Play Nice Bye Bye Brad #3 [Locked: BS signs 2-year ext. Aug-2017, tied to NM until end 2020]

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My lunch hour is about over so I can't spend the time poring over the Wikipedia draft pages. If you have the time, can you let me know which mids taken after Garner, McKenzie, Simpkin and Atley would make us better? Ideally within the top 30 to weed out the unforeseeable smokies like Dahlhaus.

2010 Atley was taken at 17, Isaac Smith went #19 and Guthrie #23, although you might argue Guthrie was also a flanker so who knows. Smith would have been closer to the player we were deficient in. In part, I think it forced us to try and turn Harper into a mid when he was a pretty exciting half-forward prospect.

2011 we took McKenzie at 18, given the number of priority picks and father sons taken between 18 and 30 it doesn't give very many candidates in that range, however, someone like a Brad Hill even though he is also technically a flanker still has better attributes to be more of an outside player, Seb Ross also has the capacity imo to be a less mercurial midfielder, but had the potential to be a good accumulator, I think he is averaging about 30 disposals this year. McKenzie had a good boot on him, he just wasn't quick, didn't know how to position himself to win the ball and thus wasn't much of an accumulator.

2012 when we took Garner at 15, I am not against his selection in any way, shape or form, however, we have been compromised because of many of the other picks. I think we were keen on Hrovat prior to the draft, I don't think either are what we needed at the time but that particular year there weren't a lot of good options.

i have no issue with Simpkin either, he shows that he has a lot of X-factor, how we develop him will be critical. He, like Garner, I have doubts that we can turn into a midfielder.

I don't mind if we go for best available with the first round then look to compliment the list with needs in 2nd and 3rd rounds and take a lot more speculative outsiders with X-factor who need a lot of development work, but we picked a lot of plodders in the 2nd & 3rd rounds as well.

I don't think there is anything wrong with the players we have taken individually, but how they all fit together and our team structure has seen it become a significant problem. It is not entirely the fault of the recruiters, when we took players like Cunnington, Ziebell, etc the game laws allowed us to some extent to mitigate their weaknesses through rotation. However, we just lacked the kind of player type like a Wells who provide the team attributes the insiders can not. While we didn't have the picks to take a Wells type in the draft, there were exciting prospects that had flaws to their game that were available later in the draft, we just were too risk averse and took solid plodders more than we took risks on high risk/high return players.

What didn't help us at all were the number of compromised drafts due to the inclusion of GWS and GC. It took a lot of talent out of the available pool and exacerbated our problem because we had neglected it for some time beforehand.
 
Apr 24, 2013
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Kingy is on the money.


KING COMES INTO BAT FOR NORTH OVER SCOTT


BY JUSTIN TALENT AN HOUR AGO

Two-time North Melbourne premiership player David King says he is confused why North Melbourne need to make a statement and re-sign Brad Scott now despite still having over a year left on his current contract.

Scott’s position as the long-term coach of the Roos remains in doubt, with reports that he is in-demand at both Collingwood and the Gold Coast Suns should they both opt to move on current coaches Nathan Buckley and Rodney Eade.


However King says that his former club do not need to act at all on Scott for the next 12 months as he is adamant he is fully committed to the rebuild the club are currently undertaking.

“They have been pretty clear in saying they are playing the kids. I don’t see where the confusion is,” he said on SEN’s The Run Home.

Why do they have to say ‘keep away’? He’s contracted for next year. What do you expect him to say? It’s ridiculous.

“The logic is that Collingwood and Gold Coast are going to move on their coach, and then all of a sudden North Melbourne, who have a contracted coach, have to answer questions to appease everyone else. They may be perfectly comfortable with where everything sits with him, so why do they need to get involved in the conversation?”

“He made a clear decision at the end of the last year that this campaign for a premiership was over, time to move on the older guys…start the next generation and find out whether they are good enough.

“He has delivered on at least his promise…I’m not sure what more they can say other than he’s our man and he’s got a contract.

“I don’t think North Melbourne have to answer just because we have called them.”

Former Kangaroos midfielder Nick Dal Santo also came to the defence of his old coach at the club, saying that he liked and respected Scott and never had an issue with him during his three years in the blue and white.

