Roast We need to move past this idea we are a young side

[plugger66]

if montagna was 26 do you think he'd still be playing that sweeping role across half back? or would he be in the guts similar steven?

He would be an outside mid like he has been all his career but if I was good looking and had money I may be married to Jennifer Hawkins but neither of those things are happening now and now is what we are talking about.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

This whole thread is wacked.

The age of the list doesn't matter.
Did anyone expect us to be playing finals this year?
Did anyone expect Paddy to be kicking 80 goals?
Did anyone expect us to be beating the Hawks or West Coast?

We don't need an excuse because the team is playing to its current expectations.
Next year our expectations will go up a bit.

Seem's some people see us go OK ish against the Hawks and North, so now Blake Acres should be getting 30 disposals each week.

 

[Sippa]

Defacto I think you are spot on with your point. I've been saying it consistently we are several quality mids away and so many on here are so defensive to any point raised that doesn't suggest we are premiership bound. I think we are on the right path but there is some serious work to do.. Gresham prob has the highest ceiling of the pure mids we have drafted and while I think he's good he's prob only going to get to b or b+ level...

Really need some star mids if we are going to end up better than Carlton of a few years ago or Richmond of the last couple.., no point making the 8 if that's as good as it's going to get before you head back down

 

[Joffaboy]

We are a young side. Dont forget that.

 

[vojn1k]

Its been 6 years since we were a real threat (2010) and last made finals in 2011. 5 years have passed now. Some of you continue to harp on about being at the top for so long， but fail to realise its been 5 years since we made finals and it looks like another botton 4 finish. We still havent recruited any star midfielder in that time. This is a real concern. The club needs to be seriouesly questioned about its recruitment but some of you here are quick to shut down any criticism of the club. I guess thats why we have 1 flag in 140odd years. Blind faith.

 

[plugger66]

Its been 6 years since we were a real threat (2010) and last made finals in 2011. 5 years have passed now. Some of you continue to harp on about being at the top for so long， but fail to realise its been 5 years since we made finals and it looks like another botton 4 finish. We still havent recruited any star midfielder in that time. This is a real concern. The club needs to be seriouesly questioned about its recruitment but some of you here are quick to shut down any criticism of the club. I guess thats why we have 1 flag in 140odd years. Blind faith.

Carlton have won 15 and Melbourne 12 and they have been down longer than us and by a long way. I don't think how we are now has anything to do with one flag in 140 years. We are doing the long rebuild by picking KPP first. Will it work? Who knows but we do know its a slower process than picking mids first.

 

[Defacto]

Defacto I think you are spot on with your point. I've been saying it consistently we are several quality mids away and so many on here are so defensive to any point raised that doesn't suggest we are premiership bound. I think we are on the right path but there is some serious work to do.. Gresham prob has the highest ceiling of the pure mids we have drafted and while I think he's good he's prob only going to get to b or b+ level...

Really need some star mids if we are going to end up better than Carlton of a few years ago or Richmond of the last couple.., no point making the 8 if that's as good as it's going to get before you head back down

people dont like any hint of criticism unfortunately

if we dont nail some first round mids or bring in elite midfield talent, we will just up, like you said, another richmond

 

[plugger66]

people dont like any hint of criticism unfortunately

if we dont nail some first round mids or bring in elite midfield talent, we will just up, like you said, another richmond

Now that I totally agree with and have said it for nearly 2 years.

 

[bird_man]

Defacto I think you are spot on with your point. I've been saying it consistently we are several quality mids away and so many on here are so defensive to any point raised that doesn't suggest we are premiership bound. I think we are on the right path but there is some serious work to do.. Gresham prob has the highest ceiling of the pure mids we have drafted and while I think he's good he's prob only going to get to b or b+ level...

Really need some star mids if we are going to end up better than Carlton of a few years ago or Richmond of the last couple.., no point making the 8 if that's as good as it's going to get before you head back down

Mate, no one is arguing that we aren't several quality mids away from having close to a premiership team. But you can't get everything at once.

What we are arguing is that we had a 5 year drafting and FA plan that we are only 3 years into. Our key position stocks are pretty much set and we have some good solid mids. If we can nail the next two first round draft picks with mids and then hopefully get a FA our list suddenly looks bloody good.

