Why we are where we are at

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We're done. We gambled, we lost and we lost worse than you could ever imagine. We get one good game out of Taranto or Hopper each week, but never one out of both of them and it's cost us our short term future.

We haven't had a good group of young players since Baker, Balta and Bolton who are all approaching their mid 20's. We're hopeful with Gibcus and Cumberland will be okay. But Sonsie, HRS, Ross and Clarke are way, way off it. There was a reason Sonsie was subbed - he was awful. The plan 100% would have been to sub Soldo or Miller, but Sonsie was that bad he demanded the sub. Clarke then came on and did regular Clarke things like burn the footy inside 50 and have his tackles broken like he was never there.

In saying this. It's to play the kids. Get Cotch to 300 and then retire him.
 

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Why are we here? Because we lost sight of what keeps sides like Geelong in contention - good list management.

Since 2017 we've done the following in terms of drafting and trading:

  1. Traded a 23 year old Dan Butler for pick 56. We now have zero small forward players of Dan's capability.
  2. Drafted Higgins and CCJ, neither of whom have turned into players, in Higgins case wasn't a need with Butler and Castanga and then lost both for no value in Higgins' case pick upgrade and future second that turned into Judson Clarke who at this stage we can't say whether he's going to be a player and for Tarrant who won't see out another year and a bevy of late picks.
  3. Instead of the selections above, overlooked players like: Starcevich, Powell, Allen, Kelly, Ryan, Taylor, De Koning, Fritsch and McCartin
  4. Spent our first two picks at the 2018 draft on RCD who was a massive bust and Ross. Not a great draft but have a look at Sydney to see what could be done with later picks that are nailed. We then spent our late picks on Turner, English, Aarts, Townsend (again when we'd already decided he wasn't up to it) and Chol.
  5. Taking Dow, who isn't getting a game, and Martyn with high picks in 2019 when there are plenty of best 22 blokes that have been picked after them.
  6. Took only two picks in the 2020 draft and were spooked by not enough exposed COVID form when we needed to get youth into the team. Blokes like O'Driscoll, McInnes and Holmes would have been available with our first pick if we hadn't pushed it back a year to select Brown.
  7. I'm giving the 2021 draft some time, but the Brown selection at the moment is looking catastrophic given how dysfunctional our forward line looks and how much someone like Van Rooyen would be a successor to Jack or MacDonald would go in our midfield. Overlooking Owens also isn't looking terrific at the moment given we had 3 picks.
  8. Prioritised average mid-season draft picks such as Matt Parker instead of long term development.
  9. In addition to the above with the blokes we've actually taken to 2020 (I'm assessing 2021 as too early at this stage) we arguably got right: Balta, Baker, Cumberland. Jury still out on Dow, Ralphsmith, Nyuon, Ryan, Rioli. That's 3 best 22 and 5 maybe future best 22 blokes. We had 21 picks in total in that period. Not a great return any which way you look at it.
The other central reason we've fallen is:
  • Our game plan is now stale and either no longer stacks up or we don't have the personnel to play it.
  • Rule changes have made our game plan less effective and we've struggled to adapt.
  • We have brought back old assistant coaches and lost good ones so there is not a lot of new ideas or evolution happening in the coach's box.
  • We have lost key underappreciated players (I miss Kane Lambert so much) with others going on too long. Cotchin has arguably gone two seasons too long now and that same argument could be made about Jack.
  • We have made the fatal mistake of overrating our list and overpaid for Hopper and Taranto who will now smooth our failure in multiple drafts in terms of age demographic but hurt our ability to pick up young stars (i.e. keep us not good enough for finals but out of the bottom four) that will propel our next tilt at a flag.
 
Rioli2Rioli said:
Look above and tell me if the stats above your post are wrong
Click to expand...
Doesn’t have rnds 3 & 4 on it
Rnd 9 last year was injured in first 2 mins of game
Last year was plagued with injury & glandular fever
 

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Rioli2Rioli said:
Mate seriously do you even watch games

HH is not being played as a foward and spends as much time in the ruck , in the backline and all over the place

HH is averaging 1.3 goals a game and 1 point a game , He averages 11.5 poss a game at 75% DE
What do you think he is doing with the other poss if he was played as a foward ??

