Well, I have to keep the fans happy. So, sorry for the delay and …
There are a lot of assumptions wrapped up into that post. Such as that a player failing at two clubs can’t be because of development. That if you’re development is poor, you can’t have any successes. That picking Tambling before Buddy was a mistake. Other possibilities are that our development was so bad that North couldn’t fix it, that both EFC and North’s development weren’t up to it, or that 15 other recruiters thought he was worth roughly the pick he went at, but he was just one who didn’t step up. It could be that North’s recruitment team are just plain idiots (looking more likely by the week!). There is no way of knowing which of those assumptions is correct, and I’m sure there are other possible scenarios.
The simple reality, which most people agree on, is it is damn hard to quantify the impact of development and how much is that versus talent, injuries, opportunities, etc. When looking at this, my opinion is that we should look at what facts we know. Which are:
- We know that other teams rated certain Essendon players highly enough to give them a list spot.
- We know that (short of a huge injury run) other clubs recruiters will (presumably) have seen the player at either VFL or AFL for EFC. So they should know than they did when he was an U18 draftee option.
In my view, that means that they agreed with EFC that the players’ talent was sufficient, and that there is still a high enough potential to give them a go ahead of youngsters from the current draft. As I said in my post you replied to, that doesn’t say anything about whether Dodoro & Keane took player X too soon. They may well have pulled the trigger early. But it does mean another club rated the player even though they know more than they did when he was an U18 player.
So in my view, North selecting Morgan partially validates Dodoro picking Morgan, but doesn’t necessarily validate him selecting him at #28 (or so). The North recruiting team are effectively saying “yes, we think he’s good enough to put on our team list, even knowing more than we did in 2015”. If this happens a lot, then it implies other teams rate your recruitment, but think they can develop the player better than you did.
(on the Tambling vs. Franklin bit above, to add some context to my BIG call. We’ve heard plenty from guys like @benfti about Richmond’s handling of indigenous players. IMO, there is no guarantee that Franklin wouldn’t be a basket case if he’d gone to Richmond, and Tambling like a Rioli if he’d played under Clarkson. Similar to us, if we’d selected Cyril over Myers, given our injury management history he probably would have ended up like Winderlich).
Um, no Jenkins wasn’t on the senior list. Neither you nor @samwoods specified senior list versus rookie list.
You replied “Like who?” to Samwood’s comment “Actually, we’ve had players leave us and be pretty good at their next club. We’ve even had players who hardly got a game with us be given another chance at other clubs.” You listed Richards as the only one you could think of who couldn’t get a game for us but lived up to their potential elsewhere. Houli, and Jenkins matched this criteria, many blitzers thought Melksham shouldn’t be getting a game. McGrath and Bannister played 50 or more games, but only just. Podsiadly would also meet this criteria.
If you go back to Samwood’s original criteria, you can add guys like Morgan, Hislop, Cartledge, McGrath, Bannister, S. Harvey, D. Johnson, Edwards, Kavanagh (if Sydney hadn’t been blocked from trading by the AFL), Gumby, Nash and Lonergan.
I think development, talent identification, injuries (and their management) and luck are all critical to players becoming successful at AFL level. Dangerfield was a fantastic pick because we can all now see the attributes he had, that the Adelaide recruiter identified. We’ll never know how good Myers could have been with a good injury run and good development. I doubt it would be Dangerfield levels, but I suspect it would be a lot better than it is now.
I do think talent is critical. You know very well we have argued in the past over what the talent level of the list is (and that debate is hardly likely to be suddenly resolved between us). I agree that consistently bringing in too little talent should get the recruiter fired. But you know we’ve argued over how much talent was brought in, how good the team was, etc. I don’t expect that argument to be resolved between us anytime soon, but trying to say I’m being inconsistent when I’ve argued with you for years that talent has been brought in seems a little disingenuous.
Judkins did well with that trade, but that was hardly the only incredible deal done with Freo. There’s a reason they’re a laughing stock for their early trading years. Early Freo was exploited by a number of clubs. Judkins should absolutely be commended for his performance in that trade, but context should be included. As far as the 2000 side goes, that was hugely critical, and you seem to have ignored the helping hand Judkins got with zone and father son selections/knowledge (e.g. Misiti, Fletcher, Mercuri and Hird).
On Judkins, ironically doing a google search to find when exactly he left Collingwood, I found this thread:
Was Noel Judkins an Essendon plant to destroy our club?
Judkins was actually only head recruiter up until 2004 at Collingwood. He was pretty strong in the 1997 to 2000 drafts (albeit, with some very high picks), but pretty weak in 2000 to 2003 (albeit, some weak draft pools in there). It was Hine who built the bulk of their premiership side.
Um, I think my argument was that Dodoro in those early years wasn’t too different to Judkins. So yes, it could have been development over talent. It could also be putting young players around talented, mature senior players as a core made them look better. We don’t really know.
And I know you know that the coaches we had under Sheedy changed over time. Remember Terry Daniher? That guy who developed our forward line, then Collingwood’s for 2002/2003, and then St Kilda’s? Maybe his leaving hurt us a bit, and other changes?
Which neatly ignores that you and I have argued for years over how much talent was or wasn’t brought into the club, and you know very well my argument is that Dodoro has been good at bringing it in. And you know plenty on here have agreed with me.
So don’t try and claim that the “evidence …. very clearly supports the position that we have not had a talented enough list” when you know that isn’t black and white. Similarly arguing the trend appeared when Dodoro came in, when you know we’ve argued about things like resourcing, Sheedy’s influence, draft positions and other factors could all have potentially impacted.
Because I look at his picks, at the restrictions on him, at who he has brought in and I think he’s built several very good sides, and overall got in a lot of talent. I also consider things such as Winderlich’s, Rioli’s, Rama’s, Laycock’s, Gumby’s, Pears, career ending injuries, and the early injury run of Dempsey and Myers.
I also look at the fact that we’ve had five coaches in that time, and find it hard to believe that if Dodoro was consistently underperforming that at least some of them wouldn’t have been pointing the finger at the talent level coming in.
You know very well we’ve argued about where the 2012-2013 side was, and where it would have been without the SAGA. So why just ignore our history of debates?