List Mgmt. 2020 List Management II

[Opine]

That SOS was gone

It's no wonder Austin was TENACIOUS in selling Williams on the virtues of surplus salary-cap $ put together by SOS. Even Thigh could have arguably got that deal over the line. Money talks the other stuff walks.

 

[Opine]

The theory around it is sound but thats assuming all your top picks end up good players. We took punts on players that were gone after 1 season or 2 and ignored players overlooked from the draft or from the state leagues, if the top picks don’t come one, you’re left with a massive hole because you ignored the late rounds of the draft and topped the list up with poor players.

I can be a bit negative at times but I see four of top draftees as being borderline best 22 going forwards, I see two mature players that we gave up three 2nd round picks for as not being best 22, if these guys don’t come good on their talents, we will be left with a big job to do because we ignored the rookie draft too often.

I don’t see the recruitment of Oshea, Shaw, Mullett, Fasolo, Palmer, Smedts, Lang, Lobbe or Silvagni as helping win many games or limit the losers that we did suffer, we would be in a much better position if we just went to the draft.

bullshit

 

[Gethelred]

I think SOS is being evaluated on his talent scouts rather than his actual job, which was management of the list.

People are looking at a list manager in an archaic way. They're not the ones who look at all the footage, attend all the games anymore; they and clubs have talent scouts and others to assist with that kind of thing. SOS's role was not as a talent scout, but as someone who reviewed the reports from the talent scouts and picked the best option for the list as a whole. He was the list manager, and I think people weight the first word too heavily.

As a list manager, SOS is unparalleled as far as hard rebuilds go. What he managed to accomplish given our resources at the start of 2015 to the end of his tenure last year is nothing short of spectacular, provided one looks not at names but at how he bargained to improve draft positions, what was traded to get what, and how with each draft we entered into we emerged with a complete and complex set of players.

What I'm saying should not excuse the misses; he's still nominally in charge of the list, and he signs the dotted line on each individual recruit so he'd have to be at least marginally on board with them. But there's some rewriting going on here, and I won't stand for it.

 

[Opine]

The theory around it is sound but thats assuming all your top picks end up good players. We took punts on players that were gone after 1 season or 2 and ignored players overlooked from the draft or from the state leagues, if the top picks don’t come one, you’re left with a massive hole because you ignored the late rounds of the draft and topped the list up with poor players.

I can be a bit negative at times but I see four of top draftees as being borderline best 22 going forwards, I see two mature players that we gave up three 2nd round picks for as not being best 22, if these guys don’t come good on their talents, we will be left with a big job to do because we ignored the rookie draft too often.

I don’t see the recruitment of Oshea, Shaw, Mullett, Fasolo, Palmer, Smedts, Lang, Lobbe or Silvagni as helping win many games or limit the losers that we did suffer, we would be in a much better position if we just went to the draft.

Let's see how your jack-of-all-master-of-none performs.

 

[Opine]

Yes, fixing our salary cap was something SOS did exceptionally well. Give him all credit there.
It does also now allow us to bring in the players SOS didn't manage to get.

Think Betts had a lot to do with Williams wanting to come

Yeah ok, Betts trumped cash.

 

[Arr0w]

Off the top of my head, Dunkley & Mosquito are two that were tied up (F/S & NGA respectively) who got taken by other clubs.

Swans made it clear that they would match the Dunkley bid if a non Melbourne team bid on him

 

[DirkDiggler]

Yes, fixing our salary cap was something SOS did exceptionally well. Give him all credit there.
It does also now allow us to bring in the players SOS didn't manage to get.

Think Betts had a lot to do with Williams wanting to come

Maybe Betts can use his charm to also bring Stack and Narkle over for us

 

[Gethelred]

I am intrigued by how we are planning to address the need at small forward going forward.
Eddie will be 34 by round 1 and I don’t expect him to perform much differently than this year.
Owies may or may not be on the list next year - presumably will come down to the size of list cuts.
Fish has been re-purposed as a forward but I see him more as a midfielder who can rotate through half forward. Same as Cunners.
I think we should be looking to recruit someone for the role that can learn from Eddie. We don’t need someone to kick 35+ goals but rather someone that can pressure, tackle and kick the odd couple of goals to play as one of a couple of smaller forwards

I might be in the minority, but I manifestly thing we really do need someone or someones to kick 35+ goals a year on top of what we already have in there.

What I want is a few smalls who kick 30+ goals a season in a standard 22 game season. 2 would be good, three would be best, but I'll take one. And while that could've been Butler, I'm dead sick of us kicking ourselves with him. He'd have been a whipping boy before he'd even played a game, and if he had his last 8 games up first instead of the first 10 he had this year, he'd have been kicked from pillar to post.

