Preview National Draft discussion (Picks 14, 35, 43, 58)

[AFC979810]

Since Wells has been head of recruiting for the Cats how many father/sons has that club been able to acquire through that process compared to the Crow's ZERO, NADA, NIL???

Of course that couldn't have anything at all to do with Premiership wins I guess??

Of course it helped them. Absolutely. Nowhere have I said otherwise.

I just can't believe that people are trying to discredit Wells - who built one of the greatest dynasty's in recent AFL history.

 

[AFC979810]

Is this serious? Development, culture, coaching, development, training resources, footy department, development ...

These things are important. But talent is the most important. IMO - we haven't assembled enough talent to be a premiership threat.

 

[AFC979810]

Three words ...

Gunston, Tippett, Davis.

Sure they would have helped. But to think we are the only team to lose good players is a bit silly - especially when this conversation is based around a discussion between Geelong and Adelaide.

Geelong lost their All Australian CHB in Egan after 2007 and went on to make the grand final in 08 and win it in 09. They also lost one of the top 5 players of all time after 2010 and went on to win the 2011 flag.

 

[AFC979810]

He is, and now i am going to live in perpetual fear that Melbourne will win the next 10 grand finals.

Quality post!

That is exactly my point. You summed it up perfectly.

 

[AFC979810]

If you look at our 26 and under brigade and add Tippet, Gunston and Davis to it, the list looks very strong for a team starved of top 10 draft picks over the last decade.

Would have probably added a couple first round midfielders over the last 2 years had it not been for the sanctions.

The club has been poor in a number of facets in the last decade, but drafting has been one of the strong points. If you can't acknowledge that, you are blind.

We have been good. I haven't said we have been terrible, but I don't think we are exactly the envy of other clubs either.

Over the past 10 years - we have had some hits - Danger, Talia, Smith, Sloane, Douglas, Vince, Tippett. We have had some failures Watts, Meesen, Pfieffer, Sellar, McKernan. We have been okay with our drafting and recruiting and I think it shows with the results we have had on the field.

 

[AFC979810]

He got owned about Premierships sides not having heaps of late drafted players.

Now he's come back for another hiding arguing a different and of a similar argument......

No sledge about my username this time? You are slipping.

Yes - I remember that pleasant discussion with you. You rightly corrected my foolish thinking that Geelong and Hawthorns dynasty wasn't built on late drafted players and instead was built on top end talent!!! And to think - I actually believed that Bartel, Corey, Ablett, Hawkins, Mackie, and Selwood played a role in Geelongs flags and that Hodge, Roughead, Franklin, Lewis and Rioli were major contributors to the Hawks dynasty.

 

[AFC979810]

Oh, please. What a pretentious post.

Not pretentious. The players you listed were ridiculously misleading. You said look at Wells first rounders and listed 9 players. 4 of them weren't first rounders and 2 of them were drafted in 2012,2013 and have played 11 games between them.

You then deliberately omitted Mitch Duncan who was a brilliant pickup at #28, but still included 3 players who were picked after him.

You also started your comparison two years after Wells picked up Selwood/Taylor.

To me it was a massively misleading and incorrect post.

I chose the early picks made by Wells over the last six years. That's because he didn't try to get ahead of us in the third round, it is his genius at getting four picks earlier than us in the first round that has folks like you, Sanders and DABM quaking in their boots. I added picks the went into the second round because, well, MORE information isn't the worse thing in the world.

I am not quaking in my boots because its Wells who wanted pick 10. I just think its a silly decision for our club that needs talent badly.

Selwood fell into his lap. Taylor was a masterstroke. Wells mystique exists because of father/son selections, a couple of good trades and ONE extraordinary draft in 14 years.

I think your assessment of Wells is harsh. Absolutely that 1999 draft set him and having access to Ablett/Hawkins through Father Son helped him heaps. The fact remains that he built the list that played in 4 grand finals over 6 years and won 3 flags. You can individually assess each of his picks all you like - but he did build one of the greatest sides of all time.

