Analysis The Ablett Effect

[Meteoric Rise]

Probably because none were trying anything they could to establish some sort of relevance after, in one tea: case, three and a half decades without it, would be my guess.

Any English translation available for this intriguing post PB?

 

[geelong_crazy26]

We just saw a below average key defender possibly paid 1.4 mil next year.

We saw a massively below average forward flanker get paid over a million.

If tassie was joining the league in 2024 I could absolutely see gulden being offered 2.5mil by the afl to head down to Hobart. You are kidding yourself if you don't think the afl would do it (in no way am I comparing the ability of gaj and gulden - rest would be moronic).

It is front loader and averages out according to reports at 800k a season over six years. So not exactly the full story. His contract will be heavily reduced the latter years.

happy to wait and see, but I doubt tassie offer anything similar when they come in

 

[Caligo]

It is front loader and averages out according to reports at 800k a season over six years. So not exactly the full story. His contract will be heavily reduced the latter years.

happy to wait and see, but I doubt tassie offer anything similar when they come in

It won't be tassie doing the offering.

 

[PhatBoy]

Any English translation available for this intriguing post PB?

Fat thumbs and late nights. It’s a winning combination

 

[geelong_crazy26]

Fat thumbs and late nights. It’s a winning combination

It still made more sense than a sober well thought out meteoric rise post.

 

[ZEV]

If this is a genuine question, GC should have recruited a heart and soul type guy who could be captain until the list was ready. At Hawthorn we had Richie Vandenberg as the guy when we were trash. He wasn't our best player. He wasn't anyone's best player. But he made sure the club would be ok when the young talent was ready.

We did not choose our best player (Shane Crawford).

Crawf captained the club from 99-04. He quit after that broken arm season.

 

[Caligo]

Crawf captained the club from 99-04. He quit after that broken arm season.

Yeah, I mangled that badly. I meant to say having him captain was a mess and we needed a genuine leader not just our best player.

 

[GC2015]

If this is a genuine question, GC should have recruited a heart and soul type guy who could be captain until the list was ready. At Hawthorn we had Richie Vandenberg as the guy when we were trash. He wasn't our best player. He wasn't anyone's best player. But he made sure the club would be ok when the young talent was ready.

We did not choose our best player (Shane Crawford).

The right guy for that role at the time was Nick Riewoldt. Inspirational key forward in his physical prime (27) who was a Gold Coast junior (Broadbeach/Southport), 4x All Australian, 1x league MVP, 5x club best and fairest and had captained the Saints to 2x Grand Final appearances. Riewoldt himself even admitted that the closest he ever came to leaving St Kilda was when Gold Coast presented him a godfather offer in 2010, but he turned it down because the Saints were in the middle of a premiership window at the time and he wanted to win a flag.

No doubt in my mind he was the right leader for the club at the time. A proven high quality leader who had just come off a season that included 78 goals and a genuine 'local hero returns home' marketing story akin to Darren Jarman joining the Crows or Gavin Wanganeen joining Port Adelaide when those clubs entered the league. Unfortunately, the Saints lost both the 2009 & 2010 GFs and their premiership window shut a year later when the opportunity to come home was no longer available. So both parties lost in the end.

Riewoldt would have been both the best player and the best leader at the club if he had joined in 2011 (assuming Ablett didn't go).

 

[UnitedWarrior93]

GAJ should be above criticsm, given his father was one of the most toxic and self-destructive figures to have lived on this planet.

GAJ was motivated (I believe) moving to the Gold Coast mostly to help try and pay for his family aka siblings issues, esp his poor late sister Natasha, cause his parents seemingly could not.

Not saying GAJ is a Saint by any means, but he clearly is/was close/devoted to his family..

I have no doubt he wanted to play his entire career at Geelong, but the extensive cost of paying for sick people like his late sister is far more costly than you may think.

Gaz was also the only reason people watched/turned up to games in Gold Coast's formative years.

This whole narrative of GAJ being a money grabbing mercenary doesn't hold wash with me for a second..

Just because GAJ is one of the most talented and gifted footballers who has ever played the game doesn't mean his life is flawless or he is a money chasing grub.

Easy to make assumptions or cast assertions on someone who haven't even met.

