Crows need a complete rebuild

[Shaz2012]

We seem to be 1 of the only clubs in the league not to do a complete rebuild in The last 20 years.

The list we have currently is not deep enough to win a premiership in the next 4 years imo and imo we will lose our best players/leaders in that time period. If we don't do a rebuild now I fear for what our team will look like in 2023.

The players we will lose between now and the start of 2023 will be imo:

Eddie betts
Taylor walker
Rory Sloane
Josh Jenkins
Tom lynch
Bryce gibbs
Talia
Mackay
Hartigan
Jacobs
Otten
Douglas

With quite a few more on the edge. If we can't win a premiershio in the next 4 years we are wasting time by not doing a rebuild now.

Thoughts?

I'm not going to dismiss this outright. I think its a fair question that we should be asking ourselves every year. As it stands we are pretty much having a mini-rebuild at the moment. Due to Lever and Gov departures we have 4 very good picks. I don't think you can really add more than 4 top end talents in a single year anyway. The real problem will not be our list so much as giving opportunities to these 4 kids, along with our other young players.

You can remove Mackay, Hartigan, Otten and Douglas as I don't think they are best 22 anymore anyway. Sauce needs replacing and I feel the club has dropped the ball here. It could cost us next year.

I think we already have replacements lined up for Tex and JJ in Fog and EH. I am thrilled with what we have waiting in the wings.

We do need to look at adding an elite KPD to replace Talia, but he still has a few years left at the top level. I'd draft Ben King if he fell to us, or look at a rookie like Grundy.

I think Eddie and Lynch are quite difficult to simply replace. Unique players imo. With any luck we will get back Rankine and Luko in a few years time, but I am not expecting that. Eddie is an all time great in his role. Can't expect the club to snap its fingers and replace him.

But where I agree with you is looking at our midfield stocks. We dont have a lot on our list that can fill the void in terms of quality. Hopefully we draft to meet this need.

 

[WAG]

Suck a funny bloke!

Alright, I'll give it a go... A man walks into a bar...

 

[Thetrader15]

Alright, I'll give it a go... A man walks into a bar...

*ouch* should have ducked

 

[Thetrader15]

Tell him to buy me dinner first.

I’m not that easy.

Did I really type that? *yikes*

 

[John Who]

I think it’d be more interesting to see how people define the word “rebuild”. If the question is whether we should offload Sloane, Lynch, Tex and Talia next year for potential young stars, then “no thanks”.

The list of stars in the OP does look scary if we were to lose them all by 2023. However, we have 4 top picks to play with this year, and some more picks over the coming years. So best to see what potential stars we can nurture “organically”, before we hit the panic button just yet!

 

[Thegibbsgamble]

Alright, I'll give it a go... A man walks into a bar...

And there's spp with his wife on the dance floor and boak with his sister and watts his swim coach ...

And wingards in the corner playing fortnite.

 

[mick500]

Thread debunked.

It was a question/discussion , not something that needed debunking or proving or disproving lol. But OK.

 

[Iron]

Pretty weak position to take. Why not wring your list of everything it's got? Just give up the moment you start to get close and fail?

 

[FR0GGY]

Did I really type that? *yikes*

Typing it is the easy part.

 

[SaltPeter]

Did I really type that? *yikes*

Freudian slip, mmm ..?

 

[Doc_]

Delete thread.
It's not really something we want sitting on our board.
ITS FRUIT LOOP TERRITORY. COMPLETELY ******* NUTS!

 

[kirky]

15 months ago, we were the best team in the competition. Then we had 1 horrible day and lost the Grand Final to Richmond.

Then we had a shambles of a pre season camp and a hamstring epidemic that saw us lose a plethora of players. Our fall down the ladder was explainable. Was not acceptable but easily explained and with good management, we can become that fearsome attacking team again and take that next step forward by learning to handle the Grand Final pressures applied to us.

