The 2018 Benfti "in absentia" Hype thread

Yes, because we all wanted Knights to hang around longer…

Of course it was!

It was in trying to get out of the slough of the PJ-induced years we had to catch up in so many areas - including coaching and sports science. If J had not run the club down there would not have been so much of an imperative to catch up with what other successful clubs were obviously doing (and being applauded for in the media).

Sorry, i don’t buy that theory.

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Huh? He was appointed in 1996, we picked up plenty of indigenous talent post then.

Well (a) that hasn’t been shown, and (b) even if true, doesn’t automatically mean anything. We’ve definitely dropped off in our recruiting of indigenous talent. I think most here see that as a sad thing. But the reality is that

And I think you’re giving a huge pass to Benfti on the statistics. He’s the one who raised them as proof of his argument. He’s the one who tried to argue causation rather than simple correlation with our 1999 => 2003 success with indigenous players. He’s the one who refers to how bad we are, but then has struggled to produce the stats for rest of the league. When he says we’re the worst, and other posters rattle off multiple clubs who are actually worse, it hurts his argument.

Finally, the reality is that even if we’re in the bottom handful, this doesn’t statistically mean much at all. Statistics are actually pretty poor when it comes to small sample sizes, which is what EFC is. It could easily be an anomaly.

The only real kicker so far has been the claim that the board said not to recruit indigenous players as a response to the Sheedy years. Two people have claimed that they’ve heard of this second hand. If true, it is one hell of a blight on the club. What I don’t get is why it would be true - when it is proposed we passed this our indigenous players had been some of our most successful draft picks. I’m suspicious that if it existed, it was more nuanced and aimed at stopping things like the McCalister pick (was James Davies indigenous?) and the Cole trade, which were all disasters driven by Sheedy and Bev Knights. I’d be surprised if they were trying to stop the behaviour that had led to us recruiting Lovett, NLM, Rioli, Davey, Ryder, Dempsey, Jetta etc. At the end of 2007 when Sheedy left most of those looked like good to great picks.

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Huh?? That is not what I was talking about. I was talking about the overall decline in EFC’s on and off field performance, of which this thread applies to a single aspect.

Ah, you should have been more clear. Given the bulk of the discussion has been about the decline in number of indigenous players recruited, I assumed you were still talking about the thread’s main focus, rather than the decline the club more generally.

Thought this might interest @benfti
Norwood have signed Luke and Cliffy Wilson, brothers of Anthony. Hopefully we get to see all 3 in the side together at some stage.

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BUMP

All this talk about Rioli’s playing, and not playing, around the country has me frothing for some Rioli magic, I’d even settle for some regular stock standard Tiwi brilliance. Hopefully, @benfti you are feverishly working away at compiling a list of players that would significantly improve both our list and my enjoyment of watching our hideously umpired team; a list that will get my hopes higher than the Hubble before Godoro has me questioning my undying and unwavering support of the Many Jacketed God, by drafting another skinny, vanilla HBFlanker with good leadership qualities and poor kicking.

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We do need another small forward.

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How’s the list going benfti?

It’s not, sorry guys. Maybe next year. Doing it was a conflict of interest this year.

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SELLOUT

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Boooo.

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Can you give a post draft spiel about players you have followed? A hindsight list perhaps?

Booooooooooooooo

Conflict of Interest?
Are you doing some work for EFC, another club, or the media?
Or is it because you have a kid/relative in this years draft?

I think he said he was doing some work for another club?

Yep, he’s mentioned this before.