If you would like to do this whole century:

In 2000 he drafted two players who never played and Josh Hunt, who was a solid battler.

In 2001, he had the greatest draft of all time - but only one pick in the first 16.

In 2002, he had Mackie at 7 and Lonergan and a failed F/S.

In 2003, he had four duds, including Tenace at pick 7.

In 2004, he had Prismall and Egan. One became reasonable trade bait and one was cut short by injury. Probably reasonable selections, even if they never played to their potential at Geelong.

In 2005, he took Stokes late, Varcoe early and three duds. I think the Stokes late pick deserves some credit.

In 2006, he had Selwood, a F/S and two duds.

I listed from 2007 on, but to recap:

2007 was Taylor and four duds. 2008 was Steven Motlop late and three duds (with apologies to Richmond's Taylor Hunt - but delisted = dud). 2008 was Mitch Duncan, the departed Allen Christensen and three duds. 2009 I mentioned, unless you want to discuss the merits of drafting James Podsiadly.

So - in 14 drafts, he has three successful early picks (i.e. earlier than pick 14): Bartel, Mackie and Selwood, plus Harry Taylor as a late first rounder.

Frankly, that record does not have me shivering in fear that he somehow is going to pants us. The recruiting team at the Crows can point to at least as many late successes as Wells, and probably a very similar early strikerate as well.

To the bolded bit. In Wells recruiting career - he has had 5 top 10 picks. He picked up Corey, Bartel, Mackie, Tenace, Selwood. Thats not a bad strike rate at all for top 10 picks. I can understand why he wants to get back into the top 10.

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

Selwood fell in his lap!

If they'd traded down Pick 7 to Pick 11 he wouldn't have.

Anyway, we can probably guess why we did it. Most clubs will be clambouring for elite midfield talent or key forwards in the first round. We've got a key defender we want who no one else would prioritise as highly.

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

Come on...that's the same line you ran about Sydney when they signed Tippett. Need new material

Those grand final making dummies you mean?

Geelong the dynasty dummies.

Little do they know that we've outperformed them over the last 10 years.

Am enjoying the talk that drafting is a lottery and 14 often works out better than 10 anyway. Oh... but it makes perfect sense to go from 47 to 35 in this lottery of course.

 

[Huntercrow]

It's either a good decision or it isn't. There is no good year for a bad decision. And in no way should our drafting be dictated by the opinions of the minor league team in town.

Noble and the recruitment team have done a very good job previously - if you're going to start second guessing them now, you're no better than Rucci.

Port are hardly minor league. Their fans are excited about next season. And rightly so. Their football department filled a gap with a quality player. Can't say the same in our case. Disappointingly the ruckman we had targeted chose To go to Essendon. That was humiliating.
We could not convince a player that we were a better option than a club facing long term bans. No matter the short term opportunties we were always the long term option in this case.
So with little to show for an unproductive trade period we seem to have hit the panic button. Some supporters would be asking questions. You can't deny this or deny their disappointment.

 

[Grenville]

Disappointingly the ruckman we had targeted chose To go to Essendon. That was humiliating.
We could not convince a player that we were a better option than a club facing long term bans.

C'mon mate - Giles was always going to choose the club where he was most likely to get a game in the seniors. Essendon players getting banned only helps his cause.

 

[baldandbroke]

Port are hardly minor league. Their fans are excited about next season. And rightly so. Their football department filled a gap with a quality player. Can't say the same in our case. Disappointingly the ruckman we had targeted chose To go to Essendon. That was humiliating.
We could not convince a player that we were a better option than a club facing long term bans. No matter the short term opportunties we were always the long term option in this case.
So with little to show for an unproductive trade period we seem to have hit the panic button. Some supporters would be asking questions. You can't deny this or deny their disappointment.

