Stephen Wells

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D

Darwin Cat

Draftee
Jan 26, 2010
15
12
Darwin
AFL Club
Geelong
First, let me explain that I have checked all past threads here and can not find any previous threads for for Stephen Wells, and even after searching the official Geelong Website, I can not find any information nor any mention of him.

This man seems to me to be a very important cog within our club and many say is the best in the business, and a big reason why we are now the greatest team of all, yet I don't know anything about him.

Can anyone here shed any information on his background with the cats.

And I think it would be interesting if anyone can list each years drafts, since Stephen has held this position, and which players he has bought into the club.

Seems to me, I might be wrong, maybe every player on our list we have to thank him for.

I just feel that every year after the draft, he has somehow with low picks managed to get us into a stronger position, and is the main reason our future is always so exciting.

Sorry if there was a tread done on him before, and I am amazed I can not find anything on him in the clubs website.
 

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Chris Scott did a fantastic job -and im not underselling his performance by any means -but Wells has been far more crucial in our success . Coaches are bit like racehorse trainers -theve got to have the material to work with -or theve got no hope

If the football club had say a million dollars a year to remunerate between Wells and Scott -then in my opinion Wells should get 700k and Scott 300k -however coaches get all the hype the glory and most of the money
 
Goggin Our Best said:
Chris Scott did a fantastic job -and im not underselling his performance by any means -but Wells has been far more crucial in our success . Coaches are bit like racehorse trainers -theve got to have the material to work with -or theve got no hope

If the football club had say a million dollars a year to remunerate between Wells and Scott -then in my opinion Wells should get 700k and Scott 300k -however coaches get all the hype the glory and most of the money
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always enjoy reading your thoughts on footy:thumbsu:

Gotta disagree though because I reckon Scott does an enormous amount of homework behind the scenes that most fans wouldn't have a clue about. Would take up so much of their time that their private lives are even compromised for 6 months of the year.
His contract also demands he be available for media commitments, community events and various other meetings to do with the Geelong football club.

And even after the Saturday result, it's the coaches that then sleep on went right or wrong and be up nice and early the following day to begin crunching all the numbers & statistics.
Wells would certainly have a strenuous job as he needs to be a very good PR person and sell himself to the new kids as well as travel most of the year scouting the county but I wouldn't believe his job would require anywhere near the amount of stress or overload that an AFL senior coach would do.
 
Thanks SJ, but I still can not get any results.

What year did he start as recruiting manger? and does anyone know where there is a list of each years draft.

I think he even recruited Tom Harley ??

Must be the most rewarding job at the club, to bring in the new kittens and see them grow into fully fierce fighting skilled cats, and in Harley's case a 2 time premiership captain.

On the Geelong website there is breakdown of each of the coaches and there resumes, which has being updated including Knights as the VFL Coach and gives a detail history of Neil Balme, BUT nothing on Stephen Wells I can find.

Maybe on you draft gurus here like PO or someone might have the each years draft history under Wells ??
 
You can work out how long he's been there from this.

Daniel Breen

December 22nd, 2009


Geelong president Frank Costa (left), recruiting manager Stephen Wells and CEO Brian Cook with the spoils of victory for 2009.


RECRUITING guru Stephen Wells was rewarded for 25 years of outstanding work when he was presented with Geelong's R. J. Hickey Award for outstanding service to Australian football.

Wells fought back a tear or two of joy as he accepted the award and thanked all and sundry who had helped him become one of Geelong Football Club's most important employees
 
you pick one said:
You can work out how long he's been there from this.

RECRUITING guru Stephen Wells was rewarded for 25 years of outstanding work when he was presented with Geelong's R. J. Hickey Award for outstanding service to Australian football.
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Not really, that tells you how long he has been at the club, not how long he has been in charge of recruiting. He was a protege of and deputy to Bill McMaster who was head of recruiting until 1995, at which point Stephen took over.
 
Jim Boy said:
Not really, that tells you how long he has been at the club, not how long he has been in charge of recruiting. He was a protege of and deputy to Bill McMaster who was head of recruiting until 1995, at which point Stephen took over.
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Can anyone here shed any information on his background with the cats
That's all it was supposed to do.
 
The most influential people at the GFC over the 2007-11 period would be very hard to order.

Certainly Wells would be high on the list.

The CEO Cook is brilliant, Costa was great, Balme and Thompson very good, Harley and Ablett very important - and so on. Now even the new coach is in on the act.

But Wells was the one that has found us the players capable of winning 3 Premierships - without the best of picks. Has to be the best in the League at his job. Where does that put him in the overall mix of influence - really hard to say - but maybe as high as third or fourth on the list.

Just hope this year's picks and next he continues the tradition. Then we are set for quite a few years to come.
 

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No doubt that whole is better than the sum of all the people in this great period of ours.

But last year we lost Thompson, and assistant coach, Ablett and Costa was standing down. A whole lot of the parts of the whole fell off !

Again Cook, Balme, Sanderson, Wells stood tall and there was hardly a bump - and we won a bucket load of H&A games and stormed thru the finals.

Yes they added a few good people around them - like Scott who made a significant difference to our winning a flag.

These losses would have crippled some clubs - and spiraled into a crisis. We win a Flag.

So sometimes you just have to recognise the good work of some key people at your club - especially when it was done under duress.

