Interesting read, perhaps Essendon need to start building their recruiting team... As well as looking at a young player development coach....
Dons must get chequebook out
June 8, 2006
FOR a long time, Essendon stood out as the smart Victorian club. It built a financial house of bricks, while the other little piggies made theirs of sticks and straw. No ill economic wind, or on-field downturn, would ever blow down Windy Hill.
The club was always financially prudent and well managed. It didn't spend money it didn't have and, as a consequence of Peter Jackson's fiscal rectitude and investment strategies, it is the richest club in the competition in assets, with about $14 million worth.
But the landscape has changed, as Kevin Sheedy would know, and the time has come for the fiscally conscious Dons to unlock some of those war bonds. The canny methods that brought Essendon such success in the Sheedy era will not cut it in competition with interstate monsters such as West Coast, the Crows and even Sydney and Brisbane.
Sheedy himself seemed to recognise the new order after the Friday night massacre in Adelaide when he suggested that the Bombers would use their pole position (i.e., at the bottom) to become predators in the uncontracted player market.
In the past, Sheeds has taken pride in the fact that Essendon grew its own players rather than raiding other clubs. One 23-goal loss appears to have invalidated that tradition.
Sheedy would have us believe that Essendon's on-field recession is largely cyclical and that the draft system has finally caught up with the Bombers. He encourages the impression that Essendon are helpless victims of the socialism that undid Carlton and Collingwood, the pestilence belatedly arriving at his doorstep.
To a degree, he's right. Essendon has seldom missed the finals in his reign and, at some stage, this lack of access to elite talent was going to bite.
But, to borrow from Julius Caesar, the fault, Bombers, lies not in the stars. The "system" is only part of the story. The loss of Matthew Lloyd and James Hird might justify a 4-6 or 3-7 record, but not 1-9 with a percentage in the low 70s. And the system has hardly dented West Coast or Adelaide.
There is no point pumping up financial muscles that aren't exercised. If the Dons are to keep pace with these monsters from beyond the border (and perhaps the Lexus leviathan), they might have to spend some of those precious dollars. At least two areas are in need of urgent redress.
The first is recruiting. Essendon's recruiting manager Adrian Dodoro doubles as a welfare manager at the club and has match-day duties. Adelaide has on its full and part-time staff four people who are or have been recruiting managers at AFL clubs — James Fantasia, Kinnear Beatson (ex-Brisbane), Alan Stewart (ex-Port) and John Turnbull (Hawthorn).
Dodoro, from all reports, is a fair judge of players, so why not cut out his welfare duties? The demands on his time cannot be justified by a club with healthy profits and $14 million in the bank. Essendon spent $273,000 on recruiting last year, which is below the AFL median ($289,000). Collingwood, which admittedly spends like Rose Porteous, splurged an astonishing $623,000 on recruitment last year.
It would be surprising if the Dons weren't already considering upgrading their recruiting, which might appease some of those natives already foaming at the mouth about the alternate jumper issue. But it needs to happen quickly, preferably before the next draft, perhaps the most important in Essendon history.
The other major football query has been development. Essendon spends plenty on coaching ($1.45 million last year, second in the competition), yet it has no full-time coach devoted to developing youngsters. West Coast and Fremantle have Neil Ross and Steve Malaxos, while the Pies claim that Alan Richardson — who has no match-day duties — is the most significant of coaches it hired over summer.
Gone are the days, much loved by Sheeds, when trading a few journeyman players would deliver Lloyd and Lucas; there are fewer desperate and dumb clubs in the noughties.
The game has become about gaining a series of 1 per cent edges. The Crows use sports science to ensure players are fit and well drilled and their veterans remain remarkably productive (Ricciuto, Goodwin, McLeod, Hart, Edwards). In which part of the game does Essendon lead?
John Maynard Keynes, the godfather of modern economics, came up with the theory that governments should spend in recessions, going into debt if necessary, to stimulate recovery.
Essendon should think of following the Keynesian model. The alternative isn't an ongoing recession so much as depression for the faithful.
