Crossy66 wrote: ↑Mon 18 Jun 2018 9:44am
st.byron wrote: ↑Sat 16 Jun 2018 11:55am
Saintmatt wrote: ↑Sat 16 Jun 2018 10:11am
saintspremiers wrote: ↑Sat 16 Jun 2018 8:19am
Last night the Swine had 11 former rookie listed players playing.
That doesn’t rely on 2nd and 3rd round picks to build does it?
‘Just sayin’
Correct. It relies on development. And therein lies the issue.
If I was Lethlean - my focus / blade - would now turn sharply towards anyone in our club who’s been involved in our development in the past 5 years.
Off with their heads ...
And Richardson was lauded as an expert in developing players based on his work at Port.
Been saying it for a while now, the Swans are the benchmark for developing rookies into AFL players and have been so for a long time, so we should really study there process. Seems its more than just development, they play a system of footy that makes it easier to insert a player to play a specific role. Not unlike Lyon, so no coincidence there.
Richo quite rightly delegates development to others so is reliant on his assistants, but was very highly regard in that role himself. maybe we arent investing the right resources into this area.
I know I've been harping on about it for a while - but development of young players always seems to coincide with teams that have a good group of senior players.
The teams that have remained competitive for long periods, have managed to keep their list balanced and keep young guys coming - whilst ensuring they have a good group of old guys at the same time. The teams that fall away and go in to 'rebuild' mode and seem to struggle to develop their young guys are the ones with a senior player vacuum.
Sydney, Geelong, Hawthorn, North and West Coast are examples of this. Even Collingwood and Melbourne this year look to be coming good, as they have balanced up and have a decent senior group. Collingwood have Pendlebury, Wells, Howe, Greenwood and Sidebottom - and they added Dunn now too which has made a huge difference. Melbourne were rubbish and their young guys looked soft until they added Hibberd and Lewis to their senior group with Jones.
I honestly believe that if we were to add two solid, professional and hard senior guys (don't have to be superstars) to our team you'd instantly see our younger guys appear far, far better than they do now.