Surely this is satire?
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No.
âGreat / good familyâ is legit the most BS cliche our club loves to spruik.
Itâs both shallow, and irresponsible.
The amount of mates I have that would be described as a good family at face value without people really knowing some dark dark $h!t is diabolical. And it would only disable someoneâs ability to handle / speak out about said dark $h!t.
Itâs farking horsepiss to say if you donât really know.
Hypothetically imagine being young Joel, you get drafted, your dadâs a mad keen and affable footy supporter. And someone says great family⌠How could you possibly imagine how he would feel. Poor fella.
Hawthorn team manager faced paedophile allegations before sudden death
Tom Cowie January 11 2017
Tom Cowie
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A well-known Hawthorn team manager close to the powerful clubâs coaches and players was set to be charged by police over child sex abuse allegations when he took his own life last week.
Long-time Hawks staff member Ric Sprake, 66, was found dead on Saturday in a hotel room in Doncaster East.
Fairfax Media can reveal that Mr Sprake, from Surrey Hills, was arrested by sexual crimes detectives in late December.
It is understood police were close to charging Mr Sprake after a statement was made by his son, Joel, in September last year.
In a 26-page signed statement given to police and seen by Fairfax Media, Joel Sprake, who is now 40, alleged that his father sexually abused him when he was a child for more than 10 years.
The allegations include violent acts of paedophilia by Mr Sprake when his son was as young as four years old.
Under questioning by police, Mr Sprake made no admissions of guilt and was released without charge, however, a brief of evidence had nearly been completed when he died last week.
There are also claims that Mr Sprake drugged his son before raping him. The acts are alleged to have taken place at several homes in which the family lived.
Police are understood to have been given evidence of a recording and a letter, which allegedly contained an apology from Mr Sprake for the abuse.
Before his death, Mr Sprake had been involved in an organisational role with Hawthorn and its feeder club, Box Hill, for 14 years. He was a regular fixture in the teamâs rooms and on the interchange bench alongside players and coaches on game day. He also travelled interstate with the team.
In a tribute posted on the Hawksâ website before the allegations of sexual abuse were made public, head coach Alastair Clarkson said the club was devastated by Mr Sprakeâs death.
âHe was selfless, hardworking and always had time for people,â he said.
âHe had a profound impact on our club and his legacy will live on at Hawthorn.â
A photo attached to the eulogy showed Mr Sprake celebrating with the 2013 premiership cup, which Hawthorn won against Fremantle.
A post on the Hawthorn Facebook page expressing condolences to Mr Sprakeâs family and friends was removed on Tuesday afternoon. There were more than a hundred comments on the page remembering Mr Sprake as a popular man who loved the club.
He was also close to some of Hawthornâs most powerful figures.
An Age story in 2015 described Mr Sprake organising food after the death of assistant coach Brett Rattenâs son Cooper at the request of then football manager Chris Fagan.
Mr Sprake rose to his role as team manager after many years as a fan of the club.
In an interview on a Hawthorn fan site published before he was given the job, Mr Sprake said he had been a Hawks fan since birth and had watched the team play at its former home ground Glenferrie Oval.
A Hawthorn spokesperson said it was an âextremely difficult and sensitive subjectâ and declined to comment any further. The tribute post was deleted from the Hawthorn wesbite after the allegations became public.
If you are troubled by this report or experiencing a personal crisis you can call Lifeline 131 114 or beyondblue 1300 224 636 or visit lifeline.org.au or beyondblue.org.au
So we are supposed to treat everyone with suspicion and not see the good in people on the off chance that something bad might come out in an extremely low number of cases.
I would say in general through the whole drafting process and interviews you would get a sense of peopleâs characters, player and family. It doesnât take a lifelong friendship to necessarily pick up on whether someone is necessarily good, bad or indifferent.
Someoneâs talking BS and it isnât the club. You really need to wipe your chin, cause you dribble a lot of â â â â .
A serious case of having a few rooâs loose in the top paddock.
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Haha. Very good. Make it personal.
Iâve said all I need to.
The club dribbles a lot of cliches. This cliche is the most ridiculous.
But I dont want to derail good blitz discussion anymore.
So how bout those Knicks?
Your profile pic, the character âJesusâ from the Big Lebowski is a paedophile. Yet you say clubs shouldnât say âgood familyâ on the off chance that a victim of paedophilia may be offended?
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Bahahaha.
âYouâre not wrong, youâre just an a$$holeâ
Awesome pickup Windy Dill.
And a very specific critique.
