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Analysis Midfield - 25 year draft recap

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I'm no fan of either Billings or Gresham but surely they have to be somewhere on that list due to their sporadic contributions in midfield and the relative quality.

But Goodie's list was truly eye-opening - and eye-watering. Amazing a professional football club could be such a serial underachiever in defining and drafting midfield talent. When looked at in the contex the club has done pretty well really. I guess we traded well?
 
mighty_sainters said:
Maybe it’s been the development as much as the drafting?
Click to expand...
I absolutely agree, our development of players from maybe the halfway point of the first Lyon stint has been globally dreadful, but we did ok with a handful of players, which suggests drafting has been the main problem.

Would Sinclair have shone earlier if the great Richo hadn't stuck him in a forward pocket? Would depth players like Newnes, Ed Phillips and Ross have become hardened warriors in better teams? Would Billings and Gresham have progressed better if we'd developed them in a single role, rather than move them around? That's all about development.

We've been pretty unlucky with injuries too, but every team has their sob stories.

EDIT: Just looked at our draftees from 2000 to 2016 - hardly any mids there, and less that had any AFL career of note. Why didn't we want to draft midfielders?
 
mighty_sainters said:
Maybe it’s been the development as much as the drafting?
Click to expand...


We drafted less of them than a normal club would, lost interest if they didn't come good quickly and didn't seem to have any long term plan with our list management.

Development is pretty similar across all clubs. The part that differs is probably putting games into kids and identifying which players are worth persisting with. We didn't take drafting or list management seriously for about a decade. Trout got promoted to list management after ****ing up our drafting.
 

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I think the last 20 years of drafting/recruiting has possibly been the worst of any club in the history of the AFL/VFL. I doubt there is a single player recruited/drafted in that period that would be considered an elite midfielder, maybe Steele touched that level briefly. Even in St Kilda's bleak history we have never had such a sustained period midfield ordinariness. Maybe 74 - 87?

It is made even more damning by the fact that we walked straight past 2 or 3 generational midfield talents in that period.

Let's face it. St Kilda is not a serious club. It is not run by serious people, it has little or no voice in the AFL world (when it speaks up it gets told to shut up), it constantly makes unfathomably bad decisions on and off the field, it has very poor engagement with fans or corporate.

In the 20 tens we bemoaned the lack of a quality mid. In the 20 twenties it is beyond that, we bemoan the ability to build a team. Yes the midfield ranks amongst the worst in the AFL but there are holes everywhere plugged by some very average players.

We sit here again, in the 3rd "rebuild" since the our golden year, with fingers again crossed that some of our young talent suddenly flicks the switch and becomes an AFL champion.
 
Ricmel said:
I think the last 20 years of drafting/recruiting has possibly been the worst of any club in the history of the AFL/VFL. I doubt there is a single player recruited/drafted in that period that would be considered an elite midfielder, maybe Steele touched that level briefly. Even in St Kilda's bleak history we have never had such a sustained period midfield ordinariness. Maybe 74 - 87?

It is made even more damning by the fact that we walked straight past 2 or 3 generational midfield talents in that period.

Let's face it. St Kilda is not a serious club. It is not run by serious people, it has little or no voice in the AFL world (when it speaks up it gets told to shut up), it constantly makes unfathomably bad decisions on and off the field, it has very poor engagement with fans or corporate.

In the 20 tens we bemoaned the lack of a quality mid. In the 20 twenties it is beyond that, we bemoan the ability to build a team. Yes the midfield ranks amongst the worst in the AFL but there are holes everywhere plugged by some very average players.

We sit here again, in the 3rd "rebuild" since the our golden year, with fingers again crossed that some of our young talent suddenly flicks the switch and becomes an AFL champion.
Click to expand...

Firstly, Steele finished 3rd in the Brownlow and made 2 All-Australian teams. There is no maybe.

Secondly, you don't think Bassatt is being serious when he accurately raises the broken draft? I can understand the dissatisfaction with our current place in the landscape, but we are clearly acting seriously and refusing to be quietly passive any more, at least in the front office.
 
