Something doesn’t add up

Fk. this thread is tedious when the accuser won’t give up the evidence of the crime, or even, really, the nature of the crime itself. The whole thing is nebulous, as it stands in this thread at least, (leaving aside what it might be elsewhere.)

I know I don’t know enough about this, but despite requests, I’m being told that in order to understand, I shouldn’t need to know, or else that I should already know.

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Of course it is, were just getting our head around how or why the numbers are what they are, without some sort of smoking gun.

As much as “official X is racist” would be an easy fix, it’s more likely that there’s a million small factors that add up to Essendon’s drafting for the last 10 years.

Thanks, I appreciate an actual answer.

Maybe that’s because they are ?

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17 other teams also failed to find out whether Tippa was worth drafting. Through multiple drafts. But there’d be a few of them kicking themselves now, cos he stepped into the ones like he was born to it. Cos he had huge talent that just needed a chance.

We are not alone in being conservative with blokes like this. We are just more inclined to be so than other clubs. There are LOTS of Tippa-like blokes out there if someone’s willing to take a chance on them and put in the effort.

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Might have been heightism and/or perceived-lack-of-tankism that held them back on Tippa too.

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Just a side note to the drafting, I wanted to address this idea some have presented that we should be stripped of the Dreamtime game. We were not “awarded” the Dreamtime game because of any on or off-field work specifically with the indigenous community. It was simply an idea Sheedy came up with like ANZAC Day. We don’t have to draft any ex-service men or give employment to RSL members to qualify for ANZAC Day & its nonsense to suggest we have any obligation to present a certain amount of indigenous players every year for the game. We don’t have to draft country kids over city kids to maintain our game with Geelong. Richmond were also not awarded the game because of their great work with the indigenous community - their jumper colours, mixed with ours make up the Aboriginal flag - that’s where Sheedy got the idea from & of course they are a big enough club to have made it a success. That’s why we have Dreamtime.

Now I agree it would be somewhat embarrassing for the club to not have any indigenous representation & I have long advocated for the club to have a remote community academy but I don’t support the idea of drafting indigenous kids simply for show. IF we are not drafting kids of any race because we are placing safety over talent then I want that approach reviewed & changed. I personally believe we have been too risk averse but I don’t believe taking more risks necessarily equates to drafting more indigenous kids & as a basic principle, I can’t support the idea that we ever place value in race be it negatively or positively. I want the best list we possibly can & if that means 1,5 or 35 Indigenous players then I don’t care. As much as I would love another Tippa & Lovett I would hate to think we missed another Pig or Bags from the rookie draft trying to chase optics.

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I have read a lot of the posts and I support the desire to get more indigenous players into the club. However I believe the club is in the process of improving the situation, by setting up the NG academy in the NT.

I understand that Ben and others are emotionally invested in the issue but they appear to be impatient, wanting change to occur faster.

There is a problem with any system enshrining afirmative action to redress a minority problem, which leads to a mandated outcome driven automatic selection. It leads to a situation in the drafting process where the list management guy says. " WE HAVE TO PICK AN INDIGENOUS PLAYER WITH THIS PICK TO MEET OUR QUOTA" clearly that puts the list management guy ina difficult position.

But the NG academy concept allows embedded staff to nurture kids and foster traits that help to ensure success in the elite Melbourne environment. The problem is that it takes years for an indigenous player to reach " elder" status, where they can help indigenous players adapt in Melbourne, when drafted at 18. By the time a bloke is mature enough to help in that role they are probably about to be delisted. Eg. Courtenay Dempsey

There are lots of practical problems and theres a limit to how many staff a club can commit to welfare/pastoral care for a specific ethnic group.

Only time will tell if the NG academy gets more indigenous players into the club. In the meantime. Ben, talk to the club, and use blitz to help refine your points. Go for it.

