Remove this Banner Ad

The Next Tier

🥰 Love BigFooty? Join now for free.

Peninsula Boy said:
Wines, Burton and Marshall we should be able to find better replacements.
Wines is not an impactful midfielder.
Burton is useless.
Marshall was waning when he was on the field and has concussion issues.

Cochrane, Pilot and Salopek are unknown but I've seen highlights of Cochrane and he's looking the goods. Pilot has infinite potential and we will see how Sal Jr develops. I put them in because they should really come in and with their natural talent and ability start pushing early.
Click to expand...

Wines is absolutely an impactful midfielder, and is very important to our game. It was blatantly obvious when he missed the Sydney game. He may not run and spread and hit targets, but his clearance work is absolutely crucial to our game.

Burton is poor these days, but he's still playing games for a reason - there is no alternative.

I don't think Marshall is waning at all. He struggled at times as he was the number 1 forward with Charlie missing a lot of last season, and MG not in form. When he returns, he will be the number 2 forward, and has a big role to play. This will allow Lukoscious to be number 3 forward and really get the best out of him as well.
He has concussion issues which is why i've put his name down, it wasn't on age. There is no viable alternative on our list at this stage to cover his loss.


Whilst Cochrane, Pilot and Sal all look great, we can't assume we will get all 3 (Cochrane still pending AFL sign off), and that their junior form will translate into AFL. We've seen many top rated draft picks over the years not able to translate it, so whilst it's ok to be excited, we can't assume that they'll just hit the ground running.
 
Interstater said:
From a drafting perspective here is the last 5 years:

2024: 15 Berry, 33 Whitlock, 38 Moraes
2023: 48 Anastasopoulos, 52 Charleson, 57 Lorenz
2022: 36 McCallum, 53 Scully, 59 Marshall
2021: 12 Sinn, 55 Jackson, 56 Visentini, 60 Burgoyne
2020: 16 Jones, 49 Lord

I think it's fair to say Port have not picked up a genuine A-lister via the draft in the last 5 years, Sinn could get there though.
Click to expand...
Completely agree. 2022 and 2023 looking like absolute busts, i'm not sure any of them are going to make it.

This is where we keep failing - particularly as we have had a tendency to trade out early picks for players. We need to make these 30-60 level picks count. Many teams do, but we are pretty bad at it.
 
The Hobo said:
Wines is absolutely an impactful midfielder, and is very important to our game. It was blatantly obvious when he missed the Sydney game. He may not run and spread and hit targets, but his clearance work is absolutely crucial to our game.

Burton is poor these days, but he's still playing games for a reason - there is no alternative.

I don't think Marshall is waning at all. He struggled at times as he was the number 1 forward with Charlie missing a lot of last season, and MG not in form. When he returns, he will be the number 2 forward, and has a big role to play. This will allow Lukoscious to be number 3 forward and really get the best out of him as well.
He has concussion issues which is why i've put his name down, it wasn't on age. There is no viable alternative on our list at this stage to cover his loss.


Whilst Cochrane, Pilot and Sal all look great, we can't assume we will get all 3 (Cochrane still pending AFL sign off), and that their junior form will translate into AFL. We've seen many top rated draft picks over the years not able to translate it, so whilst it's ok to be excited, we can't assume that they'll just hit the ground running.
Click to expand...
Wines is one of the lesser midfielders of the competition.
Burton is an unaccountable spud. He will not be missed at all. An alternative is Logan Evans.
Marshall's stat were dropping in his last year of play when concussion started to rear its ugly head.

Those three will be easy to cover. Aliir and Rioli is a very different story.
 

Log in to remove this Banner Ad

Interstater said:
From a drafting perspective here is the last 5 years:

2024: 15 Berry, 33 Whitlock, 38 Moraes
2023: 48 Anastasopoulos, 52 Charleson, 57 Lorenz
2022: 36 McCallum, 53 Scully, 59 Marshall
2021: 12 Sinn, 55 Jackson, 56 Visentini, 60 Burgoyne
2020: 16 Jones, 49 Lord

I think it's fair to say Port have not picked up a genuine A-lister via the draft in the last 5 years, Sinn could get there though.
Click to expand...
You have to have the salt with the pepper, the left with the right, the up with the down. We traded in:

2024 - Lukosius, Richards, Atkins
2023 - Soldo, Sweet, Ratugolea, Zerk-Thatcher
2022 - Horne-Francis, Rioli
2021 - Finlayson
2020 - Aliir

Although it is early, in 2024, we also drafted Cochrane, Barrett, Lai and MSD Logan Evans.
 
