Resource Beyond the "66 Game" Rebuild

[Malifice]

This is not true and is completely unrealistic. No club nails all their early draft picks, even recent premiership sides.

From the position we were starting from in 2015 mate, (we flubbed every single 1st rounder from 2008-2014 barring Cripps, leaving our list at the start of the rebuild hopelessly without talent) we needed to nail pretty much every 1st rounder in this rebuild, turning them into at least 100 game players at minimum (and hopefully getting a few stars as well).

Our list at the start of this rebuild was in dire shape thanks to the drafting blunders of 2008-2014, almost totally devoid of talent coming through (barring Cripps). It was effectively like we were starting from scratch, just without the draft concessions that the expansion teams got (and continued to get, in the case of GC throughout this period).

Dow, LOB and SPS's inability to come on, has hurt us so far. You cant say it hasn't. If just one of them turned into quality mid, we'd look a different side right now.

To be fair to the recruiters, the 2016 Draft was pretty light on from pick 4 onwards, but the 2017 draft looks pretty good to late into the 2nd round. To have two picks in the 1st round, and both to fizzle isnt great.

Plenty of hits, it's just that we were not in a position to be able to afford any misses.

 

[Jeremias]

From the position we were starting from in 2015 mate, (we flubbed every single 1st rounder from 2008-2014 barring Cripps, leaving our list at the start of the rebuild hopelessly without talent) we needed to nail pretty much every 1st rounder in this rebuild, turning them into at least 100 game players at minimum (and hopefully getting a few stars as well).

No we didn't. And if that was your expectation then you had accepted this rebuild would be a failure from the outset.

Our list at the start of this rebuild was in dire shape thanks to the drafting blunders of 2008-2014, almost totally devoid of talent coming through (barring Cripps). It was effectively like we were starting from scratch, just without the draft concessions that the expansion teams got (and continued to get, in the case of GC throughout this period).

Yeah cool. Not sure that's at all relevant to the discussion though.

Dow, LOB and SPS's inability to come on, has hurt us so far. You cant say it hasn't. If just one of them turned into quality mid, we'd look a different side right now.

Sure. Every time you invest significant resources into something and that investment isn't returned, it hurts.

It's far too simplistic though to pin the success of the rebuild of those three players.

To be fair to the recruiters, the 2016 Draft was pretty light on from pick 4 onwards, but the 2017 draft looks pretty good to late into the 2nd round. To have two picks in the 1st round, and both to fizzle isnt great.

Of course it's not great, though I still believe Dow will be a player, and incidentally we've now also got Cerra who projects as one of the best from that draft class.

Plenty of hits, it's just that we were not in a position to be able to afford any misses.

And this goes back to my original point. To suggest we couldn't afford any misses is completely erroneous and simply ignores the many ways clubs can go about building a list.

If we weren't in a position to afford any misses, we were doomed to fail from the outset. I don't know about you, but I don't believe that to be the case at all.

 

[thylacine60]

great discussion on the absolutism of "we simply have to xyz" it's an idealistic view in my mind on many fronts and only sets us up to crash and burn hotter

 

[gbatman]

I have always felt TDK is more a forward than a ruckman. I seriously think he could be one of the most exciting forwards in the game if he was there full time. I know it won’t happen but…..

Be nice to see his forward craft improve, think he has the potential to be a ruckman who goes forward and kicks the odd goal, he's a nice straight kick. The thing that puts me off him as a permanent forward is that he gets his hands to a lot of balls and doesn't hold them. I think to be considered a forward he needs to hold a lot more of those ones he gets his hands to. This is something I hope he would be working really hard on because if he gets this right then he's going to be able to play that permanent forward role.

 

[gbatman]

Not worried about not nailing all of our early picks, would have liked to have had one more of our early pick midfielders come on but that might still happen. Drafting is not an exact science, you are going to waste some picks, every team does that, that's why teams who have manage to create a lot of picks and come up with a lot of early picks like we have tend to be the ones who do well in the end. You don't worry so much on the players who don't turn out, focus more on what you have and whether you're getting enough in and picking up the right types.

