Post-flag plummet was always possible

[bornadog]

Nice one Mr M

[Mantis]

In regards to drafting, how many more young players could we have brought in? We drafted three young players, plus we brought in Trengove, Crozier and Schache. I don't think we could have cut deeper at the time and brought in another two or three young players. How many can you have under 21. We already have 18 players 21 and under and another 11 who are 24 and under.

It's the type of players we brought in that besides Schache offer no point of difference to what we already have.

Sure Naughton & Richards are going to be very good players, but all it does is push the likes of Roberts, Collins, Biggs, etc further down the list and give the list no flexibility.

Probably brings up the point that you should be able to trade & delist players post the National Draft.

[Mofra]

It's the type of players we brought in that besides Schache offer no point of difference to what we already have.

Sure Naughton & Richards are going to be very good players, but all it does is push the likes of Roberts, Collins, Biggs, etc further down the list and give the list no flexibility.

Probably brings up the point that you should be able to trade & delist players post the National Draft.

I prefer the 'best available' mantra in the first round, and if we were to take lesser players with top ten picks to preserve the careers of Roberts or Collins than that would be an unmitigated disaster. Neither are best 22 when Naughton (and Adams) is out of the side.

Richards looks brilliant and no way would I want to pass him for Biggs who has Roarke Smith getting picked ahead of him right now anyway (although I dare say that could change after the bye).

[Mantis]

I prefer the 'best available' mantra in the first round, and if we were to take lesser players with top ten picks to preserve the careers of Roberts or Collins than that would be an unmitigated disaster. Neither are best 22 when Naughton (and Adams) is out of the side.

Richards looks brilliant and no way would I want to pass him for Biggs who has Roarke Smith getting picked ahead of him right now anyway (although I dare say that could change after the bye).

I'm very happy with who we drafted as both players are going to be 200+ players, but the list profile was already out of whack pre-trade/draft period and then we added Crozier, Trengove, Naughton & Richards to an area already over-loaded with options, abit not very good ones.

[Mofra]

I'm very happy with who we drafted as both players are going to be 200+ players, but the list profile was already out of whack pre-trade/draft period and then we added Crozier, Trengove, Naughton & Richards to an area already over-loaded with options, abit not very good ones.

For some reason we recruited Trengove as a ruck/forward (he'd played his best footy as a KPD) and Crozier cost us little at the trade table so I don't mind those additions. Schache seemed more of a panicked trade but last game he looked a more natural forward than Boyd so has upside.

I'd say keeping players too long is more of an issue than who we've brought in. Roberts re-contracted while we've given Collins extra time on the list is a head scratcher, we re-rookied NMM & Lynch who are miles off and were already well behind guys we had on the list. Campbell I don't mind but Bevo clearly doesn't rate so is a waste of a list spot - why keep blokes that the coach won't play? Makes no sense.

[Mantis]

For some reason we recruited Trengove as a ruck/forward (he'd played his best footy as a KPD) and Crozier cost us little at the trade table so I don't mind those additions. Schache seemed more of a panicked trade but last game he looked a more natural forward than Boyd so has upside.

I'd say keeping players too long is more of an issue than who we've brought in. Roberts re-contracted while we've given Collins extra time on the list is a head scratcher, we re-rookied NMM & Lynch who are miles off and were already well behind guys we had on the list. Campbell I don't mind but Bevo clearly doesn't rate so is a waste of a list spot - why keep blokes that the coach won't play? Makes no sense.

Crozier is costing us 3 years & >$1mil when we already had Williams, Biggs, Suckling, JJ, Wood and rookies in Smith & Lynch as HB options. If Crozier is/ was worth the investment then get rid of Lynch & Smith and add in some different types, like a couple of small & quick pressure forwards which every club has heaps of, but we have none of.

Roberts re-signing was a massive cluster-*!*!*!*!, the need to sign him at about round 6 was completely *!*!*!*!ing absurd.

[Grantysghost]

Hire better communications staff. Team's performance rise and fall. My problem with our communications/media department who give up owns goals far too often. As posted above, we've got some good news stories which are starved of oxygen because I think we are inept in this regard. This article to me is another example, which as I've said, is a reflection on who gave Turtle the talking points.

In a past life I was a media manager for a while, have a limited media interest now. I know how the game is played with editors/producers and especially journos, how your meant to play the game and what good and bad performance is. Things in this area are worse than our on field performance to be honest. We sent out our most credible face to the media, and more importantly our members, and inextricably left him wide open thinking his credibility could cover the poor messaging. The media will have all filed this, and the likes of Barrett will weaponise it when it will hurt us the most. It was a poor idea backed up with poor talking points from people charged with this responsibility which has done nothing for the club or Turtle.

