Adrian Dodoro: Football’s Biggest Fraud IMO

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Nov 8, 2007
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I've said on numerous occasions that I'm more than happy for people to criticise him for the things he's actually responsible, which is largely, not drafting a suitably balanced midfield group.

Instead, people like you, make up all these bizarre things he's almost certainly not responsible for.

It's a strange obsession you have.

He's a decent recruiter. Not the best, not the worst. About average across the stretch.

You could attempt to make some informed commentary for a change, but we both know you won't.
Identifying where the list is at and drafting/trading accordingly. How is that not within his responsibilities you fool? Your fanboi-ness has blinded you.
 
Apr 23, 2016
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Identifying where the list is at and drafting/trading accordingly. How is that not within his responsibilities you fool? Your fanboi-ness has blinded you.

Again, do you think any list manager in the league unilaterally decides on the draft & trade strategy?

Do you think Carlton's list manager decided 'you know what, I feel like Zac Williams would be a nice addition' then traded him in and said to the coaches, 'sort it out' or do you think the coaching panel went and said 'our midfield needs guys in the 21-25 bracket, find out who's out there'?

Spend even a moment of time considering what you're writing and you'll realise how flimsy your logic is.
 
Nov 8, 2007
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Again, do you think any list manager in the league unilaterally decides on the draft & trade strategy?

Do you think Carlton's list manager decided 'you know what, I feel like Zac Williams would be a nice addition' then traded him in and said to the coaches, 'sort it out' or do you think the coaching panel went and said 'our midfield needs guys in the 21-25 bracket, find out who's out there'?

Spend even a moment of time considering what you're writing and you'll realise how flimsy your logic is.
Who said unilateral? The correct argument is: "What % of the blame should he have for horribly misreading the tealeaves. Was it mostly his fault or was he only partially responsible for the fk up and it's the others who were incompetent?"

Fanbois like you though still want to hold him blameless, which is truly flimsy logic.
 
Jul 25, 2019
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I've said on numerous occasions that I'm more than happy for people to criticise him for the things he's actually responsible, which is largely, not drafting a suitably balanced midfield group.

Instead, people like you, make up all these bizarre things he's almost certainly not responsible for.

It's a strange obsession you have.

He's a decent recruiter. Not the best, not the worst. About average across the stretch.

You could attempt to make some informed commentary for a change, but we both know you won't.

Whilst I agree Dodoro is probably not as bad as most here, this year's draft is crucial for him and Essendon.

If he passes on George Wardlaw with your first pick (assuming he is still on the board) I would be pretty roapable if I was a Essendon fan.
 
Apr 23, 2016
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Who said unilateral? The correct argument is: "What % of the blame should he have for horribly misreading the tealeaves. Was it mostly his fault or was he only partially responsible for the fk up and it's the others who were incompetent?"

Fanbois like you though still want to hold him blameless, which is truly flimsy logic.

So we go back to what I said earlier;

You could attempt to make some informed commentary for a change, but we both know you won't.
 
Dec 2, 2014
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Whilst I agree Dodoro is probably not as bad as most here, this year's draft is crucial for him and Essendon.

If he passes on George Wardlaw with your first pick (assuming he is still on the board) I would be pretty roapable if I was a Essendon fan.

Only for you to bag him in 3 years saying why did Dodoro pick another small mid?
 
Jul 14, 2005
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Dodoro is great at finding flankers with late picks, but bad at actually putting together a good list and filling areas of need.

Routinely scores own goals.

There's a lot of Stockholm Syndrome in this thread. When Essendon are going badly there's scores of Bomber supporters wanting him gone, but win 1 game against a mid-ranked side in the context of a 3-10 season and they come out of the woodwork to sing his praises.

Bizarre stuff.
 
Nov 8, 2007
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all these bizarre things he's almost certainly not responsible for.

Where you foolishly described identifying list needs as "bizarre things he's almost certainly not responsible for".

You're wrong. Accept it, try and learn from it and improve.

Nope, keep trying to engage your brain, maybe you'll get there someday.
try to improve your memory. 30 minutes shouldn't be that hard, particularly when it's written down.
 
Jun 12, 2018
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Did you watch last season? Bloke was the best centre clearance player in the comp in the back half of the year and kicked 40 goals.

