List Mgmt. The Missing Middle Tier - Why we are headed for a rebuild

Remove this Banner Ad

dogwatch

dogwatch

Premium Platinum
Western Bulldogs - Ed Richards Player Sponsor 2024 Western Bulldogs - Bailey Dale Player Sponsor 2024 Veteran Western Bulldogs - Ed Richards Player Sponsor 2023 Western Bulldogs - Bailey Dale Player Sponsor 2023 10k Posts Western Bulldogs - Bailey Dale Player Sponsor 2022 Western Bulldogs - Ed Richards Player Sponsor 2022
Jun 17, 2009
29,198
48,669
Canberra
AFL Club
Western Bulldogs
Other Teams
Arsenal
Walking home from watching the Port Adelaide game at the pub tonight, I had time to reflect. I felt our problem was our lack of depth and it wasn't the "bottom six" problem that we always talk about. It was the rank and file solid contributors who are picked every week. We should have more of them but we don't. Looking at BF when I got home it seemed there were a whole lot of people here who were thinking along the same lines. So here's a thread for it.

Maybe it's caused by having to sell all our draft assets to get Ugle-Hagan and Darcy in successive years. Maybe it's that we've wasted spots on players whose peak level is really VFL or on ageing journeymen from other AFL clubs. Maybe it's just one of those cyclical things. Anyway below is a table which - even if you don't wholly agree with my gradings - illustrates pretty well where we are at.

It suggests to me that we will fall further before we will rise again. We look headed for some sort of rebuild (or refresh if you shiver at the word "rebuild"). Chances are we won't be seriously contending for a flag this year, or the next couple either, even if we sneak into the finals. Inevitably it's intertwined with coaching issues but apart from generalities, let's try to keep those discussions out of this thread, please. There are plenty of other threads for discussing our current crop of coaches.

First a few words on how I graded them and what the headings mean:

A = Elite, the players who lift you to wins, the ones who feature in the votes most weeks, the ones who can turn a game with bouts of brilliance on their day. I reckon a contending side needs 7-10 of these. We have about 7.

B = Solid reliable and very competitive players, picked without a second thought every week, good in a role but seldom brilliant like the A graders. Only occasionally among the vote getters. I reckon you need about 8-10 of these.

C = Any other player on the list (there's no lower grading) as long as they have some exposed AFL/VFL form. Usually you have a few of these in the seniors each week due to injuries etc but ideally there shouldn't be more than about 6-7 of them in any one game. Some have potential for higher grading, others may be at their ceiling already or may have passed it in years gone by.

Grade = their current grading as of Rd 5, 2023

Peak = the peak of their career so far (possibly with another club). I may have been a bit lenient with a few!

Ceiling = where I think they could get to this year or in future seasons. I may have been a bit optimistic in some cases. Not all of them will reach that ceiling of course. It becomes clearer as their career unfolds each season.

The four newest young players on the list can't be graded yet ... but it looks like we're going to need them to come through!

1681573972620.png

As you can see I have only graded 12 players as A or B. That means we need a minimum of 11 players from the C graders every game. And it's more than 11 if some of our better players are injured. The only one out tonight was Bailey Smith (B). In my view a serious flag contender should have a good balance of about 14-18 A and B graders playing most weeks. By comparison I reckon we had about 16 or 17 on our 2016 list and about 14-15 who ran out on GF day.

The other problem that's evident from the table is that our list is ageing (the red shading) so some of those are going to drop down or even off the list soon, and it's not clear who is going to take their place. Only four of the A/B graders are under 24 (green shading).
 
dogwatch said:
Walking home from watching the Port Adelaide game at the pub tonight, I had time to reflect. I felt our problem was our lack of depth and it wasn't the "bottom six" problem that we always talk about. It was the rank and file solid contributors who are picked every week. We should have more of them but we don't. Looking at BF when I got home it seemed there were a whole lot of people here who were thinking along the same lines. So here's a thread for it.

