Who was traded in given their ruck situation was lacking
You looking at teams who often have had to bring in talls to address poor list management and using it against ours where it has been strong for talls
We’ve got a very good group of young talls coming through (inc JD & Stewart who are what 25?) and if we need any more we can go find them as mature age draftees or pinch off other clubs
This is weird.
Is it just me or is this weird?
It’s Dodoro’s fault that we haven’t got young talls, or mid-aged talls, because 20 year-old Thatcher got injured.
And 20 year-old Sam Draper got injured.
And 25 year-old James Stewart and 25 year-old Joe Daniher got injured.
Leaving us with only Bellchambers, Hartley, Brown, Hooker, McKernan, Jok, Francis, Hurley, Ridley, Gown.
I’ll give you, Zlarke. That was a bad pick.
The rest of this argument seems like absolute friggin’ nonsense to me, though.
And for your relatively small numbers of talls quality matters. I’d argue Joe and Sammy and Bezerk are insanely good picks. The first was “easy”, the other two were not!
Isn’t it obvious? We have one of the best defence in the league because of Hooker and Hurley. You think there is room for Hartley and/or BTZ with them?
As for the forwards… injuries can’t always be avoided.
A list manager can’t control injuries. We have a tall contingent with an immense amount of talent, but the injury gods don’t want them on the field. Very hard for Dodoro to provide enough backup to cover Daniher, Stringer, Brown, Stewart, Draper and McKernan all coming down with injuries at the same time. There’s only 40+4 list spots, so if you have too much tall depth you compromise other parts of the ground.
We have a list targeted at 2019-2021, to make use of Hurley and Hooker before they retire. Unfortunately, the forward line carnage is making 2019 a non-event.
From what I’ve seen of Draper and Zerk-Thatcher, we’ve some awesome young talent. Just because they haven’t debuted doesn’t make them drafting failures.
I agree we need to draft talls, but if you drop Francis and Zerk-Thatcher in defence, Draper into the ruck, you have a very talented young spine.
Keep bringing in talls with 2nd and 3rd round picks is the best we can do. Very few early pick talls are better than mid to late draftees after a few years in the system.
Something that Justin Madden said the other night was we need a tall rookie list to provide a holding space for talls to develop. As it is, clubs don’t have the list size to park talls for 4-5 years to grow into their bodies. Before list size restrictions, Sheedy apparently had 22 talls on the list at various stages of development.
I reckon the questions I’m asking are fair questions.
Our current talls are good… agree. But have we taken too many risks only using late picks to acquire KPP talls over the last 7 or 8 years, particularly as our best KPPs have probably peaked?
My concern is not about this season… it’s about 2020, 2021, 2022. Next year our backup ruck will be a guy coming off a knee injury that’s only played footy since he was 17… he hasn’t even proven he knows how to play AFL in a way that minimises his chance of injury, let alone proven he can play senior AFL well.
I like Draper and Zerk, but they aren’t proven senior players yet. Gumby was a great pick… until he proved he didn’t have a body for senior AFL. Hartley looks great in the VFL at times but is rubbish in the ones. Sorry, Draper and Zerk are not insanely good picks yet… as promising as they look. Likewise Gown and Jok.
Francis and Ridley are not KPP. Stewart wasn’t best 22 when injured. Which leaves you only blokes in their twilight years.
And Dodoro? Maybe I’m being a little harsh. But, he does not pick talls with early picks… so if the next gen don’t come through, he has to wear responsibility for that. List managers need to plan for injuries, and some, like Joe Dan, have history that should have been considered in the recruitment planning for last year and this year, if not earlier. Mitigating against known risks is part of the list manager’s job
I see what you did, Jake Carlisle, drafted 2010. One could argue he was shaping to be a star of the competition, until he started sooking and playing with straws.
I’ll make this my last one… gotta do some work. Don’t disagree with most of the responses here, but think my concerns are valid.
Firstly, Carlisle was a second rounder, but potentially a good one… agree.
