The damage took place 1999-2006

[bigman]

If people are wanting to point the finger at our current malaise - one only has to look at our recruiting and trading during this period.

For a number of years we gave up high draft picks for hacks or people past their prime and we were literally screwed by other teams.

We gave up the opportunity to secure Pavlich and Wells and Burgoyne for our desire to recruit Carey, Bode and others. The Bode deal still brings me to tears.

We got very little in the form of talent during this time except for a good year with the rookie draft where we got Bock, Rutten and Mattner and for a few other gems eg Johncock.

The litany of poor draft picks during this time litters the stage - Watts, Kruger (31), Angwin (7), Handby (38), Smith (48), Finin (44), Schuback (59), Jericho (32), Meeson (8), Gibson (28), Pfeiffer (17), Obst (48) and that is by no means the exhaustive list. Strike me pink - its enough to give you indigestion.

What it means is that we have a vaccum of players in the 24-30 age group who can lead and take over from our champions - Goodwin, McLeod, Edwards.

What were the list managment group and recruiters thinking at this time?

The lack of these players - and elite players within this group is what is hurting us now. Look at Collingwood and Geelong - this is where their current strength lies.

It means that we could have a few years at the bottom unless we manage our young group very carefully as this is where our class and future lies.

The new Goodwins etc will come from them - Dangerfield, Tippett, Walker, Knights, Mackay, Davis, Otten, Young, Shaw, Gunston etc and hopefully from this years draft.

I saw Shaws edits the other day and they were incredibly impressive for a young man playing his first game for the year at a new club, straight form college footie. He will be a player and a very very good one at that.

This is where our future lies but it must be nurtured or else young players careers will be killed off before they start a la Richmond.

The club needs ot be a little more proactive here though - play Walker when Tippett is on the ground and have the two key men up forward.

i would play and add Davis as a forward as he looks and moves more like a forward to me and play him at CHF for periods of time.

I would play Petrenko on the ball and use him as our tagger if need be.

i would play Danger off the HBF and use his pace to break the lines as McLeod used to do on regular occasions in years past.

i would play two ruckmen for the rest of the year - and see if Griffin can finally cut the mustard. He has not so far but at last this year he is playing well at SANFL level - so it shows he has improved from a few years ago when he could not even get a game for the Centrals seniors.

i would ease Burton out of the side and bring in McKernan or Gunston.

I would be looking at Doughty at years end and move him out in favour of a young player as he seems to have lost a yard in pace.

I would try Jaensch as a small forward - but his case has not been helped by his stupidy in recent times.

I would be looking at developing a quicker side and a fmore flexible unit and I would be asking Craigy to make more moves druing the game if things go pear shaped.

But remember the past has largely created this issue. it will take some time, good drafting and some trading to turn around this sitaution for the medium and long term.

 

[Deaneus!]

Whilst our current malaise may be more complex than simply "we ain't got no players that is good between 24-30", i do agree we have been screwed on this point. It's a long-held view amongst Adelaide supporters, and it may be that we take a couple of years of pain before our (admittedly, promising) kids mature.

God help us until then.

 

[twentydollarnote]

i'd add 2007 as well with hudson and mattner in that 24-30 age group you’re talking about. They were offloaded for practically nothing.

Eade was interviewed on 'on the couch' this week saying what a great get hudson has been for them, it allowed them to send minson back to the ressies to work on a few things. Mattner also has done really well at the swans. It was a big fail losing them for so little and in that important age group you were talking about.

 

[bigman]

Whilst our current malaise may be more complex than simply "we ain't got no players that is good between 24-30", i do agree we have been screwed on this point. It's a long-held view amongst Adelaide supporters, and it may be that we take a couple of years of pain before our (admittedly, promising) kids mature.

God help us until then.

Agreed deanus - it is much more complex - injuries, too much trust in expereinced players who are no longer performing up to the level they did, players who for one reason or anothe have dropped away this year, a few deficeincies in the team plan etc. but a crtical reason is the lack of quality expereinced players.