A lot of clubs who have gone on to win flags after blowing early draft picks, Richmond have been mentioned, Hawthorn are another who blew early picks, Melbourne have had a mention too. The thing is these successful clubs have also nailed a lot of early draft picks and have done well recruiting players from all avenues. IMO we have done that, we have picked up good players from all parts of the draft, we have picked up good players from other clubs.

So it's a matter of whether we have the right mix of players and whether we have enough top quality players.

IMO it hurts when you pick up players from other clubs and early in the draft and they have been mostly injured, skews the figures in regards to how well our recruiting has been.

 

[Tony Lynn 15]

great discussion on the absolutism of "we simply have to xyz" it's an idealistic view in my mind on many fronts and only sets us up to crash and burn hotter

Yeah agree.

That said if we don’t make finals this year I will burn the ****ing place to the ground!

 

[La Dispute]

From the position we were starting from in 2015 mate, (we flubbed every single 1st rounder from 2008-2014 barring Cripps, leaving our list at the start of the rebuild hopelessly without talent) we needed to nail pretty much every 1st rounder in this rebuild, turning them into at least 100 game players at minimum (and hopefully getting a few stars as well).

Our list at the start of this rebuild was in dire shape thanks to the drafting blunders of 2008-2014, almost totally devoid of talent coming through (barring Cripps). It was effectively like we were starting from scratch, just without the draft concessions that the expansion teams got (and continued to get, in the case of GC throughout this period).

Dow, LOB and SPS's inability to come on, has hurt us so far. You cant say it hasn't. If just one of them turned into quality mid, we'd look a different side right now.

To be fair to the recruiters, the 2016 Draft was pretty light on from pick 4 onwards, but the 2017 draft looks pretty good to late into the 2nd round. To have two picks in the 1st round, and both to fizzle isnt great.

Plenty of hits, it's just that we were not in a position to be able to afford any misses.

You can argue on the extent on their lack of development. If one or a couple had become stars we'd be in a better position, but what are the chances of that? In the flipside we'd unearthed elite players in Weitering, McKay and Walsh with early picks and another in Curnow who should be around that bracket now.

It's a bit of a chicken and egg situation. Are our players average because they haven't had the benefit of some strong development or do we just place too much emphasis on first round picks who are immature when they come into the system and are essentially competing against other young players who are similarly underdeveloped?

I hope the club has taken note of the SOS era and seen the clear pitfalls of granting young players carte blanc in their first few years and writing off bad performances as development opportunities when really these guys should have been playing in the VFL. SPS should have been dropped many times in his 2nd and 3rd season to build himself into a decent AFL player by having some quality reserves form behind him.

What has hurt most is having different performance standards for different players, having a poor coaching group while young players are in their formative years and rolling out a rookie coach right at the point we should have signed on an experienced senior coach at the point of the squad going from a rebuilding side to one looking to consolidate.

If your general strategy is to bring in young players in bulk, as SOS did at GWS, then you have to put some additional controls in place. Better development coaches, find a way of bringing in some talented senior players who can act as on field coaches (eg Hodge at Brisbane, McDonald in the early Giants team) and invest in the right role players around those guys which we've kind of done to some degree of success with Plowman, Newman, Newnes, Pittonet etc.

We will come out relatively unscathed because our hits at the top end are big hits and we have enough C and B graders to pad out a good team, it's just taken extra time and a few of the players we've taken with early picks haven't come on or haven't come on in the way we'd expect. We've then got the complete unknown in Voss and his new coaching panel.

The best thing we've done over the off-season, apart from recruit Cerra and Hewett to give our midfield an immediate boost, is invest in more analytics guys and a couple more development coaches to oversee our reserves program.

 

[Malifice]

From the position we were starting from in 2015 mate, (we flubbed every single 1st rounder from 2008-2014 barring Cripps, leaving our list at the start of the rebuild hopelessly without talent)

No we didn't.

