Does it take too long for clubs to rebuild their lists?

[juss]

How many years between drinks were you lads again?

We are an example of not doing anything right for a long time, but we turned things around quickly.
I reckon we are a pretty good endorsement of: get things right, and things can turn quickly.

 

[legend166]

At the end of the day, bad clubs seem to turn out bad despite the draft picks they get. Not to pick on Carlton, but they're a pretty good example here. But I don't think that just means you throw you hands up and say "Oh well, guess we should get rid of equalisation methods because crappy clubs will always suck."

I have posted about this on here before, but the draft seems to be fundamentally flawed in its primary purpose - as an avenue for bad clubs to get better. I think the reason for that is pretty obvious - compared to basically every other team sport which utilises the draft, Australian Football is the one where a single player has the least impact. We've seen it with Ablett at the Suns, or Judd at Carlton (even if they did make the finals a couple times), or any other number of examples - Australian Football is a team game and doesn't care if you've got the best player if the rest of your guys aren't any good.

Compare it to basketball for example. Philadelphia tanked ridiculously for three years basically. Just a crazy amount of tanking. Now say what you want about tanking, but in that time (for the sake of the exercise let's assume Fultz will be good) they got three players, Embiid, Simmons and Fultz who will make up 60% of their team on the court.

In the AFL, you suck for three years and you get three top 5 draft picks. Those guys will make up 16% of your on field team. You'd have to suck for 12 years to get the equivalent of what you'd get in the NBA in 3 years. After 12 years your first pick is close to retirement, and if you're Brisbane half your guys have gone home anyway.

So basically, what I would do is change the distribution of the draft picks to the bad teams so it's more heavily weighted to the earlier rounds. Heck, I'm not even completely opposed to just give double picks in the first round which would now be 36 picks, then go back to singles after that. So instead of Brisbane last year having 1, 19, 37, 55 (I know it was different with trades, etc) they have 1, 2, 37, 55. Whatever it takes to get more of the quality youth into the crappy teams.

Then I'd increase draftee contracts to 4 years with salary increases available in years 3 and 4 if they hit certain benchmarks. Then fundamentally alter the contract rules so it became easier for clubs to retain their players (by being able to offer higher salaries).

I get the contract stuff would be harder to change but there's no reason they shouldn't look at changing how draft picks are distributed.

 

[Sweet Jesus]

It depends. In that scenario, we'd be very unlikely to trade out Taz, because we need him during the rebuild. His experience, his ability to coach young defenders like Ed Vickers Willis onfield, his playing ability to help us win games, or avoid blowouts.

On the other hand, will he be there when you're next challenging? If you got a first-rounder and a second-rounder for him, I'd have thought that would be worth it.

That said, I don't like the ideas of a mid-season draft specifically for this reason. If North wanted to trade him at season's end, well and good. But mid-season, I don't like.

This is the thing about rebuilding, there is a belief that rebuilding is:

Trade out experienced players for draft picks.

Draft kids.

????? whatever Hawthorn did in 2004-06

Premierships!

Reality is it is different for every club, every list, at every time. There is no magic solution. Melbourne's attempt to game the system and tank backfired on them miserably.

Well, I think success is generally built on drafting well. Specifically, it's built on going bang bang bang in three drafts in a row and then filling holes elsewhere as required.

I don't think anyone is going to have much success if they draft badly for several seasons in a row. Drafting well is non-negotiable. And the more bites of the cherry you have early in drafts, the more chance you have of getting it right.

Poor old BRissy have recruited some great players who bailed on them so now have to rebuild through the prism of a go home factor.

And that's bad luck but I don't think the formula changes.

GC and GWD came in and distorted recruiting for the best part of a decade. Some clubs thought "Aha! We'll just steal GWS players or take the inevitable talented blokes that can't get game" - hasn't worked out as planned for the two major clubs doing that, Carlton and Collingwood.

Sure, but not every team screwed the pooch as badly in those years.

