Port Adelaide's drafting success

[Peninsula Boy]

How can you be so sure the drafting of the talls is good, and that it's the coaching/development of them that is bad? What evidence do we have?

None of the talls we've drafted have gone on to do anything of note elsewhere. We've traded out Howard and Ladhams, and they've not developed any better elsewhere.

Our drafting may be decent for midsize players, but it's not been good for talls. I don't think it has anything to do with development, we've simply done a poor job at drafting them.

I did a huge post about it last year to start the ball rolling about all of this sort of thing. I get a bit sick and tired of answering questions I've nailed a year ago.

In 13 years, Hinkley has never developed a great KP player, back, forward or ruck. Not a sausage.

I noted that the guys who have done well were drafted earlier. They were Marshall, Georgiades and Clurey. I think that was it. So in 13 years, Hinkley's inner development of talls is Marshall, Georgiades and Clurey. 13 freakin' years. That's it.

Do we have a guy like Brody Mihocek, Nick Larkey, Josh Treacy, Jake Waterman or Maboir Chol [3 different clubs] over Hinkley's tenure who was taken late in the draft or rookied and we developed them? I don't see any evidence.

One thing I think we do agree on is that we've had poor tall development and it is either poor drafting or poor development or something in between.

Hinkley has been seen to be useless at just about everything except keeping his job.

 

[The Hobo]

I did a huge post about it last year to start the ball rolling about all of this sort of thing. I get a bit sick and tired of answering questions I've nailed a year ago.

In 13 years, Hinkley has never developed a great KP player, back, forward or ruck. Not a sausage.

I noted that the guys who have done well were drafted earlier. They were Marshall, Georgiades and Clurey. I think that was it. So in 13 years, Hinkley's inner development of talls is Marshall, Georgiades and Clurey. 13 freakin' years. That's it.

Do we have a guy like Brody Mihocek, Nick Larkey, Josh Treacy, Jake Waterman or Maboir Chol [3 different clubs] over Hinkley's tenure who was taken late in the draft or rookied and we developed them? I don't see any evidence.

One thing I think we do agree on is that we've had poor tall development and it is either poor drafting or poor development or something in between.

Hinkley has been seen to be useless at just about everything except keeping his job.

If you look at say our SANFL development then - which of our talls that we've drafted remotely looked like making it? Who was smashing down the door to be selected and was ignored by Ken?

Who was the KP player that comes to mind that we drafted that should have made it, if not for Ken's poor development? I genuinely can't think of any.

Then the next point becomes - if they were that talented/good and only lacked development, why did no other team then jump on the player after we delisted/trade them?

Teakle got picked up, but hasn't really amounted to much.
Howard got traded, he's ok - about as good as he was here despite being under Ross.
Ladhams is about as good as he was for us (probably a bit worse to be honest)

I'm not seeing strong drafting of talls in our recent history, so i'm more inclined to put the blame on the drafting than Ken.

Ken's development of players and getting commitment out of players has never been the issue. Very rarely do players leave Port and go on to improve significantly.

His gameplan etc. can all be questioned, and rightfully so. But he's always got the best out of players individually.

 

[powerrrrrrrrrrrr]

You’re not going to develop many KPP when they’re all drafted at 60+ and rookies.

That’s not a development issue, it’s a massive list management issue and has been for a decade.

1/20 might become a decent player. We’ve gone all in on this basket and not spread the talent.

 

[Long live PAFC]

Oh gees.

Port has done well in drafting across the rounds and years. We’ve had one or two really bad calls but generally we’ve done well, often with not much.

As to port’s talls drafting or development.