Humiliating? To whom? BF posters who can't handle a gentle ribbing from those nasty Port supporters? BF posters who think that Giles is somehow a massive loss over Lowden? C'mon.

Unproductive trade period? Again why?

We have in the last few months brought in a new CEO, a new Head Coach, 2 new Assistant coaches, cleared out 9 players, brought in 2 new ones, have 3 live picks under 50. We have also upgraded Charlie Cameron from the rookie list.

I'd say there is plenty to point towards supporters not being "disappointed".

Most supporters I know don't give two rats arses about the off-season niggles and shakes, they just want to see who is playing for them come round 1 - and what their team can do.

 

[Mego Red]

Port are hardly minor league. Their fans are excited about next season. And rightly so. Their football department filled a gap with a quality player. Can't say the same in our case. Disappointingly the ruckman we had targeted chose To go to Essendon. That was humiliating.
We could not convince a player that we were a better option than a club facing long term bans. No matter the short term opportunties we were always the long term option in this case.
So with little to show for an unproductive trade period we seem to have hit the panic button. Some supporters would be asking questions. You can't deny this or deny their disappointment.

Sorry - but the only person panicking and acting like a pork chop is you.

Port, St Kilda, Western Bulldogs and other mid sized franchises shouldn't impact our decision making and their opinions aren't relevant.

We targeted a backup ruckman and got arguably best available. An alternative went to Essendon. That is of so little importance I've already almost forgotten it.

We also targeted a mid sized defender to replace a long term injury. These were two list gaps, and we got them both by shuffling some draft spots in a very even draft. Good effort in my book.

 

[Mego Red]

Geelong were trying to move up for a while. They made a case to us that we thought was good for both parties.

I'm sure part of that conversation would have been "we're gonna take X, we know the WA teams like A and B, and Richmond wants either F or G - if you don't want those guys, why not move down and move up later, when the draft is less predictable and you might miss your guy?"

Of course, pick 14 is exactly 20% less talented than pick 10, because it's a guaranteed science, so there is THAT. Picking a player at 14 instead of 10 means you're removing some of his talent, just like picking a player early means he's now more talented.

 

[Jars458]

Those grand final making dummies you mean?

Geelong the dynasty dummies.

Little do they know that we've outperformed them over the last 10 years.

Am enjoying the talk that drafting is a lottery and 14 often works out better than 10 anyway. Oh... but it makes perfect sense to go from 47 to 35 in this lottery of course.

Well lets just sack every person at the club then and you can do all of their jobs smarty pants. Noble doesn't strike me as the type to do something for no apparan reason. Maybe we just wanted to help out Geelong

 

[Tex200]

Port are hardly minor league. Their fans are excited about next season. And rightly so. Their football department filled a gap with a quality player. Can't say the same in our case. Disappointingly the ruckman we had targeted chose To go to Essendon. That was humiliating.
We could not convince a player that we were a better option than a club facing long term bans. No matter the short term opportunties we were always the long term option in this case.
So with little to show for an unproductive trade period we seem to have hit the panic button. Some supporters would be asking questions. You can't deny this or deny their disappointment.

Giles would have wanted to go to Essendon because of the potential bans, not despite them

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

It is possible to think that the trades we did were good and the pick swap was bad

 

[baldandbroke]

Those grand final making dummies you mean?

Geelong the dynasty dummies.

Little do they know that we've outperformed them over the last 10 years.

Am enjoying the talk that drafting is a lottery and 14 often works out better than 10 anyway. Oh... but it makes perfect sense to go from 47 to 35 in this lottery of course.

So you think that the reason that the Hawks and Geelong have had sustained success is because of the advantage they have gained over teams like AFC through the trade period? Like you said, if the trade period / draft indicated anything significant we would have been flying.

As far as "14 works out better than 10" ... no-one has said that. People have pointed to the player from pick 14 being better than pick 10. It can happen, but that doesn't justify the swap.

