Coach Men's Senior Coach: Brad Scott

[Old Campaigner]

He was literally apart of rebuilding the list 3-4 years ago

No point crying about it now. Just gotta get on with the next one

 

[Keystone agony]

No point crying about it now. Just gotta get on with the next one

Agree and there is still hope some of them are around having significant influence in 2027 apart of finals for us

Reid, cox were always going to take time being 200cm bean poles. Unfortunately injury has been a major issue for Reid and Cox has shown signs that he cant handle the physical nature of the game

 

[ghostdog]

He was literally apart of rebuilding the list 3-4 years ago

The implication drawn from Barham's speech on B&F night is that he started that without a strategy.

That much is clear when you consider there was nothing in place to cover the retirements of Hurley and Hooker.

 

[Old Campaigner]

The implication drawn from Barham's speech on B&F night is that he started that without a strategy.

That much is clear when you consider there was nothing in place to cover the retirements of Hurley and Hooker.

I think the strategy was in part go all out for finals while the window was open and stuff the longer term

 

[yodellinhank]

He was literally apart of rebuilding the list 3-4 years ago

I don't think he was apart from it at all.

 

[Keystone agony]

The implication drawn from Barham's speech on B&F night is that he started that without a strategy.

That much is clear when you consider there was nothing in place to cover the retirements of Hurley and Hooker.

Wahh which part of his speech made you draw that implication?

Francis, Zerk, Ridley

 

[ghostdog]

Wahh which part of his speech made you draw that implication?

Francis, Zerk, Ridley

"We have injected more money into our list management recruitment team and will continue to support this critical area which is now lead by Matt Rosa. We now have a detailed list management strategy, to guide us so that the decision making is strategic and well planned..."

In other words, prior to Rosa we did not have this.

None of those three were ever going to be replacements for Hurls or Hooker. Ridley and Zerk are third talls. Francis was touted as a third tall but we drafted him with the ambition of making him a midfielder.

 

[Keystone agony]

"We have injected more money into our list management recruitment team and will continue to support this critical area which is now lead by Matt Rosa. We now have a detailed list management strategy, to guide us so that the decision making is strategic and well planned..."

In other words, prior to Rosa we did not have this.

None of those three were ever going to be replacements for Hurls or Hooker. Ridley and Zerk are third talls. Francis was touted as a third tall but we drafted him with the ambition of making him a midfielder.

Zerk is not a 3rd tall and Ridley is very capable as a 2nd tall. Francis the mid... maybe, maybe not, i think we soon realised early on he was a tall defender

Different players, but same role

 

[fairbump_playon]

We need to stop with this fallacy,
We did not play good football this year, we had good results until the football we were playing was exposed for what it was and we fell in a heap.
Even in the initial wins we were not playing well.

In fact I think it was worse than his first year, in his first year we would go into games and you could see the coaching, you could see him take away opposition strengths or us change the way we played to exploit something, it was visible and tangible.

That didn't exist this year.

Fair bit of revisionist history happening here

We showed up very very consistently for a chunk of the season.

We adapted our game plan to different sides, I would actually say we shifted it a bit too much week to week and should have stuck more to doing things our way.

But fact is we had no small forwards worth a pinch of salt and Wright was very poor on return. For weeks we lost despite inside 50 dominance.

Duursma was injured, Durham hit the wall. The last part was grim but there was just too little quality to get it done.

I’m less pessimistic than others. I feel like there will be potentially a lot of internal improvement. Caldwell, Durham, Caddy, Roberts & Jones should all come on again.

Would be just so good if ADJ got stronger and got serious. Likewise, Perkins, Cox, Reid … if only.

 

[ghostdog]

Zerk is not a 3rd tall and Ridley is very capable as a 2nd tall. Francis the mid... maybe, maybe not, i think we soon realised early on he was a tall defender

Different players, but same role

He was a key back as a junior but hadn't been able to fill out his frame in the seniors, which is one of the reasons I suspect we were happy to let him go. Everyone flinched waiting for Zerk to get crunched every week. Is he playing key back at Port? When he arrived he was going to be behind both Aliir and Ratugolea. Rats only went forward when Dixon was struggling.

Ridley plays as a key tall only when needed. We would have had McKay and Reid if not for Reid's injury.

Francis absolutely was drafted with Dodoro selling him to us as a mid.
"He could play across half-back, forward and hopefully – one day, he becomes a midfielder." - Dodoro
Francis's draft notes have him as a 3rd tall as well though.

 

[Keystone agony]

He was a key back as a junior but hadn't been able to fill out his frame in the seniors, which is one of the reasons I suspect we were happy to let him go. Everyone flinched waiting for Zerk to get crunched every week. Is he playing key back at Port?

