused.

 

[Proffessor]

Are you for real Butane, which senior payers?
The Professor now has a Phd in "CODS WOLLOP" and by your recent posts you seem to be in your final year

How did you get a copy of my thesis?

 

[lachy]

Dannnn,

Where did I say that we would have been rewarded with a flag in 2012-14, or argued that the alternatives would be anything close to utopian? I wish you (and few others) would resist the temptation and not put words into my mouth to make my position sound less reasonable.

I don't think there is much point arguing about the details of what we could have done differently, because we didn't and will never get the chance to see what would have resulted had we done so. It is easy to say that things wouldn't have been any better because no one can prove otherwise, but that doesn't make it true. In fact when you consider our current situation, it is easier to argue that doing things differently would have put the club in an improved position simply because we have sunk so low it is hard to imagine things turning out any worse.

It is understandable that many posters such as yourself struggle a little with criticisms of rebuilding philosophies, and feel the need to defend the approaches that we have taken. However rather than focusing on rationalising the decisions that the club made, I think it would be more enlightening if you looked at some of the positive aspects that could have arisen had we taken a different approach. Cooney passing to Tom Boyd, or Lake to Crameri, might have made for some good viewing.

You should also remember that the difference between the top and the bottom teams in professional sport can be smaller than they sometimes appear and as a result a few small changes can lead to teams racing up the ladder. Port Adelaide's rapid ascent with a change in coach but close to the same playing list is a good example of this.

It is also worth considering the difference that bringing Cross and Grant back in the second half of 2013 had on our own team. The inclusion of these two players (both much maligned on this forum) helped turn the team's fortunes around quite suddenly and dramatically.

By the way, what exactly did we achieve by pushing out most of our senior players and sacrificing 3 seasons that has some how set us up for the future in a better manner? What did we get that we couldn't have gained otherwise?

Prof I agree there are multiple ways to rebuild and of course it could have been done better. I am not as enamoured as some with Dalrymple and his drafting, and J McCartney as a list manager is a recent choice.

However, we did not push out most of our senior players, they were done. Hargrave and Gilbee struggled several rungs below, Sherman was back in local football in 2 years for example. Most were either done or simply overrated by us, the supporters.

Cooneys knee meant getting 3 good games in a row was an impossibility, and though Crossy is doing well at the dees really you could not have him and Boyd in the same team, it was getting regularly cut up. Lake at Hawthorn only needs to play 6 to 8 quality games a year, which is what he does, to stay up as you prescribe requires allot more.

Geelong and Hawthorn built youth first, then recruit for needs, they stayed up longer because the truth is they simply had more better players than we did. Incidentally the saints also built through youth and were one bad bounce and a toe poke away from 2 flags. Port Adelaide are doing the same. So too did Collingwood. Is it right way to go? Well it seems to work.

However, look at the teams who have not been close in the last decade, ie limited prelims and when they get there lose by 10 goals plus:
North
Richmond
Carlton
Essendon
Melbourne
Brisbane(yes over a decade now)

How have they gone about these rebuilds and how sustainable were they?

We are an underfunded club that has lacked depth of talent when we have got to the pointy end, will this group take us there? In its current state not even close, but if we keep the core continue to improve, recruit best available for needs then who knows. But is it Macca's fault, no it is no individuals fault we are we are, but hopefully we are on a better track now

 

[Hrovat24]

I think he deserves more credit for selecting Bontempelli, Macrae and Stringer. For a variety of reasons, none were really home-run talents going into the draft. Now they're 3 of the most impressive young players in the league.

2009 was horrendous, but as far as I know he wasn't working in that position full time. I'll exclude 2010 because I don't think a parallel universe exists in which we weren't selecting Wallis and Libba.

Since then, he's been reasonably impressive, I thought. Clay Smith and Michael Talia have only really been impeded by injury and poor management respectively, the jury is still out on Daniel Pearce and whatever you think of him, Dickson was a good pick at the time - mature body & just kicks goals.

2012 was excellent. Stringer, Macrae, Hrovat (braces self) and Hunter all look like quality long term players, and we'll wait and see with Prudden.

2013 was hit and miss. Bontempelli, massive hit. Fuller, has had awful injuries but looks meh. Honeychurch was ridiculously good value at 60. I'll give it a year or so before commenting on the 2014 draft, but I was a bit disappointed that they didn't attempt to balance out the list.

It's still so early on, really - Clay Smith, Talia, Dickson, Hrovat, Hunter, Prudden & Honeychurch could all be playing consistent senior football come season's end. I'd suggest a few names among that group would already be locks if not for injury/other circumstances.