Unfortunately fans got ahead of themselves and thought at some stage that we should be playing finals this year.

people dont like any hint of criticism unfortunately

if we dont nail some first round mids or bring in elite midfield talent, we will just up, like you said, another richmond

I'm guessing this is exactly what we will be trying to do this off season.

 

[Defacto]

Mate, no one is arguing that we aren't several quality mids away from having close to a premiership team. But you can't get everything at once.

What we are arguing is that we had a 5 year drafting and FA plan that we are only 3 years into. Our key position stocks are pretty much set and we have some good solid mids. If we can nail the next two first round draft picks with mids and then hopefully get a FA our list suddenly looks bloody good.

Unfortunately fans got ahead of themselves and thought at some stage that we should be playing finals this year.

I'm guessing this is exactly what we will be trying to do this off season.

we cant just try, we have to do it. we need the next two drafts/trade periods to be absolutely amazing. we need the player(s) that we pick up to be talked about like people have done with cripps, bont, stringer etc.

it cant turn out like richmond where people go "oh nice handy player" with their first round selections. they're not a bust but theyre not amazing either. just a GOP.

 

[sonnywalters]

Its been 6 years since we were a real threat (2010) and last made finals in 2011. 5 years have passed now. Some of you continue to harp on about being at the top for so long， but fail to realise its been 5 years since we made finals and it looks like another botton 4 finish. We still havent recruited any star midfielder in that time. This is a real concern. The club needs to be seriouesly questioned about its recruitment but some of you here are quick to shut down any criticism of the club. I guess thats why we have 1 flag in 140odd years. Blind faith.

Dont forget Geeolong WON the flag in 2011 and are now top 4 again.

 

[Sippa]

Mate, no one is arguing that we aren't several quality mids away from having close to a premiership team. But you can't get everything at once.

What we are arguing is that we had a 5 year drafting and FA plan that we are only 3 years into. Our key position stocks are pretty much set and we have some good solid mids. If we can nail the next two first round draft picks with mids and then hopefully get a FA our list suddenly looks bloody good.

Unfortunately fans got ahead of themselves and thought at some stage that we should be playing finals this year.

I'm guessing this is exactly what we will be trying to do this off season.

I have raised the point several times and usually get snapped at pretty fast 'oh but Ross, Sinclair, acres, dunstan etc all guns'

Not arguing they aren't good players and it's been some good recruiting.. But they're the players that make up your squad that get you to a flag, not the stars that drag you to one.

Not saying a lot on here don't have the sense to see that but there's a lot with a bit of blind passion sometimes .

 

[bird_man]

I have raised the point several times and usually get snapped at pretty fast 'oh but Ross, Sinclair, acres, dunstan etc all guns'

Not arguing they aren't good players and it's been some good recruiting.. But they're the players that make up your squad that get you to a flag, not the stars that drag you to one.

Not saying a lot on here don't have the sense to see that but there's a lot with a bit of blind passion sometimes .

I think most supporters agree that most likely none of the above will be elite players. I do think we've managed to get one elite player each off season in Billings, Paddy and Carlisle though. If we can get another 2 in the next two years and hopefully even one via FA on top of those good players you named, we will be there abouts.

 

[Joffaboy]

Carlton have won 15 and Melbourne 12 and they have been down longer than us and by a long way. I don't think how we are now has anything to do with one flag in 140 years. We are doing the long rebuild by picking KPP first. Will it work? Who knows but we do know its a slower process than picking mids first.

Essendon has won 16 and havent made the top 4 since 2002.

Some supporters lack so much perspective.

We were up for nearly 10 years

 

[Nutsngum]

What the hell are you people all doing here posting on the internet when you could be putting your future predicting skills to real use, fixing the economy or diverting a world war and such and such.

I mean s**t, we have people making sweeping generalisations about a bunch of third year players and then the claim that we are still a bottom 4 side a third of the way through the season.

