Coach Sam Mitchell's direction for the club and 2024 news

[Strapping Young Lad]

If anyone wants to have a listen about what the data is saying in regards to whether we have actually gotten worse this year have a listen to this from the 9:15 mark.

I know a few people have already touched on it, but the data is also showing that our results this year have been slightly better despite actually putting out a younger team and dealing with some injuries.




And here.

 

[bindas12]

When schwab was mocked for saying he was aiming for a premiership in 2004, 13 of the 2008 premiership team were on the list already

And by percentage, 2004 was by far the worst season for 60 years. Some teams recently have had 3 or 4 years in a row like that

yea but Schwab wasn't around in 2008 to enjoy that. Making those comments didn't help his cause, and unfortunately looks the same for Mitch.

 

[Lickmesocks]

We need to poach someone from Sydney's scouting and player development team (in particular).

Mitchell also needs experienced specialist assistants/line-coaches, not inexperienced coaches learning on the job.

We should have the coin.

Mitchell should be on no more than 600-700k so there should be plenty of coin available in the soft cap to get some top notch assistants in.

Norf on the other hand with Clarko on 1.3 makes it a lot harder.

 

[Lickmesocks]

Mitchell keeps choosing terrible subs. Surely Ramsden played on the ground from the start, replacing Lewis.

Ramsden is not AFL standard, which is part of the problem.

We know we need talls and when Lewis is out we are left with Ramma who is not ready.

 

[The Chad and I]

The thing that worries me is that Sam has said that the nucleus of our next premiership side is already on our list. I have grave concerns on recent additions to the list having what it takes to excel in order to get that premiership.

I agree with Sam.
A lot of that talent is yet to play 50 games.
We only have 8 players between 50-100 games, and 2 of our best players are on 55 and 58 games (Day & Newcombe)

As a young team, losing our best KP forward and our best midfielder is gonna hurt.
We only have 10 players older than 25 on the entire list.
5 of those are 28 or younger.

| Games | Player
|-------|-----------------------
| 49 | Jack Ginnivan
| 48 | Connor MacDonald
| 45 | Changkuoth Jiath
| 40 | Ned Reeves
| 38 | Finn Maginness
| 36 | Lloyd Meek
| 35 | Josh Ward
| 28 | Denver Grainger-Barras
| 24 | James R Blanck
| 24 | Joshua Weddle
| 22 | Massimo R D'Ambrosio
| 21 | Cameron Mackenzie
| 19 | Sam Butler
| 18 | Seamus R Mitchell
| 7 | Jai Serong
| 7 | Cooper Stephens
| 6 | Henry Hustwaite
| 5 | Max R Ramsden
| 3 | Nick Watson
| 2 | Bailey Macdonald
| 0 | Joshua R Bennetts
| 0 | Calsher Dear

 

[tommyk72]

I agree with Sam.
A lot of that talent is yet to play 50 games.
We only have 8 players between 50-100 games, and 2 of our best players are on 55 and 58 games (Day & Newcombe)

As a young team, losing our best KP forward and our best midfielder is gonna hurt.
We only have 10 players older than 25 on the entire list.
5 of those are 28 or younger.

| Games | Player
|-------|-----------------------
| 49 | Jack Ginnivan
| 48 | Connor MacDonald
| 45 | Changkuoth Jiath
| 40 | Ned Reeves
| 38 | Finn Maginness
| 36 | Lloyd Meek
| 35 | Josh Ward
| 28 | Denver Grainger-Barras
| 24 | James R Blanck
| 24 | Joshua Weddle
| 22 | Massimo R D'Ambrosio
| 21 | Cameron Mackenzie
| 19 | Sam Butler
| 18 | Seamus R Mitchell
| 7 | Jai Serong
| 7 | Cooper Stephens
| 6 | Henry Hustwaite
| 5 | Max R Ramsden
| 3 | Nick Watson
| 2 | Bailey Macdonald
| 0 | Joshua R Bennetts
| 0 | Calsher Dear

Reckon you’ll be able to add Ramsden to that.

 

[The Chad and I]

Reckon you’ll be able to add Ramsden to that.

I like his athleticism, but I want to see more.

 

[Billyc]

Not here to troll, but just wondering what the overall consensus is about Sam Mitchell? I thought he'd make a good coach and was a big fan of his as a player. Rate him up there with Darren Jarman. But I think he came in and gutted the club for no real good reason like Voss did when he coached brisbane and has made things tougher than things needed to be.

Only commenting here because I had a genuine interest in how Mitchell would go as coach and wanted to get the clubs supporters opinions.

