Opinion So, where are we at this stage of our rebuild?

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WeeBlake said:
If only we had a tall, attacking defender with a great kick
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:rolleyes::rolleyes:

Read the words.
I said:
"I think MM is all ready good at that --- he's quick to give off under pressure and when he's open he takes off dynamically. At 191cms MM can play that dual role of tall defender and rebounding runner but yeah, another Seedsman (189cms) or Smith (190cms) in their prime would be good."
ie we have one.

Smithers has been great, love the bloke, but @ 31 he's past his best and is on his way out.
So yes, another would be good.
 
At the moment, we're at the stage where we're starting to kick out of the tanking phase of a rebuild (seeing our list management decisions put the list in a dire short-term state come '20-21). So the list should begin to really accelerate in the next two-three years. Conversely our SANFL side should weaken a fair bit as we start delisting a lot of the lads who got trapped between worlds which is currently making that strong.

The good news is we have a few kids who are on track to be stars. Thilthorpe, Rachele and Rankine supported by Soligo, Fog, Murray, Pedlar, Michaelanny and Berry as other players who look to be on track to be top liners and Dawson and Laird who is. It's a solid nucleus to begin to kick out of this phase. We've also shown a fair bit of resilience during this build with a lot of our DNA in this built being stuff you need to hold up (not win, but at least prevent being an easy kill) in big finals seeing we've mostly been a high pressure and organised team in the last couple of year. Just severely lacking in player quality and chemistry between players.

For how Adelaide goes? I think this year is going to be a mid-table finish, though Rankine and Dawson dictates that. After all, both have that star power to drag a flawed team into finals, especially in a pretty even year. Still, I think our Achilles heel in how young/inexperienced we are, especially in the spine, which I suspect will catch up to us as the year goes on.

The game further is to clean up the midfield, and I'd probably get rid of Van Berlo as a line coach as we seem a mess in our there, find a new ruck to replace O'Brien and really tighten up that defense. Well, beyond needing to keep nailing draft picks, make sure most of our kids are in a good position development wise, and keep attracting players who we need to improve us.
 
CrowBloke said:
:rolleyes::rolleyes:

Read the words.
I said:
"I think MM is all ready good at that --- he's quick to give off under pressure and when he's open he takes off dynamically. At 191cms MM can play that dual role of tall defender and rebounding runner but yeah, another Seedsman (189cms) or Smith (190cms) in their prime would be good."
ie we have one.

Smithers has been great, love the bloke, but @ 31 he's past his best and is on his way out.
So yes, another would be good.
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It was a joke, I was referring to Dawson. Agree about MM.
 

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How are people proposing to judge the success of a rebuild? Can this become a team that could one day make the eight? Yes. Does it have the makings of a premiership team? I'm more sceptical.

Does that guide what we should be doing now? Yes.
 
Southerntakeover said:
How are people proposing to judge the success of a rebuild? Can this become a team that could one day make the eight? Yes. Does it have the makings of a premiership team? I'm more sceptical.

Does that guide what we should be doing now? Yes.
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Yep, what we do over the next 2 years will make or break this rebuild. We need to recruit another 1-2 quality players, ideally free agents so we save draft capital.

Plus we have to bring in 1-2 high quality mids. A midfield of Dawson, Rachelle, Soligo plus 2 high quality/elite mids is what we need, taking into account Laird eventually diminishing.
 
Cleric said:
We are four games into this season and I think we have had a good look at where our team is, and we have a group of kids that we have brought in.

We should be able to see what the future holds.
So in saying that, where do people think we are in our rebuilding phase? Some teams have taken a good 5 or more years of hitting the draft to get their lists in order, and we hit the bottom along with other teams like North and Hawthorn, so we can measure ourselves against them.

I think we are ahead of where I thought we would be at this point. I think we are maybe 2 or 3 players away from an elite team, but we can get that in the next year or two. We have had a good amount of organic growth from the kids we have drafted. The McAsey disaster has hurt us, but a couple of late gems has made up for it somewhat.

