Strategy “You only get a chance to improve your list once a year with bringing in talent.

[Tiger71]

Ok Blair its over to you to show us members and supporters what we are paying you for. You had your success. You got Houli,Morris,Maric, and Grigg which at the time were a success but that was a few years ago now. I have blocked out of my mind last year but it would be kind to suggest if you graded last years talent spotting of under used talent it would be graded as a C- and that's me being kind .

So Blair, work your magic on the pre season and rookie draft. We NEED you to get us a win if we want to maintain our position as a final playing side. We NEED you to find at least one gem to help support our main side to actually win a Final.

We have already wasted one spot on our rookie list with Matt Thomas but please Blair restore my confidence, restore my hope that we are STILL HUNGRY and so smart we can make another mans s**t a nugget of gold.

Lord knows we have enough development coaches to help improve who you pick.

I will leave you a quote from Dimma

“You only get a chance to improve your list once a year with bringing in talent, so it’s an exciting period for us.”

Make it happen

Yours sincerely,

Tiger71

PS - Francis if you read this. Please choose valuable talent after our first pick, that would help heaps. Thanks!

 

[TROSSMAAN]

wow you should write yourself a death threat

 

[Hank Heavenly]

not a lot out there I wouldn't have thought, no point getting someone hoping it works, if theres none good enough, leave them alone.

 

[SumTingWong]

This year needs to be our superdraft

 

[TigerTime3]

Excellent thread.

The reality is we've made finals in the last 2 years and made the following successful attempts to improve our list over 2 trade periods while our list is about to enter it's absolute prime:

Pick 32 for Hampson.

This simply isn't good enough to win us a flag.

Our list is about to peak and this is the best we can do?! First, there's a difference between attempts vs successful attempts. We've made several smart, good but failed attempts to bring in new recruits. The Trengove trade for example was simply bad luck.

But in football terms, our off-field team are performing like a talented player that can't find the ball.

We've been stagnant for 30 months now. The 9 wins in a row is a source of hope for internal improvement, but that's no excuse to fail on so many potential new recruit opportunities over the past several months.

And don't say "nothing wrong with going to the draft" because Dan Richardson himself on the RFC website said he had preliminary discussions with several players but he couldn't get the deals over the line (not him personally, but us as a club).

I really rate our player rating system and wish we were making better use of it.

 

[Bird Man]

Makes me think if our club is an attractive place for A grade players to come to ...

 

[Nostradumbass]

The warchest must be stuck under the mattress.

 

[Capitano_Cotch]

Yeah, Blair has been average at best over the past 24 months.
I don't even give him credit for Miles to be honest.
Miles was a fluke, a great fluke at that.
Hell, we even took Banfield and Thomas before Miles in the rookie draft if I remember correctly.
We are very lucky to have him on our list.
Credit where it's due for Maric and Houli, I might even be generous and throw Chaplin in there too, but that's about it.

So if we get no trades done this year, as well as no free agent pick-ups, what has Blair actually done in 2014?

 

[Tiges1229]

Yeah, Blair has been average at best over the past 24 months.
I don't even give him credit for Miles to be honest.
Miles was a fluke, a great fluke at that.
Hell, we even took Banfield and Thomas before Miles in the rookie draft if I remember correctly.
We are very lucky to have him on our list.
Credit where it's due for Maric and Houli, I might even be generous and throw Chaplin in there too, but that's about it.

So if we get no trades done this year, as well as no free agent pick-ups, what has Blair actually done in 2014?

Unfortunatley Blair has very few runs on the board at the moment me personally i don't rate him . I really hope that we don't get injuries next year or we are stuffed.

 

[Nostradumbass]

There's still a day left, maybe they'll pull a rabbit out of the hat....

 

[tigerT]

No worries lads - we now know our training standards weren't up to scratch - they will be now = sufficient improvement

 

[Tigerbob]

I was going to write similar but more scathing post Tiger71 on Blair Hartley titled: MISSING: Blair Hartley not seen since 2012.

His paycheck has been massively a waste of money the past two years.

Hampson. That's it. Not Miles, because Miles made the effort to get in contact. So in two years the talk has been huge from this club but again, no action. Talk, talk, talk.

Tomorrow could yield something. It better. I'm still hearing something may play out, hence why I was saving that thread, but right here right now, questions need to be asked. Big time.

 

[Capitano_Cotch]

I was going to write similar but more scathing post Tiger71 on Blair Hartley titled: MISSING: Blair Hartley not seen since 2012.

His paycheck has been massively a waste of money the past two years.

Hampson. That's it. Not Miles, because Miles made the effort to get in contact. So in two years the talk has been huge from this club but again, no action. Talk, talk, talk.

Tomorrow could yield something. It better. I'm still hearing something may play out, hence why I was saving that thread, but right here right now, questions need to be asked. Big time.

There's always a flurry of late trades.
I'm thinking we will get either Leroy Jetta or Josh Bootsma for a slab of Corona.
That's how good our trades have been lately.

Carlton managed to get Jacksch and Whiley, and still get pick 19.
They've picked up 2 youngsters and are only 7 spots down from us in the draft.

We've failed massively and done NOTHING this off season to improve our side whatsoever.

Disappointing to say the least.

 

[Tiges1229]

There's always a flurry of late trades.
I'm thinking we will get either Leroy Jetta or Josh Bootsma for a slab of Corona.
That's how good our trades have been lately.

Carlton managed to get Jacksch and Whiley, and still get pick 19.
They've picked up 2 youngsters and are only 7 spots down from us in the draft.

