List Mgmt. The possibility of needing to bottom out

[driftyhunter]

Bottoming out is a laugh!

Where do you play a couple of kids when you put our best list on the field? Nowhere that’s where.
We have pockets, wings & flanks covered. Lewis & Chip as the bookends & for the time being Sicily & Rough are filling gaps.

Rough (retire) Birch (who) Burgoyne (retire) all gone this year imo.
Poppy, Stratts, Schoey, McEvoy & Smith are all in the twilight.
That’s it outside of a few list cloggers that are not quite depth players.

Kpf, KPD, Mid x 2 & we are looking fine & still adding pieces through the draft.

Patton has been linked to us.
There are a couple who have mentioned Sam Day as a possibility FA who can play both ends.
Cogs is the obvious big name.
Brodie cheep option.
We could look to trade for someone like Connor Ballenden to develop alongside Lewis & add depth.

Brad Crouch should be in the radar for 2019/20 anyway if he’s gettable.

Seriously, a couple of FA signings in Cogs & Day.
Do a couple of cheep trades in Patton, Brodie & Ballenden.

Pay up for Crouch & were good to go.

Bottoming our is a **** idea.
If we play the kids at the expense of the inevitable players moving on & finish bottom 8 for Anderson & Maginness in the draft that’s a win, surly & a look at the future by pumping games into development & synergy.

Clarko won’t bottom us out. He will put the best side on the park every week. Unfortunately with the lack of depth and a lack of a marking forward who’s played 50 games that probably means no finals and maybe even bottom 4 for us.
So even with our best efforts we may bottom out for just the one year whether we like it or not.
We retire silk rough shoey birch, pick up cogs Patton and a kpf + mid depth in the draft and reset next year.
Not too distressing really. One crappy year and we are back in the game 2020.
Ditch the “let’s bottom out” nonsense as our side’s current weakness will determine that.
Once Mitch is back with a beefed up mid brigade, the rest of the side just start working well again.
Feeling hopeful and enthusiastic with what could be just the time to have a single hard year for a great rebound next year.

 

[threesixpio]

“that’s not the way we go about it”

 

[WWSD]

if his name is Thorpe Dowler im gonna be pissed

Need to recruit a player called Lake Gibson. That way his nickname can be Birchall.

 

[Pessimistic]

One point of a strategy is to know what it is, and stick to it.
switching back and forth when things get slightly uncomfortable is absolutely the worst thing
So if you agree or not, just hope the club sticks to its guns

 

[Davo-27]

Perfect. 100% agree. You've just destroyed the premise of this whole thread in one sentence.

The side could bottom out and then the top draft pick might not be up to it OR may get a chronic injury, etc. By finishing lower on the ladder all you are doing is maybe increasing your odds of getting a better player, but it isn't necessarily so. Melbourne & Carlton have both deliberately tanked, like gutless pathetically sad embarrassing jokes, and they have nothing (zero, zip, zilch, nada, etc) to show for it. #tanking #sad #failures #etc

Instilling a culture of failure tends to lead to it self repeating.

you only fail if you have Pelchen or a similarly poor recruiter running your recruiting division, also i would say theres plenty of examples of trades going poor, life is not a guarantee, but if you want to really create a great team, it mostly comes from the draft with a handful of trades, thats been the recipe forever.

i agree though, i dont think anyone is advocating for tanking and creating a loser culture, but i am advocating for moving on and blooding youngsters that are up to it, ahead of some of our veterans that are constantly letting us down atm.

also the context behind Dowler and Thorpe is we recruited them after we had Franklin, Roughead and Boyle(who was a good back up), so not only did they end up bad players, they also were bad strategic picks overall...

 

[big_rig]

i think the last 4-5 years we have allowed our list to stagnate, last season was a step in the right direction dropping some list cloggers but we still have ageing players ect, its really frustrating watching our list management for the last 4-5 years

Seriously? 4 years ago we 3 peated. 5 years ago we thrashed Sydney to go B2B....

 

[matey]

We don’t have to bottom out and join in on the lottery draw of the draft. We still have a number of elite players of the competition for the next 5-7 years and fingers crossed we obtain another couple in the next 1 - 2 years.

