Building a Premiership Team...

[saintsRrising]

Interesting read below..

Lessons for the Saints????

It is such a tragedy that we lost focus over a three year period to severely restrict the team we could have, and should have been..

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/s ... htmlJackie Epstein

September 28, 2008 12:00am

HAWTHORN'S plan in yesterday's AFL Grand Final against Geelong at the MCG was simple.

Former recruiting manager John Turnbull recalls the gist of it being: “Get hard running, ground-covering players who were hard at it and demonstrated leadership.â€

[hotdish]

- Five rookie elevations [/i]

Young
Osborne
R Campbell
Gilham
Sewell

also didnt play

Stokes
McGlyn

thats some great quality there...

[GeorgeYoung27]

Interesting read below..

Lessons for the Saints????

It's interesting sRr that you failed to mention Clarkos quote on Saturday night (and something even Dermie says) that the Hawks used the Saints as their template for building a team. Clarko mentioned on the ground after the game that they looked at Geelong, Port and St Kilda. And we're not talking 2007/8 St Kilda. Hawthorn just held their nerve.

[saintly]

Interesting read below..

Lessons for the Saints????

It's interesting sRr that you failed to mention Clarkos quote on Saturday night (and something even Dermie says) that the Hawks used the Saints as their template for building a team. Clarko mentioned on the ground after the game that they looked at Geelong, Port and St Kilda. And we're not talking 2007/8 St Kilda. Hawthorn just held their nerve.

so what.

they have now gone ahead of us.

look at our rookies compare with theirs.
how many fast skillful players do we have compared to them. They won a premiership in the 4 year s of rebuilding. where have the saints got to?

hawthorn were ruthless in their trading. they traded everitt, hay thomspon, etc. got rid of older players etc.

as i said previously. i am jealous of hawthorn.

horthorn held their nerve. the saints did not! the saints backed away from youth in 2005.

[rodgerfox]

It doesn't matter who you recruit, or how good your list is - if they aren't playing.

We had the best team in the comp in 2005, and were close again in 2006.

The problem was that we had no fit players when it mattered.

[SaintWodonga]

The leason from the Hawks is:

* We need to trade for draft picks (not players)
* Concentrate on drafting from under 18's comp
* Dont draft many from other clubs (we have too many)

[WayneJudson42]

Ok, so let me get this straight...

First it was Brisbane we had to copy coz they were the benchmark. We did that but the game moved on.

Then we had to copy Geelong because their style was the biggest thing since sliced bread...

NOW we have to go down the Hawthorn path?

What about next year? Who do we have to copy next?

[kaos theory]

It's interesting sRr that you failed to mention Clarkos quote on Saturday night (and something even Dermie says) that the Hawks used the Saints as their template for building a team. Clarko mentioned on the ground after the game that they looked at Geelong, Port and St Kilda. And we're not talking 2007/8 St Kilda. Hawthorn just held their nerve

What they 'followed' was a focus on youth & maintaining & trading for draft picks.....

What they DIDN'T follow was putting someone in charge of coaching who wanted to run it all. This caused the degredation of key aspects to our footy department:
- injury management, player conditioning
- recuiting and list development

We had the worst run of injuries and player's condition was pathetic. This cost us most serverly in 2005 & 2006. We had no rookie development, either. And one old guy & a car to scout and try to assess talent.

So we bagan on the right path, but we had a coach who wanted to run everything, and a prez, who was caught in a bitter personal feud with the coach.

the Hawks, didn't follow THAT path.

Thankfully, we 'held our nerve' and got rid of both of them, and have now began addressing the years of waste (2005 to 2007) under the previous regime.

[cowboy18]

Ok, so let me get this straight...

First it was Brisbane we had to copy coz they were the benchmark. We did that but the game moved on.

Then we had to copy Geelong because their style was the biggest thing since sliced bread...

NOW we have to go down the Hawthorn path?

What about next year? Who do we have to copy next?

We intend to copy Hawthorn who copied us who copied Brisbane before we copied Sydney. I think we were about to copy Geelong but that's on hold now.

Simple.

[Animal Enclosure]

All of you characters who think it's copying are missing the point.

Brisbane, Geelong & Hawthorn all used the same formula. They picked the eyes out of the draft & made hard decisions to trade popular players to pick up more quality kids.

We can do this too & build for a serious & sustained tilt from 2010-2013.

It starts with using blokes with high trade value, getting the highest quality kids in & letting Roo, Bally, Lenny, BJ & Chips lead them to a flag.

