Can Hawthorn succeed while ignoring the elite end of the draft? - Part 2

[WWSD]

Whatever you need to tell yourself.

Put up the Hawks 23 and under and compare it to Geelong.

 

[Art Vandelay_]

Put up the Hawks 23 and under and compare it to Geelong.

What a stupid dick measuring contest.

Are you happy with your young talent. Yes.
Am I happy with ours. Yes.

Nothing else matters.

 

[Scotland]

Whatever you need to tell yourself.

Witherden, Jones, Ainsworth, Venables*, Rotham, Waterman, Foley, Brander, Petruccelle, Allen, Edwards, Williams, O'Neill, Cameron, Winder + Luke Edwards, Jamieson, Johnson who haven't played.

I would say our 23 and under group is mid range at best, but I probably wouldn't trade it for Scrimshaw, Worpedo and mystery mid season draft selection...

 

[TheFourPillars]

It's exactly this level of delusion that has left you the worst side in the competition with the worst bunch of youngsters. You're now doomed to a decade of irrelevance because the club thought they were "that close" when in fact they were miles off. I applaud your loyalty while being bewildered by your obliviousness to the blindingly obvious.

A decade of irrelevance. So let it be written

 

[hk89]

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Hawthorn: Hodge, Lewis, Mitchell, Breust, Gunston, Whitecross, Birchall, McEvoy, Shiels

I don't know why people put so much stock in 2016 given all the Crazy Clarko moves started after that season finished.

Because 2016's result is what made the later moves somewhat sensible.

Topping up for another attempt made perfect sense and that list of best players on the day support it. All of them bar 2 were still on the list in 2018, so there was no mass exodus of experience in 2016 , and some of them are still decent 5 years later. As I said , we were top of the ladder for 8 of the last 10 rounds of the season, and then missed a prelim by a kick after the siren. "Crazy" would have been to completely trash the list at that point, as clearly there was some hope we could go again if everything went right. We moved on Lewis and Mitchell to try to have bets each way on regenerating versus holding on to all the old guys by brining in two 23 year old mids to replace them (JOM and Mitchell). There is still some hope we could rebuild and have those two part of a competitive team if things go well (i.e not a 20 year Carltoneque rolling rebuild) which is why it was an each-way bet.

 

[Scotland]

I admire your persistence in arguing a poor idea was a good one.

Crazy is believing that an old, experienced team at the end of a successful run (that had been topped up along the way to get where it was) can be topped up by replacing HOF calibre players overnight. People get wayyy too excited about 'premiership players'. There's rarely anything remarkable about the bottom 5-10 players of any premiership side.

 

[hk89]

Crazy is believing that an old, experienced team at the end of a successful run (that had been topped up along the way to get where it was) can be topped up by replacing HOF calibre players overnight.

How did Lewis go at Melbourne? Fringe player at best. How many years did Mitchell last at WC? Lewis was fairly cooked, JOM and T.Mitchell were both better than the player he was at Melbourne. S.Mitchell was still a genius, and I wish we'd been able to keep him. What makes you think we wanted both Lewis and Mitchell to actually leave anyway? Supposedly we wanted Lewis to stay, but he wanted to be special cased and given multi year contracts when almost nobody else his age at the club was getting them. Melbourne offered him 3 years, and he was terrible in year 3. I've heard very credible reports that Mitchell wanted to leave at the end of 2015 for WC, and we talked him into staying to help with the 4-peat (in fact may have forced him to stay), but when we missed out he still wanted to go, and we honoured his wishes. It also let us get some younger players in as a side bonus, but them wanting golden handshakes elsewhere seemed like the bigger factor.

Is letting two club legends go when they get better offers elsewhere really what you are calling 'crazy'? If they both wanted to stay we'd likely have kept them, but they didn't want to stay so we had to replace them. We had to decide at that point if we might be able to get up for another flag. Should we top up a team that had narrowly missed a prelim or should we do a Carlton? We probably looked around and thought that while our list wasn't what it was at its peak, there was no really standout team challenging, and with a more even competition getting a decaying list up with a few topups is simply not as dumb as your Hawthorn hating mind would like to see it.

 

[WatWouldCyrilDo]

Witherden, Jones, Ainsworth, Venables*, Rotham, Waterman, Foley, Brander, Petruccelle, Allen, Edwards, Williams, O'Neill, Cameron, Winder + Luke Edwards, Jamieson, Johnson who haven't played.

I would say our 23 and under group is mid range at best, but I probably wouldn't trade it for Scrimshaw, Worpedo and mystery mid season draft selection...

Lol what an underwhelming group of under 23.. Allen probably the only one that has potential to be elite. But that's probably expected given where you're at

 

[The Casey Cat]

Delusion?? We were a Smith miss away from another Prelim.

Good grief. Using us in 2016 finals is not a good measuring stick. We were pathetic despite the ladder position and all over the place as a side. The Dogs final showed where you were at as did our final the next week. Hawthorn were miles off it and ever further off in 2018. You don't lose comfortably in a semi after finishing top 4 unless this is the case.

