Toast Not bottoming out

[CharacterFirst]

The club has done very well.

Here's to never bottoming out - always another mouthful in the glass.

 

[geelong_crazy26]

I don't think things like being a destination club are permanent. It's not so much ladder position but quality on the list, Talent attracts other talent, Hawthorn will find this out in a couple of years post Mitchell and Hodge and co. You need to be able to sell the club otherwise you end up paying overs. Selwood, Hawkins and Taylor were our selling points. We have quite a few good kids on our list but none of them look to be on that level. None who you could point to as someone to hold the club up.

And we won't have a lot of trade currency for a long time, we can't trade a first round pick until 2019. The draft is a loaded game of chance, it hasn't been in our favour for a while and won't be for the foreseeable future.

We're going to require a full rebuild with no short cuts.

Strongly disagree . Geelong will always be a destination club due to its geographical location , if you want to live a regional lifestyle in Victoria than you have to play for Geelong . This appeals to a number of players given the stress and demands placed on a modern day player .

Geelong is also a club that looks after its people both on and off the field better than most. This is evident by the way we have stuck by so many injury prone players .Its just a fact that people want to work for an organisation that genuinely cares about them . We haven't sacked a coach in the past 25 years, we stick by our people .

We also have a strong brand , I remember a few years ago when west coast was down the bottom of the ladder and the media just kept on saying they will back because they are a successful club . Hopefully with a few more premierships we can further enhance what is already a strong brand . The bulldogs ,Melbourne and St Kilda have a talented young lists but I think everyone is wondering if its going to crash and burn .

 

[catempire]

We're going to require a full rebuild with no short cuts.

I don't buy that. And the plan of the club would be the exact opposite.

 

[jim boy]

A fall will happen , the question is how low will we fall and for how long ?

Yeah- but we just do not bottom out. We've never finished bottom 4 in the AFL, I dont think we've ever finished lower than 12th in 150+ years of playing footy. We haven't 'won' the wooden spoon for 58 years, and even then we still won five matches - enough to avoid the wooden spoon in all AFL years bar one. The last time we were truly horrible was in the mid-40's when the team was resurrected from scratch without the benefits of drafts.

Common sense suggests we should fall, history suggests we won't.

 

[RegHickeyStand]

Yeah- but we just do not bottom out. We've never finished bottom 4 in the AFL, I dont think we've ever finished lower than 12th in 150+ years of playing footy. We haven't 'won' the wooden spoon for 58 years, and even then we still won five matches - enough to avoid the wooden spoon in all AFL years bar one. The last time we were truly horrible was in the mid-40's when the team was resurrected from scratch without the benefits of drafts.

Common sense suggests we should fall, history suggests we won't.

We didn't finish lower than 12th for such a long time. No-one did.

 

[Art Vandelay_]

Yeah- but we just do not bottom out. We've never finished bottom 4 in the AFL, I dont think we've ever finished lower than 12th in 150+ years of playing footy. We haven't 'won' the wooden spoon for 58 years, and even then we still won five matches - enough to avoid the wooden spoon in all AFL years bar one. The last time we were truly horrible was in the mid-40's when the team was resurrected from scratch without the benefits of drafts.

Common sense suggests we should fall, history suggests we won't.

Our last spoon was iirc just after we re-entered the VFL during WWII and in those two years of cessation by the GFC some of our players left for Melbourne clubs. Not long after that we recruited Davis, Smith, Middlemiss, Turner, Flanagan, Pianto, Trezise and Goninon who formed the nucleus of the 51/52 B2B premiership teams

 

[supahoops]

Mention of 2021 got me thinking..

Guthrie Gardiner Ruggles
Thurlow Henderson Kolodjasnij
Duncan Blicavs Cockatoo
Menzel Stanley Motlop
Caddy Hawkins McCarthy
Smith Selwood Dangerfield

Menegola Selwood Cowan Lang

Eldest players being 33. Managed well you'd hope they'd all have a claim to still be going around. Sports science is only getting better. This team is going to play a hell of a lot of football together.

Gregson Smedts Parsons Bews Kersten for immediate depth along with our current veterans. Hayball, Cunico, Buzza you'd hope one could make the grade.

