Congratulations to Clarry on his 3rd successive call up. 

 

Liam Ryan is still only 21.......

 

Gone under the radar is that Bayley Fritsch made the squad, interestingly as a Defender. 

 

 

Well done to Oliver and Fritsch. 

Fritsch could become a star if allowed to play to his strengths...in the forward line!!!

But this has left me wondering about the rest of our young draftees since Oliver in 2015.  Is it we haven't recruited well (partly because we haven't had top 25 picks ) or is it that we aren't good at player development?   The old recruitment vs development conundrum!

That is 3 years without a Rising Star nomination, or a young draftee 'breaking out'.  It troubles me that while we have good mid 20 yo talent we are creating a future problem not having a core group coming up behind them.  All good if we are regularly contesting for a premiership but we seem a long way from that.  It almost sets us up for having to continually 'buy-in' talent in the future.

Hopefully, we rectify that in this draft and use our early draft picks.

 

Edited September 17, 20231 yr by Lucifers Hero

39 minutes ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

But this has left me wondering about the rest of our young draftees since Oliver in 2015.  Is it we haven't recruited well (partly because we haven't had top 25 picks ) or is it that we aren't good at player development?   The old recruitment vs development conundrum!

That is 3 years without a Rising Star nomination, or a young draftee 'breaking out'.  It troubles me that while we have good mid 20 yo talent we are creating a future problem not having a core group coming up behind them.  All good if we are regularly contesting for a premiership but we seem a long way from that.  It almost sets us up for having to continually 'buy-in' talent in the future.

Hopefully, we rectify that in this draft and use our early draft picks.

We've clearly invested heavily into the draft in the past so the last 3 years have been about putting pieces around those draft picks instead of staying so young. Remember that under the age of 26 we've got Viney, Salem, Harems, Trac, Hunt, Braysahw, Lever, Hore, Fritsch, Oliver, Weid, JSmith, Lockhart, Preuss, Hannan, OMac, ANB, KK plus Frost (this week so still counts), while not all best 22, all would be best 30. That's a lot of very big part of the list who are between 22 & 26 so there still young and relatively inexperienced (only Viney with more than 100 games and 10 with more than 50 games). 

Focusing on youth over the last 3 years would have left us with lots of talent but we've done our development and we wanted to challenge, it worked in 2018. 2019 has been a disaster but as a club I'd prefer that we try and play finals regularly rather than just bring in young talent all the time. If we have a good injury run the we'll just need the list of player above to improve by another 10% and I've got no doubt we'll be back up the ladder again next year. 

1 hour ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

But this has left me wondering about the rest of our young draftees since Oliver in 2015.  Is it we haven't recruited well (partly because we haven't had top 25 picks ) or is it that we aren't good at player development?   The old recruitment vs development conundrum!

It’s a combination, but in my opinion it’s our inability to develop young talent moreso than poor drafting.

We haven’t had high draft picks since 2015, so our ability to bring in elite young talent has been lessened. I think the club was right to trade in mature leaders in Lever and May to sure up our defense and have us ready to challenge, but I believe we overpaid. 

I still think we’re poor at developing players. I’d argue the ones who have thrived like Oliver would have thrived regardless of environment due to their skill set and natural drive. Others such as Weideman, Petracca etc are still yet to realize their potential. I think our inability to develop young talent goes back to the mid 2000s. We’ve had more high draft picks than nearly every club and are still barely able to develop any guns from all that elite young talent. I truly believe if players like Watts, Sylvia, Petracca were drafted to a stronger club like Hawthorn or Geelong from the start of their careers that they’d have become the superstars they promised to be. Like at Worpel as an example. Drafted later than expected by Hawthorn, now in his second year and he’s already become a better midfielder than any we’ve had for a decade bar Clarry. He’s been developed well after only showing glimpses to start his career. We can’t seem to get our young players to get past the showing glimpses phase into fully performing consistent players.

I’m not sure what the answer is, but in my eyes we need to focus more resourcing and effort into development of our young talent. Go out and poach the development staff from the strong clubs?

14 hours ago, Demonland said:

Congratulations to Clarry on his 3rd successive call up. 

 

Of genuine concern is the lack of talent on our list Under 22.

on the same level, the lack of talent on our list above the age of 28.

Interesting that Collingwood do not have one solitary representative in the extended 40.

Clarry should have been captain seeing he is the best player in the team

6 hours ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

 

Gone under the radar is that Bayley Fritsch made the squad, interestingly as a Defender. 

 

Well done to Oliver and Fritsch. 

Fritsch could become a star if allowed to play to his strengths...in the forward line!!!

But this has left me wondering about the rest of our young draftees since Oliver in 2015.  Is it we haven't recruited well (partly because we haven't had top 25 picks ) or is it that we aren't good at player development?   The old recruitment vs development conundrum!

That is 3 years without a Rising Star nomination, or a young draftee 'breaking out'.  It troubles me that while we have good mid 20 yo talent we are creating a future problem not having a core group coming up behind them.  All good if we are regularly contesting for a premiership but we seem a long way from that.  It almost sets us up for having to continually 'buy-in' talent in the future.

Hopefully, we rectify that in this draft and use our early draft picks.

 

You don't think this seaaon's horribilis will more than likely solve that over the next few years LH?

We'll be forced to go to the draft (mostly) as most 'decent' trade options probably wont bother with us unless we're paying significant overs that may not be worth it anyway.

2 minutes ago, Rusty Nails said:

You don't think this seaaon's horribilis will more than likely solve that over the next few years LH?

We'll be forced to go to the draft (mostly) as most 'decent' trade options probably wont bother with us unless we're paying significant overs that may not be worth it anyway.

Agreed.  Our 'destination club' status appears to have been short-lived.  tbh I don't see us in the premiership window for a couple of years.  As you say we have the chance to get some top end young talent in the next few years from the draft.  Hopefully, we take that chance and go to the draft.

23 hours ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

 

Gone under the radar is that Bayley Fritsch made the squad, interestingly as a Defender. 

 

Well done to Oliver and Fritsch. 

Fritsch could become a star if allowed to play to his strengths...in the forward line!!!

But this has left me wondering about the rest of our young draftees since Oliver in 2015.  Is it we haven't recruited well (partly because we haven't had top 25 picks ) or is it that we aren't good at player development?   The old recruitment vs development conundrum!

That is 3 years without a Rising Star nomination, or a young draftee 'breaking out'.  It troubles me that while we have good mid 20 yo talent we are creating a future problem not having a core group coming up behind them.  All good if we are regularly contesting for a premiership but we seem a long way from that.  It almost sets us up for having to continually 'buy-in' talent in the future.

Hopefully, we rectify that in this draft and use our early draft picks.

 

agree 100% can not believe he was not playing forward, he is the most natural forward on our list, he should never go inside d50 ever again