Maybe I have become too optimistic of late - but the list seems to be good enough for the next 2-4 years for us to get another Premiership in the short term.

Quite a few things are falling into place that make it likely we will be a force for sometime to come. Much of that goes to Well's more often than not ability to pick up good picks when he has low or mid or high draft choices to play with.

I just think we have too many potential players in the twos now that we are bound to get at least 3-5 really good players from in the next 3 years. And that number could well be enough to get us over the line in a finals campaign in the next few seasons.
 
It has occasionally occured to me that Wells oversaw periods of incredibly poor recruiting (the Murphy fiasco), but who knows what was going on at the club at the time. Certainly, the club's philosophy has shifted to 'growing our own' in the past decade. During the period where we've had the finances and resources, and the league almost as a whole has regarded drafting as crucial, Wells has been excellent.

The rest has already been said.
 
joe444 said:
It has occasionally occured to me that Wells oversaw periods of incredibly poor recruiting (the Murphy fiasco), but who knows what was going on at the club at the time. Certainly, the club's philosophy has shifted to 'growing our own' in the past decade. During the period where we've had the finances and resources, and the league almost as a whole has regarded drafting as crucial, Wells has been excellent.

The rest has already been said.
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Don't see how something that happened 10 years ago is a black mark. Do people still blame Cameron Ling for the game he cost us on debut? I reckon it's case of Wells just getting better much as Ling did.
 
Stephen Wells is no doubt VERY good at his job. BUT.... Footy fans can be so simplistic sometimes. I think that not NEARLY enough credit is given to clubs coaching and development to young players. ie... I often used to watch Richard Tambling and think that if that poor bugger had been drafted to Geelong, Collingwood or Hawthorn, he'd be a champion by now. Instead, he ended up at a shambles of a club and never got the education, coaching, follow on confidence etc. It can be SUCH a slippery slope. I spent some time on an AFL list and my best mate at the same time was drafted to Fitroy. The difference between his conditions and mine in EVERY way were outrageous and so sad. His career never had the same chance mine did, and he was a much more talented footballer than me imo

So yep Stephen Wells is amazing. But no more than Bomber, Chris Scott and all the assistants who moulded those premiership sides...
 
They certainly do good work down at catland. I caught abit of round 17, 2009. We beat Hawthorn by a point. The amount of changes between that game and last week (round 2 2012), are amazing when you think that we won. In the 2009 game we had, Thomson, Ablett, Rooke, Mumford, Tenace, Ling and Milbourne. We also played Hogan, Wojo, Varcoe, Scarlett and Hunt. All that experience was replaced by, Podsiadly, Christensen, Go West, Guthrie, Motlop, Duncan, Smedts, T Hunt, and Brown. I don't know if we have a fantastic core group, an amazing recruiter or great coaches. I suspect it is all of that. But we are very fortunate to follow this club. I think Kelly and Johnson are the other 2 ins for 2012, Handy ins.
 
Catsmaninamerica said:
Stephen Wells is no doubt VERY good at his job. BUT.... Footy fans can be so simplistic sometimes. I think that not NEARLY enough credit is given to clubs coaching and development to young players. ie... I often used to watch Richard Tambling and think that if that poor bugger had been drafted to Geelong, Collingwood or Hawthorn, he'd be a champion by now. Instead, he ended up at a shambles of a club and never got the education, coaching, follow on confidence etc. It can be SUCH a slippery slope. I spent some time on an AFL list and my best mate at the same time was drafted to Fitroy. The difference between his conditions and mine in EVERY way were outrageous and so sad. His career never had the same chance mine did, and he was a much more talented footballer than me imo

So yep Stephen Wells is amazing. But no more than Bomber, Chris Scott and all the assistants who moulded those premiership sides...
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:thumbsu:

I've often thought that if I were a 17 year old going into the draft I would prefer to be picked up by a top team and learn from the best rather than a GC/GWS. I may not get a seniors game in the first 2-3 years but in 5-6 years would be a much better player. With that in mind, it may be that recruiting Power, Cornes, etc. was a smart move by GWS.
 
joe444 said:
It has occasionally occured to me that Wells oversaw periods of incredibly poor recruiting (the Murphy fiasco), but who knows what was going on at the club at the time. Certainly, the club's philosophy has shifted to 'growing our own' in the past decade. During the period where we've had the finances and resources, and the league almost as a whole has regarded drafting as crucial, Wells has been excellent.

The rest has already been said.
Click to expand...

I'm alone in this, but I still believe the coach has the final say. Sure the recruiter finds the players, but the coach makes the ultimate decision. Happily they get it right much more than they get it wrong (and you only need to look at the 1999 draft to see no one is perfect).
 
I know it's not just Wells, but I am staggered that GC/GWS didn't back up a truck full of money for him, Cook, and whoever leads our player development.

I know GC tried to get Cook, but that should have been one of their highest priorities IMO. Glad it didn't happen!
 
Bigrob_Jr said:
I know it's not just Wells, but I am staggered that GC/GWS didn't back up a truck full of money for him, Cook, and whoever leads our player development.

I know GC tried to get Cook, but that should have been one of their highest priorities IMO. Glad it didn't happen!
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Honestly , with the picks they had I reckon , Aunty Mary and her three blind sisters could have picked their players.
 

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