Parish and Stringer centre bounce dominance was a big part of Essendon over performing expectations last year.
It was a contract year there’s heaps of players in the afl that play great in those years.
The greats back it up year on year.
 

Ambrosia

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It was a contract year there’s heaps of players in the afl that play great in those years.
The greats back it up year on year.

He’s been good every season other then the Covid year due to injury. Again we didn’t pay much for him contract wise or draft capital wise. Remember I’m only arguing against a moron who thinks he’s been poor for Essendon no that he’s some gun of the competition.
 
Nov 8, 2007
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I don’t think you can extrapolate it that way there’s tons of other factors as to why Essendon didn’t put it together.

Was Judd a bad trade because Carlton have been mediocre since?
Not a bad trade, but perhaps a short-sighted trade. Our list management back then was horrendously s**t anyway. As bad as Dodoro is, they were worse.

We were diabolically bad and changed into a team that won a few finals at least.
 
Oct 1, 2006
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It isn’t just this year. He’s just doing again what he’s done well previously, building good lists.

The supplements saga and the clubs implosion of 2020 and the impact these ‘events’ had on the club, and the loss of players associated with both events shouldn’t be sheeted home to Dodoro or RFK.

Most people conveniently disregard this and that’s why their assertion he hasn’t performed is a shallow and incomplete review of his / their performance.

Dodoros been forced to go back to the well and start again on several occasions the last 15 years, frustratingly because of the Clubs failure to support his team with the necessary high performance environment and culture to ensure talent and list builds are realised.

Just because Essendon win a match shouldn’t mean all of a sudden we see the talent emerging or recognise a good 12-24 months of recruiting. If they lose tomorrow night it’s back to sack Dodoro again, right?

No, this is another rebuild that basically necessarily started again in 2020 and consequently the growth, evolution and development of this list will take another 18-24 months to start delivering results on a consistent basis. In the meantime we need to expect the ups and downs and inconsistent performances of individuals and the collective team as they begin to play more football together, work out their optimal positions, grow into new roles and build chemistry.

All this whilst hoping that finally on this occasion the Essendon Club don’t bring about another implosion and avoid making short term decisions based on external noise and pressure from the media and it’s fans. That’s why this next two years is so challenging to navigate.
I'm not critical of his ability to find AFL standard talent. But I reject that he's had a habit of building good lists. He's had multiple full builds where the culmination has been a humiliating finals defeat. That isn't the metric of a good team.

The valid criticism of him is based on him:
  • Not finding superstar level talent.
  • Building unbalanced lists.
  • Holding onto players for too long, both as journeymen and not trading at highest value only to lose them for less later.
The very reason that the supplement saga occurred was verbatim from Thompson, the players are too small and weak. Who was responsible for the state of our list in 2012? Dodoro had been in recruiting from 1998 and was the head of recruiting in 2010. The shielding of responsibility from the supplements saga is misplaced when he was the key architect of the list at that stage.

The reason this is another rebuild is because of the players he took during 17-19. That is his fault as well.

Between 2017-2020 the players he took via the draft are:

2017- Jordan Houlahan, BZT, Guelfi, Mynott
2018- Irving Mosquito, Noah Gown, Brayden Ham, Tom Jok,
2019- Snelling, Jones, Bryan, Cahill, Townsend, Crauford

Regardless of trades over that period, he's hit with 2-3 long term talents from 14 draft prospects. That is atrocious strike rate when none have become superstars. Those years were talent wastelands at the end of drafts. A key part of list management is knowing when to pull the trade lever and when you need to get high end draft picks in. The weakest years of his talent identification coincided with over spending on trades and retention of players who left for unders.

If you remove the first rounders and academy prospects in the last year. He's brought in Baldwin, Voss, Martin, D'Ambrossio, Durham, Lord, McDonaugh, the highest drafted being Lord as a 4th rounder. That's 3 best 22 players, a few with high ceilings. 2 quality key forward developing prospects, the youngest player and developing half back in his draft and maybe a miss with McDonaugh.

I expect us to lose on the weekend. West Coast bring what they did against Geelong and we likely go down. The praise is directly on the back of a strike rate in 12 months that supersedes the previous 3-4 years.