You really need to watch more GWS games Hogan , Cadman , Greene have all been played as KPF this year
Click to expand...
So you want to bring in Himmelberg as a second KPF, yet he isn't even playing KPF according to you, but also plays a bit of ruck and defence as well.

Well as it stands Himmelberg attends on average 15 ruck contests a game, from those 15 contests he averages 1.4 hit outs per game and has 1 hitout to advantage for the season.

As far as being a defender is concerned, he's won 2 contested defensive 1 on 1s, has not taken a single intercept mark, has only 8 intercept possessions and 4 R50s for the season.

As mentioned as a foward he averages just over 1 goal a game.

None of this sounds like a player you'd happily pay $750k a season for, not that it matters that much anyway as after today it's clear as day that Himmelberg isn't the answer to solve our issues.
 
_RT_ said:
So you want to bring in Himmelberg as a second KPF, yet he isn't even playing KPF according to you, but also plays a bit of ruck and defence as well.

Well as it stands Himmelberg attends on average 15 ruck contests a game, from those 15 contests he averages 1.4 hit outs per game and has 1 hitout to advantage for the season.

As far as being a defender is concerned, he's won 2 contested defensive 1 on 1s, has not taken a single intercept mark, has only 8 intercept possessions and 4 R50s for the season.

As mentioned as a foward he averages just over 1 goal a game.

None of this sounds like a player you'd happily pay $750k a season for, not that it matters that much anyway as after today it's clear as day that Himmelberg isn't the answer to solve our issues.
Click to expand...
YES i want to bring HH in to play as a 2nd KPF

All your other points are a perfect example on why he is so valuable as a KPF

You have made my point even better but you just dont understand the point

Hint : Read your post 5 times and see if you can understand the point
 
Rioli2Rioli said:
whats your view on getting HH as a free agent
Click to expand...
I’m not sure we need guys of his age on our list. I prefer to bring up a generation kids together with a few middle aged guys. i think he’s three years too old for our future as I think we’re 4_5 years away before we become a contender again. Our list is really poor in development atm bc four kids are just not ready, but may not be actually good enough based on our recent drafting.
 
TigerImposter said:
I’m not sure we need guys of his age on our list. I prefer to bring up a generation kids together with a few middle aged guys. i think he’s three years too old for our future as I think we’re 4_5 years away before we become a contender again. Our list is really poor in development atm bc four kids are just not ready, but may not be actually good enough based on our recent drafting.\
Click to expand...
Who do we play foward in 2-3 years time

How do we atleast stay competitive with no riewoldt and an ageing Lynch
all our fowards apart from the above 2 are green as we can get

We need some experience up foward to get reward for the work of the mids
cannot rely soley on organic growth from kids that may or may not become a KPF
 
Rioli2Rioli said:
Who do we play foward in 2-3 years time

How do we atleast stay competitive with no riewoldt and an ageing Lynch
all our fowards apart from the above 2 are green as we can get

We need some experience up foward to get reward for the work of the mids
cannot rely soley on organic growth from kids that may or may not become a KPF
Click to expand...
Jack can easily play one more year and Lynch is still around. I still think Ryan is a smarter forward than ruck and can rotate.Draft a kid and see what he’s like for two years with the odd game otherwise it’s Mate Colina. 😆
 

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Where are we at? We are farked

Why?

Neil Balme got sidelined.
Dimma shagged the office girl.
Our fitness staff are shite because Dimma has taken all the soft cap $
Our assistant coaches are shite - see above.
Matty Clarke is close to the worst recruiter in the league.
We sold the farm for 2 GWS players that are ok players but nothing special.
Our older players are cooked
Our younger players aren't very good; and
Dimma is a stubborn prick that refuses to see commonsense and ditch his shite game plan
 
TigerImposter said:
Jack can easily play one more year and Lynch is still around. I still think Ryan is a smarter forward than ruck and can rotate.Draft a kid and see what he’s like for two years with the odd game otherwise it’s Mate Colina. 😆
Click to expand...
We will have between 14-16 players that are on the list this year that are experienced players that are on good coin
thats going to be a massive void to fill with kids.

