Are we in a rebuild?

[A Cut Above]

Jonathan O'Rourke (23)
Tim O'Brien (23)
Kaiden Brand (23)
Billy Hartung (22)
Kurt Heatherley (22)
Daniel Howe (22)
James Sicily (22)
Dallas Willsmore (21)
Teia Miles (21)
Marc Pittonet (21)
Ryan Burton (20)
Kieran Lovell (20)
Blake Hardwick (20)
Kade Stewart (20)
Luke Surman (20)
Conor Glass (20)
Harry Morrison (19)
Oliver Hanrahan (19)
James Cousins (19)
Mitchell Lewis (19)
Conor Nash (19)

Contract ends 2021
Bruest age 26

No wonder he isn't busting a gut.

 

[BOP66]

What ever way you want to cut this, the club has to get back into the 1st round somehow.
At the moment the best card we may hold is finishing so low the PSD may be our best bet, if a club plays hard ball with any young player that think of being traded to us.

 

[Pessimistic]

I suppose the club could publish its entire trade and draft strategy to appease the fans

Competing clubs would also like to see it

 

[Mr Lizard]

I don't have the time to look now but it would be interesting to see how much a handful of players like hodge, burger and Gibbo are skewing those stats.

The three of them (32, 33, and 34 years old) replaced by 20 year olds would bring the average age down by 1.77 years.

 

[MrPremiership]

The three of them (32, 33, and 34 years old) replaced by 20 year olds would bring the average age down by 1.77 years.

still leaving us in top half....

 

[Mr Lizard]

still leaving us in top half....

Just stating the facts.

If you're going off the table from the previous page, that was for the Gold Coast game.

changes from that side to the one which faced the Saints:

in: Hartung, Hardwick, Howe, O'Brien
out: Henderson, Whitecross, Vickery, Miles

 

[Sleutheren]

The rebuild started after the 2015 flag. We took burton, Lovell and Hardwick with our first three picks.

Yep. Started last year. We just won a lot of games so it covered it up a bit.

But we debuted 7 kids and 1 recycled player. Only Brisbane debuted more.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

[Nugett]

I suppose the club could publish its entire trade and draft strategy to appease the fans

Competing clubs would also like to see it

Seeing that we enjoy sharing our coaches and board members, we may as well go the full hog.

 

[Gralin]

average age last round for Hawks was 25.77

 

[Roughies Boys]

What ever way you want to cut this, the club has to get back into the 1st round somehow.
At the moment the best card we may hold is finishing so low the PSD may be our best bet, if a club plays hard ball with any young player that think of being traded to us.

Trade what for 1st rounder? We don't have trade currency that'd I would want us to trade out. We take Jialth & go.

 

[gohawks4]

Apparently not based on selections this week.

If Hardwick or Sic or Howe get dropped which they probably will it's gonna piss me off no end.

 

[HODGEYROAD]

I think the club has attempted a mini rebuild but a full rebuild is now required. Clarkson, Wright and co have got more right than many in footy history but they got a couple things wrong after last season (and this is all with the benefit of hindsight):

1. They overrated the second tier.
This is the crucial error that has set us back a couple of wasted years. The likes of Gunston, Breust, Shiels, Smith, Stratton and Frawley were very good players in a champion side. But they are much lesser players in a lesser side. This is the biggest mistake the club has made as it informed the other decisions that were then made late last year.

2. Last year's trade period
I think the club got some things wrong in the trade period. Mitchell and O'Meara were the right targets, for either a mini rebuild or a full rebuild. I have no issue with the targets and no issue with the price we paid for Mitchell. Pick 14 for a 23 year old gun midfielder is a great deal.

I have concerns over O'Meara's body given his last 2 games and the further knee injury but let's not forget he has missed two years and still had 37 touches in his second game back (how many players on our list have ever had 37 touches?). I am confident he will be a very good player for us. Whether he will be the same explosive athlete he once was I am not sure.

The price we paid for O'Meara has been inflated by that first error - overrating the second tier. If the 2017 draft pick was pick 13-14 (as I'm sure the decision makers expected it to be), the trade would be a good one. As it now looks like being pick 1-3 given our woeful performance this year, it clearly looks like overs.

3. Trading the wrong big names
We should not have traded Mitchell and Lewis for nothing. We would be a much more competitive side in 2017 with them and anyone who suggests otherwise is just drinking the cool aid. I don't think we would be a contender and possibly not even a finals side but we wouldn't be the shambolic lineup we currently are.

Again it comes down to overrating that second tier. Mitchell and Lewis did the heavy lifting. And more to the point, had the inadequacies of that second tier been identified before last year's trade period, the best strategy would have been to trade Shiels and Breust to secure Mitchell and O'Meara and keep our early pick for 2017.

4. Re-signing Breust
We trade out of this year's first round but we had a chance to get back into it if we let Breust leave as a free agent. Given where we look like finishing, the compensation pick for Breust would have probably been pick 2-4. All in hindsight, but re-signing him was an error.