But what if ... 14 WORKED OUT THE SAME AS 10? Then would you consider it worthwhile to trade 10 for 14 and 35? Surely even you could concede that.

 

[Tex200]

It is possible to think that the trades we did were good and the pick swap was bad

I think they're inextricably linked. Walsh was clear as I recall that he wanted to be in the first 2 rounds.

Therefore to comply with that request and meet Hawthorn's demand of 31 to anchor the trade for their 2 players, Noble had to get us back into the second round. Hence the 10-14 deal which delivered us 35.

So Cheney/Lowden cost us 4 spots in the second and 4 spots in the first. On its face that fairly cheap.

I'm torn on that 10-14 slide. It's hard to make sense of it. When I first saw it I was annoyed as hell, and the only way I've been able to rationalise it has been to simply assume Noble/Ogilvie are doing their job to the best if their ability.

You can only live with that kind of assumption if they have a decent track record which I think they have.

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

They're not linked at all.

That "requirement" is just something we made up ourselves. It's not in concrete. We only needed to do the deal if we thought, independently of anything else that happened, it would nett us better players than 10 and 47.

 

[Mattrox]

Obviously Steven Wells doesn't use the same software as us

Are we picking on need in Round 1 now?

Let's hope no other teams need tall or quick players!

Let's look at context.

You were throwing out you usual one-line comments. The gist I got was praising Wells and whacking us.

Now, you posting history tells me that this is your MO. Over the past couple years, according to you, and I'll paraphrase. ... "We are doing it wrong and should be more like Collingwood"

Given in that time Collingwood have fallen in a hole, you'll exuse me for dismissing the whole "other team is doing it better routine" as a disingenuous attempt to win the internetz.

No doubt there are real challenges, but for all the times posters whine about the AFC never taking risks, we take a calculated risk and then the sky is falling. A risk where, when concerns are raised the history and past data available show that those fears are ill founded.

It is also disingenuous because, in the top picks, there are enough players in contention that good players will still be available at 14. Combine that with the fact that there is more than 1 quality tall or fast player it's not an impossible task to do very well from the draft.

 

[Freddy Bassett]

Simply we are not using pick 10 for best available. We are pick for needs and that is a bloody good thing..

We will never know the truth. As football clubs spin it more than Shane Warne.. But I think there is 2 or 3 defenders who we know will be there at 14 and we can't split them.. If that is the case kudos to our club for having the balls to do it..
I guess the only way we will know is if we ask for extra time at our first selection ..

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

So we're bagging grand final making, premiership winning clubs now? Or feeling bigger than them because they don't make it every year.

Going back further, another concern I had is that we've needlessly set Kid 14 up for a never-ending McGregor vs Pavlich comparison, except there are four players he needs to be better than to make sure we don't regret this move.

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

Simply we are not using pick 10 for best available. We are pick for needs and that is a bloody good thing..

We will never know the truth. As football clubs spin it more than Shane Warne.. But I think there is 2 or 3 defenders who we know will be there at 14 and we can't split them.. If that is the case kudos to our club for having the balls to do it..
I guess the only way we will know is if we ask for extra time at our first selection ..

This is exactly right. I think we've earmarked a defender in post-Rutten panic. We've already got Talia who is a gun. Would we REALLY use another first rounder on a No 2 defender? Surely we don't spend big on this when our midfield is screaming out for some pace/polish.

 

[Tex200]

They're not linked at all.

That "requirement" is just something we made up ourselves. It's not in concrete. We only needed to do the deal if we thought, independently of anything else that happened, it would nett us better players than 10 and 47.

You can't know they're not linked at all.

In the end we all just speculate on here because we are not privy to private conversations.

It's entirely possible Walsh instructed our staff to do whatever was necessary to keep a first and a second round pick.

Walsh stated this publicly and I've no reason to disbelieve him.

Do you make room for the possibility that Walsh/Noble/Ogilvie know more about our needs and how the draft will fall than any of us on here?