That's why I think Murdoch, GHS and Vardy ought to be cashed in now.

With 5 years of drafting, father-son, free agency and more and more being seen as a destination club regards trading I'm fairly upbeat about not only the next five but the five beyond that. Who honestly thought in 2011 that with Ablett gone as well as Ottens, Chapman, Scarlett, Mooney, Milburn, Corey, Ling, Stokes, Kelly, Christensen, Hunt, Johnson, Podsiadly, Wojinski and Varcoe that we'd be flag favourites 5 years later.

Not expecting miracles but equally I don't think we are about to fall off a cliff anytime soon, even post Dangerfield-Selwood-Hawkins.

 

[Tyzza_07_09_11]

Would be fitting if they named a stand after him or erected a statue of him in front of the new stand. If it wasn't for the likes of him, the club would've gone the same way as Fitzroy.

Why couldn't they have done something like this? The stand is pretty obviously split already, almost as obviously as the players/premiership stands.
He certainly deserves one, and Cooky may even deserve something (gate, statue) one day when he has finished up.

 

[Mad_Hatter]

Why couldn't they have done something like this? The stand is pretty obviously split already, almost as obviously as the players/premiership stands.
He certainly deserves one, and Cooky may even deserve something (gate, statue) one day when he has finished up.



View attachment 290974

"The Costa-Cook Stand" sounds good to me, absolutely they deserve recognition.
Likewise Stephen Wells but I reckon they are going to rename the team the "Wells Cats" such is his importance.

 

[Tyzza_07_09_11]

"The Costa-Cook Stand" sounds good to me, absolutely they deserve recognition.
Likewise Stephen Wells but I reckon they are going to rename the team the "Wells Cats" such is his importance.

Yeah I thought that the costa cook stand sounded good too, but I think cooky would have to be at least a few years out of the club first though.

 

[Catsace]

Yeah- but we just do not bottom out. We've never finished bottom 4 in the AFL, I dont think we've ever finished lower than 12th in 150+ years of playing footy. We haven't 'won' the wooden spoon for 58 years, and even then we still won five matches - enough to avoid the wooden spoon in all AFL years bar one. The last time we were truly horrible was in the mid-40's when the team was resurrected from scratch without the benefits of drafts.

Common sense suggests we should fall, history suggests we won't.

Dead right Jim Boy. I reckon the stat that shows 1973 is the last season that Geelong won fewer than seven games is pretty amazing really. No traditional club has managed that in this 43 season period, and i think only Adelaide of the newer clubs have never sunk to those levels. And in my memory, even in '82 and '83, 86, 90 and the late 90's under Ayres, plus 2003 we still won some good games, like over Port, Carlton and other top sides in those forlorn seasons.

Geelong doesn't tank, doesn't drop out. It's part of this club's tradition.

 

[JohnZ]

Why couldn't they have done something like this? The stand is pretty obviously split already, almost as obviously as the players/premiership stands.
He certainly deserves one, and Cooky may even deserve something (gate, statue) one day when he has finished up.



View attachment 290974

We have the past players stand. Does that mean we move away from reg hickey, Charles brownlow and Gary ablett? Mmm I'm not too sure really. If we did then surely cook and Costa get their own stand each

 

[JD Tomahawk]

We've come along way. I remember going to primary school one day and hearing we were going to merge with the Bulldogs. May have just been playground chit chat but we have been fortunate in recent times. I would hate to be where the tigers are now. As a kid old enough to really care between 97-06 I spent most of the time praying for a Geelong win followed by the waterworks.

 

[00VicWard001]

we were never really in much trouble of tumbling down the ladder as we gained access to some of the most talented key position players in the country. Nathan Ablett, Tom Hawkins and Harry Taylor. When it became clear Egan was in serious trouble (long-term), the club needed a ready made mature player and Taylor was the obvious choice. You then add in Motlop who has successful bloodlines and Joel Selwood taken inside the top 10 of the draft, really, not many clubs had the fortunate mix we did at exactly the right time when the club was at it's peak. You then take a close look at the longevity of such names as Corey, Kelly, Chapman, Scarlett, Enright, Bartel, Johnson, Lonergan and you can see why we were able to stay more than competitive. What is worrying is that if it was not for the signing of Patrick Dangerfield, Zac Clark and Lachie Henderson last year, I think Geelong would be in a very similar situation to what they were in last year . . . struggling too make the finals. Now is that the club deserving of a pat on the back or those three players mentioned for making us that much better immediately?

