Roast Essendon FC the last 15 years.

[Bunk Moreland]

Incompetent leadership at Board level. Plain and simple. Everything else in a result of it.

 

[BrunoV]

We are so obsessed with the here and now and not the journey the club takes on on when building towards a premiership.

Yep. Hawthorn built on the back of the draft, particularly picking the eyes out later in the drafts and in the rookie drafts but they bring in Hale, Gibson, Lake, Frawley and Burgoyne to fill identified areas of weakness and their premierships become about the top up.

 

[Eleven 38]

We definitely needed stronger leadership at the top from the mid 90s onwards, but when you have a coach who has coached for 15+ years with 3 flags in a 10year preiod, i can understand how everyone just became yes men to Sheeds, and unfortunately it brought our downfall.

 

[rines]

I left out 2005 and 2006 because I agree.. it was shite.. pure shite.. but you can't fix that.

I would argue that since 2007 we have had once of the best recruiting/development teams in the league and it shows on field.

The draft penalties of the last two years are not the recruiters fault.. and they have made the best of a bad situation.

To come through two years of draft penalties with hopefully 3 guys of Z Merrett type quality will be a major major success.. major. In fact I can already see the sob media stories in two years time about how our penalties were 'too soft' because we have guys like Merrett, Ambrose, #17, #20.. on the list and starring in a top 4 side..

If Cooney can have the season Chappy had.. I think it will look like a master stroke.. and same as Ant said.. if Gwilt coming means that we can play Carlisle as a 'floating' tall who is essentially a tall winger.. then it releases Hurley to go forward as a swing man/crash and bash forward...

 

[HULK HOGAN]

Why do we insist on comparing ourselves with what the top teams are doing?

Lets get a team that is actually really good and then worry about topping up like really good teams.

You know, being good enough to win a final against a mediocre opponent would be a good place to start.

So we should gift these kids games?

 

[Phone]

Can't wait to hear what gets said about this era in 15 years time

 

[GUMBLETRON]

I'm not trying to be a smart arse and I know that this will come across as patronising, but I just want to let you know.

"Tip of the iceberg" means a little part of a bigger problem. i.e. you can always see the top part (tip) of the iceberg above water, but there's actually a whole lot more underneath that you cannot see.

So for example, you could say "Getting Murphy Camporeale from Carlton was the tip of the iceberg. It was a small, easy to identify thing. The bigger issue was our recruiting and list management as a whole."

Again I know this is probably a stupid and unnecessary thing to say, just thought I'd let you know, in case you were interested.

It begs the question, where did you learn so much about icebergs?

 

[BrunoV]

So we should gift these kids games?

If you have to look at it that way, yes. 2 or 3 kids should be getting games to see if we can fast track some quality runners and ball users into the side to try to transition the midfield from blue collar to something that can compete with the best.

If you keep adding senior players in front of the kids it is inevitable that it is harder for them to get games. The kids start from further behind and then need to hold on through the season when form starts to taper (usually before it comes back at the end).

If you look at the current really good teams you'll see a point at which young kids are getting gifted games (usually out of necessity not because of a pragmatic decision).


Edit: look at what Hawthorn did with Hill and Smith. Both played seriously substandard footy for a while (and even started with tendencies toward ball butchery) but were persisted with because their running power was seen as so crucial to tying their defence and attack together.

 

[yaco55]

The group of three to five year players are crucial for future. We need three or four to become good quality AFL players. Sadly, I have limited confidence in their ability.

 

[Fletched]

add in getting stuck at playing at docklands

 

[Bunk Moreland]

We definitely needed stronger leadership at the top from the mid 90s onwards, but when you have a coach who has coached for 15+ years with 3 flags in a 10year preiod, i can understand how everyone just became yes men to Sheeds, and unfortunately it brought our downfall.

It shouldn't be allowed to happen, yet it does.

It doesn't matter how influential an individual is, if we keep letting them be bigger than the club, we'll never go anywhere. The days where that worked are gone.

Evans swept to power and just installed his best mate as coach.

Such was the mess we were in post Knights, we were looking for anything to cling to.

I'm sure Evans has now learnt his lesson. Not sure the Essendon membership have.

 

[hurlygurdy]

The so called "top up" players do not worry me. Under normal circumstances we would have likely done it differently but we where not presented with
normal circumstances. The best sides build through using both methods. Goddard aside we where in a position last year where we needed to replace Crameri.
Now Chapman was not an exact replacement but he was a good enough forward to fill that hole.
This year we are going to end up with 2 top 25 picks, a reasonably good ruck in Giles, a good midfielder in Cooney and a defender who may be able to
release Hurley forward if needed..
I do not see it as a massive top up and unlike the mid 2000's the players are a bit better. On top of that our drafting is 1000% better.
The balance is pretty close to right.

The so called generation gap is garbage. If the young blokes are good enough they get in the side. We have had a number of young blokes or first year
players make an impact in the last 3 seasons while we have been bringing these blokes into the system. It is a non argument.

Not 100% sure about Gwilt, but i think Cooney is a master stroke. Cooney is a calculated risk that has very little downside. If it pays off, we have added an exact fit to our midfield requirements. The worst case scenario with him is that he plays up and down like Howlett, making him hard to drop but clogging up a spot for one of the younger guys. If that happens i fully expect TRB to be fairly brutal with him, thus alleviating peoples concerns. Best case scenario is that he is the icing on the cake that gives us an extra level of versatility, hopefully evening out our consistency. When we looked bad this year, we really looked like we lacked speed and x-factor. Cooney brings that in spades. Imagine if we could have thrown Cooney onto the ball in that third quarter against North!

 

[Old Campaigner]

It shouldn't be allowed to happen, yet it does.

It doesn't matter how influential an individual is, if we keep letting them be bigger than the club, we'll never go anywhere. The days where that worked are gone.

Evans swept to power and just installed his best mate as coach.

Such was the mess we were in post Knights, we were looking for anything to cling to.

I'm sure Evans has now learnt his lesson. Not sure the Essendon membership have.

Yeah it was kind of unfortunate timing in that AFL clubs went from a semi-professional outfit where the coach has huge influence to highly professional organisations where the coach is just another piece of the puzzle among many others. Very hard to say to someone of Sheed's stature and success that he needs to be more and more controlled and accountable. I don't blame the club for that because I think it unreasonable to expect any club to rein in someone like Sheedy but it really does need to be something we consider going into the future.