That was a bad decsion the club hasn’t put a foot wrong since then imo
5 Likes
Says the guy backing Rutten of all people.
1 Like
TBF, he did achieve more in his first season than the AFL 
has in 2. And he shouldnt have ever been given the job
What did he actually achieve?
Finals at the first attempt. Highest% in 20 years, blooded plenty of yoof
2 Likes
So you mean scraped in with the same amount of wins as Scott just to get bundled out again week 1, and debuted a bunch of kids that ended up delisted anyway?
Pretty depressing achievement
3 Likes
I thought fans were sick of scraping into finals and losing yet Rutten is getting praised some how
Um, what? I only said our draft hand wasn’t a nightmare as we had the two most valuable pieces still. Whereas 3rd & 4th round picks are far less important.
My response about the value of our first was to @Drapersmullet ’s reply, which is the response you’ve quoted.
I don’t understand this at all. How was it a nightmare? It wasn’t as optimal as a world where we knew in 2023 and could have considered stockpiling 2024 3rds, but it was hardly a nightmare. We had our 2024 1st & 2nd, and all of our 2025 picks. Our actual results is proof of that.
Describing it as a nightmare seems to be deliberately biased description, that is at odds with reality. Plenty of teams go into a year without the 1st round pick and no pick inside the top 30 - those are nightmare hands. Look at our 2019 draft hand for a nightmare opening position.
My understanding is nightmare is just gen z for ‘not ideal’
1 Like
It sounds like we’re not miles apart a both of us don’t think much has changed and neither were rebuilds.
I would point out you didn’t include Baldwin or Waterman in the list of draftees (Waterman could be excluded, but that is still 6, and I said 6-7).
Baldwin should have got lots of games in 2023. Bryan both years. Roberts in 2024. I’d have preferred Hayes getting games over Lav, even if not ready. Mass in 2023 was treated horribly. Others could/should have been played over Shiel.
Some less ready players could have been given a go if not chasing wins.
2 Likes
When was the last time a player refused a trade within the same state? Especially if you’re clearly trading the top talent so we’re going to be weak and they want success.
I agree trading known quality for speculative quantity is a bad move if you’re looking for success now. But everyone I named will be the wrong side of 30 at the end of this 3yr plan “focus on youth”. We will need to replace that quality anyway. We have the current strategy of hoping to do so with 2-3 mid table firsts, or we could have traded them and finished badly and had 5-6 firsts, a number of them very early picks.
One would be our current 15 year approach that means the odd top end player from mediocre picks. The other would be a real focus on youth.
1 Like
If the external review said our development of talent was rubbish perhaps we are waiting for that to be fixed before going “hard” with our rebuild - I know sometimes if the situation isn’t right, you can’t go hard even if you want to.
Go and create a Brad Scott thread for clappers if you can’t handle any criticism of him here.
All you did for years of Rutten and Worsfold, and I’m guessing before that but I wasn’t around here yet, was sook and moan and sook and moan about the coaching and wanting everyone sacked and dead and buried. In MUCH more harsher words than myself and most of us on here say about Brad.
Now some of us are having our turn sooking and moaning about this one coach and you act like you’re above us all and blah blah because you’ve spent 18 months transitioning to be a coach clapper, and all your suspensions over the years on Blitz for saying some honestly pretty gross stuff has just gone with the wind.
Give me a break.
When would you hear about an approach to a player that is declined through their agent? Not everything is leaked, sometimes it pays for both parties to keep stuff confidential.
As for your second point, understand your view, but if you look at a team like Geelong they can manage quality older players well into their mid 30s and maximise their play whilst bringing in the next group. I would say we keep the guys we know are quality, and simply focus on that next group. It’s also worked for Collingwood, they won a premiership maintaining older players in the mix well into their 30s.
I also have an issue with clubs that simply dump their stalwarts for trinkets. Merrett is a leader, and takes his role as captain seriously. You lose any culture your team might have by exiting him, and people like him. We are already struggling with culture, don’t dump the experienced guys you do trust.
2 Likes
Mostly players on the fringe of the list, that never got a shot at it. Our core remains very much the same.
6 Likes
Doesn’t matter, we identified players that didn’t work and have made decisions to move on from them. Considering the vast majority of those players haven’t found a new AFL home and practically no good footballers have come from that 30 I’d suggest that points to a good decision to chop them. A couple of exceptions, but not many that we would regret cutting.
Of course it also indicates very much bad decisions to pick them in the first place, but there is a core that is quite good and can play impressive football semi regularly, we need the right youth to blend in to take the next step.
I did miss Baldwin & Waterman as they were never drafted ( pre-season supplemental selection) hence didn’t show up in the draft lists. I’ll have to remember that for how we got Prior as well. I don’t agree though about Baldwin playing lots of games in 2023. His 4 games were underwhelming and I never really saw much in him. Not really big enough to hold down FB & I think he was no better than Francis who wasn’t good enough as a 3rd tall defender.
As I said earlier, you really need to look at the ladder when contending that more kids should have played more games in 2024. We were in the 8 from round 7 till round 21. Roberts played his 1st game in Rnd 21. Now of course many here, I included, were not really fooled by the ladder & knew the list wasn’t up to it but I don’t think any coach would have been making big selection changes through most of 2024 & I don’t believe Roberts was really standing out as filling a great need. Small forward, yeah we needed one of those all season, small defender though wasn’t really a weakness with Pidge being fit all year & Scott wanting to play Martin back. Hayes is another who I don’t yet rate as much as some others. I still think, unfortunately, that Lav is a fair way in front of him.
Exactly.
And how many of that 30 had trade value?
1 Like
It wasnt just me who wanted Worsfold and Rutten gone just about every one here did at the time.
I’m far from being a happy clapper i just call it as i see it praise the team when they do well and criticise when they dont.
I don’t sit here hoping the the team loses by 10 goals i’ve seen that comment posted many times i say it one time and cop a ban.
There has been far worse stuff said on here that dosent get punished ive been banned many times unfairly the mods will find any exuse to use the ban hammer on me.