Team Mgmt. Talk about the makeup of our list - midfield balance, height profile, endurance runners

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Mosquito was a poor field kick (like we need more of that) and out a lot from reports on here. It wasn't a good selection. Neither were our other attempts at small forward types in Cahill and Johnson (timid, small and slow and injured, small and slow).

Given they all had glaring deficiencies they were all too easily written off in here as just late selecttioms or 'worth a punt' IMO.
 
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CBombers17 said:
Mosquito was a poor field kick (like we need more of that) and out a lot from reports on here. It wasn't a good selection. Neither were our other attempts at small forward types in Cahill and Johnson (timid, small and slow and injured, small and slow).

Given they all had glaring deficiencies they were all too easily written off in here as just late selecttioms or 'worth a punt' IMO.
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Johnson always struck me as a sneaky-sneaky way of adding 2 players to 1 list spot. He was off the list pretty quickly and was Pick 63.

People overestimate late picks chances of making it. Refer Patrick Voss the rookie selection being our midfield saviour.
 
owen87 said:
Johnson always struck me as a sneaky-sneaky way of adding 2 players to 1 list spot. He was off the list pretty quickly and was Pick 63.

People overestimate late picks chances of making it. Refer Patrick Voss the rookie selection being our midfield saviour.
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If you have 3 goes at small forwards and none of them make it past a couple of games that's a fail IMO - after all hey were on the list to solve a problem we still have.

Happy to agree to disagree .
 

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CBombers17 said:
If you have 3 goes at small forwards and none of them make it past a couple of games that's a fail IMO - after all hey were on the list to solve a problem we still have.

Happy to agree to disagree .
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I'm not even sure what Johnson was drafted as other than 'if we don't draft him Brisbane will rookie him'

Cahill would have been viewed as a Snelling type small I can only assume.
 
owen87 said:
I'm not even sure what Johnson was drafted as other than 'if we don't draft him Brisbane will rookie him'

Cahill would have been viewed as a Snelling type small I can only assume.
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I think Johnson was defender/forward/midfield and agree on Cahill and they may have been hoping for midfileld time as well?

I'd be happy to give it a pass if we'd found another Guelfi type out of the 3. A limited but physical player with leg speed - a player that Truck could work with. It felt to me at the time like a failed Dodoro attempt at Richmond style recruiting.
 
CBombers17 said:
I think Johnson was defender/forward/midfield and agree on Cahill and they may have been hoping for midfileld time as well?

I'd be happy to give it a pass if we'd found another Guelfi type out of the 3. A limited but physical player with leg speed - a player that Truck could work with. It felt to me at the time like a failed Dodoro attempt at Richmond style recruiting.
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I actually don't think Cahill was a completely lost cause. Thought he was a reasonably smart player and had a good tank, so thought he could become that Snelling type guy but given it was done under Rutten who very much values the way Snelling goes about it, I assume they think he was never going to make it to that point.

Certainly he would have been given opportunity this year given our dearth of small forward options if he was still on the list.
 
putting his track record to one side on recruiting, the list management side is going to be interesting this year

if I put the hat on;

Out of contract - Francis, Waterman, McGrath, Phillips, Bryan, Tippa, Perkins, Ham, McBride, Brand, Heppell, Stewart, Eyre, Baldwin, Langford, Guelfi, Hurley, Martin, Hind, Cox, Voss, Wanganeen, Cutler, Hird, Reid.
1 year left - Lord, Hobbs, Zerk, Parish, Dev, McD, Jones, Redman, Bryan, Wright, Draper, Snelling

Bold = sooner we sign up the better

Italics - Langford & Francis. Two of my favourites that I hate how we developed them.
-Francis - former pick 6, quality HBF rebounder. Currently behind Heppell, Ridley, Laverde and probably Redman too (who I'd prefer on wing/HF). 7 years and isn't in our 22.
-Langford - one of our best ball users, few taller mids and a solid HF/wing rotation. But, if we finish bottom 3, as an FA we could roll the FA dice. If he turns into a 2nd top 5 pick (kills me to say it), we should let him go.

Underline - no idea what to do.
Waterman and Hind are young and have AFL experience. Depth but is it depth we can afford in the side. both contribute to our lack of F50 pressure.
Heppell.

