Dan Hannebery's recruitment and retention on our list is the epitome of why we will never win a premiership.

[Linton Street Saint]

It's an indictment on the club and on the individual.

Can anyone else name another club, player and amount of money that has been allowed to rot and fester like this has.

Imagine the mixture of hysterical laughter and contempt Sydney must hold us in professionally when they got to off load his salary and bring in 2-3 young jets.

All our failings in the draft are meaningless in the face of this incompetence.

[cwrcyn]

Yes.

Collingwood. Dayne Beams from Brisbane. Gave up two first round selections. Beams only played about 20 games. Huge contract. Cost a fortune

Adelaide. Bryce Gibbs. Gave up two first round draft picks. Huge contract.

Carlton. Pick 7 for Kristian Jaksch from GWS. Massive Bomb

Hawthorn. Jonathan Patton. Say no more

Richmond. Pick 23 for Chris Yarran from Carlton. A dead loss.

North Melbourne gave up picks 13 and 29 to West Coast for Daniel McConnell. Can't remember that name? Yeah, because he played 4 games.

Adelaide. Picks 2 and 18 for Wayne Carey. Massive contract. Carey played 28 games over three years and barely touched it

Geelong. Pick 11 for Justin Murphy from Carlton. Murphy played 11 games

North Melbourne. Jonathan Hay from Hawthorn for pick 18. Hay played 8 games

[Linton Street Saint]

Appreciate the names but 5 years and $$$ ?

[cwrcyn]

By the way, any of Sydney's young guns are Academy players.

Would have been nice to get Heeney, Mills, Campbell, and Gulden for nothing like Sydney did

[Mr Magic]

Sydney - Kurt Tippet

[Waltzing St Kilda]

Hannebury was shot. Everyone knew it. Malthouse shook his head in disbelief when we recruited him.

Ma\ybe the Swans are paying a significant chunk of his salary but even so it was intemperate gamble from a bloke (lethlean) who was coming in and wanted to make a splash. Happened to know Hannebury's family so pulled the strings, made it happen.

A wipeout.

I keep saying it. No more gamblers. No more gambling mentality.

[cwrcyn]

I agree it's been a massive fail. But one bad trade does not define a football club. Melbourne won the premiership last year, but during the 2000s made some the biggest national draft blunders seen by any club. Embarrassingly bad selections. They ditched their recruiting manager responsible for that debacle about 9 years ago and have since turned it around.

Overall recruiting is more important. The bigger picture. It's your hit rate that matters, not the odd failure, which every club has.

[skeptic]

The challenge with this decision is that the majority knew that it was really really high risk in terms of injury, expensive in terms of salary cap, and low chance of excellent form when playing.

It was a very obvious bad decision

[cwrcyn]

It's the money that hurts the most, not the pick that we gave up ( a late second round swapped for a third round, I think?)

[Vortex]

What makes all this go away is wins and proof our list is capable of finals.

The problem is I'm not hearing any optimism about this list
even from our enclave of fans who wear the rosiest of coloured glasses.

Can someone have a go at spinning a convincing argument regarding our finals chances in the next 2 to 3 years?

[PADDLEPOP1001]

Why can’t we as a club admit it has been a failure & put him on the LTI list at least allowing us to look at a Heath or/& a Sharman in the mid season draft?

[whiskers3614]

To consider this situation as just a mistake is simplistic and ignores two other possibilities:

Whoever made or influenced the trading decision was more interested in looking after the player’s interests than the club’s.

Alternatively was acting on orders from AFL to destabilise the club in any way possible making it ripe for the next relocation or “merger”.

The level of incompetence required to give a contact of that duration “because nobody’s else would come “ and”he drives training standards “ requires the suspension of any critical analysis to float!

This whole saga as well as telling a bloke he won’t be picked and another that he won’t be dropped smells like somebody is trying to tear the place down from the inside!

