Scott Clayton

[Twodogs]

Re: Scott Clayton

I still think he's as unco as a baby giraffe.

He's 22 and 5,000 feet tall-you expect him to be unco. What's impressive is nearly having his jaw taken off but coming back for more. On a night of half arsed shameful efforts it stood out like a beacon.

[Go_Dogs]

Re: Scott Clayton

Agreed. For a guy so big and unco he has no hesitation throwing his body around like it doesn't matter. I see a future for Wight, I think he has the potential to play just about anywhere, which could also be his downfall.

[Mofra]

Re: Scott Clayton

Agreed. For a guy so big and unco he has no hesitation throwing his body around like it doesn't matter. I see a future for Wight, I think he has the potential to play just about anywhere, which could also be his downfall.

Given Street was/is 27 when hitting his "peak" so far, and Wight has shown more than Minson this season andhas some defensive side to his game, Wight will be figuring in the long term plans for the Doggies.

Not sure Skip will be around much longer.

[Dry Rot]

Re: Scott Clayton

Most here would agree that our current game plan and personnel won't stand up to September action.

IMHO Clayton's record deserves scrutiny. Is there a way we can objectively judge this?

[southerncross]

Re: Scott Clayton

Most here would agree that our current game plan and personnel won't stand up to September action.

IMHO Clayton's record deserves scrutiny. Is there a way we can objectively judge this?

Comparing selections with other team is an obvious option.
I think he does well with most of the early selections but hasn't done as well with some of the later ones. Sure Harris and Cross have worked out brilliantly but there are a number of others that he hasn't got right.

[mjp]

Re: Scott Clayton

Comparing selections with other team is an obvious option.
I think he does well with most of the early selections but hasn't done as well with some of the later ones. Sure Harris and Cross have worked out brilliantly but there are a number of others that he hasn't got right.

Every team is in the same boat - even West Coast who have almost staggering depth at the moment. But when you consider they have 9 ex-Rookies playing these days, clearly their drafting guys got it wrong quite a bit as well...(If they git it right, they wouldn't have been rookies!)

[Bulldog Revolution]

Re: Scott Clayton

Every team is in the same boat - even West Coast who have almost staggering depth at the moment. But when you consider they have 9 ex-Rookies playing these days, clearly their drafting guys got it wrong quite a bit as well...(If they git it right, they wouldn't have been rookies!)

I view it as a combination of drafting the right players and then developing them. So I see it as one part recruitment, one part coaching.

But the other thing we dont always know is who makes the decision on the picks - for instance in the 2005 draft did Clayton want Monty recycled or would he have taken Clint Bartram, Hugh Minson? Did he want to trade picks for Koops? Rawlings?

Clearly Clayton has had some moments that he would prefer to forget - the Jesse Wells drafting was horrendous given the talent still on the board, and the Walsh, BMurphy, Faulkner, Skipper picks haven't set the world on fire.

Under the Wallace and Rohde eras I think we as a club were very backwards in terms of developing our players. In the future the players under Eade will not have that excuse - and the buck will stop with Eade and Clayton if they cannot recruit and develop players.

From the looks of Higgins, Addison, Harbrow, McCormack, Williams, Everitt, Lynch etc Eade has been supplied enough talent and its his job to turn them into players

[LostDoggy]

Re: Scott Clayton

Clearly Clayton has had some moments that he would prefer to forget - the Jesse Wells drafting was horrendous given the talent still on the board,

I saw a picture of him in the local paper this week as he is playing in the WRFL. The caption says something like "Jesse Wells whose career at the WB was... ". It is then printed over so you can't read the rest.
Anyway know how he is going as he isn't wearing Geoff Belthyn style glasses.

[Sockeye Salmon]

Re: Scott Clayton

I view it as a combination of drafting the right players and then developing them. So I see it as one part recruitment, one part coaching.

But the other thing we dont always know is who makes the decision on the picks - for instance in the 2005 draft did Clayton want Monty recycled or would he have taken Clint Bartram, Hugh Minson? Did he want to trade picks for Koops? Rawlings?

Clearly Clayton has had some moments that he would prefer to forget - the Jesse Wells drafting was horrendous given the talent still on the board, and the Walsh, BMurphy, Faulkner, Skipper picks haven't set the world on fire.