Right now, we have no reason what so ever to even contemplate a rebuild. However, with 4 picks inside the top 21 picks we are in the process of starting this rebuild anyway.

We are not going to go and sack 6 first team players to please a few bedwetters because everyone else has had a rebuild.

Top 2 finish for me and then win our 2 home finals before accepting the premiership challenge again.

No rebuild needed.

Totally agree - we will be challenging again in 2019.

The added bonus is we won’t have the distraction of any major players coming out on contract either.

Players out of contract 2019

Alex Keath
Andy Otten
Ben Davis
CEY
David McKay
Hugh Greenwood
Jake Kelly
Lachlan Murphy
Patrick Wilson
Richard Douglas
Riley Knight
Sam Jacobs

 

[AmericanCrow]

Well, I guess I found out where Sashi Brown went off to.

 

[Crowbots are dead]

We seem to be 1 of the only clubs in the league not to do a complete rebuild in The last 20 years.

The list we have currently is not deep enough to win a premiership in the next 4 years imo and imo we will lose our best players/leaders in that time period. If we don't do a rebuild now I fear for what our team will look like in 2023.

The players we will lose between now and the start of 2023 will be imo:

Eddie betts
Taylor walker
Rory Sloane
Josh Jenkins
Tom lynch
Bryce gibbs
Talia
Mackay
Hartigan
Jacobs
Otten
Douglas

With quite a few more on the edge. If we can't win a premiershio in the next 4 years we are wasting time by not doing a rebuild now.

Thoughts?

With this logic , every time a team has a strong experienced core group of players in their prime years , you choose to rebuild because you can see they will retire in a few years. Sorry but this makes zero sense. You really have also underestimated our depth. As feenix said on the crowcast, this would be the most depth that we have ever had, and that’s before the new recruits.

 

[marty36]

With this logic , every time a team has a strong experienced core group of players in their prime years , you choose to rebuild because you can see they will retire in a few years. Sorry but this makes zero sense. You really have also underestimated our depth. As feenix said on the crowcast, this would be the most depth that we have ever had, and that’s before the new recruits.

Or you could be overating our list, time will tell like this year, if we finish outside the eight again , I guess its fair to say its overated

 

[Jarman3]

Totally agree - we will be challenging again in 2019.

The added bonus is we won’t have the distraction of any major players coming out on contract either.

Players out of contract 2019

Alex Keath
Andy Otten
Ben Davis
CEY
David McKay
Hugh Greenwood
Jake Kelly
Lachlan Murphy
Patrick Wilson
Richard Douglas
Riley Knight
Sam Jacobs

I think you underestimate the media feeding frenzy that will be surrounding the Mackay contract situation - the distraction has the potential to derail our entire 2019 campaign. If we don't get it resolved before round 1 by signing him to a lucrative, long-term deal then we might as well start planning for 2020.

 

[Scorpus]

I suspect this thread will get bumped the second we badly lose a match in 2019

 

[mick500]

With this logic , every time a team has a strong experienced core group of players in their prime years , you choose to rebuild because you can see they will retire in a few years. Sorry but this makes zero sense. You really have also underestimated our depth. As feenix said on the crowcast, this would be the most depth that we have ever had, and that’s before the new recruits.

Only time will tell. You can't say that now with certainty. You don't have a crystal ball . What these players that haven't played a game will turn into. Or not turn into. Just acknowledging our leaders and some of our best players will be gone by 2023 at the latest and if we aren't prepared for that we could be back at square 1. That's all.

 

[Stiffy_18]

Only time will tell. You can't say that now with certainty. You don't have a crystal ball . What these players that haven't played a game will turn into. Or not turn into. Just acknowledging our leaders and some of our best players will be gone by 2023 at the latest and if we aren't prepared for that we could be back at square 1. That's all.

But that is absolutely no different to what we have been doing since getting this generation?

