Strategy Are we seeing a change in strategy?

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In his press statement Hamish suggested that Pedlar " .... got injured and missed later in the year which wasn’t the worst thing that could’ve happened, because he was probably a little bit under the radar for a few but not for us." This sounds to me like a Hamish special. And I am happy to go with it.
Despite sounding like a SA-phobe I would also rather he chose Poulter over Berry, but what do I know?

I was probably in a similar boat re Poulter/Berry, nothing against Berry, I just really liked the potential in Poulter, but seeing the reaction of him and his mates to being drafted does endear him a fair bit, unlike Tanner "just been selected as tribute for the Hunger Games" Bruhn :D ...

Regarding drafting locals, I think this year is probably more coincidence than significant change in drafting policy. This was a strong SA draft to start with, I believe this group won their respective U16 Champs, then combine this with lack of exposed victorian form and it suddenly became very easy to select local. Plus we had 2x NGAs.

Personally I do think we need to work harded to push closer to a 50-50 SA/Non-SA talent though. I don't think we have to significantly prioritise SA talent in our draft order, but I think we do need to work harded to manouvre our picks into positions to get the better SA talent (Which I think we did do with Cook and were looking at with Pedlar, but realised we wouldn't get him if we had moved).
 

CrowInFiji

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I love it to be honest because it just makes a lot of sense. Yeah we have lost a fair bit of talent but I also think it's just as important to recognise what Matt Rendell was saying about being on the phone every year to every SA boy and noone wanted to come back.

Yeah Hately this year but he went to GWS in a stacked midfield team to come back to Adelaide where the midfield is our weakness. I would suggest that it was as pragmatic a decision as it was influenced by home. Granted I know little of his motivators but I would argue that if he had been getting regular gametime he may not have come back.

If SA produces the requisite talent then take them as priority. The only reason we crack the sads about losing all that talent is because they were developed so well by the club. I for one am looking forward to our 2024-2026 threepeat
 
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I love it to be honest because it just makes a lot of sense. Yeah we have lost a fair bit of talent but I also think it's just as important to recognise what Matt Rendell was saying about being on the phone every year to every SA boy and noone wanted to come back.

Yeah Hately this year but he went to GWS in a stacked midfield team to come back to Adelaide where the midfield is our weakness. I would suggest that it was as pragmatic a decision as it was influenced by home. Granted I know little of his motivators but I would argue that if he had been getting regular gametime he may not have come back.

If SA produces the requisite talent then take them as priority. The only reason we crack the sads about losing all that talent is because they were developed so well by the club. I for one am looking forward to our 2024-2026 threepeat
I'd go so far as to say Hately wouldn't have come back if he was considered to be in their best 22, his move was motivated by being almost guaranteed he was in our best 22 from the get go playing in his favoured inside midfield role.

He said in that interview his girlfriend is from NSW and it was known he had a tribe of family relatives in NSW even before he was drafted.
 

BrissyCrow

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I am not convinced it is a change in strategy or at least not a major change. This year we saw the SA and WA kids come to the fore mainly because of the Vic kids not getting the exposure they usually get. So we end up getting a SA lads this year and I like that but are there other benefits that come with that. Well the go home factor becomes less of an threat. But for me there is another benefit that we mostly see the Vic teams benefiting from. Why is that teams like Richmond can get loaded up with high end talent which costs significant amounts of money yet they can hold onto the players at the lower end. The average player will stay at Richmond for less even when Richmond were struggling. Its the same at many of the Vic clubs. Perhaps by having a more SA players they too will be happy to remain in SA for slightly less money there by giving the club the ability to try and attract elite players to the club. Also by having more SA players around will that increase the strength of the bond within the team and maybe even develop a "its us against them".

If there is a change in strategy I think its more about the type of player we want. We have Schoenberg who is reputed to be a tough bastard and now Pedlar who also has a reputation of be hard at the ball. I think we need some of this aggression. I think its something we have lacked. Grunt and "dont f**k with us" attitude. Anyway for me if there is the directional change then I like it. But I bet that if next year we have pick one and the best player is from Victoria we will select him.
 

ShadeyP

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There always has been and still remains a strong sense of pride to represent your home state and team and to me especially when you are a South Australian , playing for the Crows . This has been lost over the years and it is time to bring it back .

There has been an acknowledgement and more importantly the opportunity to bring in a bunch of super talented local kids over a few drafts that have played a lot of footy together and that have that old fearless Croweater attitude . 2020 provided just that and next year might well add another couple to the list .

We had 12 and 14 South Aussies in our flag years and whilst i am not saying there needs to be a quota , it definitely fills me with happiness that we will have a strong local contingent as a young core .

If we could bring back 1 or 2 of Luko , Rankine or Stephens ... half a state team we would almost have .
 
There always has been and still remains a strong sense of pride to represent your home state and team and to me especially when you are a South Australian , playing for the Crows . This has been lost over the years and it is time to bring it back .

There has been an acknowledgement and more importantly the opportunity to bring in a bunch of super talented local kids over a few drafts that have played a lot of footy together and that have that old fearless Croweater attitude . 2020 provided just that and next year might well add another couple to the list .

We had 12 and 14 South Aussies in our flag years and whilst i am not saying there needs to be a quota , it definitely fills me with happiness that we will have a strong local contingent as a young core .

If we could bring back 1 or 2 of Luko , Rankine or Stephens ... half a state team we would almost have .