2008 AFL draft: Yarran, Robinson, O'keefe, Tiller
2009 AFL draft: Lucas, Davies, Kerr
2010 AFL draft: Watson, McCarthy, Mitchell, McInnes, Duigan
2011 AFL draft: Bootsma, Rowe, Buckley
2012 AFL draft: Menzel, Temay, Graham
2013 AFL draft: Cripps, Giles, Holman
2014 AFL draft: Boekhoest (plus Jacksch and Wiley), Vojo Rainbow, Smith, Foster.

Cast your eye over that list, and other than Cripps and arguably Yarran (although we know how that turned out, but at least we got a decent trade for him that we managed to flip into the pick that landed us Cunners) + Robinson (who we freaking delisted) please rate our drafting for the 7 years prior to our rebuild in 2015 (from 2008-2014) on a scale of 0-10 for me.

I'll save you the time mate, it was ****ing atrocious.

That was the list of 18-25 year old 'talent' we had coming through when the rebuild started. Well; that and Jacksch and Wiley who we downgraded a 1st rounder for in 2014.

Literally none of them remained on an AFL list (barring Cripps and Robbo) by the end of 2016, and most of them were well gone long before that.

In additon, about our only success in the PSD/ Rookie draft over that entire period was Jeff Garlett, who we also lost for nothing.

People here are still seriously underestimating the dire state our list was in before the 2015 AFL draft, and just how much work was needed to get it back to some semblance of shape.

 

[Jeremias]

2008 AFL draft: Yarran, Robinson, O'keefe, Tiller
2009 AFL draft: Lucas, Davies, Kerr
2010 AFL draft: Watson, McCarthy, Mitchell, McInnes, Duigan
2011 AFL draft: Bootsma, Rowe, Buckley
2012 AFL draft: Menzel, Temay, Graham
2013 AFL draft: Cripps, Giles, Holman
2014 AFL draft: Boekhoest (plus Jacksch and Wiley), Vojo Rainbow, Smith, Foster.

Cast your eye over that list, and other than Cripps and arguably Yarran (although we know how that turned out, but at least we got a decent trade for him that we managed to flip into the pick that landed us Cunners) + Robinson (who we freaking delisted) please rate our drafting for the 7 years prior to our rebuild in 2015 (from 2008-2014) on a scale of 0-10 for me.

I'll save you the time mate, it was ******* atrocious.

That was the list of 18-25 year old 'talent' we had coming through when the rebuild started. Well; that and Jacksch and Wiley who we downgraded a 1st rounder for in 2014.

Literally none of them remained on an AFL list (barring Cripps and Robbo) by the end of 2016, and most of them were well gone long before that.

Heck; about our only success in the PSD/ Rookie draft over that entire period was Jeff Garlett, who we also lost for nothing.

The "no we didn't" was in response to your claim that we needed to nail every single draft pick for the rebuild to work, not that we'd stuffed up prior drafts.

 

[Metalcrusher]

The "no we didn't" was in response to your claim that we needed to nail every single draft pick for the rebuild to work, not that we'd stuffed up prior drafts.

Well to be fair we didn't "nail any" albeit one.

 

[Malifice]

Between 2008 and 2014 we used picks 6, 7, 7, 12, 13, 18, 22, 28, 34, 35, 39, 40, 42, 43, 44, 51, 54, 59, 60, 62, 62, 63, 65, 67, 70 and 80 at the draft, and we were were left at the end of 2016 with 1 x AFL quality player on the list from that lot in Patrick Cripps

9

Patrick Cripps

Age

30

Ht

195cm

Wt

93kg

Pos.

Mid

Career

Season

Last 5

D

25.9

5star

K

9.8

4star

HB

16.1

5star

M

3.4

3star

T

5.8

5star

CL

7.4

5star

D

21.0

5star

K

10.1

4star

HB

10.9

5star

M

2.5

3star

T

3.8

4star

CL

6.3

5star

D

12.6

4star

K

4.8

2star

HB

7.8

5star

M

2.0

3star

T

3.2

5star

CL

1.4

4star

(and arguably Cunners, who we flipped the pick 7 used on Yarran for).

I mean if that was Collingwood or Essendon we'd mercilessly let them know about it. Let's be objective here, our list (pre 2015 draft) was in a god awful state.

