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Re: Our abysmal draft record; The Roar
Well said Guido
Well said Guido
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Re: Our abysmal draft record; The Roar
Guido, Im a programmer and the anaolgy is something like what we call 'fighting spot fires' or 'crisis mode': Management says we need something done yesterday so you rush the job, which addresses the problem in the short term, but not very well - a slap-dash job that only causes more problems down the track.
You do this a number of times when you face a rough patch and everything starts to be held together with bailing wire and string, and hey presto! you are permanently in crisis mode and there is no time to set anything right because everyone is too busy fighting the next spot fire.
The only way out is to step back, ignore the spot fires, do thigns the right way and get everything in order befoer moving forward again. the trouble is this means some stuff has to burn, so most managers will not take this option.
So back to the footy, and the spot fires we were facing in the 2000s were serious structural deficiencies which take years to address via the draft. Want a power key forward? Even if there is a good one available at your pick, he isnt going to be the game changer you want for at least 4-5 years. So you try to trade your way out of the hole - keep fighting those spotfires.Comment
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Re: Our abysmal draft record; The Roar
An excellent analogy, but there's a culture behind which decisions are made. There are different organisational culture's out there, some are dysfunctional, whereas some have management systems in place to ensure that, based on percentages, it's more likely that the correct decision for the long term will be made. Some organisations are simply smarter with smarter people at the helm, and, some are simply, well, better at what they do. And the results show it.
When it comes to trading and drafting, our culture is one endemic of a short-sighted, quick fix mentality which, in 90% of cases, results in unmitigated failure. Dead-set, I reckon I could give you a list of about 50 names of recycled players that this club has recruited in my time supporting them. This is not normal behaviour for a professional football club. To have tried something time, and time and time again, and to keep going back for more in the hope that this time it will turn out different, it is a completely dysfunctional outlook and strategy.
And let's not walk away from the fact that there is a stupidity behind many of these decisions. When Nathan Brown was out of contract, the club had made a conscious choice that it needed a key forward. This was reflected in the reported (HS) joke of a best offer to him, around $1mil over 3 years ($350k p.a.) - he publicly made it known that he'd prefer to stay at the club as long as the money was in the same ballpark, but the club wouldn't budge a second or a cent on the years, or the cash.
This was for one of the top 10 players in the comp. Everyone else could see it and were walking in with offers of $500K, but not us, we had a surplus/ one too many damaging small forwards who could regularly kick 5+ a game, apparently. No more money, the footy managers of the time said. Yet, a month later, we offered Jade Rawlings, someone not even in the top 50 in the comp, someone who clearly said he didn't want anything to do with our club, not only 4 years, but $400K per year.
This is stupidity for the sake of supposedly rectifying a weakness, and as we know, it rectified jack shit. In fact, his wage exacerbated problems, and severely limited the club's options for genuine solutions down the track (Pick 6 and $500K was more than what secured Ottens a year later), or if you combined the $700K being paid to Rawlings and Koops in 2004/2005, you could have went to Barry Hall (on $500K at the time) and maybe secured him 5 years earlier than we eventually did? Or if the club wasn't so obsessed with these "spotfires", maybe it would have secured Hall as a 17 year old in the 1995 draft, instead of going with a 28 year old Alen Jakovich at Pick 9 a handful of selections earlier?
This club has a problem when it comes to dealing with ... well, problems. Has it learnt a single thing? This analysis could have been done in 1999, 2002, 2005, 2009 just as it is being today, with the same answers on how this strategy plays out. And yet, I know, unless something about this club's inherent quick-fix culture can be overhauled, that I'll almost be in tears at the end of trade week, knowing that the seeds of our next prelim loss were sown in the stupidity of 2012.
There are obviously no controls in place based on previous results/ history to limit these screw ups, as offering a second round pick for Matthew Bate last year would attest to. I saw Brian Cook on On the Couch a few weeks back, you know what he regarded as one of key problems at Geelong when he arrived? They were $10million in debt, and yet he had list management as a problem almost on par. Where is our review of list management practices in the last 10 years, and who could we trust to instigate it? Campbell Rose when he was here? Didn't even know who Scott West was. James Fantasia? He's pulled the trigger on a number of them, how do you think he'll rate his performance. Smorgon? A number of times he's the one that's screamed out for established players to "hasten" the club's rise up the ladder. My only hope is that, with essentially a fresh slate, Chris Grant, Simon Garlick and McCartney sit down, see what's successful, and set out a long term list management strategy that will work, and as they say, "stand up in finals".
If this doesn't happen, then I fear that we'll do what this club is destined to do with any opportunity it has to genuinely replenish the list : be "aggressive" during trade week, throwing draft picks around like confetti on quick fixes who'll ultimately be lucky to contribute 50 games. The cheerleaders will cheer, justifying the trades with some bullshit secondary factor (he's 24! Our list is devoid of 24 year olds!), denounce scepticism on the strategy from "always negative types", stating that we must trust our footy department because they're professionals, and we need to give it three/four years before making a judgement on whether throwing those first/second/third round picks away on players not even in the top 100 players in the comp will be worth it. And then, it'll be the old "what duds! Ah well, everyone's an expert with hindsight. Now, who can we trade for to fix this mess?"
#givenup [/jaded]Comment
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Re: Our abysmal draft record; The Roar
Great read, Guido.
Thanks for that -- would like to see you post around here more often.W00F!Comment
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Re: Our abysmal draft record; The Roar
Great stuff Guido.
The appointment of Jason McCartney is perhaps a sign that the club now gets the points you so eloquently made.Comment
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Re: Our abysmal draft record; The Roar
Great read Guido. Time and time again, serious flaws in our recruitment approach come back to Fantasia and I won't be at ease with our future direction until he's gone.
Guido, what was the part about Rose not knowing who Scott West was?You don't develop courage by being happy in your relationships every day. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity. ― EpicurusComment
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Re: Our abysmal draft record; The Roar
At the time though Rose was the newly-appointed CEO who came from harness racing and had no football background at all. He was not the recruiting officer and turned out to be a pretty handy CEO. Rose was CEO during our most successful period for 50 years on and probably off the field. I don't understand the relevance of this amusing anecdote to the point about our recruiting. Are we implying that recruiting stuff-ups are Rose's fault?Comment
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