Had a really nice start in his first few games of SANFL footy too
He ran a good beep though given endurance was a knock.
I saw him as a inside mid ceiling with a half back floor.
I know port see him as a mid, and Patmore
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Depends whoās type is righter 
Since the Saga TM started, weāve needed to replace the following from the best 22:
- AA inside midfielder x 1 (Jobe)
- B grade general midfielder x 3 (Howlett, Hocking, Melksham)
- AA ruckman (Ryder)
- AA HBF (Hibberd)
- A/B grade wingman (Stanton)
- AA KPD x 2 (Fletcher, Carlisle)
- A/B grade KPF (Crameri)
- A/B grade small forwards (Licka, Davey)
The (probable) wins over that time:
- inside midfielder (Clarke)
- general midfielder (Zerrett, Smith, Parish)
- ruckman (Draper)
- HBF (McKenna, Saad, Gleeson)
- wingman (Mutch, Guelfi)
- KPD (Zerk-Thatcher, Ridley, Ambrose/Hartley)
- small forward (Fantasia, Green, Walla)
High picks at risk:
- Francis
- Langford
- Laverde
For the picks we had, the real failure has been the development of Laverde and Langford. They ideally would have become the next big bodied midfielders to replace the reliable Hocking / Howlett / Watson.
Say we lost the equivalent of 1 first round pick in trade value, 2 first round picks with sanctions and completely shut off from trading in decent senior players for 4 years. All things considered, it could be a hell of a lot worse.
Iām sure things could have gone a bit better, but they could have gone a hell of a lot worse. Iām more worried about our development of young players. We seem to be at the minimum holding our own on draft night.
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Ben - you canāt honestly think we had an urgent need for more small backs / half backs?
Jackets is the least of our issues. Since he has taken over as the list manager, and been given some resources in the recruiting department, he and Keane have done a great job.
In the last few years he has managed to keep the list together when in the circumstances this club was in the doors could have shut, and no players wanted to come.
He got BJ to the club, and I donāt care what anyone thinks of Goddard now, he has been amazing for this club.
He got 10 players to the club when the sanctions were on all of which did a great job.
HE managed to attract players to this club when no one in their right mind would come.
In that time he had to deal with draft sanctions, but found players like Fantasia, Merrett
The club did the decent and right thing to look after the banned players, and he and X, ensured players who were being chased with huge money like Hooker, and Hurley stayed.
No one at all was unhappy after the draft when we got Parish - the best available mid in that draft, and Francis.
He had nothing to do with lack of development for Parish - ie playing him half forward iso midfield.
He could not control Francisā situation, but still found a way to help him stay.
People can pass any judgement they like but Francis is still not written off, and I can wait to see him play seniors.
Was anyone upset at getting McGrath? What about Begley?
Last year when he finally had a clean crack at being able to trade - he SMASHED the trade period out of the park. Everyone - supporters, media, so called exports said we did fantastic in last years trade period, without having to sell the farm to achieve what he did in the process.
And actually most experts have given strong endorsement to our recruiting over the last few years.
We then drafted some very handy prospects in Zerk - very exciting, Guelfi - already debuted, despite only entering at 40ās.
There is a big difference in picking players and getting players to the club, compared to player development, and a employing a game plan, whereby the coaches own admission after 8months implementing it, the players didnāt know what it was???
This list talent wise is the best its been for a long time, and this despite losing Watson, Stanton.
His management of the list is also in good shape in that this year we will again be able to look at bringing in more talent through trade or free agency.
Some of the most vocal on here donāt want him because if a player isnāt indigenous, then automatically the pick or trade was wrong. That takes credibility away from someones whose opinions I usually like to read.
There is a football team completely bereft of confidence and direction. Thatās not a list management issue, thatās a coaching and football department issue.
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what about
Morgan
Eades
no value at all
Not sure how you can call several of those āprobable winsā. Clarke, Draper, Ridley, and Zerk-Thatcher have yet to play senior games. Ambrose and Hartley are merely depth players. The jury is even out on Walla at this stage.