So I would've done things differently over the past year in getting ahead of Stringer & Alberti (particularly bad), explained Danny's move to a different club role more effectively, executed the draft video to what it could've been (which was potentially good) and in trying to get ahead of a possibly bad back half of the year I would've fine tuned the comm's strategy to the enth degree, worked out the talking points to a more palatable or easily digestible level and then, and only then sent Turtle out. What I'd do differently in the future, is I'd get new people. Own goals are the ones that hurt the most, and easily avoidable.

Makes a lot of sense, as others have said in isolation they're not too bad but collectively I see there is room for improvement and your points are valid. I think Adrian Ceddia is head of comms currently, I don't know alot about him.

[Grantysghost]

Common ground. Yes, the GWS prelim was the best game to attend ever. I don't think anyone is pissed at Bains, Kent, especially Turtle, Kent, PG, the board. And in this respect the footy department isn't in the firing line. One area in particular to me is a weak link, the comm's area. We need to fix it up. And I'll use a Tibetan Buddhist metaphor, tweaked a bit:

Imagine you're standing on the top of a mountain.
The club is generally very good off field. Like a bright blue sky.
Our comm's area are dark and threatening clouds covering the sky.
The sky is still bright blue (which we know), but because of these shit house comm's dark clouds not everyone can see it.
If those dark clouds get moved on, then we can stand on the top of the mountain seeing nothing but blue sky basking in sunshine.

We need to move the clouds on for the betterment of the club, not in spite of it.

Ha love the analogy. Nice work.

[Grantysghost]

Yes there is a number of positive things happening at the club, and feel free to start threads on that, and we will hear about the positive efforts on Tuesday night but challenging the words of Chris Grant in the article shouldn't be seen as being negative towards the club.
It certainly doesn't change my view or my commitment towards the club and I doubt it's an issue for anyone else either.
The vast majority who have contributed towards the discussions aren't playing the man just the words, and if that is being negative in other peoples eyes then so be it. Some are frustrated, very very few are negative.

Agree with most of what you say, however I do think there is a negative trend and a group pile on dynamic demonstrating vitriol towards the club in a lot of posts. Certainly if Granty is performing badly in his role it should be called out and discussed intelligently with facts above emotions. To say he should be sacked for an article that was pretty honest and to the point is bewildering to say the least. This is a great forum with intelligent contributors and agree most make alot of sense.

[Sedat]

For some reason we recruited Trengove as a ruck/forward (he'd played his best footy as a KPD) and Crozier cost us little at the trade table so I don't mind those additions. Schache seemed more of a panicked trade but last game he looked a more natural forward than Boyd so has upside.

I'd say keeping players too long is more of an issue than who we've brought in. Roberts re-contracted while we've given Collins extra time on the list is a head scratcher, we re-rookied NMM & Lynch who are miles off and were already well behind guys we had on the list. Campbell I don't mind but Bevo clearly doesn't rate so is a waste of a list spot - why keep blokes that the coach won't play? Makes no sense.

I reckon you'd get 99.9% agreement from the woof community on the bolded bit. It's not restricted to the Bevo/JMac years either - we've elevated off the rookie list such luminaries in the past as Andrew Hooper, Brodie Moles, James Mulligan, Matthew Panos. We held onto Josh Hill and turned a potential first round pick into a pick 50-odd 12 months later. We gave Ayce Cordy 7 years on the list despite never showing at any stage that he will be an AFL standard player. We held onto Eagleton, Hahn and Akermanis at least 1 year too long (Johnno and Westy as well, but understandable given the quality of their previous season). I'm sure there are more examples of our list spot generosity.

In short we haven't shown enough respect to the value of the list spot. And the last 2 years have been disastrous for differing reasons (extending contracts for fringe players in 2016, bringing in senior players of limited ability in areas where we already had list depth in 2017).

I think the explanations by Granty in the weekend article have been an attempt to tie everything up in a neat little bow in relation to our unexpected drop-off, when the reality is I don't think our senior management and footy dept thought this at any stage in the last 18 months (our list management actions and our previous messaging don't support Granty's comments). It's ok to say "we got it wrong" - I think we are a very forgiving supporter base.

From my untrained eye, we most likely underestimated the impact of rule changes to 3rd man up. We probably overestimated the depth of our midfield. We definitely overestimated that the impact of additions in 2017 of Cloke/Crammers/Wallis/Murphy would have on the team, we probably banked on incremental improvement of a young list that simply hasn't eventuated, we underestimated impact of the forward half turnover game and the midfield running requirements (and fell behind other clubs who have made list management decisions completely around these areas which we have not done in that time). And we clearly gave our players too much leg rope for their off-season in 2016 and not coming back 100% focused on 2017.

