Autopsy Round 8, 2023 : Positives and Negatives vs Richmond

[BOND 007]

The various excuses are really wearing thin.

The complete lack of opportunities given to youth prior to our unprecedented 2 year injury run would be a factor in the lack of development. Credits in the bank has a bit to answer for.

The shambles that is our reserves.
The missed NGA/academy nominations.
The dumb positions players are asked to play (Gaff inside mid, Allen ruck, Rotham key defender).

1) no coach is going to give XON a shot ahead of Shuey, Yeo etc. To suggest otherwise is plain daft.
2) Gaff has been asked to play inside because he was a liability on the wing. Teams identified him is the weak link for fast ball movement and played certain players on him.
3) reserves are a shambles because they can't actually field a wafl team
4) missed NGA - whom?
5) you have to have certain players in certain positions. Rotham plays a key back coz there's nobody left with height. Same with Allen in ruck 2 years back. Exactly who were you going play in Rothams position?

 

[Priddis Is Done]

The various excuses are really wearing thin.

The complete lack of opportunities given to youth prior to our unprecedented 2 year injury run would be a factor in the lack of development. Credits in the bank has a bit to answer for.

The shambles that is our reserves.
The missed NGA/academy nominations.
The dumb positions players are asked to play (Gaff inside mid, Allen ruck, Rotham key defender).

I'm as dirty as anyone about the credits in the bank. Especially after that Stirling game v Richmond 2 years ago, whereby 7 or so young players were dropped for the returning credits.

I was dirty.

In hindsight are any of younger players any good outside of the last 2 drafts?

 

[GeelongEagle]

Agreed. I like Edwards, but if I'm being harsh to the rest he can't be spared.

Third year in the system. Late pick, but I wouldn't want another situation like XON where we've kept non AFL quality depth longer than we should have.

FWIW I'd give him another year personally, but facts are he's pretty injury prone, doesn't dominate WAFL, far from it (averages 17 touches a game) and is yet to cement a spot in our team even now, despite all the injuries.

There's a few in the firing line before him, I'll say that much.

I agree. He looks like he should be better than what he is delivering. He has to play every game for the rest of the year. Tell him he has that time to prove himself.

 

[ziad]

I'm as dirty as anyone about the credits in the bank. Especially adopter that Stirling game v Richmond 2 years ago, whereby 7 or so young players were dropped for the returning credits.

I was dirty.

In hindsight are any of younger players any good outside of the last 2 drafts?

In reality we have Shuey, JD, (Now kelly), Sheed, Barrass, Hurn, Nic, Cripps, Gov and Gaff who have had credible or better AFL careers. Others til the last two drafts are WAFL plodders with out pace, high skills, leadership or general ability. Of the listed players 2-3 at best are part of our furture post rebuild. We have a list management problem (crisis) not a coaching problem.

 

[GeelongEagle]

Waterman, Duggan, etc - lets have a propper planned clean out

One thing this season has thrown up - Waterman has a spot. Wouldn't have said that last year.
Keep Duggan in the midfield for the rest of the season and see what he (dare I say it) 'develops' into.

 

[Priddis Is Done]

There's probably only 3 items that irk me:

1. Drafting the infamous: injured all year in draft year and slid in the draft.

2. Drafting the infamous: half back flanker and trying to turn them into a mid.

3. Hanging onto players that are never going to make it for far too long. I'd rather we go deep into the draft at pick 90. Sure maybe it's a 5% strike rate but it's better than keeping on a spud that has a 1% chance of making it.

 

[ziad]

One thing this season has thrown up - Waterman has a spot. Wouldn't have said that last year.
Keep Duggan in the midfield for the rest of the season and see what he (dare I say it) 'develops' into.

we are discussing the AFL not the WAFL. Put it this way, if Allen is out who stand up at FF? Waterman was decimated against the third defender with JD drawing fire. He has no power endurance, speed, defensive pressure has poor instincts and if he grabs a set kick his thinking is so slow he is a handbreak on attacking moves. The very occasional opportunity when defenders paly no respect isnt enough.

 

[Priddis Is Done]

In reality we have Shuey, JD, (Now kelly), Sheed, Barrass, Hurn, Nic, Cripps, Gov and Gaff who have had credible or better AFL careers. Others til the last two drafts are WAFL plodders with out pace, high skills, leadership or general ability. Of the listed players 2-3 at best are part of our furture post rebuild. We have a list management problem (crisis) not a coaching problem.

Agree

And the only way to fix that is a fair few years of picks at the pointy end. And absolutely nailing the majority of them.

 

[bombard]

We're in deep, deep shit with injuries etc, yet we're not even bottom. The fact we went up yesterday is a blight on the state of the comp.

Is there a world where Hawthorn is so shamelessly tanking that it pushes the rock down the hill on a draft lottery?