 

[SpInNeR]

i am sick of hearing!!! it seems everytime we lose, the immediate response is:
"oh well that happens to young developing sides, we will learn from that"

at what point do we start to move past this thinking and start to have some hard conversations around the output of some of the senior members in the team that are by no means young anymore. taking the side we had today:
Riewoldt (33)
Montagna (32)
Dempster (32)
Gilbert (29)
Armitage (27)
Geary (27)
Steven (26)
Savage (25)
Hickey (25)
Roberton (24)
Weller (24)
Bruce (23)
Newnes (23)
Ross (23)
Webster (22)
Membrey (21)
Dunstan (21)
Sinclair (21)
Billings (20)
Acres (20)
Lonie (19)
Gresham (18)

the clear majority of that side is not young. the only ones i would consider young and developing would be:
Membrey (21)
Dunstan (21)
Sinclair (21)
Billings (20)
Acres (20)
Lonie (19)
Gresham (18)

the majority of these are not full time midfielders or key positional players. they are small fwds/flankers. membrey, dunstan, acres are the only ones we can attribute to being part of the spine/engine. yet we got absolutely smashed today in the midfield. i am actually genuinely surprised how well the backline was holding up at times. against GWS it was the same story.

i think we need to be more honest with where we are at as a side. 3/4 of it is of an age where they should be impacting games, week in-week out. the inconsistencies are just far too great for so many of these senior players

here is david armitages output at 27 years of age:
View attachment 247318

28 disposal down to 19 two weeks later. jumps back the following week with 35 and then two weeks later produced 21 disposal and 16. then today it took him a quarter of football to show any intensity at all. how in the hell are we accepting of this? he is meant to be leading the inside mids!!

This was a very inisghful post. Liked it a lot as didnt realise.

 

[Persevering Saint]

I think part of the issue here is, the whole idea of "staying the course".

In any long term project, there is this thing of having set out the plan, and beginning to implement the plan, a moment comes: and that moment is where you are about 60% of the way through your time frame. At that point, it can often feel a bit nervy for people. That's because they've had to endure for a long time the costly, difficult part of the plan, and are yet to really see the fruits of the plan that come from that 65% point onwards.

So then we have two choices. One option, the one that sounds very impressive and brave, is "stay the course!" And that often makes a lot of sense, in spite of the difficulties. The opposite can look impatient, lacking faith, and kinda um... weak.

However, the flip side is that sometimes five year plans are misguided, or don't factor in shifts that take place in the meantime. Sometimes, you DO need to change the plan mid-stream... if you don't believe me, ask Terry Wallace.

Do I know which is the right course here? Stay the course, trust that we're only 60% through the rebuild road to 2018? Or reassess, recognise we've stuffed it up, and start to tinker with it factoring contextual shifts?

I dunno. But I do know that it seems to be fuelling a bit of the angst that some of us, from either side of that fence, are feeling at the moment. Recognising that helps me appreciate people from both sides better.

 

[gringo2011]

Defacto I think you are spot on with your point. I've been saying it consistently we are several quality mids away and so many on here are so defensive to any point raised that doesn't suggest we are premiership bound. I think we are on the right path but there is some serious work to do.. Gresham prob has the highest ceiling of the pure mids we have drafted and while I think he's good he's prob only going to get to b or b+ level...

Really need some star mids if we are going to end up better than Carlton of a few years ago or Richmond of the last couple.., no point making the 8 if that's as good as it's going to get before you head back down

I reckon it's stars across the board. Port Adelaide jumped back up on the back of getting Wingard, Wines etc. Bulldogs grabbed Mc Crae, Stringer and Bont and went bouncing back up. All our top talent is older, Jack Steven being the youngest of our top players. We need to get some kids already on our list to make a quantum leap or find some elite talents in the draft and not just i the midfield. We have had improvement from several players but none has become elite....although Savage is getting pretty close for his position and Hickey not far off looking a pretty special player despite a bad week.

 

[gringo2011]

I think part of the issue here is, the whole idea of "staying the course".

In any long term project, there is this thing of having set out the plan, and beginning to implement the plan, a moment comes: and that moment is where you are about 60% of the way through your time frame. At that point, it can often feel a bit nervy for people. That's because they've had to endure for a long time the costly, difficult part of the plan, and are yet to really see the fruits of the plan that come from that 65% point onwards.

So then we have two choices. One option, the one that sounds very impressive and brave, is "stay the course!" And that often makes a lot of sense, in spite of the difficulties. The opposite can look impatient, lacking faith, and kinda um... weak.

However, the flip side is that sometimes five year plans are misguided, or don't factor in shifts that take place in the meantime. Sometimes, you DO need to change the plan mid-stream... if you don't believe me, ask Terry Wallace.

Do I know which is the right course here? Stay the course, trust that we're only 60% through the rebuild road to 2018? Or reassess, recognise we've stuffed it up, and start to tinker with it factoring contextual shifts?

