Bluemour Melting Pot XXI - Like seriously, the polar ice caps have got nothing on us

[Magruder]

What is disingenuous is that you're using those players as examples of poor recruiting/drafting, suggesting that the list management team somehow expected more from these players than what they were capable of, and made a "mistake" in bringing them to the club. When in fact, they were most likely under no illusions as to their level of talent/value, but were brought in for other reasons.

Don't make the mistake of taking my post as an argument that the list team at Carlton have got everything right. But at the same time, don't use players who were brought in for very specific reasons, with full knowledge of role they could be expected to play, and on the understanding that they would be moved on, as examples of "poor list decisions".

As I said, I am referring to half of the players you listed, they are unnecessary and incorrect in the context of your point.

There is a very clear distinction between:

A) Gorringe, Lebois, Polsen, Schumacher, Kerr, Deluca, Fasolo, Garlett, Korcheck, Bugg and Gallucci.

versus

B) Palmer, Lobbe, Shaw, O'Shea, Silvagni(Freo), Sumner, Pickett, Lamb, Mullet, Smedts and Phillips

Can you explain your categories please?

Genuinely curious

 

[Sector 7G]

Why was it a "diabolical selection"?

Was it because you'd never heard of him prior to draft day? Because no phantom draft on BigFooty mentioned his name?

It was a poor selection not because he was unheard of or wasn't on anyone's else radar, but because he is so far off VFL level. Given how far off he is there is very little chance he will develop to a level that he is worth persisting with in 2021. LeBois and JGM were 2 players that were persisted with too long given that they were so far off VFL level.

Cottrell was unheard and was a long shot but he has AFL qualities: big tank, mongrel, good kick. If he had been selected with the last pick in the draft we would be saying at least he has a chance.

 

[SickQwon]

Diabolical selection. Some people need to take the rose coloured glasses off

Who should he had taken instead?

Maybe recruiting Ben's best mate has a more positive impact on Ben than any other dud selected at 70+

 

[skadoosh]

When you are rebuilding from the bottom up, all eyes are much more focused on every single player drafted or traded to Carlton.
Simply because you have more holes to fill on the field. How many of our new players had to be utilised on field in the last few years vs an established side like West Coast, Geelong or Richmond?
How do you determine what a fair evaluation for SOS is when he started with essentially nothing, and only was able to utilise what draft picks we had and had to manufacture what he could via multi player trades? He wasn't rebuilding with a myriad of early draft picks a la the Sun or Giants.
Just my 2c - he is harshly judged based on his starting point and what he was given to pick players.

 

[Jeremias]

It was a poor selection not because he was unheard of or wasn't on anyone's else radar, but because he is so far off VFL level. Given how far off he is there is very little chance he will develop to a level that he is worth persisting with in 2021.

People were gunning for Finbar straight away, and it had far more to do with being unheard of and not on any phantom draft, than any specific aspect of his game which most wouldn't have the slightest clue about.

He's just completed his first year at AFL level as an under-developed 18 year old. The criticism of him is not just completely over the top, it is frankly pathetic.

 

[Ald Gardiner]

I don’t buy this stuff. Where has it been stated SOS picked him? We have a draft board surely, where we rank the draftees and pick accordingly. Not a good look for the club if the list manager is coming in over the top to pick his kids mates. Makes no sense to me.

His sons went to Xavier and Finbar went there as well, join the dots

 

[OldBlueFan]

Can you explain your categories please?

Genuinely curious

Please note, I am making these claims without any knowledge of the inner recruitment decisions of the club (as I think most on here do).

But in this context, I am making the distinction between players who may have been taken as potential medium to long term prospects who could potentially form part of the senior AFL team (group A) and players who were taken to either perform a short term role, or were taken to faclitate the trades of players who were highly desired (group B).

Having said that, I don't think Korcheck or Philips belong in either group. They should never have been in the original post. One was a Category B rookie, and the other is a proven AFL level player.

Only those from group A can genuinely be said to have taken up spots on the list that might have been filled by better choices, and therefore should be used to level criticism at the list management team.

 

[F_therest]

People were gunning for Finbar straight away, and it had far more to do with being unheard of and not on any phantom draft, than any specific aspect of his game which most wouldn't have the slightest clue about.

He's just completed his first year at AFL level as an under-developed 18 year old. The criticism of him is not just completely over the top, it is frankly pathetic.

Lol it's pretty crazy how people can get so outraged over a club drafting a player, simply because they hadn't heard of them in phantom drafts...most of them wouldn't have even seen the kids play at all, and just going by what they read.

Like how they can't believe player x slid to pick 30 because Twomey had them at pick 12 in his phantom.
Like how everyone was blowing up at Adelaide for picking Doedee at pick 16 because no one (the general public) had heard of him...that's turned into a good pick.

