Fantasia

[Sedat!]

There's been enough hot air expelled recently about the positions and performance of Smorgo, the board, Rocket, the playing group, but what of our General Manager of Footy Operations? Let's have a look at his track record since he came to the club.

* It was Fantasia's call to reject Pelican's late offer of picks 37 and 66 for Josh Hill, and justified this decision by stating that other clubs think he is worth a top 20 pick in a diluted draft. Fail

* Fantasia was dudded in trade week negotiations by Sydney 2 years running - not exchanging 3rd/4th round picks with Sydney as initially promised in the Hall trade, and being forced to accept a full round lower pick in the Ves/Everitt trade. Minor issues but fail noinetheless because it establishes just what a pushover Fantasia is during trade week negtotiations compared to Scott Clayton

* Pays over the odds for DJ (played on a fast break by Balmey this time), and not only that, offers a 3 year contract to a player that had played the grand total of 3 AFL games in the last 3 years. DJ was about to be delisted by the Cats in any event. Massive fail (except for Williamstown)

* List management decisions that have been questionable to say the least (elevating Hooper and Mulligan to the senior list). Work in progress but fail to this point in time

* Contract negotiations with established players have been protracted and messy affairs, causing us to pay well over the odds to keep senior players on the list and creating future list management pressures as a result - Clayton was outstanding at player contract negotiations and did so without the media spotlight, and we have badly missed this skill of his as much as his eye for talent. Fail

We used to hear from Fantasia every week when we were flying in the top 4 and he has now completely disappeared from public view in 2011 now that we are struggling, leaving Rocket left to hang out to dry. I am struggling to rationalise what value Fantasia has added to our club since he arrived, other than to relieve Rocket of some meanial duties that were detracting from his coaching priorities in 2007.

Rocket is in the gun but even his biggest detractors acknowledge that he is a coach of genuine quality and compares well with his senior coaching compatriots. But how does Rocket's direct boss compare with other fellow footy managers? How does Fantasia come up smelling next to Geoff Walsh? How does he scrub up against Neil Balme?

I'm sure there will be a full review of the footy dept at the end of this season, but if it is to be conducted by Fantasia we may as well not have the review. If someone out there can give me a list of compelling successes that Fantasia has been directly responsible for at the club, I'd be delighted to see this list. Hell, I'd settle for one specific example because I cannot think of anything he has brought to the club.

 

[100action]

It was Fantasia's call to reject Pelican's late offer of picks 37 and 66 for Josh Hill,

source?, if that is true, id seriously be livid.

 

[More Bulldog]

I read that the dogs will be appointing a former player to the role of Football Director next year. Is this Fantasia's job currently?

 

[Guido]

It was Fantasia's call to reject Pelican's late offer of picks 37 and 66 for Josh Hill,

source?, if that is true, id seriously be livid.

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-ne...wthorns-tactics-over-hill-20101011-16g23.html


Fantasia told The Age

''We are of the belief that if he [Hill] was in this draft he would have gone long before 37. In fact, some would say he was a top-20 pick in this draft and we tend to agree with them"


http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-ne...s-over-hill-20101011-16g23.html#ixzz1OYhXDO00

 

[Guido]

What's Fantasia's contract status?

Pelchen himself (who's just resigned from Hawthorn) would be the most obvious and ideal replacement - it does worry me that he was the one that offered an over the odds price for Hill, but otherwise and despite being widely regarded as an arseh*le in getting deals over the line, his trading has been absolutely first class.

 

[100action]

not sold on pelchen while he has bent over a few club that is not necessarily a good thing as he found it increasingly difficult to land big trades later on due to clubs avoiding him and his stubborn behavior. Also he traded McGlynn and Kennedy for nothing so he has a big cross against his name there.

 

[StringyDog]

What's Fantasia's contract status?

Pelchen himself (who's just resigned from Hawthorn) would be the most obvious and ideal replacement - it does worry me that he was the one that offered an over the odds price for Hill, but otherwise and despite being widely regarded as an arseh*le in getting deals over the line, his trading has been absolutely first class.

Has it in his last 2, 3 complete spuds in Hale, Cheney and Bruce and was willing to give away draft picks for Hill and McGlynn and Kennedy for a packet of chips, not to mention botching deal that would have had them Ryan O'Keefe.

