Review Hamish 2021

Sep 19, 2007
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You are more than welcome to that view.

I'm not going to harshly judge a 2nd game player in a match like that.

Do you remember when everyone called Rozzee the best of the '18 draft? Now he's not even in the same conversation as Walsh, sometimes talent isn't as obvious.

Given Covid , Thilthorpe looks like the right choice out of the top 5 that presented itself.

Given where his fitness is probably at, having missed all of 2020 injured and struggling with groin pain this year, by rights Pedlar probably shouldn’t be even close to playing yet. Is certainly a case of giving a talented youngster a few games so he understands where the standard’s at, but its also likely a credit to his talent as well. Will be a significantly better player with a full preseason, doubt he’d be spending much time in the SANFL next year.

Powell was always the more ready to go, the issue will be his ceiling. I reckon what you’re seeing now, is pretty much what you’ll get with Powell. From what I’ve seen of Pedlar, very happy having selected him ahead of Powell.
 
Mar 28, 2011
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It's a trade-off with Pedlar and Powell. Probably have similar upside (Pedlar IMO a tad higher), Powell obviously the higher floor, but what Pedlar could end up as is of greater need to our team going forward

I rate them both highly, but I'm glad we selected Pedlar
 
Apr 29, 2008
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We need to draft 4 midfielders and a ruckman in this years draft.

it’s painfully obvious we lack midfield quality.

I mean, I agree and hope that we do that, but let's be honest, we lack quality all over the ground.

Other than Walker who is on his last legs, we have precisely one forward who is performing to any real standard, in Thilthorpe. Fogarty and Murphy are maybes at best, Rowe a probably not, and the less said about the rest the better. Down back Doedee and Butts are quality, and Brown is still underrated, but other than that we have a mix of very average players and speculative youth. Two quality line-breaking options in Seedsman and Smith but both are in the latter part of their careers - we'd better hope Milera's body lets him take over this role soon. Our ruck is very shaky with O'Brien having wild form fluctuations and absolutely nobody of value below him. And our midfield is mostly nonfunctional, although Laird is quality, Keays is good enough, and Schoenberg and Berry look like great young players. Too early to make a call either way on Pedlar, Cook and O'Connor but at least they're in the mix.

Definitely I'd be looking to focus solely on midfielders in the first round, but beyond that we just need to pick best available. We're sorely lacking in quality across the board.
 
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maxlilly

Premiership Player
Aug 15, 2009
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We need to draft 4 midfielders and a ruckman in this years draft.

it’s painfully obvious we lack midfield quality.

When your midfield is full of top ups in your reserves, you are definitely running low on midfielders.
And with the AFL listed players not showing enough to be good midfielders, let's hope it is focus this year in a strong midfielders draft
 

Gets!

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Oct 15, 2003
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I mean, I agree and hope that we do that, but let's be honest, we lack quality all over the ground.

Other than Walker who is on his last legs, we have precisely one forward who is performing to any real standard, in Thilthorpe. Fogarty and Murphy are maybes at best, Rowe a probably not, and the less said about the rest the better. Down back Doedee and Butts are quality, and Brown is still underrated, but other than that we have a mix of very average players and speculative youth. Two quality line-breaking options in Seedsman and Smith but both are in the latter part of their careers - we'd better hope Milera's body lets him take over this role soon. Our ruck is very shaky with O'Brien having wild form fluctuations and absolutely nobody of value below him. And our midfield is mostly nonfunctional, although Laird is quality, Keays is good enough, and Schoenberg and Berry look like great young players. Too early to make a call either way on Pedlar, Cook and O'Connor but at least they're in the mix.

Definitely I'd be looking to focus solely on midfielders in the first round, but beyond that we just need to pick best available. We're sorely lacking in quality across the board.

