Pack your bags McCartney...

[The Pie Man]

Re: Pack your bags McCartney...

This is one of my biggest concerns. I'm a huge fan of Libba but he's been ordinary lately and I don't think the opposition is putting any extra work into him. Dahlhaus can't do anything wrong in most eyes, his season has been poor. Then there are quite a few in the VFL who have gone backwards as well although there is a case they weren't that good to begin with.

Off topic, but I don't think anyone will mind.

It seems Libba looks to handball almost everytime he takes possession, and regularly puts teamates under the pump.* Especially frustrating when he's running to his left peg and then handballs back the other way and kills momentum. Is it just me?

(*Just looked it up, he had 7 HB to 13 kicks - which is an ok balance....so perhaps I'm focusing on just a few instances)

[bulldogsthru&thru]

Re: Pack your bags McCartney...

the drafting under the Eade era is what is crippling us. McCartney has inherited a train wreck. It's gonna take a long time to undo the damage done over 5 years. We are lucky to have gathered Wallis and Libba as FS in '10 and to strike a bit of rookie gold in Dahl and JJ as otherwise we would be in even dire straights.

But we have only 14 players on our list out of 49 drafted from the 06,07,08,09 and '10 drafts and that includes NO players remaining from the 06 draft. Its fair to say the 06 and 07 drafts were our worst, but 09 was also pretty bad too considering whilst some of the players are still on our list, the talent is below average. Think Howard, Markovic, Tutt

[HOSE B ROMERO]

Re: Pack your bags McCartney...

Has anyone seen my hat?

[BornInDroopSt'54]

Re: Pack your bags McCartney...

Has anyone seen my hat?

Yes you left it at the coven.

[Greystache]

Re: Pack your bags McCartney...

the drafting under the Eade era is what is crippling us. McCartney has inherited a train wreck. It's gonna take a long time to undo the damage done over 5 years. We are lucky to have gathered Wallis and Libba as FS in '10 and to strike a bit of rookie gold in Dahl and JJ as otherwise we would be in even dire straights.

But we have only 14 players on our list out of 49 drafted from the 06,07,08,09 and '10 drafts and that includes NO players remaining from the 06 draft. Its fair to say the 06 and 07 drafts were our worst, but 09 was also pretty bad too considering whilst some of the players are still on our list, the talent is below average. Think Howard, Markovic, Tutt

You can add Eade's other year of 2005 to that list too- Higgins and Addison is all that's left. Of the teams in 2008-2010 nearly all of our club developed players were drafted under Rhode or Wallace and we're paying for 6 years of poor recruiting.

[Maddog37]

Re: Pack your bags McCartney...

It just illustrates we are in fact starting from scratch in terms of building the list again.

[LostDoggy]

Re: Pack your bags McCartney...

I'm backing him (Brendan). Now is not the time to cut and run.

[Ghost Dog]

Re: Pack your bags McCartney...

the drafting under the Eade era is what is crippling us. McCartney has inherited a train wreck. It's gonna take a long time to undo the damage done over 5 years. We are lucky to have gathered Wallis and Libba as FS in '10 and to strike a bit of rookie gold in Dahl and JJ as otherwise we would be in even dire straights.

But we have only 14 players on our list out of 49 drafted from the 06,07,08,09 and '10 drafts and that includes NO players remaining from the 06 draft. Its fair to say the 06 and 07 drafts were our worst, but 09 was also pretty bad too considering whilst some of the players are still on our list, the talent is below average. Think Howard, Markovic, Tutt

Well, it's part of the story. But, we had a team that dominated in the first Qtr V the suns.
We gave it to them with some poor decision making.
Have some very capable players who are not really in top form.
I'd say none of Boyd, Gia, Griffen, Picken, Stevens are in top form at the moment.

[The Cowshed]

Re: Pack your bags McCartney...

I reckon the training sessions must be totally based around game plan or match planning for the next game because it sure as hell doesn't go towards their skill sets.

Take Libba for example, he storms out of the centre break but because he can't kick adequately on his right side the ball slews off his boot. Morris is a total right sided player, Wallis would rather go to ground to feed a handball out, a la Crossy, than keep his feet and stay in the contest, Roughy at times plays the wrong side of the forward...there are just so many glaringly obvious basic skills that could be corrected during training by the coaching staff. If I saw improvement in some of these basic fundamentals of football...I might think we are on the right path.

[Sedat]

Re: Pack your bags McCartney...

Of the teams in 2008-2010 nearly all of our club developed players were drafted under Rhode or Wallace and we're paying for 6 years of poor recruiting.