If we got Pelchen I would be seriously pissed off. He is an arrogant overated dud.

 

[Guido]

not sold on pelchen while he has bent over a few club that is not necessarily a good thing as he found it increasingly difficult to land big trades later on due to clubs avoiding him and his stubborn behavior. Also he traded McGlynn and Kennedy for nothing so he has a big cross against his name there.

McGlynn and Kennedy for a packet of chips

Picks 39 and 46 for players not firmly established in the 22 at the time isn't nothing.

Disregard for a second how much they've stepped up in Sydney's framework ... what do you think were McGlynn and Kennedy worth at the time? McGlynn, 5'8" and played less than 20 games in the previous two seasons ... Kennedy, 13 games in total since being drafted in 2006.

If they're offered more opportunities and money (Kennedy was offered a 4 year contract, so was most likely gonna walk for nothing regardless), and the market doesn't deem them to be worth much, you can't really get a lot of value for them in return, no matter how good your negotiating skills are.

 

[100action]

Picks 39 and 46 for players not firmly established in the 22 at the time isn't nothing.

Disregard for a second how much they've stepped up in Sydney's framework ... what do you think were McGlynn and Kennedy worth at the time? McGlynn, 5'8" and played less than 20 games in the previous two seasons ... Kennedy, 13 games in total since being drafted in 2006.

If they're offered more opportunities and money (Kennedy was offered a 4 year contract, so was most likely gonna walk for nothing regardless), and the market doesn't deem them to be worth much, you can't really get a lot of value for them in return, no matter how good your negotiating skills are.

Mcglynn was in and out of the side at the time, and put on the occasional 3-4 goal performance, Hawks supporters rate him borderline best 22 but he was young.

Kennedy at the time was already displaying traits of being a gun midfielder, he was getting around 15-25 class touches per game IIRC. He was traded because Hawthorn match committee told him he was behind lewis, sewell, mitchell for a spot which many Hawks supporters rightly disagreed with and were annoyed when he was traded.

Point is going on what they shown to date at the time, Sydney got them for a bargain. As a neutral after seeing this trade popup I was annoyed our club didnt make some queries as we could have gave a better deal or at least make Sydney pay market value.

 

[Guido]

Has it in his last 2, 3 complete spuds in Hale, Cheney and Bruce and was willing to give away draft picks for Hill and McGlynn and Kennedy for a packet of chips, not to mention botching deal that would have had them Ryan O'Keefe.

If we got Pelchen I would be seriously pissed off. He is an arrogant overated dud.

Surely you'd have to wait and see until finals on whether Hale and Bruce prove to be valuable additions. Don't have any idea on the quality of Cheney, you may be right.

But no club can "win" every trade - it's impossible. At the end of the day, it's all about percentages, and over his 6 years there, he's won significantly more trades than he's lost - if someone can bring that to our footy department and turn around our abysmal trading record (where, at a guess, we've "won" about 10% of trades in the long term), I'd be very happy.

 

[Freddy Bassett]

If you would like a good laugh, check out Fantasia's draft picks at Adelaide from 1995 to 2004.... Seriously frightening..Throw in the Carey trade for our pick 2 ( D.Wells) and 18 ( we got 1 and a half seasons out of the duck) and Bode from Port Adelaide for pick 12 which they used on S.Burgouyne...

One reason why we stink at the moment is because we have very very few players over 25, wonder why

 

[Interloper]

Enjoying the animated discussion on Fantasia

 

[OldSchool]

What's Fantasia's contract status?

I'm not sure of his contract position and this is just very much my view on things but he is a master politician who would be looking at ways of securing his own position if Eade gets his marching orders rather working with Eade to get us back on track.

 

[SCRAY72]

Sorry Sedat, can't think of one.

Wonder if he reads Bigfooty, he should, he might learn something.

 

[StringyDog]

Surely you'd have to wait and see until finals on whether Hale and Bruce prove to be valuable additions. Don't have any idea on the quality of Cheney, you may be right.

None of these guys will be playing finals as Roughead has came on so well as second ruck and Puopolo/Suckling have been 100x better than Bruce was off half back, not to mention Bruce has a game deal in his contract which they won't want to activate so they can piss him off at end of year.