The Punter said:
Secondly, you don't think Bassatt is being serious when he accurately raises the broken draft? I can understand the dissatisfaction with our current place in the landscape, but we are clearly acting seriously and refusing to be quietly passive any more, at least in the front office.
Click to expand...
I thought Bassatt said what a lot of football people are thinking. I have no issue with that. It is not what I am talking about. Nor are my musings directed just at the Bassatt era. Saints have stumbled from crisis to crisis since....I don't know when.

Is the current administration getting any better? I am not sure. I think the one great decision StKFC has made in last 25 years was back to Moorabbin and most of what that entails. That was a pre-Bassatt decision and only rectified probably the stupidest decision the club has ever made.

I didn't love the coaching appointment process. It did not seem overly rigorous or transparent to me. Didn't love what then came with it, the appointment of multiple ex-Saints players. That seemed almost building an echo chamber. I don't love that no progress has been made getting more games at G, no progress has been made getting a marquee game, branding still seems poor - little community engagement with the local community, haven't been able to put any sort of "destination" theme around the club despite the fact that it is a couple of kms up the road from where players want to live. Don't like the Hail Mary bids on players - we look foolish. We are still 15th for membership and there are no bragging rights being ahead of GWS, Gold Coast and Roos. Not 100% sure where our debt position is but we have not monetised Moorabbin where we only own bricks and mortar, fixtures and fittings.

We'll wait and see but so far it has been mostly words.
 
I think the club has thought it can outsmart everyone else with recruiting over the past 20 or so years. If we'd just picked the general consensus next best healthy player in an area of need we would have been far better off.

But we love to take a slider with injury issues (Bytel types) or athletes without much exposed form at the top level (Brad Howard types), thinking that we've just landed the next Joel Selwood or Mark Blicavs.

I hold nothing against the club for taking Billings and Gresham, because they were actually logical choices at the time. McCartin over Petracca and McKenzie over Touk Miller are absolutely unforgivable displays of incompetence
 
Ricmel said:
I thought Bassatt said what a lot of football people are thinking. I have no issue with that. It is not what I am talking about. Nor are my musings directed just at the Bassatt era. Saints have stumbled from crisis to crisis since....I don't know when.

Is the current administration getting any better? I am not sure. I think the one great decision StKFC has made in last 25 years was back to Moorabbin and most of what that entails. That was a pre-Bassatt decision and only rectified probably the stupidest decision the club has ever made.

I didn't love the coaching appointment process. It did not seem overly rigorous or transparent to me. Didn't love what then came with it, the appointment of multiple ex-Saints players. That seemed almost building an echo chamber. I don't love that no progress has been made getting more games at G, no progress has been made getting a marquee game, branding still seems poor - little community engagement with the local community, haven't been able to put any sort of "destination" theme around the club despite the fact that it is a couple of kms up the road from where players want to live. Don't like the Hail Mary bids on players - we look foolish. We are still 15th for membership and there are no bragging rights being ahead of GWS, Gold Coast and Roos. Not 100% sure where our debt position is but we have not monetised Moorabbin where we only own bricks and mortar, fixtures and fittings.

We'll wait and see but so far it has been mostly words.
Click to expand...
This is interesting, because the attitude to leaving Moorabbin and moving to Seaford was entirely unserious. Not only was the attitude to the Seaford location very immature (no more coffee!), but despite not being the best facilities in the league, they were an upgrade on Moorabbin at the time. This immature attitude was led by senior players who couldn't deal with the inconvenience. I am happy we are back at Moorabbin now, but Essendon's training ground isn't in a nicer location than Seaford, they're a basketcase and I haven't heard one story of a complaint about them leaving Windy Hill.

I also think chasing multiple home games at the G is a fool's errand. The AFL isn't about to schedule four games there a weekend. One marquee game for Spud's Game against a strong Victorian team is good enough and realistic. We just need a better deal at Marvel and we need Saints fans to turn up to games through thick and thin (we don't). Marvel is awesome when full, awful when not.

Not enough people who identify as St Kilda fans care sufficiently about the club to get us up the membership ladder without onfield success. That pretty much rules out bottoming out, quite aside from the issue with it no longer working.

Also we can't be serious without obvious performative ambition. That means the hail marys and the advocacy in improving the draft (which is realistically all Bassatt is after - he's not going full The Punter).