[whiskers3614]

Contract*

[cwrcyn]

We have a midfield of Gresham, Jones, Crouch, Steele, Ross, Byrnes, and Bytel. We have recruited three more in Owens, Windhager, and NWM. I think we'd be better to focus on those guys rather than this endless moaning about the Hannebery trade. Some people seem to blame all our woes on that trade. It's nonsense. Bigger mistakes were made prior to Lethlean's arrival. It doesn't make him any less culpable for this particular decision, but since then I think the club has done far better in this four year period (2018 to 2021) than in the previous 8 year period.

[wally]

I think more contracts should be based on games played if the player has a question mark on injuries. Obviously if he broke his leg or did an ACL or such is a different matter and mental health should not mean payments as seen with Jack Steven and Dayne Beams

[The_Dud]

As I said in the other thread, ever since he’s been on the list we’ve been competing with one arm tied behind our back.

And no one has been held accountable.

[aaron82]

No doubt the Hannebery deal has been a massive fail & sums up the Einstein’s at St.Kilda.

I feel the more late indictment is our ability to give up or lose players to premiership contenders for virtually nothing on a yearly basis.

Currently Hickey & McCartin both are at Sydney. Stanley for pick 21 (Hugh Goddard) what a stuff up. We let Hind & Dunstan go recently for nothing at all.

Every year we go out and pick tractors in the midfield or other club cast offs for high picks.

Our engine room is a joke. No goalkicking Mids except perhaps Gresham who is a horrible kick. No point having Max King up forward if you can’t get the footy to him in an effective or efficient manner. 47 forward entries last week, seriously!

We are in a world of hurt, enough talent to keep us 9-12 but not enough talent to take us much further.

[st.byron]

We have a midfield of Gresham, Jones, Crouch, Steele, Ross, Byrnes, and Bytel. We have recruited three more in Owens, Windhager, and NWM. I think we'd be better to focus on those guys rather than this endless moaning about the Hannebery trade. Some people seem to blame all our woes on that trade. It's nonsense. Bigger mistakes were made prior to Lethlean's arrival. It doesn't make him any less culpable for this particular decision, but since then I think the club has done far better in this four year period (2018 to 2021) than in the previous 8 year period.

I agree that it’s unbalanced to focus on one particular trade, however bad it is - and in Hannebery’s case it’s a howler. What sticks in my craw about it the most though is the continued efforts by the club to spin it as something other than a pile of poo.
“His leadership, his mentoring blah blah blah”. 15 games in 4 years at better than $100,000 a game. That’s a horrible return on investment. But the club keeps trying to paint it as a positive and that’s worn way thin by now.
Regarding the OP - yes the recruitment was rubbish and smelt of cronyism (thanks Pav). What’s worse is his ongoing retention and flowers and rainbows about how important he is to the club. That’s an even bigger indictment than his recruitment.
An overpaid, busted up, can’t get on the park, way past his best mate of the CEO is somehow a central plank in our push for a flag? Really???? Yep sure, I believe ya.

[saynta]

Think I will just go back to bed.

[Yorkeys]

As you asked, I'd answer no.

The McCartin selection was worse epitome-wise, I think.

Fortunately, as a result, all of those concerned have now left the club or in Finnis' case about to leave.

That debacle precipitated, at great cost, a revival of Saint Kilda from President to coach to recruiting.

But we have since recovered to play finals and while not a premiership side have every reason to expect the current list to get us into the 8 if well managed. And injuries give us a fair break.

The Hannebery deal is a shocking shocking bust. However I see it as Lethlean coming into a club run by fools going nowhere and him looking to get a spark going with limited sparks interested. He made a very well intentioned mistake. My crossness is directed at Dan and the medical assessors. Clearly Dan mislead to the point of possibly fibbing about his fitness and the medical assessors were either incompetent or complicit in what now looks like a fraud to me.

I just want Dan to retire asap. The stench and distraction has over staid it's welcome. We have a new exciting crop of mids to develop, lets just look forward.