 

[Anja_Nees]

I am not sure how much of the above could really be attributed to Fantasia. His role when he came to the club was to ease Rocket's burden more than anything. During '07, it had gotten to the point where Rocket was having to do the admin work for the new carpark at our renovated facilities. Fantasia I'm sure has a say in our list management but I'm not sure the fine details of trades are up to him. He does tend to be a bit of a spokesman for the club but it's not like everything he talks about is a decision he personally has made.

For what it's worth I've met him a few times and he comes across as a very sharp bloke with some terrific insights. I can't if say he's doing his job perfectly but he's no clown.

 

[Guido]

Mcglynn was in and out of the side at the time, and put on the occasional 3-4 goal performance, Hawks supporters rate him borderline best 22 but he was young.

Kennedy at the time was already displaying traits of being a gun midfielder, he was getting around 15-25 class touches per game IIRC. He was traded because Hawthorn match committee told him he was behind lewis, sewell, mitchell for a spot which many Hawks supporters rightly disagreed with and were annoyed when he was traded.

Point is going on what they shown to date at the time, Sydney got them for a bargain.

There's no doubt it was a bargain - but if the players were offered inflated longer term contracts and guaranteed more opportunities by Sydney (meaning they were likely to walk for no compensation), and no other club had the knowledge and/or brains to push up interest in trade terms, then IMO getting a couple of third rounders (there was a later pick too) is a reasonable outcome.

A first rounder would have been seen as a huge win to Hawthorn, Sydney didn't have a second rounder to offer (used on Mumford), so two third rounders and a later pick is as good as could be hoped for given the circumstances - and at the end of the day Hawthorn got Stratton out of the deal (a top shelf long term player) and another third rounder.

As a neutral after seeing this trade popup I was annoyed our club didnt make some queries as we could have gave a better deal or at least make Sydney pay market value.

Well, neither we or any other club did show interest or force Sydney to pay market value.

Think that says more about us (and others) blind to these kinds of opportunities than the club forced to take the best offer it can feasibly get (as opposed to letting both walk for nothing in the PSD.)

 

[Guido]

None of these guys will be playing finals as Roughead has came on so well as second ruck and Puopolo/Suckling have been 100x better than Bruce was off half back, not to mention Bruce has a game deal in his contract which they won't want to activate so they can piss him off at end of year.

We can only wait and see.

Not sure how he compares to Renouf, but if Bailey goes down for the 26th time, Hale's most likely leading their ruck division into the finals and becomes one of their most vital players.

Bruce, we'll see. It was a pre-season draft pick, and with the class he's consistently shown over his career, IMO worth the risk. You can only judge this definitively at the end of the year - you're every chance of being right, but so were people that in mid-2008, were saying recruiting Stuart Dew was a stupid and pointless move.

But enough about Hawthorn's list - I reckon in terms of trading, Pelchen is right up there and would be asset/upgrade for this club. You disagree, we'll leave it at that.

 

[Sedat!]

I am not sure how much of the above could really be attributed to Fantasia. His role when he came to the club was to ease Rocket's burden more than anything. During '07, it had gotten to the point where Rocket was having to do the admin work for the new carpark at our renovated facilities. Fantasia I'm sure has a say in our list management but I'm not sure the fine details of trades are up to him. He does tend to be a bit of a spokesman for the club but it's not like everything he talks about is a decision he personally has made.

He is the head of our entire footy dept, not an office manager. We could hire anyone on 60k a year to handle the extraneous stuff that was tying Rocket's time in 2007. Fantasia is the head of an AFL footy dept - hugely important job and the fact that it is a much lower profile than Senior Coach doesn't make it any less crucial.

Fantasia's 'Grand Final' is trade week and contract negotiations. He has performed well below expectations in these two absolutely vital areas for mine and needs to be held into account. It's not going to get any easier for him - Paul Connors and Callan Ward awaits. I sincerely hope Fantasia can achieve a positive result for the club this time around - we were the only club in the competition to lose an U-23 player to GC that was heavily required and a long term club proposition, and it would be a disaster for the club if we were to lose yet another vitally important long-term player to GWS this season. I hope for Fantasia's sake he can get a good result this time around (and paying Ward 250k a season over the odds does not constitute a good result as it will simply shift the problem out by a year - ask Brisbane about the price of salary cap pressures).

 

[The Doctor]

I would be happy to get Pelchen to our club.

