No.
Hi Mendozzaaaa,
There is no quota, but there is median, its certainly not official. Our value as a business who promotes diversity at every opportunity has gone from Toorak level house value to Doveton based on that median.
Sheedy had a big say on recruiting. All coaches since not so much. Btw, I’m in no way suggesting there was a concious decision made at any stage on Dodoros part. He is great with identifying indigenous talent and relating to their situations.
That question has been asked many times in this thread without reading anything. I know there is a lot of posts to trawl through, so he’s what I said in a previous post.
@benfti I appreciate the stats you are producing and I understand they are relating to employment opportunities provided to indigenous players. However to I believe a fairer and simpler indication of a club’s investment for the purposes of this discussion would be just listing the % of players on each list (including all rookies) who are indigenous on an annual basis over the period in question. No doubt we would be sliding down, but I would be interested to see if this correlates with the competition bar a few outliers (ie Port) or if we are going against the trend. This would then remove the arguments you are having about how you have classed various players based on the way they were listed.
What I find interesting is that trends from our recent drafting, indicate to me we have a clear preference for players with pace, foot skills, versatility which are all traits many indigenous players are consistently better in. It’s surprising and disappointing to me that we haven’t identified indigenous players that fit what we’re looking for.
Nfi if there’s biases contributing, certainly hope not, frankly that would disappoint me more than the saga. I really hope we put everything in to our academies.
I’m still confused about the club passing on a rookie spot. Can anyone give me a logical reason why, cos I can’t think of one?
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The most logical reason is we shifted McNiece to the Cat A list so he can play whenever needed without an LTI. Cat B rookies are still restricted to waiting for an injury to get promoted. If the club is nervous about covering Baguley, it makes sense to ensure McNiece is accessible.
Still wanted that second pick though.
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The discussion has been around drafting practices, how is presenting a list of listed indigenous players year on year reflect drafting practice?
What you are asking is present a list that shows Essendon more favourably, because the drafting numbers don’t look good.
What you are actually looking for is a correlation between low numbers drafted and actual numbers on the list as if good representation on lists somehow makes low drafting numbers acceptable.
Sorry.
To borrow a phrase from the right, we should be able to talk about this without being branded (reverse) racist. I know this topic is challenging some people’s loyalties but it’s fair enough to ask the question in the same manor as others ask if the coach is doing a good job.
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That is my point though there is more to AFL list management than the initial opportunity. You are illustrating that Essendon is risk adverse and claiming we deliberately won’t/aren’t drafting indigenous players yet you are completely overlooking trades. Also you are not considering the ability of a club to develop the indigenous players picked - take the list of Collingwood draftees and compare games played to our indigenous players over the same period and we would compare very favourably. Nor are you talking about the longevity of indigenous players on an AFL list which to a certain point determines how a club is managing the issue.
Drafting is only an entry point it doesn’t define how a club performs in looking after that player after that point. Your inclusion of Andrew Krakoeur to Collingwood helps your argument re drafting but is it a true reflection on opportunities presented to indigenous players?
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You really need to read the thread and understand the context of what we are talking about.
In regards to players like Andrew Krakouer I’ve answered why he was included in the data sets. Vs other trades. Because the data set was taken to research new employment opportunity, and to illustrate and monitor growth in the sector. Trades are not growth, it’s just shuffling the deck chairs. If I took out AK I would also have had to remove guys like Jed Anderson and Curtly Hampton who were also pre selections and and completely new to the game. AK was 3 years removed from AFL ranks.
What you are actually suggesting is a quota of indigenous players exists per club and if that quota is met no drafting will occur. Or maybe you will offset that suggestion by saying that Indigenous players often tend to fill the same roll from a play style suggestion, well one year , I can’t remember which we had Jetta, Davey, Dempsey, NatRat and Ryder. That’s 5 and at about league average. Well that’s 2 small forwards, a running defender, a utility and a ruckman. So type wouldn’t come into that. Which comes back to a suggestion of quota.
I’m not suggesting that. I’m just suggesting that around 10% of indigenous players come into the league each year, and that most clubs inadvertently adhere to roughly that margin per the amount of picks at the draft or FS selections they make when you look at an extended period
We don’t.
