Re: 'Invisible' Western Bulldogs have plenty of bite: Brendan McCartney
Originally Posted by
KT31
The articles mentions the Geelong rebuild were do we sit as opposed to Geelong when B.Mac started as an assistant their ?
Bit hard to compare, Geelong got their draft picks better than not (Tenace was not a good choice, but most that draft ere not brilliant). They had good recruiter, a President that had the town in his pocket and political connections too boot. Thompson was seen as a good choice, although there were some interesting rumours with some players that left the club. They got Neil Balme to run the off field stuff a little later on and benefited from father son's for third round picks like Scarlett, GAJ and later Hawkins, allowing them to select Joel Selwood. They also traded well getting Tom Harley after he only one game at Port, managed to get Cam Mooney from North Melbourne and did what a lot of clubs find too hard to do, let a favourite son go in a big trade to get Ottens which was a master stroke. They found some gems later in JPods, and got a VFL team earlier than now. They managed to insert a culture where the players booted Stevie J and managed to turn him around too. Then Bomber had a string of now senior coaches so his support was excellent.
All in all, some many things were all going in the right direction, list, trades, drafting, culture, off field advancement etc, etc.
I think we're a long way behind where things were over Macca's time at Geelong. If we manage to have turned Grant around, trade for a Patton like type player, have a good run with father sons (4 playing TAC this year), keep the culture good, make sure the VFL team is primed, keep the AFL honest, trade well, make hard calls and genrally not make one mistake, then we are on the way. But that assessment has so many variables in it.
Geelong also gave us a host of players for draft picks, Moles, DJ and Callan. So nice of them to sell them to us.
Rocket Science: the epitaph for the Beveridge era - whenever it ends - reading 'Here lies a team that could beat anyone on its day, but seldom did when it mattered most'. 15/7/2023