 

[SammaGilberto]

This board is strange at times, very strange indeed.

 

[F_therest]

People are forgetting the magnitude of the clean out each year an he amount of players we had to bring in to make out he numbers. sure some of them were list cloggers and some were salary Cap dumps. but when you are bringing in 10+ players for 2 or 3 seasons in a row the percentage of nailing each pick diminishes significantly.

We look at some examples like Sydney stack, Eddy Betts and assume there is 3 or 4 diamonds in the rough each year.

I'm really not sure too many other list managers could have turned our list around the way SOS did. Our list was a joke in 2015.

How many would have been as creative and good as SOS to get the same kind of value for the likes of Gibbs, Henderson, Yarran & Bell?
We have his wheeling and dealing to thank for having McKay, Curnow, Cunners and LOB on the list, since he had to work hard to get the picks we drafted them at.

He also managed to attain talented young players like Marchbank, Kennedy & Setterfield despite interest from other clubs.

Also, Teague showed what our list is capable of in the second half of the year. A list that SOS put together and should only get better in the following years.

 

[HavUEvaSeenTheRain]

Please note, I am making these claims without any knowledge of the inner recruitment decisions of the club (as I think most on here do).

But in this context, I am making the distinction between players who may have been taken as potential medium to long term prospects who could potentially form part of the senior AFL team (group A) and players who were taken to either perform a short term role, or were taken to faclitate the trades of players who were highly desired (group B).

Having said that, I don't think Korcheck or Philips belong in either group. They should never have been in the original post. One was a Category B rookie, and the other is a proven AFL level player.

Only those from group A can genuinely be said to have taken up spots on the list that might have been filled by better choices, and therefore should be used to level criticism at the list management team.

Though why is Smedts different to someone like Newman. We chased Smedts.
Even O’Shea who was he providing depth for. Lang will probably be another failed player.
I also think if we didn’t rate Sumner, Lamb or Phillips at all then 28 is overs for Plowman and those salary cap dumps.

 

[BigFrizz36]

People were gunning for Finbar straight away, and it had far more to do with being unheard of and not on any phantom draft, than any specific aspect of his game which most wouldn't have the slightest clue about.

He's just completed his first year at AFL level as an under-developed 18 year old. The criticism of him is not just completely over the top, it is frankly pathetic.

Fully agree. It's almost like some are death riding finbar to build there argument.

Might make it. Might not. Hope that he does. I have seen plenty of players over the years who looked nowhere near it after one year come good. Hope that the sad pathetic people who are death riding him end of with egg all over their face.

 

[HARKER]

Many of us get stuck on 'we should have taken this player ahead of that one', but I don't see that as the biggest issue - We simply neglected the right types.
That makes for a whole discussion and best served in the List Management thread.

What I do see though, is that it's likely this will be the first year in the new era where our list has actually gone backwards by way of overall quality.
(Of course the players we have will improve, but that's not the point.)
That may ultimately be proved to be untrue, but for now we haven't improved anything - Not our rucks, not our small forwards, not our midfield....nothing.

How we had the 'need' to move on Thomas is beyond me, regardless of his touted indiscretions.
Is Pittonet better than Phillips. Clearly at least Essendon don't think so. We were happy giving the newbie two years but not so much for the bird we had.
Will another couple of 18 year olds be better than for hanging onto handy types in Kerr and Schumacher? We'll see.
What was the point of Deluca and this new game we're now playing with him?

It's all so out of balance to me.
If we've gone back to the too many chiefs scenario........well, it won't be good.

 

[HavUEvaSeenTheRain]

Lol it's pretty crazy how people can get so outraged over a club drafting a player, simply because they hadn't heard of them in phantom drafts...most of them wouldn't have even seen the kids play at all, and just going by what they read.

Like how they can't believe player x slid to pick 30 because Twomey had them at pick 12 in his phantom.
Like how everyone was blowing up at Adelaide for picking Doedee at pick 16 because no one (the general public) had heard of him...that's turned into a good pick.

It’s interesting but people would’ve seen more of Finbar live now then SOS probably had of before he was drafted.
What I find interesting is people are too scared to question it after a year even though they change the way they rate these kids a thousand times before they are drafted with ten times less information then they do after a year in the system.

 

[F_therest]

I'm guessing it's too much to ask who overruled him, but was he overruled by more than one person?

I don't even understand who could overrule SOS.

It can't be a recruiter because to my knowledge they are in his team and would report to SOS...they don't have the authority to overrule him.

The only person i can think of is Lloyd...footy manager and ex-Freo list manager. I'm not sure why he would pick a fight over Dunkley/Deluca though.
Surely not Bolton as he was on his last legs at the time, and Liddle shouldn't be getting involved in these kinds of football matters as CEO...if he's meddling in list management he's overstepping his boundaries.

