Also Ridley is ~192cm and still growing.
The whole point of this thread is that that will inevitably change our quality profile too, not just our age profile. By blooding more kids now and building for the future that drop will be smaller. We will go backwards 10-15% in quality but buy ourselves 3 or so years in terms of average age. Thatās favourable as you can make that up easily and itās not drastic. Falling off the cliff and just becoming a bunch of young kids who now have no idea but got belted in a second semi 2/3 years ago doesnāt help anyone
Would love Setterfield! Would easily give up our 1st rounder and Ricky Dyson for him. Would solve our Jobe-retirement and Myers-always injured problems big time.
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I really donāt buy this āthe kids arenāt getting gamesā narrative because only one of our draftees has played in the first two rounds of their AFL career.
Especially with Laverde injured, Francis not quite physically ready and Hocking, Howlett, Jerrett, Bird, Brown and Dea all playing VFL, while giving preference to Zerrett, Parish, Hartley, McGrath, Tippa, Ambrose, Gleeson and Fantasia.
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Fact is 3 guys in their first 3 years have played - and one of them (Tippa) is, what, 23?
I just canāt see how weāre jizzing over the new mosquito fleet on one hand, we can all clearly see that thatās a huge improvement over years gone by, and not figure out that picking quick, legit forwards over a hotch-potch of nugget midfielders and ruckmen in that forward line is a key part of that improvement.
Find some forward prospects. And play them there.
Iām not totally against Howlett, but midfield only. if heās our next best small forward, weāre in a tragic state.
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Goodness youāre being hyperbolic in this thread.
In form depth player comes in as depth for injured player.
Itās not like weāre playing Chappy and Cooney while Orazio runs around in the VFL.
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Last year I posted, and got quite a bit of crap for it, my doubts re the wisdom of long contracts for all of the returning boys. Yes, they all needed to be taken care of, and of course Hurley and Hooker needed to be locked in. But the mid range players you speak of mostly got 2-3 years, hamstringing our ability to refresh the list.
Looking at what has happened in our two games - is there room for Hocking? J Merrett? Bird? Brown a great stop gap - without a bunch of injuries? which is of course entirely possible
Laverde promises, and jury is out on Francis tho hopes high. Off topic - Francis must be freaking out a bit, seeing Parrish make himself in best 22 and he is still trying to get fit.
I think given where the club has come from the only thing to do is win as many games as we can, put our best team out every week - the 10 returnees did not come back to sit in twos while we blood young players and club stays near bottom, Both games so far we have dropped off for a 1/4, transition to Plan B not smooth, but will improve.
I reckon let them off the leash and do the best they can. Come round 15 and we are languishing, or keys getting tired, then bring in younger guys
Age, Draft and Recruitment Profile of Our Current List
I have edited the above linked post to better reflect where we are with our current list.
Interestingly we have only 13 players left on our list who were at the club for the 2012 season. That shouldnāt come as too much of a shock with only Zaka, Bags and Jerrett missing out on the bans and the rest being the returning 10.
What is more key is that only about 5 to 7 of those players are likely to play a role in the side beyond the next year or two, they being Heppell, Hurley, Hooker, Colyer, Zaka and maybe Myers and Bellchambers (with fitness being the major limiting factor for these 2 historically).
So, in the next year or two, we are looking at losing Jobe, Stants, Hocking, Howlett and Baguley from our pre 2013 list and also from our mature recruits we will likely be looking at losing Goddard, Kelly and depending on his fitness Leuey.
This is very close to a complete list rebuild in a timeframe that it took to establish GWS and a year less that GCS, and this with not only none of their draft concessions, but indeed sanctions and also in an unfavourable draft and trading environment in general, given the concessions that have favoured GWS and GCS. Other than the Bulldogs, the successful sides have relied on a war chest of pre GC and GWS players and being destination clubs who also had players who could be traded for picks, players etc.
For Dodoro and co to have formed an apparently competitive side and conjured up an effective forward line is little short of a miracle.
Now should we be pushing hard to develop young players at all costs? Or should we be playing our best side and only favour youth if they are approaching the quality of the senior players?
Woosha has stated that the latter is his current policy and I am in strong agreement.
Also it shouldnāt be overlooked that sides which have endured the hardship of what they believe to be unjust penalties have tended to perform beyond expectation. Admittedly the sides I refer to are NRL teams, namely Melbourne Storm and Cronulla, but it canāt be denied that our last years side stayed buoyant with the philosophy that they wanted to become the best they could be to inspire the returning players that they had a side worth coming back to. We also know that the returning players have returned full of energy to return to the AFL and are needing to compete hard for selection.
This competitive environment should be maintained as the driver for improvement. At the same time I believe that the older and younger players should be managed so that the best of them are rotated in and out of the side in such a way that optimises their fitness and freshness. We normally fall away at the end of the year trying to squeeze the maximum performance out of our best 22 and still end up playing 35 plus players for the year. Last year Woosha learnt how to manage older and young underdone players, managing to finish the year stronger than they started.
I believe it makes maximum sense to start off the year emphasising experienced players to get wins on the board and then manage the older players (and McGrath) with niggles and soreness before they get too worn down. This is possible with what I believe to be a side with more depth than at any other time in post millennial memory.
I believe we can stay close enough to our best side while rotating into the side fresh players (fitness and form permitting) who are reasonable matches for outgoing players from the likes of: Stewart, Dea, Hocking, Brown, Green, Leuey, TBC, Francis, Bird, Laverde (when fit), Myers (when fit), McKenna, Merrett, McNeice, Long and/or any other player whose fitness and form warrants it.
