Why has GWS done much better than Gold Coast?

[iameviljez]

Mate had Toby Greene or Jeremy Cameron left as a free agent in 2020 or 2021 and GWS won a flag the next season, you wouldn't complain.

Hell if Nathan Fyfe and Michael Walters both left as free agents in 2017 and Dockers won a flag the next season, I wouldn't complain either.

I am not going to both talking about GWS concessions. Its been done to death.

I didnt care if GWS had one 1st round pick or 10 in the 1st 20 picks. GWS were always gonna get a good batch of 18- to 20-year-olds. So Did Gold coast in the previous season.

those 18- to 20-year-olds in year 1 were going to be 24- to 26-year-olds 6 years later.

No different to West coast eagles starting out in 1987. It was just Ironic that the VFL clubs stole most of the prime WAFL talent which forced west coast to choose a lot of 18- to 20-year-olds in 1987.

After 4 full seasons, eagles made a prelim and won a final in 1990.

After a full 5 seasons, they made a grand final in 1991.

After a full 6 seasons, they got a flag in 1992.

No Go Home factor in West Coast. That said, the Eagles got a massive jump on everyone else through professionalism

 

[threenewpadlocks]

A very easy but often overlooked comparison is the quality of the drafts the clubs came into. 2011 is one of the best drafts of all time, and the Giants acquired significantly better players that either played long careers with GWS, or were able to secure the club better trade returns when they left.

Gold Coast 2010
Underage signings: Maverick Weller, Jack Hutchins, Hayden Jolly, Luke Russell, Piers Flanagan, Trent McKenzie, Josh Toy, Tom Nicholls, Brandon Matera, Taylor Hine, Matt Shaw
QLD zone signings: Marc Lock, Zac Smith, Alik Magin, Jack Stanlake, Rory Thompson, Joseph Daye, Charlie Dixon, Jack Stanley, Lewis Moss, Rex Liddy, Joel Wilkinson, Tom Hickey
NT zone signings: Steven May, Liam Patrick
Drafted: David Swallow, Harley Bennell, Sam Day, Josh Caddy, Dion Prestia, Dan Gorringe, Tom Lynch, Seb Tape, Jeremy Taylor, Jacob Gilbee, Michael Coad, Roland Ah Chee, Jake Crawford

Underage signings and zone signings were eligible to be traded straight away. The Suns that were traded before properly joining the club were Peter Faulks, Andrew Krakouer, Jon Ceglar, Rohan Bewick, Cam Richardson, Simon Phillips and Tendai Mzungu.

GWS 2011
Underage signings: Dylan Shiel, Sam Darley, Tomas Bugg, Tim Golds, Nathan Wilson, Adam Treloar, Jeremy Cameron, Gerard Ugle, Jack Hombsch, Josh Growden, Adam Kennedy
NT zone: Curtly Hampton, Shaun Edwards
NSW zone: Jacob Townsend, Mark Whiley, Kurt Aylett, Sam Schulz, Josh Bruce, Anthony Miles, Tim Segrave
Drafted: Jon Patton, Stephen Coniglio, Dom Tyson, Will Hoskin-Eliott, Matt Buntine, Nick Haynes, Adam Tomlinson, Liam Sumner, Toby Greene, Taylor Adams, Devon Smith, Tom Downie, Jonathan Giles, Steve Clifton, Sam Frost, Rhys Cooyou, Andrew Phillips, Tim Mohr

The Giants traded Steven Morris, Martin Clarke, Jamie Elliott, Terry Milera, Ahmed Saad, Luke Brown and Jarrod Boumann before they properly joined the club.

The biggest most notable difference was the quality in underage signings. Shiel, Treloar and Cameron were all great players for GWS and netted them 7 first round picks between them in the future. I believe the only underage signing that managed to get traded by Gold Coast was Matera. Even the unremarkable Adam Kennedy probably played out a better career than any of those underage Suns.

The 2010 draft was pretty strong in hindsight, but had a lot of successful late picks. The first round where the Suns had most of their picks, was quite rubbish. To have plucked, Swallow, Lynch, Prestia and Caddy was probably a big success given how many busts went in the top 20.

This doesn't fully even explain the differences in entry conditions, because you're missing a few players.

There was the belief that GC was the more desireable location, players who were willing to move to an expansion team would do so earlier ("first crack" existing AFL talent), and that the Queensland zone players better than NSW zone players.

