Review Good, Bad and Ugly vs Hawthorn

[1achie]

If my memory serves me correctly, several years ago Hawthorn bottomed out. And where are they now? You need to accumulate good players to have any realistic chance at a Flag. Sure, player development and a strong culture helps, but if you don't have the cattle to begin with - forget it.

I am in no way interested in deliberately losing. But what I am interested in is offloading older players, no matter what their current form, when it's clear we're either -

1. Not going to make the Finals
2. Or only barely scrape into the Finals by our fingernails, only to get bundled out in straight sets.

No, I'm not going to "support" another team, nor am I going to apologise for being a realist. What the Crows absolutely must focus on at the moment is accumulating the best players, not whether we win or lose in coming weeks. Feel free to agree or disagree, but I'm not going to stop supporting the Crows....to win a Flag. Neil Craig had an amazing win-loss record, but what did he really achieve in Finals? F*ck all. The Crows are in a dynamic environment with rules that the AFL stipulates. At the moment, being (just) a "good" side is not good enough, where you need to take a realistic approach if you want to succeed.

True, Hawthorn did bottom out but was that by choice or were they just very ordinary at the time?

We would all love a heap of early draft picks but I reckon we can easily push top 4 next year with the list we have if we have a decent run with injuries and if we can get a bit of improvement and more consistency from the likes of Laird, Brown, M Crouch, Grigg, Cameron, etc.

I agree we need to move on a couple of older blokes and make some tough decisions.
TOO OLD:
Porps
Reilly
Rutten (a couple of games left depending on match ups)
Pods is holding his spot for now.
Thommo can have another year
DELIST:
Johnston
Graham
Osborn
McKernan deserves to be delisted but we probably have to keep him as cover for Jacobs and to keep Jenkins motivated.
GENUINE TRADE BAIT:
Lyons (we have too many insiders)
Wright (admirable player but we won't need him much longer)
Otten (happy to keep but also keen to trade for the right deal)
Mackay (injury prone/never hit his straps. Is he a free agent now?)
GET WHATEVER WE CAN:
Ellis-Yolmen (will never make it in my opinion)
Shaw (injury prone)
Patrenko (lost his spot to Betts and Cameron)

Our first priority in the draft/trade period needs to be a ruckman. If Jacobs goes down we'll be screwed. It's where we're most vulnerable.
Second priority is outside mids with good kicks.

 

[1achie]

There's a difference between bottoming out and tanking.

Hawthorn bottomed out around 10-years ago. In 2004 they finished 15th and had 3 picks inside the top-10 (Roughead, Franklin, Lewis). In 2005 they finished 14th and had 4 picks in the top-20 (Ellis, Dowler, Birchall, Bailey). Some of those draft picks were due to trading, but many of them were the result of finishing near the bottom of the ladder.

What is the difference between bottoming out and tanking? A lot of people on here say that we should bottom out to get decent draft picks. In other words we should loose as many games as possible so that we get the earliest possible draft pick. How is that any different to tanking?

 

[Vader]

What is the difference between bottoming out and tanking? A lot of people on here say that we should bottom out to get decent draft picks. In other words we should loose as many games as possible so that we get the earliest possible draft pick. How is that any different to tanking?

Tanking involves taking active steps to deliberately lose games. It's not the players trying to lose, but the team selections and coaching instructions are designed to prevent them from winning.

Bottoming out just means that the club hits low ebb, before rebounding back up towards the top of the ladder. You could argue that Adelaide bottomed out in 2011, but our rebound has not been fast.

Teams like Melbourne (pre-2014) are genuinely bad and will lose the majority of their games without the need for tanking. The old draft system encouraged teams to tank, by offering a "prize" in the form of a priority draft selection to those who finished with 16 premiership points or less. This meant that clubs were desperate to lose towards the end of the season, knowing that a 5th win would cost them a valuable PP. PPs are now awarded at the AFL's discretion. While there is still incentive to finish near the bottom of the ladder, to gain the 1st or 2nd draft picks, the removal of the PPs means that there is no bonus on offer and the motivation for tanking has been significantly reduced.