• KPFs come from the first round outside of NGAs, Academies, mature agers etc.
• talls can take time to develop
• plenty of talls just aren’t up to it
• you can only play so many talls, particularly developing talls at once
• you have to factor in game plan and structure - plenty of teams play one or two key forwards or backs and sometimes playing an extra tall hurts you with teams rebounding
• if you trade in talls, typically they’ll get games. Ie you don’t trade in Dixon and then play Mason Shaw or whoever instead.
• KPP development doesn’t stop after a couple of years, so to suggest that the current port admin didn’t have a hand in the performance of traded in players or those drafted prior to 2013 is being wholly unfair.
• plenty of teams trade in talls, and over pay for them because drafting and developing can be a crap shoot. See what the hawks paid for Barrass, contrast that to what we paid for Ratugolea, or Cameron and Dixon.
• context is needed too, we had Aliir, Bobby, Hombsch, Jonas, Clurey and Trengove all holding down defensive spots during the 2010s - a late draftee like Pasini or Grundy is unlikely to get ahead of this group. Can’t really blame for choosing 3 prelims over the development of some late round talls - cause that’s the likely cost of ‘getting games into them’ as we are seeing with Lord (no our shit form is not all his fault)

It would be great if port could use more early picks on talls - when we have picks and appropriate players to select. But we’ve rarely had the options too.

It would be great if port turned every tall player drafted into a winner, but no team does.

As to our drafting and developing of talls, (recently) the only failures, from players that should/could have maybe become something are Shaw and Butcher. And Shaw is a second round KPF - so lower chance of success.

The proof has been in the pudding for the talls that haven’t made it - they simply weren’t good enough. Ladhams hasn’t magically become awesome at Sydney. Lienert, Howard, Austin - didn’t magically become good at st Kilda (to be fair, no player does), Hayes was at Essendon’s VFL program with a brother at the bombers and the Dons have no rucks yet he couldn’t find a way on to a list at the MSD.

Meanwhile Aliir AA after coming to port, Dixon AA at port, Ryder AA at port, Schulz AA squad at port, Finlayson an elite ruck at port, Hombsch a solid backman at port.

Sometimes there is more to the story than just Port bad.

 

[Peninsula Boy]

If you look at say our SANFL development then - which of our talls that we've drafted remotely looked like making it? Who was smashing down the door to be selected and was ignored by Ken?

Who was the KP player that comes to mind that we drafted that should have made it, if not for Ken's poor development? I genuinely can't think of any.

Then the next point becomes - if they were that talented/good and only lacked development, why did no other team then jump on the player after we delisted/trade them?

Teakle got picked up, but hasn't really amounted to much.
Howard got traded, he's ok - about as good as he was here despite being under Ross.
Ladhams is about as good as he was for us (probably a bit worse to be honest)

I'm not seeing strong drafting of talls in our recent history, so i'm more inclined to put the blame on the drafting than Ken.

Ken's development of players and getting commitment out of players has never been the issue. Very rarely do players leave Port and go on to improve significantly.

His gameplan etc. can all be questioned, and rightfully so. But he's always got the best out of players individually.

I generally agree with the majority of your post but I don't know about Hinkley getting the best out of players when we are known for looking scrawny, players can't hold tackles well, pull out of contests, they can't, kicking for goal has not been great, etc.

During the Hinkley era, the Power players usually coast on their natural skills and connection with Ken to get games. The apotheosis of this is the former captain who will play a 1000 games for the Power but miss crucial goals late in the game, especially in finals.

And then I'm not going to even go into the mentality that the coach breeds into the players, one of losing.

I think there is bleed between the two sides of this but all I can say is that in 13 years, Hinkley has developed no rucks from scratch, for forwards only Marshall and Georgiades and in my other posts, I talked about that Marshall is one of those key forwards that is very skilled and would naturally develop anyway and defensively Clurey and that is cluzzing at straws to be truthful.

You would think if he was a good developer of talent that he would've snapped a couple but it is not the case.

And then people get angry at our Trading Guys when they have to overpay for Zerk, Rat, Sweet and Soldo. They are overpaying based on Hinkley's lack of developing talls.

 

[Long live PAFC]

I generally agree with the majority of your post but I don't know about Hinkley getting the best out of players when we are known for looking scrawny, players can't hold tackles well, pull out of contests, they can't, kicking for goal has not been great, etc.

During the Hinkley era, the Power players usually coast on their natural skills and connection with Ken to get games. The apotheosis of this is the former captain who will play a 1000 games for the Power but miss crucial goals late in the game, especially in finals.

And then I'm not going to even go into the mentality that the coach breeds into the players, one of losing.