We've failed massively and done NOTHING this off season to improve our side whatsoever.

Disappointing to say the least.

the scum did ok on that trade.

 

[TigerTime3]

So if we get no trades done this year, as well as no free agent pick-ups, what has Blair actually done in 2014?

He provides the intel, we just didn't capitalise on the intel.

A bit like having pro recruiters compile an excellent phantom draft guide and then you trade away your draft picks... you've got to have the intel there just in case, even if you only get 1 player out of it. Just a shame that 1 player was Hampson.

I'd say it's a combined club effort to lure players and create an attractive atmosphere. I thought we were attractive, but maybe it's time to get botox.

 

[Capitano_Cotch]

the scum did ok on that trade.

They did very well.
Hate the campaigners, but credit where it's due.
They addressed their deficiencies and did something about it.

 

[Tigerbob]

Carlton did extremely well. That trade is exactly what you do when you have competent people at the helm.

All year you work hard on getting right. Failure isn't an option. We failed.

 

[Tomnat Tigers]

So if we find the next ablett, hodge and mitchell out of this draft does that mean we still failed?

 

[Tigerbob]

So if we find the next ablett, hodge and mitchell out of this draft does that mean we still failed?

Lol ok Lets find them.

Nothing suggests we will.

 

[This Is Anfield]

Or, the talent we targeted couldn't be brought across for a number of reasons, busted foot maybe, the other clubs wanted too much or there weren't that many players who wanted to come across, possibly the club thought that there are some really good prospects later in the draft and they are confident that 12 (or 23) plus 33 will bring in some real talent.
Just another way of looking at it.

 

[partycorolla]

Equally you only get one chance a year to actually stuff up and bring in players who don't add to your list in any meaningful way.... after 2013, perhaps the club is being more cautious..... and good on them. Pick up some players to have a crack in the rookie draft and perhaps a delisted free agent, like Hunt/Petrenko to fill a need and then draft bloody well.

Wouldn't have wanted anyone in the this crop of trades other than Beams and perhaps Whiley (without paying much).... Griff was not ever coming to us and at 28 with a dodgy back I don't think I'd want him - maybe a trade for TV (which would never happen).

Happy for us to secure Cotch, Rance and Dusty next year, say goodbye to Newy, Knights, probably Arnot, and one of Petts/Foley/Grigg and hopefully Hampson (doubtful). If we can secure the 3 big guns early, we can move to make a play at someone or 2 people next year. If we don't sign them up early, we might need to pay more than we want to.... Get it done Dan.

 

[TigerTime3]

So if we find the next ablett, hodge and mitchell out of this draft does that mean we still failed?

Let's get things straight.

We've gone from second last to dual finalists on the back of making smart recruits such as Maric/Houli/Morris/Grigg/Chaplin etc. We offered them opportunity and security.

We didn't get to our current level by spectacular drafting.

Players come by trades through:

1. Money
2. Opportunity
3. Premierships

We don't do money. We can no longer offer opportunity - hence our trouble in the past 2 trade periods.

So our best chance of success now lies in convincing players to come to our club to fulfil their desires to win premierships. I consider this the final step in attaining sustained success.

We have been forced to change strategy and bank our future on Pick 70 instead and muppets on here think it's a positive. Make no mistake, the trade period did not go as we had hoped.

 

[TigerTime3]

Equally you only get one chance a year to actually stuff up and bring in players who don't add to your list in any meaningful way....

Considering we've got a good 3-4 years to get things right, treading water isn't the end of the world.

It just means we're at risk of stagnating next year. The consequences of stagnation are unknown. Maybe nothing. Maybe Rance asks to be traded to WA in search of a flag. Maybe Martin watches GWS play finals and decides to make the move. Just hypothetical... but we're currently asking our star players to accept "unders" so we can achieve team success.

No team success = unhappy, underpaid, unsuccessful star players wanting out.

Then Dimma gets sacked and it's rebuild time again.

Potentially, doing nothing could cost us everything.

It could also mean little if we draft well and get a lot of output from Lennon/Vlas/McDonough etc. I know my post sounds a bit doom and gloom but half of it is to balance the blind optimism with the potential consequences of indefinite stagnation. I think we're pretty safe, but a low chance to significantly improve or fall away. I'm unhappy about not improving significantly, though.

 

[Wild Westiger]

I guess there may be 2 sides to this story. We don't know how many duds Hartley stopped coming to the club that in yesteryear happened repeatedly.

 

[partycorolla]

Considering we've got a good 3-4 years to get things right, treading water isn't the end of the world.

It just means we're at risk of stagnating next year. The consequences of stagnation are unknown. Maybe nothing. Maybe Rance asks to be traded to WA in search of a flag. Maybe Martin watches GWS play finals and decides to make the move. Just hypothetical... but we're currently asking our star players to accept "unders" so we can achieve team success.

No team success = unhappy, underpaid, unsuccessful star players wanting out.

Then Dimma gets sacked and it's rebuild time again.

Potentially, doing nothing could cost us everything.

It could also mean little if we draft well and get a lot of output from Lennon/Vlas/McDonough etc. I know my post sounds a bit doom and gloom but half of it is to balance the blind optimism with the potential consequences of indefinite stagnation. I think we're pretty safe, but a low chance to significantly improve or fall away. I'm unhappy about not improving significantly, though.

Stagnation is dangerous..... so is trading for the sake of it. If you can't get in the talent you identify as being helpful then don't just settle for trading in anyone just to be seen to be doing something....