For example, WC finished last in 2010. But instead of getting pick 1, we got pick 4 because the Suns had the first three. Even worse, two WA kids went 1 and 2 that year. Now, that would be a recipe for 10 years of complaining, wouldn't it? Oh we finished last and got stuck with pick 4 because the Suns monopolised early picks. Woe is me etc. Fortunately, that pick 4 was Gaff, who's been better value than the kids taken before him in Swallow, Bennell and Day. And we pinched Darling at 26 that season and made a PF in 2011. So it depends how it shakes out.

There is no template for rebuilding.

Maybe not a template. But, as I said, I reckon nailing consecutive drafts is top of the list of non-negotiables.

Jeez, what changed at Richmond between late August 2016 and late March 2017? Something that won them a flag.

Well, consider this:

Jack Riewoldt #13, 2006
Shane Edwards #26, 2006
Trent Cotchin #2, 2007 draft
Alex Rance #18, 2007 draft
Dustin Martin #3, 2009 draft
David Astbury #35, 2009 draft

Now, don't get me wrong. Richmond faffed around for years trying to get the rest of the jigsaw puzzle right. And their 2008 draft was poor, taking Ty Vickery at #8. But if you want to know how Richmond built a premiership-winning side, it starts with taking their best four players with top 20 picks in the space of four years. Without sticking those drafts in a shortish window, they don't win a flag. That's the template.

 

[Sweet Jesus]

I said this years ago with Melbourne's problems. There is no point giving them extra top end picks - as if they keep stuffing up their drafting, they will never get any better (except by random chance - if they just happen to pick someone good by accident).

You needed to teach them to recruit players with the right attributes. It's like the old saying 'Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, he'll eat for a lifetime'. Sorry for the brief diversion into philosophy, but it's related. Look at the Dogs 2016 GF side: Morris, Boyd, Picken, Roberts, Dahl - all off the rookie list or PSD (might even be more than that).

There were also some very early picks there though, right?

 

[tugga]

Surely Richmond has shown that you can be crap for 30 years, but then get it right.
Now they have the most members ever.
It is up to each club to get everything right on and off field to give it the best chance of success.

We were rock bottom when the expansion teams came in.
Were basically locked out of the draft, but have made finals for four years out of five since and won a flag.
if you make the right decisions, it can be done quite quickly.
If you make the wrong decisions, they seem to manifest and make things much worse.

 

[Sweet Jesus]

We were rock bottom when the expansion teams came in.
Were basically locked out of the draft, but have made finals for four years out of five since and won a flag.

Because you'd already done this:

Jack Riewoldt #13, 2006
Shane Edwards #26, 2006
Trent Cotchin #2, 2007 draft
Alex Rance #18, 2007 draft
Dustin Martin #3, 2009 draft
David Astbury #35, 2009 draft

 

[TedDougChris]

There were also some very early picks there though, right?

Yep, we had a few of those as well. Outside of Boyd (traded), we had Bont (#4), Macrae and Stringer (#5 and 6 - think it's other way around though).

Our record with early picks prior to that was pretty poor. Sam Power, Tim Walsh, Cooney, Ray, Griffen, Tom Williams, Higgins (much better at North than with us), Everitt, Grant, Cordy, Howard - that was our lot in the 2000's. You could have given us another 20 picks and we still couldn't have found a KPF.....

 

[Blue1980]

On the other hand, will he be there when you're next challenging? If you got a first-rounder and a second-rounder for him, I'd have thought that would be worth it.

That said, I don't like the ideas of a mid-season draft specifically for this reason. If North wanted to trade him at season's end, well and good. But mid-season, I don't like.

Well, I think success is generally built on drafting well. Specifically, it's built on going bang bang bang in three drafts in a row and then filling holes elsewhere as required.

I don't think anyone is going to have much success if they draft badly for several seasons in a row. Drafting well is non-negotiable. And the more bites of the cherry you have early in drafts, the more chance you have of getting it right.

And that's bad luck but I don't think the formula changes.

Sure, but not every team screwed the pooch as badly in those years.