In the final analysis, the only thing that matters is winning games and when not winning, not losing like the last two weeks. The Monday shows demonstrate that pretty well.
 
Can't seem to get this midfield issue sorted out can we. I spoke to some at the club socially when Richo took over about the importance of recruiting midfielders, and there seemed be a lack of interest- more looking for the next Plugger or Roo. I think we had promising signs early under Ratten when Jack Steele was younger and in great form, Clark coming along nicely, and we had Paddy and Roma working well together, but we didn't have much in reserve when Steele, Clark and then Jones had various injuries, and of course we dropped away when Paddy left.

Look at us now, Steele is not the player of a few years back and seems to have lost some of his defensive game, Clark hasn't really gotten over injuries, and at least Jones is giving us something. Recruiting McRae has helped, but clearly he and Steele together make a very slow midfield. Nas looks great when he spends time in the guts, but we really lack a powerful gut runner mid. Trav, Windy and Garcia may improve in time, Boxshall may come on, but the jury is out. What exactly will be the ruck strategy when Roma gets injured? We have Heath and Boyd at Sandy, Keeler who has skills, but his core strength and tank still needs developing to be a ruck or a backup ruck.
Buggered if I know.
 
gringo2011 said:
Not just mids. That period of drafting after 2012 until 2021 was the worst use of the national draft of any club ever. After about 2002 we started to lose momentum but had a few good ones amongst them. Post 2012 it was comically bad.
Click to expand...

They seemed to think they were shopping in K-Mart or something, "ok we'll grab a ruckman this year" without looking at the players in those drafts and actually getting the best.

First decade of the 25 years.

Who we got. Highest rated available mid. Arguably best mid. Right or wrong, others.
2000: Riewoldt , Didak, Burgoyne, Right. Was Mark Gale a mid?
2001: Ball , Judd, Judd, Wrong, DalSanto, Montagna .
2002: BJ, BJ, Brennan or McVeigh? Right. NONE.
2003: Raphael Clarke( HBF), maybe Ryley Dunn, David Mundy. Maybe, NONE.
2004: Andrew McQualter. Probably McQualter, Maybe Mat Rosa. Maybe, it was a spud draft, McGough, Luke Mullins.
2005: Sam Gilbert, ? , Andrew Swallow, Right. None.
2006: Armitage, Armitage, probably Armo. Right. CJ, Geary.
2007: McEvoy, Dangerfield, Dangerfield . Wrong in the long run. Steven. Eljay Connors.
2008: Tom Lynch, Shoey or Zhaharakis, Probably Dayne Beams. Wrong. Alistair Smith.
2009: Nicholas Winmar, Who knows, Don't see any i like. Wrong.

So between 2000 and 2004. We tried to draft 7 mids 3 were good.
Between 2005 and 2009 we tried to draft 6 mids. 4 were successful.

Rookies tended to be players who had already been delisted from other clubs, did we think we were smarter?
We seemed to waste a lot of trades and later draft picks on prospective talls that didn't work out.
 
BJ
stuv
Ross
Armo
Dunstan
Gresham

That’s it, there is no 7-10

Players from national draft.
For comparison I looked at the lions:

Mcluggage
Zorko
Yeo (traded away)
Rockliff
Redden
Berry

Only A/B grade mids to note before they got gifted Ashcroft brothers

Carlton, random just thought they had a lot of mids off the top of my head:

Cripps
Walsh
murphy
Gibbs
Curnow
Grigg (traded out)
….
Mitch robbo?
Jagga smith might be good?

So far starting to seem like 6 CBA mids drafted over 20-25 years is par.

Collingwood:
Pendlebury
swan
Sidebottom
Beams
Daicoses (Father sons)
Degoey
….
That’s about it

Triple flag tigers:

Dusty
Cotchin
Delidio
Edwards
Bolton
Tuck…
Foley
Jackson
Graham (into very C grade territory here)

Essendon?
merret
Watson
Stanton
Parish
Heppel
….

Cats 2001 draft: Ablett, Bartel, Kelly, Stevie J wow!
Since 2002:
Selwood
Duncan
Holmes
Kelly(traded out)
Guthrie
Menegola

Obviously all these clubs Drafted others, as did we (your bytels and Tommy ledgers)
Despite the narrative here,
Our strike rate on 150+ game mids at the draft is very similar to other clubs.

