100% believe we have quality/gun players on the list.
Saad, Redman and Pigeon in the back half and lots of potential in Zerk and
Francis.Hurley and Hooker used to be stars but IMO they are basically done, maybe a year or two left and the end is coming at a rate of knots.
Quality in the middle with Hepp, Zerrett, Shiel and Parish and I agree merrett is not the
We clearly have nobody even remotely close to Martin and thats what a real superstar looks like, routinely absolutely destroying the opposition.
I have thought for the better part of a decade now that dodoro and his team really have no idea how to identify elite mids and they are basically ignorant to the importance of midfielders who bring others into the game. Or maybe they know it’s an issue and just can’t do anything about it after 15 years of trying. Either way I don’t see anything changing in the middle if we are relying on jackets or Forster-knight to get it done.
Up forward we’ve got quality with Tippa, Raz (when fit) and Stringer and hopefully JD gets back there.
Agree 1,000,000% there is no superstar(s) on the list (maybe joe if absolutely everything goes right from here…)
Richmond have 4 absolute stars and then they have a raft of quality/gun players, and then their bottom 6 work way harder for way longer than ours.
I think we’ve got a fair number of ‘quality’ players on the list, but no genuine superstars and not enough hardworking, run all day types with the aggression and the ultra competitive mindset that some of those richmond players have.
I think the biggest “improvement” in Richmond is their ability to keep their list virtually injury free in 2017 and the back half of this year - that’s their biggest improvement.
In 2017, they literally didn’t get an injury.
This year, they got hit hard early and were being well beaten on a regular basis as they had to dive deeper into their list to a point I think they had dropped out of the Top 8 at one point …only for all the injuries to stop, got all their injured players back bar Rance, and ended up winning both the VFL and AFL premierships off the back of 42 AFL listed players playing across both games. That’s an incredibly healthy list for the end of the season. That’s the secret I want to know; how they keep having such a great run for injury.
For all their vaunted game plan - and it’s key is to pressure the opposition to kick poorly/blindly forward and winning the turnover by always having at least one back - it doesn’t work if you don’t have the cattle. No game plan does.
They also struck gold with the 2014 Rookie draft which is their best ever recruiting given the following players they took that draft played in today’s premiership:
Pick 11 - Jayden Short
Pick 29 - Jason Castagna
Pick 46 - Kane Lambert (now a dual premiership player)
Pick 68 - Ivan Soldo.
(Note: the only one of their Rookie selections that year didn’t make it was Matthew Arnott, taken at Pick 61).
Has a team, in the modern era, ever had 4 premiership players taken from the one Rookie draft? I don’t think so, but happy to be corrected.
Those Rookie selections are as much luck as astute recruiting (e.g. Connor Menadue was taken pick 33 and clearly is not going to make it. Corey Ellis was taken at pick 12 and didn’t make it, being shipped off to Gold Coast last year). Except for one thing. All four of those 2014, premiership playing, rookie selections have solid builds and don’t mind a scrap regardless of their respective heights.
That is 12min of my life I will never get back. Talking about Hardwick at Richmond was really really odd and congratulating them on their success was even weirder on an essendon night
He is just such a dull speaker, no real emotion. Just reading off a bit of paper
Roos said despite some criticism of the Essendon handover he could only see positives.
Rutten is expected to put in place a more modern game plan, focusing on a forward half territory game where the attacking unit puts on pressure to lock the ball inside 50.
“There isn’t really any negative to it,” Roos said.
“It’s all about clarity in the pre-season, making sure the roles are really clear. It’s a very important conversation to have. Then you don’t deviate from the roles. You don’t want one coach overstepping or over ruling on certain things but if you have clarity you just don’t deviate from those roles.
“John personality wise is ready. He said, ‘That’s what I want to do for the betterment of the club’.
“There is no ego involved, he is happy to coach another season and there are a fair few similarities involved to what I did and it worked really well.”
I like his style - when he sat down in front of Jobe and the leadership group when he started he was direct without being ranty, clear in his intentions and highly motivated to help pull us out of a deep mire. There was no fluff and he had me sold from there.
In hindsight I think history will paint him as the ideal man to bring the club back together, get some stability and just become a footy club again. He was never going to be the one getting us in to the promised land but he dropped us off at down the road and hopefully a truck pulls up and takes us the rest of the way.
He’s been around and seen it all, and now he’s seen off the saga ■■■■■. And got a couple of final births with at times some exhilarating footy.
Worsfold interview on Sen today very meaty stuff. The most Frank interviews I ever heard from him. Platitude free.
Scoop:. Line coach arrangements Harvey midfield stoppage coach. Truck defence, Cara forwards. Dan Jordan to be promoted. Worth a listen.
Rutten is senior assistant and essentially going to be transitioning to senior coach in season. No way does Harvey shift to midfield
Dan Jordan has already been promoted to fwd line coach.
Came out of left field for me. Maybe he will coach a harder edge to our mids. That alone would be a good thing. Maybe Kelly will provide some input as well, but the role of Jordan will be interesting.
Woosha’s SEN interview raised more concerns than comfort for me tbh
His comments on players going to him for an answer and he may direct them to Truck instead… and vica versa is not ideal
Happy to keep Joe D as leader in 2020 is a bit desperate and shows a club with little spine if It does happen
Process on leadership group really just on coaches in the end and they take players scores in some consideration. Why not trust players more?
Woosha frustrated Skipworth left so late which has forced us to promote a VFL coach in November as players start
Was blindsided with McKenna playing Gaelic Footy and was disappointed when he found out. Noting a contracted player has to inform club and reduce risks of injury