Western Bulldogs Limbo Club

[TedDougChris]

everyone else is drafting tall midfielders, we've taken the approach of drafting players that can run underneath their legs

strangely, the KPPs taken after our pick were at best rated as rookies and some of the ones that missed out
as high as second rounders

combine results/interviewed poorly? who knows, but we weren't the only club put off by the talls this draft

Understand that mate, just the argument that we drafted players that fit a certain set of criteria begs the questions - were they the only ones, or were there also tall players that met the criteria as well ?? If that is the case, then it's clearly a flawed or biased argument....

 

[DognBones]

Like many of us I wasn't too optimistic when the 5 names were read out last week for the reasons discussed ad infinitum in this thread. I'm now trying to come to terms with the recruiters' decisions based on the fact that both Dalrymple and McCartney have stated they got exactly who they wanted in the order they wanted. This after having weeks of planning (after our early picks were traded off) gives me some confidence that they knew what they were doing. We still look like an unbalanced list IMO but these selections have been made for understandable reasons so I'll go with the flow and hope we get the type of improvement we are all looking for.

 

[Mattdougie]

can't believe I agree with MD

Finally turning to the dark side are you ?

It get everyone eventually its a sh!t load more fun

 

[yebiga]

We needed talls

We went short

End discussion, anything else is bullsh!t and excuses coz the whole draft is a lottery so gamble big not on short people.

We now have about 8 players on our list that can't play in the same team at the same time they are simply too small to be a collective in a decent team.

And we will probably rookie another 3 blokes under 185 cm and use another bullish!t poor excuse.

Just wondering
How long before you call for his head?

 

[MrChristo]

Great. He can be a KPD in the late 90s for us. *[Re; Cordy being the same size as Scarlett]*

That's 16 over 190cm without your bullsh selective criteria. Plus 3 rookies they have.

I'm absolutely prepared to admit I was wrong. I was using the Club sites (off the AFL site), some of which clearly haven't been updated. I apologise. My mistake. They are obviously last years numbers. (Except Collingwood has Moore listed, strangely...)

But, as you can see the talk was indeed about size there, not quality (as I have continually stated I wasn't prepared to 'argue' about.)


My "BS" criteria was initially exactly the same as yours actually. If you re-read the original post I clearly say that I'm leaving out Bonts and Pendlebury for good reason (ie. they aren't KP's). [Nor is Oxley, nor is Langdon...or Birchill ...]

SO...by your own criteria...who can play KP?

Hale/McEvoy/Ceglar... Rucks who can absolutely push forward. [Bear in mind only 2 play at one time.]
Spangher/Lake...Schoenmakers/Frawley (neither present in GF)...key, big backmen. Birchill, a tall running flanker who rarely gets in 1-1 contests.
Gibson. Shorter, but definitely.
Roughead... Superstar KP forward.
Gunston/Bruest (under 190)... Quality HF, lead up-types with big tanks.

Litherland? The only KPP he played on was Waite...took a lot of the smaller guys... Not sure if he can play KPD if required.

We have no idea whether Brand, O'Brien (4 games), Howe or Pittonet will ever "make it".

Grimley has been delisted. (Altho, of course, may be re-rookie-listed).

v.

Minson/Ayce/Campbell... Fair to say that none are as good forward. Also fair to say that 2 are still learning the craft. [Ceglar has had less time in the system than Cordy, but 2 more years than Campbell.]
Morris/Roughead/Talia... key, big backmen. Murphy, a slightly shorter Birchill. [So, yes, I agree. By the numbers we are 2 KPD's down...although I will remind you that only 3 of those 5 Hawks listed played in the GF. But yep, depth could be an issue. *** ]
Boyd... Untried. Hopefully the guy we need. Will take time obviously...but I think we can all agree that putting our balls on the line to get him was the move we've all been looking for for a long time now.
Stringer/Crameri (under190)... Quality HF, lead up types with big tanks.

We have no idea whether Roberts, Hamling or Zaine will ever "make it".

We may rookie-list some "names".

Rookies didn't get a mention for the reason that, of course, it's unlikely that any will play barring injury...altho I do understand the issue of depth***.


