Opinion Stephen Silvagni

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Stamos said:
Gold Coast Suns.
Very similar picks/concessions.
One year longer in the comp, still haven't made finals.
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Bettering the worst case scenario doesn't automatically equate to success, given the assets at their disposal GWS (& GCS) have underachieved.
I'm sure as clubs gather around to review their footy operations that more would be required to be deemed a success than being better than GCS.
 
BlueJet said:
Bettering the worst case scenario doesn't automatically equate to success, given the assets at their disposal GWS (& GCS) have underachieved.
I'm sure as clubs gather around to review their footy operations that more would be required to be deemed a success than being better than GCS.
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No, you give no credit for a great list-build and ignore how easy it is to stuff up.

Expectations of recruiting and list management are crazy. In the midst of a rebuild that would bring 4 flags in 8 years, Hawthorn burnt 2 consecutive pick #6s.
 
OldBlueFan said:
What I'm saying is that the principles that you're citing as "strategy", are what I would characterise as "list management 101".

I asked you to point out how the recruitment of Ellis fit into OUR strategy in terms of where our list is at, and what were widely acknowledged as our needs. You never even bothered to try to address that, so it's a bit rich coming back now with "If you're not going to engage in an actual conversation".
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I've explained how he fits into our strategy.

We've spent years going hard at the draft and have a disproportionately young list, many of whom are still building towards AFL maturity (both mental and physical).

Yes, we have specific on-field roles that we need to recruit for, but the list as a whole is skewed towards being young and inexperienced.

I'm not sure how you've come to the conclusion that recruiting Ellis doesn't fit your interpretation of our "strategy" because of the position he plays, especially given we then went out and recruited another statistically similar bloke a week later (Newnes).
 

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Stamos said:
No, you give no credit for a great list-build and ignore how easy it is to stuff up.

Expectations of recruiting and list management are crazy. In the midst of a rebuild that would bring 4 flags in 8 years, Hawthorn burnt 2 consecutive pick #6s.a
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Hardly - I've preached patience in judging the success or failures of SOS' work to date.
It's those rushing to judgement one way or another that seemingly miss the point for I'm sure that there were those potting the Hawks for missing on Dowler etc & similarly, there were people who anticipated Ablett, Prestia, Lynch, Dixon etc turning GCS into a juggernaut.
 
BlueJet said:
Hardly - I've preached patience in judging the success or failures of SOS' work to date.
It's those rushing to judgement one way or another that seemingly miss the point for I'm sure that there were those potting the Hawks for missing on Dowler etc & similarly, there were people who anticipated Ablett, Prestia, Lynch, Dixon etc turning GCS into a juggernaut.
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Surely we can judge that SOS did a very good job at GWS?
 
Bostonian said:
GCS prove nothing.

SOS has been gone from GWS for years now and the list that made the GF recently has nothing to do with him.

It's those in the job now that moulded the list into a GF team. Not SOS.
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So the players SOS recruited for GWS, that are still on the list, have nothing to do with the club reaching a GF?
 
Stamos said:
Surely we can judge that SOS did a very good job at GWS?
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At the very least he laid the foundations of a side that, despite losing a gun player pretty much every off-season, and despite significant injuries to key personnel, is playing deep in finals and still managing to secure highly rated young players in the draft for future development. That's a strong performance in itself. Gold Coast, as much as they're not a perfect counterpoint, are a mile off the mark despite the fact that they should have been able to do the same.

Bring in a heap of talent early, then keep bringing in talent. Get the top shelf players to bond well and buy in. Anyone who wavers can be shopped around for a good price and the cycle continues. Gold Coast weren't able to generate the culture, but on top of that they've been unable to convert their departing players into much of worth.

Imagine if every off-season we had a Treloar, Shiel, McCarthy, Patton, Adams, Hoskin-Elliott, Smith, Boyd etc. requesting a trade out of the club. We'd be destitute.
 
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Stamos said:
Surely we can judge that SOS did a very good job at GWS?
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It depends on what classifies as very good and ultimately, this is where I believe that we have a difference of opinion.
The Hawks juggernaut of recent memory and the current Tigers side have achieved a lot more with less draft capital than GWS but as players mature the Giants may reach that level - getting Ward in particular back plus continued improvement of Hopper & Taranto may well see this Giants side take the next step.
Happy to agree to disagree however.
 
Blue__Balls said:
I've explained how he fits into our strategy.

We've spent years going hard at the draft and have a disproportionately young list, many of whom are still building towards AFL maturity (both mental and physical).

Yes, we have specific on-field roles that we need to recruit for, but the list as a whole is skewed towards being young and inexperienced.