 

[HavUEvaSeenTheRain]

I think SOS is being evaluated on his talent scouts rather than his actual job, which was management of the list.

People are looking at a list manager in an archaic way. They're not the ones who look at all the footage, attend all the games anymore; they and clubs have talent scouts and others to assist with that kind of thing. SOS's role was not as a talent scout, but as someone who reviewed the reports from the talent scouts and picked the best option for the list as a whole. He was the list manager, and I think people weight the first word too heavily.

As a list manager, SOS is unparalleled as far as hard rebuilds go. What he managed to accomplish given our resources at the start of 2015 to the end of his tenure last year is nothing short of spectacular, provided one looks not at names but at how he bargained to improve draft positions, what was traded to get what, and how with each draft we entered into we emerged with a complete and complex set of players.

What I'm saying should not excuse the misses; he's still nominally in charge of the list, and he signs the dotted line on each individual recruit so he'd have to be at least marginally on board with them. But there's some rewriting going on here, and I won't stand for it.

Yep and there is so much speculation going on. I think the reason we maybe put so much more down to SOS then what is probably right is because the noise coming out about him not listening to his colleagues enough. Unless you are on the inside who knows what the truth is? We don’t really know who was driving the good or bad decisions, only that SOS was in charge and had the final say.

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

There should be some because history tells you that premiership winning sides have developed strong depth and competition for spots with rookie selections. Richmond are a great example of this and I've listed some of their rookie gems below.

You can't solely rely on first round selections. You only get one per year. Premiership winning sides aren't made up of 12 first rounders and a bunch of hacks. It's a big reason why our list build took longer than expected. We were unable to land anything late in the draft. It's a big reason why we were sitting on two wins at the end of the 2018 season (3 years into our rebuild).

Late/Rookie selections as part of Richmond's premiership side in 2019:
Nathan Broad: Pick 67 in 2015 National Draft.
Jayden Short: Pick 11 in 2015 Rookie Draft.
Kane Lambert: Pick 46 in 2015 Rookie Draft.
Jason Castagna: Pick 29 in 2015 Rookie Draft.
Ivan Soldo: Pick 68 in 2015 Rookie Draft.
Liam Baker: Pick 18 in 2018 Rookie Draft.
Marlion Pickett: Mid season draft selection.

Got to say, in looking at the above selections, the Richmond recruiting team did an amazing job in 2015.

They got some hardworking role players and all are in their best 25-30 players. None are guns though and I'm not convinced they would all fit into another team with a different gameplan. I wonder who would step it up to be a senior leader when Cotchin, Martin and Riewoldt are done.

Carlton flag sides have had good role players who were far better with senior talent around them.

 

[Gethelred]

Yep and there is so much speculation going on. I think the reason we maybe put so much more down to SOS then what is probably right is because the noise coming out about him not listening to his colleagues enough. Unless you are on the inside who knows what the truth is? We don’t really know who was driving the good or bad decisions, only that SOS was in charge and had the final say.

Essentially, what it comes down to for me is, did SOS trust his staff? Did he use them properly early, or did he try to do it all himself?

You can only blame him for the whole thing if you think he was trying to do everything, see all the games, make all the decisions, which - in my opinion - would've been deeply unprofessional. And I don't see SOS as unprofessional, not in his chosen field.

Ultimately, we don't know. But you cannot blame him for the decisions of his staff unless you think he wasn't listening to them.

 

[Gethelred]

Off the top of my head, Dunkley & Mosquito are two that were tied up (F/S & NGA respectively) who got taken by other clubs.

So was Macreadie; GWS Academy.

 

[Gethelred]

Austin has already landed a top tier player through FA in Williams, something SOS failed to do.

Hasn't happened yet. When it happens, I'll celebrate and laud Austin for it, and not a moment sooner.

 

[Eiffel 65]

They got some hardworking role players and all are in their best 25-30 players. None are guns though and I'm not convinced they would all fit into another team with a different gameplan. I wonder who would step it up to be a senior leader when Cotchin, Martin and Riewoldt are done.

Carlton flag sides have had good role players who were far better with senior talent around them.

I had the same question marks on Dan Butler at the end of last year.

Proved me wrong.

I'm more in the camp that there's a a fair portion of their players that are genuinely underrated. For example, Liam Baker hardly gets a mention when people are talking about Richmond, but he's flying at the moment. That's just my opinion though and is open for debate.

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

Austin has already landed a top tier player through FA in Williams, something SOS failed to do.

I'm going to go nuts if this becomes the narrative.

Try this:



Who built it? Once it was built, they start coming right?

