List Mgmt. Graeme Wrights Recruiting (Analysing HFC recruiting from 2011-present)

[Gralin]

We don’t always suck we had some good wins at the end of last season but we are not performing well enough given our age demographic and experience.

We were ok against Brisbane & Richmond but they were well below their usual standard.

Richmond are very lucky they copped some injury riddled bottom sides the last few weeks.

Last year a bad Richmond still won at the G
We'd not beaten Brisbane for a while either.

You can only deal with the opponent in front of you on the day.

We are clearly playing poorly right now but it's not like we've not got issues with our younger bloke's as well.

We've got players in their prime years not playing well but the focus is on the guys who've won flags only it seem.

Playing more kids won't automatically make us better and it's not necessarily the best thing for those kids development either, assuming the club sees a future for them which it may not.

 

[Gralin]

Richmond comfortably beat the same Melbourne team that trounced us.

And we beat Richmond

 

[Davo-27]

this is starting to feel like Pelchen/Schwab kindve situation with some obvious differences in that some of the veterans we have now have had success, an additional problem is some of our veterans look like they dont have the passion to give it their all with premiership medals already highlighting their great careers, ive noticed this since 2017, also another issue was the loss of greats and leaders within the club that have not been replaced by greats or leaders

the 2 trades that we overpaid for in JOM and Wingard have hurt us, also the picking up of Mitchell who was great when he was racking up disposal numbers, but without big poss numbers he is just an ordinary kicking midfielder, JOM and Wingard play their best on the wing, but we have Henderson, Smith and Scully there already, with wingers reknown as bad tacklers and general defenders aerially it hurts our team overall, Scully has been horrible since arriving at Hawthorn, with the coaching group constantly trying to sell his usefulness, ok he can run, but there are too many weaknesses in his game, Patton was a weird one for us to go after, he was injury riddled no other club wanted to touch him and he was in a lot of ways a pick 1 bust, but we went after him obviously with the hopes he could be injury free, but even without injuries his speed has reduced thanx to his knee issues and with big men, athleticism is almost a must for AFL footy nowadays

i feel like the recent trade wins have been Impey, Scrimshaw and Frost, Henderson was a good DFA pickup until recently where he has dropped off quite significantly

we have ignored the top end of the draft to bring in talent that they obviously thought very highly of and now we find orselves in a position where the players we brought in many of them are not any better than what we couldve got in the draft and some worse than what we could have targeted in the draft if our recruiters had a good read of talent, which im not so sure of tbh, the problem i want to highlight is now we are in this predicament people are screaming "blood the kids" what they dont understand is except for last year picking up Day and Maginness we have a lot of very up in the air talent, will they make it? will they not, most look unlikely to make it, but im willing to be open to a surprise here or there, but im also of the understanding that most of the late draftees wont make it, the odds are against them.

so in summary we gave up our future for a midfield that isnt performing and hasnt been strong for 3 years and a bit, we finished top 4 and went out in straight sets, i understand that we had a good year then, but even that year it was more our defense and counter attack than our midfield that was strong, stratton and hardwick were AA or close to AA quality that year, remember their mullets, they were the days

players that dont deserve a game with their form and drop off in quality are Stratton(c), Henderson, Scully, Frawley, Shiels, Puopolo and even though he can pull out a good patch of form here and there Burgoyne is on his last legs, but i can guarantee they will be first picked and the reasoning? we have very few kids up and coming that we have the faith they can perform because we have given away many top 30 odd draft picks over the last 5-7 years, also there seems to be a pettiness when selecting kids in the last 3 or so years that is just annoying from the club.

 

[Gralin]

this is starting to feel like Pelchen/Schwab kindve situation with some obvious differences in that some of the veterans we have now have had success, an additional problem is some of our veterans look like they dont have the passion to give it their all with premiership medals already highlighting their great careers, ive noticed this since 2017, also another issue was the loss of greats and leaders within the club that have not been replaced by greats or leaders

the 2 trades that we overpaid for in JOM and Wingard have hurt us, also the picking up of Mitchell who was great when he was racking up disposal numbers, but without big poss numbers he is just an ordinary kicking midfielder, JOM and Wingard play their best on the wing, but we have Henderson, Smith and Scully there already, with wingers reknown as bad tacklers and general defenders aerially it hurts our team overall, Scully has been horrible since arriving at Hawthorn, with the coaching group constantly trying to sell his usefulness, ok he can run, but there are too many weaknesses in his game, Patton was a weird one for us to go after, he was injury riddled no other club wanted to touch him and he was in a lot of ways a pick 1 bust, but we went after him obviously with the hopes he could be injury free, but even without injuries his speed has reduced thanx to his knee issues and with big men, athleticism is almost a must for AFL footy nowadays