From watching us this year the players are struggling to play with cohesion. We play well for 1-2 qtrs and that’s it. I think the game plan needs to be adjusted by Clarko and his assistants while Wright continues to do his thing. I have never seen us kick it, hang on, bang it into the forward line to congestion and hope something happens as much for years. Sides are applying great pressure so we need to find a way to deliver the ball to our forwards cleanly and with more consistency. This is not a player driven thing it’s team structure, strategy and unfortunately other sides are implementing their game plans much better than us at the moment. Do your thing Clarko!

 

[KermitJagger]

you only fail if you have Pelchen or a similarly poor recruiter running your recruiting division, also i would say theres plenty of examples of trades going poor, life is not a guarantee, but if you want to really create a great team, it mostly comes from the draft with a handful of trades, thats been the recipe forever.

Look - history would show that a great team in most situations comes from the draft with a handful of trades, but that's because it's only been recent history where player trading and movement has been an alternative list management strategy to hitting the draft. The recipe could well be outdated, particularly when you judge all recent examples of GF/Premiership Success from the past 5 years save for Western Bulldogs.

Also, for comparison - I've listed the ages of the Hawk's key (best 22) acquisitions as compared to Geelong's. On quality, they're better names IMO, with most in a much better age bracket.

Performance issues are not a reflection of list management. We're middling because we can't execute our game plan, not because we've list managed our way into a hole. Geelong are where they are right now because of mind boggling efficiency.

Hawthorn's key trade ins at the moment are:
McEvoy 29yr 9m
Frawley 30y 7m
O'Meara 25yr 2m
Wingard 25yr 9m
Mitchell 25yr 11m
Gunston 27yr 6m
Scully 27yr 11m
Burgoyne 36yr 6m
Scrimshaw 20yr 8m
Impey 23yr 9m

Geelong's best 22 has a mix of the following players from other clubs:
Dahlhaus 26yr 8m
Rohan 27yr 10m
Dangerfield 29yr 1m
Ablett 34y 11m
Tuohy 29yr 4m
Henderson 29yr 4m
Stanley 28yr 5m
S Selwood 29yr 1m

Collingwood:
Treloar
Adams
Beams
Varcoe
Howe
Roughead
Greenwood
Crisp
Hoskin-Elliott

West Coast:
Kennedy
Redden
Jetta
Cripps
Yeo
Hickey
Vardy

Richmond:
Grigg
Houli
Caddy
Lynch
Prestia
Weller
Nankervis

 

[Pessimistic]

Seriously? 4 years ago we 3 peated. 5 years ago we thrashed Sydney to go B2B....

This. 16 players played 3 flags. Very stable side which meant limited opportunities for Kids

 

[Hookster]

Is there a Jason Brereton out there? Are there any taller players not getting a game for other teams. We could get Paddy McCartin cheap, a head knock in his first training session and retire.

 

[Milkshaker]

Agree.

Also, what is ‘bottoming out’? For Carltank, it means numerous year finishing last & about a decade in the Bottom 4.

This Club (post 2004) & with Clarko - bottoming out means missing the finals twice in 3 years (2017 & 2019).

There’s nothing to say that Bottoming Out means a Wooden Spoon. In fact, with our list, I reckon ‘Bottoming Out’ is finishing 10th - 14th. It is very possible that we ‘bottom out’ but are still better than about 4-8 other teams, who are also at differing stages of sliding/building.

Check out West Coasts ladder history. A club I admire. They never bottom out. They rebound very strongly from a few seasons 'down the order'. Even in their 'darkest' years 1995 - 2014 they were still very competitive. Add Mitchell, some further experience, confidence and cohesion and we will follow a similar trajectory imo.

 

[ACTion Hawks]

One of the elements of all top teams is a core group of elite players.

As said often in this thread, in our three-peat years those players were largely drafted (although I would note that Gibson (2xPCM winner in premiership years), Lake (Norm Smith medalist), Burgers (what needs to be said), Gunston (amazing strike rate in those finals), Hale (vital cog in the three-peat) and McEvoy were all traded into the group).