Pelchen has been heavily influential in bringing a premiership to two clubs, Port and the Hawks. Why would we not want someone with that capability in our footy dept?

People criticise him for him demeanour, or his ruthlessness in negotiating or he is deliberately difficult, or whatever. The important thing that overides all that is he gets the results. He fights hard for his club and doesn't get pushed around. If that puts a few noses out of joint then so be it.

My memory is a bit hazy going back a few years but when he was at Port he took on the might of Collingwood with Eddie and Balme as his opponents in the Nick Stevens saga. The Pies wanted Stevens and didn't offer the compensation Port wanted. Rather than fold (like Freo did with Tarrant) he sent Stevens to the PSD.

The Pies got nothing and had a big sook. Port got nothing from the deal but got a lot more than that as a footy club. They showed clearly they wouldn't be bullied nor take less than satisfactory compensation for losing any star player. The following year a similar problem with Josh Carr came up. Port and Freo locked horns and in the end Port got Freo's first 3 draft picks. I believe that the stance they took the previous year set that deal up for them.

Now lets imagine for a moment if at last year's trade table Pelchen was doing the deal with Geelong to get Djekurra where he would have encountered his old sparring partner Neil Balme. I would bet anything we would not have paid the ridiculous over the odds 3rd pick for a player they were going to delist. I firmly believe that Balmey got that 3rd pick (which they used for a rookie upgrade) off us because he knew he could.

Good football managers lay the foundations for a good footy team and great ones will set up a premiership team. Hard but schrewd men behind the scenes like Pelchen (and Balme) are integral to premiership success. They've proven it.

 

[Dazb86]

The problem with Pelchen is that some clubs refuse to trade with him.

 

[Anja_Nees]

He is the head of our entire footy dept, not an office manager. We could hire anyone on 60k a year to handle the extraneous stuff that was tying Rocket's time in 2007. Fantasia is the head of an AFL footy dept - hugely important job and the fact that it is a much lower profile than Senior Coach doesn't make it any less crucial.

Fantasia's 'Grand Final' is trade week and contract negotiations. He has performed well below expectations in these two absolutely vital areas for mine and needs to be held into account. It's not going to get any easier for him - Paul Connors and Callan Ward awaits. I sincerely hope Fantasia can achieve a positive result for the club this time around - we were the only club in the competition to lose an U-23 player to GC that was heavily required and a long term club proposition, and it would be a disaster for the club if we were to lose yet another vitally important long-term player to GWS this season. I hope for Fantasia's sake he can get a good result this time around (and paying Ward 250k a season over the odds does not constitute a good result as it will simply shift the problem out by a year - ask Brisbane about the price of salary cap pressures).

I am well aware that his job is more than administrative and that he has input on contracts etc...I'm not sure of the extent of his role in trading though. People were criticising Dalrymple for those trades earlier this week and now it's Fantasia's fault? I'm sure Rocket has some input too but no one seems 100% sure who makes the decisions on who to trade for, how much to give for them and how much to pay them. I doubt very much the fault for it all falls to one person.

I'm also not sure we've really been screwed in these trades. Granted it appears from the outside that some promised extra compensation (such as a late pick or swap of picks) has failed to go through but how much of a difference would it really make? What calibre of player was likely to be around at the pick we gave for Dj? Were we supposed to give nothing for him? What difference would the additional pick in the Everitt trade (keeping in mind it was in the 70s) have made?

More to the point, the cause of these apparent trade issues has to my knowledge not been published. Did we blink at the trade table, was the proposed compensation mis-reported, did the compensation become unavailable? Until it is clear why these trades stumbled and whose responsibility it was I see no point randomly potting Rocket, Fantasia and Dalrymple in turn. When these questions have been answered, and I agree they should be, then pot away.

 

[Sedat!]

Until it is clear why these trades stumbled and whose responsibility it was I see no point randomly potting Rocket, Fantasia and Dalrymple in turn. When these questions have been answered, and I agree they should be, then pot away.

Both Rocket and Dalrymple report in to Fantasia, so I'd have thought it is pretty clear where the buck stops.