The jury is out. He certainly hasn’t proven himself to be a good coach yet. He inherited a s**t list. I was content with how he went in his first two years as coach as there was obvious improvement in most of the younger players. This year is proving more of a concern as many players seem to have regressed without obvious explanation and some match day coaching has been confusing and ineffective. At the end of the day though he just doesn’t have the top end talent on the list

His legacy at the club will buy him more time than a different coach would get so I think he’s safe for this year. But if we finish bottom 4 this year (which seems likely) and next year goes the same way, I think the pressure will come

 

[TylerDurden]

The jury is out. He certainly hasn’t proven himself to be a good coach yet. He inherited a s**t list. I was content with how he went in his first two years as coach as there was obvious improvement in most of the younger players. This year is proving more of a concern as many players seem to have regressed without obvious explanation and some match day coaching has been confusing and ineffective. At the end of the day though he just doesn’t have the top end talent on the list

His legacy at the club will buy him more time than a different coach would get so I think he’s safe for this year. But if we finish bottom 4 this year (which seems likely) and next year goes the same way, I think the pressure will come

We are anchored to the bottom 4 for this season. We've already train wrecked it.
Only thing we can now do is play more kids and hopefully find a player or 2.

 

[Hawk Vision]

Our rebuild return on 1st picks; after 4 years of s**t;

DGB -> Bust, almost certainly won’t make it. Doesn’t seem to have a pair of lungs
Ward -> Should make it but very vanilla, currently playing reserves.
Mackenzie -> Could be a very good player, has some point of difference attributes
Watson -> Could be anything, small but might have big impacts on games

That’s about 2/4 for 1st picks over 4 years that’s pretty poor. Just shows the draft is a lottery, I’d also say our ability to develop talent is not as strong as other teams. Our top end talent is a big miss at this point.

 

[Crankyhawk]

Our rebuild return on 1st picks; after 4 years of s**t;

DGB -> Bust, almost certainly won’t make it. Doesn’t seem to have a pair of lungs
Ward -> Should make it but very vanilla, currently playing reserves.
Mackenzie -> Could be a very good player, has some point of difference attributes
Watson -> Could be anything, small but might have big impacts on games

That’s about 2/4 for 1st picks over 4 years that’s pretty poor. Just shows the draft is a lottery, I’d also say our ability to develop talent is not as strong as other teams. Our top end talent is a big miss at this point.

2020 draft seem to generally be busts in 1st round so need to measure dgb against what else we were looking at in draft year (tall defenders)

 

[Mr Meeseeks]

Our rebuild return on 1st picks; after 4 years of s**t;

DGB -> Bust, almost certainly won’t make it. Doesn’t seem to have a pair of lungs
Ward -> Should make it but very vanilla, currently playing reserves.
Mackenzie -> Could be a very good player, has some point of difference attributes
Watson -> Could be anything, small but might have big impacts on games

That’s about 2/4 for 1st picks over 4 years that’s pretty poor. Just shows the draft is a lottery, I’d also say our ability to develop talent is not as strong as other teams. Our top end talent is a big miss at this point.

Without a compromised draft those 4 players would be MacDonald, Andrew/Callaghan, Humphrey and probably still Watson.

 

[extractasam]

I think Sam will end up being a good coach and need to cut him a bit of slack and remember he’s probably only just ticked over 50 games of senior coaching after inheriting a garbage list.

The battle will be getting enough talent to compete which I’m not sure over the journey we will be able to do to match it with teams around us. Syd/GC/GWS/Bris the main worries with their academies letting them double dip in the talent pool with early picks. Just don’t know how you compete with it, you need to get so so lucky drafting to be able to match with clubs that occasionally get to bring in 2+ first rounders for essentially nothing once they compile a heap of late selections.

 

[BobHawk]

I've been thinking a bit about Brett Ratten

Brett Ratten

Age

52

Ht

184cm

Wt

88kg

Pos.

Mid

Career

Season

Last 5

D

22.4

5star

K

12.1

4star

HB

10.3

5star

M

2.9

3star

T

3.0

5star

No current season stats available

D

26.4

5star

K

13.8

5star

HB

12.6

5star

M

3.4

4star

T

1.6

4star

's role and how his role is playing and what his input has been given what we are seeing on the field every week.

 

[Wingnut19]

Our rebuild return on 1st picks; after 4 years of s**t;

DGB -> Bust, almost certainly won’t make it. Doesn’t seem to have a pair of lungs
Ward -> Should make it but very vanilla, currently playing reserves.
Mackenzie -> Could be a very good player, has some point of difference attributes
Watson -> Could be anything, small but might have big impacts on games

That’s about 2/4 for 1st picks over 4 years that’s pretty poor. Just shows the draft is a lottery, I’d also say our ability to develop talent is not as strong as other teams. Our top end talent is a big miss at this point.