*** So depth is an issue. But lined up 1-1, it's not the total disaster that people are predicting.

My (and others) continued point is that drafting a late rounder we don't particularly rate doesn't help now, and realistically may never.

My (and others) continued point is that we have a deficiency in skills, decision making and speed (both leg and mind!).

My personal opinion is that we played the %'s to address one issue, rather than go say 2-3 (mid-tall) and hope that 1 of each worked out...

...but also realistically, there's no point 'arguing' about this year's draft because quite simply no-one knows.

There's also no point getting angry about it! We'll know in 3-4 years whether it was good, average or a disaster!

b - keeping our rookie list full of very ordinary players, we literally aren't sifting enough sand to find the few flecks of gold

I do agree 100% with this.


Anyway, I'd personal rather our list be 'balanced' talent-wise, rather than cm-wise. Some don't agree.

1) We're all hoping for the same thing...
2) Let's revisit in 3 years...

 

[dogwatch]

...
Anyway, I'd personal rather our list be 'balanced' talent-wise, rather than cm-wise. Some don't agree.

1) We're all hoping for the same thing...
2) Let's revisit in 3 years...

This is not a rebuttal of your post, MrChristo, more a general observation or two. It's just that your last post reminded me of these things ...

1. A number of posts have referred to the likelihood that whichever KPD we recruit now will take 3 years to be any good (if they make it) and will make no difference in 2015 so what's the point of even considering one? (Yes, some of the posts are more nuanced than that but the drift is much the same). This argument troubles me on at least two levels (a) it implies a return to an "instant results" mentality at the sacrifice of longer term planning. Whatever his faults Brendan McCartney brought to the club an awareness of the importance of longer-term planning, something we have lacked for decades and only begun to improve on since the start of the Smorgon era. (b) the argument should definitely not be about an instant result in any case. If you adopt that line of thinking we will never draft any player that will take more than 6 months to find his feet and debut at AFL level. Certainly not a KPD. We will still be saying in 2017 "we have no KPD depth" when in fact a mid-to-late pick in each of 2013/14/15 might just have secured one who would at least be serviceable.

2. The related notion that we won't know who is right and who is wrong for another three years is superficially true but it ducks the debate. If you follow that line we won't ever have a post-draft critique of our ND picks because the report card on the draftees is always three years away. This is why a number of posters (on both sides of the debate) have been saying "well let's look at how we have gone over the last 3-5 years under this recruiter". In other words the preliminary (and in some cases the final!) report card for all those draftees is now in. So we DO have a basis for a robust discussion. It's just the interpretation that differs.

Having said all that I agree 100% with you that we are all hoping for the same thing, even if it sometimes appears otherwise. I am also very happy that we have addressed foot skills, vision and decision making at last. It was indeed a clear need, just as I believe our shallow KPD stocks represent a clear need.

 

[dogwatch]

One final point on drafting KPDs that I don't think has been raised yet:

Nearly every club except us has a serious dip at a quality KPD every few years with one of its picks under #30. This is presumably on the principle that you can take pot luck with lower picks for years, you can scratch around the lower leagues hoping to unearth a late developer, you can rookie some rough prospects, and you can scour the trade market BUT ... sooner or later you have to make a serious investment in a "bankable" KPD prospect.

This makes sense. If you get just one every 5-6 years you can build your defence around that player for a very long time, barring injury or defection. Here I'm referring to early draft picks in the last 10 years like Daniel Talia, Ben Reid, Michael Hurley, Jake Carlisle, Harry Taylor, Ryan Schoenmakers (yes even Hawthorn do draft KPDs early!), Jared Rivers and James Frawley (poor Melbourne!), Jackson Trengove (PA), Alex Rance, and Eric Mackenzie. That's only a sample - most of them have become the mainstays of their team's defence. The important thing is those teams have seen fit to make the investment of a high draft pick well before their older KPDs retire. Naturally this will vary from club to club. Some got lucky with a later pick (like we did with Lake back in 2001 (#71)) and some traded aggressively for a KPD.

In any one year you can find a reason why we haven't made that investment ... but for 10 years or more on the trot?