Rest;
Project bucket - Baldwin, Tex, McBride, Lord, McD, Zerk, Hird, Wanganeen, Voss, Brand, Eyre
Experienced, but slowing - Tippa, Stewart, Dev
Retire - Hurley
Good depth, should keep unless we can upgrade - Cutler, Phillips, Hind

22/36 I would argue aren't instant extends.
11/22 I classify project players (i.e. they may work, they may not). 9 of those 11 need a call made this year. 11 feels like a lot of projects, even for a rebuild side.
18/22 are this year. We won't delist/trade/retire 18 players.

2023 seems the more straight forward year.
McD & Lord either come on as fringe 22 or better.
Dev I can't see being extended

Entering our 3rd offseason of rebuild, there is a lot to work through.
I feel better for having Mahoney about, but Dodoro and his team will need to make some honest calls on where they've historically fallen over.
 
We have no genuine small forwards who crumb and create pressure. Real issue. We have to play a side full of forwards filling in gaps and it allows sides to create out of defense .
 
ant555 said:
We have no genuine small forwards who crumb and create pressure. Real issue. We have to play a side full of forwards filling in gaps and it allows sides to create out of defense .
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I knew you’d come around eventually.
 
citizen-erased said:
putting his track record to one side on recruiting, the list management side is going to be interesting this year

if I put the hat on;

Out of contract - Francis, Waterman, McGrath, Phillips, Bryan, Tippa, Perkins, Ham, McBride, Brand, Heppell, Stewart, Eyre, Baldwin, Langford, Guelfi, Hurley, Martin, Hind, Cox, Voss, Wanganeen, Cutler, Hird, Reid.
1 year left - Lord, Hobbs, Zerk, Parish, Dev, McD, Jones, Redman, Bryan, Wright, Draper, Snelling

Bold = sooner we sign up the better

Italics - Langford & Francis. Two of my favourites that I hate how we developed them.
-Francis - former pick 6, quality HBF rebounder. Currently behind Heppell, Ridley, Laverde and probably Redman too (who I'd prefer on wing/HF). 7 years and isn't in our 22.
-Langford - one of our best ball users, few taller mids and a solid HF/wing rotation. But, if we finish bottom 3, as an FA we could roll the FA dice. If he turns into a 2nd top 5 pick (kills me to say it), we should let him go.

Underline - no idea what to do.
Waterman and Hind are young and have AFL experience. Depth but is it depth we can afford in the side. both contribute to our lack of F50 pressure.
Heppell.

Rest;
Project bucket - Baldwin, Tex, McBride, Lord, McD, Zerk, Hird, Wanganeen, Voss, Brand, Eyre
Experienced, but slowing - Tippa, Stewart, Dev
Retire - Hurley
Good depth, should keep unless we can upgrade - Cutler, Phillips, Hind

22/36 I would argue aren't instant extends.
11/22 I classify project players (i.e. they may work, they may not). 9 of those 11 need a call made this year. 11 feels like a lot of projects, even for a rebuild side.
18/22 are this year. We won't delist/trade/retire 18 players.

2023 seems the more straight forward year.
McD & Lord either come on as fringe 22 or better.
Dev I can't see being extended

Entering our 3rd offseason of rebuild, there is a lot to work through.
I feel better for having Mahoney about, but Dodoro and his team will need to make some honest calls on where they've historically fallen over.
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Bryan is contracted for next year
 
owen87 said:
I actually don't think Cahill was a completely lost cause. Thought he was a reasonably smart player and had a good tank, so thought he could become that Snelling type guy but given it was done under Rutten who very much values the way Snelling goes about it, I assume they think he was never going to make it to that point.

Certainly he would have been given opportunity this year given our dearth of small forward options if he was still on the list.
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Of those 3 I would have given Johnson the best chance to make it under Rutten given he was at least apparently hard at it. If you have limitations you have to have uncompromising attack on the ball and man or forget it. That's Guelfi and it's Snelling and it's not Cahill.

Even looking at the smaller more highly rated players they are taking now under Rutten and they mostly have a harder edge (and long may it continue!). Perkins, Kelly, Caldwell, Hobbs, Durham, Martin all go when it's their turn.
 
CBombers17 said:
Of those 3 I would have given Johnson the best chance to make it under Rutten given he was at least apparently hard at it. If you have limitations you have to have uncompromising attack on the ball and man or forget it. That's Guelfi and it's Snelling and it's not Cahill.

Even looking at the smaller more highly rated players they are taking now under Rutten and they mostly have a harder edge (and long may it continue!). Perkins, Kelly, Caldwell, Hobbs, Durham, Martin all go when it's their turn.
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Cahill had the tank Johnson didn’t, and probably wouldn’t ever have had.
 
owen87 said:
Cahill had the tank Johnson didn’t, and probably wouldn’t ever have had.
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Perhaps but we will never know - and I didn't want either (as stated on here) And either way the club and and Rutten had a good look at Ned and it ended very predictably.

