We have no small forwards no aboriginal players. We desperately wanted them to be good.
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What do you mean “no aboriginal players” ?
We still have JADE GRESHAM.
And Alwyn Jr.
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I was pumped in that one draft when we got tippa back, in addition to mankura and the Davey twins, i thought we had our small forward stocks set for years and they’d be super exciting. Wtf happened, well i know, brad doesn’t seem to like these highly skilled guys that require a bit of time and effort.
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Sooo….
How many other teams are giving those players time and effort?
Tippa. Retired.
Munkara isn’t even in VFL.
We’ll see whether Davey Jnr ends up in VFL but it’s unlikely he makes another list.
Maybe there’s more to it than just ‘Da CoAcH DoEsN’t PlAy ThE kIdS’.
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Of course nobody is gonna pick up some young indigenous kids that only lasted a year or two on a list. It’s like a company hiring someone they know got sacked after a few months. They would naturally assume something was off with them and clubs tend to be cautious in picking up indigenous kids from the n.t these days, even before they heard they got turfed so quickly.
It’s not just an indigenous issue.
Drafted between 2017 and 2021…
Luke Lavender - 0 games on the rookie list for 2 years not at VFL, SANFL or WAFL
Jordan Houlahan - 0 games on the senior list for 2 years not at VFL, SANFL or WAFL
Brandon Zerk-Thatcher - 51 games on the senior list for 6 years now at Port
Matt Guelfi - 109 games still on the senior list after 7 years
Trent Mynott - 0 games on the rookie list for 2 years at Frankston last season
Irving Mosquito - 4 games on the senior list for 3 years not at VFL, SANFL or WAFL
Noah Gown - 0 games on the senior list for 2 years at Frankston last season
Tom Jok - 1 game on the rookie list for 1 year not at VFL, SANFL or WAFL
Harry Jones - 52 games still on the senior list after 5 years
Nick Bryan - 19 games still on the senior list after 5 years
Ned Cahill - 6 games on the senior list for 2 years at Carlton VFL
Lachlan Johnson - 0 games on the senior list for 2 years not at VFL, SANFL or WAFL
Cian McBride - 0 games on the rookie list for 4 years not at VFL, SANFL or WAFL
Ross McQuillan - 0 games on the rookie list for 2 years not at VFL, SANFL or WAFL
Mitch Hibberd - 5 games on the rookie list for 1 year not at VFL, SANFL or WAFL
Nik Cox - 53 games still on the senior list after 4 years
Archie Perkins - 80 games still on the senior list after 4 years
Zach Reid - 9 games still on the senior list after 4 years
Josh Eyre - 0 games on the senior list for 2 years, was at Collingwood this season then delisted
Cody Brand - 0 games on the senior list for 2 years not at VFL, SANFL or WAFL
Ben Hobbs - 47 games still on the senior list after 3 years
Alastair Lord - 1 game on the senior list for 2 years at Norwood for SANFL
Garrett McDonagh - 0 games on the senior list for 1 year not at VFL, SANFL or WAFL
Patrick Voss - 0 games on the senior list for 2 years now at Freo as a rookie
We’ve drafted, coached and developed poorly. A lot of those players aren’t even good enough for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th best comp in the country. None of those SANFL, VFL or WAFL players would even be anywhere near top five on their teams let alone considered for the best 10 or 20 in their comp.
Talent gets you onto a footy list.
Your application and how you handle yourself gives you a chance to stay in the competition. If you’re not good enough for VFL, SANFL or WAFL, then no amount of coaching, development or talent will keep you in the competition.
If you are taken late in the draft, you have two years to show how committed you are to becoming a professional footballer. It doesn’t matter what team you end up on, you’ll be spat out pretty quickly. Dayle Garlett is a perfect example of such a talented player, got drafted to Hawthorn before their period of dominance and was around great leadership, elite training and great coaching, yet was spat out in a years time. We’ve been ‘patient’ with other talent like Jake Long, and Jackson Merrett. Both of which didn’t even get anywhere onto a VFL, SANFL or WAFL list.
We’ve been poor in too many areas to just paint it solely on ‘brad doesn’t seem to like these highly skilled guys that require a bit of time and effort’.
We are picking up players who are not willing to put in the effort for lower levels of competition let alone AFL.
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Oh behave. Munkara, Mosquito, Eades - all the correct call to be delisted -both foresight and hindsight have proven this.
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No it’s not just an indigenous issue, but I think the fact you can only pinpoint one indigenous player (tippa) in almost 20 years to have been drafted and play decent footy for us is a separate issue in and of itself.
How would we possibly know that, I’m sure there are hundreds of players over the years with talent that if given a proper go could have really been something at afl level, but they get churned outta the system and return to their remote communities having never really been given an opportunity to flourish.
I don’t have much issue with the guys being delisted going back a few years anyway, but a guy like munkara went from foster knight saying he’s the most talented player he has ever drafted, to delisted within a year. Both he and Davey showed goal scoring ability in their first year, but cut before they could even get some momentum in the afl life living in Melbourne.
How was Munkara ‘churned out of the system’? He was delisted, does that preclude him from playing state level football somewhere? It’s not like we banned him from pursuing his dreams.
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Why would a 19 year old kid from one of the remotest parts of the country, that no doubt would have struggled with homesickness and settling into city life amongst white people, wanna stick around playing ‘state footy’ in a place where he has no family or support network? Pretty niave to not recognise the significant struggles these aboriginal kids have in transitioning to city life and why their numbers in the afl are dwindling.
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Well I agree with all of the challenges you have mentioned there for Anthony and other aboriginal footballers.
I don’t agree it was the wrong decision to delist him. I think even drafting Munkara after every team decided not to shows we were willing to explore a pathway for him in the AFL. No other club decided to back him in before or after he was listed/delisted by Essendon.
I can accept that some supporters would have given him more time on the list- there is most likely information we aren’t privy to that the Club and Anthony considered also.
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19 year old kid ended up going back to his family in a remote part of the country in West Gippsland.
I have no doubt there are issues with aboriginal teenagers.
They have a lot of talent.
But you need more than that to make it in the AFL.
Those are the cold hard facts of it.
AFL footy isn’t for everyone.
Then I’d say don’t bother drafting him in the first place. Both mankura and jayden were meant to be a slow build.
Mankura wasn’t meant to play vfl till about half way through the year in his first year, but impressed and started playing earlier. I would say he had a reasonably good year.
Jayden was given a year not to play any games and recover from his knee injury and only got the one year, where to me he looked better than his brother.
Both were meant to be long term slow builds, but I’m sure brads influence meant the rug was pulled out from under them early on the long and slow build plan.
And blummers 32, last i saw mankura was playing in the n.t a few weeks ago.
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He played in the West Gippsland comp earlier in the year.
Odds are he’s doing both.
In the end, a large amount of rookie players and late drafted players don’t make it in the AFL. Of that a good amount don’t even make it to VFL, SANFL, WAFL players. They probably realise that it’s not worth it and better off to get a job elsewhere and play footy for fun.
Just like any other player drafted so late.
He had several years attending college and living in Adelaide and by all reports had enjoyed his time.
Just sad that he didn’t want to put in the time and effort to play senior footy. Hopefully it clicks for him one day
How does any of that explain Menzie getting an additional year?
Was I supposed to use it as an argument for Menzie?
He probably puts more effort into training and recovery than we see from the outside looking in.
But he’s just as likely to be spat back out at the end of next year.
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