For example, WC finished last in 2010. But instead of getting pick 1, we got pick 4 because the Suns had the first three. Even worse, two WA kids went 1 and 2 that year. Now, that would be a recipe for 10 years of complaining, wouldn't it? Oh we finished last and got stuck with pick 4 because the Suns monopolised early picks. Woe is me etc. Fortunately, that pick 4 was Gaff, who's been better value than the kids taken before him in Swallow, Bennell and Day. And we pinched Darling at 26 that season and made a PF in 2011. So it depends how it shakes out.

Maybe not a template. But, as I said, I reckon nailing consecutive drafts is top of the list of non-negotiables.

Well, consider this:

Jack Riewoldt #13, 2006
Shane Edwards #26, 2006
Trent Cotchin #2, 2007 draft
Alex Rance #18, 2007 draft
Dustin Martin #3, 2009 draft
David Astbury #35, 2009 draft

Now, don't get me wrong. Richmond faffed around for years trying to get the rest of the jigsaw puzzle right. And their 2008 draft was poor, taking Ty Vickery at #8. But if you want to know how Richmond built a premiership-winning side, it starts with taking their best four players with top 20 picks in the space of four years. Without sticking those drafts in a shortish window, they don't win a flag. That's the template.

Exactly, we drafted and traded quite well to get talent in between 03-08 to get a side that by 09 was about the same standard Melbourne are now. Then from 09-14 we made one disastrous decision after another culminating in what we have today.

Also look at the years Richmond got those players, we are probably at about 2010 on the Richmond timescale (though all builds are different, we could suck more short term but become better quicker, which I think is the hope we have).

Us and Brisbane aren’t going to know if we have nailed recent drafts for a little while yet

 

[PP34]

There are plenty of examples of teams who, in the AFL era which has now been going 30 odd years, never seem to have hit rock bottom. They may have lapsed and missed finals but never seen the perpetual shithole that is/was Brisbane and Melbourne in the last decade.

Why? Rebuilds on the run. Prime example is the Hawks. Their golden era was over for all to see after the straight sets exit in 2016 and in 2017 missed finals (just). The trajectory was downwards and yet in 2018 they have shown signs they are bouncing back up.

Geelong and Sydney have been up thereabouts for years and years and yet have blooded youth at the same time.


There are some clubs who may not have been great consistently but at least have never bottomed out.

Clubs do it to themselves. Melbourne had a s**t list and got in a good coach who put them on the path to success and they go and appoint a s**t coach.

Carlton has a list manager who does deals according to his ego and not the needs of the clubs.

Brisbane made some really, really s**t picks on the mental side of things. Theyve been a tad unlucky but still heaps of dumb decisions.

Clubs dont need to bottom out. It does seem difficult for those who have lately to climb out of it easily.

I think it a club is bottom 6 for more than 5 years and not on an upward trajectory they need to clean out the whole place.

Throwing the Swans name in there. You’ve got to be joking.

The AFL is the reason they have bottomed out.

 

[Blue1980]

We were rock bottom when the expansion teams came in.
Were basically locked out of the draft, but have made finals for four years out of five since and won a flag.
if you make the right decisions, it can be done quite quickly.
If you make the wrong decisions, they seem to manifest and make things much worse.

We didn’t know at the time but 4 guys who will now considered 4 of your best ever players were at the club prior to Gold Coast and GWS coming in

But point definitely taken, also you guys fluffed around a bit and when last year you guys went with a plan to maximize strengths rather than emulate Hawthorn or whatever other top team of the time we saw what happened (also injury luck, players in career best form etc).

 

[gillo94]

Salary cap, no. Extra picks, maybe. But I would say those picks should be in second and third rounds, not first.

Disagree.

I think that's up to the club. There's nothing to stop them asking a rookie to extend early on a chunk of extra cash.

How are teams like Brisbane suppose to get back on top if their first round picks constantly keep leaving?

Don’t you think AFL needs step in and give incentives for people to stay on rather than playing 1 or 2 seasons and deciding to go back home. Blues case just constant. Again need incentives going to get Blues back.