Our midfield & Backline wont be too bad but foward line is looking like becoming the worst in the league full of kids
then ..


* If Jack goes around another year this place will be unbearable
 
Rioli2Rioli said:
We will have between 14-16 players that are on the list this year that are experienced players that are on good coin
thats going to be a massive void to fill with kids.

Our midfield & Backline wont be too bad but foward line is looking like becoming the worst in the league full of kids
then ..


* If Jack goes around another year this place will be unbearable
Click to expand...
Who’s that kid in the twos that’s supposedly injured that you said was the next Hawkins ?
 
Rioli2Rioli said:
Bradtke he looks a beast but played handfull of games and 2 years away from anything AFL level if he even makes it

Then we have Bauer who is really a 3rd tall

Then
View attachment 1675147
Click to expand...
Ok yeah thought it was him. Give him five vfl games and if he shows anything then stat pumping games into him.
Bauer is too light to be a tall forward. He’s not going to make it I think.
 
Simche said:
Why are we here? Because we lost sight of what keeps sides like Geelong in contention - good list management.

Since 2017 we've done the following in terms of drafting and trading:

  1. Traded a 23 year old Dan Butler for pick 56. We now have zero small forward players of Dan's capability.
  2. Drafted Higgins and CCJ, neither of whom have turned into players, in Higgins case wasn't a need with Butler and Castanga and then lost both for no value in Higgins' case pick upgrade and future second that turned into Judson Clarke who at this stage we can't say whether he's going to be a player and for Tarrant who won't see out another year and a bevy of late picks.
  3. Instead of the selections above, overlooked players like: Starcevich, Powell, Allen, Kelly, Ryan, Taylor, De Koning, Fritsch and McCartin
  4. Spent our first two picks at the 2018 draft on RCD who was a massive bust and Ross. Not a great draft but have a look at Sydney to see what could be done with later picks that are nailed. We then spent our late picks on Turner, English, Aarts, Townsend (again when we'd already decided he wasn't up to it) and Chol.
  5. Taking Dow, who isn't getting a game, and Martyn with high picks in 2019 when there are plenty of best 22 blokes that have been picked after them.
  6. Took only two picks in the 2020 draft and were spooked by not enough exposed COVID form when we needed to get youth into the team. Blokes like O'Driscoll, McInnes and Holmes would have been available with our first pick if we hadn't pushed it back a year to select Brown.
  7. I'm giving the 2021 draft some time, but the Brown selection at the moment is looking catastrophic given how dysfunctional our forward line looks and how much someone like Van Rooyen would be a successor to Jack or MacDonald would go in our midfield. Overlooking Owens also isn't looking terrific at the moment given we had 3 picks.
  8. Prioritised average mid-season draft picks such as Matt Parker instead of long term development.
  9. In addition to the above with the blokes we've actually taken to 2020 (I'm assessing 2021 as too early at this stage) we arguably got right: Balta, Baker, Cumberland. Jury still out on Dow, Ralphsmith, Nyuon, Ryan, Rioli. That's 3 best 22 and 5 maybe future best 22 blokes. We had 21 picks in total in that period. Not a great return any which way you look at it.
The other central reason we've fallen is:
  • Our game plan is now stale and either no longer stacks up or we don't have the personnel to play it.
  • Rule changes have made our game plan less effective and we've struggled to adapt.
  • We have brought back old assistant coaches and lost good ones so there is not a lot of new ideas or evolution happening in the coach's box.
  • We have lost key underappreciated players (I miss Kane Lambert so much) with others going on too long. Cotchin has arguably gone two seasons too long now and that same argument could be made about Jack.
  • We have made the fatal mistake of overrating our list and overpaid for Hopper and Taranto who will now smooth our failure in multiple drafts in terms of age demographic but hurt our ability to pick up young stars (i.e. keep us not good enough for finals but out of the bottom four) that will propel our next tilt at a flag.
Click to expand...

You need to replace best 22 players at the rate of around 2 per season on average.