This meant that GWS got better concessions than GC in an attempt to square away this difference.:

• GWS were able to maintain a bigger list size (and salary cap required for that) relative to GC in year 1, 2, 3 etc. of their eixistence
• GC got access to 2 NT players for one season, the 2010 draft (May + Patrick). GWS got access to 2 NT players per season for 3 years, 2011-12-13. They first got Hampton and Edwards (as you say). In addition to the 2011 draft just being better, they lucked out in the fact that Dom Barry, Jake Neade and Jed Anderson all came from the NT in 2012/13 and was a greater-than-expected haul of talent than initially believed. These three players were all on traded as part of complex trades but were all considered quality talents that were top-30 pick worthy or whatever. It became a more valuable additional concession than intended.
• GWS were able to pre-list and ontrade players for an additional year. They did this with Tom Lee + 45 + 24 for 12. The difference in value between 24 + 45 and 12 is significant - it means that St Kilda in trading for Tom Lee rated Lee a pick in the 20's, and that was just gifted to GWS.
• The main one being the minidraft. GWS got access to the picks that became O'Meara, Martin, Hogan and Crouch, and got the equivalent of 3 or 4 top 5 and another 3 or 4 top 10 picks for trading out these players.

We all can agree that it is true the QLD zone was better than the NSW zone (Smith, Thompson, Dixon, Wilkinson, Hickey all had better AFL careers than Townsend, Bruce), and that GC was able to recruit better quality OOC players (they got Ablett after all, GWS missed out on Buddy, which would have been the equivalent).

However, the AFL clearly overcompensated these advantages that GC had. That advantage was not worth:

• NT access that gave effectively gave them another 3 late 1st/early 2nd round talent
• Pre-listing talent that gave them another early 2nd round talent
• Mini-draft, that gave them the equivalent of another 6-8 top 10 draft picks.

That aside, I think there's also a key difference between the two teams:

GWS were prepared to be god-awful in their second season.

GWS doubled-down on recruiting as much young talent as possible, even if it meant fielding wholly uncompetitive teams.
For example, they were expected to trade their four mini-draft picks for established talent. They instead only traded them for additional draft picks.

I think people are forgetting just how bad GWS Giants were in 2013.
They went 1-21 20 of their 21 losses were by at least 30 points.

They conceded any sort of competitiveness in 2013 in order to maximise their chance of winning games from 2015/16 onward, by simply taking a look and developing as many young players (expected to improve) as possible.

For context, GC Suns were far more competitive in their second season. They won three games (2 excluding against GWS in their first year), but of their 19 losses on the season, 5 were within a 18 point margin.

 

[adammania9]

This doesn't fully even explain the differences in entry conditions, because you're missing a few players.

There was the belief that GC was the more desireable location, players who were willing to move to an expansion team would do so earlier ("first crack" existing AFL talent), and that the Queensland zone players better than NSW zone players.

This meant that GWS got better concessions than GC in an attempt to square away this difference.:

• GWS were able to maintain a bigger list size (and salary cap required for that) relative to GC in year 1, 2, 3 etc. of their eixistence
• GC got access to 2 NT players for one season, the 2010 draft (May + Patrick). GWS got access to 2 NT players per season for 3 years, 2011-12-13. They first got Hampton and Edwards (as you say). In addition to the 2011 draft just being better, they lucked out in the fact that Dom Barry, Jake Neade and Jed Anderson all came from the NT in 2012/13 and was a greater-than-expected haul of talent than initially believed. These three players were all on traded as part of complex trades but were all considered quality talents that were top-30 pick worthy or whatever. It became a more valuable additional concession than intended.
• GWS were able to pre-list and ontrade players for an additional year. They did this with Tom Lee + 45 + 24 for 12. The difference in value between 24 + 45 and 12 is significant - it means that St Kilda in trading for Tom Lee rated Lee a pick in the 20's, and that was just gifted to GWS.
• The main one being the minidraft. GWS got access to the picks that became O'Meara, Martin, Hogan and Crouch, and got the equivalent of 3 or 4 top 5 and another 3 or 4 top 10 picks for trading out these players.

We all can agree that it is true the QLD zone was better than the NSW zone (Smith, Thompson, Dixon, Wilkinson, Hickey all had better AFL careers than Townsend, Bruce), and that GC was able to recruit better quality OOC players (they got Ablett after all, GWS missed out on Buddy, which would have been the equivalent).

However, the AFL clearly overcompensated these advantages that GC had. That advantage was not worth:

• NT access that gave effectively gave them another 3 late 1st/early 2nd round talent
• Pre-listing talent that gave them another early 2nd round talent
• Mini-draft, that gave them the equivalent of another 6-8 top 10 draft picks.

