Jason Taylor - visionary or overrated

[Deespicable 2,886]

 

Jason Taylor’s draft years

It is easy to make comments with historical hindsight, but the following is an attempt to look at whether or not Jason Taylor has been a visionary recruiting boss or, god forbid, overrated.

Taylor’s now been calling the shots for us at draft night for 11 years.

And invariably we all fall victim to lumping the draft gurus in with the overall list strategy and that’s a little unfair given the list manager (currently Tim Lamb) is responsible for overseeing the entire list strategy and has the right to trade picks before the draft gurus gets a shot at them.

Then there’s the often-underrated aspect of player development – the coaching once a player arrives at a club that comes from assistants, fitness bosses and weight room leaders. It is fair to say that we really struggled with our internal developing of players in the Bailey/Neeld eras so some of that poor recruiting is a reflection of our own incompetence on the training track, rather than just poor draft-night judgment.

As a semi-regular track watcher, I have to say that from the moment Paul Roos arrived on the Melbourne scene and brought with him some quality assistant coaches things improved and most players have had a chance to live up to their draft number. All of a sudden 150-minute sessions on the track became part and parcel under Roosy for a game that lasts for roughly that length of time. 

With astute assistants such as Ben Matthews (now gone), players were being tutored better in the demands of the current game. Ditto Choco, who is a great assistant, even at his age with clear instructions - even if they must get a little repititous for the players.

It's quite possible that Taylor’s predecessor Barry Prendergast(ly) was overly maligned because many of his choices weren’t given fundamental assistance from their arrival – the Jack Watts, Sam Blease, James Strauss draft of 2008 is a case in point given all three were highly-athletic teenagers who never went on to become greats of the game.

Then there’s the case of 2012 when a coach, in this case Mark Neeld, overruled the list manager (Todd Viney) and Prendergast and demanded a certain type of player – hence we added an outside player who had been injured for much of the season in Jimmy Toumpas because we already had a tough inside player in Jack Viney coming in to the club. The fact that Todd and Jack were keen on Ollie Wines (they had him living with them so knew exactly what type of kid he was) will go down as one of our greatest errors.

At least the error precipitated the changes that led to Roos, Taylor and eventually Lamb (2018) taking over and heralding our best era since the 50s, with apologies to John Northey’s late 80’s resurgence.

Enjoy the read, I will drop a year every few days for the next few weeks – I will avoid game day.

And feel free to comment but remember it is easy to be wise in hindsight.

2013
Draft Rating: 5/10 Fair  Trades: 3/10 Poor
This was Taylor’s first year since moving from Collingwood and undoubtedly all parties were a little unsure of their place and role. Roosy had just been appointed and was keen to get in some quality experienced players, given our list was rated the worst in the league. His arrival meant we offloaded ‘problem child’ Colin Sylvia but managed to get Bernie Vince from Adelaide with his compensation pick along with free agency trades for Daniel Cross and the more speculative Aidan Riley. Viv Michie was a late order trade, but the significant switch that impacted Taylor’s draft hand was dealing our No.2 overall pick to GWS for Dom Tyson. We did get back pick 9, but also lost our second round pick 22 in the deal.

Was it Roosy who wanted it, was Todd Viney happy with it, did Jason Taylor give it his approval thinking that he’d still most likely get to draft a quality pick anyway with No.9? Oh, to be a fly on the wall back then.

Tyson was runner-up in our best and fairest in 2014 so he was hardly a bust, but ultimately it was a big call – because with Tom Boyd’s flurry of TAC Cup goals in the finals, we could have had Josh Kelly. 

That’s right, a quality left-footed wingman that’s been missing from our line-up for much of the past decade. 

There were rumours back then that we thought Kelly wasn’t tough enough – you have to remember back then there was a feeling we were a little bit too soft - that’s why we went with Mark Neeld before the AFL sent us Roosy. 

So my guess is that even if we kept pick 2, we would have taken Jack Billings (3) who I believe Taylor rated mega highly. I am not sure Taylor would have been willing to promote Bont up the order to No.2 although reports back then were that we were clearly into the Dogs skipper. 

Once we got back pick No.9 in the Tyson deal, I think we had hoped to use it to obtain Bontempelli, but there was a late rush on the Bont and he jumped right up to No.4. 

The 2013 draft goes down as one of the best and deepest in history – five current AFL captains were part of it – with 4 Bont, 13 Patrick Cripps, 26 Zach Merrett, 35 Toby Nankervis and 56 James Sicily. So giving up pick 23 for Vince was huge. Bernie did give us mature grunt and won a B&F (2015), so he wasn’t a bust, but it came at a cost on draft night.