I dunno. But I do know that it seems to be fuelling a bit of the angst that some of us, from either side of that fence, are feeling at the moment. Recognising that helps me appreciate people from both sides better.

That's how I feel. We are implementing a plan to build a killer spine and in the meantime the way football is played seems to have made a huge shift into a running game. The best teams concentrate on having elite running ball users off the backline and fluidly move through the midfield then into the flanks or CHF. You need elite forward targets but key defensive posts can be filled with rudimentary spoilers who can give off to the elite ball using running backs and reload.

I don't want to build two EH holdens out of parts only to find we are racing against Ferraris.

 

[plugger66]

All I can say is 2 weeks ago the rebuild seemed on course by nearly all on here and even some madly said we have a slight chance for finals then after a bad loss the rebuild may not be on target and we are no hope for finals this year. I think the main problem is some supporters got ahead of themselves. We were still no hope for finals before the bad loss. We are a side who will win around 8 games. Not many thought differently to that at the start of the year and if anything we are more wins that we thought at this stage of the season. Maybe start panicking if we lose to Essendon. And maybe don't overate the list and then you wont be as disappointes. The rebuild seems on track but is it? Who knows. We will know more at the end of 2017.

 

[The Punter]

The Terry Wallace five year plan at Richmond is overblown. They beat us in Round 7 2008 they make finals and we don't. Instead we finish fourth and they don't play finals. Now that is a sliding doors moment.

It's been a long time since finals. But in 2011 we make finals, GWS come in at the end of that season, so our first pick (without trading away anything) is in the mid 20s. We did pretty well from the 2011 draft, BTW (Ross, Newnes, Webster and Minchington have all spent at least significant time in the seniors this season).

But we have a new coach in 2012 who reinvigorates the group somewhat and we challenge for finals again. So the rebuild, essentially, still hasn't started. We beat NM or Freo in 2012 we play finals that year. It's a tenth consecutive non-losing season. But anyway, if we were to drop to the bottom in 2012, it would have made little difference to the timeframe for the rebuild as the 2012 draft is terrible. It's perhaps a ten-player draft. It's possible the best player we draft in 2012 still hasn't played a senior game over three seasons later (Lewis Pierce).

In 2013 the wheels fall off and the rebuild begins. Blokes on the list recruited since then: Carlisle, Templeton, Savage, Dunstan, Acres, Freeman, Lonie, Billings, Longer, Delaney, Gresham, Goddard, Bruce, Membrey, White, McCartin, O'Kearney, McKenzie, Rice, Coughlan, Sinclair, Payne & Weller. Why, that's just over 22 blokes...

Rice Carlisle McKenzie
Savage Goddard White
Freeman Weller Acres
Membrey Bruce Gresham
Lonie McCartin Sinclair
Longer Billings Dunstan
Delaney Templeton Payne O'Kearney Coughlan

So I also think criticism of the list management since the last game Scott Watters coached is overblown.

Having said that we can't be accepting in any way of performances like the one on the weekend. But did the boys look happy with themselves after the NM game? We just need to get over the line in one of those games. We have NM and WB again, Geelong and Sydney at home, and Richmond and Adelaide away. All those games provide us with that opportunity.

 

[t_94]

people dont like any hint of criticism unfortunately

if we dont nail some first round mids or bring in elite midfield talent, we will just up, like you said, another richmond

I just hope we can nail someone as good as Masten in this upcoming draft. Lol at him being called better than Steven

 

[Murraj1966]

At the start of the year i said I'd be happy with 8 wins 2 more than last year. Based on current form and the fixture we could win as many as 12 but i think we'll get between 9 to 11.

Tell me 6 wins to 10 wins isn't progress when you're hopefully adding in ONE off season a first round draft pick mid and potentially another if a trade goes through for another pick, a key defender who could be a star another 3rd rounder an injury plagued mid getting his body right who fits our mold and most importantly another pre season into our young guys.

I'm deathly excited for 2017 i think we'll really see some rewards but even then the job isn't done and the team will continue to be built up.

 

[The Punter]

IMO, at some stage this year we will take a good to great team and just destroy them.

For historical context:

http://afltables.com/afl/stats/games/1997/121519970705.html
http://afltables.com/afl/stats/games/2003/151820030803.html

 

[Joffaboy]

I cant move past the fact that we are a young side