Philipou and Wanganeen look mids of the future.
Windy too with Garcia and Boxhall showing signs.
Club thinks Wilson and Travaglia will be in time.
 
Saintbloke said:
Can't seem to get this midfield issue sorted out can we. I spoke to some at the club socially when Richo took over about the importance of recruiting midfielders, and there seemed be a lack of interest- more looking for the next Plugger or Roo. I think we had promising signs early under Ratten when Jack Steele was younger and in great form, Clark coming along nicely, and we had Paddy and Roma working well together, but we didn't have much in reserve when Steele, Clark and then Jones had various injuries, and of course we dropped away when Paddy left.

Look at us now, Steele is not the player of a few years back and seems to have lost some of his defensive game, Clark hasn't really gotten over injuries, and at least Jones is giving us something. Recruiting McRae has helped, but clearly he and Steele together make a very slow midfield. Nas looks great when he spends time in the guts, but we really lack a powerful gut runner mid. Trav, Windy and Garcia may improve in time, Boxshall may come on, but the jury is out. What exactly will be the ruck strategy when Roma gets injured? We have Heath and Boyd at Sandy, Keeler who has skills, but his core strength and tank still needs developing to be a ruck or a backup ruck.
Buggered if I know.
Click to expand...

When we have found decent mids, ( since 2001) they seem to have had their careers cut short for whatever reason.
Armitage - Injury
Steven - Personal Issues.
Stevens - Concussion.
Crouch - Injury.
It seems a long time since we had Robert Harvey playing well into his late 30s.

I believe we've had a certain amount of bad luck when it comes to available drafts, but we've combined the bad luck with bad management and made a total hash of it.

There are some monumental hash ups just in the first decade i listed.
Trading for Heath Black, only to have him vanish in a puff of Fiora. ( We'd have probably drafted Gram ).
Trading for Brooks ( Could have got Andrew Mackie and Kade Simpson ).
Trading for Watts ( IDK it was a crap draft , Max Bailey ?)
Trading for Lovett ( Nathan Fyfe, Coby Stevens, or Jake Carlisle ).
Luke Ball negotiations. ( Max Gawn or David Astbury ).
 

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There is, of course, a chance we have the right midfield now, they're just all too young to rely on yet.

Windhager
Travaglia
NWM
Wilson
Phillipou
Boxshall
Garcia

Not one of these lads is 23 years old yet.

It would take quite a bit of strength to just stay the course though.
 
Ricmel said:
I think the last 20 years of drafting/recruiting has possibly been the worst of any club in the history of the AFL/VFL. I doubt there is a single player recruited/drafted in that period that would be considered an elite midfielder, maybe Steele touched that level briefly. Even in St Kilda's bleak history we have never had such a sustained period midfield ordinariness. Maybe 74 - 87?

It is made even more damning by the fact that we walked straight past 2 or 3 generational midfield talents in that period.

Let's face it. St Kilda is not a serious club. It is not run by serious people, it has little or no voice in the AFL world (when it speaks up it gets told to shut up), it constantly makes unfathomably bad decisions on and off the field, it has very poor engagement with fans or corporate.

In the 20 tens we bemoaned the lack of a quality mid. In the 20 twenties it is beyond that, we bemoan the ability to build a team. Yes the midfield ranks amongst the worst in the AFL but there are holes everywhere plugged by some very average players.

We sit here again, in the 3rd "rebuild" since the our golden year, with fingers again crossed that some of our young talent suddenly flicks the switch and becomes an AFL champion.
Click to expand...
I think with Lyon we’re maybe a semi-serious football club but I agree not 100% yet. We’re still operating like a team trying to play finals not win a premiership. I think we’ll get there eventually but we’re not there yet.
 
The Punter said:
There is, of course, a chance we have the right midfield now, they're just all too young to rely on yet.

Windhager
Travaglia
NWM
Wilson
Phillipou
Boxshall
Garcia

Not one of these lads is 23 years old yet.

It would take quite a bit of strength to just stay the course though.
Click to expand...
The problem is we’ve been listing names for a decade. Until they’re proven we should be all in on trying to fix it.
 