Under the Wallace and Rohde eras I think we as a club were very backwards in terms of developing our players. In the future the players under Eade will not have that excuse - and the buck will stop with Eade and Clayton if they cannot recruit and develop players.

From the looks of Higgins, Addison, Harbrow, McCormack, Williams, Everitt, Lynch etc Eade has been supplied enough talent and its his job to turn them into players

Every recruiter has their fair share of misses - it's the nature of the game - and Clayton's record stands up as well as anyones.

I will absolutely bet that Clayton was shattered by the trading for Koops, Rawlings and Street - he's a recruiter, of course he wants the best picks to show off his talents.

The real question is who is responsible for not looking at KPPs and rucks?

Is it Clayton for picking midfielders or is it Wallace/Rohde for telling him to focus on picking midfielders?

The Birss/Richards thing in 2001 was interesting. Wynd was about to finish up, Darcy was flying and Dooley was the only back-up. I thought we desperately needed another young ruck (we ended up taking the 193cm Skipper) but Wallace openly said in the media that he thought our ruck stocks were very good (he must not have noticed that Scott Wynd was 30 with bung knees).

This was the pick that Wallace let the cameras in. Wallace asked Clayton "which is the better player?". Calyton replied that he thought Birss had the greater chance of being a long term senior player, so Wallace said "the small bloke it is" (they never referred to Birss or Richards by name at the time).

I was filthy. Clayton obviously thought there was not much between them or they wouldn't have been having that conversation, so if they were that close, why wouldn't you take the big guy?

The small bloke will almost always be the more likely to have a long term senior player because they are easier to identify and a team is made up of twice as many of them. It was a cop out.

In their defense, there hasn't been many KPP's we've missed that have been any good, it has just worked out that way.

I wanted Watts rather than Ray in 2003 (ideally we would have got him with pick 6 instead of Rawlings) but Watts has hardly set the world on fire and propably would have walked out to go to St. Kilda anyway.

[Bulldog Revolution]

Re: Scott Clayton

Every recruiter has their fair share of misses - it's the nature of the game - and Clayton's record stands up as well as anyones.

I will absolutely bet that Clayton was shattered by the trading for Koops, Rawlings and Street - he's a recruiter, of course he wants the best picks to show off his talents.

The real question is who is responsible for not looking at KPPs and rucks?

Is it Clayton for picking midfielders or is it Wallace/Rohde for telling him to focus on picking midfielders?

The Birss/Richards thing in 2001 was interesting. Wynd was about to finish up, Darcy was flying and Dooley was the only back-up. I thought we desperately needed another young ruck (we ended up taking the 193cm Skipper) but Wallace openly said in the media that he thought our ruck stocks were very good (he must not have noticed that Scott Wynd was 30 with bung knees).

This was the pick that Wallace let the cameras in. Wallace asked Clayton "which is the better player?". Calyton replied that he thought Birss had the greater chance of being a long term senior player, so Wallace said "the small bloke it is" (they never referred to Birss or Richards by name at the time).

I was filthy. Clayton obviously thought there was not much between them or they wouldn't have been having that conversation, so if they were that close, why wouldn't you take the big guy?

The small bloke will almost always be the more likely to have a long term senior player because they are easier to identify and a team is made up of twice as many of them. It was a cop out.

In their defense, there hasn't been many KPP's we've missed that have been any good, it has just worked out that way.

I wanted Watts rather than Ray in 2003 (ideally we would have got him with pick 6 instead of Rawlings) but Watts has hardly set the world on fire and propably would have walked out to go to St. Kilda anyway.

Great trip down memory lane Sockeye - and good observations about the strike rates of recruiters - I just have to get over my hobby horse of the Rohde summer in which he traded away all those picks in a draft that had a lot of talent but it had to be hunted for. With the picks we traded for Rawlings, Koops and Morgan we really could have cleaned up in that draft. But its probably really only just hitting me how much the uneven rookie list playing field has held our list back.

I wanted Silvia with that 4th pick - he sounded like the next Riccuito which is exactly what we need until Cooney and Griffen grow into their frames - but he was taken 3 by Melbourne and then we took Ray. McLean was taken the pick after and obviously he would have been a good pick, but Ray has steadily improved and his athleticism does show signs of being able to carve teams up, so I dont regret his selection but I would have liked to have kept that #6 pick.