 

[bigman]

i'd add 2007 as well with hudson and mattner in that 24-30 age group you’re talking about. They were offloaded for practically nothing.

Eade was interviewed on 'on the couch' this week saying what a great get hudson has been for them, it allowed them to send minson back to the ressies to work on a few things. Mattner also has done really well at the swans. It was a big fail losing them for so little and in that important age group you were talking about.

Can i say your right on the money here $20 note.

 

[twentydollarnote]

The other great fail in that period was not trading for another forward like a fev or someone like that (even after carey had failed) when we were having a crack at a flag, we had perrie who was a very good 2nd/3rd forward and hentschel coming through, but we still needed a number 1 tall. We ended up using welsh or mcgregor to do that, but welsh would get shut down in finals and kenny was only playing there beacuse bock had pushed him out of CHB.

John reid's reasoning was always that we werent going to pay the big bucks for the key forwards but when we finally drafted a good one with tippett we ended up having to do exactly that anyway!

 

[twentydollarnote]

Can i say your right on the money here $20 note.

The worst thing is we didnt really even need hindsight to tell, even at the time you could tell it was a bad move it just didnt feel right that we were getting rid of good players for so little.

 

[ManInTheArena]

Seriously, do you really expect to get a quality player with every pick?

These guys are young when we take them and unfortunately they don't always make it at AFL level. There have been picks post 2006 that haven't made it as well.

 

[WALL-e]

It is a black hole in our player developement. The team was mismanaged. We'll pay for it for a few more years.

 

[birdmanptr]

i'd add 2007 as well with hudson and mattner in that 24-30 age group you’re talking about. They were offloaded for practically nothing.

Eade was interviewed on 'on the couch' this week saying what a great get hudson has been for them, it allowed them to send minson back to the ressies to work on a few things. Mattner also has done really well at the swans. It was a big fail losing them for so little and in that important age group you were talking about.

Yep I still cringe when I watch Hudson play,I liked Mattner but I don't think we missed him as Otten is so good just bad luck Andy dine his knee.

But we miss Hudo for sure

 

[birdmanptr]

Seriously, do you really expect to get a quality player with every pick?

These guys are young when we take them and unfortunately they don't always make it at AFL level. There have been picks post 2006 that haven't made it as well.

I personally don't have a gripe with our drafting as it's just like lotto but we have left a bit to be desired when it comes to trading

 

[Vantz]

Seriously, do you really expect to get a quality player with every pick?

These guys are young when we take them and unfortunately they don't always make it at AFL level. There have been picks post 2006 that haven't made it as well.

I don't think we expect quality with every pick. However our first round drafting has been the greatest concern. We have a history of drafting talls that fail to deliver.

I would extend that to Sellar who in reality only played a handful of decent games in a good side as a back up ruckman last year.

Apart from Dangerfield our other first round picks (Reilly and Douglas) are at best B-Grade footballers.

 

[johnnypanther]

I still think that we will win enough games to push our draft pick down to 10 or 12 and agree with others that our prime needs are elite midfielders plus pace.

I would be going all out trying to convince an elite midfielder such as Griffen to come here and I would be offering Bock as part of a package.

Otherwise, i would be loath to trade away our 1st round pick in this draft as i think that drafting supplemented by selective trading is the best way to build a good list (much as we appear to have done drafting in the last 4 years although we really wont know for a few years).

I agree for the most part with Bigman that our drafting/trading in the 1999-2006 period was the main cause of being left with a hole in that 25-30 age group and a very distorted playing list by 2006 - the result being that we had virtually no real tradeable players of value and hardly any elite youngsters coming through.

We wasted so many draft picks from 1996-2004 in our pursuit of that big CHF/Ruck which was the missing link to complement our super midfield in chasing a premiership.

I do , however, disagree with Bigman on the recruiting of Carey as i think that at the time it was the correct decision (and Richmond, then us actually traded pick 4 not pick 2 - it just happened that the AFL screwed us as usual after the trade period was over. I have no doubt that neither Richmond nor us would have used pick 2 as a trade had either club known what was going to happen - indeed Richmond even threatened to take legal action about it.)

