12 minutes ago, Matsuo Basho said:

In short, yes. No-one’s saying it’s not a challenging job. This is elite level professional sport, not tiddlywinks. The club is 16th on the ladder with a list that bats about as deep as a sidewalk puddle. If you get paid the coin to find good players it’s a pretty simple equation - produce or clean out the desk! No excuses fielded or accepted.

I think you're being wildly unrealistic. If you can get 2 good players per draft you're doing incredibly well. Our list has some holes sure but it's in pretty good shape. Harmes, Fritch, Hannan, Hunt Vandenberg, Hore are all later picks that are in our best side and the signs for Baker a good early. What more do you want?? 

A quickly put together Best 22 with the players picked or traded for a post-first round pick bolded.

Pretty handy collection of players taken after round one.

 

JETTA .             MAY .               HIBBERD . 

SALEM .           LEVER .            HORE .  

FRITSCH .        VINEY .              BAKER . 

PETRACCA .   MCDONALD .    MELKSHAM .  

HANNAN .      WEIDEMAN .      HUNT .  

GAWN .            OLIVER              HARMES .   

JONES .     BRAYSHAW .     AVB .    ANB .

 

Emerg.  LEWIS, SPARGO, FROST, LOCKHART, PREUSS.  

 

1 hour ago, Matsuo Basho said:

In short, yes. No-one’s saying it’s not a challenging job. This is elite level professional sport, not tiddlywinks. The club is 16th on the ladder with a list that bats about as deep as a sidewalk puddle. If you get paid the coin to find good players it’s a pretty simple equation - produce or clean out the desk! No excuses fielded or accepted.

Why not include Todd Viney, the most senior of the List Management team, as your target.  Or is he immune because he is a favourite son?  Taylor reports to Viney

Taylor only has the picks left after Viney, Mahoney and Goodwin have finished trading the chips.  Anyway, he doesn't make the decisions on his own!

4 hours ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

There are good reasons that the 8 in bold did not make it.  Thish means 22 of the 30 selected are still on our  list so he has a pretty good batting average.

And of the 16 on the list last year, 8 played in the finals.  Again, a very good batting average.

Anyway a bit early to judge the 2018 crop but 2017 selections are looking like a 100% strike rate!

I get that you are trolling but a closer look at the selections show you are barking up the wrong tree.

 

4 hours ago, dazzledavey36 said:

I have bolded these players as guys who  last played in the preliminary final. Forget 2018, but out of that list 12/26 players drafted in those years were a game off playing in the grand final. Thats already a huge tick.

You also said your top scout is paid to find diamond in the rough type players.

Harmes, Hunt, Vandenberg, Joel Smith, Tim Smith, Josh Wagner, Mitch Hannan, Oskar Baker and Marty Hore.

All those names have already made significant impact or have shown that they have bright futures ahead of them. All taken late in the draft or rookie listed. You could say that besides Vandenberg Josh Wagner and Tim Smith (28 already) most of those players could  go on to play 100 to 150 games for Melbourne. That's another significant tick in my eyes.

Taylor is doing a fine job.

 

4 hours ago, whatwhatsaywhat said:

his strike rate of players drafted late in the prelim final last year suggests he's doing okay, plus others such as fritsch and hunt weren't around

already with last year's draft crop i think everyone agrees that hore is in our best 22

harmes is probably our second best mid for the year

taylor is not the problem

Pretty much nailed it, funny how Australian society loves to play the blame game it stems into the workplace, sport, junior sport.

I didn't get the job because he/she is mates with the boss

we lost because of the umpires 

we would have won if Hogan and Watts were playing and the icing on the cake is

the onfield performance this season is all down to PJ leaving 

Nobody wants to face facts, we are smashed by injury this year,  resulting in depth players getting more responsibility than they should, that can work for a few games but not for extended periods, confidence has been hit and that combined with the form slump has us where weare at. Some positive signs have come in the last few weeks which might have helped us get a few extra wins in the earlier rounds had we played that way earlier but that would have papered over some cracks, which I'm sure the FD is fully aware of and working on 

As DD has stated and all others have intimated  Taylor has found quite a few Diamonds in the rough and his strike rate is pretty good.

