@jonovdp is talking about age and experience (see the article). In reality there isn’t much difference between a most teams
There are a bunch with an average age between 25 and 26 and average games between 80 and 95
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No, it isn’t. Unfortunately, you’ve fallen into the trap that a lot of people who mix up cause and effect do.
We’re not measuring success here. If we were doing that, we’d just use ladder position like those Dodoro bashers who are lazy/silly do. The issue with success is that it only comes if a large number of factors go right. Screwing up any of the injury management, the player development, the game plan/coaching, the fitness, the recruiting, the supplements etc. can all wreck any chance of success.
We’re not trying to measure whether or not EFC had success. We’re trying to measure whether our drafting was a success. Because if it was a success but other parts were a shitshow, we won’t have success regradless of how good the recruiting is. So, we need metrics which are independent (to the degree possible) from team success, and as much as possible from those other drivers (e.g. injury management & fitness clearly impacts number of AAs as if you’re not fit you can’t get on the park and impress the judges).
Number of players drafted that get AAs measures this better than total number of AAs, as it shows the recruiter got someone beyond a particular threshold of talent.
I think when you look at the drafting of the elite players versus the regulars, then its distorting to include them in the general AA data.
No, but you are including them in analysis which they will distort by their nature.
I’ve no issue with investigating this part. But I suspect you’ll find the bulk of players who meet the superstar criteria are going to be a combination of luck and high picks. There will be exceptions - clearly Dangerfield is one where Adelaide rated him highly and everyone could get him. I absolutely think Fyfe was luck, as if Fremantle were really certain of how good he is there is no way they wait until the twenties to pick him. They trade up during the trade period.
So I’m fine with doing the analysis, but I suspect you’ll find its a big chunk of luck. For example, has Geelong drafted a single superstar since 2006? But they still won a premiership. Did WCE have any superstars they’d drafted in their premiership side? I’d have said their best player was Kennedy and maybe Yeo, both of whom they traded for. And Yeo isn’t at the level of those being discussed.
But including it in the AA analysis generally is, IMO, wrong. Because they are nothing like the guys who make up 75% of the AA team.
Ah, not it isn’t disengenuous and you’re doing it again. You’re calling two of the best drafts of the last 25 years “what a very good year of drafting looks like”. You’re saying those are the benchmark for a good year of drafting, when all but a handful of drafts across the last 25 years will fall short of that standard.
Now you’ve completely moved the basis. You’ve gone from what a single draft is like, to what a number of drafts are like.
And funnily enough, somehow you rate some drafts where when Essendon did pretty well as really good for one team, but not for us. E.g.
Collingwood did really well when they had pick #2 and #5 in 2005, which were both before our single pick #7 (Ryder). Which, if not for priority picks maybe we take Pendlebury (I’ve no idea what our preference would have been if we’d had pick #4). Collingwood then blew picks #21 and #23 while we got Dempsey with #19. 2008 Collingwood got Sidebottom and Beams, which was great. We got Zaharakis and Hurley, which was pretty damn good as well.
But somehow our drafts in those two years were so much worse than Collingwood’s?
Hawthorn had two top-6 priority picks in 2004-2005, as well as another of the highest rated drafts.
You don’t seem to consider draft strength or the picks available when rating Dodoro. That is a flaw in your analysis. If we’d had an early priority pick in 2006 and Gumby stays injured, maybe a draft of Gumby, Selwood/Boak, Houli and Davey is considered one of the best ever.
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Correct, because that’s evaluating your recruiter, which Dodoro is not. If you want assess our recruiting it’s evaluating RFK and before that Keane and even all the way back to Judkins.
Dodorro is head of our list management, which yes one component is recruiting but other criteria like manipulating our draft position on the rating of the strength of our picks is another key role. We have continually underperformed in this area but you write it off as bad luck.
You continually keep down rating Dodorros role, trying to argue he’s the recruiter(he’s not) that he’s not responsible for list strategy(he is), that strategy is the c suite(he’s reported into both our current and prior CEO so he is c suite), that people of higher pay grade should be held accountable(there isn’t anyone other than the ceo above him).
Man I wish I was Adrian and my performance expectations are the same as my junior staff and anything difficult shunted to the ceo or the board with nothing inbetween, what a cruisy job.
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Dodorro was head recruiter after Judkins. Even later the recruiting team reported to him and the clear impression is he made the draft decisions.
Others brought up drafting performance to have a go at him. I completely agree that what I’m discussing is rating EFC’s drafting performance.
So over 20 years ago. I think we can all agree it’s time to stop talking about Harvey and Davies. What about the last 15 years.
He’s been promoted or had a scope increase at least 3 times since he was just a recruiter, shouldn’t our expectations grown in line with his increased importance.
