Interesting philosphy that John Buchanan the ex Australian coach who was apart of an extremely successful era used to preach about players being 1 of 2 different things, simply a winner or a loser. To be successful you need majority of your team to be winners and for sports like cricket and basketball, there are no spots for losers. Rugby and AFL are different and that you may be forced to have some losers due to the high number of participants on field and the lack of high end talent across so many teams. Generally you need to have a team of winners to win a premiership. Look at Hawthorn and Geelong. Full of winners any player in the Geelong or Hawthorn best 22 would walk into our club, would moonwalk in. St.Kilda and Fremantle under Lyon have had 1-3 losers on their lists which can be the difference on the big day - Zac Dawson being one.
What makes a winner or a loser? Ticks the majority of these boxes:
- Is of elite standard (Would be selected in any other team at the top level)
- Never gives in.
- Invites pressure and makes good decisions
- Consistently performs at the standard, their bad form is still good enough to compete well.
- Is a team person and pushes team success.
We don't have many winners at Richmond. Its why the moneyball scenario has been an enormous failure. Draft a heap of C Graders to add depth doesn't improve us beyond a certain point. C Graders are not winners. Guys like:
Newman
Grigg
Petterd
Hampson
Thomas
Chaplin
Stephenson
Foley
Lonergan
Banfield
Knights
A.Edwards
Are all losers. They have all (bar Stephenson) have come from a consistent losing culture. Stephenson is different as he didn't play long at Geelong and is seen as more of a VFL player. Guys on the fringe like Stephenson can get satisfied for simply being selected.
Go through the list and you don't see many winners:
Cotchin
Deledio
Riewoldt
Rance
Maric
Morris
Maybe Jackson but he consistently makes poor decisions under pressure. Take that list of winners, Deledio, Rance and Maric have missed the last 2 games. Riewoldt was out for a whole half vs Bulldogs and Cotchin was well held all game vs Pies.
We don't have enough winners. We should have chased guys like Goddard, Dal Santo, Chapman etc. Need to breed, draft young and mature players who are winners and are used to winning. Not moneyball rejects from unsuccessful clubs.