I always thought that Wallace doing the camera thing was just trying to justify to the supporters not taking a tall - because its been almost a decade that us dogs supporters have been crying out for talls. I never knew it was Richards - I guess neither Birss nor Richards have set the world on fire but both are handy players.

[LostDoggy]

Re: Scott Clayton

There has to be some question marks on Clayton at the moment. It seems to me that we have a "sameness" about our list which isn't working.

If we look at Sydney, they tend to use the latter selections more effectively and will draft players that can fill a specific need. Guys like Buchanan, Luke Ablett, Malceski, Bevan and Schmidt all seem to have been drafted because they have a strong defensive skills.
Malceski aside, none of these guys are necessarily good footballers but they can come in and be deployed to fill a specific role for the club on a specific day.
Roos can then coach around them because there is a consistency if their efforts each week. If they need to use one of them on a lock down role to shut out a player they adapt to it and perfom their task as required.

We never seem to spend a draft pick on someone who will be developed primarily as a tagger. I think we have underestimated that we need to have a better mix of players that have a strong defensive side of their game. The game has changed and is still changing towards "if you cannot run then you cannot play" type structure but the ability to call up a player with a specific defensive skill is something that we haven't placed a high enough empahsis on.

Did anyone see Hurn in the warm ups kicking torps from 55 out which were sailing through to the netting? He's not quick and probably will never be a consistent 25 possession a game type player but he is tough and reliable and has that naturally defensive side of his game that we seem to lack. I doubt Clayton would ever select a player like him in the first round a draft.

[Go_Dogs]

Re: Scott Clayton

Did anyone see Hurn in the warm ups kicking torps from 55 out which were sailing through to the netting? He's not quick and probably will never be a consistent 25 possession a game type player but he is tough and reliable and has that naturally defensive side of his game that we seem to lack. I doubt Clayton would ever select a player like him in the first round a draft.

Hurn will be a consistent 25 possession game player, easily. He has a great motor, super skills and is very hard. I've often spoken of my longing to see him in a Dogs jumper, believe me, he's going to be a very very good player. WC always pick a similar player with their first round pick, and it has worked very well for them. Tough, inside players who not only are strong and have defensive skills, but also have good decision making and ball skills.

[Mofra]

Re: Scott Clayton

We never seem to spend a draft pick on someone who will be developed primarily as a tagger. I think we have underestimated that we need to have a better mix of players that have a strong defensive side of their game.

I disagree, Boyd & Morris (albeit rookies) werte taken on board as taggers. Cross was always earmarked as a run with player (until he developed this ability to get the ball 800 times a game) and Addision hasn't been tried anywheer near the F50.

Not sure about the rationale bhind D-Mac but he seems a born BP/defensive type as well. The problem is we have tried to turn other into defensively minded players (Faulkner & McMahon for example) with limited success.

Perhaps Eade's insistance on "versatility" needs to be scaled back a touch?

[LostDoggy]

Re: Scott Clayton

I disagree, Boyd & Morris (albeit rookies) werte taken on board as taggers. Cross was always earmarked as a run with player (until he developed this ability to get the ball 800 times a game) and Addision hasn't been tried anywheer near the F50.

Perhaps Eade's insistance on "versatility" needs to be scaled back a touch?

But thats exactly my point, we used the easy option of putting most of them onto the rookie list and seeing what they could offer before promoting them into the team. I see that most of our late selections are always skewed towards development or bottom age recruits rather than taking a punt on a guy that might just be a run with or tagging option.

It's not like we are devoid of players like this because as you say we do have Cross, Morris, Boyd and even Harbrow and possibly Addison with these skills but a couple more wouldn't hurt.

[LostDoggy]

Re: Scott Clayton

I was watching the game last night and had a good look at the Eagles defenders. Waters, Glass, Hurn and Hunter are all young powerful athletic types and were just too strong for some of our guys. Harris and possibly Morris aside we didn't have the same type of muscle in our back half.
We need to review the way that we draft players and in reality it's not a huge change. My view is that recruiting managers should be moved on every few years so that they keep having plenty to prove. Clayton might have done a n excellent job for us but he also might have run his race because the list just isn't competitive enough.