Brad Scott - yeah, whatever (Part 3)

Football Discussion Dustin Fletcher Hangar
4986

At the end of 2020 the age reported on how strange it was that Richardson went from 3 year extension to fired in the space of a month. From Campbell key lieutenant bringing over Cara and Rutten, the coaching handover etc to fired.

“Campbell was until two weeks ago negotiating a new three-year contract extension with Richardson, who was coming out of contract. It is a remarkable jump from a three-year extension to sacked in two weeks”

What happened in those weeks was Brashers review

Roco expands with closer insight as he usually does

“ A bigger question now, though, is whether the removal of Richardson has dealt only with a symptom of the malaise, or the root cause. There are already concerns among insiders that, not for the first time, it is the former.”

“ Rutten and Richardson, his former colleague at Richmond who was instrumental in getting him to the club, had come to the realisation that as far as the list and immediate on-field aspirations were concerned, a “scorched earth” policy was required, not only in terms of names, but attitudes, the kerfuffle over the decision not to allow the retiring Tom Bellchambers a final game symbolic.”

So Richardson as part of the review wanted a scorched earth policy on the list i.e. rebuild as he had correctly assessed it wasn’t up to it and wasn’t happy with standards. Of course this view was controversial to Dodoro and his performance. Pretty obvious whose argument won. But critically Richardson was aligned with the coach, you’ve stated no coach has had issue with the list, well this one did.

I’m sure you’ll argue I’ve read between the lines or it’s not explicit enough or maybe Richardson got sacked for other aspects of the review. But to me it’s clear he wanted to set his man Rutten up for success with a rebuild to inject youth and buy time. His view lost out and the directors alternate view on the list had to come from somewhere, the most logical is it came from the list head.

If we decide to rebuild in 2020 we end up in a totally different place than we are now. It was the perfect time, we have the saga guys a chance it didn’t work we we needed to hit multiple drafts hard. Instead we’ve treaded water for 4 years at the lower portions of the ladder. I think you agree with this last paragraph as you wanted a rebuild too. You’ve stated you’d fire the person responsible, I think the person responsibility was Dodoro and we did fire him.

7 Likes
4987

Was happy to let him go just think we should have tried harder to get a better pick

4988

If its for a rebuild then we should dumps our best players? The top sides have many players over 30. Collingwood have at least eight. Geelong have the same.
If you use your logic then Merrett should also be let go for a pick around 50.

1 Like
4989

I’m not a huge fan of Brad Scott, but I wouldn’t be firing him. I think we need stability. We’ve sorely lacked it since Sheedy was fired.

I just also think we need to do an explicit rebuild, rather than just tinkering around the edges. I’m happy for Scott to be charge on field during it, I just want the board and/or CEO to be directing him that the focus is on development, injury management, but not necessarily wins (except to the degree they help development).

4990

A win/win isn’t just about numbers, there are other factors that come into play.

However from a purely stats situation:
We traded Stringer for 53
We traded 40, 46, 53 to Lions for 35, 37, 58
We traded 28, 58 to Saints for 32, 47

So if you wanted you could say 53 became 58 then it became 47, if you count it that way.
(which I think ended up as 39 Angus Clarke, but someone smarter would have to clarify that)

1 Like
4991

That the team thought Tom Bellchambers’ career was worthy of a retirement game says a lot about where we are as a club.

136 games, 70 odd goals, 13 brownlow votes, 0 All Australians, 0 finals wins.

Rutten demanded accountability and performance and lost the players because of it.

11 Likes
4992

Give me an example on this in how we are better off without someone of his ability. How do we win on this issue?

1 Like
4993

It’s been written so many times people should have eye issues. Read the threads and you will get your answers.

4994

Stats show that very few picks above 40 ever make it. Of course there are exceptions, i.e Hird and Hooker, but overall the numbers are not good.
I would not get carried away about all our selections in the last draft yet. Stats show that only very few can be expected to become elite players.

3 Likes
4995

So what? I provided simple stats to show 53 moved down the pecking order. I said nothing of whether it works out for a player for us. I just supplied the stats. That pick though, allowed us to bundle picks which improved this draft and next years draft hand. In isolation it doesn’t seem much but bundled it became part of the overall.

The issue on a win/win isn’t about purely stats, it is about what both sides of the issues (ignoring GWS) were seeking. We sought one thing, Stringer sought another thing and both got what they ultimately wanted. Stats are simply only one part of the overall. (And don’t ask me to tell you what they are, it’s been written many, many times.)

1 Like
4996

Becoming worse is how we improve, Stringer doesn’t help us at all.

We along with the Saints are treadmill teams, we aren’t going anywhere. (fwiw they’re way in front of us I think)

It’s hard to go up without elite talent, it’s much easier making decisions that force you to go down, we need to go down.

Going down might get us access to elite talent, winning 50% of our games and finishing mid table, who wants to see that again? That’s what Jake Stringer gets you, I’d have taken pick 100, 53 was overs.

1 Like
4997

Fair value would have been GWS’s additional pick in the 50’s be added to 53.
Let’s be realistic, Jake Stringer probably only has 10-15 good games of football left in that body.
That’s not an outlandish prediction.

Ultimately, GWS called our bluff because they knew we wanted to move him on.
I have no problem with taking slight unders and restructuring our forwardline.

Don’t be tunnel focused on trying to win every trade.

3 Likes
4998

I’d rather that some kid/kids get the benefit of the 40 odd AFL games Stringer may have played at Essendon from 2025 onward.

Stringer is cream on a cake. His good footy wins you games but you have to tolerate some pretty poor footy inbetween. We don’t have a cake. Essendon is still driving to the shop to buy flour.

5 Likes
4999

The value might be 7 x 18 year olds not looking at an often unfit senior player

16 Likes
5000

Not just youth-it’s acknowledged that future stars come from the pointy end of the draft. And we need 3-4 of them to drag the rest along that are with us for a while - Redman, McGrath, Ridley, Parish etc

1 Like
5001

If you’re using highlights as an argument for stringer defending then you’ve lost me.
It’s well documented that he didn’t
, the only difference is gws can afford to have those types in the side because they are so good at team defense to make up for it

5002

People are overly focused on him kicking above 40 last year. It seems they have tunnel vision on that. He was on our list for 7 years. In that time he kicked above 40 twice only. His next highest was only 33. He wasn’t a prolific goal kicker taking us to the promised land of finals. I loved the bloke but he was never taking us anywhere except constantly treading water. We now get the chance to revamp the forward structure a bit more with less of the same type.

I can see the sense in GWS wanting to maybe give him a go at a cheap cost. Tobes isn’t getting younger, Riccardi is limited and Cadman is still young and developing. Their main focal point was Hogan. Slotting a cheap Stringer in there was worth a shot. Overpaying for him (in their view) was not worth it.

7 Likes
5003

I agree fully that’s why this year would be such a good year to tank hard and let Draper go giving us two early picks plus melbournes first and two seconds

1 Like
5004

That’s not true.

If a player left as an unrestricted Free Agent, and we finished bottom 4…… we’d have about 10-12 players who could get us a top 5 pick.

5005

What is our midfield mix?

Just another question the coaches still have no idea about.

1 Like