Yeah nice post you’re right. We do need quality everywhere it’s just so depressing watching us getting destroyed in the centre where we traditionally have been strong. If Fogarty was leading up to some elite mids…
 
Nov 1, 2012
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The thing isn’t that we’ve missed on a few first round picks, the thing *IS* that we don’t have enough big wins to cover the losses sufficiently to keep pace with other teams. We have been slowly slipping back against the base rate of the league

Slowly
Slowly
And then suddenly the cupboard is bare

For the life of me, I don’t know why we thought our list was so good we happily let Charlie, Lyons, Keath, Greenwood, Atkins, & Brouch leave - mostly for peanuts.

It’s not like we had sufficient stocks to not care about losing these guys.

Our midfield is utter pants, because we’ve drafted plenty of players over a period of time - they’ve just not worked out
 

70lethal

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Oct 26, 2016
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The thing isn’t that we’ve missed on a few first round picks, the thing *IS* that we don’t have enough big wins to cover the losses sufficiently to keep pace with other teams. We have been slowly slipping back against the base rate of the league

Slowly
Slowly
And then suddenly the cupboard is bare

For the life of me, I don’t know why we thought our list was so good we happily let Charlie, Lyons, Keath, Greenwood, Atkins, & Brouch leave - mostly for peanuts.

It’s not like we had sufficient stocks to not care about losing these guys.

Our midfield is utter pants, because we’ve drafted plenty of players over a period of time - they’ve just not worked out
Our midfield has been ordinary for a long time.
Charlie and Eddie coming off the back of square compensated.
Once Charlie was gone and the 6 6 6 rule came in it exposed our slow one pace one way running mids and poor coaching structures.

TT and Butts are significant bookends that hopefully allows us to focus on mids and forward/mids over the next 2-3 drafts.

We badly need at least one of Cook or Gollant to make it as a goal kicking HF.

It's possible we come out alright in 2 years but a lot needs to go right and probably need a couple of SA boys wanting to come home.
 
Mar 30, 2021
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Are we targeting the right ones even?

We got into Hately’s ear, and he doesn’t look like someone worth the effort so far

Well he was in the same draft class as Lukosius and Rankine. Was a leader for SA that year. Pretty sure he'd be good friends with at least one of those guys, could simply be a pony to get them to come back home as well.

Clearly we don't actually rate him that highly, seeing as we were only willing to pass with Pick 40 to trade for him and ended up getting him for free. I mean say we rated him at 30 in his draft year, we wouldn't be willing to give anything higher in a trade (irrespective of the fact we had Pick 1 in the Pre-Season Draft) but obviously GWS rated him highly as they took him with an early pick. Makes sense why a trade was never made when you assume that.
 
I probably shouldn't post here but...Pedlar was woeful last night. He doesn't look like a top ten draft pick at all. Tom Powell was a similar player type from SA who was the obvious choice at the selection and looks massively better than Pedlar at everything. (i really rate Powell!)

You have too many skinny flankers. They are going to be sore boys.

Ogilvie should have been able to re-set your list in the last five years given his picks but he has wasted the opportunity.

Picking a top ten looking player at pick 2 shouldn't be considered a huge accomplishment!

I don't know how you can keep your job after a prolonged string of failures...but we keep Kenny so who knows how the footy world works!

Yup, looked like the game was a bit too quick for him on the weekend. Still, it's just one game, we were set up very poorly, and Pedlar showed a fair bit the week beforehand against a better side in Brisbane. Isn't the first highly rated kid to have a poor game at the start of his career when he's adjusting to the level required, especially when getting gametime before he's genuinely ready for it. He won't be the last either.

Still, it's worth not losing sight that Pedlar isn't a ready made player at this point in time, and probably doesn't have the fitness base for AFL football this year.

The problem with the comment - "he should have reset the list in the last couple of years" is that doesn't happen overnight. We won't really know until 2023-2024 if Ogilive (and more important people who are in charge of our development systems) has or has not successfully reset the list with his drafting in '18-'20 (seeing it's 3, not 5 years of opportunities at this point as '16-'17 saw us a contender). At the moment, everything is looking like our drafting has been good enough to at least propel us upwards once most of our kids get more preseasons in their bodies, and more games under their belts. Still, a lot can go wrong between now and then.
 