The recipe is there. Every recent premiership team except for Sydney has used it.

[rodgerfox]

Ok, so let me get this straight...

First it was Brisbane we had to copy coz they were the benchmark. We did that but the game moved on.

Then we had to copy Geelong because their style was the biggest thing since sliced bread...

NOW we have to go down the Hawthorn path?

What about next year? Who do we have to copy next?

I'm with you here Wayne.

[WayneJudson42]

All of you characters who think it's copying are missing the point.

Brisbane, Geelong & Hawthorn all used the same formula. They picked the eyes out of the draft & made hard decisions to trade popular players to pick up more quality kids.

We can do this too & build for a serious & sustained tilt from 2010-2013.

It starts with using blokes with high trade value, getting the highest quality kids in & letting Roo, Bally, Lenny, BJ & Chips lead them to a flag.

The recipe is there. Every recent premiership team except for Sydney has used it.

Why 2010 to 2013?

Wil the kids develop in time so that the above are still in their prime?

I don't want to get into a who-did-what argument... but here's my take on what's happened...

We went down the Brisbane path. As a result, we did not see the changes coming to the game. If we had everyone fit and firing, I reckon we would have pinched a flag.

As a result, we hung for too long with players like Peckett, Thommo, Powell instead of recruiting speed and runners.

We opted for Watts, McGough and so on, which IN HINDSIGHT were errors.

X has been injured.

Now, what people don't see is that it took the Lions quite a few years to get this right. Remember we played them in 98 finals?

Same with Hawks, and Cats. For whatever reason, our admin thought we were close and went a different path. SAdly, we were cruelled by injury.

What's done is done, and you cannot wind back the clock.

Fast foward to 2008...

We have the emergence of BJ and Gram in the middle, as well as X when fit, Joey and Dal. Ball and Lenny and Armo.

With another (proper) preseason under their belts and assuming all stay... I don't believe our midfield will be all that bad to be honest.

Lion's "fab 4" took a while to develop.

So I don't think we will need a total rebuild. Just a few tweaks.

Now, if you just flood the list with kids, then you are rebuilding, and you will waste the curent talent pool.

As far as "lessons" go... Hawks went for running players who have a go. What do you call Jones and Eddy??

I just wish people would stop looking back with hindsight and believing that the soluiton lies in looking at the current premiers.

Case in point: There is a thread about Rioli being the best player from his draft... Same was said about Judd. Now look at Hodge. Yet people are already comparing McEvoy to Rioli ffs.

I am confidant that we have a plan and that the correct changes will be made to give us a genuine crack over the next 3 years.

I am also confidant that hard decisions will be made.

[cowboy18]

All of you characters who think it's copying are missing the point.

Brisbane, Geelong & Hawthorn all used the same formula. They picked the eyes out of the draft & made hard decisions to trade popular players to pick up more quality kids.

We can do this too & build for a serious & sustained tilt from 2010-2013.

It starts with using blokes with high trade value, getting the highest quality kids in & letting Roo, Bally, Lenny, BJ & Chips lead them to a flag.

The recipe is there. Every recent premiership team except for Sydney has used it.

I agree but also argue that there is a limit to how much list management is within our control - I'd bet that introducing ~5 high quality players/year (old players stepping up and new ones slotting in) would be the maximum in terms of meaningful turnover.

In my opinion we've done a mediocre job of using our strengths in the past and done a particularly poor job of developing quality from within (rookies, mentoring younger players), based on the on-field results.

[Otiman]

Sewell off the rookie list? Now there's an almost norm smith medalist to go with your leading small forward goalkicker (Milne, 60 goals), and the best ruckman in the competition in Dean Cox to come off the rookie list.

How inspiring for guys like Geary and Eddy. To know that you won't just be branded a GOP for life, if you put in the effort you can become an elite AFL level player.

[meher baba]

There's quite a bit of reinvention of history going on both in the newpaper article and on this thread.

Here's my take on the Hawthorn story.

In 2001, Hawthorn were one of the top sides. From that year onwards, they embarked upon a trading frenzy of Wall St investment banking proportions for the next 5 years. Good players were traded for draft picks: Luke McPharlin, Nathan Thompson, Jonathan Hay, Trent Croad. Good draft picks (6 and 22) were traded to us for Peter Everitt and to Freo (#10) to bring Croad back . There were several 3 way deals, including one (the Veale deal of 2003) in which a controversial deal was done with the Dogs which allowed the latter to pick up Jade Rawlings in the PSD.