Maybe it's caused by having to sell all our draft assets to get Ugle-Hagan and Darcy in successive years. Maybe it's that we've wasted spots on players whose peak level is really VFL or on ageing journeymen from other AFL clubs. Maybe it's just one of those cyclical things. Anyway below is a table which - even if you don't wholly agree with my gradings - illustrates pretty well where we are at.

It suggests to me that we will fall further before we will rise again. We look headed for some sort of rebuild (or refresh if you shiver at the word "rebuild"). Chances are we won't be seriously contending for a flag this year, or the next couple either, even if we sneak into the finals. Inevitably it's intertwined with coaching issues but apart from generalities, let's try to keep those discussions out of this thread, please. There are plenty of other threads for discussing our current crop of coaches.

First a few words on how I graded them and what the headings mean:

A = Elite, the players who lift you to wins, the ones who feature in the votes most weeks, the ones who can turn a game with bouts of brilliance on their day. I reckon a contending side needs 7-10 of these. We have about 7.

B = Solid reliable and very competitive players, picked without a second thought every week, good in a role but seldom brilliant like the A graders. Only occasionally among the vote getters. I reckon you need about 8-10 of these.

C = Any other player on the list (there's no lower grading) as long as they have some exposed AFL/VFL form. Usually you have a few of these in the seniors each week due to injuries etc but ideally there shouldn't be more than about 6-7 of them in any one game. Some have potential for higher grading, others may be at their ceiling already or may have passed it in years gone by.

Grade = their current grading as of Rd 5, 2023

Peak = the peak of their career so far (possibly with another club). I may have been a bit lenient with a few!

Ceiling = where I think they could get to this year or in future seasons. I may have been a bit optimistic in some cases. Not all of them will reach that ceiling of course. It becomes clearer as their career unfolds each season.

The four newest young players on the list can't be graded yet ... but it looks like we're going to need them to come through!

View attachment 1661722

As you can see I have only graded 12 players as A or B. That means we need a minimum of 11 players from the C graders every game. And it's more than 11 if some of our better players are injured. The only one out tonight was Bailey Smith (B). In my view a serious flag contender should have a good balance of about 14-18 A and B graders playing most weeks. By comparison I reckon we had about 16 or 17 on our 2016 list and about 14-15 who ran out on GF day.

The other problem that's evident from the table is that our list is ageing (the red shading) so some of those are going to drop down or even off the list soon, and it's not clear who is going to take their place. Only four of the A/B graders are under 24 (green shading).
Click to expand...

I would quibble with a few of your gradings - but only in a very minor way (e.g. I would say Vandermeer has a ceiling of B and Baker has a ceiling of C). Overall I would say your analysis is spot on though. The only thing that's surprising to me is that people were so gung-ho on this list 5 weeks ago when heaps of pundits were picking us as genuine contenders.

WHY this is the case is quite easy to diagnose in my view, when looking at your ratings. And it's not because of JUH and Darcy monopolising our draft capital for 2 years. We hit with our first draft pick every single year - which is nice. But when was the last time we drafted an A or B grader outside our Top 20 picks? The answer is 2014 - when we drafted Dale, Daniel and McLean outside the Top 20. You will note that out of our 10 players over 29 years old, 9 of them were traded in to address this gap in our list building. So if we drafted better, our list would currently be much younger.

If you are only drafting A or B graders with your Top 20 picks you will never have more than about 12 of them. And it will take a lonnnng time to rebuild. Either our recruiting or developing needs to improve. Possibly both.

As a point of comparison, Geelong are known for constantly topping up with trades. But these are some of the players they drafted from outside the Top 20 in the same period we have drafted zero A or B graders outside the Top 20: Sam Menegola, Tom Stewart, Esava Ratugolea, Jack Henry, Zach Guthrie, Tim Kelly, Gryan Miers, Tom Atkins, and Brad Close. They're not all A and B graders, but all of those are pretty handy.
 
