Preview Changes: R10 vs St Kilda, Saturday May 21, 7.00pm ACST @ Adelaide Oval

[Thetrader15]

We should identify the players we think will be the best ones and plan their development over a number of years. What is best for them personally?

Then stick to those plans rather than make week-by-week calls on form.

It would involve things like tasters for young players fractionally before they are ready, strategic rests for younger players while they are still developing physically, ignoring the odd form flat spot, occasionally not picking a reasonably performing B/C Grader in order to maintain your long term objective.

We don't do any of these things.

Pedlar for instance coming off not a lot of football the last few years and a shoulder operation at the end of 2021. What would a sensible approach to developing him this season be?

A block of games in the SANFL. Build fitness, build touch. Increase midfield minutes as the season wears on. Aim for him to play half a dozen AFL games in the back end of this season, ready to hit preseason ready to go and to be a regular from Round 1 2023 onwards. Upward trajectory, building.

Instead he's been bounced in and out of the team, sub twice, travelling emergency once. Just utter bullshit. We need to do better with our most talented players.

"It would involve things like tasters for young players fractionally before they are ready (Gollant, Cook, Soligo, Pedlar this year, McAsey in 2019) strategic rests for younger players while they are still developing physically (Rachelle this week, Cook last week) ignoring the odd form flat spot (, occasionally not picking a reasonably performing B/C Grader in order to maintain your long term objective (Rowe, Crouch this year).

We don't do any of these things."

 

[Jeffcrowe]

We should identify the players we think will be the best ones and plan their development over a number of years. What is best for them personally?

Then stick to those plans rather than make week-by-week calls on form.

It would involve things like tasters for young players fractionally before they are ready, strategic rests for younger players while they are still developing physically, ignoring the odd form flat spot, occasionally not picking a reasonably performing B/C Grader in order to maintain your long term objective.

We don't do any of these things.

Pedlar for instance coming off not a lot of football the last few years and a shoulder operation at the end of 2021. What would a sensible approach to developing him this season be?

A block of games in the SANFL. Build fitness, build touch. Increase midfield minutes as the season wears on. Aim for him to play half a dozen AFL games in the back end of this season, ready to hit preseason ready to go and to be a regular from Round 1 2023 onwards. Upward trajectory, building.

Instead he's been bounced in and out of the team, sub twice, travelling emergency once. Just utter bullshit. We need to do better with our most talented players.

Pedlar has definitely been mismanaged !

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

"It would involve things like tasters for young players fractionally before they are ready (Gollant, Cook, Soligo, Pedlar this year, McAsey in 2019) strategic rests for younger players while they are still developing physically (Rachelle this week, Cook last week) ignoring the odd form flat spot (, occasionally not picking a reasonably performing B/C Grader in order to maintain your long term objective (Rowe, Crouch this year).

We don't do any of these things."

Even North Melbourne are doing some things right

It's the number of good things vs bad things that matters and we're a net negative

 

[George Kramer]

We should identify the players we think will be the best ones and plan their development over a number of years. What is best for them personally?

Then stick to those plans rather than make week-by-week calls on form.

It would involve things like tasters for young players fractionally before they are ready, strategic rests for younger players while they are still developing physically, ignoring the odd form flat spot, occasionally not picking a reasonably performing B/C Grader in order to maintain your long term objective.

We don't do any of these things.

Pedlar for instance coming off not a lot of football the last few years and a shoulder operation at the end of 2021. What would a sensible approach to developing him this season be?

A block of games in the SANFL. Build fitness, build touch. Increase midfield minutes as the season wears on. Aim for him to play half a dozen AFL games in the back end of this season, ready to hit preseason ready to go and to be a regular from Round 1 2023 onwards. Upward trajectory, building.

Instead he's been bounced in and out of the team, sub twice, travelling emergency once. Just utter bullshit. We need to do better with our most talented players.

But we have a great record of developing our talent.

Go through our side, which draftees from the last 7 years are regularly playing and to a standard where you know they are going to make it and are quality:

Butts
Doedee

Sure we have some talent from recent years like Thilthorpe and Rachelle and are confident over time they'll make it, but theres a s**t load of players we really are still unsure about.