I'm not sure how you've come to the conclusion that recruiting Ellis doesn't fit your interpretation of our "strategy" because of the position he plays, especially given we then went out and recruited another statistically similar bloke a week later (Newnes).
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Rather convenient to leave out the salary considerations in a discussion about strategy. At the time, the club had very serious plans for Coniglio, Papley and Martin. Recruiting Ellis would have meant putting general list health and positive PR spin ahead of specific list strategy.

You say you're all about the strategic considerations, but never put the whole strategic picture together.

Can we just agree to disagree on this?
 
OldBlueFan said:
Rather convenient to leave out the salary considerations in a discussion about strategy. At the time, the club had very serious plans for Coniglio, Papley and Martin. Recruiting Ellis would have meant putting general list health and positive PR spin ahead of specific list strategy.

You say you're all about the strategic considerations, but never put the whole strategic picture together.

Can we just agree to disagree on this?
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We can agree to disagree, sure. But I'll also point out that the whole discussion on Ellis was me saying he was worth talking to, that he was exactly the type of player we should have been talking to, and that based on the salary requirements he put on the table we were absolutely right to walk away.

I'm not saying we should have recruited him. Never did.
 

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Ricky Mott said:
The CEO toured Ellis through the club behind SOS back. That is sackable!!
The conflict is the CEO has gathered his mates and put them in positions that now he has control of and can’t be challenged. Bad move by the Carlton Board. The conflict lies right there. SOS challenged his boys club in the interest of Carlton members.
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Lol sos challenged his boy club. Get a grip


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My two cents on the SOS Liddle fiasco. Every large organisation has decisions that impact more than one area of the company, and there is some give and take that needs to happen. All decisions should be made holistically. At a previous company that I worked at, there were 4 hour long weekly meetings just to go through issues and how it effects different areas to come to a decision that is best for the company as a whole rather than for one area.

SOS saying no to Betts was a list management decision, and the right one for the improvement of the list. Liddle saying yes to Betts was a financial decision, which early days from the outside looking in looks to be a good call.

without know how the two parties acted in the situation, if they could not come to an agreement, the decision should be escalated to higher people in the organisation to make the decision. if the board got involved in the decision then great, that’s what they are there for, to make the tough calls for the betterment of the club.

As much as SOS has done for the club, if he is leaving because a decision was made that he didn’t agree with, then let him go as that is a petty attitude (again not knowing how things went down through the saga). Yes the parting press release was poor (press releases are something we do poorly time and time again), but other than that it seems like it was all fair game.

If there is someone I’d want at the club out of the two, Liddle probs just pips SOS. While SOS has given us a great list, traded well to get us great draft picks and good young talent in, the one thing he hasn’t done is land a big fish. Liddle on the other hand seems to be consistently ticking off all his KPIs.
 
Blue__Balls said:
We can agree to disagree, sure. But I'll also point out that the whole discussion on Ellis was me saying he was worth talking to, that he was exactly the type of player we should have been talking to, and that based on the salary requirements he put on the table we were absolutely right to walk away.
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You didn't say "he was worth talking to", you said "it's a bit rich to claim Ellis doesn't fit any strategy" :

Blue__Balls said:
Just highlighting that it's a bit rich to claim Ellis doesn't fit any strategy, when adding experienced players in their mid 20's who can run and have decent skills is exactly the strategy. I think the right decision was made, but that doesn't change the fact that he was absolutely worth having a few conversations with.
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In a post that came just after I said:

OldBlueFan said:
You mean the cash that was earmarked for Coniglio, Papley and Martin? I'm tippin' if we'd got Ellis, then at least one of those would have been unobtainable with the remaining cap space - it might have even only been Coniglio plus one of Papley or Martin. Ellis didn't fit any "strategy" at all for Carlton, it would have been a knee-jerk move at best.
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We now know that at the time Ellis was being courted by Liddle, we had our targets clearly defined as Coniglio, Papley and Martin; any of whom would have satisfied both an immediate list requirement AND your generalised set of "list strategies" (ie. maturity, experience, pace and endurance). And at least one of whom would have been at risk had we chosen to recruit Ellis instead.

I'm comfortable to stand by my comment that in this context Ellis didn't fit with the overall list strategy and any frustration that ensued within the list management team at the time would have been completely understandable.
 
Blue__Balls said:
Gibbons, Cottrell, Owies. 3 of the 6.

Bye now. There's enough agitation on our board in light of recent circumstances that we don't need opposition heroes trying to bait an argument.
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The goose probably forgot about Gibbons and never heard of Cottrell and Owies.
 
OldBlueFan said:
You didn't say "he was worth talking to", you said "it's a bit rich to claim Ellis doesn't fit any strategy" :



In a post that came just after I said:



We now know that at the time Ellis was being courted by Liddle, we had our targets clearly defined as Coniglio, Papley and Martin; any of whom would have satisfied both an immediate list requirement AND your generalised set of "list strategies" (ie. maturity, experience, pace and endurance). And at least one of whom would have been at risk had we chosen to recruit Ellis instead.

