Matthew Clarke

[Scoop]

Is there a trend with Clarke? We won't take two KP players in the one batch of picks? Never seems to build a spine in one hit.

CCJ ahead of Allen, Taylor and De Konig. How could we have CCJ ranked ahead of all of those? Cripes.

We don't take Allen and Balta. We don't take Gibcus and JVR. We never load up on pure mids.

We dance around each section but never overload on anything. Besides back flankers.

 

[Dont Argue]

Here's another look at the 2017 ND. The first after Clarke's promotion to honcho of youth.

Round​	Pick​	Player​	Drafted to​	Recruited from​
1​	1​	Cameron Rayner​	Brisbane Lions​	Western Jets​
1​	2​	Andrew Brayshaw​	Fremantle​	Sandringham Dragons​
1​	3​	Paddy Dow​	Carlton​	Bendigo Pioneers​
1​	4​	Luke Davies-Uniacke​	North Melbourne​	Dandenong Stingrays​
1​	5​	Adam Cerra​	Fremantle​	Eastern Ranges​
1​	6​	Jaidyn Stephenson​	Collingwood​	Eastern Ranges​
1​	7​	Hunter Clark​	St Kilda​	Dandenong Stingrays​
1​	8​	Nick Coffield​	St Kilda​	Northern Knights​
1​	9​	Aaron Naughton​	Western Bulldogs​	Peel Thunder​
1​	10​	Lochie O'Brien​	Carlton​	Bendigo Pioneers​
1​	11​	Aiden Bonar​	Greater Western Sydney​	Dandenong Stingrays​
1​	12​	Darcy Fogarty​	Adelaide​	Glenelg​
1​	13​	Jarrod Brander​	West Coast​	Bendigo Pioneers​
1​	14​	Matthew Ling​	Sydney​	Geelong Falcons​
1​	15​	Zac Bailey​	Brisbane Lions​	Norwood​
1​	16​	Ed Richards​	Western Bulldogs​	Oakleigh Chargers​
1​	17​	Jack Higgins​	Richmond​	Oakleigh Chargers​
1​	18​	Brandon Starcevich​	Brisbane Lions​	East Perth​
1​	19​	Wil Powell​	Gold Coast​	Claremont​
2​	20​	Callum Coleman-Jones​	Richmond​	Sturt​
2​	21​	Oscar Allen​	West Coast​	West Perth​
2​	22​	Lachie Fogarty​	Geelong​	Western Jets​
2​	23​	Will Walker​	North Melbourne​	Sandringham Dragons​
2​	24​	Tim Kelly​	Geelong​	South Fremantle​
2​	25​	Noah Balta​	Richmond​	Calder Cannons​
2​	26​	Liam Ryan​	West Coast​	Subiaco​
2​	27​	Brent Daniels​	Greater Western Sydney​	Bendigo Pioneers​
2​	28​	Sam Taylor​	Greater Western Sydney​	Swan Districts​
2​	29​	Charlie Spargo​	Melbourne​	Murray Bushrangers​
2​	30​	Tom De Koning​	Carlton​	Dandenong Stingrays​
2​	31​	Bayley Fritsch​	Melbourne​	Casey​
2​	32​	Brayden Ainsworth​	West Coast​	Subiaco​
2​	33​	Tom McCartin​	Sydney​	Geelong Falcons​
2​	34​	Patrick Naish​	Richmond​	Northern Knights​
2​	35​	Oscar Clavarino​	St Kilda​	Dandenong Stingrays​
2​	36​	Charlie Constable​	Geelong​	Sandringham Dragons​
2​	37​	Harrison Petty​	Melbourne​	Norwood​
3​	38​	Jack Petruccelle​	West Coast​	Northern Knights​
3​	39​	Nathan Murphy​	Collingwood​	Sandringham Dragons​
3​	40​	Andrew McPherson​	Adelaide​	Woodville-West Torrens​
3​	41​	Toby Wooller​	Brisbane Lions​	Oakleigh Chargers​
3​	42​	Charlie Ballard​	Gold Coast​	Sturt​
3​	43​	Connor Ballenden​	Brisbane Lions​	Brisbane Lions​
3​	44​	Hugh Dixon​	Fremantle​	Tigers​
3​	45​	James Worpel​	Hawthorn​	Geelong Falcons​
3​	46​	Ben Paton​	St Kilda​	Murray Bushrangers​
3​	47​	Sam Hayes​	Port Adelaide​	Eastern Ranges​
3​	48​	Oskar Baker​	Melbourne​	Aspley​
3​	49​	Jordan Houlahan​	Essendon​	Sturt​
3​	50​	Tyler Brown​	Collingwood​	Eastern Ranges​
3​	51​	Kane Farrell​	Port Adelaide​	Bendigo Pioneers​
3​	52​	Brayden Crossley​	Gold Coast​	Palm Beach Currumbin​
3​	53​	Ryley Stoddart​	Sydney​	Eastern Ranges​
3​	54​	Jack Payne​	Brisbane Lions​	Noosa​
3​	55​	Connor Nutting​	Gold Coast​	Broadbeach​
4​	56​	Zac Langdon​	Greater Western Sydney​	Claremont​
4​	57​	Gryan Miers​	Geelong​	Geelong Falcons​
4​	58​	Jake Patmore​	Port Adelaide​	Claremont​
4​	59​	Mitch Crowden​	Fremantle​	Sturt​
4​	60​	Joel Garner​	Port Adelaide​	Eastern Ranges​
4​	61​	Dom Barry​	Port Adelaide​	Glenelg​
4​	62​	Kyron Hayden​	North Melbourne​	Subiaco​
4​	63​	Ben Miller​	Richmond​	Subiaco​
4​	64​	Nick Shipley​	Greater Western Sydney​	St George​
4​	65​	Tom North​	Fremantle​	Eastern Ranges​
4​	66​	Brandon Zerk-Thatcher​	Essendon​	Sturt​
4​	67​	Dylan Moore​	Hawthorn​	Eastern Ranges​
4​	68​	Hamish Brayshaw​	West Coast​	Sandringham Dragons​
4​	69​	Lloyd Meek​	Fremantle​	Greater Western Victoria Rebels​
4​	70​	Angus Schumacher​	Carlton​	Bendigo Pioneers​
5​	71​	Jackson Ross​	Hawthorn​	Eastern Ranges​
5​	72​	Tristan Xerri​	North Melbourne​	Western Jets​
5​	73​	Sam Switkowski​	Fremantle​	Box Hill​
5​	74​	Callum Porter​	Western Bulldogs​	Gippsland Power​
5​	75​	Scott Jones​	Fremantle​	East Perth​
5​	76​	Matt Guelfi​	Essendon​	Claremont​
5​	77​	Billy Hartung​	North Melbourne​	Hawthorn​
6​	78​	Jarrod Garlett​	Carlton​	South Fremantle​