And here we are with no speedy small forwards. Not sure this aspect can be argued as anything less than a fail. That said things have changed and this should be corrected in the next season or 2.
 
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owen87 said:
I disagree unless there was something known at the time that would indicate what's unfolded.

There's a failed selection where it's poor recruiting because information is known, and then there's simply a selection that doesn't work out due to unforeseen factors.

A string of failed selections based on information that should be known at the time is on the recruiter, a selection that doesn't work out due to unforeseen factors isn't.
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The issue with Mosquito wasn't so much that he got ruined by injury in the way Morabito was. Morabito was absolutely not a failed selection just as Gumbleton wasn't. That suggests that there is some culpability on the part of the recruiter for bad luck with injury.

Unfortunately, because this is an area that has generated some heated press due to poorly motivated actors in the past (I'm looking at you Jason Mifsud), I am not so sure the same leeway applies to the decision to take Mosquito.

He was a really long shot. So long that Hawthorn didn't match a bid that would have cost them pick 53, if that. That's an unusual objective insight we get from the bidding system.

He was a kid from a very remote location who packed up and went home rather than face a year of rehab. The murmur from Hawthorn was that he wouldn't cope. He had problems with his tank. I look back at Francis' immaturity and lack of a tank as a combination that I actually can't believe saw him as a top 10 pick by the time the draft came around.

Covid in 2020 didn't help but at the end of the day Mozzy went home when faced with a year on the sidelines. It would take some convincing for me to accept Mozzy walking was not risk they faced and decided to take on.

A real shame because he was a special talent but not a great bit of recruiting. He belonged on a cat B rookie list so you could send him home for 12 months if that is what it took to ensure we got to see the best of him.
 
maybe Dodoro could save his recruiting career by using our 1st rounder on a half-back flanker who will become an inside mid. Worked so well up until now.
But there is always the option of a 68-74kg guy who is tall and fast. Come on Dodoro do it.
 
citizen-erased said:
Or I just cant read.
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I tend to not look at the club by club one on there because it can be easy to mistake 2022 to 2023 etc, which is what I assume you were looking at?
 
owen87 said:
I disagree unless there was something known at the time that would indicate what's unfolded.

There's a failed selection where it's poor recruiting because information is known, and then there's simply a selection that doesn't work out due to unforeseen factors.

A string of failed selections based on information that should be known at the time is on the recruiter, a selection that doesn't work out due to unforeseen factors isn't.
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There where question marks on his application to all things AFL world. He was never known for dotting all the I's or crossing all the T's which is what really got in in the end because he could not deal with the attention to detail needed to rehab the injuries. That is part reason why the Hawks did not want to match and use up the late picks because they wanted to take a player with their pick in the fifties and then use their pick in the 60's.
It is too bad it did not work out as actually picking a livewire small forward was what we needed.
 
Yoda_ said:
What forward planning did we have in place in the 2013 - 2017 period ? Injuries to key kids (see Tayte Pears, see Sean Gregory, see Scott Gumbleton if you wanna go back that far) certainly hurt but those proceeding years we topped up, and topped up (see Mitch Brown, see Shaun McKernan). We didn't bother even trying to replace them with better kids. We dropped the ball (drafting young KPP) between 2012 (Daniher) and 2017 (BZT). In that time we brought in Hartley, Ambrose, McKernan, Brown. That showed a lack of understanding of the list imho and denied us the opportunity to improve on what we had, but a poor attempt at maintaining a decent level which crashed and burned hard.

Just on Daniher, icymi; we didn't draft a young KPF since Joe in 2012 until Harry Jones in 2019. That is almost a career that we didn't even bother trying to ring one in.
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Sent you a message 👍😎
 
ant555 said:
There where question marks on his application to all things AFL world. He was never known for dotting all the I's or crossing all the T's which is what really got in in the end because he could not deal with the attention to detail needed to rehab the injuries. That is part reason why the Hawks did not want to match and use up the late picks because they wanted to take a player with their pick in the fifties and then use their pick in the 60's.
It is too bad it did not work out as actually picking a livewire small forward was what we needed.
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I suspect we've got a belief that we've done reasonably well over the stretch getting Indigenous kids to transition to the AFL - as well as any other club does anyway - and that with AMT around we might have been able to get Mosquito to make the transition as well.