Indeed, when you consider the Veale deal, along with the yo yo trade of Croad, and the ability to persuade the Kangaroos to offer good draft picks for damaged goods in the form of Thompson and Hay, the most appropriate analogy for the Hawks in this period was not a Wall St Banker so much as Arthur Daley!!

They picked up some good players - Hodge, Mitchell (although seeing that he was taken with pick 36, they could have snared him with one of their own draft picks), Lewis and Birchall.

Some players they got worked out alright for a while, but weren't critical in the recent push to the flag: Jacobs and Everitt.

Most were less successful: Matthew Ball, Daniel Elstone, Luke Brennan and Kingsley Hunter were classic examples

And what was the net result of all this frenetic trading? The Hawks sank rapidly to the bottom of the table.

And, once they got there - and the geniuses behind their trade-led demise in Schwab and Turnbull were sent packing - they decided to try to cure their trading mania (apart from the excellent move of offloading Everitt to Sydney) and started to focus on building on the good quality players that they already had on their list: Bateman, Croad, Crawford, Hodge, Mitchell, Birchall, Brown, Osborne, Ladson, Campbell, Murphy, Sewell. And there was also a first-rate clean out of the old and the mediocre: Tallis, Graham, Barlow, Picioane, (all released), Lekkas (enforced by illness), Barker (retired)

Then they added in some first-rate selections with the early draft picks that they got as a result of their plummet to the bottom of the table - Roughead, Franklin and Ellis - and a couple of re-recycled players in Guerra and Dew.

I suppose that this aspect of Hawthorn's history post the arrival of Clarkson at the end of 2004 fairly closely resembles what happened at St Kilda between 2001-04: although, of course, Hawthorn arguably started with a better core dozen or so players , while St Kilda was lucky enough to have snared Hamill and Gehrig (albeit that we had also lost, or were about to lose, Everitt, Lappin, the Wakelins, Hall, etc.) and also to recruit more first rate guys.

At the end of the day, I think the Hawthorn and St Kilda stories are difficult to compare directly. But, if there is a lesson, it is that frenetic trading of good players and draft picks is a very hit or miss way of building a list as opposed to hanging on to the best of what you have and trying to build it up: that is, don't try to trade out a Kosi or a Dal for a Kerr.

[St Marcus]

All of you characters who think it's copying are missing the point.

Brisbane, Geelong & Hawthorn all used the same formula. They picked the eyes out of the draft & made hard decisions to trade popular players to pick up more quality kids.

We can do this too & build for a serious & sustained tilt from 2010-2013.

It starts with using blokes with high trade value, getting the highest quality kids in & letting Roo, Bally, Lenny, BJ & Chips lead them to a flag.

The recipe is there. Every recent premiership team except for Sydney has used it.

Why 2010 to 2013?

Wil the kids develop in time so that the above are still in their prime?

I don't want to get into a who-did-what argument... but here's my take on what's happened...

We went down the Brisbane path. As a result, we did not see the changes coming to the game. If we had everyone fit and firing, I reckon we would have pinched a flag.

As a result, we hung for too long with players like Peckett, Thommo, Powell instead of recruiting speed and runners.

We opted for Watts, McGough and so on, which IN HINDSIGHT were errors.

X has been injured.

Now, what people don't see is that it took the Lions quite a few years to get this right. Remember we played them in 98 finals?

Same with Hawks, and Cats. For whatever reason, our admin thought we were close and went a different path. SAdly, we were cruelled by injury.

What's done is done, and you cannot wind back the clock.

Fast foward to 2008...

We have the emergence of BJ and Gram in the middle, as well as X when fit, Joey and Dal. Ball and Lenny and Armo.

With another (proper) preseason under their belts and assuming all stay... I don't believe our midfield will be all that bad to be honest.

Lion's "fab 4" took a while to develop.

So I don't think we will need a total rebuild. Just a few tweaks.

Now, if you just flood the list with kids, then you are rebuilding, and you will waste the curent talent pool.

As far as "lessons" go... Hawks went for running players who have a go. What do you call Jones and Eddy??

I just wish people would stop looking back with hindsight and believing that the soluiton lies in looking at the current premiers.

Case in point: There is a thread about Rioli being the best player from his draft... Same was said about Judd. Now look at Hodge. Yet people are already comparing McEvoy to Rioli ffs.

