Can Hawthorn succeed while ignoring the elite end of the draft?

[hawkman]

The thread has been killed right? (Unless you trade your first rounder)

You avoided the elite end of the draft and did not succeed.

Now you are going back to it.

Is pick 11 the elite end of the draft?

 

[Vindicater]

Is pick 11 the elite end of the draft?

Good question.

DERO thoughts?

 

[DERO]

Good question.

DERO thoughts?

ABASI MODERATOR?

 

[juss]

As of this moment GWS, Collingwood, North Melbourne, Melbourne and West Coast all have an older list than Hawthorn! Age is just a number. Go and take a look at some of the champions winners across other sports with teams who had an old roster/list.

OUT
Roughead 32
Birchall 31
Schoenmakers 29
Pittonet 23
Puopolo 32
Langford 27
Brand 25
Mirra 28
Minchington 26
Mohr 31
Miles 23

Age is relative to winning or losing.

Winning/Old = good
Winning/Young = better

Losing/Old = bad
Losing/Young = better

You'd have to do your own analysis on each best 22 to see where each club fits. Average list age is irrelevant you need to go deeper and see how the best 22 is playing out and who the best players are and their age profiles.

 

[Pessimistic]

The thread has been killed right? (Unless you trade your first rounder)

You avoided the elite end of the draft and did not succeed.

Now you are going back to it.

Only three clubs won since
None of the others look likely either
Success is relative

 

[Marcel Proust]

As of this moment GWS, Collingwood, North Melbourne, Melbourne and West Coast all have an older list than Hawthorn! Age is just a number. Go and take a look at som

I think
juss
makes a fair point.

Your math is probable technically correct, now doubt there are some hawks nutters doing the sums. However the hawks have a lot of older talent around the 30 odd mark. Gunston has a lot of miles under the leagues (edit: legs), Scully has had some injury issues before.

9 Burgoyne, Shaun 376 37yr
28 Puopolo, Paul 190 32yr 9
31 Henderson, Ricky 152 31yr
12 Frawley, James 225 31yr
16 Smith, Isaac 200 31yr
24 Stratton, Benjamin 188 31yr
7 McEvoy, Ben 206 30yr
22 Breust, Luke 207 29yr
18 Ceglar, Jonathon 76 29yr
26 Shiels, Liam 205 28yr
21 Scully, Tom 173 28yr
19 Gunston, Jack 192 28yr
(*footywire, dont know if accurate)

I think much of the vibe of this discussion is how much talent the hawks have in the young and middle list bracket age groupings. Obviously some neutral fans and hawks fans disagree and itll be seen over the next couple years.

- WCE are a quality side and clearly more in the window than hawthorn. (premiership'18 )
- Collingwood are an old team and its a bit troubling. However they are in the top4, making grand finals and prelims where are currently the 'young hawks' are not. (prelim '19)
- Melb.(prelim '18)
- North doesnt seem a great bench mark atm.
- GWS had some firepower not playing in the grand final and lot of talent in the mid20s bracket on the field. Bar better placed than hawthorn imo (grand final '19)

The thread has been killed right? (Unless you trade your first rounder)

You avoided the elite end of the draft and did not succeed.

Now you are going back to it.

Clarkson is a winner and very driven but its hard to stay at the top in the league with its natural focus on the cycle. Its yet to be seen if the hawks will have future success. Personally i worry a bit about the coaches mental health the cracks might be starting to show in his own words.

hawthorn obviously failed yes but if you take a more long term view itll be very interesting to see how they go next season and long term

 

[Nugett]

The thread has been killed right? (Unless you trade your first rounder)

You avoided the elite end of the draft and did not succeed.

Now you are going back to it.

we did use 2 first round draft picks in 2015. One of which was delisted, while the other was traded for Wingard.
According to AFL rules, AFL clubs have to use at least 2 first round draft picks every 4 years, otherwise they face restrictions on trading.

I have read from people such as yourself about the elite end of the draft. To me the elite end is within the top 5 picks or so. So seeing that Hawthorn has not finished bottom 5 since 2006, are you suggesting that we trade players out in order to get into the elite end of the draft? If that is the case, then that logic is flawed, as in order to achieve that, your giving away known quality, for something that is unknown. That makes zero sense.


using your logic, Essendon failed by ignoring a potential trade for 2 top 10 picks for a player that could leave next year via free agency next year, for an end of first round pick. Essendon also used 2 first rounders last year to bring in Dylan Shiel. So will Essendon succeed by ignoring the elite end of the draft as well, or are they also going to fail?

 

[Marcel Proust]

we did use 2 first round draft picks in 2015. One of which was delisted, while the other was traded for Wingard.
According to AFL rules, AFL clubs have to use at least 2 first round draft picks every 4 years, otherwise they face restrictions on trading.