Excellent analysis DW. There's no doubt that the state of the list is very dire, and we need a couple of really good drafts to turn things around. Time to build our next generation midfield. I'd be tempted to trade Bailey Smith for some more draft capital for a start. We will have two first rounders this year with one of them being very early. We've got some great young talls to build around for the first time ever. With some good list management we could be back to contending in 3-4 years.
 

Log in to remove this ad.

the dog's kennel said:
I would quibble with a few of your gradings - but only in a very minor way (e.g. I would say Vandermeer has a ceiling of B and Baker has a ceiling of C). Overall I would say your analysis is spot on though. The only thing that's surprising to me is that people were so gung-ho on this list 5 weeks ago when heaps of pundits were picking us as genuine contenders.

WHY this is the case is quite easy to diagnose in my view, when looking at your ratings. And it's not because of JUH and Darcy monopolising our draft capital for 2 years. We hit with our first draft pick every single year - which is nice. But when was the last time we drafted an A or B grader outside our Top 20 picks? The answer is 2014 - when we drafted Dale, Daniel and McLean outside the Top 20. You will note that out of our 10 players over 29 years old, 9 of them were traded in to address this gap in our list building. So if we drafted better, our list would currently be much younger.

If you are only drafting A or B graders with your Top 20 picks you will never have more than about 12 of them. And it will take a lonnnng time to rebuild. Either our recruiting or developing needs to improve. Possibly both.

As a point of comparison, Geelong are known for constantly topping up with trades. But these are some of the players they drafted from outside the Top 20 in the same period we have drafted zero A or B graders outside the Top 20: Sam Menegola, Tom Stewart, Esava Ratugolea, Jack Henry, Zach Guthrie, Tim Kelly, Gryan Miers, Tom Atkins, and Brad Close. They're not all A and B graders, but all of those are pretty handy.
Click to expand...

I’d say we also drafted 3-4 B graders when in 2015 we picked up Marcus Adams at 35 and Bailey Williams at 48 and in 2016 when we drafted Pat Lipinski at 28 and Lewis Young at 49.

Dalrymple goes and we stop finding best 22 talent in the middle of the draft.

For me, this brings into focus that at the same time as we’ve struggled to find those best 22 players later in the draft we’ve also lost or pushed out a number that are B graders that would otherwise be filling that middle to older rung in age, e.g.: Dunkley, Stringer, Lipinski, Young, Hunter and Adams (others might also include Cordy).
 
Dogs have had a decent run in the end, 2 grand finals (1 flag) and finals every other year but two of Bevo's 7 odd years. We obviously expected more consistently competing in terms of deep finals but the end result is actually better than most still because of our ability to get on a run.

I still think we can rebuild but hang around or near eight. We have the hard part with most of the talls acquired.

I would stop playing Hannan, McComb and Scott types and find out about some of our other players on the list if they can make it or not.
 
The issue in my mind is the poor quality of our Footy Department. I reckon they are in the bottom 4 in the league. Bevo and Grant struggle to retain or recruit quality people. Not only is our game plan hopeless but our ability to identify (outside our first-round selections which have been good) and develop talent is woeful.

It's far too matey between the coach, the CEO, and the head of the footy department. We need a total footy department rebuild (a la St Kilda, or Richmond back in 2016).

Really hope that if KWW gets Gil's job our new Pres can see what most of us can see.
 
Planet Dogs said:
The issue in my mind is the poor quality of our Footy Department. I reckon they are in the bottom 4 in the league. Bevo and Grant struggle to retain or recruit quality people. Not only is our game plan hopeless but our ability to identify (outside our first-round selections which have been good) and develop talent is woeful.

It's far too matey between the coach, the CEO, and the head of the footy department. We need a total footy department rebuild (a la St Kilda, or Richmond back in 2016).