Our forward stocks are ready to go.
When Tex goes we will be left with Thillthorpe, Fogarty, Rankine, Rochelle, Gollant, McAdam, Pedler, Cook, Murphy, Himmelberg and Newchurch.
No questions that there is the potential of the best forward line in the AFL there. They are all in the right age profile as well.
I think we still have some growth and movement from some of the younger ones. Cook has the potential to be a skilful half forward flanker. He can kick goals and has a little of the Robby Grey about him. Not sure why they are playing him off the hard back, but the club is known for selection high strangeness.
Long term I believe Pedler goes into the midfield. He is a hard at the ball, strong contested style and has the ability to break away and lace people out with that sweet left foot.
Newchurch I'm not sure if he will make it, and I think the club needs to give him a run of 3 or so games to see if he can do it.
I also think there is a good chance that Elliot could make a move down back down the track. His biggest positive is that hopefully he gets his brother to our club.

The backline is ahead if what I thought they would be, even with the disaster of McAsey.
Murray has improved out of sight, Butts is a very good big defender, Hinge has come along and Max has been a massive revelation. I follow the Jrs and was quite bullish on him, but he has come.in and played alot better than I thought he would. He is the best young defender we have had since Lever.
We have Worrell who can hopefully continue the improvement we saw last year, and Milera seems to have gotten over his injury woes. We have two holes that I see before it's an elite defence.
We need a dedicated small defender in the vein of Luke Brown. Max has done the job on some smalls, but he may be needed to take on some bigger boys, and some teams have more than 1 small forward.
The other hole is getting a replacement for Seedsman and Smith. We need that running defender who can rebound from defence into attack. Speedy and a long accurate kick.
Not easy to find, and none on our list so far. McPherson is too injury prone and Dawson will be in the midfield moving forward.

Rucks are ok. ROB can get back to his best and Strachan is a good back up. We do risk losing him to another team if he doesn't get any games. We have Thillthorpe who can chop out as second Ruck, and if he is injured them Himmelberg can do it.
We do need to look at a good young Ruck in the next draft or two.

Midfield. So this one is a little more open to question where we are.
Dawson showed that he belongs in the middle and can be one of the best in that position. He is inline for a AA jumper 4 games in, and he still has more to give.
Laird continues to get the ball and will stay in the middle. He isn't the youngest now, so might only have a few years left. Sloane is on the slow ship out and his best years are behind him.

Our mid stocks consist of Keays, Harry, Crouch, Dowling, Jones, Berry, Hately, Soligo, Taylor, Brown, Nankervis, Scholl and Bond.
It would appear Crouch has had his papers stamped, and Hatley just hasn't kicked on.
I'm not that fussed with Brown, Bond or Nankervis.
Soligo is a jet. He also can hit the scoreboard.
Berry can continue to improve, and he is hard at the ball and is a contested beast. His weakness is that he doesn't get alot of the ball, and doesn't have alot of hurt factor.
Jones has something we need to keep working on. He is quick, hard at it and can kick goals. Needs to work on his consistency and getting more of the ball, but I think he can. If he does get it together he can be a very good mid.
I like Harry. You know what you are going to get and he can continue to develop. Hard at it, can break away, and can kick goals.
Scholl is good enough and we have yet to see much of Tayor.
I really like Dowling, and I want to see him get some games. Gets alot of the ball and can hit the scoreboard in bunches.
I think Pedler moves into the midfield and will give us that hard contested ball winner with breakaway speed and a nice left foot. He has shown that he can kick goals as well.
There is also scope for both Rochelle and Rankine to have spells in the midfield.

We lack a couple of legit bigger line breaking mids. Another couple in the Dawson mold is exactly what we need.
The positive is that we have got a core of mids who do know how to kick goals as well. Keays, Pedler, Dowling, Harry, Soligo and Jones have all shown they can do it. I firmly believe that some mids can kick goals and some can't. It's genetic. The Crouch bros showed that. With the forwards we have, if we can expect 5 or 6 goals a week from our mids, it's going to put alot of scoreboard pressure on the opposition.