Peninsula Boy said:
You have to have the salt with the pepper, the left with the right, the up with the down. We traded in:

2024 - Lukosius, Richards, Atkins
2023 - Soldo, Sweet, Ratugolea, Zerk-Thatcher
2022 - Horne-Francis, Rioli
2021 - Finlayson
2020 - Aliir

Although it is early, in 2024, we also drafted Cochrane, Barrett, Lai and MSD Logan Evans.
Click to expand...
Is the guy that does the drafting the same as the guy that does the trades? Our trading has been decent, our drafting has not.
 
Peninsula Boy said:
It wouldn't surprise me with Logan Evans but I reckon Sinn will take a leap next year.
I have been saying that for the last three years though.
Click to expand...
Sinn has already taken a leap this year in my eyes. His last month or two has been excellent defensively, and there has been glimpses of his offensive side. I suspect this is more on him being able to gain confidence to know when to go and when to stay etc.
 
The Hobo said:
There is absolutely no evidence to suggest this. The evidence actually points the other way - at least in terms of getting the best out of his players.

Note - getting the best out of your players doesn't necessarily translate to a winning game plan - so let's separate those two out for a minute and focus purely on getting the best out of your players.

I also believe if the recruiting was good, but Kenny just didn't get the best out of the players, I think other teams could see this 'talent' and would pick them up to develop them under their 'superior' coach.

The main evidence I have to support my theory for both of the statements is this:

  • Players that leave Port have not improved at their new home. Billy Frampton is the one and only exception to this. Every other player has gone on to play at the same/similar level, or worse. Frampton also went to the Crows and failed before he finally succeeded at Collingwood.
    • (Impey may have a small claim, but he left us quite young and had plenty of development to come. I don't think he's developed significantly above expectation regardless)
  • Players delisted by Port rarely get picked up by other teams, and the few that do (Narkle, Francis Evans, Bonner) have not gone on to do any better

What is the evidence to suggest Hinkley has not got the best out of his players?
What is the evidence to suggest our recruiting has generally been pretty good?
Click to expand...

How many players have Port actually lost under Hinkley who the list management team legitimately wanted to keep? I reckon you could count them on one hand.

My point is that if the Club aren't losing many (if any) player(s) they want to keep, using the ones that left and failed at their new Clubs are reason to say Hinkley got the most out of them is a rather meaningless exercise - and instead, it points imo to two things: 1) that Port have a very good system in place to retain the players they want to keep, and 2) that the list management team are astute when it comes to talent evaluation.
 
Ok let me throw some more data in there wrt A-List players.
Let's call an A-Lister anyone that is in the Top 100 of average AF stats overall.

We have 4, Rozee, Butters, Wines and JHF in that Top 100.
Would anyone argue that any other player is currently an A-list player?
Bergman possibly based on midfield form?

Of those A-Listers, we have recruited just 1 in the last 5 years.
If the average playing life is 10 years, 1 in 5 years is pretty ordinary.

Port really do need a couple of A-List forwards and backs.
Will Port trade for them or draft them?

1752733409624.png
 
Chewy316 said:
How many players have Port actually lost under Hinkley who the list management team legitimately wanted to keep? I reckon you could count them on one hand.
Click to expand...
That's a testament to Hinkley. Having said that, Amon, Impey, Houston come to mind. Amon was AA squad at Port, he's been very good but but hasn't got to that level. Houston is a bit early to call, but so far hasn't got close to that level.

My point is that if the Club aren't losing many (if any) player(s) they want to keep, using the ones that left and failed at their new Clubs are reason to say Hinkley got the most out of them is a rather meaningless exercise - and instead, it points imo to two things: 1) that Port have a very good system in place to retain the players they want to keep, and 2) that the list management team are astute when it comes to talent evaluation.
Click to expand...
Still waiting for the evidence to suggest that Hinkley is not getting the best out of his players and that the List Management are doing a good job.