We had to trade out (Henderson, Yarran, Touhy, Gibbs) for extra picks, take risks on GWS outcasts, and still basically nail nearly every single early pick for 5 years just to undo that list massacre.

 

[Metalcrusher]

Between 2008 and 2014 we used picks 6, 7, 7, 12, 13, 18, 22, 28, 34, 35, 39, 40, 42, 43, 44, 51, 54, 59, 60, 62, 62, 63, 65, 67, 70 and 80 at the draft, and we were were left at the end of 2016 with 1 x AFL quality player on the list from that lot in Patrick Cripps (and arguably Cunners, who we flipped the pick 7 used on Yarran for).

I mean if that was Collingwood or Essendon we'd mercilessly let them know about it. Let's be objective here, our list (pre 2015 draft) was in a god awful state.

We had to trade out (Henderson, Yarran, Touhy, Gibbs) for extra picks, take risks on GWS outcasts, and still basically nail nearly every single early pick for 5 years just to undo that list massacre.

God bless Hughes and Rogers .. talk about taking the absolute piss for years ...

 

[Malifice]

The "no we didn't" was in response to your claim that we needed to nail every single draft pick for the rebuild to work, not that we'd stuffed up prior drafts.

How can you say that, seeing as the only AFL quality player under 25 on our list (pre 2015 AFL draft) was Cripps, Docherty (who we got lucky on due to the 'Go Home 5' factor), and Jones (who needed a miracle turn around to make it)?

Here is the list of under 25's we had as of 2015:

21	r	Ciarán Sheehan	19 Nov 90	24yr	188cm	86kg	4	0	0	0	0	0	County Cork	#60 Rookie 2013
13		Chris Yarran	19 Dec 90	24yr	180cm	84kg	105	87	10	14	3	0	Midvale/Swan Districts	#6 National 2008
14		Liam Jones	24 Feb 91	24yr	197cm	97kg	66	68	2	9	7	0	North Hobart/Tasmania U18/Scotch College	#32 National 2008
22		Jason Tutt	15 May 91	23yr	177cm	77kg	26	22	1	13	4	0	Ainslie/NSW-ACT U18	#31 National 2009
28		Tom Bell	13 Jun 91	23yr	187cm	96kg	29	19	1	22	17	6	Iona College/Morningside	#14 Rookie 2011
47	r	Fraser Russell	6 Jun 92	22yr	185cm	80kg	0	0	0	0	0	0	Newtown & Chilwell/Geelong College/Geelong U18	#58 Rookie 2014
10		Matthew Watson	16 Jul 92	22yr	195cm	100kg	19	6	0	4	4	0	Pascoe Vale/PEGS/Calder U18	#18 National 2010
24		Mark Whiley	1 Dec 92	22yr	187cm	86kg	12	2	0	8	1	0	Finley/NSW-ACT U18/Murray U18	NSW Zone 2010
37	r	Tom Fields	19 Dec 92	22yr	192cm	93kg	0	0	0	2	0	0	Labrador/South Adelaide/Queensland U18/Gold Coast (NEAFL)	#41 Rookie 2014
7		Dylan Buckley	16 Mar 93	22yr	179cm	75kg	9	2	0	18	5	0	Ivanhoe/Ivanhoe Grammar/Northern U18	#62 National 2011
12		Blaine Boekhorst	2 Sep 93	21yr	185cm	75kg	0	0	0	11	5	0	Port Hedland/Wesley College (WA)/Swan Districts	#19 National 2014
15		Sam Docherty	17 Oct 93	21yr	184cm	84kg	29	8	0	19	2	0	Phillip Island/Gippsland U18	#12 National 2011
32		Nick Graham	12 Jun 94	20yr	182cm	80kg	10	2	0	6	3	0	Traralgon Tyers United/Traralgon/Gippsland U18	#54 National 2012	Morrish: 2012
2		Troy Menzel	22 Sep 94	20yr	187cm	78kg	26	34	0	14	13	0	Golden Grove/Central District	#11 National 2012
18		Kristian Jaksch	7 Oct 94	20yr	195cm	84kg	7	2	0	6	1	0	Kew Rovers/Carey Grammar/Oakleigh U18	#12 National 2012
31		Matthew Dick	3 Nov 94	20yr	187cm	88kg	0	0	0	6	0	0	Macedon/Calder U18	#64 National 2012
38	b	Ciarán Byrne	6 Dec 94	20yr	188cm	90kg	0	0	0	1	0	0	County Louth	#64 Rookie 2013
9		Patrick Cripps	18 Mar 95	20yr	193cm	91kg	3	0	0	20	6	6	Northampton/East Fremantle	#13 National 2013
19		Cameron Giles	5 May 95	19yr	195cm	95kg	0	0	0	0	0	0	Blyth-Snowtown/Prince Alfred College/Woodville-West Torrens	#39 National 2013
20		Nick Holman	29 May 95	19yr	189cm	78kg	1	0	0	8	0	0	Kyabram/Murray U18/Collingwood (VFL)	#51 National 2013
26		Jayden Foster	1 Jun 95	19yr	195cm	90kg	0	0	0	0	0	0	Aberfeldie/Calder U18	#63 National 2014
30	r	Blaine Johnson	28 Jul 95	19yr	187cm	83kg	5	1	0	2	0	0	Kwinana/South Fremantle	#43 Rookie 2013
25		Clem Smith	3 Feb 96	19yr	178cm	78kg	0	0	0	7	0	0	Thornlie JFC/Wesley College (WA)/Perth	#60 National 2014
16		Dillon Viojo-Rainbow	8 Feb 96	19yr	184cm	82kg	0	0	0	0	0	0	Hoppers Crossing/Western U18	#28 National 2014
29	r	Billy Gowers	10 Jun 96	18yr	184cm	81kg	0	0	0	0	0	0	Kew Comets/Xavier College/Oakleigh U18	#6 Rookie 2014
34	r	Brad Walsh	3 Sep 96	18yr	180cm	84kg	0	0	0	3	1	0	Rockingham/Peel	#24 Rookie 2014