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Jirkago75

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Jun 20, 2015
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I obviously don't work at the club but I'm sick of uninformed people on this board just blurting out false information all the time like they know what's going on inside the club. You don't.

I also follow the draft incredibly closely so I know to not assess players in hindsight. We've made some average selections in the past but name me a club that has hit on every draft pick. It's a game of probability. And people on this board make it sound like we've picked players who were not considered anywhere near that pick, whereas the reality is that clubs essentially have extremely similar top 15 rankings and it's just the order slightly changed up. People are kidding themselves if they think that Chayce Jones wouldn't have been taken within the next few picks in the 2018 draft. People are kidding themselves if they think Zak Butters wasn't around that mark for our first or second pick. Sometimes you can just be a victim of probability.

And sometimes poor development/coaching has a bigger say than the talent that walks through the door. Do we honestly think that Carlton missed on a significant number of their draft selections, or that something deeper in the club stopped players from progressing (Dow, Petrevski-Seton, Lochie O'Brien, etc)? Our lower level development coaches of Mick Godden, Brent Reilly and Matt Wright don't seem to be great at their jobs.

As a fan, no I'm not happy with where we sit currently but I can see the long-term goal. We can see that we have some parts coming together to build a stronger side down the track. There are still quite a lot of holes on the list so let's wait and see what happens in the next couple of drafts.
I see the biggest issue is development, we used to be good but the last 4 or so years we have been poor. Not many players have come good recently at all. Maybe Butts being the exception. All the other players haven’t reached they talent limit realistically speaking.
we need to spend money and get the best because we need the best in a rebuild
 
I see the biggest issue is development, we used to be good but the last 4 or so years we have been poor. Not many players have come good recently at all. Maybe Butts being the exception. All the other players haven’t reached they talent limit realistically speaking.
we need to spend money and get the best because we need the best in a rebuild

Yup, and it (along with the entire club becoming a toxic mess) lead to Burton, Pyke, Camporeale, Godden, Fagan, Chapman, Hart and Mattner (though potentially undeserved) being moved on. The people who needed to pay the price for that lack of development for the most part, have.

That said, this year we've seen Butts, Sholl, Schoenberg, McHenry, Keays, O'Connor, Worrell, Gollant and Hamill (though that one is barely, but to be fair, its probably not the ideal role for Will) all improve on their position at the start of the year, Jones had his career revived, and Berry, Pedlar, Thilthorpe and as much as he's not a board favourite, Rowe all establish themselves in our best 22. For the 1st year after giving Nicks some capable assistant coaches, our development is certainly looking like it's in a better place then the back end of Pykes coaching tenure. Probably the only genuine worry with our development is McAsey at the moment, but even then, it just looks like he needs a preseason locked in the gym then anything major to his game.

It's a genuine problem if a player who is 2-3 years into their career hit their talent level. Usually it means they're a low-quality footballer, not stars.

Really, we do need talent, but we need players who'll fit into what Nicks wants to build as much as we need the best. You could certainly get a fair bit of benefit finding a partner for Thilthorpe, even if he's not a star. Or potentially a Rankine/Stephens type prospect who was highly rated, has some traits we lack, and hasn't set the world on fire.
 
Yup, and it (along with the entire club becoming a toxic mess) lead to Burton, Pyke, Camporeale, Godden, Fagan, Chapman, Hart and Mattner (though potentially undeserved) being moved on. The people who needed to pay the price for that lack of development for the most part, have.

That said, this year we've seen Butts, Sholl, Schoenberg, McHenry, Keays, O'Connor, Worrell, Gollant and Hamill (though that one is barely, but to be fair, its probably not the ideal role for Will) all improve on their position at the start of the year, Jones had his career revived, and Berry, Pedlar, Thilthorpe and as much as he's not a board favourite, Rowe all establish themselves in our best 22. For the 1st year after giving Nicks some capable assistant coaches, our development is certainly looking like it's in a better place then the back end of Pykes coaching tenure. Probably the only genuine worry with our development is McAsey at the moment, but even then, it just looks like he needs a preseason locked in the gym then anything major to his game.

