Analysis Completely Subjective Post-Round-One List Analysis

[Black_White]

It is! can't understand how there is doubt in your mind.

My apologies.
Absolutely NO DOUBT in my mind about where we stand in the competition.
Sorry if I gave you any other suggestion.

 

[Black_White]

Elite for our list, certainly.

Elite in the competition, to the extent that they could match up against the best four players of the top eight clubs of last season? I don’t think so on current output.

And yet you name Elliot as elite.
A player who barely gets on the park for 50% of games.
And has an injury that would make all recruiters baulk at paying an “elite” price if he were to come onto the marketplace.
You also name Howe, he is an elite mark, but that alone does not make an elite player.
Sidebottom and Pendulbury would still command an elite price on the marketplace.
And despite his tender years, so would Moore.

 

[magpies42]

I think as at last weeks game you’re spot regarding our a grade talent, it’s non existent. My hope is that Treloar, Pendles, Adams will get back to playing a more consistent level of a grade footy. Pendles and Treloar in particular can be incredibly damaging. We could definitely do with some more high end talent, but I think our issue is that our 7-7-4’s as you put it are all mainly ball butchers, otherwise we’d be a vastly better outfit.

How about this as an experiment, aside from Adams and Treloar pick everybody else based on their ability to kick effectively and choose the right targets...could we field a 22?

 

[cityslick1]

Grundy is overated imo. Regularly taps to the opposition, gives away frees, doesnt mark in packs enough, and cannot kick a goal beyond 40m. Cox is often better in the ruck, but then his agility and poor footskills become exposed, whilst Grundy never dominates up forward, for the above reasons. On exposed form, Cox is still VFL standard though, as half our team seem to be.

Hine seems to mostly recruit at a good VFL type standard actually... ingoring the poor fitness of Sier & Kirby at AFL level, whilst seeing enough in players like Kennedy, Crocker, Matthew Goodyear(!), Ryan Cook, Phillips, Oxley, Blair, Aish, Greenwood & Mayne, to recruit & then retain them.

My list of players who have been on the list 1+ years, but are still VFL standard is as follows:

Mayne
Smith
Thomas (getting better)
Phillips
Blair
Cox
Kirby
McLarty (high hopes)
Wills
Oxley
Brown (potential but small)
Daicos (potential but small)
Lynch (young)
Broomhead (big disappointment)
Scharenberg (ditto)
Aish (ditto)
Greenwood (too slow)
Varcoe (overated, poor disposal, goes missing)
Goldsack (paying his pension & retained due to no substitute)


That's 19 players, ignoring the first year recruits. Way too many...

Sidey has stood up so far this season, & Howe is a gun and prob should be our captain. Pendles will never give it away though, due to the corporate endorsements that come with it, and the profile that it brings. Adams is also a natural leader, but his performances fall short, whilst Howe doesnt seem to take any sh*t, and you could see working hard to make the team and other players better.

Bucks and Pendles seem the same types of characters actually... neither have been overly popular with other players, in the way that Selwood, Hodge, Fyfe, Dangerfield, T Walker, Kieran Jack, or even Jobe Watson are... neither seem to have a teaching / nurturing type of mentality, instead looking after #1 & just expecting others to follow their lead.

Throw in Bucks' questionable coaching & refusal to change, alienating quality coaches like Scott Burns, & Eddie's own recruitment decisions & iron fisted approach to management, and its a recipe for disaster.

 

[Tarkyn_24]

I read your definition of core players and Jeremy Howe was the first player that popped into my head.

If we’re classing him elite we’re ****ed. Nowhere near it.

 

[The Royal Sampler]

And yet you name Elliot as elite.
A player who barely gets on the park for 50% of games.
And has an injury that would make all recruiters baulk at paying an “elite” price if he were to come onto the marketplace.
You also name Howe, he is an elite mark, but that alone does not make an elite player.
Sidebottom and Pendulbury would still command an elite price on the marketplace.
And despite his tender years, so would Moore.

Elite players can still get injured.

Not interested in “elite prices”.

 

[Quicky]

Stewart, Seedsman, Kelly and Hartley all walk in to our best 22. That was my take away from the crows v dons game

Those four wouldn't make much difference to our current 22. They're part players much like most of our current side.

 

[TTRRAAVVIISS]

Those four wouldn't make much difference to our current 22. They're part players much like most of our current side.

Never meant to infer they were gonna be superstars. Just that I’d rather Hartley than Moore in defence, Seedsman than smith, Stewart to Cox and Kelly to Langdon. They are improvements on some of the players in our current 22, which should (in theory) translate to better team performance.