AVB without injury big game chager for us,

Hunt after a poor 2018 showing good signs again.

Nibbler by no means a gun but a running machine and good depth,

Fritsch is a good decision maker suffering from the injury crisis and having to play where he's not best for the team,

Harmes turned into a B+ grade midfielder,

Hannan really important and a good player 

Spargo unlike others I have no issue with him makes very good decisions with the ball in handonce he builds a tank will be valuable,

Baker looks like he belongs,

Hore getting better every game

As others have said Richmonds flag was built around a nucleus which took 8 to 10 years to build, Eagles took time to rebuild after the 06 boys moved on and believe me a mediocre side with their home ground advantage is almost a monty for top 8

We'll turn it around, we have to much talent not to. I'm not saying we'll do a Dogs or Tigers next year we still need a build towards our nucleus hitting 23 to 27years for sustained tilts. 

for the first time in a long time Taylor will have to pick up a player with leg speed. he usually likes the inside bulls but that's the opposite of what we need right now. 

lachlan ash I reckon 

6 hours ago, Matsuo Basho said:

Is his record post-first-round up to scratch?

I would argue that a significant reason why the list lacks depth is that Taylor has a poor strike rate beyond round one of the draft. We laud him for the Oliver recruitment, Brayshaw, Salem and so on and rightly so, but your top scout is paid to find a quotient of diamonds in the rough as well. Nowhere near good enough in this area for mine. 

You be the judge ...

2013 - Kennedy-Harris, Clisby, Hunt, Harmes, Georgiou

2014 - Neal-Bullen, Stretch, O.Macdonald, Vandenberg, M.White

2015 -  M.King, Hulett, Wagner, Michie, J.Smith

2016 - Hannan, Johnstone, Filipovic, T.Smith, Keilty

2017 - Spargo, Fritsch, Petty, Baker

2018 - Sparrow, Jordon, Neitschke, Hore, Bedford, Chandler

 

As people have already pointed out, he's found multiple best 22 players from late in draft. Regardless, I don't think you can safely say that every person recruited was solely a Taylor decision which it seems that you're implying. I would imagine he would bring extensive research and create profiles on multiple targets that is then presented to the football department. Further meetings would then take place with group discussions surrounding the pros and cons of each player. It is perfectly reasonable to suggest that Taylor would have a different order of merit compared to Goodwin or others in the department who would consider things like list balance and may prefer certain personality types or skill sets.

 

 

3 minutes ago, Nascent said:

As people have already pointed out, he's found multiple best 22 players from late in draft. Regardless, I don't think you can safely say that every person recruited was solely a Taylor decision which it seems that you're implying. I would imagine he would bring extensive research and create profiles on multiple targets that is then presented to the football department. Further meetings would then take place with group discussions surrounding the pros and cons of each player. It is perfectly reasonable to suggest that Taylor would have a different order of merit compared to Goodwin or others in the department who would consider things like list balance and may prefer certain personality types or skill sets.

He’s the National Recruiting Manager. Buck stops with him, particularly when it comes to 18yo talent and left field mature aged smokies. I think you’d be surprised how little influence other members of the FD have inthese selections. There’s a massive reliance on your recruiting head, who has watched these boys week to week over several seasons.

And no-one’s debating he has come up with “multiple best 22 players”. Just not enough of them. 

How do you (and others) account for the paucity of depth in the list? Injuries can hurt a club sure but it’s gone past that and absolutely crippled us. Hard questions must be asked.

5 minutes ago, Matsuo Basho said:

He’s the National Recruiting Manager. Buck stops with him, particularly when it comes to 18yo talent and left field mature aged smokies. I think you’d be surprised how little influence other members of the FD have inthese selections. There’s a massive reliance on your recruiting head, who has watched these boys week to week over several seasons.

And no-one’s debating he has come up with “multiple best 22 players”. Just not enough of them. 

How do you (and others) account for the paucity of depth in the list? Injuries can hurt a club sure but it’s gone past that and absolutely crippled us. Hard questions must be asked.

