The Lack of Talls on Our List (Merged)

[Tango]

i basically agree with you on our talls situation. I disagree with you on our drafting strategy, but happy to leave it where our discussion has gotten to, but

tango keeps referring to next year, and seems to be saying we should have drafted more talls to cover next year. that is where i disagree, and i think thats ians point too. tango hasnt answered the question of how the problems we will have next year should have been solved.

edit: tango has now answered the question. and it seems to be we should have drafted with a focus on the short term.

brodders, yes you are right, i believe we should have used this draft to address our structure issues in the short term at possibly the expense of the long term better player

we did delist and retire a lot of talls this year in addition to already being light on so i think we should have addressed this in balance with our last 2 speculative picks instead what we did

then when we were more blanced next year we could have pruned the list back purely on performance and ability and drafted accordingly

 

[the claw]

He'll be a target, not a distributor. If he's ok he'll play the role Richo would have. Our young key forwards are going to cop it next year.

On another note, not sure how you can question the selection of 'b' grade Griffiths and Astbury then ask why we didn't subsequently take blokes rated lower than them. Shallow draft, dearth of quality talls. If we take two in the rookie/PSD and get three-five in a stronger draft next year we're up to 20. Plenty of little blokes to cut too: Kingy, McMahon, White, Thomson and Hislop are far from safe. First priority at this stage is quality.

dont believe i have questioned astbury at 35 i have a query over his testing at camp. and the only thing i question about pick 19 is did we take the right tall. theres plenty on here happy about griffiths i will defer to them for the moment. if i had a choice between bastinac bartlett and stevens or griffiths at 19 i would have taken the mid. with both carlisle and black there it became a choice between those two and friffiths i dont rate griffiths but that is probably harsh as statd ive seen little of him.

anyway you miss the point totally in regard polak. if its not good enough to target young kpps for the sole reason of kicking it certainly is not good enough to retain those who have bad kicking skills as well.if we refuse to rate players with this deficiency we should not rate those we have.

redrafting polak is going to do absolutely nothing for us other than have a player clog the list. taking him would be an admission of how desperate they are in regards our tall situation. its to the point where they have little choice, but probably take him now. that is a sad state of affairs.
rather than polak in the rookie draft who we can be pretty sure will give us little why not take bradshaw who is a good player and will give something even if only for a shortwhile.

 

[Tango]

claw, better still;

polak we know is no good so why bother
bradshaw has 2 years left - yes worth a risk

but why not take a risk on temel, mcdonald, grimes, panos etc etc

 

[TigerForce]

Geez...still dreaming about Bradshaw here.....

 

[the claw]

Extremely well said. Its ironic that some on here criticising us for not taking enough talls want us to take players our recruiters have assessed as not being up to it, IOW to pick blindly, yet are huge critics of our recruiting performance over the years. Our recruiters can't win.

so are you telling us all nason webberley dea are quality. shhesh if nason and webberley are not speculative i dont know what is.
it seems its okay to take speculative smalls who dont fit a lit need but its not alright to take a speculative tall who does fit list needs.
to top it off these arent kids we are taking but 20 21 yr olds. :

this thread has come to those who defend the club no matter what and those who think list management coul;d have been better.

there wasnt a tall kid worth taking with pick 71 in a shallow draft. well there certainly wont be a tall kid worth taking in the psd or rookie draft then will there.

 

[Tango]

here here claw, i dont agree with everything you say but your last comment is spot on

we take a 21 YO fwd pocket from the SANFL reserves but we cant take a speculative tall when i think its clear everyone on here thinks we are short on talls??

 

[the claw]

totally disagree. of course you can say that 'flanker' with good skills, good agility, reasonable smarts and good courage has a better chance, a lot better chance even, of making a difference to the team than a 'tall' with average skills, average mobility, limited strength and little footy smarts, or even a tall with 1 or 2 good attributes, but other failings. of course you can.

so every other tall availble is a dud then. sure hope we dont take one in the psd or rookie one.people are on here saying there was not one tall worth taking after pick 44 they are all duds. but hey its okay to take a punt on smalls because the club said and did so.
the sheep are everywhere.

 

[the claw]

Oh dear. is that a serious post Goodone.

You are really suggesting that all the hundreds of thousands of dollars the every club puts into there recruiting is all to feel warm & fuzzy with little impact on changing results after pick 50. Hmmmm.

Leysy & his knowledge will go the exact opposite to yourself. Inside pick 30 especially, with the amount of info out there clubs will generally get themselves decent players with just a modicum of intelligence. It is in actual fact the picks after 50 & through the rookie draft that the "informed opinion" as you put it really comes into play. This is when the wheat from the chaff of recruiting teams comes to the fore.

But in your opinion we may as well do away with those departments at that stage & raffle players from a pool only if there in a pond of a certain size. No matter how dry that pond might be.

Some of the more crazy talk leysy's seen.

hmm i think goody is saying after pick 50 very few players are taken and the success rate on those taken after 50 would be 1 in 4. it doesnt matter the size of the player taken after 50 they are all risks/speculative.