i feel like the recent trade wins have been Impey, Scrimshaw and Frost, Henderson was a good DFA pickup until recently where he has dropped off quite significantly

we have ignored the top end of the draft to bring in talent that they obviously thought very highly of and now we find orselves in a position where the players we brought in many of them are not any better than what we couldve got in the draft and some worse than what we could have targeted in the draft if our recruiters had a good read of talent, which im not so sure of tbh, the problem i want to highlight is now we are in this predicament people are screaming "blood the kids" what they dont understand is except for last year picking up Day and Maginness we have a lot of very up in the air talent, will they make it? will they not, most look unlikely to make it, but im willing to be open to a surprise here or there, but im also of the understanding that most of the late draftees wont make it, the odds are against them.

so in summary we gave up our future for a midfield that isnt performing and hasnt been strong for 3 years and a bit, we finished top 4 and went out in straight sets, i understand that we had a good year then, but even that year it was more our defense and counter attack than our midfield that was strong, stratton and hardwick were AA or close to AA quality that year

players that dont deserve a game with their form and drop off in quality are Stratton(c), Henderson, Scully, Frawley, Shiels, Puopolo and even though he can pull out a good patch of form here and there Burgoyne is on his last legs, but i can guarantee they will be first picked and the reasoning? we have very few kids up and coming that we have the faith they can perform because we have given away many top 30 odd draft picks over the last 5-7 years, also there seems to be a pettiness when selecting kids in the last 3 or so years that is just annoying from the club.

So you are revising the Mitchell trade now to be bad value?

 

[Davo-27]

So you are revising the Mitchell trade now to be bad value?

it was good value, but with his poor disposal and now injured leg could turn out to be bad value if he doesnt get back to his best, how do you not get this?

i mean if you read it it says, with Mitchell he was a big poss numbers player and thats what made him great, but without big numbers he is just a poor kicking midfielder, hopefully he goes back to his best soon.

 

[Gralin]

it was good value, but with his poor disposal and now injured leg could turn out to be bad value if he doesnt get back to his best, how do you not get this?

Were you expecting him to be back to his best this year?
Did he have an injury history when we traded for him?

 

[Davo-27]

Were you expecting him to be back to his best this year?
Did he have an injury history when we traded for him?

i said he was a good trade at the time, but if he doesnt start upping his numbers, his base skills are not what makes him valuable, i dont care if he was a golden child before he came to us, im talking about now and the future, i hope he comes good or else his value going forward will drop if he doesnt.

 

[Gralin]

i said he was a good trade at the time, but if he doesnt start upping his numbers, his base skills are not what makes him valuable, i dont care if he was a golden child before he came to us, im talking about now and the future, i hope he comes good or else his value going forward will drop if he doesnt.

Didn't answer either of my questions

 

[Davo-27]

Didn't answer either of my questions

1. i expected after being back for a month or 2 he would be somewhere near his best
2. he didnt have an injury history

i said it was a good trade, does that get through? if he doesnt get back to his ball winning best could be bad for us going forward

 

[Alite]

Will Day... 2 games into his AFL career .... with spaghetti arms... looked right at home. We have a 200 gamer in Day.

 

[Wingnut19]

Righteo,
Sicily, Day, Scrimshaw, Hardwick, Wingard, Omeara, Mitchell, Worpel, Impey, Maginness is our future core. Tempted to add Morrison. Think he will come good after 50 games. High hopes still for Matt Walker and Kosi. Not sold on Lewis at all. Thats enough talent to not spend too long bottoming out. Hit the draft and some shrewd trades we can be back in 3 years.
I would, trade the following.
GWS- they need a flag. strike now, they are desperate for a small fwd and ruck. Trade them Mcevoy and Bruest. They can give us Hill with one of Caldwell, Hately or XOH, plus a second round pick. We need to get young talent in, they need to win a flag in next couple years.
BRISBANE- Gunston would be ideal for them. They have two first rounders this year. Ports and their own. Ask for both of them. If not, one of those, plus Witherden. They took Birch, so hit them back by taking a younger talented HBF off them.

We really need to even up our past trades with some 2 for 1 deals for us. Whether thats 2 young players or 1 plus a draft pick. I love Gunners and Punky but they're our only chance to go for this.