You've answered your own question here.  No clubs are able to cover the injuries that we have had this year.  Good depth should mean you have some players who can step straight in and play a role.  Our injuries have been obscene this year and not just to fringe or depth players, but key members of the 22. 

 

 Same best 22 that I put above, but with the red players having missed multiple games through injury:

 

 

 

7 minutes ago, TeamPlayedFine39 said:

You've answered your own question here.  No clubs are able to cover the injuries that we have had this year.  Good depth should mean you have some players who can step straight in and play a role.  Our injuries have been obscene this year and not just to fringe or depth players, but key members of the 22. 

 

 Same best 22 that I put above, but with the red players having missed multiple games through injury:

 

 

 

Your replies and mock up team have completely missed the point of lack of depth in the list. It is inarguable that the list is not weak beyond the best available 22 players. 

Edited June 4, 20196 yr by Matsuo Basho

2 minutes ago, Matsuo Basho said:

Your replies and mock up team have completely missed the point of lack of depth in the list. It is inarguable that the list is not weak beyond the best available 22 players. 

It exemplifies the point.

When you have most of your best 22 missing it goes beyond ‘depth’.  No one can cover that number of missing players.

9 minutes ago, Matsuo Basho said:

Your replies and mock up team have completely missed the point of lack of depth in the list. It is inarguable that the list is not weak beyond the best available 22 players. 

 

 

16 minutes ago, TeamPlayedFine39 said:

You've answered your own question here.  No clubs are able to cover the injuries that we have had this year.  Good depth should mean you have some players who can step straight in and play a role.  Our injuries have been obscene this year and not just to fringe or depth players, but key members of the 22. 

 

 Same best 22 that I put above, but with the red players having missed multiple games through injury:

 

 

 

That's nonsense depth is to play a role when half a dozen players made up of VFL level or inexperienced kids need to come in. TPF39 covered it well 

We've had games where we have had to play close to a dozen of those types.

That's inarguable

Edited June 4, 20196 yr by Pennant St Dee

6 minutes ago, TeamPlayedFine39 said:

It exemplifies the point.

When you have most of your best 22 missing it goes beyond ‘depth’.  No one can cover that number of missing players.

"Most of your best 22 missing"? What are you talking about? On the weekend Melbourne had 14 of the 22 that played in the 2018 Prelim out there.

10 minutes ago, Matsuo Basho said:

"Most of your best 22 missing"? What are you talking about? On the weekend Melbourne had 14 of the 22 that played in the 2018 Prelim out there.

Well that's at least 8 out and then we lost Hogan who didn't play in the Prelim, but his replacements in May and KK were also out and the kid we got for the 2nd Hogan pick in Sparrow was injured as well.

Taylor is not our problem, injuries certainly are.

8 minutes ago, Matsuo Basho said:

"Most of your best 22 missing"? What are you talking about? On the weekend Melbourne had 14 of the 22 that played in the 2018 Prelim out there.

8 of your best 22 missing from a match is huge!  

Our 2 best KPDs, our best intercept marking defender, our small defender (when playing against a team with one of the best small forwards of all time).

Melksham was our leading goal kicker before getting injured.  Smith could be his depth replacement, but he’s injured.

Petty is a depth replacement for Hore- but he’s also injured.

Lockhart is a depth replacement of Jetta- but he’s also injured.

Was Hannan’s first game back after a very long layoff.

 

AND Saturday was one of the strongest teams we’ve fielded this year.

1 minute ago, Redleg said:

Well that's at least 8 out and then we lost Hogan who didn't play in the Prelim, but his replacements in May and KK were also out and the kid we got for the 2nd Hogan pick in Sparrow was injured as well.

Taylor is not our problem, injuries certainly are.

Replace half of those eight with quality depth players that Taylor could've/should've selected over the past five years (instead of the VFL battlers we're running with) and suddenly you're much more competitive and a 3 and 8 season at round 11 is 5 and 6. Season still alive with key personnel to return.

These are the margins you work with in a cut throat elite competition. Taylor's recruiting outside the cream of R1 has fallen short and needs to be looked at. Not enough promising talent pushing up through the ranks for spots. Too much capital being given away in trading to bandaid over the cracks.

