Remove this Banner Ad

Hot Topic The Rebuild, est. 2023 and/or 2025

  • Thread starter Thread starter BrunoV
  • Start date Start date
  • Tagged users Tagged users None

🥰 Love BigFooty? Join now for free.

Reader mode
Donflicted said:
Fair call but he was a Dodoro pick not a Rosa selection
Click to expand...
Actually Tsatas is on RFK. Scott had limited involvement but asked for a player who could win the footy and break the lines. RFK picked out Tsatas as that guy and Dodoro was on board. Some second hand info I have that I can not say is 100% is Dodoro liked Phillipou a little more but was happy to go with RFK on it as they wanted a line breaking player. Not that Phillipou is proving much better. Has had injuries but has still not gone on with it. I was in that camp. The ones who look the smartest where in the Humphry camp.
 
ant555 said:
Actually Tsatas is on RFK. Scott had limited involvement but asked for a player who could win the footy and break the lines. RFK picked out Tsatas as that guy and Dodoro was on board. Some second hand info I have that I can not say is 100% is Dodoro liked Phillipou a little more but was happy to go with RFK on it as they wanted a line breaking player. Not that Phillipou is proving much better. Has had injuries but has still not gone on with it. I was in that camp. The ones who look the smartest where in the Humphry camp.
Click to expand...
I was a bit in the Pou camp at the time as well but i wasnt as deep into this as i am now

Liked his attitude and thought it would be a different approach
 

Log in to remove this Banner Ad

Milanista28 said:
I've wanted the scorched earth rebuild for years, maybe 5? But we haven't done it, and now we are getting scorched earth rebuild results for zero benefits. Sad.
Click to expand...

I don’t think intentionally going scorched earth rebuild makes sense but our poor drafting has put us in the position where we have to.
 
Ambrosia said:
I don’t think intentionally going scorched earth rebuild makes sense but our poor drafting has put us in the position where we have to.
Click to expand...
As far as scorched earth goes it has never worked. Pretty much doubles the time you spend finding out where your list is at.
Not sure we have to now either. Just move on 2 or 3 players each year. We have turned over 30 plus players in 4 years.
Think the other things is not to get too wound up about the likes of Prior or Fiorini transiting through the list. IF you look at the Melbourne build which is the closest to our situation they had a lot of players that came trough and departed before the flag but the different perspective they bring from other clubs helps change the perspective.
As long as we keep drafting competitive types it will help a lot.
 
ant555 said:
As far as scorched earth goes it has never worked. Pretty much doubles the time you spend finding out where your list is at.
Not sure we have to now either. Just move on 2 or 3 players each year. We have turned over 30 plus players in 4 years.
Think the other things is not to get too wound up about the likes of Prior or Fiorini transiting through the list. IF you look at the Melbourne build which is the closest to our situation they had a lot of players that came trough and departed before the flag but the different perspective they bring from other clubs helps change the perspective.
As long as we keep drafting competitive types it will help a lot.
Click to expand...

Yeah I think I missed the context of the post. I’m not pushing for us to start selling off the only senior players we have for more picks.

I just meant it doesn’t really make any sense for any team to tear down and field a side as bad as ours intentionally.
 
www.afl.com.au

BARRETT: Why 'rebuild' should be a dirty word for footy's cellar-dwellers

History shows that brutal list culls rarely result in premiership glory, writes Damian Barrett
www.afl.com.au www.afl.com.au

I think Barrett read Bruno's post. Some similar points being raised.


This part does show how much Purple does not know.

"Essendon? Who knows what it is doing? It certainly doesn’t seem to know. But one thing is certain – a recent investment in high-end national draft picks has done nothing to improve it."

Seriously Damian.
 
ant555 said:
This part does show how much Purple does not know.

"Essendon? Who knows what it is doing? It certainly doesn’t seem to know. But one thing is certain – a recent investment in high-end national draft picks has done nothing to improve it."

Seriously Damian.
Click to expand...
I'm certain everyone in the industry knows, including Barrett, and he's mainly interested in keeping a channel open to the perpetrator which might otherwise be difficult if he calls it how it is.
 