Going back over our own draft picks since Luke Penny in 1998 (#14), I can only find one attempt to pluck a promising KPD with an early (sub-30) draft pick and that was Tom Williams in 2004 (#6). And he was a somewhat speculative project player based on his athletic pedigree rather than proven performance over a lengthy junior career. It was also one of the shallowest drafts ever. In the 10 years since then we haven't tried for a single KPD with a sub-30 pick. We famously missed Jake Carlisle of course, but there have been other opportunities, including most of those listed above.

If we had adopted a better balance in our list management over those years - even if we'd snared just ONE of those players (say James Frawley in 2006 instead of Everitt, or Jake Carlisle in 2009 instead of Howard) then we wouldn't be having this massive debate today. Instead we are hoping that we can fashion a couple of reliable KPDs out of a player we picked as a ruckman (Roughead), a late-30s pick (Talia) and a player that every club passed over until the PSD (Roberts).

EDIT: I'm not ignoring ZCordy. I rate him. I can even see him as a potential KPD, but we needed someone like him about three years ago.

 

[immortalmike]

This is not a rebuttal of your post, MrChristo, more a general observation or two. It's just that your last post reminded me of these things ...

1. A number of posts have referred to the likelihood that whichever KPD we recruit now will take 3 years to be any good (if they make it) and will make no difference in 2015 so what's the point of even considering one? (Yes, some of the posts are more nuanced than that but the drift is much the same). This argument troubles me on at least two levels (a) it implies a return to an "instant results" mentality at the sacrifice of longer term planning. Whatever his faults Brendan McCartney brought to the club an awareness of the importance of longer-term planning, something we have lacked for decades and only begun to improve on since the start of the Smorgon era. (b) the argument should definitely not be about an instant result in any case. If you adopt that line of thinking we will never draft any player that will take more than 6 months to find his feet and debut at AFL level. Certainly not a KPD. We will still be saying in 2017 "we have no KPD depth" when in fact a mid-to-late pick in each of 2013/14/15 might just have secured one who would at least be serviceable.

2. The related notion that we won't know who is right and who is wrong for another three years is superficially true but it ducks the debate. If you follow that line we won't ever have a post-draft critique of our ND picks because the report card on the draftees is always three years away. This is why a number of posters (on both sides of the debate) have been saying "well let's look at how we have gone over the last 3-5 years under this recruiter". In other words the preliminary (and in some cases the final!) report card for all those draftees is now in. So we DO have a basis for a robust discussion. It's just the interpretation that differs.

Having said all that I agree 100% with you that we are all hoping for the same thing, even if it sometimes appears otherwise. I am also very happy that we have addressed foot skills, vision and decision making at last. It was indeed a clear need, just as I believe our shallow KPD stocks represent a clear need.

I think you may have misconstrued some opinions with your first point DW. I think most are looking at our inexperienced young key position defenders (Roughead, Roberts, Talia, Cordy and Hamling) and feel that it is a waste to pick up another developing tall in the draft unless they are of better quality, which is unlikely at pick 39+ in the draft. Thus some feel there might be a need for a more mature tall to help bring these guys through.

 

[dogwatch]

I think you may have misconstrued some opinions with your first point DW. I think most are looking at our inexperienced young key position defenders (Roughead, Roberts, Talia, Cordy and Hamling) and feel that it is a waste to pick up another developing tall in the draft unless they are of better quality, which is unlikely at pick 39+ in the draft. Thus some feel there might be a need for a more mature tall to help bring these guys through.

Well I guess that's the whole nub of the argument "history shows there's always going to be one there" (BRWB) vs "I've looked, and they're all shit" (paraphrase of Dalrymple's view).

So forgive me, but who is the mature KPD we expect to get to save our bacon? Without going back through two threads and hundreds of posts my mind's a blank! (I think reading those hundreds of posts caused it!)

In any case we will still need a longer term prospect (assuming the mature guy isn't that). See my subsequent post on investing in quality KPDs.

 

[immortalmike]

Well I guess that's the whole nub of the argument "history shows there's always going to be one there" (BRWB) vs "I've looked, and they're all shit" (paraphrase of Dalrymple's view).