 

[Elder van Berlo]

Leigh montagna pick 37
Brent Harvey pick 47
Dayne Beams pick 29
Matt Priddis pick 31
Aaron Sandilands pick 33
Scott Thompson (NM) pick 37
Steven Motlop pick 39
Lenny Hayes Pick 11
Luke McPharlin pick 10
Jack Steven pick 42
Darren Glass pick 11
Cyril Rioli scholarship
Adam Goodes pick 43
Brendon Goddard pick 1 (was available)
Rory Sloane pick 44
Dean Cox pick 28
Chad Wingard pick 6
Andrew Swallow pick 43
Nic Naitanui pick 2 (over rated)
Jimmy Bartel pick 8
Brett Deledio pick 1 (Richmond)
Matthew Pavlich pick 4 (overlooked 1998 so really could of been pick 70 odd)
Corey Enright pick 47
Josh Kennedy (WCE) pick 4
Marc Murphy pick 1
David Mundy pick 19
Harry Taylor pick 17
Jeremy Cameron underage recruit
Chris Judd pick 3
Nick Riewoldt pick 1
Travis Cloke Pick 39
Travis Boak pick 5
Josh Kennedy (sydney) pick 40
Jarrad McVeigh pick 5
Daniel Hannebury pick 30
Kieren Jack Rookie draft
Jarryd Roughhead pick 2
Luke Hodge pick 1
Steve Johnson pick 24
Ryan Griffen pick 3
Sam Mitchell pick 36
Trent Cotchin pick 2
Lance Franklin pick 5
Nat Fyfe pick 20
Dane Swan pick 58
Jobe Watson pick 40
Patrick Dangerfield pick 10
Joel Selwood pick 7
Scott Pendlebury pick 5
Gary Ablett Father son

So 21 of the best 40 players in the league were either top 5 picks, selected pre-draft (Cameron) or father-sons (Ablett, Watson, Cloke, Kennedy).

And your argument is that draft picks aren't so important?

 

[Kickin_Goals]

So 21 of the best 40 players in the league were either top 5 picks, selected pre-draft (Cameron) or father-sons (Ablett, Watson, Cloke, Kennedy).

And your argument is that draft picks aren't so important?

No, Having draft picks as we have not is the important thing and whether they are high doesn't prevent you from having success.

So 20 of this top 50 are outside the first 20 picks? without adding a bunch of special cases to suit your tally.

The argument was about teams that bottom out resurgence. Someone always comes along and makes something what it's not here.

And in that list who out of those top 5's is outside the bottom 6 right now. Not many. Not many of those have seen a lot of September either and it would take being remarkably poor to break into that bottom 6 tbqh.

You mostly have hawthorn and COLA to look at, goddard only just jumped ship to a possible top 8 side, Pavlich could of been grabbed the year before at any pick, Carlton are going nowhere, Richmond nowhere, Melbourne in need of rescue, GWS can continuously be talked up but eventually there will come a time when they should have to achieve something.

What about this administration and coaching staff says it will turn out like Hawthorn vs turning out like these others? Clarkson can damn well coach, Sanderson doesn't even know how to use a sub. Doesn't have a mid field structure that backs each other up, relies solely on Jacobs giving them first use, has no gameplan beyond copycatting Geelong, bulks up the side when everyones slimming down for speed etc etc.....

You get the 20 odd blokes from this small sample size, pick 10 and above you think you aren't a decent shot? it's not like we don't have a scholarship on our list.
We don't have COLA and getting a bunch of picks in the top 5 is a fantasy, you can't just drop them into the list you have and not have exodus at the same time for lack of foreseeable success in the near future.
Noone is going to lose purposely to lose their spot in the side to some new pick.

Adelaide bottom out good luck keeping the players they already have, take a good look at the Saints, Melbourne.
They don't even need to go somewhere successful if Adelaide aren't and someone else will pay them more.

 

[Mattrox]

Adelaide bottomed out in 2010 and 2011. Have a quick look at what happened in those drafts.

Now isn't the time to bottom out. Not with the rising star noms we have got. We are clearly trying to build.

Getting games into the players under 100 games is the key at this stage. We have like 15 players under 100 games in our regular side. 6 to 8 have been under 50 games at various stages.

Deliberately playing players out of position will not develop them.

Playing a young side is one matter. Aiming to "bottom out" is backward thinking.

 

[fairfooty]

-The talk mid-week that Goodwin will be our next coach. Isn’t this the guy who said that aggression and intimidation were no longer relevant in today’s game

You know I've been thinking about this - and I think this would be the one thing that would make me drop my membership and leave the club. And yep I'm serious. For me appointing Goodwin would be a deal-breaker.

 

[Mike Smyth]

You know I've been thinking about this - and I think this would be the one thing that would make me drop my membership and leave the club. And yep I'm serious. For me appointing Goodwin would be a deal-breaker.

Why?

 

[fairfooty]

Why?

Because I think it doesn't matter what he or we do - he'll always be perceptually tarred with the Essendon brush - and I don't think its something that can be overcome. So I don't want him at our club. I know that might sound harsh but perception is reality...