“There’s nothing that Brad Scott does that I ever looked at and I go ‘geez, I wish he did this, this and this, or focused on these areas a little bit more,” he said on SEN Breakfast.

“Brad’s greatest quality is that he is an educator. I remember the first time out with him I was shocked at his demeanour in regards to what he was like as a player…his ability to make a complex situation nice and simple for players to understand and to try and execute.

“He backed in his system and as the playing group, we backed that in as well.”

https://www.sen.com.au/news/2017/07/12/king-comes-into-bat-for-north-over-scott/
 

shimaburnsgrieg

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Kingy is on the money.


KING COMES INTO BAT FOR NORTH OVER SCOTT


BY JUSTIN TALENT AN HOUR AGO

Two-time North Melbourne premiership player David King says he is confused why North Melbourne need to make a statement and re-sign Brad Scott now despite still having over a year left on his current contract.

Scott’s position as the long-term coach of the Roos remains in doubt, with reports that he is in-demand at both Collingwood and the Gold Coast Suns should they both opt to move on current coaches Nathan Buckley and Rodney Eade.


However King says that his former club do not need to act at all on Scott for the next 12 months as he is adamant he is fully committed to the rebuild the club are currently undertaking.

“They have been pretty clear in saying they are playing the kids. I don’t see where the confusion is,” he said on SEN’s The Run Home.

Why do they have to say ‘keep away’? He’s contracted for next year. What do you expect him to say? It’s ridiculous.

“The logic is that Collingwood and Gold Coast are going to move on their coach, and then all of a sudden North Melbourne, who have a contracted coach, have to answer questions to appease everyone else. They may be perfectly comfortable with where everything sits with him, so why do they need to get involved in the conversation?”

“He made a clear decision at the end of the last year that this campaign for a premiership was over, time to move on the older guys…start the next generation and find out whether they are good enough.

“He has delivered on at least his promise…I’m not sure what more they can say other than he’s our man and he’s got a contract.

“I don’t think North Melbourne have to answer just because we have called them.”

Former Kangaroos midfielder Nick Dal Santo also came to the defence of his old coach at the club, saying that he liked and respected Scott and never had an issue with him during his three years in the blue and white.

“There’s nothing that Brad Scott does that I ever looked at and I go ‘geez, I wish he did this, this and this, or focused on these areas a little bit more,” he said on SEN Breakfast.

“Brad’s greatest quality is that he is an educator. I remember the first time out with him I was shocked at his demeanour in regards to what he was like as a player…his ability to make a complex situation nice and simple for players to understand and to try and execute.

“He backed in his system and as the playing group, we backed that in as well.”

https://www.sen.com.au/news/2017/07/12/king-comes-into-bat-for-north-over-scott/
And Buckley has confirmed likewise - nothing to see here ...move along.
 

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we were 2-3 players short in those prelims

A certain number 10 not being lost to injury and delivering in his massive potential.

I feel for him and what he could have been and what it woulda meant for us if he had stayed fit and come on.
 
Apr 24, 2013
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A certain number 10 not being lost to injury and delivering in his massive potential.

I feel for him and what he could have been and what it woulda meant for us if he had stayed fit and come on.

Jesse would have been a multiple AA player & multiple best and fairest player.
 
Jesse would have been a multiple AA player & multiple best and fairest player.
Yep.

His up side could have gone a long way to often being the difference.

It also would have made the hole in the list shallower.
 

Royal Flush

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Yep.

His up side could have gone a long way to often being the difference.

It also would have made the hole in the list shallower.

BOG in a semi final as a 20 year old.

Played only 3 more games after that.

A huge loss.
I wonder what Jesse has been up to since then?

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Apr 24, 2013
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Excellent summary - one thing that i hadn't thought of before - those two drafts where we wasted 1st rounders (Thompson, Hay - 2004-5) may have cost us the two good players that we needed in our prelim finals years.

That is, we all thought we were 2-3 players short in those prelims - had we recruited 'proper' first rounders in those years those players would have been in their prime right when we made our tilt.

Shows the importance of continually going to the draft - 10 years on you might regret not doing it.