Really hope that if KWW gets Gil's job our new Pres can see what most of us can see.
Click to expand...
If Terry Wheeler wife gets the job of CEO of the AFL who is our new president? Please do not be Luke Darcy he is way too close to Bevo and Grant

On CPH2305 using BigFooty.com mobile app
 
TiAn_ said:
Dalrymple goes and we stop finding best 22 talent in the middle of the draft.
Click to expand...

This has become clearer and clearer.

We need a better fitness team (look at how the Crows are running out games this year cf us).
We need a better-resourced football management team.
We possibly need a more experienced/authoritative coaching team (I can't really know)

But above all we have to build a better mid section of our list.
All our frustrated calls for more 'competitiveness' or 'ruthlessness' come down to this. You can't be ruthless and competitive without the skills. At the moment there are blokes out there being asked to jobs they simply don't have the class for.

Meanwhile we have the form ruck of the comp and one of the game's three best players atm trying to do it all.
 
Above issues highlight why it’s a good time to transition in the next coach.

Clarke, Busslinger and Darcy are all coming in and we have 3 good draft picks this year.

Get them all in and teach them a more contemporary game plan.

Look at how good someone like Matthew Nicks has been in doing that.

Look at the teams on the ascendency. They all embraced change and play youth. Chris Grant are you listening?
 
Last edited:
TiAn_ said:
I’d say we also drafted 3-4 B graders when in 2015 we picked up Marcus Adams at 35 and Bailey Williams at 48 and in 2016 when we drafted Pat Lipinski at 28 and Lewis Young at 49.

Dalrymple goes and we stop finding best 22 talent in the middle of the draft.

For me, this brings into focus that at the same time as we’ve struggled to find those best 22 players later in the draft we’ve also lost or pushed out a number that are B graders that would otherwise be filling that middle to older rung in age, e.g.: Dunkley, Stringer, Lipinski, Young, Hunter and Adams (others might also include Cordy).
Click to expand...
That's a great point.

I didn't consider Adams, Williams, Young or Lipinski to have quite made it to B Grade. But I can understand why you disagree, and they are a lot closer to B Grade than anyone we've drafted post pick 20 since.

Your point about trading out actual or potential B Graders and then having to replace them also is absolutely spot on.
 
I think Dunkley leaving will benefit us longer term. If we can turn those picks into some good players our list will be more balanced. The concern I see is our midfield which I've highlighted in multiple threads and it's the type of midfielder we need to go where the game is going. Pacey and skilled. I'd rather blokes with good skills and decision making in the midfield which should be the focus in the draft
 
mattwa said:
I think Dunkley leaving will benefit us longer term. If we can turn those picks into some good players our list will be more balanced. The concern I see is our midfield which I've highlighted in multiple threads and it's the type of midfielder we need to go where the game is going. Pacey and skilled. I'd rather blokes with good skills and decision making in the midfield which should be the focus in the draft
Click to expand...

If you look at last year’s draft, there were two inside bulls who lacked pace, Mitch Szybkowski and Adam D’Aloia. They dominated u18s and were predicted to be second round draft picks. They both went undrafted. That tells me a lot.
 

(Log in to remove this ad.)

dogwatch said:
Walking home from watching the Port Adelaide game at the pub tonight, I had time to reflect. I felt our problem was our lack of depth and it wasn't the "bottom six" problem that we always talk about. It was the rank and file solid contributors who are picked every week. We should have more of them but we don't. Looking at BF when I got home it seemed there were a whole lot of people here who were thinking along the same lines. So here's a thread for it.

Maybe it's caused by having to sell all our draft assets to get Ugle-Hagan and Darcy in successive years. Maybe it's that we've wasted spots on players whose peak level is really VFL or on ageing journeymen from other AFL clubs. Maybe it's just one of those cyclical things. Anyway below is a table which - even if you don't wholly agree with my gradings - illustrates pretty well where we are at.

It suggests to me that we will fall further before we will rise again. We look headed for some sort of rebuild (or refresh if you shiver at the word "rebuild"). Chances are we won't be seriously contending for a flag this year, or the next couple either, even if we sneak into the finals. Inevitably it's intertwined with coaching issues but apart from generalities, let's try to keep those discussions out of this thread, please. There are plenty of other threads for discussing our current crop of coaches.