Looking at our list now and the top quality players who will hopefully be around for our next premiership are:

Tom Mitchell - in the top handful of players in the comp
Jaeger O'Meara - is heading towards being in the top handful of players in the comp (originally top pick in his draft)
Ben McEvoy - in top form this year. Is in the top handful of rucks in the comp (top 10 pick in his draft)
Chad Wingard - although he hasn't shown it for us yet, is one of the top HFF/Mid combos in the comp (top 10 pick in his draft)
Tom Scully - elite fitness and looks like getting back to being the top two-way runner in the comp (top pick in his draft)
Jack Gunston - one of the top medium forwards in the comp (AA last year).

That would be my top 6 and a worthy top 6 for a premiership side. These are all traded in, in a time when we had no (or very few) top 10 picks. The cost of that trading has been depth, but we are bringing that in through astute drafting and picking up of lesser 'role' players (ricky Henderson for example).

The Hawks have made some super tough choices over the last few years (I am not aware of any team that has traded out their first and second BnF), we paid the short term price but I think that Mitch and Jordan leaving has helped in making Tom Mitchell and JOM the players they are.

We appear to have cap space to target a Free Agent in the next year or two.

Do we need to do well in the upcoming trade/draft? Of course, the comp is such that a bad performance in one or two drafts means you fall way back (see Richmond from 2004 and 2005!).

The way I see it is it depends if you are a half full or half empty person. Do you look at our last two weeks and say we were a few seconds away from being 2-5 or do you say we were a few seconds away from being a 4-3? Do you see the drugtakers as ahead of us at the moment, even though we are on the same points on the ladder and lost to the Cats by less than them?

I'm looking forward to the young'uns developing this year and for us to be contending in the near future!

 

[Bugs1977]

Clarko won’t bottom us out. He will put the best side on the park every week. Unfortunately with the lack of depth and a lack of a marking forward who’s played 50 games that probably means no finals and maybe even bottom 4 for us.
So even with our best efforts we may bottom out for just the one year whether we like it or not.
We retire silk rough shoey birch, pick up cogs Patton and a kpf + mid depth in the draft and reset next year.
Not too distressing really. One crappy year and we are back in the game 2020.
Ditch the “let’s bottom out” nonsense as our side’s current weakness will determine that.
Once Mitch is back with a beefed up mid brigade, the rest of the side just start working well again.
Feeling hopeful and enthusiastic with what could be just the time to have a single hard year for a great rebound next year.

Bravo. I agree with everything you have said however the difference between securing one of the top 2 picks and say picks 3-10 could end up being astronomical. Noah and Rowell are being earmarked to be superstar talents where the others might just end being solid best 22.

There is no shame in having one crappy season and the reality is that Tom Mitchell is that good he has plugged so many holes in our team that it has taken a season ending injury for us to be exposed. Being down for one season will also deliver us a softer draw which we haven't had for the best part of a decade.

 

[Birdofprey]

Two points on list management:

One - these decisions are informed by the overall strategy and objectives of the club. Their stated intention is to stay up the top end, and pull flags in the (relatively) near future. That really does not leave Clarkson and Wrighty much scope to start drafting a bunch of 18 year olds. They are employees of the HFC, and they work to the incentives and objectives placed in front of them. Hence, they trying to make us competitive as soon as possible using a range of strategies.

Two - I think the club deserves a bit of credit for how quickly they have reshaped the list. 2016 is last year we were legitimate chance (losing Rough and Cegs probably made is unlikely, but it was worth a shot). So really, we have had 2017 plus 2018, and now into early 2019. That is not that long, and the club has made effort to move players on (with their input) each year, and I suspect 2-4 senior/older heads will exit at end of this year.

Some of our footy this year has been disappointing, and we will be tested in next 6 weeks. But my view is we stay the course, and get as much out of this year as possible. A disappointing 2019 (if that's what happens) means that we can be the surprise packet of 2020.

The Footy-Gods are fickle my fellow Hawks - they can turn on a dime!

 

[Bugs1977]

Check out West Coasts ladder history. A club I admire. They never bottom out. They rebound very strongly from a few seasons 'down the order'. Even in their 'darkest' years 1995 - 2014 they were still very competitive. Add Mitchell, some further experience, confidence and cohesion and we will follow a similar trajectory imo.

View attachment 669028

It would be interesting to see who they drafted in the years of their lower ladder finishes. Without looking at the facts I will assume that their down years coincide with them drafting Judd, Cousins and Kerr which allowed them to springboard back up the ladder relatively quickly.