Since and including the 2017 draft, so 6 drafts, with only one top 10 draft pick and nothing else under pick 17, we have added the following players who look in the best 28 at the club right now, based on 2022-23 seasons to this point:

2017 Balta Baker
2018 Ross
2019 Pickett Cumberland
2020 Rioli Jnr
2021 Gibcus Sonsie
2022 Young

Already 4-5 of those players drafted from 2017 onwards look locks in our best 22, Pickett, Baker, Balta, and probably Cumberland and Rioli Jnr.

Add to that the 2 players we traded for, Taranto and Hopper, plus the free agent Lynch.

Further add players previously drafted who entered our best 22 after the 2017 draft: Short, Bolton

So we are up to a pretty strong collective of 9-10 players into our best 22 since the 2017 draft.

With the best of Ross, Dow, Ryan, Gibcus, Brown, Ralphsmith, Sonsie, Nyuon, Clarke, Banks, Young, and the 3 x 2022 draftees Campbell, Smith, Green to come, and you would bet 5-6 of those at least enter our best 22 over the next 3 years on top of whatever free agents or other players we acquire through trades and drafts.

So we'd have hoped to add 12 new and decent players to our best 22 since 2017. We have definitely added 8, and probably 10, already, depending how you view Cumberland and Rioli Junior. By the end of 2023 we should expect another couple are entrenched in our best 22, you could easily see Young, and Sonsie for example with at least a couple more banked up looking like strong candidates for 2024.

One thing that happened that probably set us back slightly in the immediate term was we had to swap Higgins, who would likely be established best 22 by now - for a 2021 draft pick, who will obviously take a bit of time to be determined.

But you can see from this we are adding decent players to our best 22 at the right sort of rate since 2017. Remembering also we added Prestia, Broad, Nankervis, Graham to our best 22 in 2017 from previous drafts or trades.

So we are getting our two per year in the period you are concerned about. There is essentially nothing wrong with the list bar the obvious hole behind Riewoldt and Lynch in our key forward stocks.

And there is absolutely no problem with our list management, save the normal after-timing you could apply to any club's list management.
 
DustinsGuns said:
We're done. We gambled, we lost and we lost worse than you could ever imagine. We get one good game out of Taranto or Hopper each week, but never one out of both of them and it's cost us our short term future.

We haven't had a good group of young players since Baker, Balta and Bolton who are all approaching their mid 20's. We're hopeful with Gibcus and Cumberland will be okay. But Sonsie, HRS, Ross and Clarke are way, way off it. There was a reason Sonsie was subbed - he was awful. The plan 100% would have been to sub Soldo or Miller, but Sonsie was that bad he demanded the sub. Clarke then came on and did regular Clarke things like burn the footy inside 50 and have his tackles broken like he was never there.

In saying this. It's to play the kids. Get Cotch to 300 and then retire him.
Click to expand...
What kids? They are worse then the 34 year olds.
 
Lord of the Wings said:
Where are we at? We are farked

Why?

Neil Balme got sidelined.
Dimma shagged the office girl.
Our fitness staff are shite because Dimma has taken all the soft cap $
Our assistant coaches are shite - see above.
Matty Clarke is close to the worst recruiter in the league.
We sold the farm for 2 GWS players that are ok players but nothing special.
Our older players are cooked
Our younger players aren't very good; and
Dimma is a stubborn prick that refuses to see commonsense and ditch his shite game plan
Click to expand...
Nail. Head.
 
Lord of the Wings said:
Where are we at? We are farked

Why?

Neil Balme got sidelined.
Dimma shagged the office girl.
Our fitness staff are shite because Dimma has taken all the soft cap $
Our assistant coaches are shite - see above.
Matty Clarke is close to the worst recruiter in the league.
We sold the farm for 2 GWS players that are ok players but nothing special.
Our older players are cooked
Our younger players aren't very good; and
Dimma is a stubborn prick that refuses to see commonsense and ditch his shite game plan
Click to expand...
Sad but true.
 
Lord of the Wings said:
Where are we at? We are farked

Why?

Neil Balme got sidelined.
Dimma shagged the office girl.
Our fitness staff are shite because Dimma has taken all the soft cap $
Our assistant coaches are shite - see above.
Matty Clarke is close to the worst recruiter in the league.
We sold the farm for 2 GWS players that are ok players but nothing special.
Our older players are cooked
Our younger players aren't very good; and
Dimma is a stubborn prick that refuses to see commonsense and ditch his shite game plan
Click to expand...