Dons must get chequebook out
June 8, 2006
FOR a long time, Essendon stood out as the smart Victorian club. It built a financial house of bricks, while the other little piggies made theirs of sticks and straw. No ill economic wind, or on-field downturn, would ever blow down Windy Hill.
The club was always financially prudent and well managed. It didn't spend money it didn't have and, as a consequence of Peter Jackson's fiscal rectitude and investment strategies, it is the richest club in the competition in assets, with about $14 million worth.
But the landscape has changed, as Kevin Sheedy would know, and the time has come for the fiscally conscious Dons to unlock some of those war bonds. The canny methods that brought Essendon such success in the Sheedy era will not cut it in competition with interstate monsters such as West Coast, the Crows and even Sydney and Brisbane.
Sheedy himself seemed to recognise the new order after the Friday night massacre in Adelaide when he suggested that the Bombers would use their pole position (i.e., at the bottom) to become predators in the uncontracted player market.
In the past, Sheeds has taken pride in the fact that Essendon grew its own players rather than raiding other clubs. One 23-goal loss appears to have invalidated that tradition.
Sheedy would have us believe that Essendon's on-field recession is largely cyclical and that the draft system has finally caught up with the Bombers. He encourages the impression that Essendon are helpless victims of the socialism that undid Carlton and Collingwood, the pestilence belatedly arriving at his doorstep.
To a degree, he's right. Essendon has seldom missed the finals in his reign and, at some stage, this lack of access to elite talent was going to bite.
But, to borrow from Julius Caesar, the fault, Bombers, lies not in the stars. The "system" is only part of the story. The loss of Matthew Lloyd and James Hird might justify a 4-6 or 3-7 record, but not 1-9 with a percentage in the low 70s. And the system has hardly dented West Coast or Adelaide.
There is no point pumping up financial muscles that aren't exercised. If the Dons are to keep pace with these monsters from beyond the border (and perhaps the Lexus leviathan), they might have to spend some of those precious dollars. At least two areas are in need of urgent redress.
The first is recruiting. Essendon's recruiting manager Adrian Dodoro doubles as a welfare manager at the club and has match-day duties. Adelaide has on its full and part-time staff four people who are or have been recruiting managers at AFL clubs — James Fantasia, Kinnear Beatson (ex-Brisbane), Alan Stewart (ex-Port) and John Turnbull (Hawthorn).
Dodoro, from all reports, is a fair judge of players, so why not cut out his welfare duties? The demands on his time cannot be justified by a club with healthy profits and $14 million in the bank. Essendon spent $273,000 on recruiting last year, which is below the AFL median ($289,000). Collingwood, which admittedly spends like Rose Porteous, splurged an astonishing $623,000 on recruitment last year.
It would be surprising if the Dons weren't already considering upgrading their recruiting, which might appease some of those natives already foaming at the mouth about the alternate jumper issue. But it needs to happen quickly, preferably before the next draft, perhaps the most important in Essendon history.
The other major football query has been development. Essendon spends plenty on coaching ($1.45 million last year, second in the competition), yet it has no full-time coach devoted to developing youngsters. West Coast and Fremantle have Neil Ross and Steve Malaxos, while the Pies claim that Alan Richardson — who has no match-day duties — is the most significant of coaches it hired over summer.
Gone are the days, much loved by Sheeds, when trading a few journeyman players would deliver Lloyd and Lucas; there are fewer desperate and dumb clubs in the noughties.
The game has become about gaining a series of 1 per cent edges. The Crows use sports science to ensure players are fit and well drilled and their veterans remain remarkably productive (Ricciuto, Goodwin, McLeod, Hart, Edwards). In which part of the game does Essendon lead?
John Maynard Keynes, the godfather of modern economics, came up with the theory that governments should spend in recessions, going into debt if necessary, to stimulate recovery.
Essendon should think of following the Keynesian model. The alternative isn't an ongoing recession so much as depression for the faithful.
I spent too long at uni going over his theories...and then the monetery theories, then the post keynesian theories and then the next lot of economic theory. Please dont let all that mumbo jumbo enter a good footy debate!!!
