Actually, a tin hat is totally required. The change was made way before it was obvious we would be poor (possibly even the previous year), and was clearly a response to Collingwood getting a priority pick in 2005, barely two years after making their second straight grand final.
Good points. I got the Daniher’s mixed up in my memories. It explains why I thought Hawkins was just before, but there was such a long gap to JD’s drafting!
Ah, sorry, we’re talking priority picks. 2006 was the year the change went into effect. The decision to make the change was done months and months prior to the draft, either early 2006 or late 2005. I’d need to look up media articles to ascertain exactly which, and I’m sure your GoogleFu is strong…
I’m getting slightly worried that coming to the end of their third year on the list than neither Lav or Lang look like properly pushing for senior selection
Why would they when other more senior players can serve up tripe and stay in, but with langfords best game as a midfielder he gets dropped to the vfl instantly.
You cannot possibly quantify what the saga has cost us. Is Jobe playing poorly because of the saga or is it because he’s too old & a vegan? Is Tippa having a great year because the saga gave him an opportunity he wouldn’t have had or would we have better small forwards had the saga not happened? Again we don’t know what would have happened with the list had the saga not occurred. What we do know is that now we have a gaping hole in the list where we need mature mids in particular - this was not caused by the saga it was caused by the drafting prior to the saga. So did we lose to the dogs because of the saga or did we not have the midfield talent to match them particularly with Zerrett well held? I think the latter is more quantifiable, if we’d drafted better we wouldn’t have a shortage of prime aged mids (makes them sound like steaks) & we’d be winning more games.
I’m pretty sure JBomber would’ve done the Mundy trade when it was on the table. Would’ve been disastrous, costing us Heppell, and leaving us with basically nothing out of that entire draft, but it would have been a TRADE for a MIDFIELDER so it would have been GREAT anyway.
Concur, but I would put more blame for that on the coaching direction than recruiters. There’s definitely been an emphasis put on experienced bodies all year. I know Disco is on record as saying but he’d be happy to have seen McGrath in midfield from the start of the year, I reckon he would ideally have had Lav/Lang in there too.
I am worried about the long term impact of this thinking.
I’m not sure what source you are using but AFL records show we were 12th for inside 50’s in 2012 with 1225 & then 7th is 2013 with 1208. I note you didn’t address the clearance numbers either but just to re-affirm we were 12th in 2013 & 15th in 2012. Now again because I can see you trying to misrepresent my position, I have quantified that I believe the 2013 team in particular was better than we’d had for some time. We had the demographics right, we had a lot of players in the prime years playing their best footy. Guys like Hocking, Howlett Myers were serviceable & made us competitive & again Jobe was at the height of his powers, Stanton was very good & the addition of Goddard & Heppell starting to play more midfield gave us a decent lineup. I’ve never said our midfield was shyte only that it wasn’t strong enough to compete with the best teams especially given the lack of any finals form. I also believe we had a rock solid backline as good as any in the league & Hird had us playing more defensive than Knights. Thats how we managed to win a lot of early to mid season games. Our forward line was our weakest part no doubt but it wasn’t completely impotent. I also believe we didn’t manage the training loads properly, came out too strong early & couldn’t sustain it. We had a history of winning more games early in the season before 2012 & being cooked by the end.
In terms of relying on the same mids I mean that we pretty much had to have Jobe fire or we were in trouble at the stoppages (sound familiar). We didn’t have guys who had the odd blinder (Howlett did it once every 2-3 years) every few weeks & stepped up when the stars were down. The top sides could have their best mids down & then all of a sudden Rioli goes into the midfield & gets a heap of it or Smith gets off the chain & kicks 3 or Shiel picks up 30 disposals. We just didn’t have that depth, & thats why I don’t believe we would have been competitive enough to challenge for a flag even if the saga had never happened. If you may recall I was one of the few here advocating going after Dal Santo & Higgins.
BTW - Lonergan played 9 of the 1st 11 games & then only 5 for the rest of the year. Dyson played 12 & Myers 10. Both were OK (better than his 2017 form) but again if you really rate these guys then we have very different idea of what actual good mids look like.
Just a note on that: we were 7th total I50s with 1208, but 3rd on average per game because the totals include finals. Ditto for 2012, we were equal 3rd average, but lower on totals again due to playing less games.
Ok you’re really going to have to explain to me how we were going to use one of our picks on Bontempelli? The Bont was pick 4 - that’s a hell of trick for Dodoro to pull off. Our picks we lost would have been around 13-15 & then low 30’s (assuming we still finished 7th with possible finals win).
Why do you think we would have not traded for Edwards/Aylett if not for the saga? Its seems like the type of trades Dodoro has done before & its not like either filled a gap the saga left us with so I curious why you’ve mentioned it. As for drafting Lav/Langford again I’m not seeing the connection to losing Crameri, Ryder & Carlisle if you class both these guys as mids? If you think Langford in particular was drafted as a medium sized forward then sure, replacing Crameri makes sense. Maybe you should make the call now which way you think it went to avoid future confusion.
Did you listen to Dodoro a few weeks back when he spoke about the 2013 draft? He actually said we wanted Lobb as a ruckman which I found interesting. Maybe he had some idea that Paddy was leaving the following year or maybe he thought that’s what we needed.
Finally, yes we agree & have always agreed that the saga had a net negative effect. I don’t know of anyone who has tried to suggest it didn’t hasn’t & won’t continue to be a negative influence on the club. The best positive I can find from it is that it seemed to being out the best in Dodoro. Maybe that’s the key, he needed more adversity to perform.
I thought it was quite well known that there is a belief we had agreed with Bulldogs that we would use Crameri to switch first round picks, and that our plan was to pick the Bont. I don’t know how true it is, but many here state it as if it was a fact (I think Dodoro or someone else may have been quoted about it in an article).
Because Dodoro came out and explicitly said we were doing deals like that (in relation to the Edwards deal) because we needed to try and capture value since we’d lost our picks. If we have two more picks in the draft, maybe we still trade for Edwards, but no way we include Aylett. List spots are too precious. Especially if say a Dal Santo was also joining us. Without Aylett, Edwards maybe chooses Adelaide.
I’m saying we don’t know how it would have played out. If we get say Bont, do we need Langford, who is a similar body type? I’m just saying we don’t really know if things would have panned out the same.
No, I didn’t hear it. It may simply have been that we saw Lobb as criminally under-valued, but then got surprised when someone we saw as even more criminally under-valued (Zerrett) was there. Or not. Don’t know. I did say if we got Bont (or another mid) with our first, we might get Lobb. Hell, given how we valued Zerrett, if we had our picks but the Bulldogs still gave us the same deal (#26), maybe we get Zerrett in the teens, Lobb in the twenties, and then who knows who our “true” second rounder gets used on. Maybe Dumont or another mid? Its pure speculation. And that’s all assuming we can’t trade for a mid to boost a team that’s (presumably) just played finals.
I don’t remember that possible Bont deal but wow, that would have been far & away the biggest trade Dodoro ever pulled off. So the idea is that we were going to swap say pick 14 & Crameri for pick 4?
Maybe we can agree that Dodoro never got a fair chance to redeem his past performance during the 2013-15 period because of the saga.