Was it poor drafting or poor development...??

[Barnzy]

It's both.

Players like JON, Pattison, Rance, etc never had the physical tools to develop on in the first place.

 

[folester41]

of course its both, first you pick players who do not have as much chance of succeeding at afl level as other players do, then you dont have the resources to be able to get the most out of them.

 

[Livonski]

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.

 

[TOOs_Finest]

Agree Livonksi, we didn't play like a real team for most of TW's 5 years, regardless of the talent we did/didn't have.

Lack of gameplan and cohesiveness was a big issue, although it could also be argued that was the case throughout the whole club, not just on the field

 

[Tomnat Tigers]

Its both like recruiting JON was a mistake they didnt do any research on him and then development hughes he kicked a couple of bags but 2 weeks later would be playing at coburg, but now you see dimma getting games into the kids and it hepls there development.

 

[santa claws]

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.

 

[Tiger67]

culture created under Wallace = in Bowden, Hyde, Tivendale, Pettifer out a newbie after 1 game. Then after seeing the same old same old and hearing the same old same ole, i.e. we let the jumper down etc etc and all that shit, it was out Bowden, Hyde, Tivendale, Pettifer in a couple of newbies. Then when the flames had been put out, after a week it was in Bowden, Hyde, Tivendale, Pettifer out the newbies.
If you were playing under that type of coach who was pulling everyone's pud, then sitting back and hearing how you were not part of the team because of your attitude then saw the Pettifers and Bowdens of this worlds attitude, hands on hips, lacksidasical you name it it was couldnt give a flying ****..then you yourself would have thought, WTF am i doing here.

Generally speaking Cogga this is a very accurate post but to group Bowden in with the other players mentioned is an absolute disgrace.
He was a champion of the RFC and it was only the lack of quality at the club that forced him to play the role he did and the way he did.

On the drafting versus development argument, it was a combination of both.
TW and spud before him both tried to develop a list based on recycled hacks in Spuds case and in running power in TWs case.
TW may have been onto something but he never bothered trying to develop players once they arived at the club.
He was reliant on the natural ability of the players and spent all his time trying to outsmart the opposition with wiz bang game plans that didn't work and that confused the players.
It is easy to sit hear and blame TW and he deserves a lot of the blame but what else was wrong at the club for this to be alloed to happen for nearly 5 years.
His failures at the RFC was picked up and pointed out on here from early on in his third year of a 5 year tenure but for some reason it took until mid season in year 4 of his time for the board to realise that he was failing miserably, and even then it took another year to do something about it.
Time will tell what Dimma is truly like but the players are responding in a way they have not done for years.... Event in the games we have lost in this year including those nthat we lost heavily in we have not just capitulated to massive losses and you can now see a game plan that the players are starting to undrstand and impliment.
We have a solid list with a mountain of improvement to come from many of the players.
I'm not going to say that we will be a top 4 side next year but there is much reason to be optomistic about how far this young group can take our mighty club!!

 

[robrito]

I remember reading an article where TW put out a 'Suggestion Box' for the players in order to see what could be improved. Apparently most players asked for more development. Now, if players are asking for development then I suggest the players really just wanted ANY development to occur. I think this says a lot. It makes me feel sad really.