Let's look at the relative attractiveness of the 2015 list vs the 2020 list. Once we started showing some growth, Marchbank, Setterfield, McGovern, Martin all game. Shiel and Coniglio were impressed enough to consider it. It doesn't happen overnight.

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

I had the same question marks on Dan Butler at the end of last year.

Proved me wrong.

I'm more in the camp that there's a a fair portion of their players that are genuinely underrated. For example, Liam Baker hardly gets a mention when people are talking about Richmond, but he's flying at the moment. That's just my opinion though and is open for debate.

Baker, Butler and Castagna all seemed to be competing for 2 spots in the Tigers side and Baker and Butler especially, were out the door at different stages last year. There is no substitute for pace though, and Butler landed at a club intent on using pace at every opportunity, with a coach who also did the same as coach of Carlton. It was a perfect match for him really.

It's really hard to gauge Richmond's lesser players because their game plan is all about run, pressure and chaos balls. A player with pace and low skills can still thrive in that environment. As I said, I'd need to see how they go once those older players fade out. Will the same game plan still work, or will they have to adapt and display their skills

 

[Opine]

Yes SOS is a club legend and we all love him. The way he was sacked was extremely poor by the club..

But if you look at our list SOS and his team didn't do that great of a job, it was average at best.
We currently have a lot of holes to fill and are currently not a top 8 list..

After the first round they had far more miss's than hit's through the draft.
We currently have a lot of depth and (over rated on here) but unknown talent on the list.

As for trades and FA, yes the wheeling and dealing was fun for us all through trade week.
But the only top tier player they managed to bring in through a trade/FA is Plowman.
They brought a lot of top 20-40 depth and cheap useless list cloggers that set us back (No longer on the list).
Also their inability to land any of the big fish they perused during trade week

This is a job they were paid well to do.. If it was anyone else but SOS, they would have been sacked earlier.

Austin has already landed a top tier player through FA in Williams, something SOS failed to do.

You write with word selections that signify distance and disconnection between you and the club. Are you really a Blues supporter? CFC is not really your club is it?

 

[Opine]

Yes SOS is a club legend and we all love him. The way he was sacked was extremely poor by the club..

But if you look at our list SOS and his team didn't do that great of a job, it was average at best.
We currently have a lot of holes to fill and are currently not a top 8 list..

After the first round they had far more miss's than hit's through the draft.
We currently have a lot of depth and (over rated on here) but unknown talent on the list.

As for trades and FA, yes the wheeling and dealing was fun for us all through trade week.
But the only top tier player they managed to bring in through a trade/FA is Plowman.
They brought a lot of top 20-40 depth and cheap useless list cloggers that set us back (No longer on the list).
Also their inability to land any of the big fish they perused during trade week

This is a job they were paid well to do.. If it was anyone else but SOS, they would have been sacked earlier.

Austin has already landed a top tier player through FA in Williams, something SOS failed to do.

I'd feel better about you as a fellow Blue poster, if you started using words such as I, we, our, more often.

 

[Gethelred]

You write with word selections that signify distance and disconnection between you and the club. Are you really a Blues supporter? CFC is not really your club is it?

A 'paid up member' of the club, who 'pays for their membership', and 'expects to get return for their investment', perhaps.

 

[Stamos]

Of course but we know that doesn’t happen, what do you think when you look back at our use of the rookie draft and late selections in the national draft?
The reason why I think we are behind where we should be and still with a lot of question marks over the list, is because we placed so much emphasis and importance on top end picks, when these picks fail to develop we are left exposed. I don’t know how anyone looks at the list of players SOS brought in, that are no longer here and thinks, what was he thinking.

The wheeling and dealing was great, trading out Menzel, Henderson, Yarran was great, sorting out the tpp was great and starting the rebuild was great, the players brought in by trades has been poor, senior players brought in via the rookie draft has been poor and I really really hope by the end of next year we can all sit here and say, thank god for LOB, Dow, SPS and Cuningham coming on, because that’s 4 first round draftees that have been disappointing to date.

It has to be acknowledged that where you are as a list is going to effect how you draft rookies, and how they are developed. It's far easier to develop those types when you have a functioning list and system for them to be developed in, just as it is a different prospect for recruiters who don't have the same list needs, nor high picks, to go after different players (say highly ranked KPPs). SOS was right to be placing that emphasis and importance on the top end picks when we were at the beginning of a total list rebuild.

It was only the Shaw/Mullett/O'Shea picks at the end of 2017 that were really inexplicable.
Sure, we missed some in 2015 and 16, but there were a hell of a lot more misses in those years than hits, as there is in every rookie draft. And surely people can't be too disappointed in Gibbons, Cottrell and Honey (and maybe Phillips) taken in the last 2 years?

 

[Arr0w]

Yes SOS is a club legend and we all love him. The way he was sacked was extremely poor by the club..