All of this is hindsight - I would sign off in a hearbeat on winning a flag the way we did and dropping off after that. But the players and the club don't have the luxury that we the supporters have. I can live with the above mistakes if we have a clear plan of attack to get back into contention to have another run at sustained success.

[The bulldog tragician]

I have posted along these lines before, but the idea that our flag was one fluky month of great footy - which underlies Chris Grant’s article - riles me. We would have been top 4 with that amount of wins in most seasons - an amount of wins achieved with a hideous injury toll. We were a finals team the year before who could easily have gone further but for 90 seconds of panicky footy.

The quality of the 2016 finals wins, and their circumstances, were of the highest quality - I believe Leon Cameron pointed out how dominant we were in most of those finals, and for most of our match against his team. So the thing I most have issue with is the idea that in the month or so after it, the coaching group sat around and said: phew, we nabbed that well ahead of time, batten down the hatches for a couple of ordinary years to come. And, as others have said, if that was their conclusion - that our list had “over-achieved” - it isn’t evident in the actions that followed.

I’m sure Chris & co did critically analyse the list and find flaws - I’d expect no less, that is their role - just as I’m sure Clarkson and his team didn’t sit back and say, another flag will just roll in if we do nothing. But I can’t believe they also didn’t think we were well placed for another crack in 2017, with another year in the group, further development from the boys who’d missed out at Footscray, the returns of Murph, Wally and Crameri, and the addition of Cloke.

[Bulldog4life]

Don’t leave BT, I enjoy reading your posts and wild hypotheticals.

I do too although his continued spin regarding Tom Boyd is driving my head in.

[Greystache]

I have posted along these lines before, but the idea that our flag was one fluky month of great footy - which underlies Chris Grant’s article - riles me. We would have been top 4 with that amount of wins in most seasons - an amount of wins achieved with a hideous injury toll. We were a finals team the year before who could easily have gone further but for 90 seconds of panicky footy.

We also won the exact same number of games (19) as Hawthorn the year before and Richmond the year after. Our percentage was almost identical to Richmond's also. Of course with our ability to massage the public narrative almost no one would be aware of those facts.

EDIT- In fact we won an extra game than Richmond (noting we also played 1 extra)

[Raw Toast]

This thread was an interesting read from my perspective. For what it's worth, I think good points are being made on both (general) sides of the debate:

1) Teams with a very young list generally struggle after winning the flag.

2) We don't seem to have planned for this struggle, or to have made great list management decisions since winning the flag.

3) For a side that was the youngest and least experienced in the whole comp every single week for the first 10 games this season, I'm pretty sure that 4 wins is higher than the mathematical models (based on past history!) would predict.

4) One of the reasons we've been so young and inexperienced, is a disturbingly high injury rate, and there seem to be reasons to be highly concerned about our medical management of players.

5) Our beloved club has been very, very successful over the last few years, compared to our history.

6) There has also clearly been some infighting, problems and very poor communication since the men won the premiership in 2016.

7) For mine Beveridge has been coaching well recently, and the team has had significantly more promising signs than in the 2nd half of 2017. We should've beaten Sydney, and have had some excellent quarters and halves in recent weeks against strong opposition.

8) Team selections have been puzzling at times, and we've had some really shit quarters in recent weeks against strong opposition.

9) I think Grant is trying to re-set expectations, and I think many of his points make sense.

10) I don't believe that Grant is accurately conveying how the club thought at the end of 2016, and he's not admitting that significant mistakes have been made.

As it stands now, I feel much more patient than a lot of supporters. We won it all, and have a very impressive group of still very young players with an excellent coach. The team is not ready to compete again right now, but as a student of history, I didn't expect them to be.

Hawthorn struggled significantly at times after winning the flag way ahead of schedule in 2008. They almost got rid of Clarkson a few times. The eventually formed a mighty team based on the core of the young group from 2008. Essendon also struggled significantly after the 'baby bombers' won in 1993, and also almost got rid of Sheedy. By 1999 they were again the best team in the comp, based on the group of youth, and should have won at least two flags during 1999-2001 (they only won one, which is pleasingly painful for them).

My point is that even with very good management, I still think we were more likely than not to be struggling right now. The loss of Murphy and Boyd is not only about them as players (and Boyd was incredibly important until last year - I think we didn't win a game without him in the side until 2017 under Beveridge). It's about them as experienced leaders around the club.

Clearly we need the club to start doing better at list-management and communication, and hopefully to resolve the various internal power struggles. But I also think we can work at being more patient as a supporter group, and to appreciate the good that has occured, while still being hungry for future success.

[azabob]

Gee RT you know how to take the fun out of a discussion with a well balanced and articulate response!