I am confidant that we have a plan and that the correct changes will be made to give us a genuine crack over the next 3 years.

I am also confidant that hard decisions will be made.

Agree 100%, with a bit of tweaking and prehaps an injection of pace in the midfield (I'm still a fan of Benny boy if we can get him for a 2nd or 3rd round pick) our window is still very much open.

After all we did beat the premiers, yes I know they thrashed us in the finals but it was their time, they had a week off, had played a soft Bulldogs and had no injuries. We had 2 hard games and our hardest onballer was injured for the entire finals plus the player that stood up when we beat the Hawks went missing in the final (well 2 of them ).

Also I think RL will continue to improve as a coach and give us much need stabilty and continuity.

[bigcarl]

It doesn't matter who you recruit, or how good your list is - if they aren't playing. We had the best team in the comp in 2005, and were close again in 2006. The problem was that we had no fit players when it mattered.

i agree with this. we were on the right track in those years and actually blazed a trail for teams such as hawthorn to follow as far as developing a young, exciting list.

unfortunately we couldn't stay the course.

[saintsRrising]

Interesting read below..

Lessons for the Saints????

It's interesting sRr that you failed to mention Clarkos quote on Saturday night (and something even Dermie says) that the Hawks used the Saints as their template for building a team. Clarko mentioned on the ground after the game that they looked at Geelong, Port and St Kilda. And we're not talking 2007/8 St Kilda. Hawthorn just held their nerve.

Well I didn't fail to mention as I was just posting that article.

But yes I agree with some of what you said...the Saints had a blueprint to achieve success..........

But then the Saints throught it all away as they thought they were there already!!!!!!!!!!! They lost focus and started get crap players and failed to relise that you had to builda team structure and work on your weaknesses.

They had done the hardest part done...and the Hawks aped part of it.
But unlike the saints the Hawks did land an up and running group of talented players to Stars in a short period. ie Gtrain, haill, Voss etc.

But yes the Haks took note of our eraly drfat picks nad them improved on it.

The Saints traded a senior player for two draft picks...but then squandered it...


The Hawks by and large did not squander theirs.


The saints hada head start...byr fumbled the ball...and the hawks went flying past us.

[saintsRrising]

Ok, so let me get this straight...

First it was Brisbane we had to copy coz they were the benchmark. We did that but the game moved on.

Then we had to copy Geelong because their style was the biggest thing since sliced bread...

NOW we have to go down the Hawthorn path?

What about next year? Who do we have to copy next?

No...you miss the point entirely.

You do not have to ape Hawthorn...or the Lions..or the Swans in terms of exactly doing what they did etc.


But whichever path you use you have to do it VERY WELL.

And in particular whether you draft or trade...you have to pick well and develop that talent well....and you must do it with an overall team structure and gameplan in mind.


This the Hawks did.
The Swans
The Cat's
The Lions.

They all need it in different styles...but all assembled very good talent to suit a particular vision.

At the start of the noughties we were do it very well....and our fortunes lifted.

BUT then we lost focus and made many poor decisions and in particular with our incoming talent.

So we went into decline...

The reason I am such a Lyon fan and have been from Day 1 is that he clearly has a vision for the type of team that he believes will be successful and he is going about building it in a systematic and deliberate manner.

That is the lesson from that article on the Hawks.


It is also why I disagree with the recruit the best available player philosophy (apart from say the first pick..).

You need rather to have decided what type of team you are builder...and then to get the players you need to achieve it..

Your starting pool of players may of course influence where you decide to go....as I am sure it did with Roos when he gained the Swans list.

[Con Gorozidis]

Interesting read below..

Lessons for the Saints????

It's interesting sRr that you failed to mention Clarkos quote on Saturday night (and something even Dermie says) that the Hawks used the Saints as their template for building a team. Clarko mentioned on the ground after the game that they looked at Geelong, Port and St Kilda. And we're not talking 2007/8 St Kilda. Hawthorn just held their nerve.

agree - they held their nerve. saints (thomas) got sucked in by 2004 and sucked in by the media hype that the saints were going to not only win a flag but win a few in those 05-07 years. so sucked in they believed their own BS and believed what they read and stopped developing young players and went for quick fix hacks from other clubs. disgrace.

hawks still have tuck, muston, morton and kennedy as talented kids ready to come in next year. if saints fans arent concerned about our lack of young players they should be.

[jonesy]

Interesting read below..

Lessons for the Saints????