First a few words on how I graded them and what the headings mean:

A = Elite, the players who lift you to wins, the ones who feature in the votes most weeks, the ones who can turn a game with bouts of brilliance on their day. I reckon a contending side needs 7-10 of these. We have about 7.

B = Solid reliable and very competitive players, picked without a second thought every week, good in a role but seldom brilliant like the A graders. Only occasionally among the vote getters. I reckon you need about 8-10 of these.

C = Any other player on the list (there's no lower grading) as long as they have some exposed AFL/VFL form. Usually you have a few of these in the seniors each week due to injuries etc but ideally there shouldn't be more than about 6-7 of them in any one game. Some have potential for higher grading, others may be at their ceiling already or may have passed it in years gone by.

Grade = their current grading as of Rd 5, 2023

Peak = the peak of their career so far (possibly with another club). I may have been a bit lenient with a few!

Ceiling = where I think they could get to this year or in future seasons. I may have been a bit optimistic in some cases. Not all of them will reach that ceiling of course. It becomes clearer as their career unfolds each season.

The four newest young players on the list can't be graded yet ... but it looks like we're going to need them to come through!

View attachment 1661722

As you can see I have only graded 12 players as A or B. That means we need a minimum of 11 players from the C graders every game. And it's more than 11 if some of our better players are injured. The only one out tonight was Bailey Smith (B). In my view a serious flag contender should have a good balance of about 14-18 A and B graders playing most weeks. By comparison I reckon we had about 16 or 17 on our 2016 list and about 14-15 who ran out on GF day.

The other problem that's evident from the table is that our list is ageing (the red shading) so some of those are going to drop down or even off the list soon, and it's not clear who is going to take their place. Only four of the A/B graders are under 24 (green shading).
Click to expand...
It’s a good post DW and I don’t disagree with any of it really, but unless there’s comparison to other lists ie the good sides Pies, Melbourne, Sydney etc or even the middle tier/s**t sides that are outperforming us (Saints, Essendon) it’s kinda meaningless.

Not expecting you to do this for other lists but just pointing out that without that comparison I’m not sure how much you can take out of a list analysis like this. I dare say if you compare ours to St Kilda for example, we’d compare very very favourably. But here we are.

We all know good football teams make C graders look like B graders and bad football teams make A graders look like B graders
 
Whilst I don’t complete agree with the ratings you can say there’s a glaring list deficiency when you see more of the C graders on that list getting a spot before some Bs

I see the reality that the team is just a mid tier player at the present. Our list strength is a shadow of what it even was during 2021
 
doggies ftw said:
It’s a good post DW and I don’t disagree with any of it really, but unless there’s comparison to other lists ie the good sides Pies, Melbourne, Sydney etc or even the middle tier/s**t sides that are outperforming us (Saints, Essendon) it’s kinda meaningless.

Not expecting you to do this for other lists but just pointing out that without that comparison I’m not sure how much you can take out of a list analysis like this. I dare say if you compare ours to St Kilda for example, we’d compare very very favourably. But here we are.

We all know good football teams make C graders look like B graders and bad football teams make A graders look like B graders
Click to expand...

I think where it’s particularly useful is showing how old our depth skews.
 
When so many players are only ever given fringe roles, don't be surprised that they only look like fringe players.

How many games has West been given at least 5 CBAs? I would say 3 max from what I can remember and only when our midfield is already being beaten. Garcia? I would say none. Khamis and Cleary only ever come in as stopgap and in Khamis' case it's in a variety of roles depending on what we need. Williams has been a good defender, and for a time he was being developed as a inside mid, but now he's another that's moved around depending on what we need.