 

[Total_Juddshanks]

It takes as long as it does because clubs are not ruthless enough with their list management.

The slightly uncomfortable truth is the last 16 or so good ordinary players in most best 22s are totally interchangeable from club to club- they might have good years or bad years depending on how they are coached, injuries and the quality around them, but you could swap Richmond's 16 weakest regulars for Brisbane's 16 weakest regulars and given a year or two to settle the results wouldn't change much.

What matters enormously is your top 6 or 7 players. If you have a couple of genuine superstar caliber players and 3-4 who are in the conversation for AA and they are all fit and in form, you'll finish top 4 and go very close to the flag. And a lot of the good ordinary players will look like world beaters because stars generally make their teammates look way better than they actually are.

That being the case, I think the name of the game is not carefully building a best 22, it should be churning through as many picks, rookies and free agents as quickly as possible to try and find your 4-5 guns, ideally all at a similar age. Once they are in place just sit back and the team will rapidly assemble itself around them.

And because most outright gems are seriously good early in their career, most teams waste far too much time trying to turn average young players into good young players - when really what they should be doing is turning over the list constantly to
try and find the ready made instant stars like Judd/Franklin etc.

Obviously there's a human dimension to it, but if you were purely interested in winning flags, you should basically churn the largest number of list changes you can do each year and ruthlessly cut good ordinary players because they are replaceable and the priority is trying to find the star prospects asap.

 

[parmy2balmey]

bomber thompson and the great paul roos have both stated 3 years to take a team from bottom to the finals. Then from there you should be in serious contention (aka top 4) by year 5. this was before paul took the Melbourne job so he may have changed his outlook slightly

 

[Gysberts2Bate]

I said this years ago with Melbourne's problems. There is no point giving them extra top end picks - as if they keep stuffing up their drafting, they will never get any better (except by random chance - if they just happen to pick someone good by accident).

You needed to teach them to recruit players with the right attributes. It's like the old saying 'Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, he'll eat for a lifetime'. Sorry for the brief diversion into philosophy, but it's related. Look at the Dogs 2016 GF side: Morris, Boyd, Picken, Roberts, Dahl - all off the rookie list or PSD (might even be more than that).

Give a poorly performing club another pick or two (or three or four) - in the rookie draft, with an expanded list (but no, or minimal salary cap extension) - then cut that expanded list by one every year - until they are back in line with everyone else. Teach them to look for the hard working guys that will do anything (except The Recruit !!) to get onto an AFL list. There are still good players out there in the lower leagues.

Then use those guys and a few carefully selected others (like Crossy helped at Melbourne) drive the standards on and off the field - and things will slowly turn around.

Our real problem was the boy's club running the joint between 2010-2013. The best thing the AFL did for us was clean out the blokes rotting the MFC from the inside. Your Schwabs and Connollys and so on.

 

[owen87]

How are teams like Brisbane suppose to get back on top if their first round picks constantly keep leaving?

Don’t you think AFL needs step in and give incentives for people to stay on rather than playing 1 or 2 seasons and deciding to go back home. Blues case just constant. Again need incentives going to get Blues back.

Maybe there should be an extra 10% added to the Salary Cap for interstate clubs. We could call it a Cost of Living Allowance or COLA for short. That might work.

It's a tougher task for the Queensland clubs to hold talent it seems, but Carlton's situation is of it's own making.

They've had some very poor drafting over the years, to the point that basically the entire careers of Gibbs, Murphy and Kreuzer have been played in a team constantly rebuilding from their last failed rebuild.

At least now it appears they're getting a cohort of young players together that might develop as a group. This season will hurt but another 2 - 3 seasons should have a strong group of 50 - 100 game players.

 

[RUNVS]

I feel dirty for saying this but I liked David King's suggestion last year.

YOu have a normal first round like everyone knows but after that every club that has been outside of the 8 for 3 years or more gets a priority pick, so pick 19 would go to the club that has been out of the 8 the longest, pick 20 would go to the club that has been out of the 8 the second longest and so on.