There will have to be some short term pain for this list. We need to hit draft for 3 years hard. We need a Ruck, 2 x KPF, 1 x KPD desperately. Try hard for a bottom 5 finish this year and take DGB, and if we can jag that brisbane first take Callow. That's 1 KPF and KPD.

End of year Delist/retire Burgoyne, Stratton, Henderson, Poppy, Scully, Brooksby.

Finally, we need to see what these 2 irishman can do. They must play rest of year. Same with Dylan Moore and Ross. If 1 or 2 of those jump up and show something then the rest of the year can be a success, as well as pumping games into Day, Morris, Morrison, Lewis etc. Nothing less enjoyable than watching our old/slow side get beaten, at least with youth you can watch the game without worrying about the scoreboard as such and take positives out of their development.

 

[Luv_our_club]

Imagine Covid hit us in 2013? Or 2010? When our list was deep. Imagine the pain of having to cut players that the clubs knows can actually play and see them at other clubs - Bruest? Stratton? Suckling? Sicily? And would we have gambled on an ageing injured Lake with a reduced list?

But in 2020 the Covid list reduction is going to really help the Hawks to a fast rebuild.

We want to cut and reshape our list. Other clubs do not. And other clubs are going to be forced to release players they would prefer to keep, and that we can bring on.

Further, who knows what will happen when the salary cap is reduced. It could see players wanting to come to Hawthorn to retain their pay equity. We will have the money to spare and the spots. And there will be fallout for at least 2-3 years.

It would have been nice to be part of the 2018 superdraft, but otherwise I can't see a better time to have to cut and paste your list than 2020.

 

[Pessimistic]

Righteo,
Sicily, Day, Scrimshaw, Hardwick, Wingard, Omeara, Mitchell, Worpel, Impey, Maginness is our future core. Tempted to add Morrison. Think he will come good after 50 games. High hopes still for Matt Walker and Kosi. Not sold on Lewis at all. Thats enough talent to not spend too long bottoming out. Hit the draft and some shrewd trades we can be back in 3 years.
I would, trade the following.
GWS- they need a flag. strike now, they are desperate for a small fwd and ruck. Trade them Mcevoy and Bruest. They can give us Hill with one of Caldwell, Hately or XOH, plus a second round pick. We need to get young talent in, they need to win a flag in next couple years.
BRISBANE- Gunston would be ideal for them. They have two first rounders this year. Ports and their own. Ask for both of them. If not, one of those, plus Witherden. They took Birch, so hit them back by taking a younger talented HBF off them.

We really need to even up our past trades with some 2 for 1 deals for us. Whether thats 2 young players or 1 plus a draft pick. I love Gunners and Punky but they're our only chance to go for this.

There will have to be some short term pain for this list. We need to hit draft for 3 years hard. We need a Ruck, 2 x KPF, 1 x KPD desperately. Try hard for a bottom 5 finish this year and take DGB, and if we can jag that brisbane first take Callow. That's 1 KPF and KPD.

End of year Delist/retire Burgoyne, Stratton, Henderson, Poppy, Scully, Brooksby.

Finally, we need to see what these 2 irishman can do. They must play rest of year. Same with Dylan Moore and Ross. If 1 or 2 of those jump up and show something then the rest of the year can be a success, as well as pumping games into Day, Morris, Morrison, Lewis etc. Nothing less enjoyable than watching our old/slow side get beaten, at least with youth you can watch the game without worrying about the scoreboard as such and take positives out of their development.

clubs which spend two or more years at the foot of the ladder, they don’t win a flag for seven years after, if at all. Just look at what’s happened. It was an idea from the 00s and everyone has moved on.

currently port is the top of the ladder. They haven’t bottomed out. They went hard att the draft in 2018, but they went hard at trades just before that. They brought Dixon in in 2017 at 25 and Motlop in 2018 at 27

 