He's in a difficult position - we expect a lot of his picks because of the youth-oriented approach we've taken in the last couple of years. Players we've written off or pigeonholed as ordinary at best could yet have impressive careers.

Having said all that, I totally understand where you're coming from - he's far from set the world on fire, and there's every chance many of these guys just don't work out. Hopefully for our sake, that's not the case.

To be fair Bonts stringer and macrae were all going to go top ten , if stringer didn't break his leg there is a fair chance he would have went at pick 1 , with Honeychurch well we all know you are going to be biased there

 

[Igloo]

To be fair Bonts stringer and macrae were all going to go top ten , if stringer didn't break his leg there is a fair chance he would have went at pick 1 , with Honeychurch well we all know you are going to be biased there

Not really. Macrae was seen as a massive chance to Carlton at 11, and wasn't even playing TAC cup the year before his draft year. His finals series boosted him right up.
Stringer was linked to the Cats at 16. But like you said, broken leg was the big factor for where he was going to be picked. To steal a term from Nathan, I believe he was a "home-run talent", just had to see who had the guts to take him. Glad we did.
Nobody knew where Bontempelli would go. A lot of people had him anywhere from around where we took him to late in the first round.

There were a few eyebrows raised at all 3 picks though. Some applauded them, some didn't like them.

 

[TheHoneyBadger]

Not really. Macrae was seen as a massive chance to Carlton at 11, and wasn't even playing TAC cup the year before his draft year. His finals series boosted him right up.
Stringer was linked to the Cats at 16. But like you said, broken leg was the big factor for where he was going to be picked. To steal a term from Nathan, I believe he was a "home-run talent", just had to see who had the guts to take him. Glad we did.
Nobody knew where Bontempelli would go. A lot of people had him anywhere from around where we took him to late in the first round.

There were a few eyebrows raised at all 3 picks though. Some applauded them, some didn't like them.

This. Also, I stole that term from Fronk.

 

[Butane]

I'm happy with Stringer and Macrae but picking good players in that draft was like shooting fish in a barrel(unless you were Melbourne).

Wines went after Stringer and Macrae - As did Mayes, Vlaustin and Menzel - in that order. All those club supporters would probably say they'd rather their player than Stringer just as we would say would think Stringer is better than theirs.

 

[Hrovat24]

Not really. Macrae was seen as a massive chance to Carlton at 11, and wasn't even playing TAC cup the year before his draft year. His finals series boosted him right up.
Stringer was linked to the Cats at 16. But like you said, broken leg was the big factor for where he was going to be picked. To steal a term from Nathan, I believe he was a "home-run talent", just had to see who had the guts to take him. Glad we did.
Nobody knew where Bontempelli would go. A lot of people had him anywhere from around where we took him to late in the first round.

There were a few eyebrows raised at all 3 picks though. Some applauded them, some didn't like them.

Based on ability all of them could have went top 5 , but I agree with where they were expected to go or where phantom drafters guessed they would go , dalrymple did take a risk just believe the ability was always there

 

[threenewpadlocks]

I've heard that Bontempelli was pretty much 100% guaranteed to go to Collingwood at pick 6, and before the draft they thought that they had their man.

 

[100action]

I'm happy with Stringer and Macrae but picking good players in that draft was like shooting fish in a barrel(unless you were Melbourne).

Wines went after Stringer and Macrae - As did Mayes, Vlaustin and Menzel - in that order. All those club supporters would probably say they'd rather their player than Stringer just as we would say would think Stringer is better than theirs.

Macrae was a reach, he was widely tipped to go around pick 10.
Bontempelli was also a reach, he was considered 15 - 20 status a few months out, became someone Collingwood was keen on 2 weeks before the draft and we gambled with pick 4.
Stringer can also be considered a reach as many drafters and people who had 'industry sources' didnt have him going top 5 until 1 day before the draft.

Dalrymple has one big failure and that was the selection of Howard and Tutt, i consider that forgiveable for now given the fact our top picks in recent years werent automatic selections (think boyd, dustin martin, petracca, mccartin etc)

 

[Mutt]

Macrae was a reach, he was widely tipped to go around pick 10.
Bontempelli was also a reach, he was considered 15 - 20 status a few months out, became someone Collingwood was keen on 2 weeks before the draft and we gambled with pick 4.
Stringer can also be considered a reach as many drafters and people who had 'industry sources' didnt have him going top 5 until 1 day before the draft.

Dalrymple has one big failure and that was the selection of Howard and Tutt, i consider that forgiveable for now given the fact our top picks in recent years werent automatic selections (think boyd, dustin martin, petracca, mccartin etc)

If Stringer, Macrae and Bontempelli were all reaches, then I hope Dalrymple keeps on reaching.