Now is that our development or drafting or a combination of both? So for anyone to just go along with our selection philosophy and development, they need to seriously take off their Crows goggles and think impartially.

 

[dogs105]

We should identify the players we think will be the best ones and plan their development over a number of years. What is best for them personally?

Then stick to those plans rather than make week-by-week calls on form.

It would involve things like tasters for young players fractionally before they are ready, strategic rests for younger players while they are still developing physically, ignoring the odd form flat spot, occasionally not picking a reasonably performing B/C Grader in order to maintain your long term objective.

We don't do any of these things.

Pedlar for instance coming off not a lot of football the last few years and a shoulder operation at the end of 2021. What would a sensible approach to developing him this season be?

A block of games in the SANFL. Build fitness, build touch. Increase midfield minutes as the season wears on. Aim for him to play half a dozen AFL games in the back end of this season, ready to hit preseason ready to go and to be a regular from Round 1 2023 onwards. Upward trajectory, building.

Instead he's been bounced in and out of the team, sub twice, travelling emergency once. Just utter bullshit. We need to do better with our most talented players.

So, to be explicit, which of the following scenarios should we have followed with Thilthorpe?

(1) thilthorpe shouldn't have been picked round 1 after awful preseason games.

(2) thilthorpe should have been kept in after awful preseason games and a bad round 1 and supposedly not following instructions, because he was an early pick.

(3) thilthorpe should have been brought back from sanfl before his form improved

(4) himmelberg should have been dropped after the game he kicked 4 to bring back thilthorpe after he showed some reasonable form in his 3rd and 4th weeks in SANFL..

(5) thilthorpe should play some SANFL games after having recovered from COVID before coming back into the side.

 

[Scorpus]

Was after 2 poor preseason games then round 1.

Would you have dropped him after the preseason showing only?

Would you have kept Milera in after round 1?

I would have kept in Thilthorpe, showed faith in him and backed him to respond. If he couldn't deliver after another 2-3 games, then he can go out

Milera? He's a senior player. His body wasn't right so should never have played

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

So, to be explicit, which of the following scenarios should we have followed with Thilthorpe?

(1) thilthorpe shouldn't have been picked round 1 after awful preseason games.

(2) thilthorpe should have been kept in after awful preseason games and a bad round 1 and supposedly not following instructions, because he was an early pick.

(3) thilthorpe should have been brought back from sanfl before his form improved

(4) himmelberg should have been dropped after the game he kicked 4 to bring back thilthorpe after he showed some reasonable form in his 3rd and 4th weeks in SANFL..

(5) thilthorpe should play some SANFL games after having recovered from COVID before coming back into the side.

A few AFL games Year 1. Time to develop in SANFL. Work on whatever stuff we didn't like this year then.

More AFL games Year 2. The odd rest/refresher as required.

Regular player Year 3.

Himmelberg is irrelevant. Form is irrelevant. Win-loss is irrelevant.

If Himmelberg had kicked 2 or 3 goals last week would Thilthorpe be coming in this week? Unlikely. How can the development of our list depend on such an inconsequential and random event?

 

[Scorpus]

So, to be explicit, which of the following scenarios should we have followed with Thilthorpe?

(2) thilthorpe should have been kept in after awful preseason games and a bad round 1 and supposedly not following instructions, because he was an early pick.

This is the correct option.

The pre-season games are meaningless. Given we comfortably lost both pre-season matches I'm not sure why we'd single him out.

The number 1 most important thing is that if we think he isn't going well, if he isn't following instructions or whatever, and we think he's extremely talented and needs to be developed - we need to let him respond at AFL level. Not have a hair trigger after a single game.

Tell Riley: hey mate, you didn't do what we wanted, you had a poor game, are you going to let that happen again? Or are you going to own it and improve? We believe in you, we think you are the future of our club, so we're going to give you another opportunity to get it right.

If he can't do so after period at the highest level, give him a refresher at SANFL level, but plan for him to come back after hitting key milestones. Don't just leave him there and wait for whoever we have at AFL level replacing him to stink it up.