Yes, you need some players that you can move around. But compare us to Collingwood. Would we ever give players like Noble and Quaynor a chance to lock down spots in the back six? I reckon if they were on our list Noble would be a McNeil that's in and out in different roles. Would Crisp ever move into the midfield, and would he stay there permanently? Or Geelong, would Duncan move out of the midfield to give someone like Atkins a look? Or with Melbourne, would James Jordan get mid minutes?

We're starting to see it a bit with Macrae being eased out of the middle and Daniel playing that high half-forward/extra mid role, but all that has translated to is putting more of the load onto Bont and Libba. I would absolutely take the short term pain of relying less on our guns to just see what our fringe players can do when given more responsibility. If one or two can handle it, and then we can nail one or two draft picks, we'll be fine.
 
Boyd oh Boyd said:
When so many players are only ever given fringe roles, don't be surprised that they only look like fringe players.

How many games has West been given at least 5 CBAs? I would say 3 max from what I can remember and only when our midfield is already being beaten. Garcia? I would say none. Khamis and Cleary only ever come in as stopgap and in Khamis' case it's in a variety of roles depending on what we need. Williams has been a good defender, and for a time he was being developed as a inside mid, but now he's another that's moved around depending on what we need.

Yes, you need some players that you can move around. But compare us to Collingwood. Would we ever give players like Noble and Quaynor a chance to lock down spots in the back six? I reckon if they were on our list Noble would be a McNeil that's in and out in different roles. Would Crisp ever move into the midfield, and would he stay there permanently? Or Geelong, would Duncan move out of the midfield to give someone like Atkins a look? Or with Melbourne, would James Jordan get mid minutes?

We're starting to see it a bit with Macrae being eased out of the middle and Daniel playing that high half-forward/extra mid role, but all that has translated to is putting more of the load onto Bont and Libba. I would absolutely take the short term pain of relying less on our guns to just see what our fringe players can do when given more responsibility. If one or two can handle it, and then we can nail one or two draft picks, we'll be fine.
Click to expand...
Spot on, and then to add to that ontop
Of not trusting these kids with real roles, we even prioritise 28yo battlers in these fringe spots over them which leads to young players moving on and becoming B graders with more fulfilling roles at other clubs - ie Young/Lipinski.

If this keeps up it’s only a matter of time until West, Buku & Garcia etc go the same way. As you said I’m not sure how we can say these guys aren’t B grade AFL players when we don’t give them that opportunity, are they really worse players than the likes you’ve mentioned for other teams, or the players getting around at the Saints, Essendon etc that we’d consider B graders?

I highly doubt it, just what we’ve done to this team and list over the past 18 months has been an absolute abomination. Just looking at DWs rankings, even not including Darcy/Marra there’s 11 players that should be playing A grade footy in our side right now - any team playing 11 A graders in a team of 22 should be fighting in the top 4 - whereas we look bottom 8 at best.

If we cannot get A grade performance out of our A grade players, can we really write off C graders under the same management?
 
dogwatch said:
Walking home from watching the Port Adelaide game at the pub tonight, I had time to reflect. I felt our problem was our lack of depth and it wasn't the "bottom six" problem that we always talk about. It was the rank and file solid contributors who are picked every week. We should have more of them but we don't. Looking at BF when I got home it seemed there were a whole lot of people here who were thinking along the same lines. So here's a thread for it.

Maybe it's caused by having to sell all our draft assets to get Ugle-Hagan and Darcy in successive years. Maybe it's that we've wasted spots on players whose peak level is really VFL or on ageing journeymen from other AFL clubs. Maybe it's just one of those cyclical things. Anyway below is a table which - even if you don't wholly agree with my gradings - illustrates pretty well where we are at.

It suggests to me that we will fall further before we will rise again. We look headed for some sort of rebuild (or refresh if you shiver at the word "rebuild"). Chances are we won't be seriously contending for a flag this year, or the next couple either, even if we sneak into the finals. Inevitably it's intertwined with coaching issues but apart from generalities, let's try to keep those discussions out of this thread, please. There are plenty of other threads for discussing our current crop of coaches.

