Continuing the discussion from Adrian Dodoro - Flankers into Mids since 2000 (Part 1) - #10080 by samwoods.
Previous discussions:
Letâs count all the finals victories weâve had with lists heâs created.
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What a way to end the old thread 
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A pic of him holding a cardboard box full of his stuff, walking towards his car in the Tulla carpark wouldâve been better
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Hopefully we can look back on 2022 & say his last draft was his best.
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Youâve changed JBomber
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The master list mismanager.
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So âthe vibeâ is that was his last draft and trade period, yeah?
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on his interview on SEN this morning he was very non committal about his future when asked.
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Shouldnât be his choice to make. A semi competent board wouldâve sent him packing
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Iâve always been a supporter of Dodoro.
My belief being that you can go about continually endeavouring to build successful balanced lists only to witness it disintegrate all the way along the list building journey if the list team is not supported by a strong club (culture, leadership etc) and high performance football program to develop and support its evolution.
In âbrokenâ clubs, In the end the list team are having to continually reset, recalibrate and in some years almost start again (2016>) as quality players decide to leave or young talent continually donât develop in the broken football program.
I can only hope if Dodoro leaves, this new iteration of a club reset finally after nearly 20 years gets it right and sees through a football plan and program over a longer period to enable the list to evolve. Stable duccesdful clubs see plans through on the back of sound decisions and appointments. If it does, then this allows future drafts, trades and other list change mechanisms be about closing gaps and building foundations beneath the current list for sustained success.
Further, I can only hope the club can secure a high caliber candidate to replace Dodoro. Great list managers would be hard to find, they are arguably the most important people in a footy club. Either way, letâs hope the club get this appointment correct.
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How many good picks are considered necessary for a draft to get a pass?
I still stand by Dodoro, I think weâve had a lot more player talent than senior coaching talent for the past 7 years, and the two years before that were ruined by the saga, which in reality we are only just emerging from. Before that I think Hird had a real chance to make something of the side before the wheels fell off; and before that we Knights who demonstrated his mastery of the game when he thought we should play Lloyd out of position and make Jay Neagle our spearhead, which wasnât a bad idea if the game only lasted 10 minutes (oh, and defence, whatâs that?), and then we had the tail end of the Sheedy era, where he pushed for recycled Carlton nobodies over developing new talent.
So despite the fact Adrianâs been here over 20 years, I donât think our lack of success is his fault. He perhaps could have balanced the side better, but I really believe weâve got the makings of a great side now, particularly because we are finally taking the football part of the business seriously, at last, from the top down; which I donât think has been true for decades.
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Agree with much of this. Although the common knock on Dodoro is his inability to build balanced lists.
My belief is that building balanced lists is unattainable if the list team is continually having to reset and recalibrate for reasons noted in my last post. I wouldâve thought successful clubs need 5-7 years to effectively build a contending balanced list. Does this make sense?
The goal of building balanced lists at Essendon the last 20 years in particular has been literally a near impossible taskâŚ. This goal was unreachable and I donât see how anybody could legitimately claim that achieving a balanced list between 2012-2022 was an achievable task. Therefore I donât pin this on the List Management team.
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I was avoiding the old thread because when weâre losing there is a weekly round of ranting that goes on. And I get sucked in and respond too much.
I believe our overall recruitment has been strong. I think in 2012 & 2013 we were set to become a top 4 team, which would have opened the opportunity to challenge. Obviously, beating Hawthorn would have been tough, but maybe we could have snagged 2016 instead of the Bulldogs. The saga stopped that.
I believe the major reasons weâve failed to win finals, let alone more, is frequent periods of bad injury management (especially around 2010-2013), the saga, changing coaches frequently post-Sheedy, poor development, periods of poor culture, but also significantly a refusal to do a big rebuild. Fundamentally, due to a mixture of coaching, injuries and culture, the team has frequently been less than the sum of its parts, rather than more.
The last one (refusal to do a big rebuild) is potentially a list manager problem, or it may be set higher up the food chain. It incorporates that Essendon has repeatedly refused to put up key players on the blocks, has a liking for topping-up, over estimated where the list is at, and refused to spend several years down the bottom. I donât believe weâve spent 3 years consecutively out of finals since 2005-2008. Even then we chased finals in 2005 and 2007.
As Iâve said before, if Dodoro is the one driving those decisions, then Iâm comfortable with him being fired. I would however expect those decisions to be set higher up. And given I believe the recruiting has been strong, and the trading when we actually do it, Iâd want us to be very confident that his replacement will be just as good.
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18 years without his list winning a final but lid off.
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I think the 2005-2010 period wasnât too bad, despite the Knights coaching stint. Knights actually was pretty good at developing kids (other than Houli), which is why he was Geelongâs VFL coach. We had 4 strong drafts in a row, and I think we were starting to peak in 2012. The Gumby/D Daniher injuries sucked, but if the coaches had realised Hooker was the one to play forward (over Hurley & Carlisle) we had a strong spine. The major issue was keeping everyone on the park, which we sucked at during that period.
The saga completely wrecked that.
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Yeah Iâve been 50.50 on dodoro, i think he finds some good players but him continually sticking to the same philosophies that havenât worked for 20 years (on display again in this draft) has me thinking if he will ever learn.
Iâm happy to see the back of him now, there needs to be a change in philosophy on the types of players we prioritise in picking every year.
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Some examples would be useful. And of course, youâre assuming he wasnât picking up players in line with what Scott requested.
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