That's how I see it.
We need a couple of bigger line breaking mids, a small defender and a replacement for Smith and Seedsman.
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some good points and agree with most.

a couple of things:

  • Jones could play BP or HBF in my view (along with wing) and has shown his lock down abilities last year. Quick, hard, booming kick. If composure remains strong he is a starting player each week
  • We all get Mc Asey and what played out. We all would have preferred short M/F Serong in hindsight. The facts are we needed to draft a KPD and we had always nailed this sort of pick before so its hardly a recurring theme. Sometimes things dont work out and you just need to move on. PLUS considering Murray was drafted a few mths AFTER McAsey in the PSD (or whatever its called), effectively our 2019 draft haul now becomes:

  • Murray - one of the most promising young KPD players in the league. If Murray was called Mc Asey we would be HAPPY with this pick at 6 i imagine.
  • Worrell - potential A Grader. sign him up now if uncontracted which is my biggest list management fear
  • Shoey - have always had high hopes and thought he could be the best of our MF and still hold hope for him but has underwhelmed the lsat 12 mthsa
  • Pedlar - from slipping 2 picks, with the Mc Asey selection you cant ignore we also picked up Pedlar with the additional first round GWS pick the following year (which again was excellent work from Reidy and team). Looks like a gun player to me for a decade to come

So in the hugely bagged 2019 draft we actually in effect end up with these 4 players. Is the criticism from the normal negative nellie whingers justified in reality?

EDIT Murray might have been picked up the start of the following year- it isnt clear as says 2020 Supplementary list addition which not sure if was at start or end of season. Either way, he has effectively replaced Mc Asey in terms of high potential young KPD
 
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adelaidecrows said:
Forward line and defence in my mind are rebuilt. The midfield is another story. Need a better Ruckman and to find a star mid.
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I still think we need another KPD. Murray has taken a big leap forward, but Butts seems to have taken a corresponding leap backwards from where he was 2 years ago. I'm not sure if he's carrying an injury or just out of form or what. But we lack depth in that area after Butts / Murray. Worrell may or may not be capable of doing the job at AFL level, haven't seen enough of him yet. After him, though... if the next best option we have to throw in back there is Himmelberg then we definitely need another. Michalanney looks to be a huge talent, although I'm not sure whether he's tall enough to develop into a genuine KPD or better suited to that mid-size / third tall kind of option. I guess it was supposed to be McAsey, but with that experiment failing, we need another one.
 
Our core players for the rebuild

Jordan Dawson - 90 games
Darcy Fogarty - 60 games
Izak Rankine - 52 games
Sam Berry - 38 games
Riley Thilthorpe - 28 games
Jake Soligo - 20 games
Josh Rachele - 17 games
Luke Pedlar - 8 games

All of these players need another 100 games. Suggests we are about 4 years away beyond the conclusion of 2023 and so less than half way through the rebuild
 
adelaidecrows said:
Forward line and defence in my mind are rebuilt. The midfield is another story. Need a better Ruckman and to find a star mid.
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I would have said our defence is the most brittle. And that's more to do with lack of experience than anything else. Butts is off the boil, not sure whether that's due to injury or whether he reached his maximum capacity and we all thought there'd be more improvement. Murray is going from strength to strength. The addition of Michelanny really adds something and the dude seems to be returning to his good form. I think Hinge is better back there than on the wing.
 
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Southerntakeover said:
How are people proposing to judge the success of a rebuild? Can this become a team that could one day make the eight? Yes. Does it have the makings of a premiership team? I'm more sceptical.

Does that guide what we should be doing now? Yes.
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You've changed your tone about our list recently lol but the rebuild isn't completed despite what the clubs are telling their supporters. We usually take 5-6 years to build a list to contend for the premiership but this is our biggest list turnover in our history so I expected this will take 2-3 years longer.
 

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Scorpus said:
Our core players for the rebuild

Jordan Dawson - 90 games
Darcy Fogarty - 60 games
Izak Rankine - 52 games
Sam Berry - 38 games
Riley Thilthorpe - 28 games
Jake Soligo - 20 games
Josh Rachele - 17 games
Luke Pedlar - 8 games

All of these players need another 100 games. Suggests we are about 4 years away beyond the conclusion of 2023 and so less than half way through the rebuild
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Murray and Max are glaring ommisions
 
119others said:
Murray and Max are glaring ommisions
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Agree and also I’d say they don’t all need another hundred games. Dawson needs zero, Fog maybe another fifty, same or less for Rankine.
Overall tho, agree that we need at least another 2 years to be truly contending.
Dogs ‘16 was exceptional but shows that a youngish and inexperienced team can win.
 
WeeBlake said:
Agree and also I’d say they don’t all need another hundred games. Dawson needs zero, Fog maybe another fifty, same or less for Rankine.
Overall tho, agree that we need at least another 2 years to be truly contending.
Dogs ‘16 was exceptional but shows that a youngish and inexperienced team can win.
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We need the core of our midfield to be in the 100 to 150 game zone before we will have the strength to win a premiership. Most of our maybe-elite midfield prospects won't hit even 50 games by the end of this season.