[HawkVan]

this is starting to feel like Pelchen/Schwab kindve situation with some obvious differences in that some of the veterans we have now have had success, an additional problem is some of our veterans look like they dont have the passion to give it their all with premiership medals already highlighting their great careers, ive noticed this since 2017, also another issue was the loss of greats and leaders within the club that have not been replaced by greats or leaders

the 2 trades that we overpaid for in JOM and Wingard have hurt us, also the picking up of Mitchell who was great when he was racking up disposal numbers, but without big poss numbers he is just an ordinary kicking midfielder, JOM and Wingard play their best on the wing, but we have Henderson, Smith and Scully there already, with wingers reknown as bad tacklers and general defenders aerially it hurts our team overall, Scully has been horrible since arriving at Hawthorn, with the coaching group constantly trying to sell his usefulness, ok he can run, but there are too many weaknesses in his game, Patton was a weird one for us to go after, he was injury riddled no other club wanted to touch him and he was in a lot of ways a pick 1 bust, but we went after him obviously with the hopes he could be injury free, but even without injuries his speed has reduced thanx to his knee issues and with big men, athleticism is almost a must for AFL footy nowadays

i feel like the recent trade wins have been Impey, Scrimshaw and Frost, Henderson was a good DFA pickup until recently where he has dropped off quite significantly

we have ignored the top end of the draft to bring in talent that they obviously thought very highly of and now we find orselves in a position where the players we brought in many of them are not any better than what we couldve got in the draft and some worse than what we could have targeted in the draft if our recruiters had a good read of talent, which im not so sure of tbh, the problem i want to highlight is now we are in this predicament people are screaming "blood the kids" what they dont understand is except for last year picking up Day and Maginness we have a lot of very up in the air talent, will they make it? will they not, most look unlikely to make it, but im willing to be open to a surprise here or there, but im also of the understanding that most of the late draftees wont make it, the odds are against them.

so in summary we gave up our future for a midfield that isnt performing and hasnt been strong for 3 years and a bit, we finished top 4 and went out in straight sets, i understand that we had a good year then, but even that year it was more our defense and counter attack than our midfield that was strong, stratton and hardwick were AA or close to AA quality that year, remember their mullets, they were the days

players that dont deserve a game with their form and drop off in quality are Stratton(c), Henderson, Scully, Frawley, Shiels, Puopolo and even though he can pull out a good patch of form here and there Burgoyne is on his last legs, but i can guarantee they will be first picked and the reasoning? we have very few kids up and coming that we have the faith they can perform because we have given away many top 30 odd draft picks over the last 5-7 years, also there seems to be a pettiness when selecting kids in the last 3 or so years that is just annoying from the club.

Brilliant.

 

[Gralin]

1. i expected after being back for a month or 2 he would be somewhere near his best
2. he didnt have an injury history

i said it was a good trade, does that get through? if he doesnt get back to his ball winning best could be bad for us going forward

So your issue is you've never paid attention to players coming back from leg breaks then.

You have unrealistic expectations of the recovery time and now you're revisiting the value of the trade because of your expectations.

We didn't pick a player with a history of injuries, if the trade was good value at the time then it remains that.

 

[HawkVan]

Put everyone but our first rounder, Sicily, Impey, Scrimshaw, Hardwick and Will Day up to Brisbane for Cam Rayner and play him in the midfield. Go aggressively and get as much young talent for the next two years, via the top end draft and trading for young talent from other clubs with players we have that hold value. Realign our strategy to 2025 and give up on 2022.

 

[Pessimistic]

Put everyone but our first rounder, Sicily, Impey, Scrimshaw, Hardwick and Will Day up to Brisbane for Cam Rayner and play him in the midfield. Go aggressively and get as much young talent for the next two years, via the top end draft and trading for young talent from other clubs with players we have that hold value. Realign our strategy to 2025 and give up on 2022.

They have to want to go. How inconvenient. if you attempt it and it falls through, you culture is even more wrecked. Welcome to nowhere for a decade or more

 

[TylerDurden]

Start with appointing a List Manager. Wrights is being asked to do too much. Not humanly possible.

 

[hfc70]

Start with appointing a List Manager. Wrights is being asked to do too much. Not humanly possible.

Mark McKenzie ?

 

[Pessimistic]

Righteo,
Sicily, Day, Scrimshaw, Hardwick, Wingard, Omeara, Mitchell, Worpel, Impey, Maginness is our future core. Tempted to add Morrison. Think he will come good after 50 games. High hopes still for Matt Walker and Kosi. Not sold on Lewis at all. Thats enough talent to not spend too long bottoming out. Hit the draft and some shrewd trades we can be back in 3 years.
I would, trade the following.
GWS- they need a flag. strike now, they are desperate for a small fwd and ruck. Trade them Mcevoy and Bruest. They can give us Hill with one of Caldwell, Hately or XOH, plus a second round pick. We need to get young talent in, they need to win a flag in next couple years.
BRISBANE- Gunston would be ideal for them. They have two first rounders this year. Ports and their own. Ask for both of them. If not, one of those, plus Witherden. They took Birch, so hit them back by taking a younger talented HBF off them.