I wonder if SOS wasn't too happy Liddle publicly declared we needed small forwards?
If true about SOS being overruled on Dunkley, it's interesting that it's public knowledge that he wasn't too keen on Betts either, but essentially it sounds like Teague's influence was quite large in his recruitment. That would be 2 incidents in a short period of time.

Can see why SOS isn't too happy if he's being overruled despite being GM of LM and having done a great job so far. At the same time, we don't know if maybe SOS is doing things all his way and not collaborating enough with others at the club.

 

[F_therest]

It’s interesting but people would’ve seen more of Finbar live now then SOS probably had of before he was drafted.
What I find interesting is people are too scared to question it after a year even though they change the way they rate these kids a thousand times before they are drafted with ten times less information then they do after a year in the system.

Well we were more talking about people who got outraged right after we selected him.

But also, i'm not too scared to question. Finbar is a young kid only 1 year into his AFL career...besides, plenty of low draft picks don't make it...it wouldn't exactly be a hangable offence.

When i look at the work SOS has done overall at his time here, from where our list was to where it is now, my assessment is SOS has done an incredible job.
Has he got every pick right? Absolutely not. But no one does.

 

[Crippa#9]

It's an educated guess at best, Agresta has a strong record from Sydney especially with rookies so I'm guessing thats why he was brought on board.

Lots of nice stats on this page eg you need 18 picks in the 21-30 range before you are likely to select an All Australian.

Love to know if there are KPI's set around later picks?

I'm not sold on Agresta. Would prefer him in the recruiting dept. For whatever reason he's never really exuded firm confidence or flair which I think one requires a little of this in the head role of list management...

 

[smashbox gill]

In an ideal world, yes.

However, sustained club success & harmony must always come first, these two elements go hand in hand.

SOS is in an invidious position. If there is any change it will be his call.

I’m glad it will be his call but I don’t want him to essentially be pushed out because he is being undermined.

The club has been harmonious since SOS arrived and he has been the stable factor in our resurgence. I feel safer with SOS being at the club than anyone else, as I trust he will make the right decision

 

[smashbox gill]

It’s funny that people talk about the Finbar selection.

Pat Ambrose and Brayden Sier we’re both picked from obscurity as well and weren’t on many teams radars. Now look at them.

Teams make risky selections

 

[Blue__Balls]

On one hand we have people bemoaning picking up Finbar with a pick in the 70s, because it must be because of his link to BSOS.

On the other hand we've had people angling for us to take Sam De Koning, Henry Walsh and Thomson Dow without ever having seen them play, just because of their brothers.

Crazy.

I'd look at our late pick recruitment with a GWS lens. We didn't have the handouts GWS did, but the list profiles were somewhat similar. Late picks were always going to struggle to get a gig ahead of 20 first round draftees plus a small senior core. So use those late picks on mature depth and raw projects, knowing they'll probably just be making way for more talented recruits within 2-3 years anyway. Might not be what everyone has done, but it's an approach I can understand.

 

[Opine]

When you are rebuilding from the bottom up, all eyes are much more focused on every single player drafted or traded to Carlton.
Simply because you have more holes to fill on the field. How many of our new players had to be utilised on field in the last few years vs an established side like West Coast, Geelong or Richmond?
How do you determine what a fair evaluation for SOS is when he started with essentially nothing, and only was able to utilise what draft picks we had and had to manufacture what he could via multi player trades? He wasn't rebuilding with a myriad of early draft picks a la the Sun or Giants.
Just my 2c - he is harshly judged based on his starting point and what he was given to pick players.

Considering current state of the list to where it was just 4 years ago might be helpful in evaluating SOS's performance; it seems in very good shape.

 

[FlowersByIrene]

Who should he had taken instead?

Maybe recruiting Ben's best mate has a more positive impact on Ben than any other dud selected at 70+

Wasn't Sydney Stack available?

 

[TheBlueCampaigner]

I was reminded on SEN yesterday that the Hawks (under Graham Wright) selected Ty Vickery.. No club gets them all right.

 

[PoultryinMotion]

Funny story.. my mum used to go out with the dude inside Humphrey back in the late 70's.. lol

Geez that sounds wrong!

 

[El Topo]

Though why is Smedts different to someone like Newman. We chased Smedts.
Even O’Shea who was he providing depth for. Lang will probably be another failed player.
I also think if we didn’t rate Sumner, Lamb or Phillips at all then 28 is overs for Plowman and those salary cap dumps.

Not enough love for Plowman. It was 28, salary dumps and a pick upgrade that landed Harry McKay - one of the GOAT trades of the AFL era.