There’s an example of the peril of picking “best available” over “needs”.
We didn’t need Higgin’s type as he never had the speed for Hardwick’s model of a pressure small forward, and we had Rioli, Butler and Castagna.

 

[Feeling Tigerish]

 

[Smoking Aces]

The stats don’t lie. On multiple occasions we could have full proofed our key position stocks.

 

[TigerFurious]

Is there a trend with Clarke? We won't take two KP players in the one batch of picks? Never seems to build a spine in one hit.

CCJ ahead of Allen, Taylor and De Konig. How could we have CCJ ranked ahead of all of those? Cripes.

We don't take Allen and Balta. We don't take Gibcus and JVR. We never load up on pure mids.

We dance around each section but never overload on anything. Besides back flankers.

20/20 hindsight there. A fair number of clubs overlooked the players you mentioned.

 

[Sintiger]

Whilst I am not disagreeing with some of the analysis the flaw is always that it is built on an assumption that the chief recruiter decides on the type of player we recruit.
Multiple times I have heard Clarke and other recruiters from other clubs say that whilst they may well get best available with early picks they are also often drafting for needs as defined by the coaching staff for others.

 

[Daigoro]

20/20 hindsight there. A fair number of clubs overlooked the players you mentioned.

Not really, we had 4 picks and there were good players taken everywhere. It was shooting fish in a barrel and somehow aside from Balta we kept missing.

 

[Dont Argue]

Whilst I am not disagreeing with some of the analysis the flaw is always that it is built on an assumption that the chief recruiter decides on the type of player we recruit.
Multiple times I have heard Clarke and other recruiters from other clubs say that whilst they may well get best available with early picks they are also often drafting for needs as defined by the coaching staff for others.

Let’s blame Leppichella

 

[Sintiger]

Let’s blame Leppichella

I'm not blaming anyone. I am just saying that laying all the blame for the type of player picked with the lead recruiter may be unfair.
We just don't know what he was asked to do or if he was asked to do anything in particular.

 

[Scoop]

20/20 hindsight there. A fair number of clubs overlooked the players you mentioned.

We took a ruck forward, there were better options in that category. Allen and De Koning.

Not 20/20. Couldn't care what other clubs did. We butchered that draft.