First a few words on how I graded them and what the headings mean:

A = Elite, the players who lift you to wins, the ones who feature in the votes most weeks, the ones who can turn a game with bouts of brilliance on their day. I reckon a contending side needs 7-10 of these. We have about 7.

B = Solid reliable and very competitive players, picked without a second thought every week, good in a role but seldom brilliant like the A graders. Only occasionally among the vote getters. I reckon you need about 8-10 of these.

C = Any other player on the list (there's no lower grading) as long as they have some exposed AFL/VFL form. Usually you have a few of these in the seniors each week due to injuries etc but ideally there shouldn't be more than about 6-7 of them in any one game. Some have potential for higher grading, others may be at their ceiling already or may have passed it in years gone by.

Grade = their current grading as of Rd 5, 2023

Peak = the peak of their career so far (possibly with another club). I may have been a bit lenient with a few!

Ceiling = where I think they could get to this year or in future seasons. I may have been a bit optimistic in some cases. Not all of them will reach that ceiling of course. It becomes clearer as their career unfolds each season.

The four newest young players on the list can't be graded yet ... but it looks like we're going to need them to come through!

View attachment 1661722

As you can see I have only graded 12 players as A or B. That means we need a minimum of 11 players from the C graders every game. And it's more than 11 if some of our better players are injured. The only one out tonight was Bailey Smith (B). In my view a serious flag contender should have a good balance of about 14-18 A and B graders playing most weeks. By comparison I reckon we had about 16 or 17 on our 2016 list and about 14-15 who ran out on GF day.

The other problem that's evident from the table is that our list is ageing (the red shading) so some of those are going to drop down or even off the list soon, and it's not clear who is going to take their place. Only four of the A/B graders are under 24 (green shading).
Click to expand...
unfortunately I must agree Bruce maybe a B though
 
dogwatch said:
Walking home from watching the Port Adelaide game at the pub tonight, I had time to reflect. I felt our problem was our lack of depth and it wasn't the "bottom six" problem that we always talk about. It was the rank and file solid contributors who are picked every week. We should have more of them but we don't. Looking at BF when I got home it seemed there were a whole lot of people here who were thinking along the same lines. So here's a thread for it.

Maybe it's caused by having to sell all our draft assets to get Ugle-Hagan and Darcy in successive years. Maybe it's that we've wasted spots on players whose peak level is really VFL or on ageing journeymen from other AFL clubs. Maybe it's just one of those cyclical things. Anyway below is a table which - even if you don't wholly agree with my gradings - illustrates pretty well where we are at.

It suggests to me that we will fall further before we will rise again. We look headed for some sort of rebuild (or refresh if you shiver at the word "rebuild"). Chances are we won't be seriously contending for a flag this year, or the next couple either, even if we sneak into the finals. Inevitably it's intertwined with coaching issues but apart from generalities, let's try to keep those discussions out of this thread, please. There are plenty of other threads for discussing our current crop of coaches.

First a few words on how I graded them and what the headings mean:

A = Elite, the players who lift you to wins, the ones who feature in the votes most weeks, the ones who can turn a game with bouts of brilliance on their day. I reckon a contending side needs 7-10 of these. We have about 7.

B = Solid reliable and very competitive players, picked without a second thought every week, good in a role but seldom brilliant like the A graders. Only occasionally among the vote getters. I reckon you need about 8-10 of these.

C = Any other player on the list (there's no lower grading) as long as they have some exposed AFL/VFL form. Usually you have a few of these in the seniors each week due to injuries etc but ideally there shouldn't be more than about 6-7 of them in any one game. Some have potential for higher grading, others may be at their ceiling already or may have passed it in years gone by.

Grade = their current grading as of Rd 5, 2023

Peak = the peak of their career so far (possibly with another club). I may have been a bit lenient with a few!

Ceiling = where I think they could get to this year or in future seasons. I may have been a bit optimistic in some cases. Not all of them will reach that ceiling of course. It becomes clearer as their career unfolds each season.