I have read from people such as yourself about the elite end of the draft. To me the elite end is within the top 5 picks or so. So seeing that Hawthorn has not finished bottom 5 since 2006, are you suggesting that we trade players out in order to get into the elite end of the draft? If that is the case, then that logic is flawed, as in order to achieve that, your giving away known quality, for something that is unknown. That makes zero sense.


using your logic, Essendon failed by ignoring a potential trade for 2 top 10 picks for a player that could leave next year via free agency next year, for an end of first round pick. Essendon also used 2 first rounders last year to bring in Dylan Shiel. So will Essendon succeed by ignoring the elite end of the draft as well, or are they also going to fail?

2011 - First pick (24) traded as part of deal for Jack Gunston also elevated Breust off the rookie list
2012 - First pick (21) traded as part of deal for Brian Lake, Second (27) for Jed Anderson
2013 - First pick (17) traded as part of deal for Ben McEvoy, we might have missed on Hartung and Gartlett but our next pick was Sicily
2014 - First pick (19) traded as part of deal for O'Rourke

These types of previous transactions gave short/medium term success.

Yet, now and in the future, it may leave gaps on the list. (?)

Essendon has not won a final in 15 years and the list does not looks strong (IMO) the drug saga shook around any window which might have been coming. A cliff similar to the hawks coming up at Essendon? They are no sure of thing of winning another games of finals football for another 6000 odd days.

Again, not a good benchmark IMO.

 

[HairyO]

The thread has been killed right? (Unless you trade your first rounder)

You avoided the elite end of the draft and did not succeed.

Now you are going back to it.

In the 300-odd pages was "success" defined?

If its flags then 16 team failed regardless of their strategy.

If winning finals the maybe 11 or 12 teams failed.

 

[Marcel Proust]

In the 300-odd pages was "success" defined?

If its flags then 16 team failed regardless of their strategy.

If winning finals the maybe 11 or 12 teams failed.

Going forward, most teams dont have the amount of talent as the hawks in the older bracket.

There may be a lot of changing of the guard / all this talks of cliffs, in the next couple years. A lot of experienced talent at the hawks, cats, pies etc.

 

[hk89]

The thread has been killed right? (Unless you trade your first rounder)

You avoided the elite end of the draft and did not succeed.

Now you are going back to it.

So success is judged in 4 year windows now is it? If that's the case how has Dodoro managed to survive 15 years without a finals win and kept his job? Surely the Essendon board is just waiting for his list building strategy to bear fruit. Perhaps you could give us more than 4 years to complete our rebuild? Geelong have had 8. Essendon nearly 20. The strategy is still largely one of 'ignore the elite end of the draft' - on draft day. Obviously we don't ignore it during trade period, having brought in our second #1 pick in as many years during the recent trade period.

Dodoro is actually the poster boy for ignoring the elite end of the draft. This trade period, he turned down two picks in the elite end of the draft in favour of keeping a washed up, broken down hack who has fallen out of love with the club his old man played for.

 

[juss]

In the 300-odd pages was "success" defined?

If its flags then 16 team failed regardless of their strategy.

If winning finals the maybe 11 or 12 teams failed.

Again success is relative. Brisbane had an outstanding year and overachieved expectations and had a successful year, despite not winning a final.

The Eagles won a final, so it looks better on paper, but after 2018 and how they looked early to bomb out of the top 4 and not get past a SF, that's not a successful year.

Very few things in footy are black and white, context is everything.

Ultimately though, there comes a point when the minimum standard probably has to be finals, that puts you in the better end of the league and at least a "chance" to have the ultimate success.

 

[Marcel Proust]

So success is judged in 4 year windows now is it? If that's the case how has Dodoro managed to survive 15 years without a finals win and kept his job? Surely the Essendon board is just waiting for his list building strategy to bear fruit. Perhaps you could give us more than 4 years to complete our rebuild? Geelong have had 8. Essendon nearly 20. The strategy is still largely one of 'ignore the elite end of the draft' - on draft day. Obviously we don't ignore it during trade period, having brought in our second #1 pick in as many years during the recent trade period.

Dodoro is actually the poster boy for ignoring the elite end of the draft. This trade period, he turned down two picks in the elite end of the draft in favour of keeping a washed up, broken down hack who has fallen out of love with the club his old man played for.

What is the projected window?

'20?
'21?

 

[hk89]

Gunston has a lot of miles under the leagues, Scully has had some injury issues before.

Trying to decipher that sentence has given me a brain injury (finally qualifying me for Richmond cheer squad membership).

