As much as the Tiger faithful hates Plough, he was right about the recruiting during the late 90s and early 2000s. Our list was decimated with very few kids coming through. Thanks Beck, Geisch and Spud . The problem though with Terry's response is although most of current side was recruited under his reign he failed to mention the flip-flop recruiting during his tenure where as a club we couldn't decide from year to year whether we were in full-on rebuild mode or gunning for finals and in the end did neither. It's one of the two main reasons why he is no longer our coach.
A newly arrived coach has to make the most of his honeymoon period to turnover the list while fans will still tolerate loses for the good of the cause in the long-term.
The way we're going, we wont have a pick till maybe pick 10 or 12 and probably miss out on both Atley and Gaff.
Agree Mikee. The stupidity of the draft system penalising bottom sides who win games in the back end of season even though they have no chance of finals. The GC hogging the draft makes this penalty even worse this year. Why I still believe we should aim for a bottom 3 finish.
Spot on. Plough did have a patchy recruiting record. Particularly poor in his first two drafts, which killed his career at Richmond, if we had picked players of the likes of Buddy and Roughhead instead Plough might still be at the club. One issue I have with the drafting during his era was the redrafting of duds using our bottom picks.
In support of Plough I will note we didn't have much a drafting budget during his first two years either. But was the drafting Plough or the recruiting dept or lack thereof we had.
He definitely had his flaws, recruiting, development coaching, general game plan but he also had his strengths, media, specific match day tactics.
I wonder if Hardwick is doing the wrong thing ala Plough, Mathew Knights and a whole host of coaches before him by using up his honeymoon period and creating a false dawn. We aren't finals material yet and we definitely aren't premiership material so why try? Draft instead.