Does Stephens current contract ends next year?
 

dplggr47

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I'd go so far as to say Hately wouldn't have come back if he was considered to be in their best 22, his move was motivated by being almost guaranteed he was in our best 22 from the get go playing in his favoured inside midfield role.

He said in that interview his girlfriend is from NSW and it was known he had a tribe of family relatives in NSW even before he was drafted.
Money and guaranteed starting 22 in his position were the main lures. Hately mentioned he's good mates with Rankine as well, so having more SA players in the team can hopefully lure more back in the future.
 

Crow Envy

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The Crows were born from the SANFL, when we were formed it felt like a pseudo State team even with the Vic players.

Over time that feeling diminished as we just became another club.

Obviously has to be talent based, but it would be good to regain some of that State feel. We lack a real history and this is something we could use and develop.

There is a lot of hatred here of the SANFL, maybe instead of railing against them we incorporate their history as part of ours. Our club should include some their history, build a story from where we came from. Build a State based theme again.
 
Sep 3, 2018
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Hopefully we are seeing a change in strategy. It hasn’t been great to look at ordinary star of origin teams over the last 5 or so years and even then we only have 4-5 who make it. Through our first 20 years we would have provided around half of any state team.
Obviously having picks where SA talent has been in the draft hasn’t been great but we don’t even seem to have tried
The benefits to salary cap of having a strong SA flavour in the squad shouldn’t be underestimated. Could easily save us 10% of the salary cap not having to overpay interstaters to stay


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com
 

mattymac

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So I make it 17 of our 43 listed players are now from SA.

Still need to get some back and draft a few next year to get a local majority
 
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Have we made a conscious decision as a club to lean local with some of our draft picks and trades?

Just seeing us bring in Hately plus draft Thilthorpe and Pedlar this off season.

Has the procession of Gunston, Dangerfield, Lever, Cameron, McGovern... out the door over the journey worn us down and steered us in another direction as a club?

Two questions

1) Do you think this is a change in strategy or just a coincidence that the players we rate at those picks happen to be South Australian?

2) If it is a change in strategy, do you think the club is right to veer in this direction?

1. No. Because in the past the talent hasn't been there to draft out of SA. And when it has (2019) we didn't have the picks to select those guys at the top end.

2. No. You draft the talent no matter where it is from and back the club to develop it, and retain it.

If the club had a strategy of drafting SA kids, based on the available talent and where our selections sat (and pick trading is a relatively new thing), we would be in even worse shape than we are now. And we just finished stone motherless last.

This nonsense about drafting just local talent because of "go home", if it actually was adopted would see us as forever mediocre and just waiting to see when SA talent came through (assuming it's there), and also hoping we have the draft capital to get it. We almost certainly would ironically, as we'd be anchored to close to the bottom of the table.

I'm stoked with our selections this year. But we can do this because of two things. We have early selections. And the talent is there.
 
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1. No. Because in the past the talent hasn't been there to draft out of SA. And when it has (2019) we didn't have the picks to select those guys at the top end.

2. No. You draft the talent no matter where it is from and back the club to develop it, and retain it.
You may well be right but the approach you are referring to here is what we've been doing. And here we are
 
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You may well be right but the approach you are referring to here is what we've been doing. And here we are
Oh if you think that we finished last because we weren't drafting South Australian kids I don't really know what to say.

I think that there's a few reasons why we finished where we did. But that is not one of them.
 
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Dont think so, this year was an opportunity to grab SA talent given circumstances and more sa talent. Hamish wanted Thilt for 3 years, it was over before it began. They see something in Pedlar, and Cook is a value selection.

If SA fielded a SOO team over the past decade we'd lose by 15 goals, in 3-4 years it shouldnt be the case.
 
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Oh if you think that we finished last because we weren't drafting South Australian kids I don't really know what to say.

I think that there's a few reasons why we finished where we did. But that is not one of them.
We finished last despite drafting quite well for more than a decade in terms of pure player quality

Which may (not definitely - sample size too small) have caused a rethink.
 

hey shorty

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So I make it 17 of our 43 listed players are now from SA.

Still need to get some back and draft a few next year to get a local majority
Look at our list, the likely delisted players for next season (based on my opinion of course) are also all likely to be interstate kids.

With another great crop of local lads coming through next year's draft it's very conceivable that half the list could be locals.
 

BronCrow

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I suspect this is definitely a change in strategy. We're moving to the West Coast model.

8 Victorians delisted. 7 SA kids brought in.

On top of adding an extra layer of something to play for (local pride) I think we might have looked at how successful West Coast are in attracting locals home.

With some serious SA talent coming into the league in the last few years after a fair dry spell, hopefully this will translate for us into becoming a real player in attracting SA guns back home.
One other thing that West Coast has been good at is getting WA talents to move back to play for them, that were drafted by non-WA teams i.e. Kelly, Kennedy, Yeo, Cripps. We have not been as good at that.
 

mattymac

Why no midfield crowz?
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One other thing that West Coast has been good at is getting WA talents to move back to play for them, that were drafted by non-WA teams i.e. Kelly, Kennedy, Yeo, Cripps. We have not been as good at that.
Yeah that's what I was trying to say but obviously not succeeding at 😅
 

mattymac

Why no midfield crowz?
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Look at our list, the likely delisted players for next season (based on my opinion of course) are also all likely to be interstate kids.

With another great crop of local lads coming through next year's draft it's very conceivable that half the list could be locals.
Need one extra now to cover Stengle 🤣
 

mattymac

Why no midfield crowz?
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Given the extenuating circumstances, I would be happy to count Hollands as a South Aussie should we go that way in future...
 
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