Thanks to our drafting over the last 4 years, what we have now is a good list in the sense that we have heaps of young players meaning that we now can trade to supplement the list deficiencies and also get us through the next 3 compromised drafts.

Whether we can attract any elite or near elite midfielders to SA is another issue and one which Port Adelaide also have to grapple with.
Maybe Westpac could employ Griffen or someone similar for $2M to be their tour guide through the Westpac Centre

 

[bigman]

Seriously, do you really expect to get a quality player with every pick?

These guys are young when we take them and unfortunately they don't always make it at AFL level. There have been picks post 2006 that haven't made it as well.

Claymonk have a look at the poor decisions taken during this itme year by year and you will be sick in your guts.

Have a look since 2006 and you will see a real improvement -not perfect - but more like you describe will happen.

Some years we now have not one player form that draft - and they should be our key players now!!!!

 

[Vader]

Some years we now have not one player form that draft - and they should be our key players now!!!!

We have nobody left from our 1999, 2002 and 2003 National Drafts. We only have 1 player left from the 1999 and 2001 National Drafts. That's 5 drafts for a grand total of 2 players still on our list.

2001 was supposedly a "super draft". The only saving grace for us that year was the Rookie Draft, which netted us Rutten, Bock and Mattner.

The record since Neil Craig took over (giving the recruiting team a free rein) has been better - 2004 (3 remaining), 2005 (2 remaining), 2006 (3 remaining). Beyond that we're venturing into the drafts where the kids would have really had to go out of their way to be delisted by now - though Lee & Kite managed to achieve just that.

 

[bigman]

We have nobody left from our 1999, 2002 and 2003 National Drafts. We only have 1 player left from the 1999 and 2001 National Drafts. That's 5 drafts for a grand total of 2 players still on our list.

2001 was supposedly a "super draft". The only saving grace for us that year was the Rookie Draft, which netted us Rutten, Bock and Mattner.

The record since Neil Craig took over (giving the recruiting team a free rein) has been better - 2004 (3 remaining), 2005 (2 remaining), 2006 (3 remaining). Beyond that we're venturing into the drafts where the kids would have really had to go out of their way to be delisted by now - though Lee & Kite managed to achieve just that.

Thanks Vader you confirmed my worst nightmare.

 

[moogerfooger]

it also means that the few players drafted in that period that were any good may well be too old by the time we are genuine contenders again. if that is the case - and a year ago I wouldn't have contemplated it - we may need to look at trading some of Rutten, Bock, Johncock, Stevens, maybe even Thompson to GC or GWS if we can get top draft picks for them. those clubs might pay over the odds to get mature bodies. let's face it, we need some elite midfielders and a ruckman and you don't get them with pick 15.

 

[relapse]

We have nobody left from our 1999, 2002 and 2003 National Drafts. We only have 1 player left from the 1999 and 2001 National Drafts. That's 5 drafts for a grand total of 2 players still on our list.

2001 was supposedly a "super draft". The only saving grace for us that year was the Rookie Draft, which netted us Rutten, Bock and Mattner.

The record since Neil Craig took over (giving the recruiting team a free rein) has been better - 2004 (3 remaining), 2005 (2 remaining), 2006 (3 remaining). Beyond that we're venturing into the drafts where the kids would have really had to go out of their way to be delisted by now - though Lee & Kite managed to achieve just that.

Kite and Lee were IMO victims of our list management at the end of 2009 moreso than anything else.

We had no fat left to trim so we had no choice but to cut youngsters that had not shown enough yet.

Kite looked okay 08, but had a bad 2009, I would have had no issue with the club giving him another year, but retaining all of our senior players really left us with no other option.

 

[Crow About It]

Seriously, do you really expect to get a quality player with every pick?

These guys are young when we take them and unfortunately they don't always make it at AFL level. There have been picks post 2006 that haven't made it as well.

Happens to everyone, not just us.

Clive Waterhouse anyone?????