Looking back - hindsight is a beautiful thing when you talk draft picks - we erred in giving up picks via trades and maybe we should have trusted Taylor’s judgment more implicitly in year one.

9 Christian Salem – we may have missed Patrick Cripps (13) and Zach Merrett (26) but when Bont jumped up in pecking order we went for the best kick ahead of the pacy Nathan Freeman (10) whose dodgy hamstrings ended up restricting his development anyway. Salem has been a very useful and worthy top 10 pick, just not the superstar that Bont and Cripps became.

40 Jay Kennedy Harris – not sure he was the right choice given we had holes in our list almost everywhere and we missed out on Tom Barrass (43), Aliir Aliir (44), Ben Brown (47) and James Sicily (56). Another more like for like was Scotch boy Darcy Byrne Jones (52) or even Karl Amon (68) if pacey/clever smalls was what we were after.

57 Jayden Hunt – Once you get down this far in the order, it is all speculative and Jayden was a very lively player for us, albeit a victim of many who felt his kicking wasn’t up to it. I still reckon we did the dirty on him in 2021. But after 114 games for us, he was a bargain at this pick, and he has also done well at the Eagles – fourth in their 2023 B&F. Only Amon and rookie/academy picks are still on other club lists after this pick.

82: Kept Mitch Clisby – As above, gems are hard to find this late.

Trades for Dom Tyson, Bernie Vince and Viv Michie, free agents Daniel Cross, Aidan Riley.

There were plenty of picks in the rookie draft and we were one of two clubs (Adelaide somehow stole Charlie Cameron) to find a useful gem – James Harmes with pick 2 and we also re-drafted Nev Jetta as a rookie. 

Taylor did have a crack at a couple of others in the rookie draft.

Max King from the Murray Bushrangers was the first of what has become a growing penchant for drafting the wrong rookie ruck prospects, while Alex Georgiou was a mature-age defender from Norwood who played a handful of games but you are doing well if you remember any of them. 

[whatwhat say what 22,946]

for starters, jimmy toumpas was brilliant in his draft year, captaining south australia at the underage tournament, played in the sanfl all year, and played in a premiership at that level the previous year as a 16 year old...

i would have thought that taylor has little to do with trading so that's completely irrelevant to any rating of jason taylor's performance as national recruiting manager, where his focus is on the kids coming through

two of the three picks he made in 2013 will end up playing over 200 games of afl - that's a massive win by any measure

[Moonshadow 17,677]

Getting Bernie Vince from Colin Sylvia compo was gold

Drafts are always hit and miss, and it's not just JT that makes the call, it's the whole FD, particularly Roosy in 2013.

JT and the FD have had more hits than misses, the most obvious miss was Weid above McKay and Curnow. But ya can't win 'em all

Kierkegaard reminds us: life can only be understood backwards - but must be lived forwards.

Edited July 8 by Moonshadow

[whatwhat say what 22,946]

oh, and i didn't even count in the rookie draft - james harmes is also a chance of cracking 200 games by the time his career is done

all three of salem, hunt, and harmes are now at over 150 afl games

that's a great trio of selections

[Ted Lasso 19,549]

Jason Taylor is a gun, one of the best in the business, i have question marks on Tim Lamb who i think has probably made a few blues ion recent years 

[DEE fence 5,039]

Jason Taylor deserves a statue, he is the person I most worry that another club will steal.

Edited July 8 by DEE fence

[adonski 12,429]

Has a few questionable selections but ultimately took the best player in the comp (Judd McVee) in a rookie draft

[Travy14 1,950]

Think he sits in between. Has picked some amazing "visionary picks"  but has also had some misses, people seam to think he has 100% strike rate though.

Happy to have him on our books!!

[Jibroni 5,009]

Jason Taylor would be worth 3 1st round picks if he ever left. Has done a great job.

[The Stigga 1,094]

T. Rivers

Captain in waiting after Max hangs them up.

 

[Dr. Gonzo 24,297]

22 minutes ago, Travy14 said:

Think he sits in between. Has picked some amazing "visionary picks"  but has also had some misses, people seam to think he has 100% strike rate though.

Happy to have him on our books!!

No-one will ever have 100% strike rate, most of his misses seem to be around key forwards (Weidemann, Hulett, hopefully not Jefferson). His strike rate would be one of the highest in the comp.

[Little Goffy 14,639]

There was an article on the AFL official site the other day about the Hawks recruiting 'win builders' or something. So glad the Hawks got smacked because the line up to kiss their bootstuds has been nauseating.