Having said that, with our player development and coaching being subpar, perhaps these guys wouldn’t be any good if they were recruited by, or stayed at, the pies.

 

[Leigh Lowther]

Pretty decent categorisation and I tend to agree with most of your ratings however WHE should be in the core group since he very much does provide a significant matchup advantage and displays a high standard of contested mark/kicking capability. I'd definitely bump up Dunn to a Role player by your definition and potentially Crisp and Thomas too.

Its worth noting how much this list analyse does indeed highlight our poor depth of talent across the board. All in all we truly do have less skilled players than other clubs.

 

[Woods List Clogger]

Having said that, with our player development and coaching being subpar, perhaps these guys wouldn’t be any good if they were recruited by, or stayed at, the pies.

You are spot on with this observation.

 

[Scritchyscroony]

I read your definition of core players and Jeremy Howe was the first player that popped into my head.

If we’re classing him elite we’re ******. Nowhere near it.

He was in the AA squad last year so I don't know how you can say he's "nowhere near" elite.

 

[The Royal Sampler]

Dunn probably should be a role player, you’re right. Crisp has his patches of form when he would definitely be in that category too, and then he has spells when he should really be in the VFL. I find him hard to assess.

Josh Thomas at the present is a dime-a-dozen talent. Not sure he’ll ever be anything more now.

 

[nahnah]

Josh Thomas at the present is a dime-a-dozen talent. Not sure he’ll ever be anything more now.

he turns 27 this year lol

 

[domus]

Stewart, Seedsman, Kelly and Hartley all walk in to our best 22. That was my take away from the crows v dons game

Kelly-yes. Seed had countless opportunities to walk into our best 22 and failed. Kelly doesn't seem to offer much more than Langdon-he is a good, solid defender who can play tall or relatively small and Stewart has never convinced me. In fact his game the other night was probably his best and it was far from being a stellar performance. Hindsight is easy. I watched Stewart at GWS and never felt peeved that we had overlooked him. Hartley? No thanks. His hair is enough to have me draw a line through his name. Seriously, Dunne is a far better defender, albeit a lot older.

 

[Tarkyn_24]

He was in the AA squad last year so I don't know how you can say he's "nowhere near" elite.

Pretty comfortably, unless you think Adam McPhee and Chad Fletcher were elite too?

 

[THATSGOLD]

There are many ways to analyse a list of players, be it on the basis of stats, age profile, or position. However stats can be accumulated cheaply, players can be young and crap or old and still elite, and roles can change week to week or quarter to quarter. So I present you instead with a breakdown of which of our players are "good" and "not very good", shunning any suggestion of objectivity or, frankly, logic.

Here's how we're going to do it. As we have to name 22 players before a game, I'm going to break our players down into where they ought to fit in a numbered rank in the 22 of a competitive AFL team, in the tiered format of 4-7-7-4. Not necessarily our 4-7-7-4, but where our players would fall in a hypothetically competitive team's 4-7-7-4. There is no particular reason for doing so except that I find it illustrative... and this is my thread so suck it up. I will label the tiers thusly;

1-4 "Elite players": These are the players who are playing at the height of their powers, and provide matchup headaches for opposition coaches and fans. You can go to a game, watch this player play, and think happily to yourself "they don't have one of him on their team", "he could prove the difference". These players are comparable to the best four players in any other finals-bound team.

5-11 "Core players": These players are automatic selections every week, are dependable and we hope to have them playing for us for as long as they maintain this standard. They may provide a matchup advantage against their direct opponent, but are unlikely to be a weak link. On any given day, with a good outing they could be our BOG. They would be begrudgingly considered a "good" player by opposition fans who have a clue.

12-18 "Role players": These players can generally be counted upon to fill a necessary role on the field to an AFL standard, but are unlikely to regularly provide a matchup advantage. They may be able to nullify an opponent. They are virtually auto selections, but if opposition matchups or conditions dictate, they could very occasionally be overlooked for selection. These players are dependable and should not be considered a "weak link" in the chain.

19-22 "Interchange players": Players who are more likely to be subject to opposition matchups for selection week-to-week, and in terms of talent they aren't going to scare anybody or cause sleepless nights. However supporters should feel comfortable having them in the team knowing they can serve their purpose. In fact, we should feel comfortable having four of these players on the list each week, as opposed to these guys being the last one picked each week. Alternatively, these players could be talented young players who need to have games poured into them, without being flat-out gifted (because again, this is a competitive team, got it?).

