Half-way through the 2013 Brownlow count Jobe and Stants were tied for the lead…
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We still lacked 1 or 2 a graders back then
NO, our midfield was not strong in 2012/13. We had 1 superstar extractor at the peak of his powers who carried the load, Stants was close to if not the best gut runner around & a support cast who importantly had enough mature bodies to compete - we were still desperately short of outside run (both ways) & more classy users of the ball & just like now its the rotations left us vulnerable with a lack of depth. The footskills of that 2012/13 midfield were average at best. I get that its been that long since we’ve had a strong midfield that its hard for some to know what that looks like but 2012/13 was not it. We were still 15th for clearances & 9th for inside 50 in 2012 & slightly better to 12th & 7th in 2013. We did not have the depth of talent in the midfield to seriously challenge in spite of having possibly the best list of talls in the league.
Now let me ask this - WHERE the absolute fark have I said that the saga isn’t impacting 2017? Of course it is, I said it is & will say it is again. What I said is that the saga isn’t the only reason why we don’t have the prime aged top levels mids we need to sustain success. I said the saga is not the only reason why we are out of the 8. The saga doesn’t change the fact that our drafting, trading & list management before the saga was not good enough. I also don’t think the saga is the only reason why Stanton has been given no midfield time this year & is in the VFL or the only reason why Jobe is struggling or the reason why Myers, Hocking & Howlett are not that good. Maybe its the reason why Bird is being ignored -I’m not sure.
I back the Cooney pick. At the time we got him, we didn’t know how the AFL would rule in regards to suspending the players. We got a veteran into the club at a time when our list had a lot of uncertainty. He’s also a ripper bloke and no doubt had a good influence around the club.
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We have a pick 5, 20 year old mid and a pick 1, 19 year old mid. Parish and McGrath might end up pretty damn close to Martin and Kelly.
Add those two blokes to Merret/Heppel and we might have 4 genuine midfield guns in 2-3 years time.
Would I take Kelly or Martin on top absolutely. But dodorro might have assembled a midfield with 4 midfielders who are AA quality. Its just not ready this season.
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You are spot on that our 2012 midfield was flawed. My point is that this was known and planned for. The tall timber had been recruited and developed to the point that we had the best spine in the league. 2013/2014 was the time to aggressively target midfielders through the draft/trading/free agency. Mids are more plentiful and easier to find than talls.
If we had targeted mids earlier as you suggest, we wouldn’t have had the key position players that were set to be so damaging.
Dodoro’s stated before that he uses the Sheedy strategy of start with the spine then fill in the midfield.
What I’m saying is that Myers, Melksham, Kav, Colyer, Jetta, Jerret etc not being what we hopped wasn’t part of the plan. Better drafting pre saga would have meant we wouldn’t have had to place our hopes on the 2013/14 draft and trade periods. Again I place a large responsibility for the list having those holes on Dodoro. He may have pulled off something that made us a contender had the saga not happened but again history says he had a lot of chances before the saga and we still had a lot of years with a bottom 8 list. We will never possibly know what might have been which is why I prefer to focus on what we do know and that’s the problems we had and more importantly what they are now.
I believe our biggest issue Is mid (prime) age midfielders and flankers (who I maintain should be mid capable players) I think we either must land 1-2 this year or we may as well trade out Hurley Hooker Zaka Myers and aim to be competitive in another 3-5 years when Zerret, Parish, McGrath are prime aged with JD still a force and hopefully Francis Ridley, Langford etc becoming more than we even dreamed. I hope Dodoro can pull off a big off-season, I just don’t have the confidence in him
He will get props from me when he is able to orchestrate a trade for a top midfielder
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Well, a few quickies aside to start. We’ve had a number of bunfights over Dodoro drafting mids, especially with high picks, so I think its fair to say that is. On the saga, saying it’s not the only reason we’re missing finals, when we’re literally one game out, seemed to me to be saying it has no effect. I find it hard to believe last year in particular didn’t cost us at least one game this year.
Onto the meat
I think the assertion around the midfield circa 2012/13 is rubbish. For the first 2/3rds of both seasons (roughly), our team beat most comers. That was off our defence and midfield. It certainly wasn’t our forward line, which was terrible. In the first half of both seasons we were near the top of the league for I50’s, but near the bottom for I50 efficiency. In 2013 we had a core of Watson, Stanton and Goddard, support from a developing Heppell, Winders, Zaharakis, and solid contributors such as Hocking and Myers. It was far more of a contested midfield than now, but those were the times. Sydney had won the 2012 Grand Final. Yet commentators early in one year (can’t remember which) were praising us for our ball movement and pin-point disposal.
