Remove this Banner Ad

Drafting for Talls

🥰 Love BigFooty? Join now for free.

Good analysis, but you'll note I mentioned 16 years he's been recruiting. Lloyd, Lucas, Fevola, Hall were all drafted during his time. You can argue, he only missed one here and two there, but the point is in 16 years he only got Bradshaw.

I'm not saying Clayton was a terrible recruiter, I'm saying he was terrible at drafting KPP. Don't forget he is also the talent scout for picking up players in the preseason and rookie drafts too (and I acknowledge the bulldogs are limited in our number of rookies) and other than Morris (who's a 190cm mid sized player) we've had no sucess there either.

You are still not getting it. Your first post makes it clear that you think he has failed because he never got a Riewoldt, Fevola or Franklin to the club. What you fail to acknowledge is that the only blokes he could have drafted for us of enough quality to benefit our forwardline were Buddy, O'Keefe, Hunter, Petrie, Miller, Anthony and McKinley. Our backline is fine. He has drafted Lake, Williams, Hargrave, Morris and Tiller, all of whom can play as key defenders.

Many of his key position players didn't come on, Wiggins, Wells, Bowden, Wight, Skipper and West never really showed their ability, and Walsh never got the chance too. However, I bet you could look at almost any other club and they would have a similiar record with their Kpp players, especially if they are of the equilavent value in picks (ie. Wiggins was 35, Skipper 70).

As for the rookie list, we barely even had one until a couple of years ago.

I'm not saying Clayton was a great recruiter of kpp talent. What I'm saying is that you can't judge him too harshly on never finding a Key Forward when there was barely ever one available anyway. Hindsight enables you to be harsh when analysing his selections, but really they were pretty good, and if just one of them had come on you could be singing a completely different tune.
 
Haha Williams has come along alright.
The exception that may prove the rule, although has shown plenty of potential in his brief stints on the park, they have been few and far between and has yet to put together close to a full season yet.

FWIW, touch wood, i have faith in the big fella, but still a while to go yet
 

Log in to remove this Banner Ad

There once was a problem at Footscray,
Drafting for height they did say.
A lack of good talls,
Seemed quite the downfall.
But by gee, without, they could still play. :thumbsu:
 
Griffen is a serviceable player we hope may one day turn into the elite players he threatens to, Franklin might have won us the flag last year. Everyone has 20-20 vision in hindsight, but there's no question Franklin would've been a better choice thus far.

PF, the thing you have to remember though is that Griffen was our first pick whilst Franklin was Hawthorn's second. That is why it is a bit of an unfair comparison. Because you want to use your first pick on a bankable star, someone you can be reasonably sure will be a great player for you and play 200 plus games. Griffin was that player.

Buddy was a high risk, long shot type player that most recruiters deemed as much chance to be out of the game after two years, as still being in the game. Not because of ability but because of attitude, personality, lifestyle etc. That is why Hawthorn used their first pick on Roughead, because he was a sure thing. Once they used their first pick on the safe bet, they could afford to speculate a bit on their second. For us to take a huge gamble with our first pick on Buddy, would have been a huge risk. Of course in hindsight, it looks great, but imagine if we had of used our first pick(number 3) on a guy who wasn't on our list after 2 years, Clayton would have been lynched.

That is why it is more meaningful to compare Tambling with Buddy, as they are both second picks, wheras Griffin was a first pick.
 
I wouldn't say it's a case of reaching, more of a case that Scott Clayton is completely inept at drafting key position players, and forwards in particular. In 15 years recruiting for Brisbane and the Bulldogs, Daniel Bradshaw is the only KPF he's ever successfully drafted.

Brain Lake
Tom Williams
are handy KPP

as for forwards, very difficult to get a top forward. God knows we have tried to recruit many. Confident Cordy, Grant, Roughead and Boumann will turn out allright.
 