It's interesting sRr that you failed to mention Clarkos quote on Saturday night (and something even Dermie says) that the Hawks used the Saints as their template for building a team. Clarko mentioned on the ground after the game that they looked at Geelong, Port and St Kilda. And we're not talking 2007/8 St Kilda. Hawthorn just held their nerve.

agree - they held their nerve. saints (thomas) got sucked in by 2004 and sucked in by the media hype that the saints were going to not only win a flag but win a few in those 05-07 years. so sucked in they believed their own BS and believed what they read and stopped developing young players and went for quick fix hacks from other clubs. disgrace.

hawks still have tuck, muston, morton and kennedy as talented kids ready to come in next year. if saints fans arent concerned about our lack of young players they should be.

Don't think Thomas got sucked in by the media hype,as he was generating most of it behind closed doors in a frenzy. He continually drummed into the players that they were clearly the best side in the comp.

It could be argued that the Stkilda football Club needed some arrogance injected into it as it had such brittle confidence. Or it could be argued that self promoted arrogance was premature as we had achieved nothing?

Dunno, for mine the performance in 05 prelim will stick with me forever. All the great work they did was completly unravelled that night. Over confident,arrogance, and they didn't back it up. Probably one of the worst performances by a football side in September that night. To think Hamill was 100% ready to go but was rested for the week later...would of loved his presence out there that night when we self imploded

Sounds like I'm still bitter about that night...you bet ya!

[Teflon]

Interesting read below..

Lessons for the Saints????

It's interesting sRr that you failed to mention Clarkos quote on Saturday night (and something even Dermie says) that the Hawks used the Saints as their template for building a team. Clarko mentioned on the ground after the game that they looked at Geelong, Port and St Kilda. And we're not talking 2007/8 St Kilda. Hawthorn just held their nerve.

agree - they held their nerve. saints (thomas) got sucked in by 2004 and sucked in by the media hype that the saints were going to not only win a flag but win a few in those 05-07 years. so sucked in they believed their own BS and believed what they read and stopped developing young players and went for quick fix hacks from other clubs. disgrace.

hawks still have tuck, muston, morton and kennedy as talented kids ready to come in next year. if saints fans arent concerned about our lack of young players they should be.

Don't think Thomas got sucked in by the media hype,as he was generating most of it behind closed doors in a frenzy. He continually drummed into the players that they were clearly the best side in the comp.

It could be argued that the Stkilda football Club needed some arrogance injected into it as it had such brittle confidence. Or it could be argued that self promoted arrogance was premature as we had achieved nothing?

Dunno, for mine the performance in 05 prelim will stick with me forever. All the great work they did was completly unravelled that night. Over confident,arrogance, and they didn't back it up. Probably one of the worst performances by a football side in September that night. To think Hamill was 100% ready to go but was rested for the week later...would of loved his presence out there that night when we self imploded

Sounds like I'm still bitter about that night...you bet ya!

I had heard exactly the same thing and was dumbfounded.

We had Atilla The Hun running the joint with Richie Cunningham upstairs.

With the egos floating round what f@rkon hope did we have?

Once again it wasnt about the club - couple of w@nkers wanted to play "messiah" with their toy footy club....the chubby w@nker decided hed also have a shot at fleecing us for what he could while there and live of that to build some quasi Pat Smith type media personality that, asided from Brereton (who most agrees a dill), has zero credibility.

Thats our lot.

[iwantmeseats]

hamill was "100%" to go that night ??!! How credible is that info?

If he was truly 100%, he would have played. You dont rest fit players in a prelim, never ever.

[jonesy]

hamill was "100%" to go that night ??!! How credible is that info?

If he was truly 100%, he would have played. You dont rest fit players in a prelim, never ever.

You wouldn't have thought so...

[Animal Enclosure]

I don't see it as a rebuild.

I see it as adding some serious quality to our list that is lacking.

As I've posted before, I'd love to see Dal & Kosi consistently play to their potential & lead us to the promised land. I can't see it happening though.

I think we'll go backwards pretty quickly if we don't make a few big (unpopular) decisions. The youngsters (outside of McEvoy, Armo & maybe Steven) we have are not top liners and I can't see them being more than good honest toilers.

I don't particularly want Kerr. I'd rather have a crack at Warnock and a few of the very best kids (Ziebell, Hartlett, Hurley or maybe even a Daniel Rich).

It's just my opinion & it's not going to happen as AFL clubs rarely have the balls to take a big chance.