Pederast is very extreme. Letâs say domestic violence, general oppression, whatever.
I donât want to keep going, itâs boring. I told a board member of think itâs silly. I still think bandying people as good families is silly, and potentially harmful in some circumstances.
But itâs probably not as silly as this debate is getting
Iâm struggling to see where I have said something too controversial on this topic?
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This guy/girl is spot f**king on.
If you are a blitzer - well done son. If you get triggered at anything anti-EFC please donât open
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Seems like itâs written by a 15yo. Just a mish mash of complaints.
Does he want us to get into the draft or get Stringer? I donât really get it.
Perhaps - but same could be said about most AFL journos.
He makes some valid points though
I disagree, I first look at their skills, then Character. Depends on the job too.
Ok so its not Sheedyâs fault but you canât actually name anyone else so youâll just throw out red hearings like it must have been the board or the football dept, anyone & everyone but Dodoro. Can you not at least acknowledge that there was a very clear fall away in the quality of players from the Judkins era to the Dodoro era even if you are completely incapable of attributing any of it to Dodoro? Do you actually credit Judkins or was there again these faceless men & women actually pulling the strings?
On Geelong - Here is your exact words âI can only think of two clubs with less access and better recruiting - Sydney and Adelaide.â How else can anyone interpret that statement as anything but you believe Geelong didnât recruit better than us? I clearly showed you that we had more access to the draft than Geelong had so did you forget or have you done no research on this to support your position? Hereâs a kicker though - why even mention Wells, why do we all know who he is - is it because heâs a succesful recruiter & he is a very large part of the 3 premierships Geelong won? If you can recognise Wells & his work why is it near impossible for you to do the same with Dodoro? Do you know if anyone else at Geelong was in your mind interfering with him? Do Geelong coaches not get involved at all in list management?
What about clubs like Hawthorn - surely they must have done some decent recruiting to win a flag. Sure they benefited from the old priority pick to get Buddy but they also traded out 3 of their best 22 talls to get 1st round picks - again something Dodoro hasnât been able to do but is exactly what good recruiting is!!! Line & length drafting is not good recruiting especially when the result is no finals wins. Would it surprise you to realise we had access to 14 of their 2008 premiership team between from 99 -08? Have a crack at listing who, even allowing for injuries, would get a game in that 2008 side from our draftees over that timeframe? Jobe sure even though his best as still to come, Stants you could argue was a better player than Young off a wing by 08 & thenâŚwhat about ummmm. Ryder hadnât yet put it together consistently, Welsh maybe might squeeze into their backline but youâd have to say that those 14 guys we could have picked from Hawthorn alone would have been almost certainly part of our best 22. That is proof absolute that they drafted better than us.
Post 99, again I think you need to put some more time & research into your excuses? The zone concessions went out after 92 (for Vic sides anyway). We werenât gifted top 5 picks to use on Lloyd & Lucas - we traded for them & again thats part of the work Judkins & Sheedy managed to do. We havenât come close to that type of trading since Dodoro. Do you have evidence Jackson cut the budget or is this just another one of these fantasies you believe? You still hang on to Sheedy picking Davies again with no evidence at all to substantiate. Injuries is an interesting one. I think most older fans here will say weâve always had good players struck down. Neil Daniher injured having just been named captain never back to what he could have been, Hird had loads of injuries, Long a few recos etc etc. Those guys either had actual elite performances before injuries or came back & still performed at the highest level. If youâre going to even attempt to suggest Winders & Laycock are in the same class then youâre kidding yourself. Rama certainly didnât help our cause but by 2003 weâd already slid a long way back (again because we had no young talent coming through). This is why I think you have to know that you are wrong on some level. You have to know that our drafting was really poor in his 1st few years in particular.
Average players - you seem to have jumped from the time period we were discussing to now. Regardless I think the point is the same. You should never keep average players for extended periods. You canât have a team full of champions so thereâs no issue with having role players but if you are not a best 22 player by age 25 then I donât think you should be on the list. The only exception I would make to that is a backup ruckman as you canât really expect very young rucks to be physically able to compete & you canât just play most rucks in any other position. Having Burger & Smack as competition & backup is the minimum a list should have. Ideally weâd have a 20-22 year old ruck about to start taking the reigns but atm it looks like Drapper or bust! You again seem to have a bet each way here suggesting that keeping average players was a bad decision, made by somebody other than Dodoro , in the 2000âs but its a potentially good decision now that Dodoro may or may not be responsible for, depending on its success.