That aside, I think there's also a key difference between the two teams:

GWS were prepared to be god-awful in their second season.

GWS doubled-down on recruiting as much young talent as possible, even if it meant fielding wholly uncompetitive teams.
For example, they were expected to trade their four mini-draft picks for established talent. They instead only traded them for additional draft picks.

I think people are forgetting just how bad GWS Giants were in 2013.
They went 1-21 20 of their 21 losses were by at least 30 points.

They conceded any sort of competitiveness in 2013 in order to maximise their chance of winning games from 2015/16 onward, by simply taking a look and developing as many young players (expected to improve) as possible.

For context, GC Suns were far more competitive in their second season. They won three games (2 excluding against GWS in their first year), but of their 19 losses on the season, 5 were within a 18 point margin.

Great points. I knew GWS were set up with better concessions but I didn’t realise the weight of it

Couldn’t help but acknowledge a 2011 trade made by Gold Coast is one they’d love to have the time over. They on-traded a recent QLD zone pick up Dayne Zorko in exchange for Matthew Warnock and an upgrade of 47 to 34 at the draft

 

[SnusCG]

This doesn't fully even explain the differences in entry conditions, because you're missing a few players.

There was the belief that GC was the more desireable location, players who were willing to move to an expansion team would do so earlier ("first crack" existing AFL talent), and that the Queensland zone players better than NSW zone players.

This meant that GWS got better concessions than GC in an attempt to square away this difference.:

• GWS were able to maintain a bigger list size (and salary cap required for that) relative to GC in year 1, 2, 3 etc. of their eixistence
• GC got access to 2 NT players for one season, the 2010 draft (May + Patrick). GWS got access to 2 NT players per season for 3 years, 2011-12-13. They first got Hampton and Edwards (as you say). In addition to the 2011 draft just being better, they lucked out in the fact that Dom Barry, Jake Neade and Jed Anderson all came from the NT in 2012/13 and was a greater-than-expected haul of talent than initially believed. These three players were all on traded as part of complex trades but were all considered quality talents that were top-30 pick worthy or whatever. It became a more valuable additional concession than intended.
• GWS were able to pre-list and ontrade players for an additional year. They did this with Tom Lee + 45 + 24 for 12. The difference in value between 24 + 45 and 12 is significant - it means that St Kilda in trading for Tom Lee rated Lee a pick in the 20's, and that was just gifted to GWS.
• The main one being the minidraft. GWS got access to the picks that became O'Meara, Martin, Hogan and Crouch, and got the equivalent of 3 or 4 top 5 and another 3 or 4 top 10 picks for trading out these players.

We all can agree that it is true the QLD zone was better than the NSW zone (Smith, Thompson, Dixon, Wilkinson, Hickey all had better AFL careers than Townsend, Bruce), and that GC was able to recruit better quality OOC players (they got Ablett after all, GWS missed out on Buddy, which would have been the equivalent).

However, the AFL clearly overcompensated these advantages that GC had. That advantage was not worth:

• NT access that gave effectively gave them another 3 late 1st/early 2nd round talent
• Pre-listing talent that gave them another early 2nd round talent
• Mini-draft, that gave them the equivalent of another 6-8 top 10 draft picks.

That aside, I think there's also a key difference between the two teams:

GWS were prepared to be god-awful in their second season.

GWS doubled-down on recruiting as much young talent as possible, even if it meant fielding wholly uncompetitive teams.
For example, they were expected to trade their four mini-draft picks for established talent. They instead only traded them for additional draft picks.

I think people are forgetting just how bad GWS Giants were in 2013.
They went 1-21 20 of their 21 losses were by at least 30 points.

They conceded any sort of competitiveness in 2013 in order to maximise their chance of winning games from 2015/16 onward, by simply taking a look and developing as many young players (expected to improve) as possible.

For context, GC Suns were far more competitive in their second season. They won three games (2 excluding against GWS in their first year), but of their 19 losses on the season, 5 were within a 18 point margin.

Worth noting as well in regards to Zones that while the initial zoning produced better players in QLD, the influx of highly talented academy players to GWS started very early, including guys like Zac Williams, Harry Perryman, Tom Green, Jacob Hopper, Harry Himmelberg, Jack Steele, Jeremy Finlayson, Matt Kennedy, Will Setterfield, Kieren Briggs, James Peatling etc. which didn't just help GWS build a strong list quicker, but allowed them to continue to stockpile talented players even once the team had started playing well.