 

[the claw]

Extremely well said. Its ironic that some on here criticising us for not taking enough talls want us to take players our recruiters have assessed as not being up to it, IOW to pick blindly, yet are huge critics of our recruiting performance over the years. Our recruiters can't win.

pppfffttt very selective posting there.or is it you just dont grasp whats being said. that says a lot.

 

[Disco08]

Don't ND recruits get an automatic 2 years, whereas PSD and RD picks can be punted after 1?

If we (and it looks like everyone else) were of the opinion that the talls in this draft were substandard and those that remained late were speculative at best, wouldn't picking them in the PSD and RD be a smart move? We do have pole position in both given Melbourne are taking McDonald and the Gold Coast are using their RD picks to get some more experienced players onto their list.

In the end will it matter whether we fill our quota of talls in the ND, PSD or RD?

 

[the claw]

Well, just this year Fevola, Hall & Bradshaw are 3 pretty handy KPP's who anyone could have had if the deal was right.

hmm is it not true bradshaw is still available and for what pick 2 in the psd a steal.

 

[the claw]

It,s was well known that this year,s crop of talls didn,t have the depth as in previous years.Have a look at the picks around Nason.Either Rookie elevations or Mids.Like i said if your going to gamble then do it via the Rookie system,Thats what its there for.

was it who said that then madcow a poster on bf . seems a good excuse to justify why we took so few talls.

 

[Disco08]

hmm is it not true bradshaw is still available and for what pick 2 in the psd a steal.

You want Bradshaw claw? Really? How does he help us long term?

 

[U2Tigers]

Geez...still dreaming about Bradshaw here.....

I do - any other time he would be an absolute steal.

a shame our list is where we are at.

Bradshaw - just about my favourite non Tiger - for that I would love to see him in Yellow and Black.

But its pretty well set he Sydney bound and we won't mess with that.

 

[TigerForce]

I do - any other time he would be an absolute steal.

a shame our list is where we are at.

Bradshaw - just about my favourite non Tiger - for that I would love to see him in Yellow and Black.

But its pretty well set he Sydney bound and we won't mess with that.

Bradshaw is Sydney bound. Full stop.

Draft kids not retreads. We don't need established FFs for 2010.

 

[the claw]

Not at all. Like most people I wouldn't have a clue about these guys. I'm saying that it is obvious the recruiters took a "best available player" approach over a "pick for needs" method because it is obvious that if they rated any talls even close to those small guys they would have picked them because of our needs. Therefore I am happy with the system. And I applaud the club for taking the "best player available" approach. As for whether the recruiters ratings of who the best available players were was accurate....time will tell.

would they jackson is already on record saying he thinks we are fine for kpfs and that was before the draft. it was either spin or he has no idea.
a lot of faith being placed in jackson and his picks and i wonder why.

 

[Hayfever]

I'm for re-rookieing Polak and getting Bradshaw in the PSD for the simple reason that we are way short of experienced talls with no real respite for the next 1-2 years.

With Bradshaw the evidence is clear. The Swans are prepared to give him a 3 year deal and they rarely get their experienced recruits wrong. Their needs are the same as ours......... losing their #1 goalkicker, plus Mickey O(compare him to our N Brown). Like us with Jack Riewoldt they have an up-and-coming prospect in Jesse White but recognise the need for a proven KP forward. Some argue the Swans are a much better chance of making the 8 than us next year. I disagree. In 2009 we had a shocker of a year but still lost only 2 more games than them.

Polak is a tougher decision because of the unknown re his full recovery. Putting him on the rookie list is the right way to go. I would take the risk because he can help our undersized defenders(he is a very good mark), can ruck a bit, and can play up forward. Who else do we have who can do that? As Claw says his biggest weakness is his kicking. It is most exposed in defence so we need a gameplan to have our rebounding defenders running off his handpasses more. His best future prospects for us are probably more up forward. The very sad irony is that on the day of his accident he absolutely nailed a pressure goal for us and I made the comment then that he seemed to have finally cured his goalkicking 'yips'.

In the recent training reports I cannot recall any mention of Polak........ how he looks, what activities he has been involved in, is he wearing the headgear etc. Any feedback would be appreciated. No doubt our staff are monitoring him very closely. Once again it will come down to a needs/ best available decision.

 

[the claw]

Leysy, do you ever actually read and understand posts? I never said that recruiters are not necessary after pick 50. I never related the 'fuzzy and warm' statement to the recruiters not being necessary.

sheesh maisey actually read and also understand posts bloody hell that is optimism.

 

[Disco08]

I think another point that should be made is that on top of Astbury and Griffiths, Taylor is also basically an addition to our key forward stocks. He's 189 and possibly still growing - plenty of full forward have had successful careers at this height and all Taylor's junior footy has been as a key forward. FWIW he likens himself to Daryl White.

 

[the claw]

Whether Jack gets injured or not we are prolly not going to be challenging next year
So finding someone who can play FF now is not really a problem

Finding FF/CHF options for the future is a priority
A Jack injury could lead to opportunity for someone else

agree in principal. would say as long as the kids we are forced to throw in dont get smashed week in week out they need some mature bodies around them atm.