Certainly he showed he had the talent to play AFL.
 
owen87 said:
I'm happy to disagree with the vast majority of people on that front then.

You can only weigh what's known at the time; Gumbleton a similar one who from memory hadn't had any injury issues pre-draft.
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Im with you mate. People with hindsight hero glasses saying shoulda done x because the bloke you picked got injured. Ive had this discussion with mates in the past.

There is zero point discussing it as based on the information you had at the time you made the call. Using unforeseen events post decisions isnt a fail on the recruiter. A failed recruiter is like when we didn't pick Gawn or Luke Parker or Sloane or Barlow. All of these are going back a bit but were the clear choice I thought at the time for need and best available, yet we went with speculative picks over them.

Even Francis over Mckay. But I would have chose Francis at the time.

Mossie or gumby etc are not fails from a recruiter. Gumby could be a failure on medico department for not picking up on a hidden back issue (if it was there back then).
 
www.theage.com.au

Essendon’s desperate bid to address their midfield woes

Dylan Shiel has been dropped, honesty sessions have been held, the vision has been damning, the time has come for Essendon’s midfield to grow up.
www.theage.com.au www.theage.com.au

Some key quotes.

Midfield in general is coming up empty handed. Opposition mids having a feast.
“We want to keep improving our stoppage work, we want to keep improving our ball movement and the effectiveness of our ball winners through there, understand their role as to how we defend as a group,” Rutten said.

That’s a list of to-do items no senior coach wants at round seven, but after six rounds Essendon remained in the bottom six for inside 50 differentials and second bottom for contested possessions, and teams are slicing through them on rebound.

In the first three rounds the best player on the ground was their opponent’s gun midfielder, with Patrick Dangerfield, Lachie Neale and Clayton Oliver all feasting on their lack of accountability. When they get the ball, the Bombers handball sideways to avoid pressure and their kicks don’t threaten defences.

Darcy Parish’s game against Collingwood symbolised the questions that surround the Bombers’ game style and whether it is bringing the best out of a midfield that looks good on paper.
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Langford and Snelling are the defensive elements of this midfield unit, the others have been recruited more for their offensive ability. McGrath is the only one who has a background in defence out of that core unit.
A club source said the loss of Kyle Langford and Will Snelling (who finished third in last year’s best and fairest) to injury had been underestimated as that pair have the defensive instincts and endurance to protect the ball hunters who have been found wanting in those areas. That mitigating factor has merit, but the inability of others to accept such responsibilities in the duo’s absence has been damning.
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Game style to match the personnel we have? (as ant keeps saying)
Another industry source said Essendon do not play a game style that maximised midfield talents such as Zach Merrett, Parish (who has been battling an ankle injury this week), Shiel, Jye Caldwell, Jake Stringer and Andy McGrath. In their view, the team’s inability to absorb pressure and attract opponents before releasing a teammate showed more contest work was needed at training.

Unlike the best midfielders, Essendon’s handball or kick sideways when they sense pressure, rather than wanting to go forward or work their way through congestion, is why their clearances don’t worry opposition defences.
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Back to talking about Parish's defensive positioning (emblematic more than the only problem):
Parish only has to look at how Melbourne’s Oliver and the Brisbane Lions’ Neale have evolved to use the ball more evenly by foot and hand after starting their careers heavily reliant on handball. In Parish’s past three games he has had 34 kicks and 97 handballs, numbers similar to Oliver and Neale early in their careers.

Oliver and Neale also push back into defence, setting themselves up to attack as their positioning allows them to receive the ball in space when their team transitions from defence into attack. Essendon’s midfielders don’t work hard enough or for each other, the reason that former skipper Matthew Lloyd could say on radio after the loss to the Dockers that the team “lacked honesty”.
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Midfield needs to play as a team:
Melbourne and the Lions’ approach through the midfield is helped by their confidence in their defensive set-up, which Essendon do not have as they can’t defend teams running the ball from end to end.

But the midfield’s first step, as a club assistant coach said, is to see themselves as a unit working together.
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Couple of things ive been mulling over recent weeks

1) we can only play one of shiel or caldwell. Both are strong runners and good clearance engines. But also very much front running, not defensive and questionable with disposal..age says you back caldwell.

2) cant play mcgrath alongside parish and merrett. 3x sideway 1/2 handball first mids is not good. Mcgraths kicking is the worst of the 3.

And we're still getting no goals from the middle.
 
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