 

[MRB37]

I don't often criticise selection but I am unsure what to make of our approach with Thilthorpe this season.

An indifferent preseason and quiet Round 1 saw him dumped instantly. Disappointing. I would have liked us to "give him a chance to respond" as is our want with anyone older than 24 for months on end.

Then while fit and available he played a stretch in the SANFL while Himmelberg was preferred to him.

Now after missing multiple weeks with a knee injury + COVID he's being rushed straight back in? With no touch or match fitness behind him.

Set up to fail?

It's like we realised too late all that glitters with Himmelberg isn't gold. That Thilthorpe should have been playing all along. That if we give him a couple of weeks to tune up in the SANFL now the season will be more than half over before we bring him back.

So we're rushing him in now to make up for our previous selection mistakes. Desperately trying to get something out of the season.

It's why picking on form is so stupid.

Thilthorpe > Himmelberg

Now and forever. If Himmelberg has a better preseason, better warm up games, the odd better AFL game it doesn't change the equation.

Posters on here get accused of being enamoured with new shiny things. Well the club gets enamoured with whoever shines in meaningless trainings or short term bursts of game form.

We lack a feel for underlying quality. Lack vision for the best way to develop our most talented players.

We are a great club and great culture for the good honest triers. The Lachlan Murphys of the competition will thrive here. The A Grade ceiling players...? Not so much.

I don't think Thilthorpe was dropped entirely for form. Much like ROB and Crouch found out, there's non-negotiables that Nicks has set and if you don't meet those you won't be selected.

As bad as Himmelberg was also in the first two weeks (and PS), he at least competed and wasn't letting the Jenkins creep into his game like Thilthorpe was. That competitiveness from Himmelberg then allowed him to perform once the team as a whole did. That's the baseline that Thilthorpe needs to set every week from here on out. He needs to be strong and he needs to compete in the air and at the very least turn a contest into a 50/50 at ground level.

 

[Scorpus]

I don't think Thilthorpe was dropped entirely for form. Much like ROB and Crouch found out, there's non-negotiables that Nicks has set and if you don't meet those you won't be selected.

As bad as Himmelberg was also in the first two weeks (and PS), he at least competed and wasn't letting the Jenkins creep into his game like Thilthorpe was. That competitiveness from Himmelberg then allowed him to perform once the team as a whole did. That's the baseline that Thilthorpe needs to set every week from here on out. He needs to be strong and he needs to compete in the air and at the very least turn a contest into a 50/50 at ground level.

Why was a "non-negotiable" dropping applied to Thilthorpe after 1 week, yet O'Brien and Crouch were able to stink it up for months?

 

[Jeffcrowe]

Even North Melbourne are doing some things right

It's the number of good things vs bad things that matters and we're a net negative

Their fans would defeinitely say the same

Look at Tom Powell for example

We have a few positives , Berry especially has come on . Playing midfield and dominating at sanfl level offensively / defensively and inside / outside has definitely been a good grounding to play well at AFL level

Don’t get why Pedlar isn’t getting similar path ; even though he’s a year or 2 years behind . Even more reason to develop him at sanfl level week to week

Maybe his body wouldn’t hold up at this stage so they are managing him , that would be my best guess for the missing games . Either that or they have just completely failed him or failed to plan

 

[CrowinNT]

Pedlar has definitely been mismanaged !

Totally agree

 

[MRB37]

Why was a "non-negotiable" dropping applied to Thilthorpe after 1 week, yet O'Brien and Crouch were able to stink it up for months?

Form and competing are two different things. Crouch and ROB weren't playing great, but it wasn't until the Blues game with ROB in particular that they stopped competing. Nicks has made it clear he will not tolerate that, ROB found it out, so did Crouch, so has Schoenberg and Fogarty. Thilthorpe spent 3 weeks and the week after he was dropped in the SANFL prefering to try and take shortcuts with his man rather than just straight up compete for the ball.

You are asking a coach to make exceptions for a player not to do some fundamental things that he asking for that only take effort and you just cannot play favourites like that.