We really need to even up our past trades with some 2 for 1 deals for us. Whether thats 2 young players or 1 plus a draft pick. I love Gunners and Punky but they're our only chance to go for this.

There will have to be some short term pain for this list. We need to hit draft for 3 years hard. We need a Ruck, 2 x KPF, 1 x KPD desperately. Try hard for a bottom 5 finish this year and take DGB, and if we can jag that brisbane first take Callow. That's 1 KPF and KPD.

End of year Delist/retire Burgoyne, Stratton, Henderson, Poppy, Scully, Brooksby.

Finally, we need to see what these 2 irishman can do. They must play rest of year. Same with Dylan Moore and Ross. If 1 or 2 of those jump up and show something then the rest of the year can be a success, as well as pumping games into Day, Morris, Morrison, Lewis etc. Nothing less enjoyable than watching our old/slow side get beaten, at least with youth you can watch the game without worrying about the scoreboard as such and take positives out of their development.

Who would get the most currency offered for them: Bruest and Gunston or Glass and Nash? first ones clearly better but the age difference.
PS GWS and Brisbane proabably have cap issues and plenty of talent already. Not sure theyd be the destinations

 

[The Spirit of Cricket]

clubs which spend two or more years at the foot of the ladder, they don’t win a flag for seven years after, if at all. Just look at what’s happened. It was an idea from the 00s and everyone has moved on.

currently port is the top of the ladder. They haven’t bottomed out. They went hard att the draft in 2018, but they went hard at trades just before that. They brought Dixon in in 2017 at 25 and Motlop in 2018 at 27

Yep you don't need to bottom out to rebuild. Most clubs that have done this haven't gone anywhere with it either. Cripps, the young saviour of Carlton, is pretty much the same age as JOM now. This might finally be the year they're relevant, ironically in an irrelevant year.

Sydney are bottoming out for the first time in like 16? years, and a lot of that probably has to do with going all in for Buddy. Port had a couple of years around 10th, had 1 good draft, some nice recruiting and they were there. Same with Richmond. Geelong only refuelled for one year.

After this draft and last year's draft we will have gotten 5 top 30 players in 2 years. That is enough new blood to make a list look entirely different and much better balanced. This might mean a couple of years like what we're seeing now but we won't have to be as bad as Carltank or Melbourne or for as long.

I also don't think trading out Gunston and Breust accomplishes anything. First I don't think their currency is enough for it to be worthwhile. Our forward line would be absolutely abysmal and we'd be putting all our eggs in the basket of Mitch Lewis, Tim O'brien and whoever we draft, which is very risky. It's also worth considering how much teaching and leadership these young inclusions will miss if we traded both Gunners and Bruest. Keep them and they will hopefully still be around when our team is fresh and rejigged in 2-3 years time.

 

[rei154]

Out of curiousity, what did we recruit JOM for? Was he meant to be an inside mid? His current role in our team seems to be so different to what he was when he was playing for GCS. I would love to see us using him more either running out of the back half at centre clearances (if he charges down from the back of the square, he's going to look a lot more damaging than when he has two or three hanging on to him in tight) or from half forward.
I think where we've lost our way in the midfield is we've now got Shiels, Worpel, Mitchell and JOM all trained to do the exact same thing which is an issue. Were we to mix things up by throwing JOM and Finn/Jones slightly further from the contest (I'm talking metre's here)surely we'd look more balanced?
For me Jaegs looks like he has to do too much with our current balance and other teams know it.
He has incredible burst speed and is a solid field kick- let's let him use it.

 

[HawkVan]

They have to want to go. How inconvenient. if you attempt it and it falls through, you culture is even more wrecked. Welcome to nowhere for a decade or more

Yeah totally agree. But I'm banking on the Lions, and plenty others, being appealing to players in the back end of their career.

Gunston would be perfect for the Lions for example. Bruest for the Giants. But as you said, they need to be receptive to it. I'm not advocating we push them out as champions of our club.

 

[TylerDurden]

Mark McKenzie ?

Recruiting manager.

 

[Pessimistic]

Funny thing is,since Sydneys 2005 flag, just seven clubs have won the 15 premierships, average 2 each.

Another nine clubs have no success in that time at an average of about 25 years each since last.

Very easy to cite failed strategies when some would have gone close, but missed through a bit of luck. The argument can go on forever