Originally posted by Au_Blue#24
Their are more important aspects of how your lists sounds or looks like on paper - and that will never will a premiership.
Its how the team gels with each other and the coach. How the coach instills discipline, and work ethic into players. This is something that WC has done better than most clubs in the last two years.
It is something Freo has always lacked.
I said prior to this season, on paper Fremantle have one of the best lists in the comp- depending on how you define list. Their top echelon of players is outstanding- Pavlich, Hasleby, Headland and Bell all fit into the category of elite, and then they have a fair few people in the vein of Simmonds, Medhurst, Polak, Woods, McPharlin etc who are clearly pretty good players. Bias aside, I'm not sure which way I'd go if I had to argue whether the Eagles or Freo had a better selection of big names. You can put Gardiner, Cousins, Judd, Kerr, against the first four I mentioned, and its not an easy one. If Freo has a hole in their list, its just that its a shade uneven- you look at people like McManus, Walker and co. and they simply would not be getting a game with us.
As for why West Coast are better (and at this point in the season, we are, by any measuring stick you care to use) is some combination of chemistry and depth. We're sitting second on the ladder, despite having missed Wirrpunda, Kerr and Gaspar, our dominant FF is languishing in the WAFL due to two games of the type that Croad churns out every week, and we're still winning. We went up against Melbourne in Melbourne, and won sans our top #2 midfielders, our only real bona fide CHF, and our best back pocket player (and arguably, given he averages more defensive rebounds than anyone in the comp, the best one in the league) Send Freo to Melbourne minus Hasleby and Bell, Pavlich and Woods, and see how they go.
If you had to use a word for it, its chemistry. West Coast and Freo were probably in the same boat about 2 years ago- our team was shoddy due to crap drafting and overreliance on elderly sorts who'd won us flags a decade earlier, Fremantle were experiencing just how much fun you could have utilising the hacks that Neesham liked to draft with Drum's coaching smarts. By 2001, both teams were at rock bottom in terms of their list, skills and ethos.
When they both started on their road back under Connolly and Worsfold (when feeling particularly morbid, I still wonder how different the last two years would have been if Worsfold had accepted Fremantle's offer), both teams took different paths. West Coast made a conscious decision not to trade, backed the quality of the non-performers we had, and used draft picks for drafting- since Worsfold took over, we've traded for two players- Adkins and Chick, and the latter only happened because we got him at absolutely bargain basement prices.
We drafted pretty okay, and did delist a few- but with the exception of Harding, I think all of the guys who were pushed into retirement over the last few years were 'gap fillers' picked up by Judge- Merenda, Taylor, and Prior. The only exception was Harding, and lets not go there
Fremantle went for the big names, and traded for Farmer, Croad, Simmonds McPharlin and Headland, to name a few. They also did a fair amount of 'new broom' around the club, turning out people like Dodd and Shipp. I get the impression Fremantle's turnover of players has been significantly higher than West Coast's.
Both strategies have certainly improved the fortunes of either club over the dark Judge and Drum eras. The reason I think West Coast has advanced further than Fremantle so far is down to chemistry- by preserving our list and making sure the same people are still playing together, we've built a stable group who play together well, understand each other and work together. I think I remember reading that Brisbane not only have the most experienced list in the competition, they have the list that has played the most games together. The reason West Coast is substantially a better team than Fremantle at the moment doesn't have a huge amount to do with list quality, its just that we've been playing together long enough to gel.