 

[Jeffcrowe]

I don't think Thilthorpe was dropped entirely for form. Much like ROB and Crouch found out, there's non-negotiables that Nicks has set and if you don't meet those you won't be selected.

As bad as Himmelberg was also in the first two weeks (and PS), he at least competed and wasn't letting the Jenkins creep into his game like Thilthorpe was. That competitiveness from Himmelberg then allowed him to perform once the team as a whole did. That's the baseline that Thilthorpe needs to set every week from here on out. He needs to be strong and he needs to compete in the air and at the very least turn a contest into a 50/50 at ground level.

There’s form and there’s a minimum level of competitiveness, the later prob more important for a talented player

One game was a little bit panicked though

 

[ams4crows]

Sooooo no Newchurch then?

 

[1970crow]

Another poster suggested dropping Brown for Murphy, to play him in the back pocket with stints in the midfield.
I think the idea has merit.

Waddaya reckon, anybody?

As long as a routine hip and shoulder doesn’t see him on the deck with his hands around his neck.

 

[CrowBloke]

As long as a routine hip and shoulder doesn’t see him on the deck with his hands around his neck.

I do get what you're saying, but I doubt the doctors etc would allow him to play if he was that fragile.
I'm hoping that Murphy would have done a wide range of neck-muscle-strengthening exercises etc and has a confident thumbs-up from the docs.

Having said that, the dangers of accidental, serious injury are always there.

 

[Ciao Giacomo]

I find it amusing that posters who have never watched an SANFL game live are the most adamant that Pedlar has been mismanaged.

I am a big Pedlar fan but he isn’t able to run out a full game in the Twos.

We can either
1) Play him as a full time mid in the AFL and watch him jog behind his opponent.
2) Play him mainly as a forward in the AFL
3) Build his tank and give him an occasional run in the AFL.

Fortunately for Spackler, he can complain whichever option is taken.

Berry is AFL fit and is now playing as a full time mid in the AFL

 

[CrowBloke]

At the moment it does look like we haven't really improved over last year yet we have added Dawson (a star), Rachele (a bright spark) and Burgess (a Guru). It may take a while for the talls to develop but the development of some of the players that have shown some promise like Schoenberg, Pedlar, Cook, Berry, Hamill, Scholl and more, they just haven't continued to develop.

Very good post, especially the above.

There must be things happening behind the scenes, very close to the playing group, that would explain the consecutive wins against Richmond and the Dogs followed by the 3 hidings, since.

 

[George Kramer]

I find it amusing that posters who have never watched an SANFL game live are the most adamant that Pedlar has been mismanaged.

I am a big Pedlar fan but he isn’t able to run out a full game in the Twos.

We can either
1) Play him as a full time mid in the AFL and watch him jog behind his opponent.
2) Play him mainly as a forward in the AFL
3) Build his tank and give him an occasional run in the AFL.

Fortunately for Spackler, he can complain whichever option is taken.

Berry is AFL fit and is now playing as a full time mid in the AFL

You left out option:

4) Not make him a sub and have him play a full game of SANFL instead

 

[Bernie L]

Just here for the melts,

in 3,2,1..................

 

[jackster83]

I find it amusing that posters who have never watched an SANFL game live are the most adamant that Pedlar has been mismanaged.

I am a big Pedlar fan but he isn’t able to run out a full game in the Twos.

We can either
1) Play him as a full time mid in the AFL and watch him jog behind his opponent.
2) Play him mainly as a forward in the AFL
3) Build his tank and give him an occasional run in the AFL.

Fortunately for Spackler, he can complain whichever option is taken.

Berry is AFL fit and is now playing as a full time mid in the AFL

How does taking him as a non playing emergency help with his inability to run games out, particularly with a bye scheduled for the following week?

 

[Scorpus]

IN:
Thilthorpe, Murphy

OUT:
Himmelberg, Sholl

 

[Scorpus]

No news on Butts and he hasn't been named an emergency.

 

[dogs105]

IN:
Thilthorpe, Murphy

OUT:
Himmelberg, Sholl

Not bad.