2 hours ago, Matsuo Basho said:

He’s the National Recruiting Manager. Buck stops with him, particularly when it comes to 18yo talent and left field mature aged smokies. I think you’d be surprised how little influence other members of the FD have inthese selections. There’s a massive reliance on your recruiting head, who has watched these boys week to week over several seasons.

And no-one’s debating he has come up with “multiple best 22 players”. Just not enough of them. 

How do you (and others) account for the paucity of depth in the list? Injuries can hurt a club sure but it’s gone past that and absolutely crippled us. Hard questions must be asked.

I would say we have decent depth. We could've beaten both Adelaide and West Coast with a stack of injuries. That's good depth. After an awful first 3 weeks with so many players clearly underdone we've gone 3 wins, 5 losses and had chances to do better than that.

The issue we have is that the promising young players from previous draft in Fritsch and Spargo had already made their debut. Baker comes in now and is looking good. If Spargo wasn't having second year blues but made his debut this year and played like he did last year he'd be looking good.

Didn't find a standout  ready to play 18 year old from last year it seems but give him time. Can't knock him yet on guys not being ready to play.

The previous drafts he's missed a few too many times with back end picks in 14/15/16 but they weren't the best picks of all time. I'm willing to give him a few misses there based on a few really nice picks with Hunt, Vanders and Harmes. If Hannan and Joel Smith were both up and firing them maybe picks in those drafts don't look so bad.

Taylor's going to have to make the most of a bunch of picks to build up our depth as we cut the current guys who are filling out the last 4-6 spots in the team each week right now, but that's true of every club these days, you have to keep nailing picks. The lack of quality depth comes from having to spend so many draft picks and list spots on experienced players in the Roos years to avoid ending up like Carlton. Really revitalising the depth on the list and turning the current depth players - who can do the job of holding the fort - in to promising youth takes a lot of drafts.

He's not the messiah but if he can turn around his poor record on talls and find a small forward the list will be looking very healthy and he's been a big part of that.

7 minutes ago, DeeSpencer said:

I would say we have decent depth. We could've beaten both Adelaide and West Coast with a stack of injuries. That's good depth. After an awful first 3 weeks with so many players clearly underdone we've gone 3 wins, 5 losses and had chances to do better than that.

The issue we have is that the promising young players from previous draft in Fritsch and Spargo had already made their debut. Baker comes in now and is looking good. If Spargo wasn't having second year blues but made his debut this year and played like he did last year he'd be looking good.

Didn't find a standout  ready to play 18 year old from last year it seems but give him time. Can't knock him yet on guys not being ready to play.

The previous drafts he's missed a few too many times with back end picks in 14/15/16 but they weren't the best picks of all time. I'm willing to give him a few misses there based on a few really nice picks with Hunt, Vanders and Harmes. If Hannan and Joel Smith were both up and firing them maybe picks in those drafts don't look so bad.

Taylor's going to have to make the most of a bunch of picks to build up our depth as we cut the current guys who are filling out the last 4-6 spots in the team each week right now, but that's true of every club these days, you have to keep nailing picks. The lack of quality depth comes from having to spend so many draft picks and list spots on experienced players in the Roos years to avoid ending up like Carlton. Really revitalising the depth on the list and turning the current depth players - who can do the job of holding the fort - in to promising youth takes a lot of drafts.

He's not the messiah but if he can turn around his poor record on talls and find a small forward the list will be looking very healthy and he's been a big part of that.

Nice post. Points well made. I think those 13/14/15/16 misfires are costing us though now.  He couldn’t find a clever small forward or a few more likely talls nation wide? Maybe I’m a harsh judge but for a club like ours you need so many factors to go right - recruiting being almost at the top of the tree. I wonder if it isn’t time for a fresh mind and a new set of eyes in the recruiting hot seat. If we can do better his position should be looked at ... and we can do better. What would it take to get Stephen Wells out of Geelong I wonder? I’d ask him what he makes and offer to double it. 