Do you think our recruiting from 2000-2002 was any better? Jordan McMahon, Sam Power, Tim Walsh, Cam Faulkner - not exactly a roll-call of elite first round selections there. If we nailed even a couple of these selections we win a flag and possibly 2. As for the Rohde era, every single player drafted in before his arrival went backwards in their development and many of them were borderline scrapheap material before the new coach arrived. So in effect almost every year of drafting was poor from 2000-2009 - how we got so close to a premiership, with a clearly inferior list to the contenders of the day, was an absolute miracle.

[The Cowshed]

Re: Pack your bags McCartney...

Do you think our recruiting from 2000-2002 was any better? Jordan McMahon, Sam Power, Tim Walsh, Cam Faulkner - not exactly a roll-call of elite first round selections there. If we nailed even a couple of these selections we win a flag and possibly 2. As for the Rohde era, every single player drafted in before his arrival went backwards in their development and many of them were borderline scrapheap material before the new coach arrived. So in effect almost every year of drafting was poor from 2000-2009 - how we got so close to a premiership, with a clearly inferior list to the contenders of the day, was an absolute miracle.

Yes, we seem to target the wrong type of player...Clayton is not on my christmas card list.

[Ghost Dog]

Re: Pack your bags McCartney...

Do you think our recruiting from 2000-2002 was any better? Jordan McMahon, Sam Power, Tim Walsh, Cam Faulkner - not exactly a roll-call of elite first round selections there. If we nailed even a couple of these selections we win a flag and possibly 2. As for the Rohde era, every single player drafted in before his arrival went backwards in their development and many of them were borderline scrapheap material before the new coach arrived. So in effect almost every year of drafting was poor from 2000-2009 - how we got so close to a premiership, with a clearly inferior list to the contenders of the day, was an absolute miracle.

Was it a miracle? Doesn't it just illustrate a point? Team sport. Players that stick together and work to a solid plan go places. The Swans have shown this. St Kilda have shown this. Freo have shown this ( minus Griffen, Sandilands and Pavlich, they still are able to jag a win. They know when to get drawn to the contest and when to cover. They have a smart system in place and like at St Kilda probably, Lyon has taught them a tackle inside 50 is as good as a goal )

[jeemak]

Re: Pack your bags McCartney...

Do you think our recruiting from 2000-2002 was any better? Jordan McMahon, Sam Power, Tim Walsh, Cam Faulkner - not exactly a roll-call of elite first round selections there. If we nailed even a couple of these selections we win a flag and possibly 2. As for the Rohde era, every single player drafted in before his arrival went backwards in their development and many of them were borderline scrapheap material before the new coach arrived. So in effect almost every year of drafting was poor from 2000-2009 - how we got so close to a premiership, with a clearly inferior list to the contenders of the day, was an absolute miracle.

I suppose it shows that you don't have to get drafting and list management perfectly right across the years, rather, a combination of factors need to come together for you to be in the mix at some stage, and you just have to be good across a number of areas as we were during 2008-2010. Unfortunately we were a bit thin on resources, and our drafting and list management left us short, but not by much.

There's absolutely no question the introduction of Rodney Eade provided a significant spur to our football club, and one that it definitely needed at the time. I remember Bob's article when Eade was sacked, giving him credit for making a bunch of players believe they could compete. I look at our list as it stands now, and I don't see the capacity for someone to come along and provide that type of impetus to the playing group. The foundation just isn't there right now.

We really need to build through early draft picks (and nail them), and make sure there's nothing left unchecked in terms of the resources required to make the most of the talent we bring into the club.

Being brutal with cutting the list is paramount as well. We're at the back end of the senior player mentor approach, and we need to move to another phase to push forwards. If the time hasn't come, where our senior players aren't providing the appropriate output, coupled with mentoring then it has to be coming soon.

[MrMahatma]

Re: Pack your bags McCartney...

You can add Eade's other year of 2005 to that list too- Higgins and Addison is all that's left. Of the teams in 2008-2010 nearly all of our club developed players were drafted under Rhode or Wallace and we're paying for 6 years of poor recruiting.

Isn't it Clayton to blame?

Everyone seems to blame Eade for bad drafting. Am I missing something?

[jeemak]

Re: Pack your bags McCartney...

Isn't it Clayton to blame?

Everyone seems to blame Eade for bad drafting. Am I missing something?

At that particular time as far as I can gather, there were insufficient resources at the club for one person to have complete control over the clubs recruitment and or list management.

In such times it would be reasonable to suggest that conflicting interests weren't necessarily managed as well as they could have been.