Actually having read the article it's pretty dumb "aside from all these clubs who recruited their core group of stars via the draft, drafting is not the key to winning a flag". Thanks Damo, excellent content as usual.

I'm also not sure what the alternative is to spending time at the pointy end of the draft. Does he think you can trade and free-agency your way from entrenched mediocrity to winning a flag? Geelong have recruited a lot of good players through those avenues but they were always just adding icing to a pretty good cake. Has any club ever spent a prolonged period outside the 8 and been able to turn themselves into a flag contender on the back of trading? The saints are trying but the early signs are not promising. We tried and failed.

He is right in saying that getting the culture, player development etc is also really important though.
 
Old Campaigner said:
Actually having read the article it's pretty dumb "aside from all these clubs who recruited their core group of stars via the draft, drafting is not the key to winning a flag". Thanks Damo, excellent content as usual.

I'm also not sure what the alternative is to spending time at the pointy end of the draft. Does he think you can trade and free-agency your way from entrenched mediocrity to winning a flag? Geelong have recruited a lot of good players through those avenues but they were always just adding icing to a pretty good cake. Has any club ever spent a prolonged period outside the 8 and been able to turn themselves into a flag contender on the back of trading? The saints are trying but the early signs are not promising. We tried and failed.

He is right in saying that getting the culture, player development etc is also really important though.
Click to expand...
Yeah he’s an idiot.

How does he expect us to attract talent?

Money isn’t a big factor considering everyone is already on life changing money these days so having slightly better offers than others isn’t a huge draw.

Unique location can be a draw, for home returners or lifestyle reasons, not a factor for us.

Big games, potentially a factor, but given where we are at, the games aren’t exactly enticing.

Superstars, get players talented enough and other talented players want to play with them. So considering we don’t have any, how do we get some… the draft is the only way out.
 
ant555 said:
As far as scorched earth goes it has never worked. Pretty much doubles the time you spend finding out where your list is at.
Not sure we have to now either. Just move on 2 or 3 players each year. We have turned over 30 plus players in 4 years.
Think the other things is not to get too wound up about the likes of Prior or Fiorini transiting through the list. IF you look at the Melbourne build which is the closest to our situation they had a lot of players that came trough and departed before the flag but the different perspective they bring from other clubs helps change the perspective.
As long as we keep drafting competitive types it will help a lot.
Click to expand...
I disagree, Melbourne, tigers, Brisbane all won flags after scorched earth rebuilds. 2016 Brisbane had 5 players 27 or older. 2017 2 of that group remained. We currently have 13. I wouldn’t be upset if we had 2 at the start of next season.
 

Remove this Banner Ad

He earned the name Purple… and now you know why.
 
As much as this fuuuucking sucks, it's what we have all been crying out for- to bottom out for a few years, hit the draft, and set up for sustained success. It just sucks that the club doesn't want to acknowledge it. And also that were finally doing it just before Tassie enters the comp.
Is Brad Scott the main guy for the job long term? I don't know, but I do know sacking him won't achieve anything right now. We've gotten rid of 40 odd players in 4 years and a large amount of them were dogshit. We're playing as one of the youngest and most inexperienced teams in the comp. Getting a new coach is just same old Essendon with band aid solutions. As much as it sucks, this is the right thing to do.

Team 2 years from now..

Ridley Hayes Redman
Roberts Reid Mcgrath
Martin Sharp Clarke
Bryan Caldwell Durham
Robey Caddy Day-Wicks
Kako KPF* Small Forward*

Farrow Johnson Duursma Pick 1/2* Bewick*
EMG: Fiorini, Visentini, Nguyen, Kondogiannis

Players not yet acquired*
Not sure if they'll make it

Doesn't seem like we're too far off. Hopefully our pick 1/2 is HVH or Arki Butler, that would hopefully solve either the KPF issue or the Small forward issue. HVH being the prototype dominant key fwd who chops out in the ruck which suit the evolution of todays game or Arki butler, who seems like a crazy talent and could have some dangerous rotations through the forward pocket and midfield with kako.
 