You wouldn't have any clue whether all of that or even much of it is true or what impact any of those things have had if they are true to any degree at all.

To say Matty Clarke is close to the worst recruiter in the league is patently ludicrous. He has been at the club since 2009, and as such was part of an under-funded recruiting department in the first 5 years. A recruiting department that recruited a whole triple Premiership team bar Cotchin, Rance, Edwards, Riewoldt, who were already at the club. The recruiting department was fully funded from 2014 only, and in those next 3 seasons did an incredible job, bringing in Premiership players Butler, Short, Castagna, Lambert, Soldo, D Rioli, Broad, Bolton, Graham, Stengle(flag at Cats) Nankervis, Caddy, Prestia, with only one top 10 pick to work with in that time, the 2016 pick 7 that was traded for Prestia. On top of these 13 Premiership players recruited to the club 2014-16, players currently being selected in other AFL teams Chol and Markov were recruited. That is 15 in 3 seasons, surely some of the most outrageously successful recruiting in AFL history, especially when you consider it was done with a pretty plain array of draft picks.

We can only assume that Clarke was promoted to Recruiting Manager in November 2016 on the strength of his role in that heist, in addition to the earlier recruitment of Martin, Astbury, Grimes, Houli, B Ellis, Vlastuin, McIntosh among other notable culture building players like Maric, Chaplin and Conca.

Then as chief recruiter we can really only start to fairly judge his haul 2017-19 plus mature players brought in later.

2017 - Balta, Baker

2018 - Ross, Lynch

2019 - Pickett, Cumberland, Ralphsmith


And you can only fairly say the signs are reasonably encouraging for those recruited later:

2020 - Rioli Jnr, Ryan, Mansell

2021 - Gibcus, Sonsie, Clarke and others yet to debut

2022 - Taranto, Hopper, Young and others yet to debut


Stop being a complete muppet about Matt Clarke, that is an absolutely outstanding record he has put together.
 
Last edited:
Meteoric Rise said:
You wouldn't have any clue whether all of that or even much of it is true or what impact any of those things have had if they are true to any degree at all.

To say Matty Clarke is close to the worst recruiter in the league is patently ludicrous. He has been at the club since 2009, and as such was part of an under-funded recruiting department in the first 5 years. A recruiting department that recruited a whole triple Premiership team bar Cotchin, Rance, Edwards, Riewoldt, who were already at the club. The recruiting department was fully funded from 2014 only, and in those next 3 seasons did an incredible job, bringing in Premiership players Butler, Short, Castagna, Lambert, Soldo, D Rioli, Broad, Bolton, Graham, Stengle(flag at Cats) Nankervis, Caddy, Prestia, with only one top 10 pick to work with in that time, the 2016 pick 7 that was traded for Prestia. On top of these 13 Premiership players recruited to the club 2014-16, players currently being selected in other AFL teams Chol and Markov were recruited. That is 15 in 3 seasons, surely some of the most outrageously successful recruiting in AFL history, especially when you consider it was done with a pretty plain array of draft picks.

We can only assume that Clarke was promoted to Recruiting Manager in November 2016 on the strength of his role in that heist, in addition to the earlier recruitment of Martin, Astbury, Grimes, Houli, B Ellis, Vlastuin, McIntosh among other notable culture building players like Maric, Chaplin and Conca.

Then as chief recruiter we can really only start to fairly judge his haul 2017-19 plus mature players brought in later.

2017 - Balta, Baker

2018 - Ross, Lynch

2019 - Pickett, Cumberland, Ralphsmith


And you can only fairly say the signs are reasonably encouraging for those recruited later:

2020 - Rioli Jnr, Ryan, Mansell

2021 - Gibcus, Sonsie, Clarke and others yet to debut

2022 - Taranto, Hopper, Young and others yet to debut


Stop being a complete muppet about Matt Clarke, that is an absolutely outstanding record he has put together.
Click to expand...
LOL
Ross, Ralphsmith, Mansell - all duds as is our 2021 draft class apart from Gibcus.

Clarke is a hack
 
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