Oh absolutely. I generally defend Dodoro around here, because I generally think he’s been among the better recruiters. However, the reality is that nobody outside the club knows exactly what his remit, authority and decisions have been. And that impacts a lot. Did he recruit Davies in 2000, or did Sheedy? Who made the decision to convince Winders to play on, recruit Cooney and convince Howlett not to leave circa 2013/14? Did he really want Myers to stay with a 3yr extension, or had he been told to keep all the SAGA players if possible? Was the mid-00’s top up approach his call? How restricted were we on resources for recruiting, and salary cap pre 2010? How much impact did the SAGA have on trading and retention? Hell, is he really doing the drafting anymore or is it just list management and trading?
I am not even necessarily against the club moving Dodoro on. However, I am against any kneejerk decisions, based simply on team performance. I am also against it unless the club has a clear view on why they can be confident of getting someone better, or that he’s failing so badly that he must be replaced.
I am also totally fine with a top to bottom review of our drafting team, resources, structures and performance. Get that ex-Adelaide one who was kicked out for his public statements - he performed pretty well at the actual recruiting part, Adelaide is a hell of a performer in this area, and he should be independent. Have him do a full review of how we have or haven’t performed.
I always thought he was more list management, so he may say to Keane, we need a player like this this and this, go find me one.
So I reckon he’d probably have a large part to play in convincing players to stay/ attracting people to the club, as he’d be selling the notion that there is a team in the spot to those players.
Historically it’s impossible to know what degree of input he had in decisions. All you can really judge him on going forward is the more current decisions though IMO. Just like a player who may have been ■■■■■ bit picked up his form, you don’t really hold the past poor form against them.
Who is to blame for the past 15 years of under performance? Was it Sheeds refusal to rebuild? Maybe Knights’ game plan? The saga years? Jackets’ recruiting? Maybe all of the above? Hard to blame a single person I think
He has recruited extremely well in all positions except midfield. The wealth of talls we have had has been rediculous and I can’t think of another club that comes close.
If a few of these mids excelled such as Jerret, Kav, Myers and co we would be lauding him for a well rounded approach to recruitment.
I do recall a number of people trying to convince everyone that our undersized midfield isn’t an issue because Richmond have a similar sized midfield.
LOL.
Not quite sure what people expect the list manager to do about tonight. In the first half we were down by 4 goals despite being close on stats. I’m sure he didn’t come up with the plan to let Richmond have an unaccountable wall across the field all night so that we had to go wide or just kick it to them for an intercept mark and turnover.
Read back a few pages, Ants rates him top 3 of all recruiters (just behind Adelaide & Sydney). Apparently winning flags doesn’t equal good recruitment which makes sense I guess if you can’t equate not winning anything for 14 years with bad recruitment.
People were praising him after we beat two average teams as if that somehow dismisses the past two decades, or even the previous month which was some of the most ordinary footy I’ve seen from an Essendon team. Especially one that was supposed to be good.
We need him to get us more high quality mids but they were hardly the problem tonight. We set up so poorly, smashed them in clearances yet they had players sitting back every time for the easy slingshot. Poor coaching and setups.
Think it’s safe to say another season is going to go past with Adrian’s list not winning a final. That would be his 14 year anniversary I believe. Impressive.
They were praising him after the team had won its 4th game out of 4 games against teams from last year’s finals. Given the focus here is talent identification, beating talented teams is a good sing. Losing to the premiers is a lot more meaningless, let alone when most in the review thread are saying the structures were abysmal and a big part of the blame.