Found an outlier for success rate,
Had a hand with father sons
And ironically had a few want out.
Here’s the dogs in chronological order:

Cooney
Griffen (traded out)
Ward (traded out)
Picken
Wallis (F/S)
Libba (F/S)
Macrae
Bont
Dunkley (traded out)
Richards
Smith (Traded out)
Sanders?
 
hayes said:
The problem is we’ve been listing names for a decade. Until they’re proven we should be all in on trying to fix it.
Click to expand...
Fair enough, although if not there yet, NWM is very close to no longer being a name on a list.

Having said all that, we still don't have that explosive front of stoppage mid, and they're almost impossible to find.
 
gringo2011 said:
We drafted less of them than a normal club would, lost interest if they didn't come good quickly and didn't seem to have any long term plan with our list management.

Development is pretty similar across all clubs. The part that differs is probably putting games into kids and identifying which players are worth persisting with. We didn't take drafting or list management seriously for about a decade. Trout got promoted to list management after ****ing up our drafting.
Click to expand...
Letting Trout, Bains and Lethlean, all people who had shit list management ability all run riot with our list for so long is the key reason why we were (are) so bad for so long.

Bains and Lethlean were administration people that for some reason we allowed to be key influencers in our football department.

Bains also brought in Pelchen briefly before showing him the door.
 

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The Punter said:
Firstly, Steele finished 3rd in the Brownlow and made 2 All-Australian teams. There is no maybe.

Secondly, you don't think Bassatt is being serious when he accurately raises the broken draft? I can understand the dissatisfaction with our current place in the landscape, but we are clearly acting seriously and refusing to be quietly passive any more, at least in the front office.
Click to expand...


To me that should probably been done through diplomacy behind closed doors. Part of it is performative to appease fans because they need to get fans believing that it's not all their fault.
 
stfan said:
Letting Trout, Bains and Lethlean, all people who had shit list management ability all run riot with our list for so long is the key reason why we were (are) so bad for so long.

Bains and Lethlean were administration people that for some reason we allowed to be key influencers in our football department.

Bains also brought in Pelchen briefly before showing him the door.
Click to expand...


Lethlean doing the list review then given a role straight afterwards was surreal.
 
gringo2011 said:
To me that should probably been done through diplomacy behind closed doors. Part of it is performative to appease fans because they need to get fans believing that it's not all their fault.
Click to expand...

We lost on the weekend so you're negative.

Sometimes you need to embarrass someone to get them to act. Quiet has clearly not worked for us. Loud worked for club mouthpieces such as Eddie and Sheeds. Gold Coast got a pretty good deal in the end too IIRC, and their former President liked to talk publicly. I don't think think this is about blame shifting, and every time Bassatt has been publicly questioned about past failures he's taken responsibility for them on behalf of the club.

The system needs to change, and it won't happen without strong public advocacy for that change. TWELVE extra first round picks this year anticipated due to father-son and academies. Also, only seven teams have made preliminary finals in the last four seasons. Those two facts are directly related.
 
The Punter said:
We lost on the weekend so you're negative.

Sometimes you need to embarrass someone to get them to act. Quiet has clearly not worked for us. Loud worked for club mouthpieces such as Eddie and Sheeds. Gold Coast got a pretty good deal in the end too IIRC, and their former President liked to talk publicly. I don't think think this is about blame shifting, and every time Bassatt has been publicly questioned about past failures he's taken responsibility for them on behalf of the club.

The system needs to change, and it won't happen without strong public advocacy for that change. TWELVE extra first round picks this year anticipated due to father-son and academies. Also, only seven teams have made preliminary finals in the last four seasons. Those two facts are directly related.
Click to expand...

If they have to pay up with FRPs I don’t care. We chose not to take a heap of academy kids last year believing that it limited our choices. Not all academy kids work out. CMac at the Hawks could end up a GOP and Phillipou a star. Sometimes it ends up limiting your choices. Fair value and no one needs to get upset.

We look like we have a good kid for this year and now don’t get to buy him with junk time picks so we ****ed ourselves a bit. CMacs brother and others next year too.
 

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Analysis Midfield - 25 year draft recap

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