Credit where it is due, not where it isn't.
 
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dave10

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Apr 26, 2004
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I'm not critical of his ability to find AFL standard talent. But I reject that he's had a habit of building good lists. He's had multiple full builds where the culmination has been a humiliating finals defeat. That isn't the metric of a good team.

The valid criticism of him is based on him:
  • Not finding superstar level talent.
  • Building unbalanced lists.
  • Holding onto players for too long, both as journeymen and not trading at highest value only to lose them for less later.
The very reason that the supplement saga occurred was verbatim from Thompson, the players are too small and weak. Who was responsible for the state of our list in 2012? Dodoro had been in recruiting from 1998 and was the head of recruiting in 2010. The shielding of responsibility from the supplements saga is misplaced when he was the key architect of the list at that stage.

The reason this is another rebuild is because of the players he took during 17-19. That is his fault as well.

Between 2017-2020 the players he took via the draft are:

2017- Jordan Houlahan, BZT, Guelfi, Mynott
2018- Irving Mosquito, Noah Gown, Brayden Ham, Tom Jok,
2019- Snelling, Jones, Bryan, Cahill, Townsend, Crauford

Regardless of trades over that period, he's hit with 2-3 long term talents from 14 draft prospects. That is atrocious strike rate when none have become superstars. Those years were talent wastelands at the end of drafts. A key part of list management is knowing when to pull the trade lever and when you need to get high end draft picks in. The weakest years of his talent identification coincided with over spending on trades and retention of players who left for unders.

If you remove the first rounders and academy prospects in the last year. He's brought in Baldwin, Voss, Martin, D'Ambrossio, Durham, Lord, McDonaugh, the highest drafted being Lord as a 4th rounder. That's 3 best 22 players, a few with high ceilings. 2 quality key forward developing prospects, the youngest player and developing half back in his draft and maybe a miss with McDonaugh.

I expect us to lose on the weekend. West Coast bring what they did against Geelong and we likely go down. The praise is directly on the back of a strike rate in 12 months that supersedes the previous 3-4 years.

Credit where it is due, not where it isn't.
Agree to disagree. He’s not perfect, however he’s better than most give him credit for.
 
Jun 11, 2007
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He misread the tealeaves, bigger than losing/winning any individual trade.

He thought Dons were ready to challenge so he outlaid substantial draft capital to bring in mature players in Shiel, Smith and Stringer (SSS).

The Dons middled and failed to even win a single final and in recent years he's started letting senior players go to bring in new draft capital.

It means overall he's fked up the trajectory of the club.

How much extra talent would you have had you kept those picks for SSS?
I have done the hindsight drafting but i cant remember it all

Effectively we missed bonar, TDK and west coast bailey williams.
And we wouldnt have reid via saad trade

Not so bad
 
Oct 1, 2006
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I have done the hindsight drafting but i cant remember it all

Effectively we missed bonar, TDK and west coast bailey williams.
And we wouldnt have reid via saad trade

Not so bad
Noah Balta and Tom De Koning were the Stringer trade. Pretty bad when you look at it like that unless we push up the ladder next year with Stringer.
 
Nov 8, 2007
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Conrats Adrian!
rounded-red-numbers-6500-on-260nw-1983038654.jpg
 

WN123

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Mar 5, 2008
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He misread the tealeaves, bigger than losing/winning any individual trade.

He thought Dons were ready to challenge so he outlaid substantial draft capital to bring in mature players in Shiel, Smith and Stringer (SSS).

The Dons middled and failed to even win a single final and in recent years he's started letting senior players go to bring in new draft capital.

It means overall he's fked up the trajectory of the club.

How much extra talent would you have had you kept those picks for SSS?
Those trades were made in the back of making the finals with 23 year old Daniher and 21 year old Fantasia kicking over 100 goals in 2017 between them. Hard to foresee that they would not kick that many goals in the next four years before eventually leaving.
 
May 6, 2007
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Conrats Adrian!
rounded-red-numbers-6500-on-260nw-1983038654.jpg

Its ironic that the one final Carlton have played this decade was on the suspension of Essendon from playing finals that year.

Carlton supporters carry this shtick like it's some sort of commendable record when in reality, winning premierships is what we all want.
 
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