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Small backs, yes, inside mids yes
I donāt expect 100% success. Eades was a late pick. Morgan looked like good value when we took him, the risk was his injury history and work ethic. It didnāt work, that happens. At the end of the day, at least half the picks taken by any club wonāt amount to much. I want us rolling the dice more, having a few failures like Morgan so that we can find more players like Fantasia or Gleeson.
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Well said.
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Agree with most of what you have said there BT3. However, the list is really imbalanced in terms of player sizeā¦ Parish and McGrath may well have been the best players available at the time, but weāve now got those guys, Smith, Zaharakis, Merrett, Tippa, Saad and Fantasia, eight guys, who can go through the midfield but who are all under 6 foot. Surely thatās a massive stuff up?
Clarke, Draper, Ridley, and Zerk-Thatcher look damned good at VFL level. Clarke is leading the VFL for pretty much every KPI that relates to an inside mid, in his second year. Draper has shown serious potential to be a dominant ruckman. Ridley has shown really impressive skills that we all want to see at senior level. And Zerk-Thatcher looks class. That list there is about as good as you can ask for from a recruiter, it is now up to the development team to finish the jobā¦ (fingers crossed)
As for Ambrose and Hartley, we would ideally not be playing them. Ideally we would have a backline of Carlisle, Hooker and Hurley. But ā ā ā ā happens, we donāt have Carlisle and instead we have some reasonably competent players who we got for peanuts. If our midfield and gameplan were performing better, Ambrose and Hartley would look like far better players. And if the kids come on quickly, I have no dramas in them shifting back to depth.
And Walla? Uninjured heās a potential star. And all it cost was a late rookie pick and a ridiculous amount of fan pressureā¦ Screw you, heās Walla and heās awesome and I wonāt hear anything bad said about him!!! 
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Our player development has brought us down. Staggering to think we do not have a current player development coach. Madness
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I agree we are small in size for mids.
This is not a list management issue. We lost 3 big bodies in Watson, Howlett and Hocking.
We have Langford, Laverde and Myers and Heppell. Only Heppell has performed in that area so far this year - the others havenāt filled the role.
Last week was the first time I have seen Laverde start in the center square.
Add to the fact that our best mid has failed to fire a shot this year in Merrett - whether he is injured, or concussion issues, or just down on confidence, that doesnāt help.
TBC is a good tap ruckman, but I am sick of him standing in the same spot after the ruck contest while other ruckmen bend over and help their mids.
From a list management perspective he did address this in getting Stringer - he trained to be an inside/stoppage player - it hasnāt worked so far.
One of the biggest issues last year was that we lacking in outside run and class - Zacka needed help. He addressed this in Smith who has been fantastic this year.
Who was the inside mid we could have got? Rockliff - well he was dropped a couple of weeks ago at Port, in our situation this year, could you imagine the outcry if Rockliff showed that form in an Essendon jumper?? Did he fit the age demographic we targeted?
I think the list has holes, but the performance of the team is below expectations, but the talent is there.
Remember last year basically the same team played some of the best footy out of any team. We were fast, we tackled, we kicked goals, talent just doesnāt disappear.
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It looks like Clarke could be at least a solid AFL player but we canāt call it a probable win yet. Performing in the reserves and seniors are completely different things. Mutch and Guelfi remain up in the air too. We constantly see young players coming in and doing good things but end up drifting along and not doing anything special. Iām still very high on Francis and think he will develop into a star which would help our backline immensely.
Iāll cut Walla some slack for now because heās clearly carrying some sort of injury.
Can I say, for a thug you are quite articulateā¦
Good points, particularly Tbell observation. If Lang/Clarke can make it in the seniors as mids, problem solved, almost overnight, so probably should give Dodoro the benefit of the doubt for now.
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Nice posts about Dodoro but leaves unanswered the question of why in his entire tenure at the club we have never managed to have a midfield that isnāt bottom 4 in the afl, aside from perhaps a year or two under hird
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Do you happen to have Houlahanās sprint/agility measurements from the combine?
I can see online that he was a standout in the kicking/jumping, but wonder how far down he was on the other disciplinesā¦
W.T.A.F?
That is EXACTLY a list management issue
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