PF, the thing you have to remember though is that Griffen was our first pick whilst Franklin was Hawthorn's second. That is why it is a bit of an unfair comparison. Because you want to use your first pick on a bankable star, someone you can be reasonably sure will be a great player for you and play 200 plus games. Griffin was that player.

Buddy was a high risk, long shot type player that most recruiters deemed as much chance to be out of the game after two years, as still being in the game. Not because of ability but because of attitude, personality, lifestyle etc. That is why Hawthorn used their first pick on Roughead, because he was a sure thing. Once they used their first pick on the safe bet, they could afford to speculate a bit on their second. For us to take a huge gamble with our first pick on Buddy, would have been a huge risk. Of course in hindsight, it looks great, but imagine if we had of used our first pick(number 3) on a guy who wasn't on our list after 2 years, Clayton would have been lynched.

That is why it is more meaningful to compare Tambling with Buddy, as they are both second picks, wheras Griffin was a first pick.

Hawthorn were just as keen on Franklin as they were on Roughead, but they knew Richmond weren't keen on Franklin. They also knew they had to take Roughead at #2 otherwise Richmond would claim him at #4, they took the punt based on Clayton's lack of success drafting talls he'd probably go the safer option of drafting Griffen, and they could take Franklin at #5, and if that didn't happen they'd still get a key forward and a running player.

I know this for a fact.

Tim Walsh at #4?
 
Hawthorn were just as keen on Franklin as they were on Roughead, but they knew Richmond weren't keen on Franklin. They also knew they had to take Roughead at #2 otherwise Richmond would claim him at #4, they took the punt based on Clayton's lack of success drafting talls he'd probably go the safer option of drafting Griffen, and they could take Franklin at #5, and if that didn't happen they'd still get a key forward and a running player.

I know this for a fact.

Tim Walsh at #4?

To be fair, there weren't any KPP stars in the Walsh draft so Clayton didn't miss any. But if they aren't there, they aren't there. Why pretend Walsh was worth pick 4 when there were plenty of better players on offer. But as someone said earlier, Walsh was Rohde's decision. Why in the world was Mastermind allowed anywhere near the draft :mad:

Everyone knew that Clayton rated Griffen #1 so Hawthorn could comfortably leave Franklin till their second pick. Franklin would've been an inspired choice and Griffen the safe one. We took the safe route, no problems there. Funny how events turn out though. Griffen is the one failing to realise his talent whereas Franklin is a bankable star. Quite the opposite to what people were predicting when they were drafted.
 
As much as we can see in hindsight about what our recruiters should have done, the only thing we should be doing is looking to the future. Cordy and Roughead will both hopefull fulfill our hopes for them and become superstars for the club.

Does anyone have any idea when either Cordy or Roughead would be making their debut?
 
What about developing talls? Are we able to develop them into the players they should be? We've had talls on our list over the past decade, but only 1 has come on - why?

We do seem to be poor in this area. From the outside it looks like we come last in the AFL in the development of players. Not sure what programs if any we have in place but the results do not seem to be there.

This thread also highlights our poor record at picking and keeping top 10 draft picks at the club. That is a waste and sets us back copared to the other clubs.
 
As much as we can see in hindsight about what our recruiters should have done, the only thing we should be doing is looking to the future. Cordy and Roughead will both hopefull fulfill our hopes for them and become superstars for the club.

Does anyone have any idea when either Cordy or Roughead would be making their debut?

Wouldn't be this year i'd imagine. Still alot of work to be done!
 

Remove this Banner Ad

I can't wait to see their debut. I've got a question, if a good tall forward (Fevola, Franklin etc) was ready to trade, who would you be willing to offload that other clubs would be interested in (Griffo, Coons etc)?

I wouldn't be interested because we'd pay oer the odds. We already have Grant, Cordy and Jones to fulfill future key forward duties. By the by, I think Grant has all the ability in the world, his hands are sensational.
 

Remove this Banner Ad

Drafting for Talls

🥰 Love BigFooty? Join now for free.

Back
Top