Let's take a look at 7 years of Richmond's national drafts before their 2017 season, bolded are those who featured in any of their Grand Final sides,

2010:

Reece Conca (Pick 6)
Jake Batchelor (Pick 30)
Bradley Helbig (Pick 56)

2011:

Brandon Ellis (Pick 15)
Todd Elton (Pick 26)
Matthew Arnot (Pick 55)

2012:

Nick Vlastuin (Pick 9)
Kamdyn McIntosh (Pick 31)
Liam McBean (Pick 33)
Matt McDonough (Pick 42)

2013:

Ben Lennon (Pick 12)
Sam Lloyd (Pick 66)
Nathan Gordon (Pick 71)

2014:

Corey Ellis (Pick 12)
Connor Menadue (Pick 33)
Nathan Drummond (Pick 52)
Dan Butler (Pick 67)
Reece McKenzie (Pick 77)

2015:

Daniel Rioli (Pick 15)
Nathan Broad (Pick 67)

2016:

Shai Bolton (Pick 29)
Jack Graham (Pick 53)

Snapshot:

Nick Vlastuin (Pick 9)
Brandon Ellis (Pick 15)
Daniel Rioli (Pick 15)
Shai Bolton (Pick 29)
Kamdyn McIntosh (Pick 31)
Jack Graham (Pick 53)
Nathan Broad (Pick 67)
 
Last edited:
Call Me Cake said:
Let's take a look at 7 years of Richmond's national drafts before their 2017 season, bolded are those who featured in any of their Grand Final sides,

2010:

Reece Conca (Pick 6)
Jake Batchelor (Pick 30)
Bradley Helbig (Pick 56)

2011:

Brandon Ellis (Pick 15)
Todd Elton (Pick 26)
Matthew Arnot (Pick 55)

2012:

Nick Vlastuin (Pick 9)
Kamdyn McIntosh (Pick 31)
Liam McBean (Pick 33)
Matt McDonough (Pick 42)

2013:

Ben Lennon (Pick 12)
Sam Lloyd (Pick 66)
Nathan Gordon (Pick 71)

2014:

Corey Ellis (Pick 12)
Connor Menadue (Pick 33)
Nathan Drummond (Pick 52)
Dan Butler (Pick 67)
Reece McKenzie (Pick 77)

2015:

Daniel Rioli (Pick 15)
Nathan Broad (Pick 67)

2016:

Shai Bolton (Pick 29)
Jack Graham (Pick 53)
Click to expand...
Why 7 and not bad to when they were actually at the bottom of the ladder? The year they dropped off they started their build with Cotchin and Rance, cut the list down to 6 players over 27.
 
Last edited:
Call Me Cake said:
Let's take a look at 7 years of Richmond's national drafts before their 2017 season, bolded are those who featured in any of their Grand Final sides,

2010:

Reece Conca (Pick 6)
Jake Batchelor (Pick 30)
Bradley Helbig (Pick 56)

2011:

Brandon Ellis (Pick 15)
Todd Elton (Pick 26)
Matthew Arnot (Pick 55)

2012:

Nick Vlastuin (Pick 9)
Kamdyn McIntosh (Pick 31)
Liam McBean (Pick 33)
Matt McDonough (Pick 42)

2013:

Ben Lennon (Pick 12)
Sam Lloyd (Pick 66)
Nathan Gordon (Pick 71)

2014:

Corey Ellis (Pick 12)
Connor Menadue (Pick 33)
Nathan Drummond (Pick 52)
Dan Butler (Pick 67)
Reece McKenzie (Pick 77)

2015:

Daniel Rioli (Pick 15)
Nathan Broad (Pick 67)

2016:

Shai Bolton (Pick 29)
Jack Graham (Pick 53)
Click to expand...

To add to your timeline (I've included all premiership players and a few others to illustrate the picks it took):

2006:

Riewoldt (Pick 13)
Edwards (Pick 26)

2007:
Cotchin (Pick 2)
Rance (Pick 18 - priority pick)

2008 (best names):

Vickory (Pick 8)
Post (Pick 26)
Hislop (Pick 58)

2009:

Hardwick Appointed

Dusty (Pick 3)
Griffiths (Pick 19)
Astbury (Pick 35)
Grimes (pre-season draft)


It never even takes a glut of first round picks. It basically just takes its picks. There is no 'rebuild' in what Richmond did.
 