Yes

When he arrived he was going to be behind both Aliir and Ratugolea. Rats only went forward when Dixon was struggling.

Ridley plays as a key tall only when needed. We would have had McKay and Reid if not for Reid's injury.

Francis absolutely was drafted with Dodoro selling him to us as a mid.
"He could play across half-back, forward and hopefully – one day, he becomes a midfielder." - Dodoro
Francis's draft notes have him as a 3rd tall as well though.

Francis continued to grow after being drafted and they were open at the time to him being anything

Sanderson even stated this:
when you look at his height and size, he might end up playing key position

The game was also trending towards smaller KPD that had better agility

Weve seen this with
Nathan Murphy
Koldojasnij
Jack henry
Melican
Rance
Wilkie
Sicily/scrimshaw/weddle this year
Hurley


Also think we forget that Hurleys career quickly declindd for health reasons. We had every right to expect him to be playing in 2022/23 before retirement

By then we had
Zerk
Francis
Reid
Ridley
Brand
Eyre

All on the list ready for 2023/2024 if they were good enough

 

[ghostdog]

Yes

Francis continued to grow after being drafted and they were open at the time to him being anything

Sanderson even stated this:
when you look at his height and size, he might end up playing key position

The game was also trending towards smaller KPD that had better agility

Weve seen this with
Nathan Murphy
Koldojasnij
Jack henry
Melican
Rance
Wilkie
Sicily/scrimshaw/weddle this year
Hurley


Also think we forget that Hurleys career quickly declindd for health reasons. We had every right to expect him to be playing in 2022/23 before retirement

By then we had
Zerk
Francis
Reid
Ridley
Brand
Eyre

All on the list ready for 2023/2024 if they were good enough

Zerk got thrown a key back role when Rats was forced to go forward.

What Sanderson says is irrelevant to Dodoro's grand vision.

Even if Zerk was our 'smaller kpd', who was our anchor? It clearly wasn't envisioned as Francis. Surely not Ridley.

Hurley had the capacity to be that guy. He stood Tredrea one on one under a high ball and outmarked him in his first game.

This is guff. The bottom line is that Dodoro left us with a KPD gap, such was the quality of his 'strategy.'

 

[Keystone agony]

Zerk got thrown a key back role when Rats was forced to go forward.

What Sanderson says is irrelevant to Dodoro's grand vision.

Even if Zerk was our 'smaller kpd', who was our anchor? It clearly wasn't envisioned as Francis. Surely not Ridley.

Hurley had the capacity to be that guy. He stood Tredrea one on one under a high ball and outmarked him in his first game.

This is guff. The bottom line is that Dodoro left us with a KPD gap, such was the quality of his 'strategy.'

No Zerk was our bigger KPD. Hes played that role all year, him and Ratugolea were there to allow Allir more free man

No i have proven that he did not

Zerk 195
Ridley 196
Francis 193

Were completely fine before we even take into account Zac Reid, Eyre and Brand - none were good enough. Im not here to defend his ability to pick the right player but his list management make up was fine

 

[Mercurial89]

Fair bit of revisionist history happening here

We showed up very very consistently for a chunk of the season.

We adapted our game plan to different sides, I would actually say we shifted it a bit too much week to week and should have stuck more to doing things our way.

But fact is we had no small forwards worth a pinch of salt and Wright was very poor on return. For weeks we lost despite inside 50 dominance.

Duursma was injured, Durham hit the wall. The last part was grim but there was just too little quality to get it done.

I’m less pessimistic than others. I feel like there will be potentially a lot of internal improvement. Caldwell, Durham, Caddy, Roberts & Jones should all come on again.

Would be just so good if ADJ got stronger and got serious. Likewise, Perkins, Cox, Reid … if only.

The revisionist history is thinking we played well in that first half of the year.
We were not playing good football, that was a fact and people said it at the time. Some of our better wins came off 4 quarters of football where the press worked to perfection, that was the rare time all year where that happened. (GWS win was one of those).

I believe Phone has posted about this before, results masked how we were playing. That was first half of the year where people think we were doing ok.

 

[Old Campaigner]

The thing I noticed for most of the season was we seemed to stay in games a lot more and gave ourselves a chance. In previous years I'm sure we would have capitulated at quarter time in a lot of those games.

 

[ghostdog]

No Zerk was our bigger KPD. Hes played that role all year, him and Ratugolea were there to allow Allir more free man

No i have proven that he did not

Zerk 195
Ridley 196
Francis 193

Were completely fine before we even take into account Zac Reid, Eyre and Brand - none were good enough. Im not here to defend his ability to pick the right player but his list management make up was fine

...and aren't Port fans stoked with that, because despite his height, Zerk is more suited to being the 3rd tall.