So forgive me, but who is the mature KPD we expect to get to save our bacon? Without going back through two threads and hundreds of posts my mind's a blank! (I think reading those hundreds of posts caused it!)

In any case we will still need a longer term prospect (assuming the mature guy isn't that). See my subsequent post on investing in quality KPDs.

It was supposed to be Lonergan but we settled on another developing tall in Hamling. It will probably have to wait until next years trade period unless the recruiting staff have an ace up their sleeve in the Rookie Draft.

You don't think five is enough? Unless of course we can get access to a blue chip talent?
Honestly I'd rather another developing tall forward.

 

[dogwatch]

It was supposed to be Lonergan but we settled on another developing tall in Hamling. It will probably have to wait until next years trade period unless the recruiting staff have an ace up their sleeve in the Rookie Draft.

You don't think five is enough? Unless of course we can get access to a blue chip talent?
Honestly I'd rather another developing tall forward.

If we had two blue chip KPDs I reckon five might be enough, as long as we had some Morris-type "third talls".

Alas, I don't think we have any proven blue chip KPDs. The last one we had is playing his final years at Hawthorn.

The good news is that - Morris aside - all our KPDs are young, so if they DO succeed we are set for quite a while. Big if, though.

 

[immortalmike]

If we had two blue chip KPDs I reckon five might be enough, as long as we had some Morris-type "third talls".

Alas, I don't think we have any proven blue chip KPDs. The last one we had is playing his final years at Hawthorn.

The good news is that - Morris aside - all our KPDs are young, so if they DO succeed we are set for quite a while. Big if, though.

That's sort of my point. We don't have a great KP back, but we do have plenty developing from the same draft range people are complaining we didn't draft another one from. Facts is we can't fit all 5 and Morris in our AFL and VFL sides without it affecting their development as defenders. So unless we have access to a can't miss draft prospect (next year), one of them is a proven failure (not yet), or a couple leave, there's no point drafting another in the same relatively high range. Rather we should look to recruit a ready made next year if it's still a problem.

Personally I think Roberts, Talia and Roughy will all be quality. To be fair they've all shown far more than Lake had at the same stage in his career (this being Roughy's second year in defence).

 

[Mofra]

Personally I think Roberts, Talia and Roughy will all be quality. To be fair they've all shown far more than Lake had at the same stage in his career (this being Roughy's second year in defence).

Have to disagree here - Lake debuted in his first year, played 13 games in his second and 17 in his third - and 22 in his 4th.
Talia is in his third season and didn't play seniors.
Roberts in two years hasn't managed to complete a season at AFL/VFL level unscathed.
Roughy looked slow this year and was regularly beaten (nobody knows how much of that is due to injury). Even the coaches haven't said for certain he is a key back longer term.

The crux is people are trying to compare us to other teams and finding we are behind in both depth and quality for KPDs, in a draft where we've just picked up 5 very similar type players - from a list management point of view and knowing our historical struggle to find decent talls I'm not sure the fundamentalist addiction to "best available at all costs" is the best way forward. Best available for 80-90% of the time fine, but there needs to be some consideration of list needs at the draft.

 

[fronkalicious]

Limiting opposition scores is such a complex issue. Having 2 big key defenders that are good 1 on 1 is great, and very important, but only one element in a tangled defensive strategy.

Roughie and Morris (to a lesser extent) were butchered last year as a result of:

1. Roughie continually being played injured
2. Lack of 2 way running from mids
3. Lack of defensive pressure at stoppages
4. Lack of defensive mechanisms from mids/half-back to eat space
5. Lack of confidence amongst other defenders to peel off and help as 3rd man in/up
6. Inability of back 6 and mids to clear the ball from defensive 50m with any precision to prevent the footy from bouncing straight back.
7. Shocking (and I truly mean shocking) kick in strategies that continually exposed defenders on the rebound.

Did roughie and Morris lose more 1 on 1s than Id like?? Absolutely. But the overall team defense last year was pathetic, and they received no help whatsoever. I'm expecting the drink to address this as his first order of business.

 

[Doggy Dan]

Get the best available players and you will have the currency to trade in whatever you need.

FA adds to the options.