https://www.draftguru.com.au/lists/2015/carlton

Look at that list of under 25's (the senior list wasn't much better mind you). I mean look at what we were working with at the start of the rebuild in the shape of young 'talent'. 7 straight botched drafts comes back to bite you.

Bear in mind also Judd and Carrazo had just retired, Henderson had just walked out on us, Yarran had a meth problem (and was flicked), and Menzel was a flog (and was flicked).

How else do you assemble an AFL quality playing list without trading out players for extra picks, getting in GWS players on hope, and then nailing nearly every single one of those early picks (and for several years), considering the absolutely dire state of that list?

How would you have done it?

 

[Jeremias]

How else do you assemble an AFL quality playing list without trading out players for extra picks, getting in GWS players on hope, and then nailing nearly every single one of those early picks (and for several years), considering the absolutely dire state of that list?

This is not what you said originally - you've changed the goal posts already.

You said we needed to nail every single draft pick and my counter to that has been that we didn't, because it's literally impossible to do that.

We have an AFL quality playing list now. We have a good enough list to be playing finals in 2022 IMO and that's certainly without nailing every single draft pick.

 

[Arr0w]

We all know how poor list management and drafting was prior to 2015. We never embraced a full rebuild, in fact a rebuild of any sort.

What we did was continue the yoyo list management/drafting due to arrogance and being impatient

 

[Malifice]

You can argue on the extent on their lack of development.

Im not pointing fingers or asking the 'why's or blaming the recruiters, the lack of development or otherwise going into what the cause of the issue was (although that is a question that does need to be answered).

My point was that for whatever reason (bad luck, shitty recruiting, poor development or whatever) our list was beyond rat-shit just prior to the commencement of the 2015 AFL draft. We (effectively) had only 5 AFL drafts (2015-20) to recruit an AFL quality team to assemble around Cripps and Docherty, that was capable of winning a flag.

Without any concessions by the AFL.

How else can that be done, from a starting point of [only two AFL quality players under 25 at the commencement of the rebuild] without trading out older blokes for more picks, and then nailing nearly every single early pick (later picks are far more speculative)?