You're right, these errors are minor in isolation. But added together and they provide evidence of Fantasia being too easily manipulated during trade week by other clubs. From 2005-2008, Scott Clayton was able to trade well and often, and in most cases was able to manipulate the opportunity in our favour. Some examples:

* He secured Akermanis for pick 34, a laughably low cost for such a quality player that gave excellent on-field service to the club in his first 3 years
* He agreed a price for Ben Hudson with Matt Rendell of between pick 22-30, and then ensured we had a pick 30 to give Adelaide instead of pick 22 by some clever trading of picks with West Coast (being able to trade up in each round of the draft in the process)
* He got borderline players like McDougall and Tim Callan (worthy experiments even though they didn't make it) for the cost of slight pick downgrades so that these players did not cost an actual draft pick. Djerkurra was about to be delisted and should have been in the same boat - Geelong didn't even bother to use the pick we gave to them for DJ
* He managed to off-load Rawlings and a large portion of his problematic salary off our books despite having almost no trade appeal whatsoever
* He was able to secure pick 19 for McMahon ('nuff said)
* He was not shy about trading away fringe players for lower picks, giving the players an opportunity elsewhere and generating goodwill in the process (such as Shane Birss and Sam Power) - by contrast Fantasia refused picks 37 and 66 for Josh Hill and then tried to justify this decision with the absurd suggestion that Hill would have been a top 20 pick in last year's ND

All the above examples show Clayton to be shrewd and inventive during trade week, which is in sharp contrast to Fantasia - not everything worked out, but the intent was sound and ensured we didn't pay over the odds for any player we traded to the club. That's not to even mention Clayton's vastly underrated ability to negotiate contracts (many times without barely raising a ripple in the media) and retain key players, an area that he has proven to be far more adept at than Fantasia. For the person who runs our footy dept, Fantasia simply needs to be much better than that.

 

[Guido]

* He secured Akermanis for pick 34, a laughably low cost for such a quality player that gave excellent on-field service to the club in his first 3 years
* He got borderline players like McDougall and Tim Callan (worthy experiments even though they didn't make it) for the cost of slight pick downgrades so that these players did not cost an actual draft pick. Djerkurra was about to be delisted and should have been in the same boat - Geelong didn't even bother to use the pick we gave to them for DJ

Laughably low cost?

A number of players that went after that pick will be 200 gamers and could have contributed to finals campaigns over the span of 15 years ... Aker was 30 by the time he pulled on a pair of boots for us - at most, he had 2 good seasons in him, and given that he didn't step in the two prelims, IMO it's a trade that we've clearly lost (notwithstanding the other headaches he's caused).

At the original pick, we could we looking at a quality key forward in Tippett, a developing key defender in MacKenzie, an injection of serious pace in Alwyn Davey, a forward livewire in Krakeour (inconsistent but I'd rate him a better option than a number of small/mid sized forward on our list), a ruck who's been showing the capabilities of future A grader in Goldstein ... these guys are only 22/23 and only now going to start influencing the comp.

Knowing what you now know about, say, Tippett, would you have done the trade?

At the time, I could excuse people getting lost in the excitement of a star (for the first time) wanting to come to us and not reaslising the future cost, but now with hindsight? Surely you can't say we're in a better position having done it?

He agreed a price for Ben Hudson with Matt Rendell of between pick 22-30, and then ensured we had a pick 30 to give Adelaide instead of pick 22 by some clever trading of picks with West Coast (being able to trade up in each round of the draft in the process)

The Crows looked at our smartarse trading the year before with Aker, and said that if it's not our natural second rounder that's traded in the deal, then there'll be another draft pick upgrade in the third round, which there was.

We traded picks #30 and #38 for Hudson and #43.

* He managed to off-load Rawlings and a large portion of his problematic salary off our books despite having almost no trade appeal whatsoever

Which cost us Swallow.

Swallow was told by our recruiting team that he'd be taken with our second rounder ... surpised that Addison fell through, Clayton took him, but Swallow was next in line with our third rounder. But we'd swapped that pick to offload Rawlings, and North swooped with the pick we handed to them.

Costing yourself an (bordering on) elite player in the first ever downgrade of picks in trading a player... we're so smart!

Only the Bulldogs.

 

[Borgsta]

I would be happy to get Pelchen to our club.

Pelchen has been heavily influential in bringing a premiership to two clubs, Port and the Hawks. Why would we not want someone with that capability in our footy dept?

I don't get the whole he won Hawthorn a premiership. Who exactly did he select / trade that did this.