The four newest young players on the list can't be graded yet ... but it looks like we're going to need them to come through!

View attachment 1661722

As you can see I have only graded 12 players as A or B. That means we need a minimum of 11 players from the C graders every game. And it's more than 11 if some of our better players are injured. The only one out tonight was Bailey Smith (B). In my view a serious flag contender should have a good balance of about 14-18 A and B graders playing most weeks. By comparison I reckon we had about 16 or 17 on our 2016 list and about 14-15 who ran out on GF day.

The other problem that's evident from the table is that our list is ageing (the red shading) so some of those are going to drop down or even off the list soon, and it's not clear who is going to take their place. Only four of the A/B graders are under 24 (green shading).
Click to expand...

I can see a few Ds in that list !!
 
doggies ftw said:
... I dare say if you compare ours to St Kilda for example, we’d compare very very favourably. But here we are.

We all know good football teams make C graders look like B graders and bad football teams make A graders look like B graders
Click to expand...
This is a good point that I wanted to address at some stage but left out of the OP to keep the message more succinct.

We saw for ourselves in 2015 and 2016 how Bevo inspired a mostly young list to rise up the ladder into finals ... and then a flag. Admittedly he had some guns coming onto the list like Bont, Dunks and Daniel but there's no doubt he energised and inspired a group that had mostly been there under MacCartney and was going nowhere.

I don't want to get into analysis of Bevo or his assistants here, especially over the last 3-4 years, only to state in a more general sense that there can be a certain synergy (and maybe only for a limited time) that lifts all players and possibly even projects some of them into a grading nobody thought they were capable of. That's why these gradings can only ever be approximate.

It doesn't change the list management strategy though. Sam Power can't count on a charismatic coach coming along and working miracles. His job (and Dom Milesi's) is to build a rock solid list that also has a bit of star quality at the top end. Right now that job is very much in front of them.
 
Carlton are an interesting case for us to examine. They drafted well and have 2 established, youngish KPFs and one KPD of the same ilk. Looks like they might have a good young ruck as well. They’ve got a top 5 player in the comp in Cripps, and another coming through in Walsh. This could be where we are in a couple of years when JUH and Darcy are playing consistently alongside Naughton and English (Busslinger might be there too), with Bont obviously and maybe Smith developing into a better player.

That’s the core of a good team, but they’ve chucked a lot of salary cap at other players who might not be worth it (Williams, McGovern, Cerra) and have built a slowish midfield with Kennedy and Hewett alongside Cripps. The game is moving towards pace, either genuine leg speed or fast ball movement, but they don’t look like they’re positioned for that.

My guess is their floor is fairly high, like ours is, but their ceiling is fairly low, again like us. Faster, better-coached teams will get a hold of them in September and they’ll hover around the 6-11 ladder position until something changes.
 
We still haven’t replaced Morris, Picken, Matthew Boyd, and arguably Dickson.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

L
It all starts in the middle
Replies
14
Views
693
dogwatch
dogwatch
geoffjennings79
Coach IF (unlikely) we are appointing a new coach, what are realistic options
2
Replies
44
Views
2K
cecil
cecil
_Mike_
  • Sticky
Mod. Notice Welcome Fossie32 to the Bulldogs Community Leader role
Replies
7
Views
329
Kermit
Kermit
weltschmerz
Welcome to the Bulldogs Aiden O’Driscoll
2 3
Replies
69
Views
7K
ossie_21
ossie_21
dogwatch
Game Day LIVE - AFL 2023 Draftwatch for the WB
32 33 34 35 36
Replies
890
Views
34K
Mr. Walker
Mr. Walker
G
Western ( Whitten) oval goals.
Replies
15
Views
916
Oliver G
Oliver G
Testekill
Welcome to the Bulldogs Lachlan Bramble
2 3 4 5
Replies
104
Views
9K
Dogs_R_Us
Dogs_R_Us

Remove this Banner Ad

Back
Top