Pick success - You really want to go with that? You really want to try to make the argument that Tambling became less of a bust for Richmond simply because Adelaide gave him another crack? IF Tambling had gone to Adelaide, shown improvement & had a a decent career from there then you could absolutely mount a case to say Richmondâs development was the overriding factor but of course this didnât happen. Tambling couldnât succeed at Adelaide. Everything was different at the Crows but the outcome was the same because he was a poor pick pure & simple. Its the same story for us, IF our coaching, development, fitness, supplements etc were the major factors in the decline then the evidence of this would have been players succeeding elsewhere. The fact that they didnât means that the picks were wrong from the start. Youâve not provided anything at all to counter this. It doesnât matter if 2,5, 10 or even somehow every recruiter rates a player at exactly the same value, if that player doesât actually have the abilities they all hope, then the pick is a poor one. Thats going to happen, nobody has ever suggested recruiting is exact science, its a lot of judgements, risks & some luck. What sets good recruiting apart from bad recruiting is getting enough right over a time period to build a list capable of challenging. How can you logically say weâve done that apart from the hope you cling to that 2013-2015 were going to be successful if not for the saga? Again, even if we would have at a minimum won a final in that period it still doesnât change the fact that weâd already gone through an extended period of not winning finals. If as you contend, us being a challenger in 13-15 means we recruited well then, surely by the same logic not contending really post 01 but at least post 04 has to indicate the opposite.
Cgates posed the question - why the obsession with Dodoro. Iâll give you my answer. I believe recruiting is the single most important part of modern football & Dodoro has been the constant in that are for us for nearly 20 years. Its not the be all & end all but I donât believe you can ever be a contender without getting the right list first. Development is important but weâve seen the same development systems churn out champions & chumps. Coaching is vital to get the players motivated & playing to a plan but without that ability there you canât make a silk purse from a sows ear. Fitness, injury prevention & recovery, player welfare outside of the game & even culture (without actually being able to define it) are all factors to ultimate success but I firmly believe it starts & eventually comes back to getting a list together with the ability to win premierships. I think most would agree Clarkson has been a great coach but his team finished out of the 8 this year. Is that his coaching, their fitness, culture or any other factor as significant as the state of their list?
I donât believe Dodoro has given any of the 5 coaches, umpteen assistants, numerous phys edders or any other part of the club a list that has been good enough especially strong enough through the midfield. Iâve never suggested he hasnât had some successes & Iâve numerous times acknowledged that his strike rate with talls in particular is very good. Iâve also stated clearly that I believe adding Keane showed tangible signs of improving our drafting even if i believed it was from a very low base. I was very strong pre-season stating I believed this list should contend for finals & even now believe the type of list management I think we need could turn things around quickly. This shows I think heâs improved over the journey even if I wouldnât have given him anywhere near as long. What Iâve maintained however for at least a decade on Blitz is that he has not been the best person to build a good enough list. Results support that & they simply donât support any other conclusion. We had some draft success but just too many complete misses & more blatantly have not been able to trade to address our list issues. I see Dodoro as a significant reason why we havenât won a final for longer than anyone else. Again heâs not the only reason (people defended Jackson with the same blinded faith) but our list is an area he has been in some ways responsible for & you canât argue its been an area of strength.
Lastly, Iâve given you draft analysis of picks weâve had, Iâve compared numbers to other clubs, taken apart their success & showed where we failed by comparison. I believe Iâve presented an evidence based case to strongly support that not only have we performed poorly but that Dodoro had to have played some part in those outcomes. Youâve countered with some pretty feeble excuses, diversions & theories. Its a bit like the rumour, reputation whatever you want to call it that Dodoro is difficult to deal with, overrates all our players & this is why he hasnât got trades done. Now Iâve not used this to support my position because frankly while I personally believe there is some level of truth to it I simply cannot quantify what part it has played. This is the type of ambiguity youâve revelled in through this entire discussion. You donât know which decisions if any were against Dodoroâs judgement. You canât actually identify the person or people who are ultimately responsible for the outcomes but maintain its not the most obvious candidate. Can you at least clarify if there is any % of the blame you think is fairly levelled at Dodoro? Youâve made bold statements like heâs been among the top 5 in the business but then donât actually show how youâve come to that conclusion.
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The âdraft and developâ line which is often dished out by the club, is simply an excuse for not being able to attract top end talent.
Or if we did attract top end talent, we couldnât get a deal done because we offered the opposition club a packet of twisties.
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No drama here, I havenât gotten worked up at all or anywhere near personal yet.