There is no shame with having a down season and at some point in time depending on who is a valuable in the draft. You'd have to wonder what round table discussions happen when a half decent team like ours is cursed by the injury bug between the coaching department, scouting team, board members. Point I'm trying to make is that every now and then you have guys like Hodge, Judd, Ablett etc that recruiters can see are going to be guns. For one reason or another you can also end up with a Thorpe or a Tambling but I'd bet on our coaching / fitness guys for that not to happen and with scouting as good as it is now is less likely to occur with your top 10 picks.

 

[KermitJagger]

It would be interesting to see who they drafted in the years of their lower ladder finishes. Without looking at the facts I will assume that their down years coincide with them drafting Judd, Cousins and Kerr which allowed them to springboard back up the ladder relatively quickly.

There is no shame with having a down season and at some point in time depending on who is a valuable in the draft. You'd have to wonder what round table discussions happen when a half decent team like ours is cursed by the injury bug between the coaching department, scouting team, board members. Point I'm trying to make is that every now and then you have guys like Hodge, Judd, Ablett etc that recruiters can see are going to be guns. For one reason or another you can also end up with a Thorpe or a Tambling but I'd bet on our coaching / fitness guys for that not to happen and with scouting as good as it is now is less likely to occur with your top 10 picks.

Judd was their only high pick that amounted to anything from the earlier down years. Ben Cousins was a father son selection back when it cost nothing, Kerr was Pick 18 in 2000, which was a second rounder at that point. Cox came to the club as a rookie.

Luck, as much as good drafting.

 

[Judd2Sewell]

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/four-points-hawks-feeling-gravity-s-pull-20190505-p51kb0.html

The Age having a bite at the Hawks too. Warranted. (Apologies if already posted. Sure the afl.com.au site has been at it too... lol)

Good. Bring it. All the heat and scrutiny being poured on what we are doing and how rubbish we are playing is good. I want pressure on the club, it will hopefully make is stronger at the end of it.

 

[Milkshaker]

It would be interesting to see who they drafted in the years of their lower ladder finishes. Without looking at the facts I will assume that their down years coincide with them drafting Judd, Cousins and Kerr which allowed them to springboard back up the ladder relatively quickly.

There is no shame with having a down season and at some point in time depending on who is a valuable in the draft. You'd have to wonder what round table discussions happen when a half decent team like ours is cursed by the injury bug between the coaching department, scouting team, board members. Point I'm trying to make is that every now and then you have guys like Hodge, Judd, Ablett etc that recruiters can see are going to be guns. For one reason or another you can also end up with a Thorpe or a Tambling but I'd bet on our coaching / fitness guys for that not to happen and with scouting as good as it is now is less likely to occur with your top 10 picks.

Just including players of note:

2000 (Finished 13th): Daniel Kerr
2001 (Finished 14th): Chris Judd

2005 Runners Up
2006 Flag

Traded Judd for Josh Kennedy and netted depth player Chris Masten in 2007 as part of the deal.

2008 (Finished 15th): Nic Nat and Luke Shuey
2009 (Finished 11th): Brad Shepherd
2010 (Finihsed 16th): Gaff and Darling
2013 (Finished 13th): Dom Sheed (Rookied Jeremy McGovern)

2015 Runners up
2018 Flag

They entered the comp. with an incredibly promising core group of players winning two flags and missing out in 1991 .

Kerr and Judd were guns. Then a block of solid drafting helped secure 2018's flag. What I like about the list that the Eagles have effectively finished in the top 8, 25/33 seasons. Even more exceptional considering the other WA side has been a rabble.

 

[Bugs1977]

Apart from us sucking for this season my biggest fear is that this scenario will play out (see article below) whilst we’ll be just good enough to miss out on Rowell or Noah. Whilst we will go into next season losing some of our ageing vets the Swans get the next up and coming star whilst we end up just outside the 8 but not bad enough to get a top 3 pick or what some call the mediocrity treadmill.

http://facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/...y/news-story/4becad5d6cd593072237fae14ec79ef6

 

[TylerDurden]

Apart from us sucking for this season my biggest fear is that this scenario will play out (see article below) whilst we’ll be just good enough to miss out on Rowell or Noah. Whilst we will go into next season losing some of our ageing vets the Swans get the next up and coming star whilst we end up just outside the 8 but not bad enough to get a top 3 pick or what some call the mediocrity treadmill.

http://facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/...y/news-story/4becad5d6cd593072237fae14ec79ef6

Rowell sounds like a Clayton Oliver clone. Perfect for us too.