Both years the performance fell away, but that surely has to be blamed on the coaches, fitness staff and administration (saga).
There is always an element of luck to drafting as well. We’ve had a number of top 20 picks on smalls that haven’t really come on. Myers, Jetta, Hislop, Dempsey, Kavanagh, and Melksham (hasn’t really stepped past journeyman) are who I’m thinking of. None of them were reaches, all were positively viewed pre-draft. Those guys drafted from 2005 to 2010 would be big elements now of the side now. Obviously, how much of the fact they didn’t come on is Dodoro’s fault, the development coaches or the fitness staff (Myers & Dempsey’s injury histories) is open to interpretation. I blame the later more than the former.
I don’t disagree our midfield is currently one of the weakest. It is a combination of the saga draining picks, players leaving for unders, several years of top-ups, and designing the list to peak around 2014/15. But there has been a focus here. Our 2014 drafting spent two top 20 picks on guys expected to play midfield, we picked up Parish in 2015, and went heavy on potential mids in 2016. We won’t know the success for several years yet. But the list was designed to peak around 2014/15, so this is hardly an unexpected occurrence. More 2013/14 picks would surely have helped (whether kept or traded).
On the 20 years front, some care needs to be taken to be fair. Dodoro was part-time for the first part of those decades, with Sheedy over-ruling repeatedly. No money spent on facilities or development coaches. Many of the picks we had were late due to playing finals, and when reviewed on an individual basis weren’t poor picks.
For a team which has not been near winning a Grand Final for a long time, the recruiting team haven’t had a plethora of picks. From 2000 to 2014 (I’m ignoring 2015/16 as their picks aren’t expected to impact the team hugely yet) Dodoro has had only 3 top 5 picks, 6 top 10 picks and 10 more top 20 picks. That’s 19 top 20 picks over a 14 year period where we’ve mostly not been a contender. Only 3 bites of the cherry at the elite top 5 pick talent (and Gumby was one of those). For all our whining, in those 14 years we only missed finals five times (if 2013 is included). We had that stupid top-up policy which I blame on Sheedy (maybe I’m kind giving Dodoro a pass, who knows?) up until 2016. So we spent list spots on guys like Mal Michael, Haynes, Alvey, Zantuck, Alan, Murphy, Camporeale, Hefffernen (mark 2), Cole. Some of those were clearly Sheedy/B. Knight’s faults, how many is open to interpretation.
So I would argue Dodoro has had considerable head winds during that period.
On the trading front, well I’ve separately argued I think Dodoro has been very poor at identifying and poaching players. So no arguments on that front. On the Big Fish front, I think it’s a phurphy that they change teams often, and that you’re in with a chance. Getting Goddard probably is about as good as most teams outside the top 4.
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I think the name of this thread should be changed to “some props to AD”
Quite simply he has not done well enough. Our ladder results say it all and can’t be argued against.
We need a change otherwise we will get more of the same. Last year’s draft besides McGrath could be potentially catastrophic. In the last couple of years we had the chance to bring in Curnow, Witherden etc.
Look at Brisbane their list is getting better and better, Geelong potentially getting Hopper and Gary JNR, Hawthorn rebuilding on the spot, Melbourne a destination club, St Kilda recently getting everyone Bruce, Steel, Membrey.
Dodoro’s misses have been numerous since 2000. He has lived breathed on the 2000 success for so long. We need a new recruiting manager.
Did Dodorro have anything to do with this?
2000 was built off the 1994 offseason. Lloyd, Lucas, Caracalla, Moorcroft and Blumfield. ■■■■■■■ killed it!
Firstly, again I don’t know how many times I can say it but I have not said the saga has had no impact & you interpreting it that way is another example of your poor judgement & comprehension.
Now you are free to believe the fantasies your create for yourself but our 2012 midfield in particular was not strong. To even mention Winders (a developing Winders no less) should give you some small insight into how far off the mark you are (he played 2 games in 2012 & mainly forward in 2013) & saying guys like Myers were solid with sub 18 disposals per game is silly. Again we had Watson, a star & best clearance player in the game. After him it fell away massively. I’ve been a Stanton defender here as I’ve long maintained he was our only mid who ran hard enough even though I thought he was more 1 way but even still there’s simply no way you can say his disposal wasn’t average. He simply was not an elite mid. If you honestly tell yourself that midfield could match it with the best teams, particularly under finals pressure then I have to believe you’re deluded. Do you even consider the possibility that we fell away in the second half even before Dank came to the club & under different coaches because we didn’t have midfield depth? Do you even consider that relying on the same mids week after week might take a toll? Look at the midfields of Hawthorn, Sydney, Collingwood, Freo, WC, Crows etc who were the top teams at the time can you seriously tell me you think we had their level of midfield talent?