So itâs ok for you to say the club talks BS and by extension the people who use that line are too (more likely they are using it without the clubâs actual direction, itâs a pretty harmless phrase), but you are immune from someone saying it to you.
We get it youâre young, cool, edgy & trying to show off how intellectual & other worldly you are.
Hereâs one right back at ya, but Iâm not IT literate enough (or plain canât be bothered) to use a meme, so iâll just type it for you shall I:
It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open oneâs mouth and remove all doubt.
Ahh proverbs, the original memes.
There are so many assumptions in your response that make me laugh.
- Iâm not upset (Iâm actually laughing)
- I wish I was young
- Iâm moderately edgy (French vanilla)
- Iâm moderately intelligent
But anyway. Honestly, you are giving this far to much attention. Iâm not sure why.
Iâm not interested in having an articulate debate on blitz about political correctness and the state of the world. I go to the Quillette for that (highly recommend to blitzers).
Iâm come to blitz to lid off and fark Carlton.
Suggest we let it go. I really canât be bothered and as I said I only wanted to bring my opinion of a stupid cliche to the attention of Catherine as an off the cuff opportunity.
And just for good measure.
Your âred herringsâ are my responses to what else was going on. I mean, was Dodoroâs first 3 round 1 picks being lost to sanctions, #18 and #17 somehow something I made up? Other bits I obviously canât prove, but has been taken as âtruthâ on Blitz for a long time (the budget cuts/focus on profit, Sheedyâs involvement in recruiting). To just write it off as red herrings is your call, but if you ask for evidence and chuck out evidence provided, well that is your call.
I definitely rate Judkins as one of the best in the business back then, what he did for Collingwood was also strong. That said, he had better picks at both teams than Dodoro did.
Geelong/Hawthorn
On Geelong, Iâd point out:
- Wells was clearly the #1 drafter of that period. Iâve consistently maintained if we can get a top 2-3 recruiter in over Dodoro, show him the door.
- During key years leading up to the 2007 premiership, they had better picks. Across 1999 to 2004 they had 4 top 10 picks to our 2, and of our best picks came from two of the weaker drafts on record (2002 & 2003). Obviously they also nailed their 2007 pick (Selwood) who contributed immediately as well.
- Their list management was rubbish. Think about this â if other clubs had not poached Bizzell, Mansfield and Colbert, they donât have Mooney, Chapman, Enright, and Kelly for the 2007 flag. Other clubs forced them into a rebuild that they reaped the rewards from. They were actually trying to top up â guys like Kingsley, Grgic, and Mitchell White. Doesnât matter how good Wells was (and he was good), no picks would have meant no players. They did do two good/great deals in Ottens and Harley, and got value when guys were poached. Thatâs about the only things their list management did well.
- They had a great run with F/S picks. Scarlett, Ablett x2, Blake. That wasnât list management, that was luck.
- They didnât have two of their best picks (Winders, Laycock) become injury prone. If that happens to several of their guys, they probably still win the premiership, but it becomes tougher. N. Ablett was partly in this boat.
- Their development was a lot better. They got a lot out of their youngsters, and didnât have defections (like Richards, Jacobs for us).
Iâve been clear that I think the trade out older quality is the way to go, as Geelong was forced to, and Hawthorn did deliberately. Essendon wonât do that. I donât know how much is Dodoro vs. the board vs. coaches, but we do know when the board had the choice, they chose the coach who said he wouldnât trade out older stars. It seems obvious EFC pushed for the saga guys to return. Iâve said before â if Dodoro pushed all that, he should be sacked.
On Hawthorn, by my count they drafted 18 of their team during the period you mentioned (99-08), of which 6 were drafted before our first pick in their drafts (Hodge, Roughead, Franklin, Lewis, Ellis, Ladson). Critically, many of those 6 were integral parts of their team. They had lots of picks (and good ones) due to trading out players (Iâve discussed above) and priority picks. If not for injuries, Iâd have said Ryder, Laycock, Winderlich, Stanton, Dyson, Richards, Hille, Welsh, Monfries, Pears would have all been strong candidates to replace individual players, and Houli, Dempsey and Davey would have been on the fringes (depending on how fast they developed under Clarkson).
There were a lot of not particularly great players in that side. Iâd give a lot of credit to Clarkson for the 2008 flag.
Post 99
How do you suggest Dodoro could have done a deal like the entry of Fremantle made to get the Lloyd/Lucas picks? We also got top 5 picks for Wanganeen leaving (not something we initiated) and finishing bottom 4 (1997). Hardly opportunities Dodoro could replicate. And the 2000 side had a number of zoned players, so it was still relevant.