That's almost like Hawthorn saying "we wouldn't have gotten three premierships in a row if we didn't recruit Lake." Entirely meaningless. Yes, in the past teams developed players in house and trading was rare, but the world changes and we adapted with it. It's a strange argument to complain about the fact that we recruited three good players and they've made us better. What as the alternative? That those three players (we assume that they would always move) went somewhere else?

 

[00VicWard001]

Strongly disagree . Geelong will always be a destination club due to its geographical location , if you want to live a regional lifestyle in Victoria than you have to play for Geelong . This appeals to a number of players given the stress and demands placed on a modern day player .

Geelong is also a club that looks after its people both on and off the field better than most. This is evident by the way we have stuck by so many injury prone players .Its just a fact that people want to work for an organisation that genuinely cares about them . We haven't sacked a coach in the past 25 years, we stick by our people .

We also have a strong brand , I remember a few years ago when west coast was down the bottom of the ladder and the media just kept on saying they will back because they are a successful club . Hopefully with a few more premierships we can further enhance what is already a strong brand . The bulldogs ,Melbourne and St Kilda have a talented young lists but I think everyone is wondering if its going to crash and burn .

And we have the 'go home factor'. The Falcons is a footy factory and there are a lot of good ex-falcons around.

 

[FredLeDeux]

Our last spoon was iirc just after we re-entered the VFL during WWII and in those two years of cessation by the GFC some of our players left for Melbourne clubs. Not long after that we recruited Davis, Smith, Middlemiss, Turner, Flanagan, Pianto, Trezise and Goninon who formed the nucleus of the 51/52 B2B premiership teams

1957 and 1958 we were wooden spooners and effing awful, our W/L records actually flattered us.

And this was just 4 years after our greatest ever (til then) era, which you mention above, and a few of the players from that era were still even playing

You can't ever take your eye off the ball.

 

[Seeds]

As Geelong approaches another finals series and most likely finishes inside the top 4 I think we should all just pause for a moment and acknowledge what an amazing job the club has done to prevent us from bottoming out .Geelong will have played in 11 out of 13 finals series ,the only club to do better is Sydney who have had COLA and player academy's to keep them in the finals .

In 2009 and 2010 the top 4 sides both years were Geelong,St Kilda,Collingwood and the Bulldogs with all but Geelong having since spent 3 years or more out of the finals .

With the amount of talent we have lost over the past 5 years which includes 11 All Australian players we have no right to of only missed the finals once and finished no lower than 10th . We should of spent years down the bottom of the ladder losing most weeks by 10 goals plus .It will be interesting to see how Hawthorn go over the next few years .Remember over the same time frame that Geelong has lost 11 AA players Hawthorn have only lost 3 .

Some people might say that we shouldn't toast anything but a premiership , truth is that its important for us to appreciate the great work of talented people off the field such as Cook,Scott,Wells and Hocking and others because we want them all to stay Geelong people .

Now that we have avoided spending 5 years outside the 8 like we should of , we move on to competing and winning premierships .This starts in a few weeks time and will last for the next 5 years .

Go Cats , we will win at least 2 premierships over the next 5 years .

Wait 10 years before this post. We have traded for the now against the future. Basically we have kicked the can like the Eurozone and whilst it might be worthwhile the bottoming out could be huge.

 

[Hinkley29]

Wait 10 years before this post. We have traded for the now against the future. Basically we have kicked the can like the Eurozone and whilst it might be worthwhile the bottoming out could be huge.

I totally disagree with this.