Now as I said earlier in terms of demographics (age & experience) that 2012/13 list had a decent core & was physical but it lacked top end talent. It was better than we’d had for a number of years & was certainly stronger in 2013 than 2012 but it still needed work. I said to you then & I still believe it now we were 2 top mids away from having a midfield that could challenge. We had a star like Mitchel, Fyfe, or Pendelbury if you like but who was our Hodge, Burgoyne, Lewis, who could match it with Barlow, Mundy not to mention the regular feasting Swan gave us along with Sidebottom & Beams - thats what real strong midfields talent looked like. Geelong had Jnr, Bartel, Corey Kelly, Selwood, Ling yet you throw up names like Myers & Hocking like they have merit - they don’t. Our midfield had a lot of ordinary players - Lonergan played 14 games in 2012, Dyson played 12. Again guys like that were physical, they were mature enough to compete but lacked polish & the skills to make our midfield strong.
Now of course, as we’ve discussed before, facilities, coaching, fitness etc have an effect on the outcome of players but I just can’t cop that Dodoro was giving us top talent & we were turning it into shyte. Jetta, Hislop,Kavanagh, Melksham were all given opportunities (FFS Melksham was carried for months) without any real injury excuse & I think its completely baseless to suggest it was the coaches or fitness staff’s fault they weren’t better. Dempsey had early setbacks but had a pretty good run from 2009 onwards averaging over 15 games per year & played some good football. Myers has had injury worries sure, but what we’ve seen of him is enough to know he was never going to be the top mid we’d hoped. Injuries I don’t think made him poor overhead or slow with his hands.
As for our midfield now we agree at least that it has weaknesses. I agree the saga took away Melksham which I don’t think is much of a loss but he’s currently playing better than Myers & is still in front of Redman but time will have to tell. Now in terms of draft picks we have no way of knowing who we would have picked but if we assume the saga never happened then we have to assume we don’t lose players & then don’t get Zerrett (with that pick anyway). We may have drafted Jones, we may have drafted McCarthy or pulled the trigger earlier on Zerrett. Either way I think its fair to say we survived the 2013 better than we could have hoped for. So the way I look at it the 2013 was a good draft year even if you don’t factor in the saga. Getting 3 best 22 players, 2 of which look on track to be possible AA level players is outstanding & better than just about every other draft we’ve had. So again, the saga took away draft picks but we countered with the best drafting we’ve done. I’m not buying the idea that Dodoro was planning on only targeting mids in 2013 before the saga hit because draft day 2013 we still had the same midfield group before the saga broke. Why then did he go to the draft having phoned Lobb to say we would draft him? We still had Paddy at that stage, Carlisle hadn’t cracked it yet & the only player we’d lost from the saga was Crameri? If the plan was to draft mids when we had pick 13 ish, why did it change to wanting to draft a tall when we had pick 26 - that part doesn’t gel.
As for the idea that we somehow haven’t had enough draft picks - are you kidding me? Its actually 20 top 20 picks (which is more than a lot of teams) & we missed the finals 6 times - 05,06,07,08,10 & 12 plus of course scraped into the finals with less than 12 wins twice & were humiliated in the finals. You may want to consider them successes, I have a higher standard. So which teams are you comparing our drafting to that you think we haven’t had as much opportunity as? You can’t be comparing to teams like Geelong, Hawthorn, Adelaide or even Collingwood because we’ve had more top 20 draft picks than those clubs who have been at the top & or won flags. If you believe we needed more picks then again this has to fall back on Dodoro as he’s done bugger all to improve our position through trades.