On injuries, the fact some previous teams from the pre-draft era won despite them hardly means they donât affect the draft results. Hird being injured probably cost us the 1999 flag, so seems pretty damn relevant!
We have different views on Laycock and Winders. Oh well. I certainly never put them in the Neale Daniher/Hird class though. Again, please stop saying I said things I didnât.
Average Players
I used the current situation as an example of the principle, since I thought it would be uncontentious. The principle then applies throughout the past 17 years.
Of course you should keep average players if youâre trying to compete. It makes good sense. Iâve said all along it is a good strategy if you want to compete, but bad for list development. My belief/suspicion is that this comes from above Dodoroâs pay grade - as it should. The board and coach would decide if weâre challenging in a given year, not the list manager.
Or do you think Dodoro should be able to overrule Worsfold and the board if his views on our list for 2018/19 differ?
Pick success
You say âIF our coaching, development, fitness, supplements etc were the major factors in the decline then the evidence of this would have been players succeeding elsewhere.â. This is again bad logic. A player spending years under a bad system may be wrecked for life. But the fact that another club still rates them means at least one other club rates the talent and the potential.
But we obviously have a different view on how to measure a recruiterâs success with picks.
BTW, when you say âeven if we would have at a minimum won a final in that period it still doesnât change the fact that weâd already gone through an extended period of not winning finalsâ, you seem to be ignoring that we were going through the bottom of the cycle. Or maybe youâre a believer in a team always finishing in the finals for ever more?
Responsibility
Look, I really donât think weâre going to see eye to eye here. You seem to think that Dodoro had responsibility and leeway for every element of list management, strategy, recruiting, team retention and development over the last 18 years. So itâs completely reasonable for you to want Dodoro out in that context. Itâs just terrible logic.
Itâs the equivalent of blaming the one person of management for results not to your liking when they follow the strategy and approach set by the board. It is a company board that sets culture, strategy, approves budgets, sets risk tolerances, yet you want the Human Resources manager to take the blame for everything that goes wrong with the company. Now, Dodoroâs role is more important than a head of HR â but do you really think itâs a role that has a bigger say than the board/CEO/head coach?
I also resent you saying âYou canât actually identify the person or people who are ultimately responsible for the outcomes but maintain its not the most obvious candidateâ when I keep saying, its most likely the board and head coaches making the decisions. The people who should be setting our strategy.
Importance of recruiting
I agree that list management is critical. If you donât recruit good players, itâs hard for any other part of the team management to fix it. However, that doesnât mean the reverse is true. Just because we havenât had success, doesnât mean that the recruiting wasnât above average. Other factors play a part in the success of a draftee.
Evidence
[quote]Lastly, Iâve given you draft analysis of picks weâve had, Iâve compared numbers to other clubs, taken apart their success & showed where we failed by comparison. I believe Iâve presented an evidence based case to strongly support that not only have we performed poorly but that Dodoro had to have played some part in those outcomes. Youâve countered with some pretty feeble excuses, diversions & theories.
[/quote]
Iâm the one putting out evidence, talking about draft picks. Youâve mentioned Hawthorn and Geelong, two of the start performers of the past two decades. While appearing to ignore that Iâve said if we can poach one of the top few guys, go for it over Dodoro. Iâve presented plenty of evidence, you just want to ignore it or downplay it.
Because Iâve done it heaps of times before listing out picks, and who came after. Listing out the number of picks we had in the top 5/10 versus premiership teams. Iâve pointed out that other clubs still rate our talent to recruit our guys.
Iâve done a lot more than point at Geelong and Hawthorn and gone âthey did itâ.
Blame it on Dodoro, Sheedy or whoever you like , What is undeniable is that we have been, at best a mediocre side since 2000.
Everyone seems to think that the club will come back strong next year with Langford and Laverde leading the way. I hope that they are right but so far I have seen nothing in their form so far to suggest that they will be more than good average footballers.
With Watson gone where is the improvement going to come from? We have a very very good forward line and thats it. Our mid and backs are average.
Dodoro has admitted that the clubs has a âdraft and developâ approach.This is living in the past. Free agency has meant that teams that buy the elite player to fill the deficiencies in their side have immediate success whilst clubs that rely solely on the draft never catch up.
We will always be a mediocre side until we change our recruiting policy and aggressively go after all the out-of-contract elite players that we need to build a competitive side.
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