I think there is nothing wrong with trading for good quality players, you just need to be realistic about where your list is at. Hay was a disaster but Thommo was a good player for us up until his injury. The problem was, we weren't realistically a good enough side in 2003 to warrant investing first round picks on shorter term players, given we ended 10th in 2003. However, in hindsight it didn't really hurt us that much given the talent pool was pretty ordinary in those two years. I think from around 2006 onwards the quality of the draft pool started to improve significantly and we had a couple of superdrafts in the later 00s.

I was just highlighting that as a club we have largely neglected the outside mids with pace and x-factor for quite a long period of time, we haven't even really looked at many young indigenous players over this period instead going for the more dour, big bodied player. We didn't have much opportunity to look at very early picks but we didn't really look to experiment with later picks and thus our side evolved to be a slower paced team that looked better rebounding off half-back than we did from midfield stoppages. Someone we are missing this year in Firrito ran more aggressively than anyone outside of Wells or Harvey, we seem to have a bit of flair off half back, or at least proactive, our midfield seems too reactive and thus we don't got as much scoring power from our stoppage play that I think we could with a more balanced structure.

Even though we are nowhere near it this year, a trade for Kelly makes sense because he has what we need, badly, and he is young enough that we should get good mileage from him. However, it wouldn't be a great idea to recruit someone much older as I am not sure if we can get out s**t together over a short period of time.
 
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All solid stuff in your post however on the last line. I'm not sure if it's a delusion or simply what we had to work with. The reality is that pure inside / outside running midfielders with good skills aren't dime a dozen and we haven't been in a position to pick up that many good ones. I don't think it's that we're deluded into thinking we can turn them into outside midfielders, more that we saw that gamble as better than picking up untalented outside mids.

I still agree with you that we needed to take more risk on these types even if they were technically lower rated by us as footballers, just not convinced we were under real delusions as such. We have to work with what we have available to draft.

Naturally, you have to make compromises the more someone slides. Someone available in the 3rd or 4th round is going to have a lot of flaws. As far as I am aware, you have 3 options, trade and pay a premium for someone from another club, draft a high quality one early in the draft (including trading to improve the pick) or to take the shotgun approach with a lot of project players down the order, most if not all will bomb out, however, over a period of time you may develop some good prospects.

Until now, we have chosen none of the above so with Boomer's retirement and Wells running for the cash, we are left with Atley, who had a lot of good attributes, just hasn't been what we would have hoped. We have had a particularly bad run with predominantly flankers as juniors.

There would probably be dozens of mercurial indigenous players which suck in many AFL attributes, if you watch any NEAFL games, there are a number of exciting players that wont be drafted. I'm not suggesting one could be turned into a Wells, but perhaps rather than sitting on a bunch of slow big bodied clones we know aren't going to get a crack in our side and will be de-listed after 5-7 years having played 1-10 games, you might want to utilise 4 or so spots on trying to develop some good quality outside mids, even if none of them come good, you learn a bit more about what is required to bring them up to speed and you will get better and better at it. At least trying would have been better than doing nothing.
 
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Jisse W Smuth

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Naturally, you have to make compromises the more someone slides. Someone available in the 3rd or 4th round is going to have a lot of flaws. As far as I am aware, you have 3 options, trade and pay a premium for someone from another club, draft a high quality one early in the draft (including trading to improve the pick) or to take the shotgun approach with a lot of project players down the order, most if not all will bomb out, however, over a period of time you may develop some good prospects.

Until now, we have chosen none of the above so with Boomer's retirement and Wells running for the cash, we are left with Atley, who had a lot of good attributes, just hasn't been what we would have hoped. We have had a particularly bad run with predominantly flankers as juniors.

There would probably be dozens of mercurial indigenous players which suck in many AFL attributes, if you watch any NEAFL games, there are a number of exciting players that wont be drafted. I'm not suggesting one could be turned into a Wells, but perhaps rather on sitting on a bunch of slow big bodied clones we know aren't going to get a crack in our side and will be de-listed after 5-7 years having played 1-10 games, you might want to utilise 4 or so spots on trying to develop some good quality outside mids, even if none of them come good, you learn a bit more about what is required to bring them up to speed and you will get better and better at it. At least trying would have been better than doing nothing.
Shut bro, you talk a lot eh!
 