I do like and enjoy your posts mostly HairyO bur feel like you are off the mark in this instance

Gaz did want to play out his career at Geelong, turned down the Gold Coast a few times before the offer was just to good to refuse, and in the end being able to help his family financially was the ultimate deal breaker.

His intentions were always to return to Geelong though, pushed at the end of 2016 but a deal couldn’t be done.

 

[RAPPA]

GC sought a superstar who would attract the supporters but also be the leader to galvanize the club. Not many fit that bill. They needed a Luke Hodge type captain. Gaz was inspirational via his individual efforts. A superlative player. Had he need been injured he would’ve carried them to their first ever finals campaign. Presumably at the very least his presence would’ve lifted training standards and expectations - something that Judd did at Carlton.

 

[GC2015]

Just because it's extremely relevant to the comparison made in the OP, 2019 pick 3 RJ Barrett just got traded home to the Toronto Raptors and could not stop gushing about how happy he was to be home and playing for the team he grew up supporting. This is a full circle moment for Toronto as a top draft product of The Carter Effect has now come home to play for the Raptors. For context, Barrett's father Rowan used to play pick up games with Vince Carter while he was a Raptor so there is a strong connection there. It must be stressed that basketball had a very small following in Canada prior to Vince Carter being drafted. Likewise, the Aussie rules following on the Gold Coast was certainly niche when Ablett arrived and now we see top draft prospects saying in pre-draft interviews that they grew up supporting the Suns, are excited to play for their hometown team and idolised Ablett in the years he wore the red and gold.

 

[wahawk]

Good OP from GC2015
Thankfully no posters gave Shane Heard any airtime & Im glad Hairy0 & Runsv were called out for their made up lies, they were really starting to embarrass themselves which meteoric rise is also succeeding in doing.

I’ve got to say it’s good to see a few GC kids now being drafted & drafted high.
Let’s hope it continues.

IMO, there will be more Qlders drafted than WA kids in the near future, partly due to WAFC stuffing up jnr footy over here, but that’s for a different thread, but possibly also thanks to the effort the 2 Qld clubs go to investing in their academies & maybe The GA effect

 

[GC2015]

Seems that Dimma has also drawn the comparisons between the Suns and Raptors. When you really think about it, there's so many similarities between the two teams prior to the Raptors' championship run.

‘We the North’: Hardwick channels the Toronto Raptors championship saying​

Speaking at the Star Gold Coast to more than 150 Suns members, staff and special guests, keeping them all captivated and hanging onto every word the three time premiership coach said.

“Take the Toronto Raptors for example, a team with uncanny similarities to us,” Hardwick said.

“They were founded in 1995 as part of NBA’s expansion into Canada, the only NBA team in a non-basketball centric state.

“For 10 seasons, they were consistently under performing as a franchise, losses, crowd attendances, general buy into the bigger picture.

“Considered in the league as a team that just made up the numbers.

“But in 2016, they decided to flip the narrative, they turned the negative perception into one of strength an unity.

“How? They embraced they were considered outsiders and built a strong brand and mantra off the back of this mentality.”

Three years after, the Raptors won the NBA championship in 2019.

“It quickly became the Raptors versus everybody else and it quickly came down to three simple words,” Hardwick said.

“We The North.

“They understood they had to bring this mentality for every 48 minutes they stepped on the court.

“Win, lose or draw, the opposition quickly realised that when they stepped foot into Canada, into Toronto, into the Raptors stadium, they were playing the north.”

CODE Sports

CODE Sports

www.codesports.com.au

 

[Truckosaurus]

Falls down a bit when there's a more established, successful team further north than you though.

 

[GC2015]

Falls down a bit when there's a more established, successful team further north than you though.

Not really. The Suns are a northern club based in an expansion market - that's undeniable. It's not a question of how far north, but rather if you are north. Granted the Suns could/should be more successful on the field and that would help, but Brisbane aren't making the same kind of inroads into grassroots male footy that the Suns are. The two rugby codes have a much stronger grip on the Brisbane market than they do on the Gold Coast. For all the success the Lions have had in recent years, their academy hasn't produced a top 10 pick to date. Eric Hipwood (pick 14, 2015) and Jaspa Fletcher (pick 12, 2022) are the only first round picks their academy has produced so far and even then, Hipwood isn't from Brisbane (grew up on the Sunshine Coast) and Fletcher was a father-son pick so that's not a great indication of market penetration either.