I agree with point 1 - we are very good at retaining players, but I don't know how you've come to the conclusion of number 2 - We delist plenty of players, none get picked up by others, which suggests we probably shouldn't have picked them in the first place.
 

Remove this Banner Ad

The Hobo said:
There is absolutely no evidence to suggest this. The evidence actually points the other way - at least in terms of getting the best out of his players.

Note - getting the best out of your players doesn't necessarily translate to a winning game plan - so let's separate those two out for a minute and focus purely on getting the best out of your players.

I also believe if the recruiting was good, but Kenny just didn't get the best out of the players, I think other teams could see this 'talent' and would pick them up to develop them under their 'superior' coach.

The main evidence I have to support my theory for both of the statements is this:

  • Players that leave Port have not improved at their new home. Billy Frampton is the one and only exception to this. Every other player has gone on to play at the same/similar level, or worse. Frampton also went to the Crows and failed before he finally succeeded at Collingwood.
    • (Impey may have a small claim, but he left us quite young and had plenty of development to come. I don't think he's developed significantly above expectation regardless)
  • Players delisted by Port rarely get picked up by other teams, and the few that do (Narkle, Francis Evans, Bonner) have not gone on to do any better

What is the evidence to suggest Hinkley has not got the best out of his players?
What is the evidence to suggest our recruiting has generally been pretty good?
Click to expand...

Who have we lost that we were desperate to keep? Houston and maybe Polec?

List spots are precious. Giving them up to a Port Adelaide cast off in the Hinkley era is a risky move. Everyone else can see that our forward line is dysfunctional as hell. Teams don't want to risk spots on players who played in a forward line like that.

Billy Frampton did not improve on leaving Port, he was shit at the Crows and he's shit at Collingwood. He was just young when he was here.

The gameplan and getting the best out of your players goes hand in hand, I can't believe that's even a point of contention. If the gameplan is incapable of beating good sides and the players never really have any belief in it, they all look worse and play worse, their stats and output are worse.

The reason we've struggled to have effective key forwards and small forwards bar absolute geniuses like Robbie Gray is that the system isn't set up to generate high percentage scoring opportunities for the forwards and it never has been under Hinkley.

Choco got Brett Ebert to a 56 goal season (with his top 5 forwards combining for 200+ goals that year). Hinkley hasn't had a 50 goal kicker since mercurial genius Chad Wingard in 2015, and the only time a Hinkley coached forward has kicked more than 56 is Schulz in 2014.
 
El_Scorcho said:
Who have we lost that we were desperate to keep? Houston and maybe Polec?

List spots are precious. Giving them up to a Port Adelaide cast off in the Hinkley era is a risky move. Everyone else can see that our forward line is dysfunctional as hell. Teams don't want to risk spots on players who played in a forward line like that.

Billy Frampton did not improve on leaving Port, he was shit at the Crows and he's shit at Collingwood. He was just young when he was here.

The gameplan and getting the best out of your players goes hand in hand, I can't believe that's even a point of contention. If the gameplan is incapable of beating good sides and the players never really have any belief in it, they all look worse and play worse, their stats and output are worse.

The reason we've struggled to have effective key forwards and small forwards bar absolute geniuses like Robbie Gray is that the system isn't set up to generate high percentage scoring opportunities for the forwards and it never has been under Hinkley.

Choco got Brett Ebert to a 56 goal season (with his top 5 forwards combining for 200+ goals that year). Hinkley hasn't had a 50 goal kicker since mercurial genius Chad Wingard in 2015, and the only time a Hinkley coached forward has kicked more than 56 is Schulz in 2014.
Click to expand...
Houston, Polec, Amon, Impey come to mind.

List spots are precious. Giving them up to a Port Adelaide cast off in the Hinkley era is a risky move. Everyone else can see that our forward line is dysfunctional as hell. Teams don't want to risk spots on players who played in a forward line like that.
Click to expand...

But I thought he was a terrible developer - so they should be lapping up the Port cast offs, because our list managers are so good at identifying talent?

Billy Frampton did not improve on leaving Port, he was shit at the Crows and he's shit at Collingwood. He was just young when he was here.
Click to expand...
He's worth a spot on the list as a backup defender, which is exactly what he's doing.
Hinkley hasn't had a 50 goal kicker since mercurial genius Chad Wingard in 2015, and the only time a Hinkley coached forward has kicked more than 56 is Schulz in 2014.
Click to expand...