 

[Dev Tiger]

A problem with the Brown and Banks picks is that there isn't likely to be a spot in the backline in the best 22 for at least another four years. Tigga, Shorty and Daniel have those spots secured. Banks might be able to get a wing spot. At least with the Coulthard pick it was an area of need. We shouldn't be using top thirty picks on players were they are years away from getting into the best team in their preferred position.

 

[Sintiger]

Is there a trend with Clarke? We won't take two KP players in the one batch of picks? Never seems to build a spine in one hit.

CCJ ahead of Allen, Taylor and De Konig. How could we have CCJ ranked ahead of all of those? Cripes.

We don't take Allen and Balta. We don't take Gibcus and JVR. We never load up on pure mids.

We dance around each section but never overload on anything. Besides back flankers.

At the end of 2017 we had Jack riewoldt who was a multiple Coleman Medallist (he went on to win it in 2018) . We also took Tom Lynch aged 26 as a free agent 12 months later and we would have been targeting him. We had Alex Rance, the best key defender in the game, and a well regarded warrior in David Astbury down back.
We started 2019 with arguably the best spine in the game and it turned out that way
Why would we take two others in the 2017 draft? You could argue that we should be glad we didn't because we may not have recruited Tom Lynch and we probably would not have won the premiership without him in 2019.
This is not a comment on any other year but 2017 is not a good example imo.
The question is later on when these players are being replaced, not in 2017. There was a bit of a perfect storm of course because Rance and Astbury both retired earlier than expected.

 

[Dont Argue]

At the end of 2017 we had Jack riewoldt who was a multiple Coleman Medallist (he went on to win it in 2018) . We also took Tom Lynch aged 26 as a free agent 12 months later and we would have been targeting him. We had Alex Rance, the best key defender in the game, and a well regarded warrior in David Astbury down back.
We started 2019 with arguably the best spine in the game and it turned out that way
Why would we take two others in the 2017 draft? You could argue that we should be glad we didn't because we may not have recruited Tom Lynch and we probably would not have won the premiership without him in 2019.
This is not a comment on any other year but 2017 is not a good example imo.
The question is later on when these players are being replaced, not in 2017. There was a bit of a perfect storm of course because Rance and Astbury both retired earlier than expected.

The simple and obvious answer is that we had no key position players developing in the VFL. You don’t draft kids, especially key position, to play in the seniors the next year. Unless they’re freaks. You teach them game plan and develop them in the twos.
Sam Taylor, Oscar Allen or De Koning in 2018 would not be competing with senior players. If one player decides two years later that they want to leave for greater opportunity, like CCJ did, then at least you get a premium return on them as they’re always valued higher than hbf’s.

 

[Sintiger]

The simple and obvious answer is that we had no key position players developing in the VFL. You don’t draft kids, especially key position, to play in the seniors the next year. Unless they’re freaks. You teach them game plan and develop them in the twos.
Sam Taylor, Oscar Allen or De Koning in 2018 would not be competing with senior players. If one player decides two years later that they want to leave for greater opportunity, like CCJ did, then at least you get a premium return on them as they’re always valued higher than hbf’s.

We had Griffiths, Elton, Garthwaite, Moore and Chol

 

[The_General]

Whilst I am not disagreeing with some of the whilst they may well get best available with early picks they are also often drafting for needs as defined by the coaching staff for others.

This. 1000x this.

If our recruiting staff don't recruit the types the coach is after, then they are basically getting them fired before they begin. The recruiters absolutely must buy in or we'd have them telling the club what type of strategy they want our head coach to deliver.

Cart can't go before the horses.

 

[Dyer'ere]

We traded into the 2017 draft. We took our change from GWS 2016 (Prestia) into this draft. And then we upgraded 20 and 25 for 15 (Jack Higgins).

Trading into this draft was smart. (Our strategic thinking usually looks good to me.) We can all see that this was a deep draft. The top end still looks average but we were never going to get any of that.

The 2017 draft was an ideal mine for us. From pick 15 (17) and down.

 

[Dont Argue]

We had Griffiths, Elton, Garthwaite, Moore and Chol

I rest my case

 

[Dev Tiger]

There was so much depth around our picks. Allen, Kelly, Ryan, Daniels, Taylor, Spargo, De Koning, Fritsch, McCartin, Murphy, Ballard and Worpel all very good AFL players.

 

[seven]

There’s an example of the peril of picking “best available” over “needs”.

My only argument of the “best players” idea is that history shows we actual don’t end up getting the best players.

 

[Sintiger]

I rest my case

20/20 hindsight which is what so much opinion on recruiters is based on