 

[Priddis Is Done]

we are discussing the AFL not the WAFL. Put it this way, if Allen is out who stand up at FF? Waterman was decimated against the third defender with JD drawing fire. He has no power endurance, speed, defensive pressure has poor instincts and if he grabs a set kick his thinking is so slow he is a handbreak on attacking moves. The very occasional opportunity when defenders paly no respect isnt enough.

Quality of ball delivery into the 50 and lack of forward 50 entries tells a story.

 

[salo]

Not everyone is expecting to get a star outside the top ten. We get it.

But the second and third rounds are where honest foot soldiers and long term role players can be found. (Situation and opportunity is clearly important.)

I think this is where we have failed.

If it's not poor development then it's poor drafting and the jury is out on the Chesser pick who was selected during our era of 'enlightened drafting', while we left a number of high potential mids on the board.

Yes they have concessions at the top end, but have a look at where Sydney have been able to unearth (select / develop) cattle.

 

[ziad]

One thing this season has thrown up - Waterman has a spot. Wouldn't have said that last year.
Keep Duggan in the midfield for the rest of the season and see what he (dare I say it) 'develops' into.

Duggan, the old he has only had 8 seasons he will develop theory.

 

[ziad]

Quality of ball delivery into the 50 and lack of forward 50 entries tells a story.

as does the pood disposal and hand ball across the ield - waterman is part of the problem. His set ckcks into 50 for example allow every oposition player to take up a defensive position - like many on our list the pace of AFL is beyond him. Not just the running pace but the instinctive ball monement and thinking. A solid WAFL player but thats it.

 

[Chump Change]

Not everyone is expecting to get a star outside the top ten. We get it.

But the second and third rounds are where honest foot soldiers and long term role players can be found. (Situation and opportunity is clearly important.)

I think this is where we have failed.

If it's not poor development then it's poor drafting and the jury is out on the Chesser pick who was selected during our era of 'enlightened drafting', while we left a number of high potential mids on the board.

Yes they have concessions at the top end, but have a look at where Sydney have been able to unearth (select / develop) cattle.

It only works half like that

Yes, you get role players from roughly pick 15 onwards, BUT

As you say, situation and opportunity is important. Put a foot soldier into a top 4 team that has a successful system with gun players who win the hard ball more often that not, and it's far easy to play at their optimum as opposed to a bottom 4 team. You did acknowledge this and it is important. But then you say it's either poor development or poor drafting.

Development hinges a lot on how well the team is going, how well the structures and systems work. This in turn is largely dependent on how good your top end is. Then with the drafting - anything after pick 30 is approximately an 85% failure rate. You basically have to have lots of picks in this zone to have the best chance of jagging some stars. We traded lots of these picks (and rightly so).

This is how it really works:

The elite players typically sit at the top of draft
The role players typically sit after pick 15 (and MSD, PSD, RD etc)

It's only when you have a group elite players and A grade players that you can be competitive with the top teams
You may jag one or more of these players after pick 15, and you maybe have top 10 picks that turn into solid role players, but if you just have a team of role players, you're not going anywhere.
Once you have your top end talent, the rest of you team fall into place. If you look at Richmond's triple flag list profile, there's a core of top end players (mostly taken near the top of the draft), and the rest are mix of role players from R2/R3/R4/R4/PSD/MSD/RD. Most of those role players were at the right place at the right time.

So when you're saying;

Bad development - we're trying to develop role players in a team without a top end.
Bad drafting - we simply didn't have enough picks at the top end, nor R2 or R3.


I don't know why you're blaming the club? Part of it is down to injury and age, part of it is down to trading our picks for players who helped us win a flag.

And on the Swans - have they won a flag? They have a great coach, a ton of picks we didn't have, and their top end haven't succumbed to injury like we have.

We just drafted Ginbey and Hewitt, and potentially this year draft Reid. I'm not seeing failure, just a cycle that's dropped us right to the bottom based on injury to senior players.

And Chez? Could be a bust. We're not going to get them all right.

 

[KERRPOW]

2) Gaff has been asked to play inside because he was a liability on the wing. Teams identified him is the weak link for fast ball movement and played certain players on him.

Are we any better off playing him as an inside mid though?

Unfortunately the game has gone past him and the recent rule changes havent helped either.

 

[Cornelius Roy]

I think for the 1st time in a while, someone's actually "got it". All I keep reading about is "how WC are great at picking good talls but s**t at drafting good mids". And posters keep holding up names like Sloane, Parker. Neale etc as examples of players missed. Yep WC missed them as did every other team as well, some of them multiple times.

Then we keep hearing how we're s**t at developing said midfielders, as though it's the club's fault that they can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear.

The inescapable fact is that for the most part those with talent are found at the pointy end of the draft. And WC haven't exactly been blessed with many selections there recently. It's also a bit of luck having pointy end selections when the talent pool is there to select from.