I can dig up a post I made on this very topic at the start of the rebuild, where I made the exact same point then (just as forcefully), 4-5 years ago.

 

[Malifice]

We have an AFL quality playing list now. We have a good enough list to be playing finals in 2022 IMO and that's certainly without nailing every single draft pick.

It took a bit longer than '66 games' though. It's now been 7 drafts and still no finals (but we are definitely on the right track).

As I alluded to in my original post, the LOB, SPS and Dow picks have slowed down the 'return to finals'. If we had have nailed one of those 3 picks I reckon we'd likely have played a final by now.

A lot rests on the recent draftee's to come good (Kemp, Ramsay, Carroll, Durdin, Motlop), Stockers continued improvement, and (fingers crossed) the penny to drop for either LOB or Dow (or better yet, both).

 

[Jeremias]

It took a bit longer than '66 games' though. It's now been 7 drafts and still no finals (but we are definitely on the right track).

As I alluded to in my original post, the LOB, SPS and Dow picks have slowed down the 'return to finals'. If we had have nailed one of those 3 picks I reckon we'd likely have played a final by now.

A lot rests on the recent draftee's to come good (Kemp, Ramsay, Carroll, Durdin, Motlop), Stockers continued improvement, and (fingers crossed) the penny to drop for either LOB or Dow (or better yet, both).

Ramsay is no longer at the club. LOB may not be beyond this year. SPS already gone.

Going by your initial post, this means the rebuild has failed. We supposedly had to nail every pick and we of course didn't.

 

[HavUEvaSeenTheRain]

Between 2008 and 2014 we used picks 6, 7, 7, 12, 13, 18, 22, 28, 34, 35, 39, 40, 42, 43, 44, 51, 54, 59, 60, 62, 62, 63, 65, 67, 70 and 80 at the draft, and we were were left at the end of 2016 with 1 x AFL quality player on the list from that lot in Patrick Cripps (and arguably Cunners, who we flipped the pick 7 used on Yarran for).

I mean if that was Collingwood or Essendon we'd mercilessly let them know about it. Let's be objective here, our list (pre 2015 draft) was in a god awful state.

We had to trade out (Henderson, Yarran, Touhy, Gibbs) for extra picks, take risks on GWS outcasts, and still basically nail nearly every single early pick for 5 years just to undo that list massacre.

It was a mess but looking at the list in 2016.
Weitering, Curnow, McKay, Cripps, Plowman, Curnow, Cuningham, Doc and SOJ. I think that would be as strong as a lot of clubs from 2016. So we probably have 7-8 best 22 players still. Losing Jones really hurt as we would’ve had a complete spine.

We then had Gibbs and Touhy to trade plus draft picks ~1, 3, 3, 5, 6, 8, 19, 21, 21, 23, 24, 26, 37, 39, 39, 41, 42, 44 (some picks pushed back and a few forward) to work with, plus had enough room in the cap to take salary cap dumps.

I think we have been a little disappointing post 2016 and just somewhat lucky we were bad enough to have Walsh fall into our lap.

 

[Doro]

It still perplexes me why people think retaining Ratten would have resulted in some sort success post 2012. Writing was on the wall list wise a long way out.

 

[La Dispute]

Between 2008 and 2014 we used picks 6, 7, 7, 12, 13, 18, 22, 28, 34, 35, 39, 40, 42, 43, 44, 51, 54, 59, 60, 62, 62, 63, 65, 67, 70 and 80 at the draft, and we were were left at the end of 2016 with 1 x AFL quality player on the list from that lot in Patrick Cripps (and arguably Cunners, who we flipped the pick 7 used on Yarran for).

I mean if that was Collingwood or Essendon we'd mercilessly let them know about it. Let's be objective here, our list (pre 2015 draft) was in a god awful state.

We had to trade out (Henderson, Yarran, Touhy, Gibbs) for extra picks, take risks on GWS outcasts, and still basically nail nearly every single early pick for 5 years just to undo that list massacre.

That's pretty optimistic.

No team nails 'every single pick' for 5 years, you just do your best to nail as many as possible, hope a few become stars and on that basis make hay while your team is theoretically in its prime.