 

[TempleKelvington]

We needed talls

We went short

End discussion, anything else is bullsh!t and excuses coz the whole draft is a lottery so gamble big not in short people.

We know have about 8 players on out list that can't play in the same team at the same time

ok so we'll take that logic and turn it around. Let's say we drafted 5 talls instead of smalls. We then have, I don't know, about 8 players who can't play in th same side.

One final point on drafting KPDs that I don't think has been raised yet:

Nearly every club except us has a serious dip at a quality KPD every few years with one of its picks under #30. This is presumably on the principle that you can take pot luck with lower picks for years, you can scratch around the lower leagues hoping to unearth a late developer, you can rookie some rough prospects, and you can scour the trade market BUT ... sooner or later you have to make a serious investment in a "bankable" KPD prospect.

This makes sense. If you get just one every 5-6 years you can build your defence around that player for a very long time, barring injury or defection. Here I'm referring to early draft picks in the last 10 years like Daniel Talia, Ben Reid, Michael Hurley, Jake Carlisle, Harry Taylor, Ryan Schoenmakers (yes even Hawthorn do draft KPDs early!), Jared Rivers and James Frawley (poor Melbourne!), Jackson Trengove (PA), Alex Rance, and Eric Mackenzie. That's only a sample - most of them have become the mainstays of their team's defence. The important thing is those teams have seen fit to make the investment of a high draft pick well before their older KPDs retire. Naturally this will vary from club to club. Some got lucky with a later pick (like we did with Lake back in 2001 (#71)) and some traded aggressively for a KPD.

In any one year you can find a reason why we haven't made that investment ... but for 10 years or more on the trot?

Going back over our own draft picks since Luke Penny in 1998 (#14), I can only find one attempt to pluck a promising KPD with an early (sub-30) draft pick and that was Tom Williams in 2004 (#6). And he was a somewhat speculative project player based on his athletic pedigree rather than proven performance over a lengthy junior career. It was also one of the shallowest drafts ever. In the 10 years since then we haven't tried for a single KPD with a sub-30 pick. We famously missed Jake Carlisle of course, but there have been other opportunities, including most of those listed above.

If we had adopted a better balance in our list management over those years - even if we'd snared just ONE of those players (say James Frawley in 2006 instead of Everitt, or Jake Carlisle in 2009 instead of Howard) then we wouldn't be having this massive debate today. Instead we are hoping that we can fashion a couple of reliable KPDs out of a player we picked as a ruckman (Roughead), a late-30s pick (Talia) and a player that every club passed over until the PSD (Roberts).

EDIT: I'm not ignoring ZCordy. I rate him. I can even see him as a potential KPD, but we needed someone like him about three years ago.

I think you need to look at the drafts in more detail. Just as an example. You used Hawthorn picking up Shoenmakers. In that draft he went pick 16, 2 pics after we took Cordy. Now going back to the time, what would you have done? Not taken Cordy with 14? We had to take him then or he was off to Stkilda. Now he was very highly rated at the time. We could have used pick 11 in the year we took Higgins and had a punt on Beau Muston.

We then got Jones and Roughead and 31 and 32. So we did exactly what you suggested we should. In 2008 we got Grant at pick 4.

I don't want to go through every draft in detail, but there are examples like that all through. In 2005 Hawthorn used pick 22 on Beau Muston, Same draft they used pick 6 on Beau Dowler. They make bad calls too.

I think we have tried to get KP talent to the team. I think we have made some bad calls, but every team does. I don't think it's been a lack of intent. In recent years the best KP talent has been gobbled up by the expansion teams and we had no call on most of them.

That said, I still want us to go for the best player in the draft rather than shop for needs within reason. We shop for needs through trade and via the rookie list.

Drafts are littered with great players missed by teams. It's just the way it goes.

 

[fronkalicious]

Newsflash. All 44 blokes on the list can't fit into the same side. I personally blame dalrymple.

 

[Mattdougie]

Hahaha wow

Some people really do struggle

You CAN play as many 185-195 players in the same team as you want on any given week.

You CANNOT play as many players under 178 as you want in a team in any given week.