We can't rely on AFL cheating to get us over the line like the Bulldogs did
 
Maybe I wasn’t clear - we can’t win it this year or next year. The year after that is the start of what will hopefully be a long window. Of course, lots could change.
 
Scorpus said:
Our core players for the rebuild

Jordan Dawson - 90 games
Darcy Fogarty - 60 games
Izak Rankine - 52 games
Sam Berry - 38 games
Riley Thilthorpe - 28 games
Jake Soligo - 20 games
Josh Rachele - 17 games
Luke Pedlar - 8 games

All of these players need another 100 games. Suggests we are about 4 years away beyond the conclusion of 2023 and so less than half way through the rebuild
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* Nick Murray belongs in there . Extremely core
 
George Kramer said:
Yep, what we do over the next 2 years will make or break this rebuild. We need to recruit another 1-2 quality players, ideally free agents so we save draft capital.

Plus we have to bring in 1-2 high quality mids. A midfield of Dawson, Rachelle, Soligo plus 2 high quality/elite mids is what we need, taking into account Laird eventually diminishing.
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Will Day and Mason Redman would have given us a ‘potential’ top 4 squad in next 2-3 years

Hopefully there’s a chance we can get redman ( I doubt we do ) then it’s all about getting a midfield star to support what we got

If it’s the draft only in next 2 years then our potential top 4 tilt gets kicked along the street further > 2-3 years and alot could go wrong in that time with re signings etc

Trade and FA is vital to our 2-3 yr top 4 aspirations

* A developing ruck and key defender also important medium term but not our no 1 priorities
 
Scorpus said:
Sure, although I don't think defenders are make or break for our flag chances or rebuild
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They certainly are. After all, the main condition we need now to considerably tighten up our defense. That's both fixing our midfeld and defensive group.

Murray is developing into a two-way piece to build this sector around if his form holds up. So should definitely be considered core.
 
I reckon the current core as it stands can be a top 8 side next year (if not this year), and a top 4 side in a few years. A lot will depend on how we go about filling our remaining needs. As we’ve found Dawson to be one of the taller midfielders we crave, I’d look for:

a) One more tall midfielder in the style of a clearance bull, preferably with some burst from the contest a la Cripps
b) elite metres gained defender, someone with some run and carry + a long leg. Must be able to accumulate 20 touches a game, at least
c) a more offensively aggressive, intercepting KPD to pair with Murray

Each of the three needs could be filled in this off-season, if we really try. The intercepting KPD could come from our own list in Worrell, or traded in (HH or BZT). The running defender is more likely to come from another list (Redman) or the draft, although Nankervis seems to be showing plenty thus far

The midfield bull might be a bit trickier, as it seems like that’ll have to come via our first round pick. Hard to tell which talents will stake a claim by season’s end that might be available in the 8-12 range. 187cm McAuliffe perhaps? Maybe 189cm George Stevens moves into the midfield?

Either way, our rebuild seems to be going reasonably well - it just needs one final push to make us a true premiership contender in a few years
 
Jeffcrowe said:
Will Day and Mason Redman would have given us a ‘potential’ top 4 squad in next 2-3 years

Hopefully there’s a chance we can get redman ( I doubt we do ) then it’s all about getting a midfield star to support what we got

If it’s the draft only in next 2 years then our potential top 4 tilt gets kicked along the street further > 2-3 years and alot could go wrong in that time with re signings etc

Trade and FA is vital to our 2-3 yr top 4 aspirations

* A developing ruck and key defender also important medium term but not our no 1 priorities
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I’m not giving up on Redman, not making their leadership group could have given us an opening.

I also don’t think Silvers and Olsen would have come out publicly within a week of each other talking about bringing in players if they didn’t have at least one stitched up. Well that’s my theory anyway.
 
George Kramer said:
I’m not giving up on Redman, not making their leadership group could have given us an opening.

I also don’t think Silvers and Olsen would have come out publicly within a week of each other talking about bringing in players if they didn’t have at least one stitched up. Well that’s my theory anyway.
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I think it was the other way, selling hope the tanking phase is over and we're going to start turning our list into a contender.

Seeing it's going to be all but forgotten, come September/October, and it probably a tad too early to be confident that you have a lad stitched up.
 
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