Provided we donāt run out of ruckmen I think we have really good depth this year which should be utilised to keep our side as fresh and energised as possible. While we do have a lot of pacey players, most of these are being played in the firsts, so we may need to sacrifice some pace when fresh players are brought into the side, as has already happened with Howlett, but this only emphasises the need to do our best to keep those players fresh and on the park when they are most needed against the top sides.
When you look at the profile of players being recruited, it is clear that the midfield veterans replacements are being sort out, and with our free agency and trade performance in the last 2 years has been on an upward trend, Iām sure this avenue will be explored. If that trend extends to picking up Nat Fyfe and we get further significant development from the players we have and maybe a durable ruckman who has the ability to play forward, then I donāt see too many gaps in our list.
As long as we donāt hold on to too many borderline players (which we havenāt been of recent times) and recruit with the increasing acumen that Dodoro and co have shown since the post Sheedy era, I believe we will thrive.
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Wasnāt Myers the only one with a dubiously long contract? 3 years?
Giving Myers a 3 year contract was plain ludicrous
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I think the club has said we owe it to this group to go as hard as possible at a flag while they are still playing. I agree with that policy. I look at our squad and think, why couldnāt we? Defense is solid, better than that if Hurley can hit AA form again. Midfield is strong and getting stronger with the continued improvement of Parish and Merrett. Forward line looks like it will be a major strength with Hookers clunking ability, Joeās year on year increased output and Fantasia looking like the most natural forward we have had in a decade. We have a tonne of depth to cover injuries with guys like Howlett and Hocking battling to get a game, and talent young players like Francis and Begley waiting for their chance. We have a great draw and a hungry supporter base that will show up in vast numbers all season hopefully spurring them onto an extra win or two. I donāt subscribe to their being many of any standout teams in the league at the moment. I think thereās no reason why with a bit of luck we couldnāt make top 4. And from there who knows?
As far as the list stands, I think just natural attrition will take care of itself. We will lose probably 2 of our older greats per year - probably Kelly, Hocking this year answer Watson and Goddard the year after. But I think we have drafted well and got games into a good bunch of kids and will be able to replace them. I think nothing drastic trade wise, slowly fade out the older and fringes players (Brown, J Merrett) and continue to head to the draft.
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Hereās another hyperbolic opinion, Cooney & Chapman were more creative up forward, even in their last years, than Ben Howlett will ever be.
Come at me.
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Natural attrition sees Watson, Stanton et al replaced probably by guys like Jerrett & Hocking, for a few years until those guys go anyway. I donāt see that as a great succession plan, that guys who canāt get games now in what is, IMO, a middling side, fall into getting games by default.
I want to see the club go all-in on the Heppell, Joe, Zerrett generations. As you say - thatās where our best talent is. By far.
To win a flag a team needs a balance. The core will always be the players in the 22-29 age range, and weāve got some pretty good ones there at the moment. And there will always be an older player or two or three or four, whoāll be proven champions and still delivering. We have a few of those as well, and they look as though they have another year or two in them before they fall off the twig. And then thereās the babies in their first two or three years ā and weāre not looking too bad there either.
I think the list is pretty well balanced right now. We donāt have gaping holes in the middle that need to be filled. Of course we have to keep looking for a top class ruckman, and of course we should always be on the lookout for a potential top KPP. But thatās always the case.
We donāt need to rebuild. We need to keep the list turning over and keep it balanced.
I donāt know whether our list is of premiership quality yet, but of the 22 who went out on the ground last week, there werenāt many who made me wish someone else was there.
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Except that the āfactā is wrong. Langford, McGrath, Parish, Walla and arguably Hartley. Extend your criteria to four years and the number goes from 5 to 8 (Zerrett, Fantasia, Ambrose).
The reason no kid came in for Green is simply form. Eades is gone, Laverde is injured, while Long, Begley and Redman arenāt showing enough. There is no point playing a kid in the seniors if theyāre just spectators for the match. If some of those guys improve over the course of the season theyāll likely get games given Wooshaās apparent approach to selection.
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I donāt know why Jerrett keeps being brought up. Every man and his dog who supports Essendon expects him to go at the end of the season.
Howlett and Birdās contracts also expire at season end. For that matter, so are Bagās, Hockingās, Morganās, Brownās, Kellyās, Stantonās and Watsonās contracts. Does anyone really expect them all to be extended?
I reckon Stants is a good chance to go around again. He could keep going at this level until heās 35, I very highly doubt he will drop off at all. Jobe I reckon might, but who knows, maybe he saw this as his swansong? If heās playing well enough and this squad is a chance to contend in 2018 then another year is not out of the question. Of that group the ones under most pressure are Bird, Brown and Morgan. The fears on Bags were greatly exaggerated. Kelly might decide to call time on his career. End of the day we have probably extended his career by 35-40 games, unless he sees another flag chance in 2018, he might be happy with his 3 at the Cats and retiring on his terms playing decent footy.
Howlett had a 5 goal game for the dons against the tigers, i dont think cooney/chappy did at efc.
Name a young small forward you would have played in front of Howlett?
Long/redman? Were they ready?
Bird?
Francis?
Hockjng?
Mutch?
Soldier in/out replacement. Tippa and fanta were very good without green.
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And give him his 300th career game (hopefully barring injury). Something the cats couldnāt give him. Iād say this will be pops last season.
I think the club have high hopes that Langford will be the āWatson replacementā. Heās looked like it in the VFL but not the AFL so far so weāll see.
I think I even mentioned Hocking and Jerrett as going this year? Anyway I think that Kobe Mutch will turn into Stantons replacement. High volume accumulater in the midfield and wing.
Also a fair bit of drafting to happen before all of our 29+ year old guns have left the building.
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