Anyway, Vince was definitely one of those, while Tyson had that couple of years since the draft and in his first season with us provided an important volume of work - hell, he earned 11 Brownlow votes in one of the worst imaginable seasons. Salem was one of our most important players when a grand final was in the balance.

My own verdict on 2013; It was a 'stop the bleeding' draft and did the job well.

[Jaded No More 68,974]

1 hour ago, Travy14 said:

Think he sits in between. Has picked some amazing "visionary picks"  but has also had some misses, people seam to think he has 100% strike rate though.

Happy to have him on our books!!

Nobody has a 100% strike rate. 

For some of his earlier misses, he’s gotten absolute gems with later picks. He was also spot on with upgrading our draft position in critical years (eg 2019 when we managed to get Kosi by trading a future 1st). 

Weideman is the only top 10 pick that I think he stuffed up given McKay and Curnow were both available. 

But even watching a glimpse of Windsor this year, which many didn’t rate so highly, I can tell it’s another master stroke. A speedy wingman with endurance who wins contested ball? Unicorn stuff!

[manny100 1,595]

Interesting read. A recruiting manager is only as good as his next lot of draft picks.

So far JT has looked good. No complaints from me. A premiership was nice.

We have a lot of kids with potential.

[Roger Mellie 4,103]

Great post Deespic!

IMV Prendergastly was not overly maligned at all. He was perhaps the biggest recruiting potato of all time. I don't blame him though. He did his best, however, the club, in its wisdom, decided to make a forward scout the head of recruiting. We would have been better served by bringing in a person with experience in recruiting FFS. I think it was another of Schwabb's gems. Perhaps we couldn't attract a decent recruiting manager?

I think we also need to factor in the calibre of the MFC as a destination club at the time. We were effectively trying to attract players to the local tip. We had crud facilities, hovered around the bottom of the ladder and had a list going nowhere.

 

[Greg Schneider 987]

Needs to sign on before the end of the year, can’t lose him 

[Lexinator 1,715]

https://www.afl.com.au/news/65216/the-behind-the-scenes-guy-who-rebuilt-the-dees

Good article on JT from 2018.

[At the break of Gawn 4,460]

51 minutes ago, Jaded No More said:

Weideman is the only top 10 pick that I think he stuffed up given McKay and Curnow were both available. 

This one still haunts me. I’d love to know the rationale for this. I know Curnow had that breath test incident and a previous knee injury so maybe that’s why.

[Moonshadow 17,677]

8 minutes ago, At the break of Gawn said:

This one still haunts me. I’d love to know the rationale for this. I know Curnow had that breath test incident and a previous knee injury so maybe that’s why.

I reckon he was super keen to play with his bro, so Carlton were fine for him to have 'issues', perhaps even put extra mayo on them

[DistrACTION Jackson 9,229]

53 minutes ago, Jeremy said:

Needs to sign on before the end of the year, can’t lose him 

Pretty sure I read somewhere he signed on with us for quite a while

[Wrecker46 3,016]

11 minutes ago, At the break of Gawn said:

This one still haunts me. I’d love to know the rationale for this. I know Curnow had that breath test incident and a previous knee injury so maybe that’s why.

I think i remember the rational at the time was his vertical leap, length and reach made him a standout where opposition were zoning. The thought being he could sit in a hole, take marks higher than others and was good at converting.

It didn't work out but JT doesn't follow the general draft consensus and nor should he. He has the runs on the board.

Only recruiting manager to visit the Kolt juxtaposed to when we had pick 1 & 2 but didn't visit Dusty.

[Greg Schneider 987]

29 minutes ago, DistrACTION Jackson said:

Pretty sure I read somewhere he signed on with us for quite a while

Re signed in 2021, pretty sure it was only for two years 

[Demon Disciple 12,274]

JT has a fantastic eye for mids and smalls, but needs to get better in drafting quality talls.

May and Lever were traded in, Gawn was before his time, and we’ve been struggling to come up with his replacement or KPF’s for a long time.

Hoping JVR & Jeffo answer our prayers.

[Left Foot Snap 2,454]

10 hours ago, Moonshadow said:

 

Kierkegaard reminds us: life can only be understood backwards - but must be lived forwards.

Great quote Moonie, I think I will borrow that if you don't mind.

[spirit of norm smith 16,588]

Lots of hits and misses.  

Perhaps the lack of drafting the next level of midfielder and getting too many small forwards is a current issue.  2024 we must get mids.