 

[The Casey Cat]

Lol what an underwhelming group of under 23.. Allen probably the only one that has potential to be elite. But that's probably expected given where you're at

Lol all you like. Underwhelming or mid range as you want to make it out to be I'd take WC and Collingwood's over Hawthorn's any day of the week.

 

[WatWouldCyrilDo]

Lol all you like. Underwhelming or mid range as you want to make it out to be I'd take WC and Collingwood's over Hawthorn's any day of the week.

That's fine. Everyone's entitled to their opinion. No matter how wrong they are.

 

[Elmer_Judd]

Lol all you like. Underwhelming or mid range as you want to make it out to be I'd take WC and Collingwood's over Hawthorn's any day of the week.

It's way to early to make an assessment of Collingwood's kids, but I am extremely underwhelmed by the Eagles youth to be honest.

Oscar Allen aside, there does not seem to be undrr 23 Eagles player that looks like evolving into a future A Grader/Star.

 

[TylerDurden]

Good grief. Using us in 2016 finals is not a good measuring stick. We were pathetic despite the ladder position and all over the place as a side. The Dogs final showed where you were at as did our final the next week. Hawthorn were miles off it and ever further off in 2018. You don't lose comfortably in a semi after finishing top 4 unless this is the case.

2018? The Dees smacked you the week before and ended your season.

 

[WatWouldCyrilDo]

It's way to early to make an assessment of Collingwood's kids, but I am extremely underwhelmed by the Eagles youth to be honest.

Oscar Allen aside, there does not seem to be undrr 23 Eagles player that looks like evolving into a future A Grader/Star.

No point arguing.. he doesn't actually think WCE is ahead of HFC... Just a troll looking for attention.

 

[TylerDurden]

Lol all you like. Underwhelming or mid range as you want to make it out to be I'd take WC and Collingwood's over Hawthorn's any day of the week.

Collingwood?? They rely on Pendles and Sidebottom every single week.

 

[hk89]

Witherden, Jones, Ainsworth, Venables*, Rotham, Waterman, Foley, Brander, Petruccelle, Allen, Edwards, Williams, O'Neill, Cameron, Winder + Luke Edwards, Jamieson, Johnson who haven't played.

I would say our 23 and under group is mid range at best, but I probably wouldn't trade it for Scrimshaw, Worpedo and mystery mid season draft selection...

You wouldn't trade your bag of 18 spuds for 3 Hawthorn players? That's probably wise.

 

[tonygeeks]

It's way to early to make an assessment of Collingwood's kids, but I am extremely underwhelmed by the Eagles youth to be honest.

Oscar Allen aside, there does not seem to be undrr 23 Eagles player that looks like evolving into a future A Grader/Star.

What would you say your strike rate is on these type of calls ?

Because I for one would very much like you to be correct


Sent from my iPad using BigFooty.com

 

[Magpie45]

It's way to early to make an assessment of Collingwood's kids, but I am extremely underwhelmed by the Eagles youth to be honest.

Oscar Allen aside, there does not seem to be undrr 23 Eagles player that looks like evolving into a future A Grader/Star.

meanwhile at carlton, aside from walsh... yikes

 

[The Casey Cat]

2018? The Dees smacked you the week before and ended your season.

And? What has that got to do with Hawthorn?

But if you must needlessly bring us in we were middling junk all year and a mess of a side and taken action to address it. Has worked so badly we've been better than every side except Richmond ever since.

 

[TylerDurden]

And? What has that got to do with Hawthorn?

But if you must needlessly bring us in we were middling junk all year and a mess of a side and taken action to address it. Has worked so badly we've been better than every side except Richmond ever since.

Listen, I respect Geelong and take my hat off re the fact that you haven't bottomed out yet. Kudos. But even you must be a little concerned with the loading up on 30+ year olds, with a lack of quality youth coming through? At some stage it has to bite. And could be one almighty cliff you are staring down. We're in that position now, but at least we're playing a truck load of kids.

 

[The Casey Cat]

That's fine. Everyone's entitled to their opinion. No matter how wrong they are.

Yes it's an opinion. I can understand it's one you and some other deluded Hawthorn nuffs in here won't like. Thing is where is the actual evidence it's any less wrong than this notion your under 23s are so good while you're as second bottom of the current ladder and looking god awful most weeks?

 

[Blue1980]

meanwhile at carlton, aside from walsh... yikes

How about the the bloke leading the goal kicking and Weitering?

 

[Magpie45]

How about the the bloke leading the goal kicking and Weitering?

It's sad when you need to piggyback on 24 year olds as your "youth".

 

[The Casey Cat]

Listen, I respect Geelong and take my hat off re the fact that you haven't bottomed out yet. Kudos. But even you must be a little concerned with the loading up on 30+ year olds, with a lack of quality youth coming through? At some stage it has to bite. And could be one almighty cliff you are staring down. We're in that position now, but at least we're playing a truck load of kids.

The Geelong is old and slow thread is not here. But yes if you must know I personally am not sure about it and would prefer a couple of younger players were in our side as opposed to Dal and Higgins. Smith I don't mind. Age really isn't effecting him much. He was brought in to help our spread when moving the ball forward on wider grounds.

 

[nuey]

It's sad when you need to piggyback on 24 year olds as your "youth".

Neither are 24