Red Black and Blue said:
I disagree, Melbourne, tigers, Brisbane all won flags after scorched earth rebuilds. 2016 Brisbane had 5 players 27 or older. 2017 2 of that group remained. We currently have 13. I wouldn’t be upset if we had 2 at the start of next season.
Click to expand...
Sorry, what I should have said is it takes longer and you generally run through a few coaches doing it. Scorched earth is not where you want to go if you are looking at a 4 to 6 year plan.

The Melbourne scorched earth plan after Daniher blew up big time and cost them 2 coaches because they screwed their recruiting worse than ours. They spent 6 years going nowhere before Roos/Goodwin came on board and spent another 2 seasons building what Jason Taylor started when Mark Neeld joined as coach. It took them 14 years to win a flag. 11 years to play finals and even then, they fell off the ladder after making the Prelim final and spent two years out of the finals.

Looking at the Tigers I do not think they ever went scorched earth. Yes, they had some poor seasons with Frawley where they won 7 / 7 / 4 games and again under Wallace in 2007 with 3 wins and the season he got sacked with 5 wins but that was not because they blew up the list and were young. When Wallace was sacked in 2009, they had 12 players aged over 25. They were ranked the second oldest by age and 3rd for most experience. That number was cut back to 9 over 25 in Dimma's first year and they dropped back to 12th as far as age and games played in the second year that number was 7 over 25 and 15th and 16th as far as age and games played. It was hardly scorched earth, and the void was filled by more players in the 21 to 24 age brackets along with the draft picks. Looking at it, they never went total scorched earth.

Brisbane certainly did do a clean out after the Voss top up years. They started with 12 guys 25 plus in Leppa's first season and only had 8 in 2016 and none over 30. What is worth looking at with them is they had 16 players in the 21 to 24 age group in 2016 that had 3 to 5 years' experience. So, Brisbane did clean out a lot of older players they had a lot of the next age bracket coming through. There were a lot of decent AFL players on the list even though they were the youngest list and the least experienced. Fagan was able to build reasonably quickly off the back of it. it was a 6 years two coach span to get back to winning finals and 10 years to the GF. The other thin the Lions did well was sort out a few back of house things like player retention. They had a stable recruiting team. A new list manager starting the same time as Fagan and got a decent return out of the 2014 to 2017 drafts. So yes, they went a bit scorched earth, but they did not burn down everything like North and Carlton.

I would have to say that the Lions got there with a 3/4 scorched earth plan. Melbourne got there but did so at a big cost.
In the end the key to any type of rebuild is have the right recruiting team in place. Melbourne went slash and burn and had to change the recruiting team after burning 8 or so top 20 picks. It took 11 seasons under the next guy to get to finals.
 

🥰 Love BigFooty? Join now for free.

BrunoV said:
It never even takes a glut of first round picks. It basically just takes its picks. There is no 'rebuild' in what Richmond did.
Click to expand...
I don't think it matters where the picks come from, the defining feature of a lot of premiership sides is a core group of very good players arriving at the club within a couple of years. If you can do that with late and rookie picks then great, but I think it's more likely with a number of high picks purely due to the stronger odds of finding better players.

I think Richmond's draft haul from the past few years is a very good chance of being the core of their next flag or two because there's going to be so many very good players hitting their prime around the same time.
 
Old Campaigner said:
I don't think it matters where the picks come from, the defining feature of a lot of premiership sides is a core group of very good players arriving at the club within a couple of years. If you can do that with late and rookie picks then great, but I think it's more likely with a number of high picks purely due to the stronger odds of finding better players.

I think Richmond's draft haul from the past few years is a very good chance of being the core of their next flag or two because there's going to be so many very good players hitting their prime around the same time.
Click to expand...
100% this, even the team that Barrett thinks didnt rebuild had this as their base - from 2014 to 2017 they get Andrews, Hipwood, McLuggage, Berry, rayner, bailey, starcevich, Payne via the national draft. three premiership defenders, two premiership mids, two premiership mid/fwd hybrids and one premiership key forward drafted across 4 years.
 
