Here are a couple of posts I put some work into, which I thought could have a second life here, rather that a more ephemeral thread.
Now we have a decent coach, decent strategy and decent player development and hopefully soon better injury management, maybe we well be able to see how good Disco really has been post saga. My opinion is that he has really gone to another level and we will see the benefit from here on.
Players into the side since 2017 - 30 decent players I think
Have we really lost first draft picks - or have we snuck them back in the back door?
The above doesn’t take into account that Disco:
- Picked up Zerrett at pick 26 in 2013 - when we were apparently short changed in a trade for Crameri with the Bulldogs, but in the end worked out for us, which was vital in the context of losing our first or second round draft picks that year to the saga.
- Again in the context of draft penalties knocking us to the end of the first round and no second round pick in 2014, and getting short changed for losing Paddy Ryder (pick 17 from AFL) to Port Adelaide - we got Langford at pick 17 and Laverde at pick 20. Sadly we lost Conor McKenna for nothing after picking him up as a category B. Incidentally we ended up with Gold Coast’s pick 8 in this draft in Peter Wright.
- In 2015 picked up Mason Redman at pick 30 which we got from the Melksham trade. We also picked up Walla with our 2nd round Rookie pick that year. Our crash and burn year that was 2015 gave us Parish at pick 4. Our draft picks for the Carlisle trade didn’t go as hoped, although Franga may have a career yet with the Swans and we actually got Weideman (who was pick 9 in this same draft) with the pick 37 that the Swans gave us)
- In 2016 we did well to pick up Jordan Ridley at pick 22, and picked out Draper as a Rookie in 2016, with not much more than a Youtube clip and only 9 months and 16 games of footy behind him (with the Reynella Wineflies and South Adelaide under 18’s ) in his entire life. Getting McGrath at pick one was an unintended bonus from the season long suspension of the 34.
So from the point of view of creating the future of this club, we are only Dyson Heppell away from a completely post saga club, with no one left from the 2012 draft with Joe the only one still playing AFL (at least we have Archie Perkins to show for Joe’s departure).
In reality with this new coach and administration we are only just emerging from the saga and I think the only area where we hadn’t dropped the ball before now was recruitment. One thing we never really did in the past was have players move on and get compensation, the saga created an environment where this did happen, which helped us build a better team for the future, and the future is now.
My take is that this is the year we begin to see that in a way the saga has been the making of him as a recruiter, and the results are about to show at last.