So based on that we could have had a first round draft last year of

1. Brisbane
2. Fremantle
3. Carlton
4. North Melbourne
5. Fremantle
6. Collingwood
7. St Kilda
8. St Kilda
9. Western Bulldogs
10. Carlton
11. GWS
12. Adelaide
13. West Coast
14. Sydney
15. Brisbane
16. Western Bulldogs
17. Richmond
18. Brisbane
19. Gold Coast

and then straight afterwards it would be

20. Melbourne
21. Gold Coast
22. Brisbane
24. Carlton
25. St Kilda
26. Collingwood

or whatever the order is

and then continue on the draft from round 2 as normal.

 

[Sweet Jesus]

Exactly, we drafted and traded quite well to get talent in between 03-08 to get a side that by 09 was about the same standard Melbourne are now. Then from 09-14 we made one disastrous decision after another culminating in what we have today.

Also look at the years Richmond got those players, we are probably at about 2010 on the Richmond timescale (though all builds are different, we could suck more short term but become better quicker, which I think is the hope we have).

Us and Brisbane aren’t going to know if we have nailed recent drafts for a little while yet

And I think that's one of the big question marks over the Saints.

They last played finals in 2011 after a pretty solid run. But that means this will be their seventh season without finals, assuming they don't make it this year.

And how have they drafted in that period?

2012: Nathan Wright (#24), Spencer Wright #25), Brodie Murdoch (#40), Josh Saunders (#43), Lewis Pierce (#75), Sam Dunell (#90)
2013: Jack Billings (#3), Luke Dunstan (#18), Blake Acres (#19),
2014: Paddy McCartin (#1), Hugh Goddard (#21), David McKenzie (#22), Jack Lonie (#41)
2015: Jade Gresham (#18), Brandon White (#40), Bailey Rice (#49),
2016: Ben Long (#25), Josh Battle (#39), Ed Phillips (#56)
2017: Hunter Clark (#7), Nick Coffield (#8), Oscar Clavarino (#35), Ben Paton (#46)

It's striking that after six years out of the finals, they've only had four top 10 picks. Are there enough hits there to suggest they can have a really good run at it with a talented core at some point in the next five years? They'd be desperately hoping Clark and Coffield make it.

 

[Cincinnatus]

Throwing the Swans name in there. You’ve got to be joking.

The AFL is the reason they have bottomed out.

Why is Sydneys name no good?

 

[Sweet Jesus]

How are teams like Brisbane suppose to get back on top if their first round picks constantly keep leaving?

Get better at retaining players and developing local talent.

 

[Scotland]

Richmond's 2017 premiership 22 had 4 players aged under 23 years. In AFL terms most players are ready by that age having done 3-5 pre-seasons in the AFL system.

The Bulldogs had 9 in 2016, but this included Bontempelli, Stringer, Boyd and Macrae who are top end talents and performing to a high level early.

Hawthorn had one in 2015 and that was Brad Hill who was into his 3rd full season in a row, but they were at the end of a long run at the top with a very experienced team.

Whatever you do, to be contending you need a core of players that are physically ready. If you keep turning over players at a rapid rate you end up like GC/GWS hoping that a whole batch of kids come good at once.

 

[Isaac Cumming No 1]

It depends. In that scenario, we'd be very unlikely to trade out Taz, because we need him during the rebuild. His experience, his ability to coach young defenders like Ed Vickers Willis onfield, his playing ability to help us win games, or avoid blowouts. This is the thing about rebuilding, there is a belief that rebuilding is:

Trade out experienced players for draft picks.

Draft kids.

????? whatever Hawthorn did in 2004-06

Premierships!

Reality is it is different for every club, every list, at every time. There is no magic solution. Melbourne's attempt to game the system and tank backfired on them miserably.

Poor old BRissy have recruited some great players who bailed on them so now have to rebuild through the prism of a go home factor.