We haven't gone a single season without a 1st round pick in the draft (except the ones we lost due to Tippetgate). We also invested heavily into talent identification and player development both in identifying kids in the draft pool and players to trade in from other teams that address a need. The club has managed to build a really strong list without a single top 10 pick (other than Gibbs who was traded in) that played off in a GF only 14 months ago.

We have been pretty clear in in what our strategy is. Keep drafting kids and developing them, introducing them into the side so when these guns are ready to retire, the kids are seasoned enough to take over. Laird, Atkins, Knight, M. Crouch, Milera, McGovern (departed), Cameron (departed), Lever (departed), Doedee, Greenwood, Keath, Gallucci, Fogarty etc have all been introduced along the way into the side and all look to be very good prospects going forward for the role we have penciled them in to play. We also have 4 picks inside top 21 in this strong draft to pick more quality kids. Kids that we will develop into players that take over. Given our history in these departments, its unlikely that we draft any duds there.

On top of that we have traded in younger kids in certain age profile that address our needs going forward (McAdam and Stengle). We are not, sitting back and investing everything into here and now. We are actually going for it but at the same time regenerating the list to have quality and experience there that will take over from the current guns. Just like we had Douglas, Sloane, Dangerfield, Talia, Tex, Jacobs.

Other than Gibbs and Gibson (who was more of a depth), all the players that we have traded in are under 25 so that they can fit the need and age profile of the group. This ensures that we have these players for a few years.

The list is as deep as it has ever been. Will the be a bit of a drop off? Quite possibly just as we had a bit of a drop off with McLeod, Edwards, Goodwin, Roo, Hart etc retired. One thing we had at that point was highly compromised drafts due to Gold Coast and GWS. The drafts are nowhere near as compromised now.

 

[Tex200]

Don't think we can have it both ways:

Wow our lost is deeper than it's ever been, we're legit challengers in 2019;

Also - oh we write of 2018 because we had a bad run of injury.

Either we have a deep list that can cover injuries or we don't.

GWS and Collingwood and terrible years with injury but found a way. We on the other hand put in some of the poorest performances since inception (Freo and Hawks).

The current list has performed well overall, but has been very susceptible to going missing in big games and I'm not just referring to the GF.

Clearly we don't need to be rebuilding per se, but it is clear there are ongoing renovations, and they will be accelerated if 2018 has more truth to it than any of us care to admit

 

[Coopers]

Don't think we can have it both ways:

Wow our lost is deeper than it's ever been, we're legit challengers in 2019;

Also - oh we write of 2018 because we had a bad run of injury.

Either we have a deep list that can cover injuries or we don't.

GWS and Collingwood and terrible years with injury but found a way. We on the other hand put in some of the poorest performances since inception (Freo and Hawks).

The current list has performed well overall, but has been very susceptible to going missing in big games and I'm not just referring to the GF.

Clearly we don't need to be rebuilding per se, but it is clear there are ongoing renovations, and they will be accelerated if 2018 has more truth to it than any of us care to admit

We had more than just injuries this year. We did get crippled by injury, but we were a spiritless shitshow during the middle of the season.

GWS and Collingwood would have lost those games too, with that attitude.

 

[Stiffy_18]

Don't think we can have it both ways:

Wow our lost is deeper than it's ever been, we're legit challengers in 2019;

Also - oh we write of 2018 because we had a bad run of injury.

Either we have a deep list that can cover injuries or we don't.

GWS and Collingwood and terrible years with injury but found a way. We on the other hand put in some of the poorest performances since inception (Freo and Hawks).

The current list has performed well overall, but has been very susceptible to going missing in big games and I'm not just referring to the GF.

Clearly we don't need to be rebuilding per se, but it is clear there are ongoing renovations, and they will be accelerated if 2018 has more truth to it than any of us care to admit

Even with injuries its not always player X has missed Y number of games approach. There is always more to it than that. For example, Tex played 14 of the 22 games so he played majority of the season. However his impact was arguably worst in his career since he became a regular player anyway. This is because he had no pre-season. Its not really rocket science but if a player has no pre-season to get that fitness base and touch, sharpness etc, he is not going to have a good year.