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Can we also just agree before we get too deep (lol) that there isn’t one Indigenous peoples. There’s roughly 300 in oz. thanks

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Do you have any examples of Tippa like blokes who other clubs have nurtured like we did with Tippa? Some seem to be looking at his story as a negative but doesn’t the fact that other clubs didn’t take a chance on him & to the best of my knowledge there aren’t other similar stories, indicate EFC have gone beyond the norms & given an opportunity to a kid from a remote area where others wouldn’t have & haven’t? Maybe simply drafting him to the senior or rookie list as an 18 year old kid would not have had the same positive outcome. Maybe this long road approach is actually the best way to transition kids from remote areas rather than trying to squeeze them into the assembly line.

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Jurrah was nurtured by Collingwood I reckon…

I’m no expert on other clubs’ VFL sides, so I don’t know if any of them have blokes on the ‘tippa track’, but it’s worth remembering that other clubs are giving blokes like Tippa a chance by, y’know, actually frigging drafting them.

As for whether Tippa might not have achieved so much if he’d been drafted earlier rather than go through the VFL - well, that’s an unanswerable question. As others have said, the guy does not lack determination. Perhaps it’s equally valid to ask yourself whether if we’d drafted him earlier rather than faffing around with him in the VFL side he’d be years fitter and years more advanced and would be kicking 50 goals a year from the midfield by now.

And of course, the fact remains - no matter how successful this path was with Tippa - we haven’t repeated it. There was no bloke from Tiwi or similar replacing Tippa on the VFL list once he got drafted, in the hope of having the same success with him. Not in 2016, nor even in 2017 when it had become clear that Tippa was a roaring win. So if the club has lucked into the ideal way of bringing kids from remote communities into the AFL, they don’t seem to have noticed or acted on it…

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There was a specific direction from the Board to “become more risk averse” in regards to recruiting indigenous players. This was post (and a reaction to) the Sheeds era

Isn’t this now common knowledge?

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Hmmmm, now that I think about it, what ever happened to the scholarship that we used to run in our VFL side? Did that disappear when we signed with Bendigo as part of the cost cutting back in the day? NLM graduated through that program right??

By Collingwood I mean Rupert Betheras, and I don’t think it counts because he only played 4 VFL games there.

He was the only other player I could think of who was a success (even though all too short) coming from such a different path. Collingwood, even though they didn’t reap the rewards, did nurture him through his early years. He was brought to Melb 4 years before being drafted & was very much eased through the VFL system. That seems as close as I can think of to the way we handled Tippa. What I’m suggesting is that maybe we need to re-think the way we look to introduce these kids to the AFL. No idea how the academy is meant to or will work but I think the idea of drafting Indigenous kids particularly from remote areas & then expecting then to transition quickly is possibly doomed to fail & those failures compound the risk aversion & the nett result is less opportunities given.

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Look, I’m happy about the NGA on Tiwi, hell I had the basic idea before it even came to fruition. I have no doubt that it will yield positive results in time.

But let me make this clear, I am not suggesting there needs to be a quota of indigenous players drafted each year, only that there is a number (10%) of indigenous players who enter the afl each year, historical data shows that most clubs inadvertently make the selection of an indigenous player with that percentage of their picks, year on year over a 70-100 pick period.

Some clubs exceed this number, Port, Freo, Hawthorn, and other clubs are below it, Essendon, WB and StKilda.

The only difference between the top clubs and the bottom clubs is out of the bottom clubs we are the only club that continually promotes its self to be a leader in the area of indigenous opportunity and engagement.

In the week leading up to the draft we got feed a number of videos and articles about our 1-4th year players in the top end learning about why Indigenous Australia is important to the clubs heritage and culture.

When clubs like Collingwood who in the 90’s were the protagonists that lead to the AFL’s racial vilification policy (McCallister, Winmar at vic park, Monkhurts v Long) now outperform us in this area. I find it all a bit beyond the pale.

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This is a very prudent point.

It should also be said that he played 3 years of TAC cup and was training with Casey after missing out on the draft before we offered him better playing terms.

I think we can all agree that Walla is an exceptional case, and the majority of his success is down to the young man himself, and Jane McDonald of course.

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No it isn’t, only a few people I think are either aware of it or chose to accept it.

The Michel Long scholarship. Adrian Wilson was on it, so was Nathan Lovett Murray