When we made the Kelly trade were you aware that outside of Allen and Ryan we had drafted a group of sows ears in 2017 and that venables would likely be done and Redden would be aging out about now?

Excluding the impact of injury,
was where this team currently sits expected as a high likelihood internally after potentially winning one more flag?

Personally i think where we are fits a perfectly reasonable timeline for any club coming off their glory days. I was far more disappointed in 2019-2021 than in anything I’ve seen this year. The important parts of the playing group seem to be attempting to implement positive changes from the coaches we are just copping an absolute root with injuries.

 

[eaglesnutcase]

Noah Long is going to be a star!!!
- we now need a big powerful ruckman.Barnett may turn out ok but he doesn’t strike me as being a physical beast.I don’t care what anyone says; you build a team from the top.
-

 

[BOND 007]

Are we any better off playing him as an inside mid though?

Unfortunately the game has gone past him and the recent rule changes havent helped either.

So where do you suggest playing him?

 

[ArdentEagle]

1) no coach is going to give XON a shot ahead of Shuey, Yeo etc. To suggest otherwise is plain daft.
2) Gaff has been asked to play inside because he was a liability on the wing. Teams identified him is the weak link for fast ball movement and played certain players on him.
3) reserves are a shambles because they can't actually field a wafl team
4) missed NGA - whom?
5) you have to have certain players in certain positions. Rotham plays a key back coz there's nobody left with height. Same with Allen in ruck 2 years back. Exactly who were you going play in Rothams position?

Just on #2 mate, I can see why Gaff was moved from that position but putting Clark on the wing is not a dissimilar thing anyway isn't it?
I know he's bigger but his strength was/is always inside. To me, it feels like we've tried to get a bit too tricky and shot ourselves in the foot twice.

From the outside, it feels like a few of the moves have been a bit counter intuitive, we should back ourselves in....Play to our players strengths.

 

[squashface]

So where do you suggest playing him?

Obviously we have critically low numbers so there is no other option right now but if we had a full list to pick from can you genuinely say that he would be playing WAFL?

 

[KERRPOW]

So where do you suggest playing him?

At the moment we have no choice but to play him in the middle i guess.

In a perfect world IF there was other players available OR showing more than they are currently (xon, trew), he should be playing WAFL.

 

[BOND 007]

When we made the Kelly trade were you aware that outside of Allen and Ryan we had drafted a group of sows ears in 2017 and that venables would likely be done and Redden would be aging out about now?

Excluding the impact of injury,
was where this team currently sits expected as a high likelihood internally after potentially winning one more flag?

Personally i think where we are fits a perfectly reasonable timeline for any club coming off their glory days. I was far more disappointed in 2019-2021 than in anything I’ve seen this year. The important parts of the playing group seem to be attempting to implement positive changes from the coaches we are just copping an absolute root with injuries.

WC had high hopes after the 17 draft. Brander was seen as being a good tall who had a poor ish 17 season, whilst Allen was too good to let pass. Given talls usually take longer to develop WC thought they had the spine for the years post Kennedy and McGovern. Was surprised Geelong drafted Kelly as had planned to take him where Ryan went thinking there was a good chance he (Ryan) slipped to WC's next pick.

So no - no thought in 19 that WC drafted duds 2 years back. No-one could even envisage Venables nor even plan for Shepherd both of whom are losses that shouldn't be glossed over as well.

There was certainly a knowledge that Redden, Shuey etc were closer to the end than the start, but both had been relatively injury free for years along with Yeo, so what has happened since has beggered belief.

You would have more chance of winning lotto 3 weeks running, than to have foreseen the impact of Covid and injuries on this list. I have spoken to many people in AFL circles, what WC have experienced in the last 2 and a bit years is simply beyond anybody's wildest nightmares.

 

[BOND 007]

Obviously we have critically low numbers so there is no other option right now but if we had a full list to pick from can you genuinely say that he would be playing WAFL?

I would suggest unlikely.

 

[BOND 007]

Just on #2 mate, I can see why Gaff was moved from that position but putting Clark on the wing is not a dissimilar thing anyway isn't it?
I know he's bigger but his strength was/is always inside. To me, it feels like we've tried to get a bit too tricky and shot ourselves in the foot twice.

From the outside, it feels like a few of the moves have been a bit counter intuitive, we should back ourselves in....Play to our players strengths.

Teams were playing through Gaff's man. Clark isn't ideal but he's taller, stronger, no worse a kick and perhaps a title more physical in the contest.

I do understand your point but & it has validity.

 

[ziad]

Are we any better off playing him as an inside mid though?

Unfortunately the game has gone past him and the recent rule changes havent helped either.

he is better that an NGA player which is about our only other option . His value is underated by haters who expect too much.