Dodoro drafted Zerk in '17, and Brand and Eyre in '18. Hooksy retired in '21 and Hurley in '22. In that time Zerk hadn't filled out. He brings in Brand and Eyre late, themselves under developed and neither going to make the grade.

And their height is irrelevant. What role we drafted them for and the role they ended up playing much more so.

Ridley was drafted as a rebounding defender with a laser kick, and if you believe Kakkle (who I think had links inside the club?) we probably looked at him for his midfield potential - the same as Francis. So if anything, there's the 'strategy' you'd like to believe in. Rids' intercept marking became a vital improvement for us, and I think most would agree his best role is as an intercepting 3rd tall.

I've already shown you that Dodo wanted Francis to be a mid.

Dodo wasn't ficused on key defenders, and by the time he was, he picked badly, didn't prioritise it and was too late.

 

[P Money]

The revisionist history is thinking we played well in that first half of the year.
We were not playing good football, that was a fact and people said it at the time. Some of our better wins came off 4 quarters of football where the press worked to perfection, that was the rare time all year where that happened. (GWS win was one of those).

I believe Phone has posted about this before, results masked how we were playing. That was first half of the year where people think we were doing ok.

I kind of agree with this, but on the other hand if you're beating your opposing team most weeks how can you also not be playing well?

 

[Mercurial89]

I kind of agree with this, but on the other hand if you're beating your opposing team most weeks how can you also not be playing well?

Quite easily, there is always good wins and bad wins, same as bad losses and good losses.
Play like crap for 3 quarters and go on a run in one quarter, the opposition can't kick straight even when beating you in most other areas.
You can also be playing a style that doesn't hold up in big spots or to pressure, might get you wins when stakes are low but if it doesn't win when you need to win what does it actually accomplish.

We also got lucky of when we played teams with teams missing key guys when we got them or being in form slumps themselves.

We had wins this last year, we had very few good wins.

 

[thepokey]

The thing I noticed for most of the season was we seemed to stay in games a lot more and gave ourselves a chance. In previous years I'm sure we would have capitulated at quarter time in a lot of those games.

Yeah this is what I'm taking from this year mostly. I think the amazing starts to the last 2 years has really messed with people's perspectives. When Scott took over we were an absolute rabble and I think right then if people said the next 2 years will be middle of the road we'd probably take that (unless you argue you'd rather bottom 4s for picks). So regardless of ladder position I feel like the improvement from this team under Scott from year 1 to 2 has been the way we have lost. Rarely blown off the park and lots of times we showed some real grit to fight back and stay in it where we absolutely would have capitulated in recent years.

Now we just need another step forward for next year. Which, admittedly is going to be tough missing 40ish goals already with Stringer gone, but that's just what we had to do.

 

[fairbump_playon]

Yeah this is what I'm taking from this year mostly. I think the amazing starts to the last 2 years has really messed with people's perspectives. When Scott took over we were an absolute rabble and I think right then if people said the next 2 years will be middle of the road we'd probably take that (unless you argue you'd rather bottom 4s for picks). So regardless of ladder position I feel like the improvement from this team under Scott from year 1 to 2 has been the way we have lost. Rarely blown off the park and lots of times we showed some real grit to fight back and stay in it where we absolutely would have capitulated in recent years.

Now we just need another step forward for next year. Which, admittedly is going to be tough missing 40ish goals already with Stringer gone, but that's just what we had to do.

We will definitely have to replace Stringer’s 42 goals

 

[ant555]

We will definitely have to replace Stringer’s 42 goals

I am sure Brad can organize some sort of AFL compensation

 

[The Donners]

Then why trade him for a packet of chips?
Old mate wright wasn't best 22 by end of season and causes as much structural issues as Jake/langford minus any x factor, other clubs have shown contracts don't have to matter so why didn't we test the market with Peter. We just took the easiest option to show everyone we are "taking a stand".

Why was no one knocking down his door?

 

[The Donners]

We will definitely have to replace Stringer’s 42 goals

Maybe ADJ and Menzie???

 

[crackers65]

Why was no one knocking down his door?

From week to week you didn’t know if you were going to get the Package or the Baggage. Also too many rumours of problems off field. I think Matty Lloyd was right about not trusting him.

 

[Keystone agony]

From week to week you didn’t know if you were going to get the Package or the Baggage. Also too many rumours of problems off field. I think Matty Lloyd was right about not trusting him.

There were also rumours of him being better off field

I do find it surprising that no one was prepared to offer a pick inside 50 and 2 years to Stringer though, so seems either something was legit up or everyone got scared off by the media in a tea cup storm that seemed to be created

Also think it was more so his training standards and us pushing him out for those reasons, which was then questioned by other clubs