The genius of the trading at the end of last year was that not only did we get players that would significantly improve our team straight away, it also rebalanced our list. At the end of 2015, the problem with our list was that we had too many older players who were still contributing but were on the decline, and we had too many younger players that were being asked to provide contributions that they weren't ready to make, and we had a gaping hole in the middle. The recruitment of Danger, Henderson, Smith and SSelwood went a long way to rectifying the gap in the middle of our list, which significantly improved us from Day 1, but also put us in a much better position to manage our list from here on.

 

[FredLeDeux]

I totally disagree with this.

The genius of the trading at the end of last year was that not only did we get players that would significantly improve our team straight away, it also rebalanced our list. At the end of 2015, the problem with our list was that we had too many older players who were still contributing but were on the decline, and we had too many younger players that were being asked to provide contributions that they weren't ready to make, and we had a gaping hole in the middle. The recruitment of Danger, Henderson, Smith and SSelwood went a long way to rectifying the gap in the middle of our list, which significantly improved us from Day 1, but also put us in a much better position to manage our list from here on.

Exactly right, we got the benefits we would have got from 4 high-quality draftees without
- the usual misses, and
- the 3-year waiting period while they learned to play footy.

We traded for the future, now.

 

[Seeds]

I totally disagree with this.

The genius of the trading at the end of last year was that not only did we get players that would significantly improve our team straight away, it also rebalanced our list. At the end of 2015, the problem with our list was that we had too many older players who were still contributing but were on the decline, and we had too many younger players that were being asked to provide contributions that they weren't ready to make, and we had a gaping hole in the middle. The recruitment of Danger, Henderson, Smith and SSelwood went a long way to rectifying the gap in the middle of our list, which significantly improved us from Day 1, but also put us in a much better position to manage our list from here on.

Incorrect. We are going to have a big hole of talent for players currently aged 17-22 because we have given away so many top draft picks from this group. When these players are aged 22-27 we may have massive problems unless Wells pulls some rabbits out of the hat or we keep trading draft picks pushing the can further down the road.

 

[catempire]

Incorrect. We are going to have a big hole of talent for players currently aged 17-22 because we have given away so many top draft picks from this group. When these players are aged 22-27 we may have massive problems unless Wells pulls some rabbits out of the hat or we keep trading draft picks pushing the can further down the road.

Last year's trade period proved you can fill a gap in an age cohort in a single trade period.

Not worried at all about it.

 

[Hinkley29]

Incorrect. We are going to have a big hole of talent for players currently aged 17-22 because we have given away so many top draft picks from this group. When these players are aged 22-27 we may have massive problems unless Wells pulls some rabbits out of the hat or we keep trading draft picks pushing the can further down the road.

In the age group you quote:

Players that have already shown that they will make it
Cockatoo (19 years old)
McCarthy (22)
Kolo (21)
Lang (20)
Bews (22)
Gregson (20)

Unknown Quantities
Buzza (20)
Hayball (19)
Cornell (19)
Gardiner (19)
Cunico (20)
Parsons (19)
Luxford (21)
Read (20)
Bates (21)

That is 15/45 on our combined lists.

We are very well balanced for the future.

 

[geelong_crazy26]

Incorrect. We are going to have a big hole of talent for players currently aged 17-22 because we have given away so many top draft picks from this group. When these players are aged 22-27 we may have massive problems unless Wells pulls some rabbits out of the hat or we keep trading draft picks pushing the can further down the road.

I used to think that trading draft picks away=trading away your future but that's wrong .

What is to stop Geelong from in 6 years time trading away draft picks for good 24-26 year olds like we did last year ?

This doesn't kick the can further down the road because 6 years after that we can do the same thing again .

 

[Mad_Hatter]

Wait 10 years before this post. We have traded for the now against the future. Basically we have kicked the can like the Eurozone and whilst it might be worthwhile the bottoming out could be huge.

No we didn't.
Basically we traded pick 9 and pick 15-18.
That's it.
To suggest that destroys the "future" is ignorant at best.
Particularly when by trading those picks we get in return 4 6+ year guns.

 

[catempire]

We do have an issue with our list age profile with our 20-22 year olds which will need to be addressed at some point like we did last year bringing in PFD, Smith, Henderson and Selwood to fill the 24-27 year old gap.