Is that on Hinkley, or the lack of the cattle to be able to do it. Dixon got close a few times, but he's always had injury interrupted seasons. Which other forward did we have that was even capable of kicking 50+? Gray yes but spent too much time up the ground/midfield etc.
 
The Hobo said:
Houston, Polec, Amon, Impey come to mind.
Click to expand...

We didn't make any attempt to keep Amon and Impey. We'd have kept Polec but he had injury issues and North were going to pay him $700k

The Hobo said:
But I thought he was a terrible developer - so they should be lapping up the Port cast offs, because our list managers are so good at identifying talent?
Click to expand...

You repeatedly refuse the acknowledge the reality that list spots are precious and teams won't take on players who have failed to launch.

The Hobo said:
He's worth a spot on the list as a backup defender, which is exactly what he's doing.
Click to expand...

Okay? He's on the same trajectory as he was when he was a young player here. Never gotten up to AFL level.

The Hobo said:
Is that on Hinkley, or the lack of the cattle to be able to do it. Dixon got close a few times, but he's always had injury interrupted seasons. Which other forward did we have that was even capable of kicking 50+? Gray yes but spent too much time up the ground/midfield etc.
Click to expand...

Did you watch any games over the last decade?

Dixon's highest goals per game season was in 2015 at the 4-17 Gold Coast SUNS.
 
The Hobo said:
That's a testament to Hinkley. Having said that, Amon, Impey, Houston come to mind. Amon was AA squad at Port, he's been very good but but hasn't got to that level. Houston is a bit early to call, but so far hasn't got close to that level.


Still waiting for the evidence to suggest that Hinkley is not getting the best out of his players and that the List Management are doing a good job.

I agree with point 1 - we are very good at retaining players, but I don't know how you've come to the conclusion of number 2 - We delist plenty of players, none get picked up by others, which suggests we probably shouldn't have picked them in the first place.
Click to expand...

The Club made the choice to not match Amon's contract because they believed the compensation was worth more than what they valued him as a player. The Club pushed Impey out. A few weeks before Impey left he was on a massage table getting some work done and Ken came up to him, slapped him across the head and said words to the effect of that Impey wouldn't be at the Club next year. The only one they truly wanted to keep was Houston, and even then they did the trade because they saw the upside in it for them given the upcoming draft classes relative to their list profile.

My point re 2) was that a lot of the players who Port are delisting are for the most part, at the bottom of their list anyway, so it's not as if they've made any bad evaluations. If you look across the league, Port's bottom 10 would be no worse than every other team's bottom 10. It's the middle 10 between players 20-30 on the list where Port have consistently struggled, though it can also be said that those players can be carried when the top end is playing consistently well.

Hinkley has a reasonable history of getting the team to perform well in the regular season. He also has a terrible history of getting the team to perform well in finals and other big games.

If you think Hinkley has gotten the most out of the players, do you think then that they should have extended his contract as opposed to moving him on?
 
Chewy316 said:
The Club made the choice to not match Amon's contract because they believed the compensation was worth more than what they valued him as a player. The Club pushed Impey out. A few weeks before Impey left he was on a massage table getting some work done and Ken came up to him, slapped him across the head and said words to the effect of that Impey wouldn't be at the Club next year. The only one they truly wanted to keep was Houston, and even then they did the trade because they saw the upside in it for them given the upcoming draft classes relative to their list profile.

My point re 2) was that a lot of the players who Port are delisting are for the most part, at the bottom of their list anyway, so it's not as if they've made any bad evaluations. If you look across the league, Port's bottom 10 would be no worse than every other team's bottom 10. It's the middle 10 between players 20-30 on the list where Port have consistently struggled, though it can also be said that those players can be carried when the top end is playing consistently well.

Hinkley has a reasonable history of getting the team to perform well in the regular season. He also has a terrible history of getting the team to perform well in finals and other big games.

If you think Hinkley has gotten the most out of the players, do you think then that they should have extended his contract as opposed to moving him on?
Click to expand...

He also has a terrible history of creating a consistent game plan where role players can come in and thrive. His game plan relies on no injuries and everything being just right, which it never is come finals time.
 