Old Campaigner said:
I don't think it matters where the picks come from, the defining feature of a lot of premiership sides is a core group of very good players arriving at the club within a couple of years. If you can do that with late and rookie picks then great, but I think it's more likely with a number of high picks purely due to the stronger odds of finding better players.

I think Richmond's draft haul from the past few years is a very good chance of being the core of their next flag or two because there's going to be so many very good players hitting their prime around the same time.
Click to expand...


Yeah, of course. It doesn't matter where the picks are taken, just that the players are good.

At least from my perspective I am looking at what a rebuild is and looking at the results produced.

I am not a fan of scorched earth rebuilds and it is far from obvious to me that they work. I think they have become a way for list managers and coaches to sit on their hands and to collect pay checks while everyone is pretending that there is a plan.

The history of rebuilding is complicated and it's not even clear what the phrase means becauase there seem to be so many degrees of it. I think the precedents for patience with coaches have incorrectly become precedents for scorched earther rebuilds.

There are many, many more failures than success. As ant555 has said above, Melbourne's experience was of almost a decade of chaos. This is also consistent with what Richmond experienced because it accumulated picks aggressively for the 2004 draft taking Deledio (#1), Tambling (#4), Meyer (#12), Pattinson (#16) and Polo (#20). They must have traded out some decent players to get that haul. They were then rubbish as a side for 8 years. A premiership arrived 13 years later.

Carlton has gone through it, with the 2015 draft which was supposed to have been the catalyst for its rebuild. It will be at least 12 years from the time they scorched the earth before they win another flag. North has been on the bottom of the ladder since 2017. St Kilda blew itself up thanks to Chris Pelchan's genius which happened more than 10 years ago now and it is really struggling.

GC built from scratch and rebuilt twice by the time it won a final. GWS has never really threatend despite having the most talented lists in a number of the last 6 to 8 years.

I reckon that the experiences of Collingwood, Geelong, Sydney and to a less extent Port Adelaide suggest that the time could be better spent being genuinely competitive. This is what I think is the real lesson to take from Richmond.
 
Last edited:
There’s some valid points there but I’m not sure how a club can just will itself into being competitive after two decades of atrocious management leaving it with a terrible squad of senior players and a culture that treats being on an AFL list as Good Enough
 
Old Campaigner said:
There’s some valid points there but I’m not sure how a club can just will itself into being competitive after two decades of atrocious management leaving it with a terrible squad of senior players and a culture that treats being on an AFL list as Good Enough
Click to expand...

‘Just be good’ is one of those things that sounds good in theory but doesn’t really work in practice.

The entire organisation needed a clean out, this has now happened. We’ve still got far too many players that aren’t ‘competitors’ and won’t simply become that by swapping out a head coach.

Scott may not be the guy, but if he’s been part of cleaning out the football department and allowing the necessary change, then he’s done a lot of heavy lifting for the clubs future.
 
Reader mode

Remove this Banner Ad

Similar threads

jmoo wan
    • Wow
  • Poll Poll
Best & Fairest Jmoo and Boncer present the 2025 Crichton Medal
5 6 7 8 9
Replies
223
Views
8K
DonsRule
DonsRule
Lore
    • Like
Recruiting AFLW Draft and Trade 2025 - Draft is tonight!
Replies
3
Views
352
ant555
ant555
Lore
  • Poll Poll
Win Prizes The Scales 2025 Essendon Board Poster of the Year - Congratulations Doss!
Replies
17
Views
1K
doug85
doug85
Lore
  • Locked
Win Prizes The Scales Essendon Board Poster of the Year 2025 - Nomination Thread
2
Replies
25
Views
1K
bommer16
bommer16
eth-dog
Brownlow 2025 Brownlow thread
2
Replies
46
Views
8K
Old Campaigner
Old Campaigner
Hazardinho
    • Like
Competitions 2025 AFL Mock Draft
4 5 6 7 8
Replies
181
Views
12K
King Patty
King Patty
Duckworth
  • Poll Poll
Opinion Robey, Farrow or Sharp
2 3
Replies
66
Views
3K
andleanback
A

Remove this Banner Ad

🥰 Love BigFooty? Join now for free.

Back
Top Bottom