Now I admit any team has a small group of players that for into this group BUT we have more than is excusable on our list and is nothing other than poor drafting and list management by Dalrympke and co

 

[igloo dweller]

...i've got this lingering suspicion that one of our short people might be on the trade block at the end of the year

 

[BEaston]

Dalhaus only one with any amount of decent currency?

If it got us a ready made KPP I'd do it.

 

[dogwatch]

I think you need to look at the drafts in more detail. Just as an example. You used Hawthorn picking up Shoenmakers. In that draft he went pick 16, 2 pics after we took Cordy. Now going back to the time, what would you have done? Not taken Cordy with 14? We had to take him then or he was off to Stkilda. Now he was very highly rated at the time. We could have used pick 11 in the year we took Higgins and had a punt on Beau Muston.

We then got Jones and Roughead and 31 and 32. So we did exactly what you suggested we should. In 2008 we got Grant at pick 4.

I don't want to go through every draft in detail, but there are examples like that all through. In 2005 Hawthorn used pick 22 on Beau Muston, Same draft they used pick 6 on Beau Dowler. They make bad calls too.

I think we have tried to get KP talent to the team. I think we have made some bad calls, but every team does. I don't think it's been a lack of intent. In recent years the best KP talent has been gobbled up by the expansion teams and we had no call on most of them.

That said, I still want us to go for the best player in the draft rather than shop for needs within reason. We shop for needs through trade and via the rookie list.

Drafts are littered with great players missed by teams. It's just the way it goes.

You're talking about KPPs generally. That wasn't what I was talking about. I'm looking specifically at KPDs because that is the issue we're debating (I know they can be interchangeable to some extent but most of them are designated backs or forwards).

I was not suggesting Cordy should have been skipped. He was a no-brainer at the time, even if his development since then has been disappointing. Indeed I am not referring to any one draft or the mistakes that every club makes. Excuses can be made for any given year. I am referring to a pattern of failing to commit to a quality KPD over 10 years or more. Sooner or later you have to address it. Hopefully we have got lucky with a f/s in ZCordy but even he is several years too late for our needs in 2016-17. [And just a theory ... if he wasn't a f/s and just happened to be available at our pick #26 this year I personally doubt we would have selected him even though Dalrymple said we would have gone f/s with our first pick if we had to.]

Grant, Jones and I believe Roughead were not picked as KPDs. They were picked as forwards, or in Roughy's case, as a ruckman/forward. We have made a silk purse out of a sow's ear in his case.

 

[Mofra]

ok so we'll take that logic and turn it around. Let's say we drafted 5 talls instead of smalls. We then have, I don't know, about 8 players who can't play in th same side.

That hypothetical is just as unbalanced as a list of too many small mid/forward types.
The argument is for balance, not for taking every tall we get our hand on.

Nobody is arguing that "best available" is not acceptable, just that it is acceptable 80-90% of the time and beyond that list needs should be considered.

 

[TempleKelvington]

That hypothetical is just as unbalanced as a list of too many small mid/forward types.
The argument is for balance, not for taking every tall we get our hand on.

Nobody is arguing that "best available" is not acceptable, just that it is acceptable 80-90% of the time and beyond that list needs should be considered.

I was just saying that to point out that we can't put everyone into the 22 at the same time.

 

[dogwatch]

I was just saying that to point out that we can't put everyone into the 22 at the same time.

Quite right. Fronk put it nicely with his newsflash.

Really with 40-44 players on the list we should be looking to have roughly two full sides, with perhaps a slight skewing toward rare commodities such as ruckmen and KPPs.

This means that the 22 not getting picked are there for one or more of the following reasons:

• Development (as future best 22 players)
• Depth (in case of injury or suspension)
• Balance and mentoring (e.g. 1-2 mature average footballers retained to balance a young list and maintain a good work ethic at the club)
• To create fierce competition for a place in the 22

So when anyone posts that you don't need x number of a certain type of player because you can't play them all at once, I just move right along to the next post.

 

[Mofra]

I was just saying that to point out that we can't put everyone into the 22 at the same time.

True, but balance applies across the list not just the best 22.

In any case our list is finalized for the year - it now is what it is.
Hopefully Bevo can work his magic and we can see some shape and structure throughout the pre-season.