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Fair points TI, but I think Yze can still conceptualise what he wants our gamestyle to be like without having the necessary players on the list yet. His goal would be to become our long-term coach, so he’ll have to influence list management decisions somehow to see what blooms in a few years.That's a recipe for disaster. All our premiership superstars were from the Wallace era and he had little say in their selection as the drafters went for quality . Even Dimmer couldn't get a gameplan working to even win a final with them until Caracella came along and we went straight on to win a flag. Again if you have a quality group of young players then the game plan is built around them and not beforehand. Yze had no game plan this year because he's 2004 pre Wallace stage without the cattle. So how is he going to devise a game plan if he doesn't have the quality? We haven't even fully bottomed out yet with our list so it would be insanity to build a game plan around KMAC, Kosi, Hopper, JGTI, Mansell, Ryan, Short and other list cloggers or role players as these guys can't get it done. We have to collect as many guns as possible first before we even contemplate a decent gameplan as those blokes aren't capable of helping to play to any sort of game plan simply bc we have about 18-20 role players and not enough A graders. You're putting the cart before the horse and that's the impatient coach's road to unemployment.
We just need to trust our list managers that they get enough A graders to build the foundations for a premiership side and not ninthmond.
With A-graders, they can pretty much play to any gamestyle you give them. Yes, you build the side around them, but not the gameplan IMO. Riewoldt and Cotchin for example excelled in our slow kick-mark ball movement in 2015 as well as our fast-paced endurance gameplan of 2017. Different styles but the same result of excellence. Hence, the best players thrive in any gamestyle. It’s the B-Graders and below (i.e., role players) that need to be accommodated by the gameplan IMO. Since it’s very rare for any side (even Premiership sides) to have 8+ A-Graders, we will likely end up drafting role players with weaknesses in our current rebuild. As important as it is to get the best talent in, Yze will also have to think about what type of role players he wants in our side.
Does he want ones that are great in the air like West Coast of 2018? Does he want a very fast and athletic side like Richmond of 2017-2020? Does he want fantastic footskills like Hawthorn 2012-2015? Based on what he decides, we will have some must-have attributes, passable weaknesses, dealbreakers etc. The list managers/recruiters have knowledge on what the strengths and weaknesses are of draftees/trade targets, so they can then target those that fit Yze’s vision best. The A-graders will remain the same no matter what Yze’s vision is. Who they’ll be surrounded with would change depending on gamestyle IMO.
That’s how I see it. You don’t have to agree tbh, but we’ll have to agree to disagree if you don’t see it the same way.