GC and GWD came in and distorted recruiting for the best part of a decade. Some clubs thought "Aha! We'll just steal GWS players or take the inevitable talented blokes that can't get game" - hasn't worked out as planned for the two major clubs doing that, Carlton and Collingwood.

There is no template for rebuilding.

Jeez, what changed at Richmond between late August 2016 and late March 2017? Something that won them a flag.

Best part of a decade rolls off he tongue but isn't true.

Guys like Lachie plowman, Will Hoskin- Elliot, James Stewart, Jacob Townsend, Curtly Hampton, Matt Kennedy, Jarrod Pickett and Jack Steele were all to some extent victims of our expanded list and the subsequent contraction. All are contributing to new clubs and in their best 22.

Guys we couldn't hold like Adam Treloar, Caleb Marchbank, Cam Mcarthy and Nathan Wilson are also best 22 at their new clubs

This is off the top of my head. We clearly have developed and fed playets to other clubs successfully.

 

[DrEvil_]

I said this years ago with Melbourne's problems. There is no point giving them extra top end picks - as if they keep stuffing up their drafting, they will never get any better (except by random chance - if they just happen to pick someone good by accident).

You needed to teach them to recruit players with the right attributes. It's like the old saying 'Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, he'll eat for a lifetime'. Sorry for the brief diversion into philosophy, but it's related. Look at the Dogs 2016 GF side: Morris, Boyd, Picken, Roberts, Dahl - all off the rookie list or PSD (might even be more than that).

Give a poorly performing club another pick or two (or three or four) - in the rookie draft, with an expanded list (but no, or minimal salary cap extension) - then cut that expanded list by one every year - until they are back in line with everyone else. Teach them to look for the hard working guys that will do anything (except The Recruit !!) to get onto an AFL list. There are still good players out there in the lower leagues.

Then use those guys and a few carefully selected others (like Crossy helped at Melbourne) drive the standards on and off the field - and things will slowly turn around.

Is that really so, or does development play a big part? I could easily see Melbourne drafting Dusty and turning him into Colin Silvia mk II. Everyone said Richmond made a huge blunder taking Tambling over Buddy, but maybe Tambling would've become elite winger at Hawthorn whereas Buddy would've gone off the deep end at Richmond.

 

[TedDougChris]

Our real problem was the boy's club running the joint between 2010-2013. The best thing the AFL did for us was clean out the blokes rotting the MFC from the inside. Your Schwabs and Connollys and so on.

Things like that really don't help. Like I said earlier, you have to be setup to rebuild properly....

If not, it can take a while....

 

[Blackas87]

The draft restricts rebuilding, you only get one pick before the premiers do. If you want another pick you need to trade away a best 22 player, therefore worsening your team in the short run and making your club unattractive for free agents.

I reckon scrap the draft all together and have unrestricted free agency to all out of contract players including 18 year olds entering the league for the first time.

While teams at the top of the ladder will be focused on having mature established players for a premiership tilt, teams down the bottom can offer better contracts to 18 year olds and better opportunity to play in the senior team. Lower clubs can offer contracts to multiple top talented players and essentially what takes 3-4 years of rebuilding a list can happen in one off-season with out trading away best 22 players.

Players also get a choice of where they go, instead of been randomly selected by a club with poor development that'll ruin your career. So it's up to clubs to make your club attractive to these players.

If a bottom club offered you $200000 per year over 3 years with good opportunity to play, and a top club $80000 per year for 2 years but likely playing in the state leagues for a while, where do you go? If the bottom club misses out, move on to the next player.

The salary cap and list sizes restrict clubs from stockpiling all the talent.

 

[TedDougChris]

Is that really so, or does development play a big part? I could easily see Melbourne drafting Dusty and turning him into Colin Silvia mk II. Everyone said Richmond made a huge blunder taking Tambling over Buddy, but maybe Tambling would've become elite winger at Hawthorn whereas Buddy would've gone off the deep end at Richmond.

Fair point, bit of a chicken and egg scenario, but it's a valid question.