I love your work Santa as you clearly put a fair bit of thought into it, but the analysis of players still at the club is not the answer. An analysis of all those gone during his reign would round out the development vs draft debate a bit more thoroughly. But the real issue with TW imo was his inability to develop a game plan that was credible, teachable/understandable and therefore executable by the team. He changed his mind every 5 minutes causing chaos and the inevitable loss of confidence leading to the horrendous skill errors we were accustomed to seeing. They ALL had the skills they just didn't have their heads right to hit targets and trust their instincts. White is the classic example. Against WCE he swung around at chf and bounced a beautiful pass into the path of Nason instead of his '08 panic attack turnover play. Dramatic improvement. Clearly not a champion player, don't get me wrong, but have a real look at the best side in the comp ie Cats, StK and tell me that they also don't have a few muppets that are made to look good in a good side. Saints defence was in a state of panic when the 16th side in the comp started to run at them. Blake was embarrassing against JR. Some of those Cats like Hunt, Burns, Stokes, Blake are just not that great.
My point is, we can't expect them all to be guns but they can look great running past the KPPs and the crack midfield we're developing. And if the coach and development staff keep the process going then they'll have the confidence to execute the skills they do possess.
Don't mean to have a crack at you cos I like your stuff. But I also like the debate about what the real essence of success may be.
cheers.
no problems mate i actually agree with what you are saying. and yes a poor game plan and structure etc does indeed hurt development in some ways.
i was primarily focusing on individual player development and improvement with skills.
one area that this club was always going to quickly improve in was team ethos with just a bit of decent size structure and reasonable sprinkling of skill.
just have to say ive seen the matt whites of this world hit players lace out under good pressure the thing is they always revert to type. he may get one kick right and he has regularly but its the 4 other ordinary disposals that go with it.
and speaking of type sheesh small out side quick players need to be very good to elite with their footskills and decision making, sheesh people say hes improved but i dont see it he just lacks that polish.
finally have you gone thru the players wallace delisted or traded i dont think i should include retirees but will state them. why well they were mostly aged and short term regardless.
delisted - blumfield fleming fletcher houlihan marsh nicholls weller zantuck.archibald gilmore graham hilton morrison. a kellaway limbach roach rodan. p bowden hartigan peterson. casserley hyde meyer gourdis redrafted as a rookie.
there is not one delisting that can be argued, with with maybe the only exception rodan. the interesting thing is the amount of delistings that were bought to the club while wallace was there. the whole lot are glass half fulls with chronic deficiencies.
traded ottens who walked.fiora,
we traded out just two players under wallace as stated the good one wanted out the other we rightly took what we could for him.
retired rogers kellaway. campbell.stafford chaffey. knobel kingsley gaspar hall. tivendale.
maybe one or two were forced to retire a yr early but in the main he got it right. mostly aged and past it, if anything with far to many he kept them to long.
clearly the indicators here are even while wallace was there far to many were bought to the club who could not be developed to the required standard. the main culprit recruiting of glass half fulls. recruiting something that wallace has consistently said he had little to do with.
beck miller terry himself and to a degree francis jackson all contributed largely to where we are.
imo donald duck could have recruited better or done a better job of list managment than what we copped in the frawley wallace yrs.