9 Burgoyne, Shaun 376 37yr
28 Puopolo, Paul 190 32yr 9
31 Henderson, Ricky 152 31yr
12 Frawley, James 225 31yr
16 Smith, Isaac 200 31yr
24 Stratton, Benjamin 188 31yr
7 McEvoy, Ben 206 30yr
22 Breust, Luke 207 29yr
18 Ceglar, Jonathon 76 29yr
26 Shiels, Liam 205 28yr
21 Scully, Tom 173 28yr
19 Gunston, Jack 192 28yr
(*footywire, dont know if accurate)

I think much of the vibe of this discussion is how much talent the hawks have in the young and middle list bracket age groupings. Obviously some neutral fans and hawks fans disagree and itll be seen over the next couple years.

Most of the heavy lifting this year was done by players outside the list you've produced above. Only one of those 12 players finished top 5 in our B&F. 3 of the other 4 in that list of 12 that finished 6-10th were 30 or under, so in the somewhat younger section of 'old'.

- WCE are a quality side and clearly more in the window than hawthorn. (premiership'18 )

WCE were smashed by Hawthorn at WCEs home ground in a must win game for WCE. Basically Hawthorn completely destroyed their flag chances in the final H&A game, and that was without Mitchell. We'd also have won our previous game against then at the MCG had we not kicked 9 goals 17, losing by a kick in the last minute or two. Hawthorn based on 2019 head to head performances are a good deal better than WC. Sure WC get Kelly, but I doubt that will worry us much, we beat Kelly's old side by 4 goals last time we played them, and it was hard to find a Hawthorn midfielder that touched the ball less than Kelly that day. WC will struggle against us next year too with Mitchell back and hopefully a more accurate forward line in place.

hawthorn obviously failed yes

Typical Richmond fan. Assesses everything in a 2017-2019 window. Classic "my team was shit for nearly 40 years" myopia.

 

[blitzer]

we did use 2 first round draft picks in 2015. One of which was delisted, while the other was traded for Wingard.
According to AFL rules, AFL clubs have to use at least 2 first round draft picks every 4 years, otherwise they face restrictions on trading.

I have read from people such as yourself about the elite end of the draft. To me the elite end is within the top 5 picks or so. So seeing that Hawthorn has not finished bottom 5 since 2006, are you suggesting that we trade players out in order to get into the elite end of the draft? If that is the case, then that logic is flawed, as in order to achieve that, your giving away known quality, for something that is unknown. That makes zero sense.


using your logic, Essendon failed by ignoring a potential trade for 2 top 10 picks for a player that could leave next year via free agency next year, for an end of first round pick. Essendon also used 2 first rounders last year to bring in Dylan Shiel. So will Essendon succeed by ignoring the elite end of the draft as well, or are they also going to fail?

Essendon took 3 early talents over 2015/2016 with Parish/Francis and McGrath - I believe picks 5,6 and 1. So there really is no comparison to the Hawks.

The Hawks have clearly been thinking they could just refresh a few pieces on their list and go again and that has been their list strategy since their last flag.

Hawk fans bought into and have supported the approach aggressively over hundreds of pages of this thread for years. They now realise its about to collapse and are turning their tune around. The reality of an extended list rebuild will set in next year as their group of oldies will fall apart and Clarkson will bail because you know he won't stick around for a 5 year rebuild. Its probably time to get on that high draft pick bandwagon.

 

[hk89]

What is the projected window?

'20?
'21?

20-60. That's the point. Hawthorn are targeting a strategy where your window is never fully closed. Use trade week and careful use of late picks to stay close enough to competitive that you're not too far away from competing, and try to take your chances when things fall your way (as Richmond have done, taking advantage of a 3 year window with no super dominant teams in the competition, flag winners with percentages of 118 and 113 is something that happens when you have no stand out teams). Doesn't mean we'll succeed if winning a flag is your only metric, but flags are hard to win, even when there are no super teams in the competition.

 

[Marcel Proust]

Trying to decipher that sentence has given me a brain injury (finally qualifying me for Richmond cheer squad membership).

* legs, not leagues

Most of the heavy lifting this year was done by players outside the list you've produced above. Only one of those 12 players finished top 5 in our B&F. 3 of the other 4 in that list of 12 that finished 6-10th were 30 or under, so in the somewhat younger section of 'old'.

Hawks older dozen or so players, which is a fairly old group - played in almost every game this season. Quite remarkable really;

burgoyne 18
puop 22
henderson 22
frawley 18

etc.

b/f results are not of much importance given hawthorn is currently a mediocre team & the older players are still seemingly important to the structure and playing a lot of TOG

WCE were smashed by Hawthorn at WCEs home ground in a must win game for WCE. Basically Hawthorn completely destroyed their flag chances in the final H&A game, and that was without Mitchell. We'd also have won our previous game against then at the MCG had we not kicked 9 goals 17, losing by a kick in the last minute or two. Hawthorn based on 2019 head to head performances are a good deal better than WC. Sure WC get Kelly, but I doubt that will worry us much, we beat Kelly's old side by 4 goals last time we played them, and it was hard to find a Hawthorn midfielder that touched the ball less than Kelly that day. WC will struggle against us next year too with Mitchell back and hopefully a more accurate forward line in place.

over the course of the year the hawks were the 9th best team.