Scully and Trengove went at 1 & 2 for the Dees in 2009, but weren't running around on Grand Final day in 2021. Max Gawn was though - a third round pick from that same draft.

They used picks on Watts, Cale Morton, Lucas Cook, Jimmy Toumpas, traded a first rounder for Mitch Clark. That's a lot of botched first round picks in a row.

Our list was in a bad state at the end of 2015, but it really just begs the question - how long does baseline competitiveness take? We won 7 games in 2016 under Brendan Bolton, which is just one more than David Teague managed to sink with a much better squad in 2021 with star players at either end of the grand. (We had a better midfield to work with in 2016/2017 Kreuzer, Gibbs, Murphy and Cripps)

These days teams wont commit to a full-scale rebuild or wont do it deliberately. We accepted we'd be mediocre for a while and that arguably pushed us back, instead of finding other ways of managing our list properly so we'd go from being a pretty uncompetitive team to a competitive side without so much accompanying uncertainty and without having the carnage of 2018. Given every side has an allocated TPP with flexible cap ceiling and floor it's far better to stay competitive and eventually the margins wont be as large - 2016/2017 showed that.

We also didn't have to trade Gibbs or Touhy, but we wanted to. SOS planned to cluster as many first round picks as possible, which was what he'd done at the Giants with many more high end selections, and this had yielded (by 2016) a prelim.

So far we've had a poor return on lowballing Tuohy and having him leave with Marchbank being constantly injured and sorely lacking leadership which is what Zach provided, as well as being underrated half back.

We've had a better return on the picks we'd received with Gibbs, but not by much (so far). This will change however as TDK looks a genuinely good prospect and LOB and Kennedy could still cement themselves as AFL standard players.

I think overall the strategy to bring in lots of draft picks was fine, it was everything around that that was the issue. Missing on lots of mid-range, late and rookie selections, not having a standalone reserves team, not having a set of credentialed and effective development coaches, swapping from one rookie coach to another, not swapping assistants. The club expected to just bolt up on the back of 10 or so first round picks and forgot about so many really important aspects that translate to wins.

 

[Jeremias]

I think overall the strategy to bring in lots of draft picks was fine, it was everything around that that was the issue. Missing on lots of mid-range, late and rookie selections, not having a standalone reserves team, not having a set of credentialed and effective development coaches, swapping from one rookie coach to another, not swapping assistants. The club expected to just bolt up on the back of 10 or so first round picks and forgot about so many really important aspects that translate to wins.

Don't forget injuries. They've played a massive part.

Yeah people will laugh at it and claim I'm making excuses, but continuity is king and sadly we just haven't had it. We've had a rotten run for years.

 

[Tony Lynn 15]

Don't forget injuries. They've played a massive part.

Yeah people will laugh at it and claim I'm making excuses, but continuity is king and sadly we just haven't had it. We've had a rotten run for years.

Stop making excuses mate.

 

[Metalcrusher]

Don't forget injuries. They've played a massive part.

Yeah people will laugh at it and claim I'm making excuses, but continuity is king and sadly we just haven't had it. We've had a rotten run for years.

Only Carlton gets injured? Or do/have we drafted injury prone players????

 

[RPCB]

Between 2008 and 2014 we used picks 6, 7, 7, 12, 13, 18, 22, 28, 34, 35, 39, 40, 42, 43, 44, 51, 54, 59, 60, 62, 62, 63, 65, 67, 70 and 80 at the draft, and we were were left at the end of 2016 with 1 x AFL quality player on the list from that lot in Patrick Cripps (and arguably Cunners, who we flipped the pick 7 used on Yarran for).

I mean if that was Collingwood or Essendon we'd mercilessly let them know about it. Let's be objective here, our list (pre 2015 draft) was in a god awful state.

We had to trade out (Henderson, Yarran, Touhy, Gibbs) for extra picks, take risks on GWS outcasts, and still basically nail nearly every single early pick for 5 years just to undo that list massacre.

I think you needed to say “Round 1 picks” because this has somehow come across as every single pick in the draft for 5 years.