Also its different if a player missed 8 weeks straight or if the 8 weeks are scattered throughout the season. Our problem is two fold. One, we are not managing players that required surgeries after 2017 season well enough. We tried to manage it which in itself led to limited pre-season and in Brad's case no solid training for a year.

The second issue is that we had a shorter pre-season than usual so we tried to fit a program that we would do in 3-4 months intro a 2 month window. This resulted in a lot of players having interrupted pre-seasons, a trend that continued into the season proper. It is also different if the injuries occur to your guns or your role players.

We have a deep list but that does not mean that it doesn't have weaknesses. We wouldn't want to get injuries to Sauce or Tex or Eddie because there is not much coverage there (at least there wasn't in eddies case last season).

I think there are more factors to consider when we talk about injuries. Despite popular belief, in 2017 we had injuries as well, granted it wasn't as big a hit as this year but the difference was that we had options to cover them because they were fit and firing. This year even the back ups were injured when main guys copped an injury. We were scrapping to put a side on the park most weeks. There is no continuity there. Especially not from your guns who are always crucial to any side's success.

 

[SaltPeter]

Even with injuries its not always player X has missed Y number of games approach. There is always more to it than that. For example, Tex played 14 of the 22 games so he played majority of the season. However his impact was arguably worst in his career since he became a regular player anyway. This is because he had no pre-season. Its not really rocket science but if a player has no pre-season to get that fitness base and touch, sharpness etc, he is not going to have a good year.

Also its different if a player missed 8 weeks straight or if the 8 weeks are scattered throughout the season. Our problem is two fold. One, we are not managing players that required surgeries after 2017 season well enough. We tried to manage it which in itself led to limited pre-season and in Brad's case no solid training for a year.

The second issue is that we had a shorter pre-season than usual so we tried to fit a program that we would do in 3-4 months intro a 2 month window. This resulted in a lot of players having interrupted pre-seasons, a trend that continued into the season proper. It is also different if the injuries occur to your guns or your role players.

We have a deep list but that does not mean that it doesn't have weaknesses. We wouldn't want to get injuries to Sauce or Tex or Eddie because there is not much coverage there (at least there wasn't in eddies case last season).

I think there are more factors to consider when we talk about injuries. Despite popular belief, in 2017 we had injuries as well, granted it wasn't as big a hit as this year but the difference was that we had options to cover them because they were fit and firing. This year even the back ups were injured when main guys copped an injury. We were scrapping to put a side on the park most weeks. There is no continuity there. Especially not from your guns who are always crucial to any side's success.

Interesting thing with Collingwood is that they have really had injuries for the last 3 years, so in some areas they have been getting games into players that might not ordinarily have been played

 

[Sanders]

Tell him to buy me dinner first.

I’m not that easy.

You’ve changed man, you’ve changed

 

[John Who]

Interesting thing with Collingwood is that they have really had injuries for the last 3 years, so in some areas they have been getting games into players that might not ordinarily have been played

With the Collingwood comparisons I think we should compare more fairly. This year, out of all years, we had injuries to basically ALL our stars - Tex, Sloane, Betts, MCrouch, BCrouch (all season), Smith (most of the season missing from knee surgery), Talia, Milera, Hartigan, McGov, Seeds, Douglas.

I'm not so sure who had been missing from the Collingwood team, but I doubt their stars weren't all affected as we had in this particular season.

Also, it's the injuries that actually has allowed us to see the future up-and-comers eg. Milera, Doedee, Keath, Fog, Murphy, Gooch, Polhoke. So although as debacle of a season as it was, it has given the new kids the opportunities they needed to shine, and bring more confidence and competition for spots for next year!