Chewy316 said:
The Club made the choice to not match Amon's contract because they believed the compensation was worth more than what they valued him as a player. The Club pushed Impey out.
Click to expand...
Not matching a contract doesn't mean we didn't want to keep him. Not necessarily pay above market price, but that doesn't mean we wanted him to leave.

Impey left because his father died and he wanted to be closer to his family. Again, we wanted to keep him.

If you think Hinkley has gotten the most out of the players, do you think then that they should have extended his contract as opposed to moving him on?
Click to expand...
I think it's time to move him on for two reasons:

1 Purely on the fact that I don't think any coach should remain at a club for such a long period of time - messaging becomes stale, continual improvement in methods, processes becomes difficult (And to make matters worse, we've continually done internal promotions meaning we have no fresh outside voice or perspective). It's also why I don't think Carr was the best choice, and why I think we should have looked external.

2 The fanbase has obviously turned on him, so he needs to go - regardless of what was his fault and what was not his fault, and what % of blame we can attribute to him. None of it matters when the fans have turned on him.
Personally I feel supporters are frustrated with the lack of success (and rightfully so) and are looking for a scapegoat. Ultimately the head coach always cops the criticism and the sacking/non renewal - but it doesn't mean the lack of success was on them.

I don't believe our lack of success over the last 21 years is all down to Ken. I think we've got (and always had) glaring issues in list management, strength and conditioning, assistants etc. that need to be addressed.

Carlton, Essendon, Fremantle have all had many coaches over the past 21 years, and none of them have won a flag either. Was the coach the problem each time? No - but it's the easy solution to just sack the coach and rinse and repeat. It's far too simplistic to just point at Ken. You need to look at the entire football department including assistants (which looks like it may finally be happening).

And above all - sometimes you need a bit of luck. A bit of luck that players don't get injured. A bit of luck on umpire decisions at key moments. A bit of luck that players perform as expected or above.

We can all think of key moments in key games over the years that didn't go our way - but had they done, we could be having a different conversation. That Duursma dropped mark, that Hartlett deliberate out of bounds, that Andrew Moore missed shot etc. They all cost us the game, yet you can't put any of them on the coach. Who knows what would have happened had that 50/50 went the other way.
 

🥰 Love BigFooty? Join now for free.

El_Scorcho said:
Did you watch any games over the last decade?

Dixon's highest goals per game season was in 2015 at the 4-17 Gold Coast SUNS.
Click to expand...

49 goals in 2017
48 goals in 2021

Issue is he's never had support. Who was our number 2 key forward during this time? Teams knew they could sit on Charlie and intercept off Charlie because we had nobody else.
 
Enviable Tradition said:
He also has a terrible history of creating a consistent game plan where role players can come in and thrive. His game plan relies on no injuries and everything being just right, which it never is come finals time.
Click to expand...

This I can agree with. It is maximising his weapons - but when those weapons get injured, nobody else can step in.

And also makes my point earlier around Getting the most out of a player and a good gameplan not necessarily going hand in hand.

As soon as we lost Farrell and Houston, we were done for last season.

We've seen other teams talk about the 'plug and play' of their gameplan and players - which we've never been able to do.

I will agree here.
 
The Hobo said:
The fact we have no like for like replacements is a huge issue. Even if we moved Bergman or Jones to cover, we end up losing Bergman in midfield which is massive. They're also very undersized - they may be able to do the job here and there, but will get exposed in big games against good forwards.


They probably will improve, but do you see them ever becoming better than a bottom 5-8 ruck? Will they ever be Max Gawn, Grundy, Jackson, TDK, Witts, Cameron, English, Nankervis levels? I can't see it. Yes, it's a heck of a lot better than Lycett and nobody, but it's still simply not good enough. Rucks are SO important, and we've been smashed by enough of them in big finals to know the importance of having a good ruck. We haven't had a good ruck since Ryder, and even he was on one leg for a lot of the time he was with us.


Whitlock maybe, but Marshall and Lukoscious cannot ruck at all. Finlayson at his best is a good second ruck. I don't know if he will ever get back to that though.