But if you look at our list SOS and his team didn't do that great of a job, it was average at best.
We currently have a lot of holes to fill and are currently not a top 8 list..

After the first round they had far more miss's than hit's through the draft.
We currently have a lot of depth and (over rated on here) but unknown talent on the list.

As for trades and FA, yes the wheeling and dealing was fun for us all through trade week.
But the only top tier player they managed to bring in through a trade/FA is Plowman.
They brought a lot of top 20-40 depth and cheap useless list cloggers that set us back (No longer on the list).
Also their inability to land any of the big fish they perused during trade week

This is a job they were paid well to do.. If it was anyone else but SOS, they would have been sacked earlier.

Austin has already landed a top tier player through FA in Williams, something SOS failed to do.

Easier to land players when a side is rising

Opposition players and their managers aren't stupid

 

[Dunna Heartknee]

Easier to land players when a side is rising

Opposition players and their managers aren't stupid

Austins walked into a Steven Bradbury moment and good luck to him

 

[Gethelred]

I'd argue it's also much, much easier to draft and develop rookies for roles rather than having to develop them to play AFL.

Look at Geelong, Richmond, Sydney, Hawthorn, and the blokes you see off the rookie list you don't see early, and once they're drafted they don't jump straight into 1st or 2nd defender, 1st or 2nd KPF, the key roles. They get primed as 3rd defenders, 5th-6th forwards or backmen, wings or HFF's instead of centres. They get to the level in their role, and they become exceptional with it.

Look at that flock of players who all came good in 2017: Castagna, Lambert, Townsend, Rioli, Butler. All of them at least 21, all of them went missing for patches of the year but it didn't matter because they never went missing together. They were relied upon to supply tackling pressure, and - as a group - to kick 6+ goals a week.

At the start of our build, we didn't need roles, we needed players; each of the excellent rookie clubs draft rookies for roles not as players. We needed AFL capable talent that can be developed in multiple directions; back, forward, midfield. Think, Kennedy, SPS, Fisher, SOS, Weitering; all these boys got swung around both because we needed it but also because it assisted their development. We've got the players now, so hopefully we can start drafting and developing for roles.

I think of it this way; rookies in the AFL can become AFL capable players (and no longer role players) when they're 29+, perhaps less if they're midfielders. Players take less time, and become more positionally capable sooner.

 

[CJMB]

I'd argue it's also much, much easier to draft and develop rookies for roles rather than having to develop them to play AFL.

Look at Geelong, Richmond, Sydney, Hawthorn, and the blokes you see off the rookie list you don't see early, and once they're drafted they don't jump straight into 1st or 2nd defender, 1st or 2nd KPF, the key roles. They get primed as 3rd defenders, 5th-6th forwards or backmen, wings or HFF's instead of centres. They get to the level in their role, and they become exceptional with it.

Look at that flock of players who all came good in 2017: Castagna, Lambert, Townsend, Rioli, Butler. All of them at least 21, all of them went missing for patches of the year but it didn't matter because they never went missing together. They were relied upon to supply tackling pressure, and - as a group - to kick 6+ goals a week.

At the start of our build, we didn't need roles, we needed players; each of the excellent rookie clubs draft rookies for roles not as players. We needed AFL capable talent that can be developed in multiple directions; back, forward, midfield. Think, Kennedy, SPS, Fisher, SOS, Weitering; all these boys got swung around both because we needed it but also because it assisted their development. We've got the players now, so hopefully we can start drafting and developing for roles.

I think of it this way; rookies in the AFL can become AFL capable players (and no longer role players) when they're 29+, perhaps less if they're midfielders. Players take less time, and become more positionally capable sooner.

I imagine it’s also easier for those players to slot in and perform when you’ve already got a decent side and system

 

[TENACIOUS]

If people actually read my post, I'm not anti SOS at all and believe he was wrongly treated by the club..

I just don't believe him and his team did as good a job with the list, as the blind faith supporters here believe.
It was just a pass for mine, not sure if that was due to SOS or the recruiting team and player scouts he had around him.

Yes the list has improved vastly since 2015, but a dart board would have done better than Rogers..
We have some very good players, but still have a lot of gaps in the best 22.
We also aren't near a top 8/4 list yet which was the goal and what I'd hope SOS was measured on.

He did an awesome job with our Salary Cap and payment structure, which I hope we follow going forward.

Hope SOS is remembered not only for his playing career, but contributions to the club to build a premiership team.
But rightly or wrongly SOS has gone and my full support is behind Austin now.

The same people will dislike my post as it doesn't suit their opinion or narrative, which is fine.
But it seems to be the same people when there is any discussion of change to our list, specially trading players..