Mid season review

[Jasper]

Suggest trying to be brief. Quick rating out of ten 0 being rubbish, 5 average, 10 superb. Broken down into a few sections, suggest a couple of sentences on each area. Will try and get a positive comment in.

The Players

2/10

Senior players have slipped. Junior players haven't stepped up. Skills have dropped off alarmingly. Watching the Geelong Hawthorn game where target after target was hit under pressure, made me realise we are a long way off this.

Time in the young players is a good thing. Dollhouse looks exciting. Howard seems to get a bit of the ball...Libba looks the goods.

The Footy Department

2/10

List management is my bugbear - I was keen to trade a slower less skilled ball winning player to get a quick tackling forward to the club. Nahas and Betts were players I was keen on. Instead we got Djerkurra . The club seems surprised that our older players are getting injured...well duh. And the lack of improvement in the set shot skills of players like Jones, Roughead and Grant, is an indictment on our skills coaching. Eade's inability to get players to play or cope with a press has been well documented.

Eade playing younger players is a positive..

The Doctors

0/10

The preparation of our A grade players or shall we say lack of preparation is astounding, we now hear Cooney needs a knee operation. Lake is nowhere near fit. The fact that our young guns keeping getting crueled by OP over the years (Cooney, Ward and Higgins). The failure to diagnose Minson's and Higgins conditions quickly last year. Our lack of speed, it is really disappointing.

The Administration

Not in a position to rate, haven't reviewed our balance sheet but this would be the main measurement you would think. They should be giving our club every chance financially to compete.

[Bornadog]

Re: Mid season review

The Administration

Not in a position to rate, haven't reviewed our balance sheet but this would be the main measurement you would think. They should be giving our club every chance financially to compete.

On the Administration (from an outsider), I would rate 7/10 as they have started the debt reduction programme and already knocked off $1.5 million. I think next year will be a test as membership will drop and in particlaur social club membership which has been a boon for the club.

[LostDoggy]

Re: Mid season review

On the Administration (from an outsider), I would rate 7/10 as they have started the debt reduction programme and already knocked off $1.5 million. I think next year will be a test as membership will drop and in particlaur social club membership which has been a boon for the club.

I think if we can get some wins on the board last part of the season with some of the younger blokes playing roles this will go a long way in the membership stakes. I agree we may drop a lot of social members because we will not be looking at finals.

[The Underdog]

Re: Mid season review

List management is my bugbear - I was keen to trade a slower less skilled ball winning player to get a quick tackling forward to the club. Nahas and Betts were players I was keen on. Instead we got Djerkurra .

That's all well and good but players have to be available to get them and there has to be an avenue to get them.
There's no way in the world Carlton would let Betts go for what we could offer and they already had Brock Maclean who can't get a game as a slower ball winning player. Richmond have recruited midfielders almost exclusively early in the draft the last few years and I can't see the appeal of a slow less skilled ball winner for them. We also didn't have a first round pick to trade, until the pick for Harbrow which we were intent on using for Sherman. The reality is it's a lot easier to talk about these trades than it is to achieve them.
The club attempted to fill this hole and Sherman, Djerkurra and Veszpremi were all there to add either, pace, skill or pressure to the forward half. Has it worked? To varying degrees, but it's also a sample size of 11 games in a team that's faltering. I thought the club clearly had a plan to address a problem and aside from paying over the odds for Djerkurra both in draft pick and contract years they brought in what they could.

[Jasper]

Re: Mid season review

That's all well and good but players have to be available to get them and there has to be an avenue to get them.
There's no way in the world Carlton would let Betts go for what we could offer and they already had Brock Maclean who can't get a game as a slower ball winning player. Richmond have recruited midfielders almost exclusively early in the draft the last few years and I can't see the appeal of a slow less skilled ball winner for them. We also didn't have a first round pick to trade, until the pick for Harbrow which we were intent on using for Sherman. The reality is it's a lot easier to talk about these trades than it is to achieve them.
The club attempted to fill this hole and Sherman, Djerkurra and Veszpremi were all there to add either, pace, skill or pressure to the forward half. Has it worked? To varying degrees, but it's also a sample size of 11 games in a team that's faltering. I thought the club clearly had a plan to address a problem and aside from paying over the odds for Djerkurra both in draft pick and contract years they brought in what they could.

Firstly we shouldn't have been in the position of needing to gap fill if we had managed our list better in recent years.

I was never keen on any of the players we traded to the club last year. And I think we should have offered up something half decent to the Tiges for Nahas. The Tiges had a need for hard bodies thats why they recruited Grigg. We could have offered Addison (after a good finals series) for Nahas (who had poor form but the traits we needed pace, goal kicking and fwd pressure and tackling). History shows Nahas has turned his career around to become a good player this year

We could have used our draft pick to draft a quick skilled player rather than recruit Sherman.

I honestly would have looked at trading Boyd and a pick to Carlton for Betts and a higher pick, so there was a method to do it. But as many have pointed out, Boyd is highly regarded at the club and this was never going to happen.

Everitt for Vez was even but realistically was a gamble that hasn't paid off yet.

[Bornadog]

Re: Mid season review

Firstly we shouldn't have been in the position of needing to gap fill if we had managed our list better in recent years.

I was never keen on any of the players we traded to the club last year. And I think we should have offered up something half decent to the Tiges for Nahas. The Tiges had a need for hard bodies thats why they recruited Grigg. We could have offered Addison (after a good finals series) for Nahas (who had poor form but the traits we needed pace, goal kicking and fwd pressure and tackling). History shows Nahas has turned his career around to become a good player this year

We could have used our draft pick to draft a quick skilled player rather than recruit Sherman.