2 minutes ago, Matsuo Basho said:

Nice post. Points well made. I think those 13/14/15/16 misfires are costing us though now.  He couldn’t find a clever small forward or a few more likely talls nation wide? Maybe I’m a harsh judge but for a club like ours you need so many factors to go right - recruiting being almost at the top of the tree. I wonder if it isn’t time for a fresh mind and a new set of eyes in the recruiting hot seat. If we can do better his position should be looked at ... and we can do better. What would it take to get Stephen Wells out of Geelong I wonder? I’d ask him what he makes and offer to double it. 

Wells is brilliant but he's also had a decent run of failures that corresponded to when they were trading in players and having later picks - the Thurlow's and Lang's etc. With the footy department salary cap as it is you'd have to shed elsewhere to make a huge offer like that. And a lot of the Cats gun pick ups have been local kids as well - Stewart, Henry, Miers, Tom Atkins as well as Ablett, Rohan and Dahlhaus coming home. Take away the home town, the lifestyle, the coaching, the culture and the Cats recruiting might not look as strong.

We don't know what impact Roos had on recruiting. ANB and Oscar seemed like Roos guys to me but I'm probably wrong. Stretch Father Son is hard to turn down. A lot of those picks are the reason our depth doesn't look all that promising even if functionally those guy can perform at AFL level and haven't been total busts.

If we were making changes I'd look at the Taylor's team which has 3 other full time guys I think, plus the whole network of part time scouts. There's room to change things and I'm sure that industry does go through a fair bit of it. The Giants have done very well since adding Emma Quayle to add a journalists and female viewpoint as well as a good recruiting mind. No reason we can't think outside the box with adding different ways to evaluate players. I'd love to know where the club and league are at with analytics, I'd be trying very hard to be at the front of that movement.

Taylor has did good considering our list management blunders.

3 hours ago, Matsuo Basho said:

"Most of your best 22 missing"? What are you talking about? On the weekend Melbourne had 14 of the 22 that played in the 2018 Prelim out there.

we have been playing with 10 of our first 22 out some weeks and more 

NO team can cover this ... 

 

Apologies, not sure where to post this. I was reading an article on AFL.com about ‘Your Club’s Burning Questions’ for next season and it states we should not overreact after expecting to contend this season. One of the questions being should we give up our first round pick. 

The writer believes we should be open to giving away our first round pick depending what’s on offer. I thought we had to use our first round pick since we haven’t used one since 2015.

Edited June 4, 20196 yr by Dee Zephyr

2 hours ago, Dee Zephyr said:

Apologies, not sure where to post this. I was reading an article on AFL.com about ‘Your Club’s Burning Questions’ for next season and it states we should not overreact after expecting to contend this season. One of the questions being should we give up our first round pick. 

The writer believes we should be open to giving away our first round pick depending what’s on offer. I thought we had to use our first round pick since we haven’t used one since 2015.

Unless an irresistible big fish wants to come to us I'd hope we go to the draft and replenish our list with some top end talent. We desperately need a key forward so may have to get clever there in order to trade one in. Scanning through the BigFooty 2019 Draft thread young KPF's are thin on the ground this year. 

7 hours ago, Dee Zephyr said:

The writer believes we should be open to giving away our first round pick depending what’s on offer. I thought we had to use our first round pick since we haven’t used one since 2015.

 Its not about not using our 1st Rnd pick,  this year in the draft...  But trying to turn our 1st Rnd pick into Two 1st Rnd picks,  for using this year.

Edited June 5, 20196 yr by DV8

On 6/4/2019 at 11:43 AM, Matsuo Basho said:

All clubs go through tough injury trots. The better ones sustain performance in large part for having recruited and drafted solid depth talent through the list. Our current ladder position and percentage indicates we have failed in this area. 

There are some decent players in that list sure. But not enough. Too many misfires across the half decade.

If the system and coaching isn't up to scratch though, as soon as you lose your better players, you struggle.

I'd be examining the medical and the coaching team for our performance this year. I agree that all areas of the club should be up for review, but I reckon Taylor has nailed enough picks to say he's done a good job.

I was a bit disappointed we got sparrow. he is exactly what we dont need. An inside mid with poor foot skills and average pace.