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It really depends on when he stopped making the final call. Doesn’t he still have final say? Clearly after input/preferences from coaches etc.
Eg there was that whole discussion above about Merret vs Lobb. Dodorro was promoted before that.
I think you’re significantly underestimating how much having good players can paper over the cracks.
Look to the NBA, which is the extreme - Cleveland were a joke before they drafted LeBron, and off field they remained a joke for most of his time there. But he takes them to multiple finals
Looking to the AFL, it seems Bulldogs have had a pretty bad party culture in recent years, and some of Bevo’s coaching choices have been bizarre. Yet they made a GF two years ago, essentially off the back off an all time midfield group
GWS have also been pretty dysfunctional. They have made some poor list management calls, and I don’t think Cameron was a good coach. Yet off the back of having overly generous draft concessions, they had a great list for years and repeatedly made prelims.
We haven’t had anywhere near the success of those clubs. So I don’t understand how you can argue that we’ve actually had this great list the last 20 years, but it’s actually been the fault of the senior coach, or some other factor that has prevented us from success - or even just winning a final
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Dodoro was made GM List and Recruiting Dec 2017 according to his LinkedIn
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NBA is pretty pointless for a comparison to AFL due to the NBA being driven by individuals over team. Even less so when the individual is one of the greatest of all time.
GWS vs GCS can also be used as an example of player quality vs the rest.Bith had access to a whole bunch of player quality, but one completely butchered the rest, whereas one only partly butchered the rest.
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And you emphasise my point.
The median ‘age’ and ‘games played’ statistic that keeps being thrown around as a Magnificent excuse for poor performance, is completely useless for analysing Lists.
It doesn’t address the age gaps, it doesn’t take into account the quality of young players on the list, it doesn’t account for 30 year olds who have spent 24 months on the injury list, and it doesn’t account for how many of your best 22 players are in the prime of their careers.
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Yes, like I said NBA is the extreme. But just using it to point out how bad management can be overcome by simply having good players
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We need to bring in 4-5 25-26 year olds, to balance out our list more.
We must get rid of plodders and cloggers.
How many “good players” do you need in AFL to overcome bad management? Like 5? 10? 15?
Whatever the difference between the dogs 2016 number of good players and then what they have now?
You need “good players”. They need to be for, and have enough experience to be able to deal with critical moments. You need a good gameplan, and good Matchday coaching. You need tactical planning. And inspirational leadership.
And if all of those come together you need a sht load of luck to go from top 4 competitive to winning a flag.
List build and getting quality players is definitely one key component. But you need everything to come together.
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My point was more that I don’t think there’s any evidence GWS of WB have gotten most of the other off field stuff right, yet they have made and won many finals. I’d say most would think those teams have underperformed over the past 6 years.
We just simply have performed so poorly for 20 years that I don’t think you can say that we would have had success, but it’s simply the off field stuff that was the issue. I could get that if we won a few finals but were beaten up by better teams.
But we haven’t finished above 7th since 2002. We’ve only played finals 5 times our last finals win in 2004
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Understand. Also worth noting that for all off field issues that others have had, no one else has gone close to ours.
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Although from 2010 - 2017 his title was “List Manager”. Probably just a wave of title wankification in 2017.
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Yeah, I don’t think it really tells you much. The youngest and most inexperienced teams aren’t premiership contenders. That’s about it.
And the gaps are actually pretty small. If Shiel played seven or eight more games in front of Tsatas and Davey, say, our average games goes up to equal with gws and our average age goes up equal to port. It’s hard to imagine the “we’re young” arguments disappear just because Shiel played 20 games instead of 12.
The most important thing, is that your best 22 (and 5-6 fringe players) are in the sweet spot between 23-28 years old and have all played 100-200 games…… and those players are actually good quality players who are durable and perform as a team.
The rest of the noise useless.
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Maybe. Although maybe not? You’d expect List manager would be reporting in to someone in football ops. GM whatever perhaps at a higher level. Maybe title wankification for sure, but given how big we would have been on clarification or reporting lines, accountabilities and responsibilities during that time, you’d think that there was at least some chance that the role changed and the way the whole recruiting structure was laid out changed.
FWIW RFK went from “Recruiting officer” to “National Recruiting Manager” in Aug 2018 according to LinkedIn.
No idea if that was a bit of “Dodoro now has new structure. Needs to recruit new roles into that structure” or more title wankification. But it does appear RFK got a promotion there.
Now that Jones and Bryan have signed I think only Menzie (should sign soon), Mass (holding out) and Zerk ( trade likely) have contracts in front of them. The rest (Baldwin, Voss, Hunter and Snelling)will have to wait post trade period it seems.
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