 

[ErnieSigley]

Dalrymple reached more for Howard and Tutt than those 3 mentioned.
Forgivable I'm not so sure.
The stars that went around Howard and Tutt would have set us up a lot better

 

[dogwatch]

Dalrymple reached more for Howard and Tutt than those 3 mentioned.
Forgivable I'm not so sure.
The stars that went around Howard and Tutt would have set us up a lot better

Meaning ...? You would sack him in 2015 for a failure in his first year?

Many of us would have decidedly different careers now if we were sacked for our errors of judgement in our first year or two.
I realise the weakness in this: AFL is a cut-throat business and you can't afford stuff-ups, but how many seasoned recruiters have never made a poor call with their first pick?

IMO Dalrymple hasn't stuffed up badly since the Howard-Tutt (Carlisle/Fyfe-Sam Reid ) draft. He has done a lot right in that time and is probably going a little better than the average of his peers, taking into account the picks they have all had.

So I wouldn't be sacking him any time soon if I was PG. (Mind you, I would have given it serious consideration in 2010!)

 

[lachy]

The unfortunate reality of a recruiters performance is it takes 3 to 5 years to determine their overall performance and that is over a minimum 4 years.

So over the next 3 years Dalrymples performance will be measured by and large by those drafted excluding
Macrae, Stringer and Bonts and father sons and how many turn out to be a and b graders. At least 30% would have to reach this level of the rest to argue he has been a success. Personally, I have my doubts but am more than happy to be proven wrong

 

[King Harold]

Dalrymple reached more for Howard and Tutt than those 3 mentioned.
Forgivable I'm not so sure.
The stars that went around Howard and Tutt would have set us up a lot better

What day is it ? I agree with Ernie !

 

[ErnieSigley]

Meaning ...? You would sack him in 2015 for a failure in his first year?

Many of us would have decidedly different careers now if we were sacked for our errors of judgement in our first year or two.
I realise the weakness in this: AFL is a cut-throat business and you can't afford stuff-ups, but how many seasoned recruiters have never made a poor call with their first pick?

IMO Dalrymple hasn't stuffed up badly since the Howard-Tutt (Carlisle/Fyfe-Sam Reid ) draft. He has done a lot right in that time and is probably going a little better than the average of his peers, taking into account the picks they have all had.

So I wouldn't be sacking him any time soon if I was PG. (Mind you, I would have given it serious consideration in 2010!)

Meaning I would have him on notice. The picks he made over the last 3 years cant be really assessed yet.
As for reaching. Nobody knew of Howard when picked unlike Bonti Stringer and McRae.

 

[ErnieSigley]

The unfortunate reality of a recruiters performance is it takes 3 to 5 years to determine their overall performance and that is over a minimum 4 years.

So over the next 3 years Dalrymples performance will be measured by and large by those drafted excluding
Macrae, Stringer and Bonts and father sons and how many turn out to be a and b graders. At least 30% would have to reach this level of the rest to argue he has been a success. Personally, I have my doubts but am more than happy to be proven wrong

How do you assess Dalrymple on the Father/sons?
They were picked prior the draft

 

[Gmod23]

How do assess Dalrymple on the Father/sons?

Did we reach and overpay for the f/s?
Did we miss on one we should have paid for?
Again, 4 years after event we will know.

 

[ErnieSigley]

Did we reach and overpay for the f/s?
Did we miss on one we should have paid for?
Again, 4 years after event we will know.

We know enough A cordy libba and wallis to assess them.
Dalrymple not at fault or nor should he receive praise for them

 

[Mutt]

We know enough A cordy libba and wallis to assess them.
Dalrymple not at fault or nor should he receive praise for them

I agree with you Ernie on Howard - he was clearly a reach.... and I agree also that Stringer, Macrae and Bontempelli were not.

I'm not sure I agree that Dalrymple can be given no credit for the father/sons though. We passed on Foster but Carlton decided to select him. A couple of years ago Collingwood passed on an eligible father/son who was subsequently drafted another team. If either of those kids become good AFL players, the recruiters from Collingwood and the Bulldogs will quite rightly be judged harshly.

Making the decision whether to take a father/son selection may have less variables and may be a simpler decision than exercising a normal draft pick - but recruiters can get it very wrong. There are many times when recruiters should have passed on a father/son but didn't.

We should judge Dalrymple on the father/son selections but over-all they should be easier to get right than other picks.

 

[Gmod23]

We know enough A cordy libba and wallis to assess them.
Dalrymple not at fault or nor should he receive praise for them

1 fail and 2 good. Anyone that says we overpaid for Wallis needs their head read....
Cordy could have been anything but is nothing....
Hunter is not in for long enough yet. Needs to work on his pace and endurance but has skills and is likely to be good.