Ultimately we now start a rebuild behind the 8-ball. We should look to move on a couple of those second tier players at seasons end, albeit for less than we would have received last year.

That's something I haven't thought about this year until you just mentioned it.

 

[Roughies Boys]

Apparently not based on selections this week.

If Hardwick or Sic or Howe get dropped which they probably will it's gonna piss me off no end.

Sicily & Hardwick I will be pissed.

 

[BOP66]

Trade what for 1st rounder? We don't have trade currency that'd I would want us to trade out. We take Jialth & go.

Hey we're going to have give up something of value. Should peruse all offers that are reasonable.
Should of released some players at the end of last year instead of making some ludicrous pick exchanges.
Yes I know some on here say early picks are all speculative & a lot more are a miss than a hit.
The truth is to get talent into your club for the longer term you still require those early draft picks.
As for securing the academy kids we're going to need a few more later picks & I think the're will be a mass exodus end of this season akin to the end of 2004.
We'll be a lot of new faces next year in the mighty Brown 'n Gold.

 

[BOP66]

Apparently not based on selections this week.

If Hardwick or Sic or Howe get dropped which they probably will it's gonna piss me off no end.

This week v Melb. I'd love to see the club make a statement & drop a couple of the older brigade & keep these kids in.
Their our future & thus should be getting as much exposure as possible.

 

[Rowie6]

Would Sam Reid from Swans interest you?

No

 

[Silent Hawk]

Agree with above

I will add one more

5. Inability to draft and/or develop elite or at least good ball winning midfielders for the last 10+ years

Yes, >10 yrs !!!!

Think about it, who was the last good midfielder we developed ?
Jordan Lewis ? - well he was drafted 2004
Josh Kennedy ? - does he even count? regardless he was drafted 2006

Who else Shiels? Langford ? - They are decent at best

I can understand how sometimes it is hard to develop key position players as it takes time and games, something which you may not get in a successful side. However, not so with a midfielder. I cannot understand why we have failed when every other side seemed to have developed some along the way. This is why we are in the position we find ourselves at present. This is also the reason we have to keep chasing the likes of Mitchell, JOM and probably others in the offseason.

There is a downside to our run of success in the last decade and that is finishing high on the ladder which meant we were never able to use a draft pick in the top 10 - if we did have that, we would have traded it for an already developed player in keeping with our list profile and aimed at sustaining our run of success.

 

[Pessimistic]

I fact we shed a few ball winners

Joey Kennedy being the best

 

[Silent Hawk]

I fact we shed a few ball winners

Joey Kennedy being the best

We'd wish we had moved on Sewell and kept Kennedy, in hindsight now!

 

[Collins-Langford-Ayres]

Yet Tom Mitchell has had more impact than Sam so far this year.

Must say, the Tom Mitchell deal looks very much in our favour. Has been a massive get. Basically gave up pick 14 for him.

 

[Pessimistic]

Must say, the Tom Mitchell deal looks very much in our favour. Has been a massive get. Basically gave up pick 14 for him.

Jed Anderson for Mitchell. Different draft

 

[Nugett]

I think with the failure of our last top 10 picks we had; Thorpe, Muston and Dowler, it forced us into a more aggressive approach with trading and drafting. I'd say there has been more hits than misses.
The hits being Burgoyne, Gunston, Gibson, Lake, Cheney, Spanger and McEvoy who were all a massive part of three peat.
The misses so far, has been drafting Garlett, Cameron Bruce and Hopper.
I've deliberately haven't classed O'Rouke, Burton, Lovell, Vickery, Mitchell, Henderson and O'Meara. Burton and Mitchell are proving to be hits. O'Rouke, Lovell and O'Meara I feel we need more time before we can class them as a hit or miss, due to injuries and lack of game time. Vickery I feel, needs a little more time to learn our structures and imo has the potential to be a hit. Henderson is the same as vickery, needs to learn more, but I'd prefer him as depth over starting 22.
So imo of the 7 unclassed players, we need at least 5 of them to become hits rather than losses. I think the next 12 months will give us more information as to the direction that they go.

 

[Collins-Langford-Ayres]

We need more quality midfielders and another key defender.

And more outside run and a tall forward who can take a contested mark...

 

[HolyWars]

What really sticks out to me is that 25-30 year bracket really needs to hit some form (McEvoy, Gunston, Roughy, Birch and Cegs excluded).

 

[Bremner20]

As much as being on top for so long and the natural attrition of trade and draft works against us need to make it work for us asap as we fall down the ladder , look at GWS look at the bulldogs they have depth good players who would be missing out and would be looking for opportunities elsewhere a guy like Lucas Webb at the bulldogs would suit our game style being following him closely in the VFL absolute magnificent disposal kicks the ball a lot like Hurn at WCE and still young need to make an art of targeting players like this seeing as we sold the farm with the draft picks to get JOM across the line .