Who would you rather - The best player in the competition, the best coach, or the best recruiter?

[RUNVS]

This is a question I have wondered over the last few days and I am quite curious about what other people think.

Having the best player has obvious benefits, not only on the field in terms of performance but also off the field in terms of marketing and also possibly convincing other players to come to your club to play with that player.

Having the best coach also makes sense as well as a great coach can make a team that maybe is not the best on paper into a great and very successful team, coming up with strategies to pick apart the opposition and able to change game plans on the fly. It also means potentially having a really happy culture at the club as a great coach usually creates a great culture, where players want to stay and other players want to come and join the team.

A recruiter though is pretty obvious too, and personally the one I would go for as a recruiter who is very good with selections can create such an advantage in bringing in talented young players, and a constant stream of talented young players as well, taking the picks they are given and not only nailing the top picks but also doing well with the lower down picks as well. I feel like an average coach can be made to look amazing if they have a really good recruiter in their team.

So what would you pick?

Best Player
Player A+
Coach B
Recruiter B

Best Coach
Player B
Coach A+
Recruiter B

Best Recruiter
Player B
Coach B
Recruiter A+

 

[mightymouse75]

Chicken and egg sort of question.
Probably go best recruiter as you will end up having the best players within a few years anyway. Win/win ..

 

[Percel]

Dodo

AAA+

 

[HaroLad]

question is heavily dependent on how long they're staying

'best player' only lasts a few years

 

[Osho]

Coach first.
Sets the cultural tone amongst the group.
Turns good players into very good players. And more importantly, creates the team mentality, and drives team and individual performance.

 

[Son_Of_God29]

When you already have the best Recruiter in the game at your club its clear you should be looking for the best coach

 

[SuperVolley11]

You almost need to look at clubs that have had this as examples.

 

[RUNVS]

You almost need to look at clubs that have had this as examples.

That is true as even the best recruiter doesn't get it right all the time, the best player can't drag a bad team over the line and even the best coach would not have made North Melbourne a premiership contender this year.

 

[Papa G]

Having suffered Ken ****ing Hinkley for a decade it's definately coach.

 

[SuperVolley11]

That is true as even the best recruiter doesn't get it right all the time, the best player can't drag a bad team over the line and even the best coach would not have made North Melbourne a premiership contender this year.

Best player - Gold Coast with gazza

Best recruiter - Geelong with wells

Best coach - Hawks with clarko

 

[Mofra]

1st Coach - responsible not just for the gameplan, but develops the players as well so the 'raw product' selected by the recruiter can fulfil more of their potential

2nd Recruiter - simply because they can often find those rough diamonds that really help a team, especially if a team is successful and doesn't have access to top picks

3rd Best player - it's a team sport and one player never guarantees success

 

[Sky]

Having suffered Ken ******* Hinkley for a decade it's definately coach.

It’s funny a year ago I would’ve said the same thing about Chris Scott. He’s at least won a premiership and yet this year feels like his best season even if we don’t win it. Never liked the guys coaching till this year

 

[Duskfire]

I look at how Stephen Wells has done at Geelong and I have to say recruiter. The rest will kind of follow.

 

[Dangerousfield]

Having endured a decade of wasted picks, please replace our useless recruiters with a guru like Wells or Beatson or Dodoro, oops sorry, that last one's a mistake!

Get the picks right and you end up with the best players who will make a coach

 

[Catsace]

Interesting conundrum, Wells absolutely dominated the 1999 and 2001 drafts, and helped greatly by Gary Jr (FS) in 2001, and the presence of Scarlett (1998) and the later addition of Hawkins (FS) and Selwood in 2006. Gradually of course once the great era started to decline, Geelong's recruiting hit some stumbling blocks, with nary a reasonable player picked with most of the 1st round selections from about 2010 onwards..although Cam Guthrie would be certainly a successful pick then. Cockatoo, Thurlow, Kersten, Lang, Cockatoo, Gregson and Linc McCarthy all had either injury issues or just didn't make the grade for a period of a few years. But then some trades certainly were fine, with Danger of course, Zach Touhy, and more recently Isaac Smith

7

Isaac Smith

Age

35

Ht

188cm

Wt

83kg

Pos.

M/F

Career

Season

Last 5

D

21.3

5star

K

13.0

5star

HB

8.4

5star

M

5.5

5star

T

2.9

4star

CL

1.7

4star

D

19.4

4star

K

11.1

4star

HB

8.3

4star

M

3.8

4star

T

2.5

3star

CL

1.3

4star

D

19.2

5star

K

10.6

4star

HB

8.6

5star

M

7.6

5star

T

2.0

4star

CL

0.6

3star

, Jeremy Cameron

5

Jeremy Cameron

Age

31

Ht

196cm

Wt

94kg

Pos.