Everyone else: Potentially talented youngsters who have yet to demand a game in the sense of knocking down the door or warranting "blooding", players who should only get a game in the case of an injury to someone with their specific role, players who are past it, players who were never "it" and are unlikely to become "it" any time soon.

Ok, so here's our list as I see it. Players within tiers are numbered but not in any order.

Elite 1-4
1. Jamie Elliott
2. Jeremy Howe

Core 5-11
5. Adam Treloar
6. Taylor Adams
7. Brodie Grundy
8. Darcy Moore
9. Steele Sidebottom
10. Scott Pendlebury
11. Jordan De Goey
11. (b) Daniel Wells

Role Players 12-18
12. Ben Reid
13. Brayden Maynard
14. Alex Fasolo
15. Sam Murray

Interchange 19-22
19. Lynden Dunn
20. Tim Broomhead
21. Travis Varcoe
22. Tom Phillips
22. (b) Jack Crisp
22. (c) Will Hoskin-Elliott
22. (d) Tyson Goldsack
22. (e) Jaidyn Stephenson
22. (f) Josh Thomas
22. (g) Tom Langdon
22. (h) Levi Greenwood

So looking at this list, we have obvious problems with top-end talent. We have fewer elite players than we require, and Elliott is regularly injured. Of our core players, Pendlebury appears to be on the decline, anything we get from Daniel Wells is a bonus, but this group is solid without having a glut of potential game-changers in the making. Ben Reid may warrant elevating back to this group if played in defence.

Our role players are sadly lacking. This probably speaks to the amount of turnover our list has had, and the high number of players we seem to be utilising over the course of a season relative to other clubs. I've been quite generous even adding Murray to this group based on one game, for that matter, but he looked solid and should clearly be given a number of games to establish himself.

Our interchange is pretty deep, but of course these players aren't playing as interchange options in our team in the real world. I wouldn't feel great about having four of these guys listed on our bench going into a game, but then again that's the point.

Essentially, we can muster a maximum of 18 AFL-quality players each week, and that needs to change. We have reason to be hopeful about several of our younger brigade; the likes of McLarty, Callum Brown, Daicos, Murphy, Kirby etc. but every team has these... and then we have players like Scharenberg and Aish who have shown glimpses at times but who are really at the crossroads and will need to step up to continue an AFL career. Our player development needs to be improved out of sight to rectify the deficiencies in our list, and then we need to get (largely) the same 22 guys playing as many games together as possible, particularly as we also seem to lack leadership and understanding between our forward, mid and defensive units... but that's a story for another day.

Firstly great post, a lot of time went in to it. Agree with a lot of what you’ve had to say.
Maynard is the thing i can’t agree with and WHE is the a role player imo. He’s a match winner up front around half Forward. I do not know what Maynards role is.

 

[SpongePie]

I really don't understand Bigfooty's fascination on calling 1 attribute that a player has "elite". Either the player is an elite player, or they aren't.
"He has elite running" means nothing if the guy cant kick/mark/tackle/etc.

Additionally laughable when the above logic is applied to kids just coming out of the draft. "He was an elite tackler at TAC cup"... seriously makes no sense.

"Elite" are players that can do it all.

Pendles was elite. Questionable if he is now.
Sidebottom is a rung or two down, but has the potential to go to the next level this year.

That's about it.

Beyond that, things like "Treloar is an elite seagull" or "Adam's is elite as an in an under player" or "Howe is an elite mark" or "Elliot is sort of elite but only plays half the games", is just making yourself feel better about the team.

 

[Andrewy]

2 days out from game day so as usual I will be on Buckleys side. The selection tonight will have me quietly pleased and a little excited. Tomorrow I will be totally up about the boys and there chances. Saturday I will be decked out in the supporter gear and screaming support with the other Pies believers. Have been rabid for many years through thick and thin and will continue to be for every game. This is footy. This is Collingwood. Go Pies. Go Hard.

 

[Roverjg]

The following players are out of contract at the end of the year, so Ned Guy has it all before him. I am interested to know what everyone would do in the same if they were list manager.
Off Contract 2018: Taylor Adams, James Aish, Flynn Appleby, Jarryd Blair, Tim Broomhead, Callum Brown, Jack Crisp, Josh Daicos, Jordan DeGoey, Jamie Elliott, Alex Fasolo, Tyson Goldsack, Levi Greenwood, Will Hoskin-Elliott, Kayle Kirby, Tom Langdon, Max Lynch, Liam Mackie, Mitchell McCarthy, Sam McLarty, Brody Mihocek, Darcy Moore, Sam Murray, Adam Oxley, Ben Reid, Matthew Scharenberg, Josh Thomas, Travis Varcoe