I know we’ve discussed before about the top up but its probably relevant again now as the focus of deflection will shift from top ups to the saga but the basis is still the same - the poor drafting around the top ups was far far far more damaging to the club than the top ups. Alvey was steak knives so I’m not sure what value you can actually place on him but the rest cost us very little. Sure again you can hypothesise that after having delivered very little from the best draft position he’d had Dodoro was poised to unearth gold at pick 2 in the 2006 pre-season draft before Sheedy forced him to take Michael but I’m less inclined to look at the late picks who gave us a few years service as much as the earlier draft picks who gave us less. Its the same with the saga, the 2013 draft delivering Zerrett & Fanta & the 2014 draft with Lav & Lang could have been better with all our picks but at this stage they look a far sight better than 2011 that delivered squat with no excuses (well none that I can imagine but I’m sure you’ll try). Murphy is a classic one to throw up in these discussions - he’s one of the best trades Dodoro has made. Cost us McGrath who hadn’t cemented a spot & Murphy gave us a very good year where he was our best finals player. How can that compare with paying pick 6 for Bradley who never gave us any good years? None of the top ups cost us anything near to what poor drafting did. Blaming the top ups for the clubs position is folly. Now that doesn’t mean I’m saying all those decisions were right regardless of who actually made them only that its a smokescreen to say anything but our drafting of kids was the major factor in the poor list. Again this brings me back to the saga - it is & will continue to effect our list BUT you can’t simply ignore the fact that we drafted poorly prior to the saga, particularly mids. Even if the saga never happened we would still have a hole in our list & a lack of prime aged mids.
As for big fish not changing teams I made a list a few weeks back of mids & all I got back was the claim that half of them weren’t mids in spite of the fact all were mids so I guess we’re back to you defining what you think a big fish mid is. I’ll just throw out there that I can think of at least 4 brownlow medalist mids who’ve changed clubs off the top of my head & with the expansion clubs still leaking talent there’s very little genuine excuses you should be able to imagine. You are free to have an expectation on our list manager of what you think he should be able to do but I have a higher standard. I see other clubs prospering doing the things I want us to do & frankly I’m sick of the excuses. If at the absolute least you can recognise his poor trading, & have to on some level acknowledge the poor outcomes of the drafting, how can you have faith he’s the best person to be in that role? Do you actually have faith in him or are you simply defending the club through some sense of obligation?
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Well JBomber, hindsight is a wonderful thing, so maybe you can outline where drafting went wrong, as all you can do is pick what is available in a draft and try to recruit others to move to your Club by trades etc.
Maybe Myers was a bad choice and Rioli was available, and I think we did pass over Dangerfield. So if you were the man in the job, what would you have done different over the past 15 years.
Used shorter paragraphs, hopefully.
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Long on record as saying we needed to build the midfield 1st & foremost. It was pretty obvious to me that the game was getting faster & faster & the midfield was where it would be most important to compete. I just don’t believe Dodoro either realised or accepted this shift in the game. Maybe he just doesn’t have the skills to see midfield talent as well as he has seen talls. We had Barlow training with us & still didn’t snap him up FFS! I don’t believe you can simply hope that drafting 3-5 kids every year is going to see you rise to the top. Geelong drafted as well as anyone could hope but still had to trade for key players. Trading is the area where it shouldn’t be luck, its skill & this is where Dodoro has been most disappointing for mine.
Its not simply case of looking at each draft pick in hindsight & saying he should have picked the next best player you can find. Nobody expects that we are going to get every pick in every draft right. What I’ve done is look at his body of work & judged it on the outcomes. When he came to the club we were on the verge of a great list that should have won multiple flags. That list was built by Judkins, sure Sheedy gets some credit & there would be others but Judkins was the architect. From 2000 onwards we saw that list decline year after year as he simply failed to add anywhere near enough talent. I’m never going to believe Dodoro was saying “Shane Harvey is a soft spud, go for Johnson, Joel Reynolds will still be there in the rookie draft pick this Sam Mitchel kid” only for Sheedy to ignore his plea. We know Sheedy wasn’t even allowed to pick up Martin Pike so this fantasy where Sheedy was overruling all of Dodoro’s great work doesn’t have any cred.
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Obviously have a lot of time on your hands…and no clue
I like these debates, but I stop reading when I read something like the above and skip to the next post.
Regardless of what everyone thinks of Dodoro, next year will equal the longest period in the clubs history without a premiership. The saga aside, it can hardly be said that we have been successful over the past 17 years.
Blame it on Sheedy or Dodoro, it doesnt matter. We are and have been a middle-of-the -road team over this long period. We can hardly say that we have drafted and traded well.
I know that many on this site think that Dodoro can do no wrong but history speaks for itself.
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In that 17 year gap only 8 sides have won flags so all that tells me is that it’s harder to win than ever.
This is the professional era and we can’t just show up to win flags like we used to.
The club has acknowledged that we were probably slow to provide a professional environment for the players but it’s obvious that in the last 5-6 years we have done things to remedy that. People need to put aside their frustrations and do what supporters are supposed to do “support”.
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You know - I don’t think I have ever read on this site, that ‘Dodoro can do no wrong’ - or anything similar to that. the only defenses I have ever read here, from memory, are ones that argue both sides. I may be wrong - feel free to show these one-sided ones if you feel like it.