So no first rounders on KPP talls since Daniher and Hurley and a second rounder on Carlisle who was traded, effectively for Bird and Franga. So the question is still the same… why the overall bias by Dodoro and or the footy dept against spending big on KPPs, (eg Zerk 55, Gown 60, Draper Cat B, Jok rookie), and will this come back to bite us on the butt?
Obviously Dodoro is responsible for our current injury list.
Part the reason we didn’t draft many talls with high picks in the time frame you have mentioned is because we didn’t have a need to.
During that time we had a spine of: Hurley, Hooker (Carlisle)
Bellchambers, Ryder through the ruck and forward
With Daniher essentially on the list from the age of 14.
Kpp was not an issue at all during that period. The midfield was what was clearly holding us back.
And access to quality talls in the draft is pot luck, which was made virtually impossible when we were given draft sanctions at a time when we still had to address our shallow midfield. Our core midfielders where older than our core talls meaning that our already shallow midfield would also need to find replacements for Stanton and Watson.
Also GWS and Gold Coast happened to hoard most of the good talls during most of that period.
Tall rookie list - not a bad idea.
Thanks, this is the answer I was looking for and that reason makes a lot of sense… apologies to Mr Dodoro… kind of 
You guys do well to have the spirit and enthusiasm to engage in these sorts of exchanges. I’m literally just at the point now where I switch on the TV or go the game and hope we win. Cbf working it all out anymore.
Yeah, but apart from them…
It’s dodoro’s fault because they are injured? Fark me I’ve heard it all now
I think you’ll find, like Brownlow voting, talls have fallen way out of fashion in all team’s drafting.
Of course, our current defence is based on a #54 and a rookie. And Hurley, allegedly.
Early call DJR. Neither has played an AFL game yet.
I suspect you are right and they’ll be long term guns but ‘insanely good’ is a touch aggressive.
Never said that though, did I.
I just asked, ‘why do we have a gap in our KPP age profile’? Did Dods recruitment strategy have something to do with it?’ Lots of talk about Draper, Jok, Zerk - blokes that haven’t played a senior game - being sure things. Or Stewart, who was not best 22 when injured and may never be.
Hirdmentality nailed it… acknowledged there is a gap because, a) midfield was in dire need of rejuvenation and took priority, b) draft sanctions, c) expansion clubs taking the best KPPs.
There was a time not that long ago that he was being flamed for picking too many talls and never taking mids…
If we (the club) hadn’t dreamt up a plan to let a couple of nutjobs inject players with liquified Taco’s , we’d likely still have Carlisle and Ryder on the list as well.
He took Merrett on gut feel when the ‘programmed’ choice was Lobb.
Then Langers/Laverde who are kinda inbetween size.
Then we took a small and a tall via Parish/Francis.
Then all hell broke lose and we lost our best 12 or so players for a year. “Luckily” we’d just drafted Brown and Hartley at the back end of the previous draft.
Then we suddenly became a destination and surely no one is going to argue we shouldnt have taken Smith/Stringer/Saad and to a lesser extent (only in my mind perhaps) Shiel? With of course the impact on draft picks or lack of.
When you think its your time, you go hard for the flag. Whether we get the best from the list is not in his hands though.
and back on topic, it did look like Zerk copped a knee high up on the hammy. But whether he’d already strained it is probably what theyre looking at.
I understand the rationale… our immediate gap was in the midfield so bring in the 4 x S’s and have a crack at a flag. I just hope that window isn’t closed… and, like you, am concerned with missing out on 2 first rounders for Shiel.
Not sure where the talk of picking too many talls comes from - Dods has a recent history of picking mainly 6’2 med-talls and smaller with his real picks, the first and second rounders to 2013: McGrath, Beg, Ridley, Begs, Parish, Francis, Reds, Lang, Lav, Merrett, Fant etc. Joe Dan in 2012.
But i get it, our midfield needed turnover, and the game is turning into a game for ruck-rovers so it may have been worth the punt while there’s a year or two left in Hook, Hurl, Belly…