I'm comfortable to stand by my comment that in this context Ellis didn't fit with the overall list strategy and any frustration that ensued within the list management team at the time would have been completely understandable.
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Mate, I made it patently clear in almost every post, painstakingly so, that I was defending the decision to meet with Ellis and discuss potential terms. And that given his ultimate contract requirements, inflated due to an incredibly overblown offer from GC, we made the right move in choosing not to pursue it further.

Doing so (meeting with him) doesn't stop us getting Coniglio (who hadn't nominated us...), Papley (who was, ultimately, ungettable) and Martin. Having options on the table in the off-season is always a good thing. If, as it turned out did happen, Papley and Coniglio fell through, we may have been in a position to negotiate a suitable deal with Ellis instead. Turns out GC are desperate, and Newnes was a more suitable solution.

So yes, based on his salary/contract cost, he was not a good fit. But that's something you determine during the course of a meeting or two, unless you reckon Ellis was contacting clubs telling them how much money he wanted, and Liddle invited him over to check out all the money bags in our vault.
 
Bostonian said:
SOS has been gone from GWS for years now and the list that made the GF recently has nothing to do with him.
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What a bizarre point you are trying to make. Not sure you've thought it through, TBH.

Over half the players who represented the Giants on Grand Final day this year were brought into the club under Silvagni. A number of others watched on from the sidelines.

To suggest he had nothing to do with it is completely naive, to put it politely.
 
JustaBattler said:
I agree a case can be made to make Liddle look pretty bad - a good case actually...
however

I reckon people are forgetting just how diabolically bad things must have looked from the inside as Bolton coaching was delivering a 1-10 start to 2019 - a year in which most expected to see the start of some kind of rise...it wasn't just Bolton under scrutiny - SOS was under the pump too.

Marchbank/Cuningham/Williamson/Charlie injured a lot and off the field meanwhile McGovern looking like he came out of the fat farm to pretend to be an elite forward for ten minutes a game...Bug threw the towel in after he was signed , Garlett was a bust , Fasolo actually busted his arm mucking around with Charlie in pre-season, Pickett gone, Fisher, LoB and Dow under performing ...lots of finger pointing going on about quality of list - I'd imagine...

Hence the List management dept under review at end of year comments from Liddle.

Bolton's recent comments about maybe coaching for more wins and less about the future included reference to perhaps some fault in not getting some experienced players in....even though money was there...

An argument can be made that maybe SOS's approach was at the margin too long term focussed for pragmatists whose KPI's were measured in shorter terms or coaches whose career was at risk.

Teaguey managed to get a lot of pressure released by getting some wins up - truth is that quite a few players have to be able to lift significantly from here to sustain improvements. I reckon Liddle and Lloyd weren't willing to bet their futures on a system which was apparently delivering under performance - they probably felt and feel obliged to act in their capacity as Football Manager and CEO to intercede and change things up.

I think chasing Coniglio, Papley, Martin and looking to plug the small forward holes were agreed strategies - the Ellis thing would have been seen as a free hit in terms of picks - the cash was there.

This agreed strategy could have delivered Coniglio/Papley and Martin as well as Pittonet/Newnes - draft night would have been boring though.

In the end we got Betts/Martin for nothing in picks - a potential top5 pick who has done his achilles in Kemp - and a couple of interesting developing kids.

I reckon the best the Club can do is find an extremely good negotiator who understands the requirements of keeping salary cap under control and a balanced list going forward - he wont be allowed total discretion in selections of trade targets or the draft - the days of green shoots and patience are over.

I reckon the Club did the right thing on balance - despite the romance and maybe joy of SOS staying or leaving under his own terms being lost to supporters.

The manner in which all this was handled is what sticks in the throat - more than the actual decision itself.
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Good post. It's very easy to forget the context in which comments or decisions were made, and make judgements based on where we are now rather than where we were then.
 
Can we have a break from all the bleating about how badly SOS has been treated. SOS is many things. But one of his dominant characteristics is that he a total, or near total, hard arse. He played the list management game like he played football.
So what you dish out sometimes comes back to you in the same form.
He has performed creditably but his time is up. That’s just how it is.
Why be overly sentimental? SOS never was.
If you don‘t believe me just ask Josh Deluca. Better still listen to his interview on SEN.
SOS will be fine. In fact he’ll be just dandy.
As Dylan Buckley more or less said recently “We all get sacked at one time. So let’s move on”.
Onward and upward baggers🤓
 

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Opinion Stephen Silvagni

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