Fwd

Career

Season

Last 5

D

12.5

3star

K

9.0

3star

HB

3.4

3star

M

5.4

5star

T

1.6

4star

G

2.6

5star

D

10.0

3star

K

7.1

3star

HB

2.9

2star

M

4.6

4star

T

2.0

3star

G

1.9

5star

D

8.2

2star

K

5.0

2star

HB

3.2

3star

M

4.6

5star

T

2.4

4star

G

2.0

5star

and this year's gem in Tyson Stengle

18

Tyson Stengle

Age

26

Ht

175cm

Wt

71kg

Pos.

Fwd

Career

Season

Last 5

D

9.3

2star

K

5.8

2star

HB

3.5

3star

M

1.8

2star

T

2.4

4star

G

1.1

4star

D

10.3

3star

K

5.3

2star

HB

5.0

3star

M

1.3

1star

T

2.0

3star

G

0.5

4star

D

8.8

3star

K

5.6

3star

HB

3.2

3star

M

1.8

2star

T

2.6

4star

G

1.6

5star

.

Of course Chris Scott

Chris Scott

Age

48

Ht

182cm

Wt

89kg

Pos.

Fwd

Career

Season

Last 5

D

16.6

4star

K

11.2

4star

HB

5.4

4star

M

5.1

5star

T

1.6

4star

G

0.4

3star

No current season stats available

D

13.2

4star

K

10.2

4star

HB

3.0

3star

M

2.2

3star

T

2.8

5star

G

0.4

3star

as a coach has the paradox of being historically successful in home and away, but owns a 10 of 25 record in finals. But i don't know if any coach can do any more than keep bringing a side right to the business end of the season with a show like he has. There's only been four of Scott's 11 completed seasons where Geelong has not been among the Preliminary Finalists, and i'm sure there's many clubs who'd give their right eye for a 70% W/L record in the home and away seasons.

Best player, well Gary Jr playing at the peak of his powers at the Gold Coast may be the most prescient example, or even Cripps at Carlton. Neither sadly have been able to lift their side to a final's appearance, and in Gary's case the young stars of GC eventually found their way to others clubs, like Lynch, May, Gary himself back to Geelong etc.

So it may well be the recruiting in one sense, then the coach, and then the player might follow. Looking at Stengle....was it a great decision to recruit him at Geelong? Would he have had anywhere near the same season at maybe North, St.Kilda, Essendon even? But i'd suggest that particularly with Sydney, the Dees and maybe even McCrae's Pies, he could well have emulated his season at those clubs.

McCrae at the Pies, from 17th to top-4, and an astonishing ability to never be beaten, a swathe of narrow wins that's unprecedented in modern footy, maybe only back in the dim dark days of low scoring in the early years of the comp would so many narrow results have happened....and for them to be on the right side of the ledger at all times. At the start of the year, would anyone have thought McCrae was even a good coach? It's certainly a chicken and egg scenario, and many different dynamics in play. Good discussion point for sure.

 

[Bojan KantKick]

That is true as even the best recruiter doesn't get it right all the time, the best player can't drag a bad team over the line and even the best coach would not have made North Melbourne a premiership contender this year.

Good thread.

I'd say coach as they can make the recruiter look a lot better than they actually are by turning average players into good players.

It is a lot harder for the best player in the comp (in isolation) to lift everyone else around them. Thinking Ablett at the Suns (nowhere near it), etc. I'd change best player to best onfield leader and if you combine that with the best coach then it is hard to beat like when Clarko and Hodge were at Hawthorn.

 

[t_94]

1. Recruiter

 

[QuietB]

I look at how Stephen Wells has done at Geelong and I have to say recruiter. The rest will kind of follow.

How much of Geelong’s current run is Wells though? Danger is a trade, Cameron is a FA, Hawkins is a father/son, Stewart was plucked by Scarlett. Has Wells been that good lately?

 

[PhatBoy]

How much of Geelong’s current run is Wells though? Danger is a trade, Cameron is a FA, Hawkins is a father/son, Stewart was plucked by Scarlett. Has Wells been that good lately?

Cameron came the long way around via Tim Kelly so that’s a big tick.
Holmes

Stengle was a bit of an unknown.

Blicavs was a runner.

Holmes you wouldn’t say was a jewel in the crown at #20 but he’s looking very good and SDK was taken at 19.
Zac Guthrie and Jack Henry were both rookie draftees. There’s a bunch that were taken before Parfitt who haven’t developed as much as he has.

There’s misses as well, no one is doubting that, but he’s played a pretty big part in what we’ve got at the moment with generally a fairly limited hand

 

[tonygeeks]

No brainer

Recruiter easy

 

[HairyO]

Big Footy and the fascination with list development.

Meanwhile coaches focus on winning flags.

 

[windyhill]

Player.
Recruiter.
Coach.

 

[RUNVS]

When I created this thread I did not mean for North Melbourne to read it and think "maybe we should try and steal Simon Dalrymple from the Swans"

 

[CharacterFirst]

We already have all 3.

 

[Kaladin Stormblessed]

Didn't Sam Edmund run with this question in his first segment on SEN on Friday morning from 9 am?

Thread posted on Thursday.

Hello Sammy.