Uneik

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Naturally, you have to make compromises the more someone slides. Someone available in the 3rd or 4th round is going to have a lot of flaws. As far as I am aware, you have 3 options, trade and pay a premium for someone from another club, draft a high quality one early in the draft (including trading to improve the pick) or to take the shotgun approach with a lot of project players down the order, most if not all will bomb out, however, over a period of time you may develop some good prospects.

Until now, we have chosen none of the above so with Boomer's retirement and Wells running for the cash, we are left with Atley, who had a lot of good attributes, just hasn't been what we would have hoped. We have had a particularly bad run with predominantly flankers as juniors.

There would probably be dozens of mercurial indigenous players which suck in many AFL attributes, if you watch any NEAFL games, there are a number of exciting players that wont be drafted. I'm not suggesting one could be turned into a Wells, but perhaps rather on sitting on a bunch of slow big bodied clones we know aren't going to get a crack in our side and will be de-listed after 5-7 years having played 1-10 games, you might want to utilise 4 or so spots on trying to develop some good quality outside mids, even if none of them come good, you learn a bit more about what is required to bring them up to speed and you will get better and better at it. At least trying would have been better than doing nothing.
 
Oct 22, 2014
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2010 Atley was taken at 17, Isaac Smith went #19 and Guthrie #23, although you might argue Guthrie was also a flanker so who knows. Smith would have been closer to the player we were deficient in. In part, I think it forced us to try and turn Harper into a mid when he was a pretty exciting half-forward prospect.

2011 we took McKenzie at 18, given the number of priority picks and father sons taken between 18 and 30 it doesn't give very many candidates in that range, however, someone like a Brad Hill even though he is also technically a flanker still has better attributes to be more of an outside player, Seb Ross also has the capacity imo to be a less mercurial midfielder, but had the potential to be a good accumulator, I think he is averaging about 30 disposals this year. McKenzie had a good boot on him, he just wasn't quick, didn't know how to position himself to win the ball and thus wasn't much of an accumulator.

2012 when we took Garner at 15, I am not against his selection in any way, shape or form, however, we have been compromised because of many of the other picks. I think we were keen on Hrovat prior to the draft, I don't think either are what we needed at the time but that particular year there weren't a lot of good options.

i have no issue with Simpkin either, he shows that he has a lot of X-factor, how we develop him will be critical. He, like Garner, I have doubts that we can turn into a midfielder.

I don't mind if we go for best available with the first round then look to compliment the list with needs in 2nd and 3rd rounds and take a lot more speculative outsiders with X-factor who need a lot of development work, but we picked a lot of plodders in the 2nd & 3rd rounds as well.

I don't think there is anything wrong with the players we have taken individually, but how they all fit together and our team structure has seen it become a significant problem. It is not entirely the fault of the recruiters, when we took players like Cunnington, Ziebell, etc the game laws allowed us to some extent to mitigate their weaknesses through rotation. However, we just lacked the kind of player type like a Wells who provide the team attributes the insiders can not. While we didn't have the picks to take a Wells type in the draft, there were exciting prospects that had flaws to their game that were available later in the draft, we just were too risk averse and took solid plodders more than we took risks on high risk/high return players.

What didn't help us at all were the number of compromised drafts due to the inclusion of GWS and GC. It took a lot of talent out of the available pool and exacerbated our problem because we had neglected it for some time beforehand.
The 2011 draft stands out where Neale would seem to be the obvious fit in terms of our needs and we missed him with both picks.
The other point to note is that as a club/ list our kicking efficiency improved once McKenzie was on the list. Coincidence maybe?
 
The 2011 draft stands out where Neale would seem to be the obvious fit in terms of our needs and we missed him with both picks.
The other point to note is that as a club/ list our kicking efficiency improved once McKenzie was on the list. Coincidence maybe?

I think McKenzie was recruited due to the success Hawthorn was having with an elite kicking ball retention type of gameplan, problem is Hawks targeted a lot of players with that skillset, I think we tried to retain the ball more but we didn't have the cattle to do it.
 
In other news 69% of the run home listeners believe in Santa Claus.

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Given the vast majority who voted are probably not North fans, I wouldn't read a lot into the poll. However, it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of North fans think it is time for a change.
 
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