[Ghost Like]

I mentioned it in the latest Hannebery injury thread but he's the epitome of "an albatross around one's neck".

MEANING

If you describe something or someone as an albatross around your neck, you mean that they cause you great problems from which you cannot escape, or they prevent you from doing what you want to do.

[skeptic]

It's the money that hurts the most, not the pick that we gave up ( a late second round swapped for a third round, I think?)

Interesting.

To me what hurts most is that our highly trained experts went all in on an idea that armchair experts and AFL personnel outside of St.Kilda all thought was obviously moronic

[saintsRrising]

Clearly Dan mislead to the point of possibly fibbing about his fitness and the medical assessors were either incompetent or complicit in what now looks like a fraud to me.

Not that I am defending the recruitment at all, and I posted against it at the time due the obvious injury risk, but Dan most likely would have been of the mind that like many injured players that he would have been able to get over it, and moreso as his problems have all been soft tissue ones.

Fraud = no.

Stupidity and/or arrogance = Quite probably.

Was it a high risk ploy for us? Most definitely.

The trade cost was actually low. But committing to such a high $$$ longterm contract without a suitable "fitness" out was negligent. Lethlean and our club stuffed up badly in this for what was a then known quite possible outcome that his future games could well be quite limited.

[SunnyErnie]

As you asked, I'd answer no.

The McCartin selection was worse epitome-wise, I think.

Fortunately, as a result, all of those concerned have now left the club or in Finnis' case about to leave.

That debacle precipitated, at great cost, a revival of Saint Kilda from President to coach to recruiting.

But we have since recovered to play finals and while not a premiership side have every reason to expect the current list to get us into the 8 if well managed. And injuries give us a fair break.

The Hannebery deal is a shocking shocking bust. However I see it as Lethlean coming into a club run by fools going nowhere and him looking to get a spark going with limited sparks interested. He made a very well intentioned mistake. My crossness is directed at Dan and the medical assessors. Clearly Dan mislead to the point of possibly fibbing about his fitness and the medical assessors were either incompetent or complicit in what now looks like a fraud to me.

I just want Dan to retire asap. The stench and distraction has over staid it's welcome. We have a new exciting crop of mids to develop, lets just look forward.

I hate to disagree with you Yorkeys but the comment I have highlighted above is just wrong. This current list is headed for the bottom 4 this year and next year as well. We will not move up the ladder until we start a full rebuild again and do it properly this time. What a proper rebuild is the question. My opinion is you must fully focus on the National and Mid Season draft only. No trading in ready made players or big name recruits UNTIL YOU HAVE MADE THE TOP 8 OFF THE BACK OF A CORE GROUP WHO WERE DRAFTED AND ARE ALL AGED BETWEEN 20 AND 25. Once you have this core then and only then you can start looking at trades and FA's. This is where IMHO we went wrong and we are now paying a heavy price!!!

[st.byron]

Clearly Dan mislead to the point of possibly fibbing about his fitness and the medical assessors were either incompetent or complicit in what now looks like a fraud to me.

Not that I am defending the recruitment at all, and I posted against it at the time due the obvious injury risk, but Dan most likely would have been of the mind that like many injured players that he would have been able to get over it, and moreso as his problems have all been soft tissue ones.

Fraud = no.

Stupidity and/or arrogance = Quite probably.

Was it a high risk ploy for us? Most definitely.

The trade cost was actually low. But committing to such a high $$$ longterm contract without a suitable "fitness" out was negligent. Lethlean and our club stuffed up badly in this for what was a then known quite possible outcome that his future games could well be quite limited.

I reckon too that Hannebery would have been optimistic about reclaiming his on field mojo. Even if he wasn’t and knew deep down he was past his best, I don’t blame him at all.
If I was at the back end of my career and someone offered me four or five years at great money I’d be taking it. End of career bonus, not to mention the super top up.