WCE had a bad game but its most likely an aberration given the 24months pool of data. Kelly is a significant addition for the short-long term also

20-60. That's the point. Hawthorn are targeting a strategy where your window is never fully closed.

sounds good in theory but yet to see how it plays out or if its viable

 

[TylerDurden]

Essendon took 3 early talents over 2015/2016 with Parish/Francis and McGrath - I believe picks 5,6 and 1. So there really is no comparison to the Hawks.

The Hawks have clearly been thinking they could just refresh a few pieces on their list and go again and that has been their list strategy since their last flag.

Hawk fans bought into and have supported the approach aggressively over hundreds of pages of this thread for years. They now realise its about to collapse and are turning their tune around. The reality of an extended list rebuild will set in next year as their group of oldies will fall apart and Clarkson will bail because you know he won't stick around for a 5 year rebuild. Its probably time to get on that high draft pick bandwagon.

Pick 1 handed to you post cheating. Carlisle walked out handing you pick 5, again, due to the cheating.

 

[AuntyBlindEye]

Pffffffft of course they can. When was the last time they ever had success after an elite draft haul?

Stupid question.

 

[Marcel Proust]

Pffffffft of course they can. When was the last time they ever had success after an elite draft haul?

Stupid question.

when they won those four flags on the back of Hodge, Roughead, Buddy, Lewis etc & generally tanking / cutting of senior blokes?

 

[AuntyBlindEye]

when they won those four flags on the back of Hodge, Roughead, Buddy, Lewis etc & generally tanking / cutting of senior blokes

Naaaahhhhhhhh......... I don't recall that.

 

[Mr Meeseeks]

First time I've looked at the main board in months and this thread is still at the top!!

It warms my heart to see so many oppo fans are so concerned about our club.

 

[TylerDurden]

when they won those four flags on the back of Hodge, Roughead, Buddy, Lewis etc & generally tanking / cutting of senior blokes?

Bud only has 2 mate.

 

[Pessimistic]

I think
juss
makes a fair point.

Your math is probable technically correct, now doubt there are some hawks nutters doing the sums. However the hawks have a lot of older talent around the 30 odd mark. Gunston has a lot of miles under the leagues (edit: legs), Scully has had some injury issues before.

9 Burgoyne, Shaun 376 37yr
28 Puopolo, Paul 190 32yr 9
31 Henderson, Ricky 152 31yr
12 Frawley, James 225 31yr
16 Smith, Isaac 200 31yr
24 Stratton, Benjamin 188 31yr
7 McEvoy, Ben 206 30yr
22 Breust, Luke 207 29yr
18 Ceglar, Jonathon 76 29yr
26 Shiels, Liam 205 28yr
21 Scully, Tom 173 28yr
19 Gunston, Jack 192 28yr
(*footywire, dont know if accurate)

I think much of the vibe of this discussion is how much talent the hawks have in the young and middle list bracket age groupings. Obviously some neutral fans and hawks fans disagree and itll be seen over the next couple years.

- WCE are a quality side and clearly more in the window than hawthorn. (premiership'18 )
- Collingwood are an old team and its a bit troubling. However they are in the top4, making grand finals and prelims where are currently the 'young hawks' are not. (prelim '19)
- Melb.(prelim '18)
- North doesnt seem a great bench mark atm.
- GWS had some firepower not playing in the grand final and lot of talent in the mid20s bracket on the field. Bar better placed than hawthorn imo (grand final '19)



Clarkson is a winner and very driven but its hard to stay at the top in the league with its natural focus on the cycle. Its yet to be seen if the hawks will have future success. Personally i worry a bit about the coaches mental health the cracks might be starting to show in his own words.

hawthorn obviously failed yes but if you take a more long term view itll be very interesting to see how they go next season and long term

Those listed teams had trouble competing with hawthorn head to head. Sure some players missed but so did Mitchell

No hawk poster is denying they are in transition, its just not all agree witht he implied ‘cures’ and strategies

Most amusing is people suggesting the hawks need more early picks, yet success has denied them this. The same posters then predict years at the bottom for the hawks, even though they were implying this is neccesary anyway.

In truth all clubs mix trades with drafting. The saints seem to be implying thir rebuild is over and they are topping up.
In truth no clubs are concerned at the st kilda threat

 

[Pessimistic]

when they won those four flags on the back of Hodge, Roughead, Buddy, Lewis etc & generally tanking / cutting of senior blokes?

If we were tankig we wouldnt have beaten richmonds superior team in 2004. We were just bereft of fit talls