I honestly would have looked at trading Boyd and a pick to Carlton for Betts and a higher pick, so there was a method to do it. But as many have pointed out, Boyd is highly regarded at the club and this was never going to happen.

Everitt for Vez was even but realistically was a gamble that hasn't paid off yet.

All good in theory, but very difficulot to execute. We tried to get Andrew Walker from Carlton but just couldn't get the deal done. We tried to offload Hill, again couldn't. Its not easy to do these deals and you can't blame list management for not getting it done.

[Jasper]

Re: Mid season review

All good in theory, but very difficulot to execute. We tried to get Andrew Walker from Carlton but just couldn't get the deal done. We tried to offload Hill, again couldn't. Its not easy to do these deals and you can't blame list management for not getting it done.

Firstly, well its their job to get the deal done. And secondly list management is about who you retain. We have retained too many players of the same age and of similar skill set and needed to cull these by trade or delisting some players earlier.

[GVGjr]

Re: Mid season review

All good in theory, but very difficulot to execute. We tried to get Andrew Walker from Carlton but just couldn't get the deal done. We tried to offload Hill, again couldn't. Its not easy to do these deals and you can't blame list management for not getting it done.

I can't agree with this. We went harder for Sherman than we did for Walker and we had a deal for Hill (that we originally agreed to) but then reneged on it due to timing stating he was now worth a top 20 draft pick. We also paid too high of a price for Djerrkura because we didn't close the deal correctly.

In my opinion it's not a theory that we kept Eagleton and Akermanis on one season too many and it's not a theory that we didn't cut into the list sufficiently leading into the compromised drafts. I know we aren't going to get every player that we target but we have a way to go before I would say we are good list managers.

[Pedro Sanchez]

Re: Mid season review

And what about a section for the fans - surely we should get an 11 out of 10 for sticking fat and putting up with the dross that's been served up week after week...

Still, as rubbish as we've been and although there isnt an immediate ray of hope - maybe with a new coach, fresh messages and new way of doing things, wonders could be worked in the near future with this massively underperforming list.

Some may not agree, but I cant accept a side can go from top 4 three years running to bottom four the next. Sure you can drop off, but that's to greater contrast for my liking...

I like Eade and what his done for the club, but my view is we need a change at the top.

[The Adelaide Connection]

Re: Mid season review

I am starting to wonder whether the broken promise of resting players at certain times in 2008,09 and 10 has really hurt the development of our younger players. Getting more games into these guys in a team in good form with a positive, winning culture would have made a huge difference.

Collingwood blooded Fasalo today and he looked pretty good, but I bet he would have struggled for a touch if he was playing for Melbourne.

[azabob]

Re: Mid season review

I am starting to wonder whether the broken promise of resting players at certain times in 2008,09 and 10 has really hurt the development of our younger players. Getting more games into these guys in a team in good form with a positive, winning culture would have made a huge difference.

Collingwood blooded Fasalo today and he looked pretty good, but I bet he would have struggled for a touch if he was playing for Melbourne.

Interesting point AC which I think has a bit of merit to it.

[1eyedog]

Re: Mid season review

The players get a 5 from me. We should have six wins as we were very unlucky against Freo and Sydney, nothing in it really. We should have beaten the Saints too. Six wins and six losses would look much better, unfortunately we don't have them, but we were not far away.

The Essendon and Weagles game are the biggest concerns, as was the last quarter against Collingwood.

[1eyedog]

Re: Mid season review

And what about a section for the fans - surely we should get an 11 out of 10 for sticking fat and putting up with the dross that's been served up week after week...

Still, as rubbish as we've been and although there isnt an immediate ray of hope - maybe with a new coach, fresh messages and new way of doing things, wonders could be worked in the near future with this massively underperforming list.

Some may not agree, but I cant accept a side can go from top 4 three years running to bottom four the next. Sure you can drop off, but that's to greater contrast for my liking...

I like Eade and what his done for the club, but my view is we need a change at the top.

Collingwood played in two losing Grand Finals before dropping out of the 8 the following year. IMO The Aints aren't any better than us after playing in last years Grand Final. We should have beaten them Friday night, they are crap! As Wolfman said "Crash and burn hey Mav!"

[Nuggety Back Pocket]

Re: Mid season review

And what about a section for the fans - surely we should get an 11 out of 10 for sticking fat and putting up with the dross that's been served up week after week...

Still, as rubbish as we've been and although there isnt an immediate ray of hope - maybe with a new coach, fresh messages and new way of doing things, wonders could be worked in the near future with this massively underperforming list.

Some may not agree, but I cant accept a side can go from top 4 three years running to bottom four the next. Sure you can drop off, but that's to greater contrast for my liking...

I like Eade and what his done for the club, but my view is we need a change at the top.

The inability to recruit quality key positional players apart from Lake has been a major concern for many years. We also lack class forwards. Barry Hall gave us the impetus last year to make another prelim final but he was one out. Walker would have been a huge get for the club and a far better option than Sherman.
It would be too simple to disperse with Eade, when he simply doesn't have the talent at his disposal. Recruiting rejects from other clubs like DJ, Vez and Barlow rarely works and smacks of desperation.Eade needs to take some responsibility for these decisions as at the end of the day it is his call.

[G-Mo77]

Re: Mid season review

I don't know about that NBP.

Sherman is exactly the type of player we did need. Very quick and a good finisher around goals it is something we lacked in 2010.