I don’t see how the amount of indigenous players we have on our list at any given time should effect that?
I don’t think you are doing this intentionally but again, I really think your looking for a way to feel better about this. Rather then looking at the simple premise of us being well below average at providing opportunity to young indigenous footballers in recent times.
To answer your last question we are great at looking after our indigenous players, we just don’t draft many of them.
Richmond for ages were shithouse at it
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I would love to know the figures of indigenous players while Bomber was coach of Geelong and then how many he and his crew managed to remove from the Essendon football club while with us.
As an interesting comparison we made 87 selections in the 10 year period that preceded the data set.
We made 15 indigenous selections.
17.24%
Well above league average at the time
The Sheedy era obviously.
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Stokes, Varcoe, Motlop, Christensen, Djerkurra off the top of my head were drafted in during Bombers tenure at Geelong
Edit: add Adam Varcoe
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No doubt Sheeds was a leader, and tapped into the best of the indigenous talent at the time. It looks like the other 17 clubs at the highest level then followed the lead, and it just might be that far from having scope to select from the whole pie, we now get to select from a much reduced share of the talent pool.
As the available share reduces, the available selections become more risky, depending on the clubs position in the draft order and number of picks to some extent.
Hopefully the NT focussed NG academy helps us to get higher priority access to more of the top end indigenous talent.
I hope you guys are wrong but fear you are right and there is some sort of bias whether it is conscious or not.
I remember many years ago an indigenous artist entered a painting of AFL club jumpers except Geelong who were the only club who had no indigenous players on the list at that time. I thought they were a ■■■■■■■ embarrassment of a club stuck in another era.
Maybe it is us now.
Devil’s advocate here Ben. If Zerk-Thatcher turns out to be indigenous, he would make our drafting to be 25% this year. Would you have reacted the same way if this was clear at draft night?
Not disputing the long term trend. Not disputing the avoidance of kids from remote areas. I agree the club should have a good look at its player selection criteria Just feels a bit odd with how this year has turned out.
Without talking for Ben.
It’s a grander systemic issue which we’re talking about, rather than pointing to certain areas in isolation to prove that there is (or isn’t) an issue.
It’s not about that stats. The stats are just one tool to support the argument.
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Firstly I take exception to the point that I haven’t read the thread - I’ve read every single comment in here.
But with regards to our argument I’m clearly coming from a different viewpoint. You argue that we aren’t giving indigenous players enough opportunities through the draft and then say numbers on a list don’t count. Well I disagree because otherwise you’re just drafting for the sake of drafting. I believe your drafting number point gives more rise to a quota than anything I’ve argued.
I’m not denying we are behind the mark in terms of drafting I just believe that our approach has been to ensure we maximise our chance of success with the indigenous players we select. When draft picks are so valuable why wouldn’t we want to do that. As you point out the next generation academy should increase the flow of drafted players. I also beleive it will ensure fewer draft misses.
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We seemed to be bogged down in technicalities and minutiae when it’s pretty clear to most people that what Benfti is saying has merit. I don’t need to trawl through reams of data to know that our recruitment of indigenous players has dropped off drastically. I only need to watch the draft and see all the players we bypass picked up by other clubs.
I think it is reflective of a conservative drafting philosophy which has gone a bit too far. For mine it started with Knights, who seemed averse in general to indigenous players. For one reason or another it has carried on.
I’d rather there wasn’t a racial angle to this, and I repeat don’t think that’s the motivating factor. As a club that pioneered indigenous and racial acceptance within the league it’s disappointing how we’ve neglected that legacy. I think it would be perfectly reasonable for the Dreamtime game to be taken from us.
My view is that when we come to choose between an indigenous and a non-indigenous player we seem to opt for the non-indigenous player. I’d like to see that reversed. If nothing else indigenous players bring something different to the playing group and on field chemistry. There’s a good football argument for us to be recruiting more. That’s enough for me - if they’re good enough, bring them in.
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would you be willing to provide examples? Further, thats an extraordinarily simple generalisation of a very complex decision making process
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