Comparative to the Suns academy which to date has only produced a few notable players like Jack Bowes, Bohdi Uwland, Connor Budarick, and most recently Jed Walter, Jake Rogers, Ethan Read and Will Graham, however only one of those players entered the system pre-2021

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Worth noting as well in regards to Zones that while the initial zoning produced better players in QLD, the influx of highly talented academy players to GWS started very early, including guys like Zac Williams, Harry Perryman, Tom Green, Jacob Hopper, Harry Himmelberg, Jack Steele, Jeremy Finlayson, Matt Kennedy, Will Setterfield, Kieren Briggs, James Peatling etc. which didn't just help GWS build a strong list quicker, but allowed them to continue to stockpile talented players even once the team had started playing well.

Comparative to the Suns academy which to date has only produced a few notable players like Jack Bowes, Bohdi Uwland, Connor Budarick, and most recently Jed Walter, Jake Rogers, Ethan Read and Will Graham, however only one of those players entered the system pre-2021

I think part of it is just GWS have run a higher-quality academy, so it isn't just dumb luck about where talent appears in the country, GWS deserve that talent as their efforts to devleop it was comparatively better than GC's.

But ye, I agree, more talent appearing in the GWS zone than the GC zone randomly in 2010-2020 when compared to 2000-2010, and seemingly now 2020-2024, is also a factor, which explains the disparity.

AFL realised that and removed some of the deep Riverina regions (keeping some others) from their zones, especially as they were sort of double-dipping with these players, with lesser geographic distance from Vic population centres were also being developed through the Victorian talent development private schools and TAC cup system in a way that Riverina kids were not 10 years earlier, and other NSW and QLD kids continue not to be developed through. E.g. Setterfield from Albury was a pick 5, grew up in Albury, went to Caufield Grammar and played some games for Sandringham. If Setterfield was from Canberra, Broken Hill, Western Sydney or just a random more northerly Riverina farming community, he would have been less likely developed his footy in Melbourne and more through the actual GWS operations in the NSW/ACT.

 

[Freomaniac]

GWS got it right from the start when they nailed their veteran player picks. They prioritised leadership and culture over talent. Compare the pair...

Gary Ablett Jr	Callan Ward
Nathan Bock	Phil Davis
Michael Rischitelli	Tom Scully
Nathan Krakouer	Rhys Palmer
Campbell Brown	Dean Brogan
Jarrod Harbrow	Chad Cornes
Jared Brennan (!!)	Luke Power
Josh Fraser	James McDonald

There's just so much more leadership and application on the right-hand side of that table

Comparing the 8 experienced Gold coast suns players to the 8 GWS players.

But looking at the Gold coast Suns players. The Salary cap back in 2011 was 8.2 million.

Gary Ablett Jnr was on 1.5 million a year for 5 seasons. Andrew Krakouer was on $400,000 a year for 3 seasons. The rest of the other 6 were on $500-$600,000 a year on 3 or 4 year deals.

It seems like the Suns budget for experienced players was $5 million. you would assume 10 players on $500,000 a year. But it seems like Ablett was on 1.5 million a year and the other 7 blokes were on $500-$600,000 a year.

Ablett was the suns 1st captain and held it for 6 seasons until Tom Lynch and Steven May were co captains in 2017.

Essentially 10 AFL players from other AFL clubs.

Then you got all those kids, 42 of them on Low Wages on $100,000 a year. 2 years later, most of those 18 and 19 year old kids got 2 year extensions and a small pay rise to fit in the Salary cap.

Krakeour and Fraser were gone by year 2. Bock, Brennan and Campbell brown only played 3 seasons.

With GWS....


They too had 10 AFL players from Different clubs. They did get some old players. James McDonald and Luke Power Stayed for one season both were leaders.. Chad Cornes and Dean Brogan stayed for 2 seasons both of them were leaders too. I wouldnt Say Tom Scully and Rhys Palmer were " Leaders"

Luke Power, Callan ward and Phil davis were the co captains in 2012. Callan ward and Phil Davis were co captains from 2013 to 2019 then Stephen Coniglio was captain in 2020.

Like the Gold Coast suns, they too had around 40 kids on their list. GWS struggled to reach the minimum salary cap in the 1st 2 seasons. But when the massive amount of 2011 Draftees were out of contract, most stayed and signed extensions for another 2 or 3 years. Some of them were traded.

Like Gold coast, GWS drafted a lot of kids. Those 18 to 20 year olds they drafted at the end of 2011 were 23 to 25 year olds at the end of 2016 which won their 1st final.