The true goal of the northern teams is to expand the game's footprint at the grassroots level and I believe the Gold Coast is achieving this at a faster rate than both the Brisbane and Sydney markets. This is going to the extreme but think about it this way, would you rather your academy zone encompass the 250k people who live in Geelong OR the 2 million people that live in western Sydney? I think most would choose Geelong given the amount/quality of players that are produced by both markets.

Apply that to Queensland footy - would you rather have a local academy zone of approximately 800k people which encompasses 30-40% of junior athletes that play/are interested in Aussie rules and your sport is legitimately competing with the most popular sport for supremecy (with very little stopping it from growing further) OR would you choose a local academy zone of 2.5 million where 5-10% of junior athletes play/are interested in Aussie rules and you're a long way off being the most popular code.

10% of the Brisbane market is approx 250k and 30% of the Gold Coast market is approx 240k so you're probably looking at a similar amount of male juniors playing the game in both markets. It's just one has a far greater appetite for it and it's showing in the quality of draftees that are being produced by both academies. If Brisbane wasn't tied down by these historical/cultural links to the rugby codes then it would be a no brainer due to population size and the potential of the Brisbane market is really shown in the female game where the rugby codes don't have a grip on the girls in the same the way that they do for the boys.

 

[Footy_Fan2007]

Well, this thread took an unexpected twist. It was intended to spark conversation about the generational change of sporting preferences we're now seeing come to the fore on the Gold Coast and how Ablett played a big role in that. Instead everyone just wants to discuss Ablett's leadership, contract and religious beliefs.

Go figure

Absolutely spot on.

Almost impossible to have a decent discussion with any topic on this board unfortunately.

 

[Cleansweep17]

I like this thread, people are 100% right. He was awful at GC and they would take back that trade in a heartbeat.

 

[PhatBoy]

I like this thread, people are 100% right. He was awful at GC and they would take back that trade in a heartbeat.

Yeah I’m sure they would. Because lots of teams make trades when they don’t even exist.

Who did they trade to get him, again?

 

[Cleansweep17]

Yeah I’m sure they would. Because lots of teams make trades when they don’t even exist.

Who did they trade to get him, again?

Cash, you know just like in the real world.

 

[PhatBoy]

Cash, you know just like in the real world.

Right.

 

[TheEscapeClub]

Heaps of players stay for loyalty. He was rich no matter where he went.

But after leaving he then sought to screw GCS over by demanding a massively front loaded contract then leave when the money dropped.

Yeah, I'm sure he knew when he signed his contract that his sister would die. He was lucky being born with the Ablett / Tuck genes but unlucky that his strand of the family were leeches who he needed money to support.

 

[Gavin Excell]

Gold Coast is an intriguing market
So many attempts have been made by various sporting codes to establish a team there with middling success

 

[caveman72]

Did he though? In AFL circles he was a big signing. For Gold Coast Karmicheal-hunt was the name most of SE QLD would have recognised. So I think Hunt had the far greater marketability than GAJ.

Ablett really did bugger all in promoting the game in qld. Brisbane still gets 90% of AFL coverage in SE QLD, While Gold Coast would be lucky to get 5% with the rest dedicated to all the other teams. If Ablett had that effect than they would be getting more by now,

i think that the GAJ effect is overrated a lot like GAJ the player.

Campbell Brown went up there as well for some experience in the team. That worked out well didn't it

 

[caveman72]

Maybe he didn't want to waste his time at a club captained by Campbell Brown or Jared Brennan?

Brown as captian would have been interesting

 

[Osho]

Jesus didn't fart, apparently, but may have liked a bit of reefa, kane, kannebis. It may explain certain of his beliefs and and his followers poor memories, for example, forgetting where he was buried, and perhaps explains some of their visions, and if the practice was maintained, may also explain the failure to maintain narrative form in parts of the gospels. With the victory of Paul over James and Peter, a terrible asceticism descended on the new cult which resulted in bizarre hang ups, guilt, self laceration and in turn led to an over compensation in wearing long colourful flowing gowns, and stockings.