Should be more heat on Mackenzie for sure. It’s not even that’s he’s missed so much on picks but he’s put a list together of players who can’t dispose of the ball.

 

[Billyc]

Should be more heat on Mackenzie for sure. It’s not even that’s he’s missed so much on picks but he’s put a list together of players who can’t dispose of the ball.

He hasn’t had a huge amount to work with. The late season wins and father sons / academy picks have driven our draft picks down from the absolutely top end despite being a poor side for many years. He’s found some good players with later picks - it’s the development that is concerning me more than the drafting.

 

[Mr Meeseeks]

Should be more heat on Mackenzie for sure. It’s not even that’s he’s missed so much on picks but he’s put a list together of players who can’t dispose of the ball.

Mackenzie has done an excellent job with what he has had to work with and he has done extremely well with later picks.

Can you show me many examples of clear misses early in recent drafts? ie a player miles better who was taken a couple of picks later than ours? Players who nobody rated who have come from nowhere don''t count.

Mackenzie isnt the issue at all. Its the afl system coupled with some poor development.

 

[Hawk Vision]

Without a compromised draft those 4 players would be MacDonald, Andrew/Callaghan, Humphrey and probably still Watson.

What’s even more concerning is the Gold Coast in one year probably bagged 4 players as good or better than the list above. System is completely broken.

 

[Mr Meeseeks]

Without a compromised draft those 4 players would be MacDonald, Andrew/Callaghan, Humphrey and probably still Watson.

That said, I still take Mackenzie over Humphrey. I think he will get there.

 

[Ned Ryerson]

The player development at our club is languishing - Sydney and Geelong are the absolute course leaders. We need to not give the slightest damn about the soft cap and throw some big money on key staff at the Swans and Cats and bring in their IP.

 

[peetoo]

Even if Sam doesn’t fulfill potential, madness to replace him during rebuild

 

[HoldingThe Ball]

Can't be trading 1sts or future 1sts to top up with players from other clubs yet. We're still multiple 1st rounders away (versatile KPP's and X factor mids) from this rebuild coming close to the other side of the mountain yet.

Gotta wonder where our proper top 10 in the league/generational 'guys' are coming from. Could maybe argue Day or Weddle down the track, but no other real difference makers on this list currently. Need to use our next few top 5 picks on the highest upside prospects in the drafts.

I've actually come around to this now. We need to walk away from any trades of high end picks - including the future first for Baz.
We cant be entertaining splitting the pick either.

Losing a top end daft pick for a bloke who's coming off an ACL is not clever tbh. Smith, as decent as he is, won't cover our biggest issues which are lack of KPP's

If we really must spunk a top pick up the wall - it must be for a gun CHF or CHB. But who is out there, and willing to come to a side that will probably finish in the bottom 2?

I've been thinking a bit about Brett Ratten's role and how his role is playing and what his input has been given what we are seeing on the field every week.

He's rapidly become the new Brendon 'Yes sir' Bolton.

Can't blame him, life's been a bit crap for Ratts recently, just looking for a steady paycheck tbh.

 

[mustang]

What game was Sam watching if he thinks the game was even if you didn’t know the scores not the game I was watching.

 

[TylerDurden]

 

[Judd2Sewell]

Development of (most of the) top picks we have had is an issue. Most have stalled in their development - DGB, Ward, MacDonald and Butler.

Not all of it is the club's fault IMO, for example I don't think anyone would have foreseen DGB's inability to put on weight and get properly fit. Some poorly timed injuries haven't helped him either, but the writing is pretty much on the wall.

Ward looked brilliant in his first season, but has not kicked on. Now he's playing reserves in season three, whilst the senior side is terrible. Hopefully it's just a matter of finding some confidence before he comes back in. I still think he has a long term future and will be a good player.

MacDonald has no real position and has been turned into a really flaky HFF that doesn't apply pressure or impact the scoreboard. Is he ever going to become a midfielder or is he just going to play his career out as a HFF? I'd love to know what the long term vision is for his development.

Butler was drafted as the premier small forward / HFF if his draft class, but could not get near it at AFL level. This injury is horrific and hopefully he makes a full recovery, but it obviously could not have come at a worse time for his career.

Mackenzie and Weddle are going well.

Watson is in his first season, so there isn't much point bringing him up, plus he was a ready made small forward, I'm not sure what development is left.

 

[Judd2Sewell]

How many coaches of rebuilding sides have been extended when their results have been this bad over a three year sample size? Legitimate question.