Strange times ahead. I just love that Carlton traded away their pick this year. The tankers won't get rewarded for once.

 

[thejockey]

Good. Bring it. All the heat and scrutiny being poured on what we are doing and how rubbish we are playing is good. I want pressure on the club, it will hopefully make is stronger at the end of it.

A lot of people have been waiting a few years to sink the boots in and are really coming out of the woodwork now .
It’s actually laughable some of the so called analysis going on .

 

[TylerDurden]

A lot of people have been waiting a few years to sink the boots in and are really coming out of the woodwork now .
It’s actually laughable some of the so called analysis going on .

Oh they've been waiting. Especially the Dons fans. Not only on this forum, but in real life. They get so much enjoyment out of it.

Even knifing Wingard. That's their favourite part of it all.

 

[thejockey]

Apart from us sucking for this season my biggest fear is that this scenario will play out (see article below) whilst we’ll be just good enough to miss out on Rowell or Noah. Whilst we will go into next season losing some of our ageing vets the Swans get the next up and coming star whilst we end up just outside the 8 but not bad enough to get a top 3 pick or what some call the mediocrity treadmill.

http://facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/...y/news-story/4becad5d6cd593072237fae14ec79ef6

The AFL won’t allow them to be poor for long . If they don’t nab quality picks they’ll bring COLA back or other concessions .

 

[Walshawk]

If we ever want another sustained period near the top, it will only happen 3 - 5 years after we clear the decks and bottom out.
If we want to spend the next 10 years trying to fluke a flag, but actually finishing 5th - 14th, we should continue trading really good 21 year olds along with draft picks for players 25 and over.

 

[Walshawk]

One of the elements of all top teams is a core group of elite players.

As said often in this thread, in our three-peat years those players were largely drafted (although I would note that Gibson (2xPCM winner in premiership years), Lake (Norm Smith medalist), Burgers (what needs to be said), Gunston (amazing strike rate in those finals), Hale (vital cog in the three-peat) and McEvoy were all traded into the group).

Looking at our list now and the top quality players who will hopefully be around for our next premiership are:

Tom Mitchell - in the top handful of players in the comp
Jaeger O'Meara - is heading towards being in the top handful of players in the comp (originally top pick in his draft)
Ben McEvoy - in top form this year. Is in the top handful of rucks in the comp (top 10 pick in his draft)
Chad Wingard - although he hasn't shown it for us yet, is one of the top HFF/Mid combos in the comp (top 10 pick in his draft)
Tom Scully - elite fitness and looks like getting back to being the top two-way runner in the comp (top pick in his draft)
Jack Gunston - one of the top medium forwards in the comp (AA last year).

That would be my top 6 and a worthy top 6 for a premiership side. These are all traded in, in a time when we had no (or very few) top 10 picks. The cost of that trading has been depth, but we are bringing that in through astute drafting and picking up of lesser 'role' players (ricky Henderson for example).

The Hawks have made some super tough choices over the last few years (I am not aware of any team that has traded out their first and second BnF), we paid the short term price but I think that Mitch and Jordan leaving has helped in making Tom Mitchell and JOM the players they are.

We appear to have cap space to target a Free Agent in the next year or two.

Do we need to do well in the upcoming trade/draft? Of course, the comp is such that a bad performance in one or two drafts means you fall way back (see Richmond from 2004 and 2005!).

The way I see it is it depends if you are a half full or half empty person. Do you look at our last two weeks and say we were a few seconds away from being 2-5 or do you say we were a few seconds away from being a 4-3? Do you see the drugtakers as ahead of us at the moment, even though we are on the same points on the ladder and lost to the Cats by less than them?

I'm looking forward to the young'uns developing this year and for us to be contending in the near future!

In a few weeks Big Boy will be 30 and Scully 28. Gunston is 27. Highly unlikely any of those will be playing in our next flag. We are miles away.