How many problems can you realistically expect you hope to be solved at once??
Problem is our list management and selections through the Hird/saga era left us having to effectively rebuild 90% of an entire midfield starting last year, plus plan for Hooker/Hurley/TBC retirements coming up soon.
I think Disco’s done a very, very good job there, given the opportunities he’s had, with our midfield on the weekend driven by guys essentially blooded (if not recruited) post-Hird - Langford, Parish, McGrath, Shiel, Clarke.
Every indigenous player we’ve recruited in recent times has already come to Victoria via a boarding school pathway or similar. It seems we don’t trust our player welfare team to manage the challenges of facilitating a move interstate away from friends and family.
Hooker, Hurley, TBC and Zaharakis are the only core players that we’ll need to be replacing in the short(ish) term. I could see Zaharakis maintaining his current output for a bit longer than the others though, so it’s more about youngsters going past him imo.
The good thing about finding replacements for Hooker and Hurley is that decent key defenders are relatively easy to find throughout the draft and as mature agers and their development time doesn’t seem to be as long as compared to forwards and ruckmen. Finding and developing backman is also kind of our thing.
I agree, I think Dodoro has done brilliantly to fix the top end of our midfield whilst also fleshing out some depth at the same time.
Heppell
Merrett
Shiel
Smith
Zaharakis
Parish
McGrath
That’s 2 elite midfielders he’s recruited, 1 elite midfielder he plucked from the 2nd round, and 2 soon-to-be elite midfielders taken with the two of the three top 5 picks we’ve had.
with all of these kids showing midfield promise
Clarke
Guelfi
Langford
Mutch
Mynott
Snelling*
Ham
Ridley
Laverde
Begley
And this doesn’t include the guys already entrenched in the seniors on the HB and Forward flanks who could also contribute in the middle or become mids in the future.
The recruiting of Eades, Edwards, and the 2 Longs have somewhat tuned us away from Indigenous players it seems. We used to be very successful at it once upon a time.
Thankfully Walla and hopefully Mosquito will put us back on track.
But rewind to ~2015-2017 (and this argument is pure revisionism), we were picking one of the oldest 22s in the league. Midfield was Hepp, Jobe, BJ, Jobe, Stanton, Zerrett, Zaha, Myers, Hocking, Howlett, Colyer and Cooney.
(In roughly that order of prominence.)
Bolded are gone now.
Then Carlisle, Melks and Pig (3 of our better performers under 25) left.
We were performing ordinarily, we had no idea whether Lang or Lav would make it, let alone transition to midfield, and we didn’t have much in the way of early picks on the horizon.
Disco’s done an outstanding job just to cobble together a competitive list.
It’s a work in progress, but jeez we’re in a much better spot.
Jackets has built a list for contending.
Who are we gonna cut, Long? McNiece? Myers?
Myers is a pretty handy bloke to just cut.
Forget about your cutting six to eight guys of yore.
He’s put us exactly where we need to be, and all of this revisionist x instead of y is garbage.
Where we are in one and a half season’s time, that’s a different matter.
But I’m sure that whatever brief he’s given, he’ll get the players.
I’d be cutting Long, Dea, Baguley, Myers, Mutch, Z Clarke, McNeice and Houlahan. Possibly Hartley. Lavender already gone. Stewart lucky to stay. Some should’ve already gone.