It's a genuine problem if a player who is 2-3 years into their career hit their talent level. Usually it means they're a low-quality footballer, not stars.

Really, we do need talent, but we need players who'll fit into what Nicks wants to build as much as we need the best. You could certainly get a fair bit of benefit finding a partner for Thilthorpe, even if he's not a star. Or potentially a Rankine/Stephens type prospect who was highly rated, has some traits we lack, and hasn't set the world on fire.

Some guys have regressed this year even with the spud staff members gone though.

ROB is the big one. Just looks like a Mark Blake style plodder now, which is disappointing.

Himmelberg, McPherson and McAdam have also gone backwards at a rate of knots after showing something in 2020.
 

RePete

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Jan 23, 2013
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Reckon we are going to have a 2009-like year next year. We will probably get Crouch, Talia, Milera back in and wouldn't be surprised if some our senior guys put in one last good season. On the back of this - some of our young players will break out. Then come 2023 our older players burn out, spud it up or we are perpetually injured and plummet back down the ladder. We will then slowly work our way up as the young guys take the reigns and get games under their belt.

Hamish has a big job to do to find talent of the level that brought us to a GF in 2017. You need a near full team full of talent, and elite players to take you that final step. We need our Bont/Petrecca/Fyfe/Dusty. We also need to try and recruit SA players to avoid mistakes of the past. Losing so many players arguably cost us premierships...maybe even a dynasty.

By the end of 2023 we will probably have said farewell to Tex, Talia, Lynch. Sloane, Seedsman, Smith will probably be on their last legs. Heck, Mackay might even be gone....It took years pump games into these guys to bring us to a GF, will take years to get games into new guys once we find them. It's gonna be a long wait to complete this rebuild....
 

Apsaalooke

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Sep 23, 2012
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Well he was in the same draft class as Lukosius and Rankine. Was a leader for SA that year. Pretty sure he'd be good friends with at least one of those guys, could simply be a pony to get them to come back home as well.

Clearly we don't actually rate him that highly, seeing as we were only willing to pass with Pick 40 to trade for him and ended up getting him for free. I mean say we rated him at 30 in his draft year, we wouldn't be willing to give anything higher in a trade (irrespective of the fact we had Pick 1 in the Pre-Season Draft) but obviously GWS rated him highly as they took him with an early pick. Makes sense why a trade was never made when you assume that.
Ah yes the old coming home to renew friendships with an old teammate. I guess it did happen once with Darren and Andrew Jarman but they were family after all.
 
And I'll make my point clearer with this comparison

Since 2016

Milera - 62 games
Doedee - 30 games
Gallucci - 27 games
Fogarty - 24 games
Jones - 23 games
McAsey - 10 games
McHenry - 8 games

Total - 184 games

Lyons - 20 games the year we trade him
Henderson - 9 games the year we delist him
Van Berlo - 3 games in his final year
Hampton - 12 games total
Menzel - 4 games total
Beech - 3 games total
Gibson - 5 games total
Cheney - 8 games in year we delist him
Douglas - 9 games in year we delist him
Greenwood - 14 games in year we trade him after refusing to match his contract demands
Keath - 18 games in year we trade him after refusing to match his contract demands
Ellis-Yolmen - 10 games in year we let him walk as a free agent
Jacobs - 5 games in year we let him walk
Otten - 3 games in his final year
Jenkins - 11 games in the year we trade him
Gibbs - 3 games in year he retires
Crocker - 7 games then delisted
Hartigan - 12 games in the year we let him walk as a FA
Brad Crouch - 12 games in the year we push him out the door
Atkins - 4 games in the year we him walk as a FA
Betts - 21 games in year we sent him to Carlton

Total - 193 games

We have spent more games on players that we immediately got rid of than we have on long term first round draft pick prospects, since 2016

Seems like serious resource mismanagement to spend more games on players we deem aren't good enough, than on players someone at our club has already deemed to be AFL quality

Here we go again
 
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