I think there is bleed between the two sides of this but all I can say is that in 13 years, Hinkley has developed no rucks from scratch, for forwards only Marshall and Georgiades and in my other posts, I talked about that Marshall is one of those key forwards that is very skilled and would naturally develop anyway and defensively Clurey and that is cluzzing at straws to be truthful.

You would think if he was a good developer of talent that he would've snapped a couple but it is not the case.

And then people get angry at our Trading Guys when they have to overpay for Zerk, Rat, Sweet and Soldo. They are overpaying based on Hinkley's lack of developing talls.

So by your metrics - a coach needs to have the player drafted during their tenure, not move elsewhere, be solid and reach 100 ish games to be counted as having developed a player?

Under those terms Longmire had Callum Sinclair and Tom McCartin reach those levels. Everyone else had come from elsewhere, been drafted prior to him becoming head coach, left before reaching a hundred games or hadn’t reached close to a 100 games by end of his tenure. Longmire is comfortably a better coach than Hinkley but seems to also be unable to develop talls.

Development is more complex than this. Lots of different factors impact it. It’s also not unreasonable to draft developed talls.

Melbourne won a flag on the back of bringing in Lever, May and Brown. Geelong have added Henderson, Clarke, Cameron, Stanley - over the years. Brisbane added Daniher, Fort. Richmond took Lynch, Hawthorn added Lake and Frawley and, more recently, Barrass, Frost, Chol, Meek. GWS added Hogan, Collingwood various talls, Sydney have taken Franklin, Tippett and Grundy just to name a few. Turns out it’s better to pay for an establish tall than use the draft capital and time required to develop talls.

 

[Peninsula Boy]

So by your metrics - a coach needs to have the player drafted during their tenure, not move elsewhere, be solid and reach 100 ish games to be counted as having developed a player?

Under those terms Longmire had Callum Sinclair and Tom McCartin reach those levels. Everyone else had come from elsewhere, been drafted prior to him becoming head coach, left before reaching a hundred games or hadn’t reached close to a 100 games by end of his tenure. Longmire is comfortably a better coach than Hinkley but seems to also be unable to develop talls.

Development is more complex than this. Lots of different factors impact it. It’s also not unreasonable to draft developed talls.

Melbourne won a flag on the back of bringing in Lever, May and Brown. Geelong have added Henderson, Clarke, Cameron, Stanley - over the years. Brisbane added Daniher, Fort. Richmond took Lynch, Hawthorn added Lake and Frawley and, more recently, Barrass, Frost, Chol, Meek. GWS added Hogan, Collingwood various talls, Sydney have taken Franklin, Tippett and Grundy just to name a few. Turns out it’s better to pay for an establish tall than use the draft capital and time required to develop talls.

The basics of my argument is that I haven't seen much tall development from the ground up in 13 years. Is it really that hard to understand? I just have to see it. I've seen guys like Brody Mihocek and Mason Cox with middling talent play significant minutes on the big stage.

Another aspect that hasn't been discussed is that you can ruin potential with poor development. What I mean by that is a player could have a good potential but be ruined by poor development at the club and never recover. As you've said, there are many elements to development and the psychology of the Boys Club and a loser mentality could be a huge part of it as well.

Longmire still put games into Hayden McLean and Joel Amartey and has had good results.

The thing about buying talls and players in general is that we are under the gun with that. Apart from Collingwood or Geelong, every other Melbourne based team who are moving towards the apex of their premiership window gets to try and grab a few guys from the Gold Coast, Greater Western Sydney and other clubs. When Richmond were up, they got players but also prime Lynch. Melbourne are up and they get May and Lever. Geelong got prime Jeremy Cameron. You don't see bottom Melbourne teams getting these types of great forwards. St Kilda or Western Bulldogs or North Melbourne aren't destinations.

I don't have an issue with trading for talls but just because of the way it is we rarely get a great talls wanting to come back home. It does happen. We've recently traded in talls with question marks though. Lukosuis, Zerk, Ratugolea and then Sweet and then Soldo. They're not Jeremy Cameron or Steven May.

And just to tie a bow with it all and hopefully escape. If we get Zemes Pilot and Douglas Cochrane, it could put our team and list into the stratosphere and really balance it up. If they come as advertised, 195cm and oozing with talent then Josh Carr will have a lot of talent at his disposal.