I don't think any of these names is going to be a Rioli replacement. We need a smart/tricky small forward that can conjure goals out of nothing. All I haven't seen enough of Barrett, but the others all seem like they're more half forwards rather than your typical small forward that stays in the 50 and crumbs.
Click to expand...

With the rucks, its hard to tell. Max Gawn at 22 had played the same number of games that Dante has, didn’t look amazing, had done an ACL and allegedly was the cause of their number 1 pick legging it after two years. Not sure many saw him becoming arguably the best ruck thos century after that start.
 
rainwizard39 said:
Why do you always say this? You also brought this up when we were talking about not developing KPDs, as if clubs regularly pick up untried delisted players to begin with. It’s not the great point you think it is.
Click to expand...
Because if the players were half decent, they'd be getting picked up by other teams. Look around at the AFL, and there are so many players that were delisted and then got picked up by another team and did well. That means that the person who drafted them saw something and was right, whilst the coach was not able to get that performance out of them. (Which is what some ppl seem to say is happening at Port. Good list management and bad development).

Clubs regularly pick up delisted players, either in the PSD, Rookie Draft and now the MSD.

How would you use available data to prove that the list management is good, and development is bad?
 
I'm going to group the players in groups of 10 not in any order (based on what I think) so I don't care if you don't agree, everyone would have a different list. I'm then going to strike out those I don't think will be there in 3 years (same thing don't argue)

First Tier 1-10
1. Connor Rozee, 18. Jason Horne‑Francis, 9. Zak Butters, 14. Miles Bergman, 16. Ollie Wines, 19. Mitch Georgiades, 28. Willem Drew, 21. Aliir Aliir, 6. Kane Farrell, 2. Sam Powell‑Pepper

2nd Tier 11-20
8. Josh Sinn, 4. Todd Marshall, 7. Jase Burgoyne, 25. Brandon Zerk‑Thatcher, 27. Esava Ratugolea, 33. Darcy Byrne‑Jones, 34. Lachie Jones, 12. Jack Lukosius, 15 Willie Rioli, 38. Dante Visentini

3rd Tier 21-30
10. Travis Boak, 3. Ryan Burton, 11. Jeremy Finlayson, , 24. Jordon Sweet, 5. Joe Berry, 13. Ivan Soldo , 30. Ollie Lord, 35. Joe Richards, 39. Hugh Jackson, 31. Christian Moraes,

4th Tier 31-40
22. Logan Evans, 44. Jackson Mead, 23. Dylan Williams, 37. Tom Cochrane, 32. Rory Atkins, 50. Mani Liddy, 36. Will Lorenz, 41. Jed McEntee, 26. Lachlan Charleson, 17. Jack Whitlock

5 Tier 41-47
29. Tom Anastasopoulos, 40. Benny Barrett, 42. Jacob Moss, 43. Josh Lai, 45. Xavier Walsh, 48. Harrison Ramm, 49. Ewan Mackinlay

Of our mid tier I have about 50% of them not lasting 3 years. Of our Top 20 I have only 2 not lasting 3 years. I have mainly guys at the bottom end not lasting 3 years and it makes sense because nearly all were drafted at the bottom end of the draft. Its paramount that we invest in better development coaches so we can bring in young players and build this mid-tier because its hurting us now.

Looking at the guys I think will not be with us - we need some small forwards. I hope some guys who I struck out get better and stay with us.
 

Remove this Banner Ad

The Next Tier

Similar threads

pastmyprimus
Next seasons surprise packet
2 3 4
Replies
85
Views
4K
VineValerian
VineValerian
OneGreatClub
Opinion The player I thought Port should draft / would be the next big thing
2 3
Replies
71
Views
3K
EskimoPAFC
EskimoPAFC
P
Brian Cunningham next chairman of Port Adelaide
2
Replies
38
Views
3K
Joelg
Joelg
Macca19
Roast Who else won’t renew their membership next year?
8 9 10 11 12
Replies
298
Views
15K
Duck Farmer
Duck Farmer
Enviable Tradition
Our next senior assistant
2 3
Replies
50
Views
3K
just_kick_it
just_kick_it
elbarton
Our next mistake
Replies
20
Views
2K
VineValerian
VineValerian
raptalia
News Vale Ken Tierney
Replies
2
Views
570
raptalia
raptalia

🥰 Love BigFooty? Join now for free.

Back
Top